The Livestock's Leash
Lee Ah-young, the woman now fitted with a dog collar, was dreaming. An ordinary, everyday life. She went to university, chatted with her friends, and ate a meal. Even as a senior, the mountain of assignments was overwhelming. She gossiped with her friends about the professors. Just thinking about going home to face that homework made her head throb. Would she have to pull another all-nighter tonight? The mere thought filled her with irritation. Still, her pride in being the top student gave her the motivation to keep studying. She was smart. She worked hard. She was pretty, academically gifted, and rich. No matter how she looked at it, there was no woman as perfect as her.
“Huk!”
Lee Ah-young’s eyes snapped open. This place… wasn’t her home. She had been kidnapped. Which meant… the place she was in now was not a dream, but reality. No. This had to be a dream. Please, let this be a dream! But the memories from yesterday were painfully vivid. The agony she had felt on her buttocks. The words that man had spoken to her.
First, she assessed her own condition and her surroundings. She was currently wearing a skin-tight white crop top. But… there was no bra. The top was nearly two sizes too small, completely ignoring the size of her enormous breasts. The fabric clung so tightly that not only her nipples but the full shape of her chest was blatantly visible. The material itself was white and highly translucent, making it utterly impossible to wear in normal daily life. And there were no bottoms either. She wore only the crop top on her upper body; from the waist down she was completely naked. Her bare legs, even her pubic hair, were fully exposed. The only garment she had was that crop top, which ended above her navel. That was it. In effect, everything below her navel was completely bare. Calling this “dressed” felt embarrassing.
Moreover, a metal collar was locked around her neck. The collar was connected by a thin chain to an iron stake driven into the ground. It looked exactly like a dog leash. And the place where she had woken up… was a grassy lawn. Outdoors. Just the open air. She had been lying collapsed on bare dirt. Without panties. Meaning her bare ass had been pressed directly against the ground while she slept.
Right behind where she had opened her eyes stood a single small house. Far too small—like something kindergarteners would use as a toy house. No matter how she looked at it, this was clearly a doghouse. It was slightly larger than a normal one, but still far too small for a person to stand inside. Compared to the leash attached to her collar, this doghouse felt like her new home. …It didn’t even have a door. It had never been built for human habitation in the first place.
A dog collar. A doghouse…?
“Ha! Haha!”
None of it had been a dream. When the brand had been seared into her the other day, the pain had been vivid, but her vision had been blurry and her body wouldn’t move, so she had still been able to convince herself it was all a nightmare. She had clung to that belief as hard as she could. But now she was half-naked, chained on this cool, breezy lawn. The wind she could feel on her skin made the reality of this moment painfully, unmistakably clear.
Tears spilled down her face once more. Her left buttock burned and throbbed. She couldn’t see it herself, but if yesterday’s memory hadn’t been a dream, then yesterday… they had pressed the Brand of Livestock into her ass. On top of that, she was essentially naked, chained outside like a dog. This was a far cry from the reality Lee Ah-young had known before losing consciousness—the beautiful, lovable young woman. The situation was nightmarish, humiliating, like something from the worst kind of horror. Accepting that this was real was almost impossible for her. It had happened too suddenly. It was simply absurd. She couldn’t believe it.
She had clearly been a university student looking forward to the new semester. How could she have become, overnight, a criminal marked with the Brand of Livestock reserved for the worst offenders, stripped naked and chained to a doghouse? And for no reason at all. It was forced on her. It made no sense. Tears continued to stream from Lee Ah-young’s eyes. It was too horrible. The stinging pain in her buttock. Her own reflection—half-naked in ridiculous clothing, exposed outdoors. No matter how hard she yanked, the metal chain refused to break. Even when she pulled with all her strength, the chain locked to the stake didn’t budge. Of course it was connected to the collar around her neck.
And then there was the perfectly normal modern building standing in front of the doghouse where she was chained. A real house where real “people” lived. The sight of it made her situation feel utterly wretched and hopeless. They weren’t treating her as human at all. This was exactly how livestock were treated. There was no way to cover herself out here in the open. Squatting naked outdoors? That wasn’t something a person did. But crawling into the doghouse? That wasn’t something a person did either. Still… as a human being, as a woman, staying exposed like this outside was too miserable.
