Plants too have a spiritual world—the more you speak pretty words to them, the healthier they grow, and the more you curse at them, the earlier they die. Knowing this, Lee Yeon's prayers each time were—
Please don't wake up. You mustn't wake up.
Please, let me live quietly.
—a repeated entreaty.
But.
Lee Yeon faltered.
'……He's not there?'
Panic seized her, and she rapidly blinked her eyes.
The person who was always, constantly, in that spot. No, to call him a living person, he had been reduced to a mere plant, unable to even move.
The spot where that thing—having left only a hardened shell—had remained.
The bed was empty.
"――!"
Goosebumps starting from the back of her neck instantly covered her smooth skin.
* * *
'The man who fell down the mountainside might have died.'
Lee Yeon thought as she looked at the puddle of blood pooling on the ground.
He must have died. He fell after being beaten until his head was pulp, so naturally he must have died.
By the time she barely regained consciousness, she had been left alone in the mountains. The police, who were supposed to come, had met with an accident or something—there was no word from them—and the man who had been holding the stone was already gone without a trace.
Again, after reporting to the police once more—
Let's go home.
The way to end a nightmare is to greet the morning. I had to live for tomorrow.
Lee Yeon dragged her body, which felt like it would collapse, and barely took a step. Dead pine needles were trampled under her feet, crumbling with a rustle. That was her last memory.
Because suddenly, her nose and mouth were pressed tight by a strong force. A sour and stinging scent pierced into her nostrils and forced its way in. Lee Yeon couldn't even resist properly once before her body went limp.
'……Where is this?'
Even lifting one eyelid required a lot of time. Lee Yeon shook her head several times because her eyes couldn't focus.
A space so dark on all sides that nothing was visible.
Only a flickering old lightbulb was the sole light here.
"……W-who are you?"
Each time the lightbulb went out and came back on, a man came into view. He was smoking a thick cigar with indifferent eyes. The smoke spreading into the air was unrealistically slow. Her voice trembled terribly.
Click.
At that moment, a meaningful sound pulled at her gaze. Only then did Lee Yeon realize that she was handcuffed and bound, sitting precariously on an old chair.
She tried to move her hands, but they wouldn't budge. Only a cold and sharp sensation scraped and bumped against her wrists.
"Why did you do that?"
It was a voice with no emotion. Her hazy spirit instantly snapped awake.
"You smashed a person's head like that, so it doesn't seem like he'll make it."
"……!"
"The person you half-killed is my brother."
When the lightbulb's trembling stopped, her blocked five senses suddenly opened.
A fishy metallic smell permeated the abandoned warehouse.
Hooks hanging from the ceiling, pig carcasses hanging from them, buckets sloshing with blood. All that information dropped like a bombardment onto her eyes.
Somewhere, maggots were writhing. The workers wore heavy rubber boots and walked around calmly. They never gave her so much as an accidental glance. They simply removed innards, cut meat by parts, and washed away blood traces with long hoses. That thorough disregard felt strangely alien instead.
Lee Yeon opened her eyes in the middle of a slaughterhouse, and the presence of the man dressed in a luxurious suit before her was incomparably bizarre.
"While you were sleeping, I contemplated. Whether to simply tear you apart, or fill a drum with cement and throw it into the sea."
Bang bang—! Just then, someone inside the drum was kicking roughly. At the desperate scream echoing in the enclosed space, Lee Yeon froze completely.
"My brother is dying, so we need someone to take responsibility, don't you think?"
Her heart pounded as if it would leap out. What canceled out the guilt of harming a person was, absurdly, the fear of possibly facing retaliation.
"……L-listen, I think there's some misunderstanding here. It was self-defense. I wasn't the one who made your brother like that, like that."
Lee Yeon rebutted while suppressing the trembling rising within her.
"If anything, your younger brother was trying to kill someone first. He was burying a person, I tell you…!"
"Is burying one person such a big deal?"
The man knocked off the ash without any emotion.
Lee Yeon's legs were trembling violently even though it wasn't particularly cold.
"Having the work he was enjoying interrupted, naturally he'd be angry. Do you know what kind of kid he is."
The man wearing glasses with cold silver frames appeared to be in his late thirties to early forties. His face was smooth without a single wrinkle, but the experience emanating from him was formidable.
