The Doorless Cell

Throughout history, humanity has called the beings of the other side by many names.

Monster. Oni. Dokkaebi. Ghost. Spirit. Creature. Dragon. Gargoyle…

Or, god.

But once the other side rose to the surface, humanity settled on a single word for them all.

How the Anomalies first revealed themselves to the world remains unknown. What was certain was that they were extraordinarily dangerous — and so the governments of every nation, scrambling to answer the sudden threat, established a transnational body to manage them.

That body was the Anomaly Management Bureau.

Full name: B.A.R.I. — Borderline Anomalies Response & Investigation.

At B.A.R.I.'s Seoul Branch, a full-scale emergency was underway. A new Anomaly had been detected.

The simplest way to tell an Anomaly from everything else was to measure Specter Energy. Every Anomaly possessed it. Nothing that was not an Anomaly did. The rule was brutally clean: if Specter Energy registered, it was an Anomaly — no exceptions.

Specter Energy had been measured in Seoul.

In two places, at the same time.

One reading near ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Namsan. The other near Yeouido.

"Specter Energy values?"

"Yeouido vicinity reads Specter Energy 20!"

"A low-grade nuisance. And Namsan?"

"Reading 200 — but the value is highly unstable!"

"That's the real one."

"Drop Yeouido from the priority list. We're going to Namsan."

The Seoul Branch field agents deployed to Namsan at once — and there they came face to face with a vicious Anomaly registering Specter Energy well above 200.

The Anomaly looked almost human.

"…If I am to speak the whole truth! I did plan to make off with the bungeo-bap!"

"Ah — but I had not yet done the deed, so it was no theft!"

It had intelligence. It had emotion. And it was beautiful — beautiful enough to turn any man's head. That beauty, of course, was surely just another of the Anomaly's signature tricks, a wicked design meant to burrow into the human heart.

Naturally, the Seoul Branch field team was composed of elites among elites. None of them fell for it.

The unit commander followed the protocol for encounters with intelligent Anomalies to the letter — and then:

"You soooons of biiiiitches!"

— successfully subdued the Anomaly and locked the specimen away in a B.A.R.I. containment facility. A fine achievement.

"Nnngh…"

I woke with a splitting headache, clutching my skull.

This place…

…a prison?

Oh. It was a prison!

I had no clear idea why I'd been locked up, but there had to be some colossal misunderstanding at work. I had done nothing wrong. I may have intended to steal the bungeo-bap, but in the end I hadn't stolen a thing.

I looked around.

This did not feel like an ordinary holding cell. A proper prison ought to have a door one could enter and leave by — yet this place had no door at all. How they had even put me inside was a mystery.

Fine. I could grant them the doorless design, if I stretched my goodwill a hundred times over.

Clank!

"…"

What I could not accept was that my entire body had been thoroughly restrained.

Even in the Joseon era, they didn't handle prisoners this roughly unless the crime was truly grave. What on earth had I done?!

Religious persecution?

Just as I'd suspected — the modern world was clearly under the heel of some tyrannical dictator who crushed all faith. There was no other reason I would be treated like a capital offender.

I steadied my rattled nerves and cast my mind back to the moment of my capture. The answer would be in the things they had said.

And then I noticed something strange.

They had called me not a human, but an unranked specimen — an Anomaly. An Anomaly meaning a non-human being, a creature of the other side.

They'd gone and framed an innocent person, the lot of them.

I was no Anomaly. I was a Baksu Mudang who had spent a lifetime driving Anomalies out. Why they had mistaken me for one I couldn't say, but the misunderstanding needed clearing up.

I opened my mouth.

"Mmph-mmph."

"Mmph-mmph-mmph, mmph-mmph-mmph!"

…But a restraint had been fitted over my mouth as well, and nothing resembling speech came out.

Really, this was too much.

Truth be told, if I set my mind to escaping this facility, I could do it whenever I pleased. Reach the state of spirit possession and call down a Gunung-shin. Invite Geommu-shinjang — or Sanshin-gunung-shinjang — into my body, and a place like this would be nothing. One swipe of Sanshin-gunung-shinjang's tiger claws would split the very earth.

But spirit possession had to be used with care. It taxed the body heavily — and more importantly:

If I broke out of this prison, I would be hunted forever after as an Anomaly rather than a human, forever pursued by the people of this facility.

How had my life come to this?

Was it because I'd shorted that sharp-eyed old mudang grandmother on her fee by ten percent? Even looking back now, though — five million won for a reading had been outrageous.

I couldn't say how much time passed.

Click.

The mouth restraint came free.

"Pwah!"

At last, I could speak.

"I say — is anyone there?"

"Fetch me the one in charge!"

"This is all a misunderstanding!"

"As I have said — I am a pure human being and a Baksu Mudang!"

No answer came.

Even so, someone was surely listening. I had no choice but to keep explaining, alone.

