Scene 1. Don't Heal
———
Water was dripping from the ceiling.
Tok. Tok. An even interval. A pipe leaking somewhere. The sound of each drop striking the concrete floor echoed inside his skull. Besides that sound, there was nothing.
He opened his eyes.
This was not the same underground as before. It was deeper. The weight of the air was different. Not earth but mold. A damp rot seeping from ancient stone walls. No kerosene lamps. A small vent grate set into the corner of the ceiling let in light that was—gray. Neither dawn nor night. The kind of light that exists only deep underground.
He was hanging.
Both wrists overhead. Not chains this time. Iron bars. Thick steel rods threaded through his wrists as though skewering them, driven into the wall. When he twisted, iron ground against flesh. His toes touched the floor. Barely. He had to stand on tiptoe to take the weight off his wrists.
There was a hole in his chest.
Below the left breastbone. With every breath, the skin at the hole's edge parted and closed. Opening on the inhale, shutting on the exhale. A second mouth had been added to his body. Blood should have been flowing from it. There was none.
It itched.
Inside the hole. Between the flaps of flesh, at the severed ends of torn muscle, something was crawling. Not insects. Flesh. Flesh reaching toward flesh. Severed fibers groping for their severed counterparts on the other side, trying to knit. The wound was trying to close.
The yellow was moving.
He couldn't see it. But his body knew the color of the heat spreading from the hole's edge. Something hot and viscous was filling the inside of the wound, rising. Each time it flowed between the ribs like molten slag, the torn flesh braided itself together like thread and fused.
He bit down.
Molar into molar. He drove his jaw shut. Inside his mouth, gums scraped raw. The taste of blood spread. He focused on that pain. The pain in the jaw. The pain in the gums. Pain that was not in his chest.
The itching did not stop.
He could almost hear the flesh knitting inside the wound. In reality, there was no way to hear it. But the hallucination his body manufactured squelched inside his eardrums. The wet sound of things finding each other and sticking together. The sound of maggots eating flesh, played in reverse.
His stomach flipped.
He swallowed what surged to his throat. Bile scorched his esophagus on the way down. Even after swallowing, the taste of iron and bile clung to his tongue.
He was healing.
This body was healing. Without permission. The punctured chest was filling itself in, the broken ribs fusing on their own, the torn flesh creeping toward itself and reconnecting. The yellow thing inside this body was doing its job.
He now knew what it burned to run.
He twisted against the iron rod in his wrist. Flesh was sheared and a new wound opened. The pain migrated from his chest to his wrist. The itching paused. The yellow heat changed direction, pivoting from chest to wrist. It rushed toward the site of the fresh wound.
He twisted again.
Flesh was cut deeper. Something hot ran from his wrist down his forearm. The drip of his blood from his wrist layered over the drip of water from the ceiling. Tok. Tok. Tok.
The itching in his chest stopped.
The yellow had gone to his wrist. The hole in his chest remained open. The second mouth that parted on each inhale and closed on each exhale would not shut.
He hung there and let his head drop. Sweat rolled from his forehead, gathered at the tip of his nose, and fell. In the air—a stew of mold and blood—he panted without finding a rhythm.
Don't heal.
If this body heals, she withers by the same measure. If this hole fills in, her flesh peels from her bones by the same measure. If this blood clots, her breath shortens by the same measure.
He rested his forehead against the iron rod in his wrist. The cold of the steel pressed into his brow. Water fell from the ceiling. Tok. The hole in his chest opened and closed. Open.
Scene 2. The Monster's Fist
———
Consciousness dissolved and returned.
How many times, he'd lost count. Each time it dissolved, the drip from the ceiling grew distant; each time it returned, the iron rod in his wrist scraped him awake. Between the gaps, fragments pushed in.
When he closed his eyes, he saw something.
Something white. White fabric. A wedding gown. Blood on it. Whose blood, he knew. Not his own. His own was coming from his chest. The blood on the gown was—.
He opened his eyes.
Mold filled his nostrils. The gray light from the ceiling vent hadn't changed. Whether time had moved or frozen.
He closed them again.
This time it was sound. A familiar voice. Low, slow, each word set down with the precision of placing porcelain. Count Yi's. It wasn't actually audible. It was replaying somewhere inside his skull. The voice that used to drift from the study beyond the wall was resonating not in his eardrums but in his bones.
