Despair at the Barrier of Knowledge and a Miraculous Connection
The silence of dawn had settled over the pharmacy corner of the massive mart. Despair before the barrier of knowledge, and a miraculous communion. The abyss of the enormous ruins pressed down with perfect odorlessness and a chilling hush. Eunha lay flattened like baggage across Taeo’s broad, solid back, absorbing the primal rhythm of the beast’s savage muscles as they flexed and relaxed, her entire bare skin drinking in every pulse while they moved through the darkness.
Thud… Thud… The beast’s heavy paws slid across the marble tiles. The horrifying wingbeats of the giant insects that filled the city outside and the acrid stench of their acidic secretions were blocked by the mart’s thick concrete walls, reduced to a distant buzzing hum. Instead, the vast interior space was eerily, unnaturally clean and cold, devoid of any trace of life. Not a single bloodstain, not a shred of torn flesh. A perfect vacuum, untouched by humanity.
In Eunha’s silver pupils, burned and clouded by destroyed optic nerves, only the black silhouettes of endless display shelves loomed like giant tombstones. Every time the beast’s back rose and fell, a horrific phantom pain lashed up her spine from her fragile pelvic bones. Just hours earlier, on the cold bathroom floor of that motel, the beast’s twenty-five-centimeter os penis had mercilessly torn through her anal sphincter and rectal wall. The muscle fibers, shredded nearly to the point of rupture, screamed with every jolt of friction. A broken whimper slipped from between Eunha’s lips.
“Haa… hng… ugh……”
The extreme terror that her wounds would reopen and spill blood. Yet each time, the thick mixture of the beast’s saliva and semen pooled deep in her belly, between her displaced uterus and colon, exerted a bizarre viscosity that gripped the torn mucosa like hardened silicone. Pain and a narcotic-like analgesic effect tangled chaotically in her bloodstream, gnawing away at her sanity.
Grrruuuh. Sniff.
Taeo stopped walking. His nostrils flared, dissecting the faint chemical particles in the air. Eunha, who had been burying her face in the thick fur of his nape, suddenly lifted her head at the familiar yet alien scent that stung her nose. Beneath the smell of old dust came the dry odor of cardboard boxes and plastic bottles, along with the faint gelatin coating on pills and the inorganic, medicinal scent of disinfectants.
“H-here… The first floor of the big mart… the over-the-counter medicine section……”
Eunha whispered, her trembling hand patting the thick fur of Taeo’s neck. The sensitive nose of a former pharmacy student had accurately pinpointed the presence of countless medications here. When Taeo slightly bent his forelegs to lower the angle of his back, Eunha struggled to undo the crude leather harness binding her waist and thighs, then slid down from the beast’s back onto the floor.
Tap.
The sound of bare feet touching tile. The icy chill of the floor raced up through her soles and spread across her whole body. With her pelvic floor muscles collapsed, her legs refused to support her properly. Eunha staggered as if she might collapse at any moment, reaching out toward the shelves. Her fingertips met the cold touch of a metal rack. Using it as a brace, she steadied herself and began groping across the countless items stacked there with shaking fingers.
Clatter. Rattle. Rustle.
Under her blind touch, neatly arranged medicine bottles and cardboard boxes tumbled from the shelves in heaps onto the tiled floor. The rolling of plastic bottles and the dull thumps of ointment tubes echoed discordantly through the silent space. Eunha sank to the floor and frantically gathered the scattered medicines with both hands.
Her rectal wall was torn, her muscles ruptured—a horrific internal injury. Though the beast’s bodily fluids were aiding emergency treatment and cellular regeneration, a human’s fragile immune system could not fully withstand the inflammation from such unclean foreign matter and damaged internal organs. Eunha’s skin was already burning crimson with signs of infection, and every breath produced a bubbling rattle in her lungs. Unless she could get broad-spectrum antibiotics, powerful disinfectants, and strong antipyretic analgesics into her veins immediately, her heart would stop from sepsis before she could even greet the morning in this nightmare.
But.
“Ah… aah……”
Eunha’s fingers frantically rubbed the surfaces of square cardboard boxes and desperately stroked the curved sides of plastic bottles, yet she could discern nothing. Nothing at all. The smoothly coated box surfaces had no braille whatsoever. Only the flat printed letters that sighted people could read by ink color mocked her blind pharmacist’s fingertips, slipping away coldly.
