A Lonely Person
The examination didn't turn out to be anything grand.
I'd half expected to climb into some machine, get scanned, and watch my entire body light up on a screen. That was the fantasy, anyway.
"It's not that we don't have gear like that," Seohee said. "It's just way too small. This is a virus research lab, remember? Where do you think you're going to find a virus the size of a person?"
That made sense. This place was built for research, not for diagnosing patients like a hospital. The facility was packed with equipment meant for study, but according to Seohee, none of it was really suited for treatment.
"I'll draw some blood and saliva, then check whether the virus is present in your cells, how many there are if it is, and how they compare to the virus in a typical infected," she explained.
I'd figured she would jump straight into analyzing the zombie arm. Instead, she prioritized checking whether I was infected at all.
"You seemed more interested in the arm. I thought you'd start with that."
"A person's life comes first. We need that settled so you can cooperate without looking over your shoulder the whole time."
"Ah, damn."
Yeah. That was the obvious answer. In this fucked-up world, people would kill each other over a single potato. Putting someone else's life first only happened when your own was already secure. And that kind of talk only came easy when you had plenty of supplies, like Seohee did.
"In an age when morality and ethics have become a cheap joke, Han Seohee was still doing research in her lab…"
"Stop the nonsense and roll up your sleeve."
At her sharp retort, I quietly pushed up the sleeve of my right arm and bared the skin.
"You're not going to treat a blood draw as a threat, are you?"
"That's… not for me to decide. But it should be fine."
I'd already told her the zombie arm reacted to threats. For reasons I still didn't understand, the arm didn't seem to register Seohee as dangerous unless she suddenly shoved a knife at me.
She glanced back and forth between me and my left arm, a little uneasy, but I nodded to tell her not to worry.
"Alright… here goes!"
A chill crawled up my spine.
The moment Seohee took hold of my right wrist, a slow, climbing unease started at the small of my back and worked its way up.
What is this?
The feeling that I'd missed something. That I'd left out one crucial detail. It filled my head with a sticky discomfort.
The left arm twitched. Even it seemed unsure how to react, just flexing vaguely without committing.
The fuck is your problem?
Had Seohee suddenly changed her mind and decided to hurt me? No. If that were the case, she could have just slipped something into the food. Much cleaner.
Then what…?
Wait.
"…Seohee, you said you were the chief researcher, right?"
"Yeah. Why bring that up all of a sudden?"
I thought back to what she'd said earlier. A research lab and a hospital were different things. Which meant a researcher and a medical professional were different, too.
"Hold on. Do you actually know how to draw blood?"
"Oh, is that what's bothering you? It's fine. It's not that different."
Like hell it wasn't different.
But what other option did I have? Even if I tried it myself, there was no way I could hold a syringe in my left hand and pull blood with any kind of precision.
No choice.
That was the conclusion I came to, surprisingly. All I could do was pray the moment would pass quickly.
"Good thing your veins are easy to see…"
There was something off about the way her hands moved, but I gritted my teeth and endured it.
That day, I ended up with three bruises on my arm.
"Ahem. Ahem. Well, the blood came out fine, at least. Next we need a tissue sample from your left arm. I don't think I can handle that part."
I stared at her with the most wronged expression I could muster. She avoided my eyes and kept talking as if nothing were wrong.
I had plenty I could have said, but I let it go. Reluctantly, I pulled the machete from my belt—only for Seohee to stop me in a hurry.
"Not that. Any blood already on the blade could contaminate the sample."
"Yeah, well, I don't have any other blades."
"And a weapon itself might register as a threat. You said the arm fought back when you tried to cut it off, right?"
"That's… also true. So is there something else?"
Seohee told me to wait a moment, then dug a small cylinder out of her drawer and pressed it into my hand.
"It's a sample collection kit with a sterilized knife. It's small enough that it should be fine. Worst case, just get some blood into it."
"Alright. I'll give it a shot."
"Still, try to get at least three centimeters of tissue if you can."
I twisted the lid off the cylinder and laid the kit out on the table. A couple of swabs, a couple of knives—not much in there.
I picked up one of the knives and brought it to my left arm. Beside me, Seohee held an empty vial ready to catch the sample.
"Hoo…"
I let out a slow breath and pressed the knife against a protruding muscle fiber. Still no reaction. Maybe because I was only pressing for now.
Shhhk…
I eased off the pressure so the blade wouldn't skip off the hard fiber, then slowly set the edge and drew it down. Flesh parted under the knife. I'd never cut meat in my life. Who would have guessed the first time would be my own left arm?
Halfway through the cut, my eyes drifted to Seohee, who was watching the whole process with intense focus, as if she were trying to burn every second of it into her memory. She stared at the arm without blinking.