'The more you use it, the more she wears away.'
His ears burned. He shook his head. The rod scraped his wrists and pain flared. The pain buried the voice. Briefly. When the pain subsided, the voice surfaced again. Like oil floating on water, it would not sink.
He opened his eyes.
He looked at his hands. Hanging, he tilted his head up and looked past the wrists threaded on the rod. Ten fingers caked in blood and rust. These hands had—last night, if it was last night—snapped a soldier's neck. Crushed a larynx. Driven a skull into a wall. The sensation from those moments was still imprinted in the lines of his palms.
The feeling of bone breaking.
The moment it surfaced, his fingers curled. Fists clenched. Reflex. Only after clenching did the sensation inside his hands change. Not the soldier's neck. Something thinner. Drier. Fragile enough to slip between his fingers.
The width of the fingers that had written letters on the back of his hand.
He unclenched.
His fingers trembled. All ten. A fine spasm rippled across the open palm like a wave. Hanging from the rod, he turned his palm over. Beneath the crusted blood, the lines of his hand were invisible. Where the lines had been, other people's blood had filled in.
With this hand, he had once written letters on the back of Yeonhwa's hand.
The same hand. The hand that breaks necks and the hand that writes letters—the same hand. The fist that shatters people and the palm that caresses people—attached to the same flesh. Every time that hand exerted force, the yellow circulated, and every time the yellow circulated—.
His stomach contracted.
There was nothing to vomit. The empty stomach seized and shoved the diaphragm upward. The hole in his chest gaped. Cold air entered through the open wound. The sensation of breath leaking through somewhere other than the lungs. A grotesque respiration: a hole in his body, and through that hole, outside air flowing in and out.
Strength left his wrists.
His weight dropped onto the rods. Flesh was sheared. It didn't matter. Hanging, his head fell. His chin touched his chest. At the edge of his vision, the hole in his chest appeared. The open wound. The hole that would not close. The hole he had kept open himself.
Water fell from the ceiling.
Tok.
This hand is a monster's hand.
Tok.
Scene 3. The Zookeeper Who Smells of Opium
———
Footsteps.
Not military boots. Leather shoes. A worn-down heel. One foot dragging slightly. And threaded between the footfalls—a clinking. Metal striking metal. A medical bag.
The footsteps stopped.
Beyond the iron bars, a match was struck. Tssk. A small flame split the dark. The flame touched a kerosene lamp's wick and a yellowish glow spread. As the light expanded, the bars' shadows stretched long across the wall.
The smell arrived first.
Cresol. The sharp, acrid bite of disinfectant. Beneath it—opium. A sweet, heavy smoke crept out between the cresol. Soaked into fabric. Not from the medical bag. From this man's skin.
'Doctor Jang.'
He didn't raise his head. Hanging from the rod, his forehead resting on the iron. The kerosene glow seeped yellow through his closed eyelids.
"…You're alive."
A low voice. Dry. Not a greeting. A diagnosis. The first words of a surgeon confirming his patient is alive.
Beyond the bars, the sound of the bag being set on the floor. A leather buckle unfastened. Metal instruments clinking. Between those sounds, Doctor Jang's breathing bled through. Uneven. He hadn't been running. It was the breathing of a man holding something back.
Ian opened his eyes.
Beyond the kerosene glow, through the gaps in the iron bars, Doctor Jang's face. Glasses sliding to the tip of his nose. Behind the lenses, his eyes were on Ian's chest. The open hole. The second mouth that parted on the inhale and shut on the exhale. Doctor Jang's pupils lingered on the hole for one beat, then rose.
It was a surgeon's face. Eyes that block emotion and read the wound. But behind the glasses, one eyelid trembled. Once. That was all.
"Bribing three guards cost me two bottles of Scotch."
Doctor Jang said, pulling gauze from the bag.
"Expensive visit."
Ian didn't answer. He was watching Doctor Jang. Beyond the bars, under the kerosene light. The smell of opium. The smell of cresol. Between the two, the ruined right hand opening the medical bag.
Fingers with misaligned joints gripping the gauze. Trembling. They always trembled. This man's hands.
"Did you know?"
Ian's mouth opened. His voice came out scraped, like stone dragged across stone.
Doctor Jang's hand stopped.