Doctor Kim Mi-ryeo — Seoul Branch Director of B.A.R.I. and an A-class Chief Researcher — received the report on the newly contained specimen.

She put a question to the researcher under her.

"Still talking?"

"Yes, ma'am. Shall we reapply the mouth restraint?"

"No. Leave it. We need as much information as we can get."

"As long as the Specter Energy is properly blocked, it shouldn't be a problem."

"The Specter Energy dampener has been running from the start."

"Good. Let's see…"

Kim Mi-ryeo skimmed the report on the specimen she had designated BAR-322, murmuring as she went.

"…Peculiar."

"Specimens with intelligence this close to a human's are rare."

"Specimens with Specter Energy swings this wide are rare."

"And specimens that submit to capture this quietly are rare, too."

"I fully expected five or six field agents to die in the process."

"It didn't submit quietly, ma'am."

"There were signs of resistance — swearing, and so on."

"That's exactly what makes it peculiar."

"The Specter Energy value didn't fluctuate at all during the capture."

"As if it regarded itself…"

"…as human."

"…Watch your mouth. Talk like that and your clearance drops again, same as last time."

"S-sorry, ma'am…!"

Kim Mi-ryeo had rebuked the researcher outright — but she was thinking the same thing.

Anomalies varied wildly by specimen. Some were so aggressively hostile that containment only came at the cost of heavy casualties. Some were so cooperative with humans that mutually beneficial arrangements formed. Some were all but inanimate, and once secured could be put to useful work.

But this specimen — BAR-322 — had been uncooperative without ever doing harm. Even for a Chief Researcher of Kim Mi-ryeo's experience, it was a pattern she had never seen. And after containment, for all the foul language, the Specter Energy reading still hadn't budged.

She couldn't begin to guess what this specimen actually wanted.

Kim Mi-ryeo sighed.

"No help for it. I'll attempt dialogue myself."

"Yes, Doctor. Ready in twenty-seven minutes… no — twenty-six."

Once the dialogue protocol was prepared, Kim Mi-ryeo entered the containment facility to speak with BAR-322.

And then she flinched.

A beautiful face. A voluptuous figure. Clothes that glittered. The creature looked as if a human had been poured into a mold and cast whole. She had never even heard of an Anomaly that resembled a person this closely. The thought rose unbidden — Have we locked up a human by mistake? — but the reading settled the matter.

A Specter Energy of 200 — very high — proved that BAR-322 was no human, but an Anomaly.

Equipped with full mental-protection gear, Kim Mi-ryeo began the dialogue.

I gave Doctor Kim Mi-ryeo a thorough account of myself.

That I was a human, not an Anomaly. That I was a mudang, and of the shamanic arts.

But the words did not land.

It seemed "mudang" and "shamanism" had become forgotten history to the people of this age.

This mad dictator — not content with crushing religion, he had staged a modern-day book burning and scrubbed the Korean people's traditional faith, shamanism and the mudang, clean out of the record!

What would the Ancestral Shaman God say, looking upon this?

Still, Doctor Kim Mi-ryeo was the one person in this facility with whom conversation was even halfway possible. And more than anything else…

She had brought me sweet food!

"Mmph, mm, chomp-chomp…"

"I say, Doctor Kim Mi-ryeo! Have you nothing to drink?"

"Hmph. What a stingy lass."

Choco Pie.

Yes — I remembered. Confections like this had existed. The taste of a Choco Pie after a full thirty years brought tears to my eyes unbidden. The sweet dark sugar dazzled the tongue. Every time my teeth crushed it fine, saliva welled up in floods.

Once I had filled my belly with Choco Pie, I spoke.

"Ahh — excellent!"

"I say, Doctor Kim Mi-ryeo! While you're at it with the hospitality, bring me wine and women at once!"

"…Tch."

I had spent ten years as the king's personal mudang, living a life of decadent luxury — forests of meat and pools of wine. In a pleasant moment like this, calling for wine and women was, from where I stood, as natural as breathing.

…Except. Right.

I was the woman now.

I still hadn't adjusted to this body, it seemed.

She had given me food, so I intended to approach the next round of conversation with a more cooperative spirit.

Ah — before that.

"Doctor Kim Mi-ryeo, I have a request."

"Call me by my name, not Three Hundred Twenty-Two."

"My name is Ara-gun."

"No — wait. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Gun is not a name; it is a title bestowed by the king."

"Ara will do just fi—"

"…Tch. You've quite the talent for oppression, lass."

And just as the second dialogue was about to begin —

An alarm rang through my skull. My gums went numb. The side of my body, marked by the Spirit Illness I had once endured, began to throb. Cold sweat ran down my back. My mouth went dry.

"Doctor Kim Mi-ryeo."

"Hear me carefully, and do not take my meaning amiss."

I spoke with my face drawn tight.

"Something foul has appeared ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once more."

"And quite close at that."