Chapter 31
Chapter 31
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 31
Chapter Title: Experiment Subject Record. (4)
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Three hours before Siwoo arrived at the lab.
The dry voice of a researcher cut through the silence as the repeated cries echoing in the lab finally stopped.
"Another failure. Tsk. Compatibility rate didn't even exceed 30%."
"What should we do?"
The lead researcher waved his hand dismissively, as if annoyed.
"Dispose of it. No time to process it right now, so just leave it and have it incinerated later. Next is K-21, right? Incheon?"
"Yes, that's correct. Let's clean up and head out."
Click. Click.
The lights in the operating room flickered off one by one.
The researchers packed up their equipment without a second glance and left.
Lee Chae-i, still bound, could only roll her eyes to follow their movements.
'Don't go.'
I'm still alive.
I'm still breathing.
The scream that couldn't escape her lips lingered in her throat.
But they paid no attention to a worthless test subject like her.
Creeeak. Bang.
With the sound of the steel door closing, perfect darkness descended.
"......"
Lee Chae-i was left alone in the empty void.
Her limbs were bound by leather straps, cutting off circulation, and hot blood bubbled from her throat, soaking the sheet.
But more horrific than the physical agony of her scorched vocal cords was the soul-crushing misery gnawing at her.
'Abandoned.'
She was a girl who had forgotten her own name, living only with the label "Subject 404."
Now, deemed useless, she was being discarded like a spent battery.
That fact alone seemed to shatter the last remnants of her heart.
Incineration. Disposal.
'I'm going to die.'
The word "death" crept coldly up from her toes.
A resignation deeper than fear consumed her.
As she closed her eyes, memories flashed by like a montage.
A classroom filled with laughter and chatter among friends.
A friend's torn lips from her own cruel words.
The contemptuous gazes of others.
And the glamorous lives of hunters she glimpsed on TV from her cramped isolation cell.
Among them, the clearest image was of the one man she had so desperately admired.
Han Siwoo, CEO of Miracle Management.
Watching his confident, radiant figure, she had dreamed that someday someone like him might choose her.
Or that if he had chosen her, she too could shine like that.
'What an idiot...'
Lee Chae-i bit her lip until it crushed.
Tears streamed down her ears, wetting the cold operating table.
'Someone like me... ends up like this...'
Doomed to rot unnoticed on the filthy lab floor.
Lee Chae-i closed her eyes slowly in resignation.
Wishing to fall into eternal sleep just like this.
Wishing to feel no more pain.
Her body was gaunt and withered.
Her skin was ashen from endless experiments, blue veins stark against her frail frame.
The horrific scar on her throat bore witness to the years of torment she had endured.
Her once-vibrant eyes were now dull like a dead fish's, devoid of focus.
She awaited death in the loneliest, most wretched state imaginable.
How much time passed?
Booom-!
Noises from outside began to grow rowdy.
Screams, explosions, and the sound of something breaking buzzed in her ears.
Then a vibration shook the entire building.
'What is it...?'
The commotion drew closer.
That was when it happened.
Kabooom-!
With a deafening roar, the heavy steel door of the operating room crumpled like paper and flew off its hinges.
Whoosh!
A cloud of dust billowed in, and corridor lights poured into the darkness.
Lee Chae-i barely pried open her hazy eyes.
A man's silhouette stood backlit.
Dressed in a black suit, he walked in slowly.
Reeking of thick blood, he seemed like a reaper emerged from hell.
Step. Step.
The click of his shoe heels echoed like a heartbeat.
In her fading consciousness, Lee Chae-i thought as she gazed at him.
'Ah... so this is disposal time.'
She thought it was for the best.
If he had come to end this hellish time.
The man approached the operating table.
His shadow fell over Lee Chae-i's face.
He silently checked her bloodied face.
A cool hand gently brushed aside the hair matted with blood and sweat from her forehead.
In that moment, her pupils dilated slightly.
'......?'
She recognized him.
Her only friend in the hellish isolation cell: the TV.
A face she had seen countless times on that screen.
Sharp jawline. Cold but clear blue eyes.
'Han Siwoo...?'
Han Siwoo. Right before my eyes.
The moment their gazes met and she saw that look in his eyes, her stalling heart twitched back to life.
Was this the last mercy from God before death?
Letting her see, even in illusion, the man she had so longed for?
Or had she gone mad and was hallucinating?
But the blood scent emanating from him was too vivid for a fantasy.
His touch, his breath—too real.
'Not a dream. He's real.'
He came for me.
He came to save me.
To pull me out of this hellhole.
'I want to live.'
A flame called hope ignited in her chest.