"Know what."
"The drug."
One word. That single word passed through the bars and struck Doctor Jang's face. The kerosene flame shuddered. Not wind. Doctor Jang's breathing had changed.
Silence.
A water drop fell. Tok. From somewhere in the ceiling. That sound alone filled the space between the two men.
Doctor Jang pushed his glasses up. With his left hand, not the ruined right. The frame settled on the bridge of his nose. Behind the lenses, his eyes looked straight at Ian.
"I knew."
Three words. Nothing more. No excuse. No explanation. No apology.
Ian's jaw tightened. His molars locked. His wrists, hanging from the rods, trembled faintly. Iron scraped flesh. Blood welled. He didn't feel it.
"From the start?"
"No."
Doctor Jang set the gauze on top of the bag.
"From partway through."
He lowered his gaze. The kerosene light reflected off his lenses, hiding his eyes.
"And even after I knew, I let it continue."
"…Why."
"Because you were dying."
Short. Dry. It was always this way. This man didn't speak at length. His hands spoke instead. Trembling hands. Hands that trembled even while suturing a patient's flesh. Those hands were now clenched into fists on top of the bag. The joints of his ruined fingers had gone white.
Ian looked at those fists.
Then closed his eyes.
The rod was cold. The chill of iron against his forehead seeped into his skull. The hole in his chest opened and closed. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
'He knew.'
'He knew and let it go on.'
'Because I was dying.'
A water drop fell. Tok.
Ian's mouth opened.
"Another way."
He didn't open his eyes.
"Is there one."
Doctor Jang's breathing stopped. One beat. Two beats. Three beats.
From inside the bag came the sound of something being lifted. Glass tapping glass. Something small and solid. An ampoule.
"There's one."
Doctor Jang said.
"It changes the direction of the cost."
Scene 4. How to Swallow Poison
———
The ampoule caught the kerosene light.
The liquid inside was not yellow. It was a dark, murky red. The color of old blood strained through cloth. Between Doctor Jang's ruined fingers, the ampoule turned slowly. Each time the light passed through the liquid, the dark-red substance clung to the glass wall, then slid down.
"The principle is the same."
Doctor Jang held the ampoule up before the lamp.
"It still burns. The difference is—"
"What does it burn."
Ian cut in. His eyes were open. Hanging from the rods. Staring at the dark-red liquid beyond the kerosene light.
Doctor Jang's mouth closed. Opened. Closed again. He was choosing his words. A rare thing for this man.
"Not Yeonhwa."
That was all he said.
Ian's pupils did not move. Fixed on the ampoule.
"Then what does it burn."
"You."
One word.
Silence fell. A water drop. Tok. The kerosene wick sputtered. In air tangled with cresol and opium and mold, only the two men's breathing passed back and forth.
"Specifics."
Ian said.
Doctor Jang set the ampoule down. From the bag he drew a syringe. Glass barrel, metal needle—the same syringe Ian had seen hundreds of times in the clinic.
"A thirst will come."
"Thirst."
"Not the kind where your throat goes dry."
Doctor Jang's voice dropped. The kerosene light wavered and a shadow crossed his lenses.
"It's hard to explain. I don't fully understand it myself yet."
He pushed the needle through the ampoule's rubber cap. Drew the plunger. The dark-red liquid was sucked into the glass barrel.
Ian watched the syringe. The dark-red thing sloshing inside the glass. Unlike the yellow drug. The yellow had been hot. Like molten slag. This looked cold. Dark. The color of blood, but not blood.
"Side effects."
Ian asked.
Doctor Jang's hand stopped. Holding the syringe. Through the bars, he looked at Ian. Something crossed behind his lenses. Not the surgeon's eyes. Something beneath them surfaced and vanished.
"Big if big, small if small."
Not an answer. Evasion.
"Doctor Jang."
Ian's voice dropped. One full register. To the floor of the growl. The lowest vibration a body hanging from iron rods could produce.
Doctor Jang bit his lip. Pressed his lower lip with his front teeth, then released. White flakes of dry skin lifted from the cracked surface.
"…You might lose control."
"Of what."
"You'll get hungry."
That was all he said. He said no more.
Ian hung from the rods and looked at Doctor Jang. Doctor Jang held the syringe and looked at Ian. The iron bars stood between them. The kerosene light cast the bars' shadows across the wall.
