Kang Po-gyeong 2

When Kang Po-gyeong's long and harrowing story finally came to an end, a heavy silence settled over the cafeteria. Yet her face looked freer than it had before she began—perhaps the relief of finally unburdening a past that had crushed her for so long.

Watching her, I carefully opened my mouth.

"What would you do if that arm could be fixed?"

At my abrupt question, not only Kang Po-gyeong but Yeong-ju and the Jin-jus as well all turned to stare at me with puzzled eyes.

Kang Po-gyeong's eyes went wide as she echoed the words back.

"…F-fix the arm, sir? You mean this severed arm of mine?"

Her voice trembled faintly.

"I-is that truly possible? I don't mean to doubt you. No—looking at this Shelter building, I already thought it was extraordinary, but…."

She stammered, desperately trying to keep her balance between hope and disbelief.

"Are you saying a severed arm can truly be restored to the way it was? Ah! You mean something like this building, or that armor I saw yesterday—attaching some kind of advanced prosthetic, is that it?"

I raised my right hand. Yeong-ju, Yang Jin-ju, and Nam Jin-ju all made the same expression at once—Ah, so that's what he's going to show her.

"Look here."

I gently stroked the pinky and ring finger I had once lost and then regained, using my other hand, and said it again clearly for her.

"It's not a prosthetic. It can be fixed exactly like the original arm. Take a look at my fingers. These fingers were completely gone—bone exposed. But look at them now. The color's a little different, sure, but they move the same, and I can feel everything."

Her pupils, flicking back and forth between my words and my fingers, began to shake violently, as if an earthquake had struck inside them.

She suddenly rose from her chair and dropped to her knees on the floor right in front of me. Then she spoke to me with desperate, almost pleading urgency.

"If you can truly restore my arm—! Whatever work you assign me, cleaning, laundry, cooking, I will carry it out far more efficiently than I do now!

Having two arms is better for work than having only one, is it not? Or wouldn't it simply look more proper to you if both arms were intact? If not that, if not that…."

She poured the words out almost like a wail, desperately trying to prove her own worth. I calmed her down and helped her to her feet.

"Settle down first. And follow me."

We left the cafeteria and headed for the treatment room—the one with that long metal chair I had lain on for five whole days. It was time to show her a miracle.

On the way there, Kang Po-gyeong's expression shifted like a kaleidoscope. One moment flushed with overwhelming hope, the next sinking into deep distrust that all of this might be a lie, then reddening again with desperate expectation. A storm of emotion was raging inside her.

At last we arrived at the treatment room. There, the cold, elongated metal treatment bed I had spent five days on lay quietly, like an operating table.

"Lie down."

At my words, Kang Po-gyeong looked at the bed and froze mid-step, fear washing over her. Uncertain whether this was truly a machine that would heal her or some horrific experimental table, she searched the faces of Yeong-ju and the Jin-jus standing nearby, trying to read their intentions.

Seeing her like that, Yeong-ju crossed her arms with her usual blunt expression and spoke.

"Don't worry. It won't hurt you. But…."

She looked at Kang Po-gyeong and added,

"You've got one minute. If you're not lying quietly up there within one minute, the whole 'we'll fix your arm' thing never happened."

Her words sounded like a threat, but buried inside them was a clumsy yet unmistakable message: Trust the man in front of you.

Hearing that, Kang Po-gyeong hesitated no longer.

"I'll get on! I'll get on!"

She shouted it out like a soldier receiving an order and strode toward the treatment bed. Just before lying down, she turned back to us and asked,

"Should I remove my clothes before getting up there? Or would it be more convenient for the treatment if I took them off?"

She said it while once again reading our faces. Thinking about it, she had a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠point.

"Now that you mention it, that makes sense. Just take off the top and get on."

With my permission, Kang Po-gyeong began struggling out of her training top with only her awkward left arm. She stripped the upper garment completely and stood before us in nothing but her bra. And in that moment, the severed right arm that had been hidden by clothing—its horrific, tragic remnant—came fully into view. The cross-section where the arm simply ended below the shoulder.

Once Kang Po-gyeong, bare from the waist up, lay on the treatment bed, a sudden curiosity made me turn to the three women standing beside me.

"Come to think of it—how long did it take for my fingers to fully grow back?"

The three of them glanced at one another, and Yang Jin-ju answered for the group.

"We took turns staying by your side, Oppa. But it really grew back a tiny bit every single minute, so it's hard to say exactly when it finished. Still, the healing was astonishingly fast—that much is certain."

Hearing that, Kang Po-gyeong seemed to take courage and said brightly, "Please take good care of me!"

Then, as she settled properly on her back and stared straight up at the ceiling, the same white medical machine I had seen ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠before slowly descended from above and began scanning her entire body.

