Prisoner 3474
"Prisoner 3474, you have a visitor."
".....Aaaargh!!!"
On a crisp autumn day with a cool breeze stirring the air, the horrific screams of prisoner number 3474 tore through the women's prison.
"3474! Prisoner 3474! Get the painkillers, now!!"
Whether she even heard that she had a visitor was anyone's guess. Prisoner 3474 thrashed in agony as a guard unlocked the solitary cell and stepped inside. Moments later another guard came running with a syringe labeled narcotic analgesic and drove the needle into her forearm.
After a stretch of time, the two guards hauled the still-gasping 3474 down the corridor toward the visitation room.
In the dim hallway their conversation drifted quietly between them.
"Fuck me. Even a crazy bitch like this has someone who comes to see her."
"Ugh, tell me about it. How many times is this already?"
Inside the visitation room stood two chairs separated by thick reinforced glass. The moment they forced 3474 into her seat, a voice came through.
"Yoon Wolryeong, twenty-four."
The visitor beyond the glass glanced briefly toward the door, then turned back to the prisoner named Yoon Wolryeong.
".....Who are you?"
"Nearly every day she reports extreme pain of unknown origin, roughly equivalent to burning pain. Special note: exception on the night of the new moon....."
The visitor recited Wolryeong's suffering with perfect accuracy. She was a complete stranger, a face Wolryeong had never seen before.
"Who the hell are you to know all that in such, kuh, detail? Why did you come?"
The pain from moments earlier still clawed at her; Wolryeong mixed retching with her questions.
"Regeneration that defies all norms. She doesn't die. No—more accurately, she can't die."
"Answer me. Who are you and why the fuck did you suddenly show up?"
The woman flipped through papers as if appraising livestock, murmuring facts about Wolryeong. Irritation flared; Wolryeong narrowed her eyes and spat curses.
"If it's regeneration, that means even if she's cut or burned she heals, right? Incredible."
Even with the stream of abuse landing square in her face, the visitor kept turning pages without the slightest reaction.
"Fuck, who are you?"
Wolryeong finally shoved her chair back and stood. A guard with a collapsible baton immediately stepped forward. The visitor pulled back her hood and fixed the guard with a stare; he folded the baton and retreated at once.
"You'd better sit quietly. You may not die, but I know you feel every bit of the pain."
With the hood gone, the visitor was revealed: a small, thin woman with short hair. Her eyes blazed pure gold. The predatory light overwhelmed Wolryeong; she flinched and sank back into the chair.
".....All right. Let's try again. There's a special note here too, isn't there? Same as before—on the night of the new moon... exception."
The visitor's golden, beast-like eyes still burned. Wolryeong, now visibly cowed, spoke more carefully.
"Um... who are you that you know all this so well..."
"Pfft. Scared? You're more of a coward than you look."
It wasn't exactly fear. It was instinctive wariness, the deep animal knowledge that whispered, Those are a predator's eyes. Do not touch.
"What does that exception mean? That you can die when the new moon rises?"
"Probably."
The continued interrogation was starting to grate; Wolryeong answered half-heartedly.
"Shall we talk a little more about your pain? When does it come, and how often?"
The gold drained from the woman's eyes, leaving only the curious gaze of a young woman. The sudden shift sent a faint chill down Wolryeong's spine, though she kept the observation to herself.
"Usually around sunset..... after the moon comes up. It only stops once a month."
"Mm, mm. How pitiful."
The woman's hand flew across the page with a pen while her voice stayed leisurely and unhurried. Another shiver crawled over Wolryeong's skin. Just who was this person? What was she, that she could sit so completely at ease in front of a death-row inmate wearing a red name tag?
"That once-a-month day is the new moon, correct?"
Wolryeong stared at the slender hand holding the pen and gave only a silent nod.
"You don't know the cause of the pain or the origin of the ability?"
"Huh? Ah—yes. That's right. I don't know."
It was a lie. Wolryeong knew with perfect clarity what tore her body apart every day and where the power that refused to let her die had come from.
"But why are you even asking all th—"
"Mm. That's enough information. Time for the main point."
The moment she had everything she needed, the woman cut Wolryeong off. Wolryeong thought it rude, but again she kept the thought behind her teeth.
".....I'll get you out of here. If things go well, you might even clear the false charge hanging over you."
"What?!"
The woman whispered so softly the guards behind Wolryeong could not hear. Wolryeong, still ignorant of the visitor's true intentions, jolted upright at the words.