Lee Chae-i looked up at him with desperate eyes.
Pleading for him to untie these suffocating bonds quickly.
To scoop her up and carry her out of here.
But Siwoo's reaction was not what she expected.
He frowned deeply at her grotesquely ruined throat and twisted limbs.
It was disappointment at realizing she wasn't Kim Yun-seo, mingled with human pity for her horrific state.
But Lee Chae-i couldn't read that expression.
She mistook it for sorrow over her own pitiable condition.
"Think it can work?"
Siwoo muttered softly as he gripped her hand tightly.
It was rough and calloused, but firm.
Shh.
Siwoo shrugged off his suit jacket.
And carefully draped it over Lee Chae-i's shivering body.
Warmth enveloped her.
The first human warmth she'd felt in so long.
His scent and body heat, soaked into the jacket, wrapped around her cooling body.
'Warm...'
Thick tears streamed from Lee Chae-i's eyes.
Relief washed over her like waves.
'Now I...'
Her trembling fingers twitched, trying to grasp his sleeve.
But.
Siwoo didn't untie her.
He just covered her with the jacket, straightened up, and stood.
He didn't pick her up either.
'......?'
Lee Chae-i's eyes shook.
He looked down at her with complicated eyes for a moment, then firmly closed his mouth.
"......"
A brief silence.
Then he turned away.
Step.
Siwoo strode toward the door without hesitation.
Lee Chae-i's pupils quaked like an earthquake.
She couldn't comprehend.
'Wait? Where are you going? I'm right here?'
You covered me with your jacket.
You came to save me.
So why are you leaving? Without taking me?
'I'm tied up. I'm hurt. I'm right here.'
Terror surged.
The hope from moments ago crushed her as massive despair.
Better not to have given hope at all.
Being made to believe in salvation only to be abandoned was a thousand times crueler than simple death.
"Ah... Uh... Ah..."
No voice came out.
Her ruined vocal cords leaked only hollow wheezes.
She thrashed desperately.
Don't go.
Please save me.
Don't leave me alone here.
She wanted to scream, but couldn't even cry out.
Siwoo on the verge of exiting filled her vision.
Lee Chae-i stretched her hand desperately.
Twisting her bound arm, ignoring the flesh tearing from the leather straps, she reached out.
'Don't go... Please... Save me... CEO... Han Siwoo...!'
Her mangled nails scraped at the sheet.
Nails ripped off, blood seeped, but she couldn't stop.
Bloody tears flowed from her eyes.
Swish.
Siwoo's figure vanished into the darkness beyond the doorframe.
"Ah... Aah..."
Perfect darkness and silence returned.
Only the cruel warmth of the jacket Siwoo had left mocked her.
Thud.
Lee Chae-i's desperately outstretched hand fell limply onto the table.
'No. It can't be.'
Why?
There must be a reason?
Ah, maybe he went to find something to cut the straps?
Or to scout an escape route?
Right? Yeah?
You can't abandon me too.
In the darkness, Lee Chae-i shed silent tears.
Something in her heart crumbled away.
'So...'
An unreachable scream echoed in her chest.
'Aaaaaah...'
Clinging desperately to her shattering soul, she pictured Siwoo's back.
He would definitely come back.
She had to believe that, or she'd go mad.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Leaving the operating room, Siwoo sprinted down the corridor like a madman.
Lee Chae-i's image lingered in his mind, but now wasn't the time for sentiment.
The words "scheduled for disposal" from the chart fragment wouldn't leave his head.
'K-21.'
It might already be too late.
But he had to find even the body.
Only then could he avenge Choi Min-seok's grudge.
"Where is it! Where's the disposal site?!"
Siwoo flung open every door he passed, ransacking the lab.
The basement level 3 layout was a maze.
But no matter how hard he searched, there was no disposal or incineration area.
Just dead ends everywhere.
Siwoo halted at the corridor's end, panting heavily.
Cold sweat dripped from his forehead.
'Nothing.'
The memo clearly said this was the transfer site.
And the chart said scheduled for disposal.
So there had to be incineration facilities.
But there weren't any.
As if they had never existed.
Only then did a sense of incongruity flash through Siwoo's mind.
Paju's empty lab.
The memo too easily found.
And the underground entrance breached without resistance.
'No way.'
Siwoo's eyes shook.
'The memo... was it left on purpose?'
They had withdrawn in advance but deliberately left this location's address?
And left only Lee Chae-i, not Kim Yun-seo?
This was bait.
A trap to lure him here, tie him down, or eliminate him.
"Damn it!"
Realizing he was caught in the trap, Siwoo spun around urgently.
He had to get out.
That was when it happened.
Kabooooom-!!