In the end, Lee Ah-young decided to crawl into the doghouse. The house was so pathetically small that she had no choice but to enter on all fours. There was no door, but… at least if she curled up inside, she could hide her body. It was nothing like the home she had lived in before being kidnapped. Lee Ah-young’s parents were wealthy executives working abroad. Though she lived in Korea and didn’t see them often, she had always been provided with more than enough money. She had lived alone in a spacious forty-pyeong apartment right in the center of Seoul. At twenty-four years old, she had owned an apartment in her own name. That was how rich she had been.
But now Lee Ah-young was curled up inside a cramped doghouse, sobbing. A crushing fear tightened around her. What if everything that man had said yesterday was true? What if she really had become a criminal, and the brand burned into her buttock was real…? Her body trembled. Lee Ah-young had always believed she had lived without sin. This was too cruel. A twenty-four-year-old woman was far too young and fragile to accept this reality. All she could do was cry. Curled up tight, she wept.
She prayed someone would come save her. Please. Someone… save me… please…
She heard footsteps entering the building across from her. She huddled deeper inside the doghouse and covered her ears. Those footsteps definitely did not belong to anyone coming to rescue her. What she wanted to hear was the sound of police sirens. Someone shouting that they had come to save her. Lee Ah-young imagined police officers rushing in to rescue her. For a long time she clung to that fantasy… but of course no such miracle arrived.
Time passed. The sun began to set. Lee Ah-young simply remained huddled in the narrow space, sobbing, filled with terror. Then she heard footsteps again. This time they stopped right in front of the doghouse.
“Ah-young-ssi?”
Someone crouched in front of the doghouse where she was hiding and called her name. Could it be someone who had come to save her? Lee Ah-young turned her head to look outside. A man was sitting there. Even from his silhouette she could tell. It was the same man from yesterday. The man who had said those horrible things to her. The man who had declared he would “produce” her as a serial killer.
“Why… why… are you doing this to me…?”
Emotion choked her; she could barely speak.
“Ah-young-ssi, you have a lovely voice too,” the man said with a gentle smile. “Now, please come out, Ah-young-ssi.”
He was treating her exactly like a dog. Lee Ah-young’s face burned with shame.
“Why! Why are you doing this? What did I ever do to you!” she wailed.
“Hmm. Ah-young-ssi… no matter how much you resist, there are some facts that will never change.”
“What! What facts? Tell me!”
“The fact that you, Ah-young-ssi, are a murderer who dismembered eight people. No amount of resistance will ever change that. Come out quickly.”
“Aaaaaaaaagh! No! I never did anything like that! You… you know that! Why are you doing this to meeee!”
“I told you last time. I said I would ‘produce’ Lee Ah-young as a murderer.”
“You crazy bastard! Produce? What the hell does that mean! Let me go right now! Let me go right noooow!”
“Sigh. You still don’t seem to understand the situation, my dear Ah-young-ssi. Here, would you like to take a look at this?”
The man held out a single sheet of paper. Lee Ah-young twisted her body and poked her head out of the doghouse. She couldn’t come out fully. She wasn’t wearing proper clothes. Appearing before a man in this state was far too humiliating. To keep her breasts, visible through the thin crop top, from being seen, she pressed her chest to the floor, stuck only her face out, and reached for the paper.
What the man handed her was a large newspaper. The moment she took it and looked at it, a sharp cry escaped her.
Police have arrested the perpetrator of the serial murders that recently terrorized citizens. The suspect is female and was apprehended late at night on September 1st after a lengthy chase. Prosecutors have revealed that the suspect’s name is ‘Lee Ah-young’ and that she had been drinking right up until the moment of her arrest. The perpetrator, who brutally dismembered and disposed of eight victims, was a twenty-three-year-old female student at Seoul National University. Taking into account the extreme brutality of the crimes, prosecutors announced that the Brand of Livestock was immediately applied to the suspect’s left lower body following identification. Because the Brand of Livestock strips the recipient of all human rights, the suspect will pay for her crimes immediately, without trial or possibility of reduced sentencing. Furthermore………….
