Foresight (3)
The sunlight filtering through the trembling branches illuminated the dust clouds kicked up by our violent movements, making them starkly visible. And between those particles, several strands of thread caught the light, gleaming a brilliant white.
I finally understood. I knew what that girl’s unidentifiable attacks truly were.
To confirm my suspicion, I rolled and twisted my body in every direction while the mental warnings screamed at me. Thanks to the sunlight, I could actually see the attacks now, even if only faintly, which made dodging them a little easier.
As I evaded, I stole a glance at the girl.
“....”
Just as I thought. She hadn’t taken a single step from her original spot. She could attack me simply by staring. Yet something about her looked unnatural.
This place was a small hill in a neighborhood that barely qualified as a mountain. It was so rarely visited that no proper paths had been cleared. All that surrounded us were trees—nothing but trees. The woods were so dense that even a breeze struggled to slip through. And yet, that girl’s hair was swaying gently, as if stirred by wind.
After watching her for a long time, I realized something else: her attacks were brutally honest. If she could truly weaponize her hair, wouldn’t it have been far easier to overwhelm me with thousands of strands at once? And the slashes that had flown at me were only one—or at most two—at a time. She never sent more than that.
Putting it all together, my conclusion was clear. The attacks were made of her hair, and she couldn’t use multiple strands in a single strike.
“Ow, shit!”
My thoughts had slowed my feet for just a moment. The brief lapse in speed was enough. My pants tore across the thigh, and a burning red line was carved into my flesh.
“Damn it!”
I pressed hard on the wound with one hand, trying to suppress the pain, but the girl gave me no breathing room. She kept launching attacks without pause.
The fact that she couldn’t attack simultaneously meant that if I timed it perfectly, I might be able to close the distance. But she was firing her assaults at a maddening speed, as if daring me with a sneer: Try it if you can.
The gap between one attack and the next was terrifyingly short. Even if I managed to dodge the first by sheer luck, the follow-up would surely bisect my body.
“Screw it, I don’t care anymore!”
“...!”
Instead of only dodging, I crouched low, planted my hand on the ground for a burst of speed, and sprinted straight toward her.
Left.
Following the direction my danger sense screamed at me, I twisted my head and barely avoided a single thread slicing through the air. I regained my balance and poured everything into running.
The distance between us had shrunk dramatically. Just two more steps and I could reach out and touch her. But the second attack was already hurtling toward my face.
“...Ugh!”
“...Huh?!”
I pulled a small stone from my hidden right hand and hurled it at her. It was the rock I’d grabbed from the ground when I first lunged forward.
Startled by the stone flying at her with terrifying speed, she let out a small groan and instantly split it in two with her hair.
But I didn’t slow down. I charged straight at her.
She had used her hair to block the stone. That meant she no longer had any means left to protect herself.
“Got y—”
The moment my hand touched her, all sensation vanished.
More precisely, my right hand—the one that should have made contact with her body—disappeared from my sight. At the same time, my left leg, which had been supporting me, found nothing beneath it. My right leg, which should have been planted on the ground, was gone. I toppled forward and slammed my chin into the dirt.
“Ugh?!”
“.....”
The girl remained utterly silent as she looked down at me, face planted in the ground.
I frantically searched for the source of the burning pain, twisting my head left and right. My right hand was missing from the end of my right arm. Blood gushed from the cleanly severed stump. When I looked back, my right leg was gone below the knee, pouring blood just the same.
I wished I hadn’t looked. The moment I identified the cause of the pain, agony crashed over me all at once, and I thrashed wildly.
“...Ugh…! AAAAAAAAAAGH!!”
Why…? Had I been wrong?
While I was lost in pain I had never felt before, unable to regain my senses, she bent at the waist, brought her face close to mine, and whispered.
“Until it gets dangerous. Hide. Win and tease. If you tease, I get mad. Are you mad?”
Dozens of soft strands of hair caressed me. They had been hiding.
Damn it. Damn it all.
From the very beginning, they had only wanted to play with me. They could have caught me easily from the start.
I breathed roughly, trying to regain composure through the pain, and looked up at her.
“...Haa… Haa…”
Had I lost too much blood? My consciousness was fading.
“Then. Let’s go.”
The girl drew closer in my blurring vision, blocking out the light until everything went dark.
