Scene 1. Yeonhwa, Spilling
The ceiling tore open above his head.
The blast was not what came first. Before sound could catch up, air arrived. All the air in the room sucked inward in one direction, then the next instant blew outward. Lee Kang's ears burst. Something shredded inside his eardrums, and with that sensation, every sound in the world sank underwater.
From far away—very far away—the boom reached him.
His body lifted off the floor. Still in its kneeling posture. The shockwave struck his back, shoved him toward the ceiling, then slammed him back down. Tile cracked. Broken shards dug beneath his ribs.
His pupils turned upward.
The ceiling was collapsing. Concrete fell in chunks. Rebar showed through. Beyond it, something red. Flames. Fire was spreading somewhere on the factory's upper floors. Not one point. Several, simultaneously.
The tank shuddered.
The massive glass wall convulsed once. The metal frame screamed. Yellow liquid inside sloshed wildly, and the silver bell's chime scattered within it. Something urgent threaded through the broken sound.
A crack ran through the glass.
A chunk of concrete from the ceiling had grazed the tank's top. From one corner of the glass wall, a fracture shot downward like lightning. A dull, sharp sound. The crack widened. Another branch spread sideways.
"—ah."
Lee Kang's lips moved.
"No."
His torso sprang up. His broken ribs protested, but his body refused to hear them. To the tank. From where he had been kneeling to directly beneath the glass wall. His hands pressed against the crack.
He was trying to hold it. With his hands. One pair of hands against the fracture of a massive glass wall.
Of course it did not hold.
The glass burst.
What touched his face first were shards. Sharp glass fragments scraped across his forehead, his cheeks, his nape, scattering in all directions. What came next was the liquid. Cloudy yellow liquid poured out. All at once. An entire wall of the tank collapsed, and everything trapped inside erupted outward.
A yellow waterfall.
Over his face. Over his shoulders. Over his chest. Not hot. Not cold. Slightly below body temperature—a strangely familiar warmth the instant it touched human skin. The liquid covered his eyes, flowed into his mouth, soaked the skin beneath his open coat.
The lilac exploded.
The fragrance became not air but a wall. It drove deep into his lungs. He could not choose not to inhale. He had no choice but to breathe.
Lee Kang's brain translated it.
Blood.
Yeonhwa's blood. Yeonhwa was hurt. She was spilling. Onto the floor. Onto the tile. Onto this filthy, garbage-strewn floor. His hands groped the ground. Blood was spreading from where his nails had torn away. With those hands, he tried to gather the yellow liquid pooling on the floor.
It ran between his fingers.
"Don't... spill."
His voice was submerged. As though drowned in water. His ears had not yet recovered from the blast, so his own voice reached him on a delay.
"Don't spill."
He lay prone and swept the liquid together with his palms. What he gathered slipped through his fingers. He swept again. It slipped again. A low panting leaked from his mouth. Close to the sound a beast makes discovering its wounded young.
A canteen.
His brain sparked one beat late. The corpse in the corridor. The man with the broken neck. The steel canteen strapped to his belt. Lee Kang's body moved. He crawled on all fours across the tile. His knees ground into broken glass. No time to register it. Out into the corridor, collapsing on top of the corpse. He tore the canteen from the man's belt. Bit the cap off with his teeth.
Came back.
The extraction room floor still held a puddle of yellow liquid. That puddle was following the tile's slope, trickling toward the drain. Shrinking one hand-span at a time.
Lee Kang lay the canteen on its side against the floor.
He pressed the mouth of the bottle to the puddle. Liquid flowed in. Slowly. Too slowly. He scooped the puddle toward the bottle's mouth with his hands. The skin of his palms sliced open on broken glass. Blood spread. His blood and the yellow liquid mixed on the floor. He swept the mixture into the canteen as it was.
Another chunk of concrete fell from above. Right beside his back. Debris flew and tore his temple. Half his face turned red. He did not raise his head.
"I'll—"
His breath hitched.
"I'll get it all."
The canteen filled to one-third. To one-half. His hands swept the floor without ceasing. He dug with his fingers into the cracks between tiles to coax out the liquid that had seeped in. The lilac fragrance was fading. The puddle on the floor had shrunk to its final hand-span.
Lee Kang may have licked it off the floor.
