The Trap
My newly begun life as an A-Grade inmate.
I had set the term at three months.
The company had already planned my resignation the moment I married, so adjusting the schedule for that long was simple enough. But when I factored in the time needed for wedding preparations and merging our households, the window left to me was not generous.
For a first and final chance, it was a short stretch of time.
Yet the very day they dragged me onto Prison Island, I understood that this place was a hell beyond any comparison to Grade C—and that three months here would feel endlessly long.
Eating. Clothing. Sleeping.
Even defecation and sensation itself—everything was controlled.
I survived the first month without disaster. The next month, however, I became a candidate for execution and was forced to stand before a truly vicious death.
The name of that sentence was the March of Hell.
It required walking one hundred kilometers.
I had entered Prison Island in July; the following month of August meant covering that distance under sweltering heat. It was anything but easy.
Nor was there any chance of leaving the island.
I simply had to walk the track constructed inside the execution grounds.
Handcuffed, gagged, completely naked—I set out.
The slightest pause or stumble brought a rain of lashes from the guards trailing behind me.
They wrecked me thoroughly.
One hundred kilometers.
A distance hard even by car, forced onto two bare legs—I truly thought I would die.
On top of that, the Stimulation Spores tormented me, and with no remaining distance displayed, it felt as if I were walking an infinite Möbius strip, doomed to keep going until death.
No sleep. No intake of any kind. Only walking.
"Mmph…! Nngh…!"
"Stop squealing like a pig and walk! I said walk!"
"Ghhk!"
Nearly every guard on the island, including my assigned one, took turns whipping my back.
Whenever a lash rebounded and skimmed my thighs or breasts, the pain felt like being sliced open by a blade.
That was how my first execution ended.
It only finished when I was truly on the brink of death.
I collapsed from exhaustion more times than I could count.
The guards even injected me to force me back onto my feet.
The result was completion.
No—completion was the only option they left me.
I collapsed at the finish line and slept for three straight days from sheer depletion.
Of course, those three days of rest were never true rest either…
Then another month of incarceration began.
After the execution they offered a chance to change grades or leave entirely. I refused.
No matter how hard or exhausted I became, I did not want to throw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with my own hands.
And so I endured the full three months of that merciless confinement.
Along with sexual abuse satisfying enough to leave me content, I carried home the achievement of having survived it all.
"Did you enjoy yourself?"
The day I returned, my boyfriend—who had come to meet me at the Waltz Production HQ Building—asked that question.
I answered with an endless smile.
"Yeah. It was hard, but it was the best."
…Never knowing that smile would be my last.
To be precise, it was not quite my last smile.
The happiness of finally gaining a family of my own, the satisfaction of a bond sealed—I smiled all the way until the wedding.
But looking back now, that wedding was the beginning of the pain.
"…Honey? What’s… what’s this?"
"What does it look like? Divorce papers."
"No… why are these here? W-wait a second, uh… w-what is this? Why… does our marriage start date say half a year ago…?"
Right after the wedding.
It began the moment I found a single sheet of paper sitting on the dining table.
Divorce documents laid out in plain sight.
At first I could not even grasp what I was looking at. Only as I slowly read the contents did I realize something was terribly wrong.
"Heh heh. Hey. Living together for a whole week should be more than enough, right? Phew~ took long enough."
"Honey… what are you talking about? You’re joking, right? That kind of joke isn’t funny…"
"Shut up."
— Thud.
"Kyaah! Hhk…! Ugh!"
"A slave climbing above her station? You said you’d hand over every last bit of your property to me, didn’t you?"
"Th-that’s… khhk…! S-stop…!"
"Say it. ‘I transferred all my assets to my husband, Lee Chansik.’ Say it!"
"Ugh!!"
The husband choking my throat and forcing that bizarre command was… a man one hundred eighty degrees different from the one I had known.
At first I refused to believe it.
I told myself he was playing a cruel prank.
Or that some bad influence had tricked him into misunderstanding.
