Ep. 8. What Do You See? (1)
"Do-woon!"
"Wh—"
The door to my hospital room burst open, and Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop strode in.
For whatever reason, he'd sprinted here hard enough to be gasping for breath, and he made a beeline straight for the bed where I sat. I froze mid-slurp, porridge spoon still hanging out of my mouth.
"Are you all right? Are you back with us?"
"Yes... as you can see."
"Thank goodness. Thank goodness..."
I answered around a mouthful of porridge, and the section chief let out a long, long exhale.
Anyone watching would think you were my own big brother.
I stared at him, dumbfounded, as he clutched his chest like a man relieved of a ten-year sentence.
Here's what I knew: I had lost consciousness while escaping the General Stadium Where Corpses Run. Somehow I'd been rescued anyway, and when I came to, I was in the Bureau's Medical Center. That was the full extent of my situational awareness.
So what was with this strangely grave atmosphere?
I was the only patient in the room, but there were five other people in it. First, Ms. Baek Sa-ra, who'd been here since before I woke up. Kim Woo-in, who'd hurried over the moment word spread that I was conscious. Then Cha Si-eon and Gwak Jae-gyeom, hot on his heels. And now Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop, just arrived.
Team Leader Cha and Jae-gyeom showing up, fine—I could let that slide. But the section chief coming all this way? Wasn't that a bit much?
As I blinked at them all in bewilderment, Kwon Mu-seop wiped his face dry and asked, "Do you have any idea how worried I was, thinking we'd lost you...? Why on earth did you do it? Do you remember?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"We need to feed him first. We'll talk later."
Kim Woo-in cut in and hauled the section chief back by the shoulder. Kwon Mu-seop glanced at him for a moment, then quietly withdrew.
Seriously, what is going on? 'Why did I do it'? Did what? What did I do?
"If you want the story, finish your food. No—don't rush. Finish all of it, slowly."
Kim Woo-in said this to me too, since my spoon had stopped moving. So I went back to spooning down a rice porridge so watery it was practically liquid, yet somehow, mystifyingly, refused to go down.
When I'd scraped the bowl clean, Kim Woo-in finally got to the point. "Yesterday, Team Leader Cha Si-eon wrote an incident report."
"An incident report?"
"Because he made a reckless attempt inside the zone, and as a result, you fell into an unconscious state."
"Wait, what? No, that's—"
I turned to Cha Si-eon in alarm. He looked exactly as solid and unshakable as ever.
Right. This wasn't a man to mope over a single sheet of paperwork.
Still, I couldn't help wondering whether pinning the responsibility on him was really fair. If the 'reckless attempt' Kim Woo-in mentioned was our last-ditch escape plan, then I was the one who'd proposed it.
Kim Woo-in seemed to read my mind. "Even if you were the one who proposed it, Team Leader Cha is the one who authorized it. The man in charge took responsibility. That's all."
Put that way, I had no counterargument.
"What happened to everyone else?"
"The civilians made it out fine. Everyone's in one piece. You're the only one like this."
Kim Woo-in sucked on his candy with a distinctly sour expression, tsk tsk.
If the civilians were all fine, that meant Team Leader Cha had written that report purely on my account. Why? Was I some kind of glass figurine to him now?
I clearly wasn't. Not before.
If Cha Si-eon was going to write incident reports over me, he should have started back at the Warehouse-Style Mart. My body was in far worse shape then.
This sudden, out-of-nowhere overprotectiveness made no sense to me whatsoever. So I turned to Section Chief Kwon Mu-seop instead—if Cha Si-eon had filed a report, it would have gone up through him.
The moment our eyes met, the section chief let out yet another long sigh. Then he said, "Do-woon, you've only just come back to your senses. It's been three days."
"Three days?"
"And for those entire three days, you were wide awake."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
A flawless non sequitur.
How does a person who's been awake for three days come back to his senses after three days? The words refused to connect front to back, and my confusion only deepened.
So I studied the faces of the people gathered around me—and finally saw it.
Cha Si-eon's face, worn hollow with exhaustion.
"I was... like that?"
Cha Si-eon nodded at my question. So, reeling, I played the footage again.
On screen, I was slumped in a chair with my head bowed low. The only voice off-camera was Kim Woo-in's. And to every question, I responded with nothing but head movements.
A situation I remembered not at all. Not even the tiniest sliver.
Ah. So that's why everyone was acting like this...
The kid was conscious, but his mind had been completely shattered. And he'd stayed that way for three whole days.
The incident report was more than justified!
While I was silently reeling, Cha Si-eon, seated across from me, spoke up. "Mr. Seo Do-woon. Your last memory is being flung into empty air from the General Stadium. Is that correct?"
"Yes..."
"At that time, Jae-gyeom and the other missing persons hovered in the air for approximately seven seconds before returning to reality. You, however, were seized by an entity presumed to be the Judge Who Weighs, and spent 144 seconds in a different space before returning."
"A different space?"
"As far as we've been able to determine: the Fog-Veiled Grand Bridge, the Island Where Blood Rains, the Golden Grotto of the Thousand-Armed Guanyin, and the Ossuary Where White Flowers Bloom."
