It's So Much Nicer When It's Quiet
"It's so much nicer when it's quiet."
The two of them had Eunha by the arms, dragging her. Her toes scraped the floor, the skin peeling off, and she didn't even have the strength to lift her head. Hair hung over her face.
Eunha…
I reached for her and couldn't touch her. I tried again and again. Same result every time. This was just one of the countless possible futures being rammed into my skull—and among them, the future I was seeing firsthand. The one with the most horrific ending. My Worst-Future Foresight.
Eunha barely looked human anymore. She'd wasted away until her bones stood out, and yet the volume of her chest, swollen dark and red, remained cruelly intact. One nipple had already necrotized and fallen off.
Her lower body wasn't hers anymore, either. Even at rest, a faint pleasure scraped through her hips. Her waist twitched, unbidden. Discharge mixed with pus leaked out of her, pale and cloudy, leaving a long trail on the floor like a snail's track.
And then, even as they dragged her, her body climaxed again.
"Nnh…!♡"
A gush—then a wet, heavy slap. A thick, sticky handful of her fluids hit the floor. Her body already knew. It was time for a cock to go in.
Smack!
"Oghk?!♡"
The villain dragging her on the right cracked her across the ass. That alone sent Eunha over the edge. Pus from her ruined labia smeared his palm.
"Filthy fucking bitch."
He wiped the discharge off on her hair. Her already brittle hair stained even uglier.
"She's already cumming. We haven't even started."
"Hahh... nnh…♡"
Eunha couldn't answer. Only hot breath leaked through her cracked, blistered lips. Her eyes were half-lidded, and beneath them her pupils darted—chasing afterimages of pleasure, or anticipating the next one.
It didn't matter either way.
They'd dragged her to an operating room. Her back hit the table, and Eunha spread her legs wide without resistance. She must have thought it was another shoot.
A trickle of fluid ran down and pooled between her thighs into a swamp.
Stop… please…
My voice didn't reach her. They strapped down her wrists and ankles.
"Hahh—♡"
Eunha drew one long breath—the familiar rhythm of anticipation and resignation. Then, suddenly, her breath caught.
Her eyes swept the instruments on the tray. Scalpel. Saw. Forceps. Surgical scissors. And a man in a white coat. The atmosphere was different from before. His expression was calm.
Eunha's shoulders started to shake. She thrashed. The operating table rattled under her, clank after clank.
"Uh... hey..."
Her voice cracked. The man didn't listen. He pulled on latex gloves.
"What... are we... filming... today...?"
She fumbled the words through blistered lips. The man turned his head.
A light voice. Casual, like a throwaway joke.
Eunha stared blankly at his face. Her pupils widened, slowly. It took a few seconds for her mouth to work.
"Ah... mister...!"
Her head snapped back. Her limbs clattered against the table.
"Mister! No—oppa! Oppa! Please save me! I don't want to die! Please!"
She screamed until her vocal cords tore. Spit ran down her cheeks. Snot streamed from her nose. More desperate than anything she'd shown them in days.
They laughed at her. The doctor checked his instruments and tossed out a line.
"Save me, then kill me, and now save me again? Why do you keep changing your mind?"
Eunha twisted. The restraints held her wrists fast. All she managed was to tear her own skin. Droplets of blood scattered.
"M-my pussy... you said it tasted good, right? All of you... that's what you said...!"
She clung to them, filthy and pathetic, her face a mess of tears and snot. She rocked her hips, trying to spread her legs wider. Pus leaked between her swollen, ruptured labia like tears.
"I'll spread them wider! I'll do everything you tell me! I'll use my mouth, I'll use my ass, I don't care how many of you there are! Just please let me live...!"
Her voice cracked and stretched until it was nothing but a rasp. That was when it happened. Something yellow ran down the inside of her thigh. She'd pissed herself. She didn't even know. She just kept twisting, kept begging.
"Hey, hold still. That's not gonna change anything."
One of the villains snorted.
"We've already been paid."
The doctor answered flatly.
I screamed. Past the limit of a voice that couldn't exist here.
No! Don't! You sons of bitches! Stop!
I reached out. Tried to grab the doctor's shoulder. My fingers passed straight through him. Again. And again.
Please. Please. Please.
I couldn't touch him. This was only foresight.
The doctor pulled up a chair and sat beside Eunha. With his bare hand, he stroked her filthy stomach, fingertips tracing from her sternum down to her navel, then grazing over her pubic bone.
"From here. To here. That's the incision line."
Eunha's stomach convulsed. Her body arched like a bow.
"KYAAAH!! NOOO!!"
The blade hadn't even touched her yet. Her body was already reacting to the pain that had been promised.
"Anesthesia... even just anesthesia... please... just put me under...!"
"I already said no."
"I'll tell you everything I know! About the Association, the heroes' weaknesses… ah, aah… Ha-yoon, A-rin, Yu-na! I'll tell you all the other girls' weaknesses! No—every other hero, everything I know, all of it!"
She poured it out without pause, like she was drowning. Her eyes lost focus, drifting through empty air.
"You can kill all of them! So please just let me live! No—just don't make it hurt! Oppa! Please! Oppa!"
A trickle—she'd wet herself again. Blood in the urine this time.
"Ah.. aah.. please..."
She didn't seem to know what else to say. Just babbling. Just sobbing.
The doctor shook his head.
"I told you it's useless. What would we even do with that? And be quiet."
His gaze went to the tray. He picked out a scalpel.
"If the blade slips, you're the one who suffers. Got it?"
The assistants pinned Eunha's shoulders and hips. The doctor set the tip of the scalpel just below her sternum.
It must have been cold. Eunha's stomach flinched. For a moment, her breath stopped.
The scalpel began to sink slowly into her flesh. Her pale stomach split, and dark red beads of blood welled up through the seam.