Lee Ah-young’s hands shook violently. After reading the first paragraph, she crumpled the newspaper and hurled it at the man.
September 1st. Evening spent drinking. Lee Ah-young. Twenty-three-year-old female attending Seoul National University. Every word pointed directly at her. She had once learned in a general education class that for especially heinous serial killers, there were cases where no trial was granted and the prosecution could immediately impose the ultimate penalty—the Brand of Livestock.
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaah! Crazy, this is crazy!”
It was real. It was actually real! The people who had kidnapped her had turned her into a serial killer. The description in the article matched her perfectly. Tears flooded from Lee Ah-young’s eyes in an instant, and her whole body began to shake uncontrollably.
“H-how… can something like this… it doesn’t make any sense… You… you know I didn’t do it! Why are you doing this? Why!”
Unable to contain her rage, she screamed at the man, but he remained completely unmoved.
“Well, the facts have already been made public. It’s too late to play innocent. Anyway, we have a lot to do, so could you please come out, Ah-young-ssi?”
The man smiled gently again and made a beckoning gesture.
Still in shock, Lee Ah-young ignored him and crawled back inside the doghouse. The situation was completely incomprehensible. What were the government and the police doing, turning an ordinary person like her into a criminal overnight?
“Huk… huak…”
She gasped for breath. There was no reason to listen to that man. Everything was a false charge, a lie. It had to be… a lie. It had to be…
But the man simply sighed at her behavior.
“Sigh. You’re not listening, Ah-young-ssi. If you don’t listen, I’ll have to punish you. Try it once. It’s your first time, right? It’ll be quite electrifying.”
The moment he finished speaking, the man casually tapped the watch on his wrist.
Crackle!
Sudden, overwhelming pain exploded from her neck and spread throughout her entire body in an instant. It was an electric shock.
“Kuuuugh!”
Lee Ah-young’s body convulsed violently inside the doghouse. Thud! Already cramped, the space became even more chaotic as she thrashed. Her back arched, lifting her into the air before she slammed into the wall and collapsed onto the floor.
“Hek… hek… what… what the… just now…”
“For extremely vicious criminals like you, Ah-young-ssi, they implant something called a ‘punishment chip.’ Once you’ve been branded as livestock, it would be a problem if you didn’t obey, wouldn’t it? That’s why this device exists. If I press a single button, the punishment chip delivers an electric shock, and you’ll feel that same pain again. You have a punishment chip inside your body, Ah-young-ssi. Shall we try it one more time? Or will you come out nicely?”
Goosebumps erupted across Lee Ah-young’s entire body. Though it had only lasted a moment, the pain she had just felt was more intense than any agony she had ever experienced. It was many times stronger than the pain of the branding iron pressed to her buttock. Electricity had coursed through her whole body, bringing unimaginable torment.
“Not coming out, Ah-young-ssi?”
Crackle!
“Kiiik!”
The man delivered another shock with a simple motion. Lee Ah-young’s body jerked again. The tremendous electric current made her tremble so violently it was beyond description.
“P-please! I-I’ll come out! S-stop!”
The pain was unbearable. Lee Ah-young’s body moved with frantic speed.
“Hurry up and come out, Ah-young-ssi.”
The man smiled gently. Though the aftershocks of the pain still lingered, Lee Ah-young crawled out of the doghouse with desperate haste. The sun was setting, painting the sky in evening colors. A cool breeze blew pleasantly. To anyone else it would have been a lovely evening, but Lee Ah-young had not a single ounce of composure left to appreciate it.
She had emerged once again wearing only that cheap, skin-tight crop top, her lower body completely naked.
“Pretty and vulgar. Very much like you, Lee Ah-young-ssi.”
The moment she emerged, Lee Ah-young curled into herself, covering her breasts and genitals with both hands. The collar and this outfit were unbearably humiliating.
“This is our first proper introduction. Nice to meet you, Ah-young-ssi.”
The man smiled as he greeted her. Though the person receiving the greeting was in no position to smile back.