Was the contents of this bottle an antibiotic, or just a vitamin? Was the box holding a fever reducer or a topical ointment? She might be able to guess by opening the lid, smelling it, and feeling the size of the pills, but repeating that process among hundreds or thousands of mixed medications in this enormous section would surely lead to death by fever-induced shock long before she found what she needed.
Despair crashed over her like a tidal wave, crushing her narrow ribcage. Sitting in the middle of the mountain of medicine, Eunha completely crumbled at the fact that she could not see what lay right in front of her.
“What do I do… I can’t see the writing… I don’t know which one is the antibiotic……”
Thick tears fell from Eunha’s clouded silver eyes, wetting the cold tile floor.
“The medicine is everywhere… but I… I can’t read any of it……”
The massive predator who had carried her here on his back possessed overwhelming strength and scent, yet she bitterly concluded he could not possibly be an intelligent being capable of deciphering human writing. Asking a monster who could not speak and only growled to read the ingredient names on those tiny medicine bottles was like hoping for an impossible miracle.
Eunha covered her face with both hands and sobbed miserably.
It was then.
Slide.
A huge black shadow approached silently and settled heavily beside Eunha where she crouched on the floor, weeping. Ninety kilograms of giant wolf—Taeo. His red, bloodshot eyes gazed quietly down at the despairing female.
Though wild instinct ruled his brain and the madness of heat burned through his body, deep within that massive skull, in the furthest recesses of his gray matter, the intellect and memories of a human man who had once lived in civilized society before the collapse remained perfectly preserved, like flawless fragments.
His keen intelligence instantly saw through why the blind female, who relied only on smell and touch, was breaking down in tears. He understood that she felt her life was threatened because she could not decipher the symbols on those small cardboard boxes.
Rustle. Tap.
Taeo opened his massive jaws and carefully picked up one of the many medicine boxes scattered on the floor with his sharp fangs. The faint crunch of cardboard. Then he gently dropped it right in front of Eunha, close enough to touch her knees.
“T-Taeo…?”
Eunha lifted her tear-streaked face, calling out in confusion. Instead of answering, Taeo exhaled a rough snort, then slowly lifted his heavy right forepaw. The ankle was thick enough to shatter an adult male’s skull in one blow. At its tip were sharp, curved predator claws. Taeo curled away the lethal edges, hiding them completely, and extended only the thickest, bluntest part of the claw’s back and the soft pad toward Eunha.
Slide. Press.
The beast’s huge, hot forepaw settled carefully onto the center of Eunha’s pale, slender bare back.
“Hik…! Ah, ah……”
Eunha shuddered, shoulders trembling, mistaking the sudden touch for the prelude to mating and curling inward. But the beast did not pin her down. Instead—
Slide. Slide. The blunt tip of Taeo’s claw pressed gently against the skin near her shoulder blade and began to glide slowly downward at a diagonal. The overwhelming sensation of the beast’s boiling body heat drawing a line across her cold spine. Eunha’s breath caught.
A long diagonal from upper left to lower right. The claw lifted, then drew the opposite diagonal from upper right to lower left. Finally, a clear horizontal line crossed the center of both.
Lightning struck Eunha’s mind. Her heart slammed against her ribs as if it would burst free. It was no coincidence. The beast was not simply playing or scratching meaninglessly. These were human letters, drawn with perfect intent and meticulous calculation. The first letter of the alphabet.
Taeo’s claw moved across her back again. This time it drew a smooth curve down from the top, then elegantly bent in the opposite direction at the midpoint.
Then a long vertical line, followed by a rounded half-circle attached to the upper right.
“A… S… P……”
The letters decoded by her brain from the sensations engraved on her back flowed one by one from Eunha’s trembling lips. The hypersensitive skin of a completely sightless blind woman became a vast canvas. An otherworldly predator incapable of speech used his claw as a pen nib to inscribe letters upon it—an eerily miraculous and grotesque ritual of communication.
Eunha’s hands frantically seized the cardboard box that had fallen in front of her knees.