"Shh. Quiet, idiot. You want the guards to hear?"
"Ah—right. Sor—"
She started to apologize, then fell silent, thinking. At last she asked in a small voice,
"But how do you know I'm under a false charge?"
Wolryeong's eyes changed. The same cold, cynical light she had worn when they first met—the light she wore every ordinary day—returned.
The woman pulled her hood back up to hide her mouth and met Wolryeong's gaze straight on.
"Your mother. You didn't kill her."
The most painful memory of all, the one Wolryeong never wanted to touch again—the memory from five years ago that she could never truly forget—brushed across her mind once more.
"You fucking—how dare you—"
"Calm down, Yoon Wolryeong. You want out of here. You want the charge cleared. Don't you?"
The woman set down pen and paper and tried to soothe her. Wolryeong still seethed, glancing back and forth between the visitor and the guards.
".....What's the main point."
Thick reinforced glass. Guards with batons standing watch at the door. Wolryeong knew perfectly well that the only thing she could do was vent her rage; she forced herself back to calm.
"A minute ago you were all polite like a drowning mutt, and now you're already dropping the formal speech. Not even the fun kind of half-polite."
"Just say the damn point."
The woman locked eyes with Wolryeong's brown irises and spoke quietly.
"Come with me. The pain you feel, the ability you have—we think we know exactly what they are."
Come with her? Out of this dark, cramped place? Through all this security?
Wolryeong clicked her tongue in disbelief and looked away.
"Oh, please. How exactly are we supposed to 'go together' from here?"
"Promise me. Promise you'll come. Then I can get you out right now."
".....You claim you know the cause of my pain and the origin of my ability. What do you think they are?"
Irritation rising, Wolryeong snapped the question.
The woman smiled faintly and answered with a question of her own.
"So you do know, after all. Where your ability—no, your curse—came from."
Bull's-eye. That the power was not an ability but a curse, and where it had come from—the woman knew everything.
"Yeah, I know. So what if I do?"
"Promise me. Promise you'll come with me."
The woman's consistent demand wore Wolryeong down; she answered with reluctant irritation.
".....I promise. Happy?"
"That's more like it."
With those words the woman pushed back her hood again and made a little horn shape with her fingers against her forehead. The ridiculous pose paired with her deadly serious expression made Wolryeong snort a laugh.
"Pfft, what the hell is—"
In that instant the woman's eyes blazed gold. A pale, milky light wrapped her entire body. She began to chant something unintelligible and surrendered herself to the radiance covering her.
"Wh-what are you—?!"
Wolryeong toppled backward, flinging a question that never reached her.
"Hey! You there—what the hell are you doing?"
The guards' eyes went round; they rushed toward the glass.
"A-a wild boar? What the fuck is that...?!"
Where the woman had stood, something in the shape of a gigantic wild boar now towered, pouring out brilliant light.
Guards bursting through the visitor-side door faltered at the sight of the boar-like thing.
"W-wait, fuck, I—"
At the same moment the pain crashed over Wolryeong again. She clawed at the concrete floor, writhing.
"Let's go, Yoon Wolryeong."
The boar form swelled larger still, filling the cramped visitation room and shattering the thick reinforced glass into glittering shards.
"Wait—stop...!"
Guards swung batons and fired tasers, but the boar-shaped being simply scooped Wolryeong up in its jaws as if none of it mattered.
"I-I'm gonna die... please....."
The thing that looked like a boar, still holding the groaning Wolryeong in its mouth, charged straight into the thick concrete wall of the prison.
By the time a few guards who had been thrown back managed to push themselves up, clutching their sides, the two of them were already gone.
"You with me now?"
".....So what the hell are you, really. And that boar just now....."
After a long run they finally stopped in an empty lot with no one around. Wolryeong, her mind still hazy from the fistful of painkillers she had swallowed, clung to consciousness just enough to ask.
"Proper introductions, then. My name is Ino. I'm an exorcist. Same as you—someone with special abilities."
"Exorcist.....? Special abilities.....?"
"I'll be blunt. Interested in working as an exorcist?"
The woman held out a hand to Wolryeong, who still lay sprawled on the ground.
"Exorcist or whatever—before that, there's somewhere I have to go..."
Wolryeong took the offered hand and forced herself upright.
"Somewhere you have to go?"
Wolryeong brushed the dust from the red name tag that still read 3474 and answered.
".....Where my dad is. I have to go there."