But every scrap of remaining paperwork proved his true intentions had been something else entirely.
"Ms. Kang Seoa? We checked the records. The marriage registration was indeed filed on that date. You also signed the proxy documents, and handwriting analysis confirms the signature on the registration matches yours. Are you certain you aren’t mistaken?"
"No. That day… that day…!"
The first day I entered Prison Island.
The marriage registration was dated that very day.
I tried to insist I could never have filled out a marriage form then—until I remembered the paper my husband had hurriedly thrust at me just before transport, asking for a single signature.
I had been certain it was nothing more than a simple management-fee consent form.
Only later did I recall thinking the paper stock itself had felt a little strange.
"Ms. Kang Seoa? Your bank accounts have all been emptied by Mr. Lee Chansik. The real-estate title transfers are complete as well. You handled it in mid-August under spousal gift, and you even paid the full gift tax."
"Wh… what?"
"Normally gifts of this size are spread over a long period, but I remember you saying you didn’t mind the tax—just hurry it through."
"That… can’t be. Ugh…! Ugh…!"
"Oh dear, Ms. Kang Seoa. What’s wrong? Someone call a hospital…! Get an ambulance!"
I had been completely played.
The Prison Island life I had believed was my final pleasure…
All that time, that bastard Lee Chansik had been preparing to strip me of everything.
Stolen fortune.
A body toyed with.
Shock crashed over me without end.
Every asset I had clawed together since childhood now sat in his hands. Nothing remained for me.
And still Chansik forced the divorce papers on me.
The grounds: my adultery.
He had even hired people to fabricate an affair that never existed. Faced with his manufactured evidence… I could only let out a long, heavy breath.
But there was one fact he did not know.
"Well then. The grounds for divorce appear solid, and the party at fault seems clear… Does the wife’s side have anything further to add?"
I, who had refused to stamp those divorce papers cleanly, still held one hope.
A weapon that could end everything and prove my innocence.
A gift heaven itself had given me—one that would keep him from walking away with it all.
"Yes. I submit this piece of evidence."
"What is this?"
"This is a pregnancy confirmation. On the day my husband claims I committed adultery, I was already carrying his child. Three months along—sexual intercourse was impossible after that point. I’ve attached the hospital diagnosis as well."
"What…?"
A few days after leaving Prison Island.
Once my body had stabilized, my husband unleashed every suppressed desire, forcing every kind of SM act on me. The submissive instincts drilled into me on the island still lingered; I had wanted to repay the months of consideration he had shown me, so I accepted everything.
In truth, compared to the play on Prison Island, it was nothing.
My body had been trained enough to take his lust without breaking, and I did.
Perhaps that was why.
A man who was normally meticulous about contraception slipped just once.
Drunk, he came inside me and left it there.
I noticed at the time and simply did not care.
It was not a fertile window in my cycle, and we were about to become husband and wife— a little speeding seemed harmless.
Yet that single moment created my last chance.
The child growing in my belly—his and mine.
I regretted that his blood mixed with mine, yet it was still half of me, a family that had arrived without any connection to the rest of this mess. For that child’s sake alone, I could not collapse.
"I refuse the divorce. I never committed adultery. If necessary I will undergo a paternity test. And if he still demands divorce, I will claim child support and alimony. I submit the full set of documents regarding my contribution to the assets, my absence during the gift period, and the improper nature of his gift transfers."
"You fucking bitch!"
I fought back.
Not for myself—for my child.
I had to reclaim what was mine.
I expected nothing from him as a husband or as a father.
That role I would fill myself.
But to do so, I could not let him take everything.
Fortunately, once Waltz Production learned my circumstances, they produced every kind of supporting material.
They could not detail everything that had happened on Prison Island, yet they guaranteed I had been confined in a separate facility, that I had participated in their project and therefore could not have known what was occurring outside. Their backing even allowed me to file charges for fraudulent marriage.
Several more months passed.