Once the scan finished, text appeared on the machine's display, and two thick hose-like lines extended from the apparatus.

"Huh? Those weren't there when Oppa was treated."

Nam Jin-ju said it with curious wonder, and I too had no memory of seeing anything like that when Yeong-ju had punched me in the solar plexus, so I found myself wondering what they were.

Right then, the ends of those hoses transformed into long, wickedly sharp needles. With a clanking mechanical noise, metal rings shot out from the treatment bed and locked Kang Po-gyeong's body firmly in place.

"Wh—? Wh—?"

We were startled by the sight we'd never seen before, and Kang Po-gyeong, reading our reactions, began to fill with terror herself.

"Why is this happening? Is this how it's supposed to work? Before—before, was the body never restrained like this? Something's gone wrong, hasn't it!"

Worried, she kept pouring out words. But whether she spoke or not, the two hoses moved with mechanical precision and drove their needle-like tips deep into her right shoulder and the center of her left chest without the slightest hesitation.

"Ghk…!"

Even from where I stood it looked agonizing, yet Kang Po-gyeong bit down on her lip as if forcing herself to endure the pain for our sake.

Then, at last, a mysterious yellow liquid began to crawl up through the hoses and inject itself into her body.

That was when her desperate screams began.

"Please wait! Please, just a moment! It hurts so much—so much! Just a second! Please stop for just a second!"

She began thrashing desperately, as if trying to break free of the restraints. Her screams were not simply sounds of pain. They were the primal shrieks of a body being forcibly reshaped against its own will.

We could only watch the horrific scene, helpless. Five minutes felt like five hours. Kang Po-gyeong's agonized screams rang endlessly through the treatment room, and all we could do was stand there powerless and witness it.

Finally, the last of the yellow liquid finished injecting through the hoses piercing her body. With a hiss of escaping air, the hoses withdrew.

Her left chest and right shoulder, where the fluid had entered, had swollen to twice their previous size—abnormally, as if massive tumors had grown beneath the skin, taut and flushed red.

Whether Kang Po-gyeong lay on the bed soaked in sweat, gasping for breath and trembling violently or not, the machine mechanically began the next stage.

That cold mechanical voice I had heard before. Instinctively, we spotted another hose descending from the ceiling.

"Huh? Wasn't the hose a lot thinner when it was my turn?"

I muttered uneasily, and Yang Jin-ju and Nam Jin-ju beside me both nodded.

"You're right. When it was Oppa, it was definitely thinner than that. That one's way too thick…."

Hearing them, Kang Po-gyeong cried out toward us in a raw, hoarse voice, almost begging.

"A-again, it's different from before? Th-that one's going to hurt too, isn't it? Please—please, I'm begging you, can't I rest for even one minute? Please…."

And just as before, whether she begged or not, that thick hose moved mechanically and drove itself deep into the severed cross-section of her right arm without hesitation.

This time a gray, viscous-looking liquid began to flow through the hose. Surprisingly, though, Kang Po-gyeong's expression was different from before.

"Huh? This one doesn't hurt nearly as much as earlier—it actually feels cool? Thank goodness…."

She let out a long breath of relief. We, too, relaxed for a moment at her words.

And in the very next instant, Kang Po-gyeong's face flooded with pure horror. Her eyes and mouth stretched open to the absolute limit of what a human face could do.

She began to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠scream like a madwoman.

"AAAAAAAGH! It hurts! It hurts! Worse than before! I'm going to die! For real! I'm really dying! Get it out! Please get this thing out of me!"

Her unexpected reaction made me and the three women jump. The pain hadn't ended. This was where the real thing began.

Then Nam Jin-ju murmured as if something had just clicked.

"Ah… come to think of it, Oppa was unconscious at the time, wasn't he? So maybe he just couldn't feel how much it hurt…."

Her words brought back the five days I had spent lying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there without consciousness. Looking at Kang Po-gyeong still thrashing and screaming like a lunatic, I realized all over again just how lucky I had been to be out cold.

Whether she was in agony or not, a strange transformation was taking place at the severed end of her arm. A white, mucus-like membrane formed over the cut surface, then began to twitch and grow outward little by little. Like a chrysalis just before a butterfly emerges, the membrane grew thicker and harder.

And every time that membrane writhed, Kang Po-gyeong screamed with a sound that did not seem to belong to this world.

"Ughk…! AAAAAAGH! Save me! Just kill me instead!"

The same Kang Po-gyeong who had sworn she never wanted to die was now begging to be killed from the pain.

Watching that horrific scene, Yeong-ju crossed her arms and offered a calmly analytical remark.

"Thinking about it—rebuilding nerves and blood vessels that aren't there, plus bone and muscle, all while fully conscious, and connecting them… of course it would hurt."

Her cold single sentence made the hellish scene in the treatment room feel even more unreal.