Consciousness returned like drowning—slow, painful, suffocating.Lee Rang's eyelids fluttered open to a ceiling of cracked concrete, water dripping somewhere in the distance. His wrists ached, metal chains biting into raw skin, the cold floor pressing against his back.
Across from him, Seo-rin stirred, a faint whimper leaving her lips as she realized she too was bound. Her hair clung damply to her face, shadows swallowing her expression.
"Rang…" Her voice trembled. "Where are we?"
He pulled at the cuffs, iron cutting deeper into flesh. Useless. His throat was dry, but his answer came steady:"Someplace that was never meant to let us leave."
The air was heavy, metallic, tinged with the faint rot of mildew. A single bulb swung above them, its light stuttering like a dying heartbeat, throwing long, jagged shadows across the walls.
Seo-rin's eyes locked on him, desperate, almost accusing. "How can you just sit there? Don't you feel it? It's like the walls are closing in."
Rang leaned forward, the chain straining against his shoulders, his voice low. "I feel it." His eyes burned in the dimness. "But if I let it show, you'll break. And I'd rather be crushed than see you shatter."
The silence after that was worse than any scream. Her lips parted, but no words came. Just the sound of her breath, shallow, uneven, filling the dark.
Then came the footsteps.Heavy. Deliberate. Too slow to be human mercy.
The steel door groaned open.
President Han entered, not with the fury of a villain but with the calm elegance of a priest before sacrifice. Behind him, two guards wheeled in a tray of instruments—metal hooks, rods, clamps—each gleaming faintly under the sickly bulb. The faint clink of them was louder than thunder.
Han stopped between them. His eyes wandered over Seo-rin's trembling figure, then settled on Rang with predatory precision.
"You're still alive," Han murmured, his smile faint. "Remarkable. But life, Rang… life is fragile. It only takes one crack to unravel it completely."
He picked up a slender steel rod, ran it across his palm as though testing its hunger.
"Tonight," Han continued softly, "we will see how much truth your bones can bear before they break."
The bulb flickered once, then steadied—casting Han's shadow long across the floor, stretching toward them like a hand already reaching for their throats.
Rang's chains rattled violently as he pulled against them, eyes blazing.Seo-rin shut her eyes, as if bracing for something worse than death.
The room was silent, except for the low hum of electricity.Silent—until Han finally whispered:
"Let's begin."