"Ah… aah.."
Eunha's mouth fell wide open.
"KYAAAAAAAAH—!!"
A scream so horrific I couldn't believe a human throat could make it.
And with that scream, my consciousness was thrown out of the foresight.
Reality rushed in.
"Don't move. Not if you care about your woman's life."
A villain had his arm around Eunha's throat, twisting her head. The drugs had turned her legs to water. She hung limp. He tightened his grip.
"Urgh..."
Eunha's breath cut off.
That arm first.
A high-pitched whine gathered in my eyes. Heat pooled, and a beam lanced out, punching through his forearm. Muscle burned. Bone sheared.
Thud.
The arm choking Eunha dropped, lifeless. He clutched the stump and screamed. Eunha crumpled to the floor.
Eunha was still alive. Of course she was. I'd already dodged that possibility.
I turned my head.
The next possibility.
The left wall.
From the other side.
A guy with a rocket launcher. In a moment he'd poke his head through the doorway and fire. I wouldn't care. But Eunha, in the state she was in, would die. No—she had died.
But not anymore.
I looked through the wall, gauged his position, and threw a punch.
The wall punched through like styrofoam. My fist buried itself in his chest on the other side. I clenched.
Crack—his heart came out in my hand.
As he collapsed, his finger squeezed the trigger. The rocket fired. Blast and heat shoved through the hole in the wall, and everyone with him was wiped out. Three with guns, plus one ability user. Just corpses now.
"Disgusting."
I tossed the heart aside. Its owner was dead. No use for it now.
And the next possibility.
Above.
Two of them about to drop from the pipes. I caught one before he landed, grabbed his skull, and ground his face into the wall.
"AAAAAAAGH!!!"
His face scraped off against the concrete. Skin peeled back. Bone ground down. His nose mashed flat, his teeth split, his eyeballs burst. I still didn't kill him. I just left him the pain. I tossed him aside.
The other one pointed a gun at me.
The bullet this bastard fires embeds in Eunha. After ricocheting off my body.
I lunged, caught the muzzle, and bit down on it. His eyes went wide. He pulled the trigger anyway.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Impact after impact in my mouth. The lead slugs hit my molars and flattened. It hurt. It didn't injure me.
He froze, mouth hanging open.
I fired a beam from my eyes, straight into the chamber. The magazine cooked off.
"GAAAH!!"
His hand blew off. He screamed. It was loud.
I spat the crushed slugs onto the floor and grabbed his jaw. Then I crushed it. His scream collapsed into a wet, mashed-up noise. He didn't die.
"It's so much nicer when it's quiet."
I smirked and turned.
"D-don't come any closer, you monster!!"
A string of explosions. A tattooed slab of a man was hosing me down with a machine gun—enhancement-type, of course, holding a heavy machine gun like a pistol. Round after round hit my body, flattened, and bounced off.
I didn't dodge. In this branch of possibilities, there was no future where a stray round punched into Eunha. So I just walked.
He kept firing as he backed up. Casings rained down.
"Stay back! I said stay back! Get the fuck away!"
His back hit the wall. The gun finally ran dry.
"Should've packed more ammo."
I took his head in both hands.
"Wouldn't have helped, though."
I gathered heat in my eyes. Lower output this time. The beam settled on his pupils.
"GAAAAH—!"
His eyeballs heated. The whites cooked pale. The lenses inside began to boil. He thrashed, grabbing my hands, trying to pry them off. It was useless. His eyes swelled, bigger and bigger.
And then they burst.
"GAAAAAAH—!"
The boiled-over eyes ran out of his sockets. The screaming grated. I let go of his head and shoved my hand into his mouth, caught his tongue, and pulled.
His tongue came out long. Blood fountained. The big man collapsed where he stood.
The rest tried to run. I took them one by one. Didn't kill them. Just left them the pain.
"And where do you think you're going?"
A white coat caught my eye. The bastard who'd been about to cut Eunha open, flailing toward the exit.
"When someone asks you a question, you answer."
I sneered, grabbed the back of his head, and threw him into the wall. His back hit. Surgical instruments spilled off the tray in a clatter. He staggered.
I raised my right hand, index finger out, and set my nail on his stomach. I pressed down, then dragged it up and down. His belly split. A wet slap, and his guts spilled out, intestines steaming as they slithered onto the floor.
"Gh... aah..."
The doctor looked down. Then frantically tried to scoop his own organs back in, gathering the spilled intestines with both hands.
"Did I tear it too sloppy? Not like anyone's sewing you back up. So whatever."
I lifted my foot and stepped down. The intestines burst under my heel. The contents sprayed everywhere.
"GAAAAAAH—!"
He thrashed. He was loud for a long time. I fired a beam and burned out his mouth. It got quiet.
"Alright then. Who should I send off first?"
I looked over the ones still shuddering in pain, one by one. This was where it started. That was why I hadn't finished them.
The one whose face I'd ground off. The one whose jaw I'd crushed. The one whose hand had blown away.
I killed them one at a time. Slowly. As slowly as I could. Every method that came to mind.
Crunch. Splat. Crack. Snap.
Before I knew it, it was quiet. The smell of blood and rot filled the room.
I picked up a pistol from the floor.
"U.S. military issue? Where the hell do they even get this stuff. They've got money, I'll give them that."
It was still warm with a dead man's heat.
"Then again, I should be grateful. Military hardware still runs fine after it's had a little blood. You just have to pull the trigger."
I racked the slide, sneering, and lined up the sights, pretending to aim.
"..."
A sound from the wall. Eunha was pulling herself up against it, her legs gone, barely standing. Her lips moved.
"Si-hoon..."
I didn't answer. I just turned and walked. Toward the civilians lying scattered on the ground.