My love.
“...Mmph?!”
My hand, which should have lost all strength, moved on its own. My fading consciousness snapped back into focus.
Without realizing it, I had reached out, grabbed her face with one hand, and lifted her clean off the ground. Shocked by the unexpected turn, she flailed wildly, swinging her hair to sever the arm holding her. But unlike before, the arm didn’t even get scratched.
The pain had subsided as well.
Startled by the sudden change, I looked down at my right hand and leg. Both were perfectly intact, back where they belonged, as if they had never been severed. But at the same moment, an excruciating headache slammed into me.
My love.
“AAAAAAGH!!”
The migraine was even worse than before. I screamed. It felt like something inside my body was bursting out.
The girl, still caught in my grip, stared at me in shock, unable to process what was happening.
If I lost consciousness here, I would die.
With that thought, I clenched my newly restored right hand into a fist, drew it all the way back to my waist, and slammed it into her abdomen with every ounce of strength I had.
“Kuhk?!”
For the first time, her face twisted in pain. Her body flew through the air and slammed into a tree. She collapsed to the ground and began vomiting blood.
“...Ueeeek…!!”
“...Haa… Haa… Damn it…”
It wasn’t enough yet. My body, having reached its limit, ignored my will and collapsed on the spot.
“...This is impossible.”
I had been watching the situation through the body cam attached to Test Subject 03, but this was completely unforeseen. The camera must have been damaged by the tremendous impact; the screen had gone black. It looked like 03 had lost consciousness.
What the hell was that?
That male specimen—there was no explanation for it.
“...Doctor! Doctor Park Ah-woon!! What just happened?! Explain…!!”
“Shut your damn mouth. I’m trying to concentrate.”
This was an utterly unknown variable. Not only was this the first male specimen to appear, but the results he had shown just now—and before—far surpassed anything the female specimens had produced.
What made that man so special? Or was it the petal entity parasitizing him that was unique? Did he still possess self-awareness? Was he definitely the same entity that had stolen the power source earlier?
I’d have to check whether his face had been captured while he was moving around, but his height and build seemed similar to the previously confirmed specimen.
“What did you just say…?!”
The director grabbed my shoulder.
“I told you to shut up, fucker.”
“...Wh-what…”
Realizing the old man had no idea how critical this moment was and would only keep interfering, I left him in the office and began walking down the corridor. I pulled out my phone and made a call.
“Hello? Min-jeong? You haven’t gone home yet, have you?”
“...Bro?! Oppa! Are you awake?”
What the hell? Where am I?
When I opened my eyes, I saw Chae-yun and Seo-hee, along with a lamp so bright it felt like it would burn my retinas. I tried to ask Chae-yun where we were, but my voice wouldn’t come out properly. Only a weak groan escaped my throat.
Shocked by the state of my body, I tried to sit up, but an absurd, overwhelming pain shot through every inch of me.
“...Aagh…”
“This is kind of funny.”
“...Unnie.”
“Fine, fine. I won’t joke.”
Seo-hee cracking jokes in front of a patient while Chae-yun scolded her. Chae-yun let out a small sigh and began explaining the situation to me.
“If it’s hard to speak, just listen. Do you remember what happened?”
I nodded with great effort.
“So, while I was in class with Seo-hee unnie, we both felt something at the same time. We didn’t know what it was, but we had this strong feeling that we absolutely had to go to where it was coming from. When we got there…”
“You and that girl were both passed out.”
Seo-hee finished Chae-yun’s sentence and jerked her chin toward the corner, where the girl I had fought was lying unconscious.
“Don’t worry. I put her in a deeper sleep with paralytic venom.”
“And don’t worry about being followed either. We checked every piece of clothing she was wearing and every inch of her body. We got rid of anything suspicious.”
“...Still, isn’t it weird? She’s the same species as us, but something feels different.”
Seo-hee tilted her head with a puzzled expression. Chae-yun nodded in agreement, then pulled the blanket over me and said,
“There are a lot of strange things and questions I want to ask, but right now, your recovery comes first, oppa. Get a good night’s sleep.”
Her gentle voice and the scent of her shampoo slowly eased my tension. Maybe that was why, without even realizing it, my eyes gradually closed, and I fell fast asleep.