In that time my belly grew larger, and I learned the sex of the child inside me.
As the due date approached, my heart grew frantic.
I poured every ounce of effort into a thorough, perfect victory, praying the child would be given a better environment.
The verdict that emerged from that long, fierce battle of evidence:
"Paternity testing confirms the fetus is the couple’s child. Based on the submitted materials, no adultery on the part of the wife, Kang Seoa, is found. Accordingly, the divorce petition filed by the husband, Lee Chansik, is dismissed. However, restoration of the relationship of trust is judged impossible, and the divorce petition filed by the wife, Kang Seoa, is granted."
"…"
"Therefore, the husband’s fraudulent marriage having been proven, Lee Chansik shall return the entirety of the gifted assets to his wife, Kang Seoa, and shall pay child support for the next twenty years in recognition of his parental responsibility."
An overwhelming victory.
Beside me Chansik was shouting and making a scene, but I barely heard him.
All I felt then was relief at having won, and the weight of responsibility to protect the child.
There was no joy.
Only the lament of an inadequate parent who could not give her child a whole family.
"You’ve worked hard."
"Thank you, Attorney Jin Sunghan."
"Not at all. We learned a great deal from this case as well. Honestly… who would have imagined our company could be exploited by a man like that."
The lawyer who had helped me when I was left penniless—Attorney Jin Sunghan.
He was one of the forms of support Waltz Production had provided.
I expressed my gratitude to the man who had suffered alongside me for so long, then left the courtroom.
Behind me, my ex-husband’s shouts continued.
How could a human being be so shameless?
In truth, while shuttling back and forth to court, buried under mountains of testimony and evidence, I had learned the full extent of his dissolute life.
From approaching me solely for my money, to the asset seizure during my time on Prison Island, to nearly bankrupting everything he had stolen from me during the drawn-out legal fight.
He had been caught siphoning money more than once or twice.
Did a man like that even have the right to yell at me?
I closed my ears to the useless noise.
If I wanted the child in my belly not to hear it, I myself had to ignore him first.
Yet if only I had listened to his voice a little more carefully then.
Or… if only I had paid a little more attention… this would never have happened.
But in that moment—
"Seoa! Look out!!"
"…What?"
Attorney Jin Sunghan’s sudden shout.
What appeared before my eyes next was a flying fist.
— Thud!!
It hurt.
He had struck my head.
My skull rattled; my mind went hazy.
My ex-husband, approaching from behind… had hit me in the head.
My body collapsed.
One eye must have been damaged—half my vision was completely blacked out.
Through the blurred remaining sight I saw a brutal kick coming.
And I felt it.
Attorney Jin Sunghan hurriedly tried to block Chansik; court staff came running from a distance—but he ignored them all and kept beating me.
Right. That man… had always been fairly strong.
It hurts. He hits and hits again…
Stop hitting me.
— Thud!
Ah— not there.
— Thud!
That’s… that’s my stomach.
— Thud!
My lower belly… no.
— Thud!
Not there…
— Thud!
That’s where…… the baby is…
— Thud!
My child…
— Thud!
You really can’t…
— Thud!
You can’t, I said.
— Thud!
Stop.
— Thud!
Stop it.
— Thud!
Please.
— Thud!
Please…
— Thud!
Stop…!
— Thud!
Someone stop him…
— Thud!
Anyone… stop him.
— Thud!
No. Blood… is coming out.
— Thud!
Stop… I said stop.
— Thud!
Stop… please…
— Thud!
Not there.
— Thud!
Anywhere but there… hit me instead.
— Thud!
My head… my arms… my legs… hit those.
— Thud!
"Fuck!! If it weren’t for this fucking kid!! If this bastard just wasn’t here!!"
"Stop him! Someone help! Call people!"
"Calm down! I said calm down!"
— Thud!
Ahh—
My hands won’t rise.
I have to block him somehow. I have to protect…
— Thud!
I can’t see in front of me…
…My memory of that day cuts off there.