…Her eyes are orange.
I'd never seen anyone with eyes like that. Even the foreigners in the media had green or blue eyes often enough, but orange irises had a kind of mysterious pull just looking at them. And somehow they suited Seohee perfectly. It was strange.
Ting!
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
Maybe I'd gotten too distracted by those eyes. The clear, ringing sound startled me—and at the same time, Seohee stared in shock at the knife that had snapped halfway and flown free.
"Ah—! The sample!"
She lunged forward in a panic and pressed the vial to my arm. Luckily, the small scrap of muscle fiber that had broken off dropped straight into it.
"That scared me. I didn't think it would just split in half like that…"
"Yeah. But we got the sample, so we can run the analysis as is."
We both relaxed after the sudden scare and started packing up the kit tools.
"So where did the broken knife end up?"
"Uh, it should still be stuck in… right?"
Krrrk.
An unexpected sound—the twisting of muscle I knew well, but she almost certainly didn't. The half-snapped knife, still wedged in the fiber, was slowly being drawn deeper into the arm as the muscle moved.
Krrrk. Krik.
…
Seohee and I just stood there watching the impossible thing happen, neither of us able to speak. In my case, pure shock. In hers, she was so absorbed in observing a phenomenon she'd never seen that she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.
"Holy shit…"
Only after the blade had been completely swallowed into the arm did I finally manage to open my mouth.
Was this actually okay?
It felt like watching a scaled-up version of that story a friend used to tell about a pencil lead embedding so deep in his hand that it left a permanent black speck.
Even then, Seohee was still staring with bright, fascinated eyes. When I spoke, she seemed to snap out of it, standing up as if nothing had happened and starting to organize the samples.
"Definitely. Like you said, the adaptive traits are really pronounced. This completely surpasses the mechanism of a standard Stage 3 infected."
She talked through her thoughts out loud, adding explanations as she went.
"We should know about the infection status by tomorrow. The tissue analysis will probably take about three days."
The blood tubes were already inside a small machine on the desk, spinning and cycling through light exposures.
"Also, I disposed of all the clothes you came in with. They were far too unsanitary. Too much risk of contaminating other samples."
She kept talking while she cleaned up the remaining tools and the blood-draw equipment. I helped by moving the heavier things she couldn't lift easily.
When the cleanup was mostly finished, a subtle silence settled between us.
Seohee carefully broke it.
"…You're leaving, right?"
"I probably should. My base is outside."
"Then… wait just a little. Five minutes."
She left those words behind and stepped out of her private lab. For some reason her footsteps sounded both hurried and hesitant. Maybe I was imagining it.
Five minutes of silence later, she pushed the door open again, grunting as she dragged a bag that was almost too heavy for her.
It was the bag I'd been carrying. She set it down in front of me.
"You said people trade with water out there."
"Uh… yeah?"
"I packed a lot of water. We pull groundwater here and filter it, so we have more than we need."
"Uh-huh?"
"I also put in some of that cultured meat you said was good…"
Her words made my thoughts freeze for a second. Surprise was probably the right word. To her, I was just some guy who'd barged in out of nowhere. Was it really okay to just accept this much kindness? It wasn't suspicion so much as how sudden it all was.
That must have shown on my face, because Seohee continued, a little hesitant.
"…I was the one who pointed a gun at you first. And consider it hush money for not spreading this location around."
Looking closer, I saw the axe and the iron plate and stab-proof gear I'd used for protection tucked in beside the bag. The bloodstained axe blade had been cleaned until it shone.
She noticed my gaze and spoke as if making an excuse.
"This is a sterile facility. Leaving a filthy axe on the floor would contaminate everything… Anyway. Just take it."
She said that and tossed a men's researcher's lab coat at my face, telling me to wear it instead of my coat. Walking around outside in something that clean and white would make me stand out for sure, but I didn't bother saying so. I quietly put the coat on out of respect for her goodwill.
Riiip—
Of course, the left sleeve tore no matter what I did.
Bag on my back, axe in hand, I finished preparing to leave for real at the lab door. That was when her voice caught me by the collar from behind.
"Keep that card with you. If you lose it, I won't open the door. And…"
I understood the kindness for what it was. I didn't know exactly how long she had been alone in this research facility.
But people needed contact. No one could keep moving forward completely isolated.
And for a woman who was afraid to go outside, I was the first visitor she had met since the world fell apart.
"You'll have to come back for the test results anyway, so… even after that."
Hesitant, embarrassed, yet stubborn about it—and refusing to show any of it on the surface.
Han Seohee smoothed her hair with the same cool indifference as the first time I saw her, as if her whole body were insisting that her cold expression meant nothing at all.
"Come by sometimes, Siwoo."