Every name Cha Si-eon had just listed was a Special Zone.
The Fog-Veiled Grand Bridge and the Island Where Blood Rains were Type 1. The Golden Grotto of the Thousand-Armed Guanyin was a Type 3 zone I had never once set foot in. And the Ossuary Where White Flowers Bloom was a Type 4 Special Zone that the Bureau itself had observed only a single time.
The four of them shared one thing in common: exploration and survival rates stuck in the single digits. In other words, places of death where internal observation had barely ever been carried out.
And I had been there?
On top of that, what Cha Si-eon had just said didn't quite parse. "You're saying one of those four is where I was taken?"
"No. You were taken to all four of them."
What does that even mean—it was 144 seconds, wasn't it? I hit four Special Zones in that span of time and came back? So that enormous hand had been carting me around from place to place?
"Do you remember anything of what happened during that time?"
"Nothing at all."
"What state do you suppose you were in at the time?"
What kind of question was that?
When I only stared at him in incomprehension, Cha Si-eon repeated himself. "Conjecture will do. Describe your condition."
"...I was probably unconscious. Seeing as I remember nothing. I must have blacked out the moment that hand grabbed me."
I had no idea where this was going, but I answered anyway. Cha Si-eon then tapped the tablet laid out in front of me. "This is audio recorded through your smartwatch while you were missing."
Chk— krzzzzt—
Jzzk— jzijik— tztztzt—
Gididit— gidididik—
An ugly noise leaked out of the device. Static from a radio tuned to the wrong frequency. The groan of an old wooden building warping under its own weight. The whimpering of a young animal dying. It sounded as if these noises were huddled together, gossiping among themselves.
Chijijijik— chijijit—
Kiiii—! kkikkikkik—dididit—!
AAAAAAGH—!
The sound suddenly surged into a frenzy. And then—a scream full of agony.
What was that? Surely that scream wasn't... mine?
Goosebumps rippled up my arms as I looked at Cha Si-eon. He silently raised his index finger to his lips: listen.
A moment later, language I could actually understand began flowing from the tablet.
It felt like every hair on my body standing on end at once.
A voice on the verge of collapse. A voice straining, dragging itself forward through the wreckage. It was none other than my own.
—Why, of all things, must it be death?
I was asking someone, in a desperate tone I'd never once heard from my own mouth.
What situation was this, exactly? I said these things?
As I sat there stunned, Cha Si-eon asked, "Do you remember who you were speaking with at this moment?"
"Not at all... I don't remember a thing."
"Then what about the wound on your left arm?"
My left arm?
I rolled up the loose sleeve of my hospital gown. ...And what on earth was this?
Stuck to the inside of my forearm was a bandage the size of my palm. The instant I registered it, the skin beneath it throbbed to life with a belated, aching pain.
Wincing at the sharp sting, I peeled the bandage away.
What it revealed was a raw, ugly red wound on my forearm. There was no way it was accidental—because the wound could be read.
That dark red trace, already crusted over with dried blood, spelled out the letter B in unmistakable form.
"This is a wound you inflicted yourself, by tearing at it with your fingernails."
Too numb for further shock, I just stared at Cha Si-eon with a gloomy face. "I did?"
"Yes. We recovered skin tissue and blood traces from beneath the nail of your right index finger."
Well—judging by the direction of the scratches, it does look like I did it to myself.
"Does anything come to mind? Anything at all you can associate with it?"
"I really couldn't say."
"At that moment, Mr. Seo Do-woon, you must have known you were about to lose your memory."
"I suppose I did. Given that I left a mark on my own arm."
I said it, genuinely exasperated, as if discussing some stranger's problems.
Unbelievable, honestly. Carving this into my arm could only have meant one thing: figure it out when you wake up.
But what was I supposed to do about it? It hurt, and that was all—it didn't mean a single thing to me.
What exactly was I expecting myself to interpret here, me of the past...?
As I heaved one sigh after another, Cha Si-eon closed the tablet. "If nothing comes to you now, that's sufficient. Take your time recalling it, and rest for today."
I rubbed my tired eyes and nodded. Then something he'd said earlier resurfaced, and I spoke up. "I heard you wrote an incident report."
"A procedural formality. You have regained consciousness, so the matter is closed."
"What happened to Ha Yu-ju and Jang Han-bin?"
"Ha Yu-ju completed surgery in two days and is currently recovering. Jang Han-bin's contamination readings came back normal, and he returned home the same day as the rescue."
"That's a relief."
I let out a breath of genuine relief, then asked, "Would it be all right for me to see Jang Han-bin?"
I'd promised to buy that sullen high schooler a meal. My head was still a mess, but a promise was a promise. I wanted to be the kind of adult who stood behind his own word—though for all I knew, regulations said otherwise.
"It is a promise you made. Go see him."
An unexpectedly agreeable answer. "However, tomorrow you will be occupied all day."
"Occupied with what?"
"You will be meeting Analysis Team 5 regarding this incident."
Analysis Team 5.
Right—that team existed. The workplace listed on my employment contract. In practice, it wasn't a team I would be working for so much as a team that would be working with me—and on me.
It had taken exactly one month and one week after signing that contract for me to finally meet them.