The hole in his chest opened and closed.
'It won't burn Yeonhwa.'
'It burns me instead.'
'I'll get hungry.'
'I'll lose control.'
Inhale. The hole opened. Cold air entered his chest.
Exhale.
"Do it."
Ian said.
Doctor Jang didn't move.
"Give me your arm."
Ian twisted his right arm against the rod. Flesh was sheared. Blood welled. It didn't matter. The inside of his elbow pushed through a gap in the bars. The inner arm, veins raised, lay exposed under the kerosene light.
Doctor Jang's hand trembled.
The hand holding the syringe. The ruined right hand. Misaligned knuckles seizing on the glass barrel. With this hand he had sutured a patient's flesh hundreds of times. With this hand he had reset bones, extracted fragments, closed wounds. The same hand was now about to inject something else.
The needle passed through the bars.
It touched the inside of Ian's elbow, where the vein stood out. Cold. The chill of metal bit the skin before the tip broke through.
Ian's body flinched. Reflex. His arm tried to pull back. Caught on the rod, it couldn't. He clenched his teeth. Extended his arm again. The needle tip was waiting.
'If it touches me, it stains me.'
'Let it.'
'Because it's not Yeonhwa.'
'Because it's me.'
"Do it."
He said again.
The needle broke skin. The sensation of skin resisting, then giving way. It didn't hurt. Compared to the rod grinding through his wrist, it was a mosquito bite. The needle tip slid into the vein.
Doctor Jang's thumb pushed the plunger.
The dark-red substance left the glass barrel. Through the needle. Into the vein. It was cold. Nothing like the molten-slag heat of the yellow drug. This was the sensation of cold water pouring into the bloodstream. The chill that began at the elbow climbed up the upper arm, over the shoulder.
Past the shoulder.
It reached the chest.
The chest with the hole. The wound left open. The moment the dark-red cold touched the hole's edge—
The itching started again.
Different this time. Before, it had been insects crawling. Now it was ice melting. The speed at which flesh knit inside the wound was different. Slower than the yellow drug. But cold. Flesh was being filled in coldly, without heat.
His stomach didn't flip. No nausea rose. Instead—
He was hungry.
Suddenly. Without context. His stomach contracted, announcing emptiness. Not because he hadn't eaten. He hadn't been hungry a moment ago. The instant the needle withdrew, hunger flooded in as though a hole had been punched through the bottom of his stomach. Saliva pooled. Beneath his tongue. He swallowed.
The needle came out.
Doctor Jang withdrew the syringe. From beyond the bars he tried to press a cotton swab to the injection site, but his hand couldn't reach. A single drop of blood beaded at Ian's elbow and fell.
Ian pulled his arm back inside the rods. He looked at the injection site. The needle mark was there. Already sealing. The blood had stopped mid-flow. The dark-red drug had closed the wound from inside the vein.
The hunger did not subside.
The hole in his stomach was widening. As though, in place of the chest hole closing, a new one had opened in his gut. Saliva pooled again. A taste filled his mouth. Not iron. Not blood. Something he could not name.
Ian raised his head.
He looked at Doctor Jang beyond the bars. Under the kerosene light, the ruined hand putting the syringe away. That hand was trembling. Worse than before.
"Whose blood does this one feed on?"
Ian asked.
Doctor Jang's hand stopped.
He didn't answer.
The kerosene flame sputtered.
In the dark, the amber light in the beast's eyes—hanging from the iron rods—burned. Not hot. Cold. Like fire set on ice. Frigid. Rational.
Doctor Jang picked up the bag and stood. He turned his back. One step. Two steps.
"Doctor Jang."
He stopped at the third.
He didn't turn around.
"Scotch."
Ian said. Low. Cracked. But clear.
"Interest is accruing."
Doctor Jang's shoulders stiffened. One beat. They loosened. He walked on. His footsteps faded. The worn heel of his leather shoe dragging on the stone floor. The medical bag clinking.
The footsteps disappeared.
Only the kerosene lamp remained.
Ian hung from the rods and stared up at the ceiling. The gray light from the vent had grown a shade brighter. Time had moved.
The hole in his chest was closing. Slowly. Coldly. The width it parted on each inhale was shrinking. It was shutting.
His stomach growled.
He was hungry.