“Aspirin! This is the pain-relief and fever-reducing aspirin, right?!”
She cried out into the air, her voice a mixture of shock and joy.
Low growl. Sniff. Taeo’s rough snout lightly bumped Eunha’s slender nape, exhaling a warm breath that clearly meant affirmation.
“No way… You… you can read writing? You understand human letters?”
Surprise, reverence, and an unnameable chill crawling up her spine swept through Eunha’s entire body. This enormous black wolf, the predator who had ruthlessly torn her apart and poured his beastly fluids into her until she was reduced to livestock—this was clear proof that he was not merely a clever mutated animal, but a highly intelligent being who understood civilization and could read.
That fact made the violence and mating he inflicted on her even more horrific and profane, yet paradoxically, for Eunha who was dying here and now, it was the only ray of salvation that could extend her life.
She roughly wiped away the pouring tears with the back of her hand. There was no time to be overwhelmed by emotion. To survive, she had to use this miraculous method of communication to its absolute limit.
“Taeo, I need antibiotics. Something strong that will prevent infection in the wound. Look for anything that says ‘Cepha’ or ‘Amoxicillin.’ Please.”
At Eunha’s desperate instruction, Taeo moved across the medicine-strewn floor with heavy steps, sniffing and rummaging with his nose. The beast’s red eyes glowed like fluorescent material even in the darkness, scanning countless printed words.
Rustle. Tap.
Before long, Taeo returned to her side and dropped another plastic medicine bottle. When Eunha turned and offered her back again, the blunt claw once more began delicately tracing across her tear-dampened skin. This time they were Korean consonants and vowels, but her mind translated the shapes instantly into meaning.
“Dong-A? Is that the pharmaceutical company name? What does it say below that?”
Taeo’s claw moved busily across her back again.
“Cepha… a cephalosporin antibiotic! Yes, that’s it! Grab that one!”
Eunha burst into a cheer and groped across the floor to clutch the bottle tightly. The vast pharmaceutical knowledge of a blind pharmacist and the vision of a giant wolf who could read letters meshed together like perfectly interlocking gears in a wondrous moment.
Sitting across from each other on the cold, dark floor of the ruined mart, they began selecting survival supplies in the most grotesque yet beautiful way possible in this world. Taeo would bring a bottle in his mouth; Eunha would offer her back. The sensation of the beast’s claw sliding down her spine, the overwhelming weight contrasted with the delicate strokes, sent electric thrills through her nervous system.
“Madecassol… that’s an ointment. We’ll need it for the surface of the skin. Put it in the bag.”
“Povidone-iodine! The red medicine! We have to take all of this. It’s the best for stopping bleeding and disinfecting.”
Following the identifications that spilled from Eunha’s trembling lips, Taeo carefully picked up the necessary medicines in his mouth and dropped them one by one into the backpack she carried. If Eunha said, “This is for stomach issues, we don’t need it right now,” Taeo would indifferently swipe the bottle away with his huge forepaw and discard it.
A silent harvest conducted without a single word of human language—only touch, the beast’s warm breaths, and a blind woman’s knowledge intersecting. As more and more letters were engraved on Eunha’s back, the backpack grew heavier with precious emergency medicines that would extend her life.
And in equal measure, deep inside Eunha’s heart, an indelible, blind dependence on this alien male was sinking enormous roots.
The hot claw of the beast writing letters across her back as if it were a canvas. It overlapped strangely with the terrible physical violence he inflicted when he violated her, making her lower abdomen burn with a grotesque heat.
“Ugh…”
The monster that destroys me. But the only eyes that read the letters of the world for me and continue my life. The moment I leave this beast’s side, I am nothing but a blind lump of meat.
Eunha zipped the backpack closed, then threw her arms around Taeo’s thick foreleg and buried her face deep into the coarse fur.
“Taeo… thank you. For becoming… my eyes.”
Taeo rested his heavy jaw on top of her head and answered with a deep vibration that resonated in her bones.
Grrrrrrrr.
In a world ruled by selfish survival instincts after the collapse, the wild predator who had lost knowledge and the civilized survivor who had lost sight filled each other’s fatal deficiencies in the most perfect and grotesque way possible. They were carving an unbreakable chain of absolute symbiosis deep into their blood.