"……Still, it really, really wasn't me."
Lee Yeon shook her head desperately.
"It wasn't me, someone else did it. The person who was being buried alive suddenly struck him with a stone. I didn't push him down either. I really didn't. Of course, of course, I did hit him with a saw, with a saw to survive, but…—"
She was rambling while holding back tears.
"My brother has good hearing."
"…."
"What I mean is, he's not so stupid and insensitive that he couldn't avoid some bastard approaching from behind and just take the hit."
"Th-that's…"
Lee Yeon's vision went dark. If she got swept away in this current, her life seemed like it would shatter beyond repair. It was an instinctive intuition.
Where exactly was this place, and what kind of person was he?
She was curious but at the same time didn't want to know.
Only the thought that she must safely escape from this place tightened around her like an obsession.
Bang bang, bang bang. Someone's desperate kicks continuously striking her eardrums drove Lee Yeon further into a corner.
But how…… what exactly should I do to get out of here….
"Are you an accomplice with that man?"
Suddenly the man asked indifferently.
"…Excuse me?"
She was dazed for a moment as if struck on the back of her head.
"Actually, it doesn't matter who you are. Making So Lee Yeon-ssi the perfect perpetrator isn't particularly difficult."
He said, checking a watch the same color as his glasses frames.
"Accomplice……! I really don't know that person!"
She panted heavily.
But the other party wore a face showing no interest whatsoever. Her life was on the line here, yet the man was relaxed as if having a meal. At that stark temperature difference, Lee Yeon felt helpless.
"So Lee Yeon-ssi."
He leaned his upper body close and spoke.
"As someone who just came from seeing my brother who became a human vegetable, I want someone to pay the price for that. That's all."
"…!"
A human…… vegetable? That murderer? Her heart pounded inexplicably.
"So whether you smashed and pushed him with a stone, or hit him with a saw. Do you think those details matter to me?"
He kept making a strange face. He seemed troubled by the unexpected situation, or on the contrary, seemed to be enjoying it. Lee Yeon stopped thinking deeply.
"Instead, I'm proposing a deal. If So Lee Yeon-ssi acts a bit smartly, you can get out of here sufficiently, safely."
Lee Yeon, who had been blacking out, quickly lifted her chin.
"A deal?"
"Good, you're quick to understand."
The man rubbed the cigar against a box loaded with meat and extinguished it.
"I'll catch the true culprit and put them in So Lee Yeon-ssi's place."
"…."
"In return, please take care of my brother until then."
He held out a pure white contract.
"As much as possible, don't let Hwaido come outside."
"…!"
"It would be even better if you tie down his feet completely."
She lost all will as she experienced together the moment when the noisy drum gradually quieted down.
* * *
"――!"
But he's not there.
Only the pushed-aside medical equipment stood there, having lost its owner. The moment she saw the crumpled sheets and the empty bed, no thoughts came to Lee Yeon's mind. She forgot even to breathe.
W-where did he go?
While she floundered like a fool, the fear she had forgotten came back to life as vividly as last night.
The air and humidity, the smell and tension of that day.
'While you were sleeping, I contemplated. Whether to simply tear you apart, or fill a drum with cement and throw it into the sea.'
At the same time, that cold voice grazed past.
"……I have to find him."
Second floor, start with the second floor bathroom. Then the living room. And just in case, the storage closet too…. All kinds of thoughts crackled like radio frequencies.
Just as she, having turned pale, turned around—
"Kyah…!"
It was clearly an attack. The man who had been hiding behind the door lunged like a beast and tackled Lee Yeon. Crash, the medical equipment fell over.
But a person who suddenly woke up after 2 years couldn't possibly walk properly. As expected, his knees buckled and he wavered, but he spun Lee Yeon around as if binding her and collapsed onto the bed.
One cheek was pressed firmly against the mattress. At the man's weight felt on her back, she flailed her arms and legs.
"Ugh…! L-let go…!"
Lee Yeon's two arms were twisted. The man who climbed onto her buttocks completely blocked even Lee Yeon's legs with both his thighs.
All his muscles should have surely withered away.
Yet through the thin sleepwear, firm flesh was felt. Especially at the thick genitalia crushing her sensitive buttocks, she shuddered even more.