Even looking back later, he would not remember. In that posture, on all fours, lowering his face over the last of the liquid. The instant the tip of his tongue touched tile. The taste that spread through his mouth. Thick. Yellow. Yeonhwa's.
When he raised his head, the corners of his mouth glistened yellow.
He closed the cap. With his teeth. His hands shook too badly to align it with both. The cap seated itself. He pushed the canteen into the inner pocket of his coat. Against his chest. In the place nearest his heart.
Only then did his eyes take in the surroundings.
Half the extraction room's ceiling had caved in. The tank was half-destroyed. Flames were entering from the corridor. The air was hot. The smell of burning skin. Whether his own or someone else's, he could not tell.
Lee Kang stood.
The motion was not human. From four legs to two. His spine extended in reverse, then returned to its proper curve. The canteen inside his coat pressed against his chest. That weight was the only warm thing left on his body.
A different smell pushed in from the corridor.
Gunpowder. The stench of burning flesh.
And beneath it, something older and more primal.
The reek of blood.
Scene 2. Walking on Four Legs
The corridor was hell.
Lee Kang's foot met the tile. The tile was no longer tile. Fire climbed the walls. The floor was a tangle of concrete chunks, rebar, and shattered glass tanks. The dough that had floated inside the tanks had spilled out and been crushed across the floor. The remains of flesh curled in the heat of the flames, sending up greasy, acrid smoke.
Lee Kang's eyes saw these things.
Saw them but did not see. The scenery that entered his vision never reached his brain. Sensation was severed. His hearing was gone too. The continuous roar of collapse from the far end of the corridor reached the inside of his eardrums as a muffled drone behind a thin membrane.
Lee Kang walked.
His steps were slow. One. Another. Flames licked the hem of his coat. The edge of the black fabric singed slightly. He did not feel it. A fallen slab of concrete grazed his shoulder. His body did not dodge. It simply kept walking.
Whether the drug from the extraction room still held, he could not tell. The bone-twisting had stopped. But what had moved into the space where the twisting had been—that, too, he could not tell. His body was moving, but what drove that movement, Lee Kang himself did not know.
The canteen in his coat's inner pocket struck his chest with each step.
Dully. Dully. In rhythm.
Matching Lee Kang's heartbeat.
He was roughly halfway down the corridor.
The texture of the air changed.
Inside the burnt-powder tang and the greasy smoke of charring flesh, something else raised its head. Rich in iron. Acrid. Hot.
Lee Kang's feet stopped.
His ears were still dead, yet this smell was audible. His sense of smell had commandeered every other sense. His nostrils flared, barely. Once. Twice. Drawing in air, tracing the smell to its source. Left. Past the corner where the corridor turned.
Lee Kang's amber pupils opened.
Wide.
His stride moved again. Not the slow walk of moments before. A beast's gait. His waist lowered slightly. His knees bent deeper. The way his feet met the floor changed. What had been heel-first was now toe-first. No sound. Through the flames, over the concrete debris, his feet moved as though touching nothing.
The corner drew near.
The smell thickened. The blood had not yet cooled. Very recently. Just now. The temperature of what a heart had just pumped. Lee Kang's salivary glands burst in unison. Saliva pooled. His jaw opened once, then closed. Even clamped shut, his teeth sought each other. Clack. Clack.
He saw past the corner.
A young man.
His lower half was pinned beneath concrete rubble. A face of perhaps twenty years. Worker's clothes. A strip of black cloth wrapped around his head. Soot on his face, dried blood at the corner of his mouth. His left thigh was torn open. Beneath the stripped-away fabric, a thick vessel was exposed, and in rhythm with—meaning the heart was still beating—it was pumping something hot.
In the young man's arms was a bag. Inside the half-open bag, black bundles with fuses were visible. Unexploded charges. So this man—this man had just detonated it. This factory. This hell.
Lee Kang did not think any of that.
Lee Kang's vision was not looking at the young man's face or the bag. It was fixed solely on the torn thigh's vessel. The red stream pouring from it onto the floor. The warmth of that stream.
Lee Kang took one more step.
The young man moved. His eyelids trembled and opened. Blurred pupils turned toward Lee Kang.
Lee Kang's jaw opened. Very slightly. A preparatory motion. Readying to bare his teeth. From deep in his throat, a growl climbed upward. This time he did not suppress it. He had no strength left to suppress.
The young man's mouth moved.
Scene 3. Comrade
"...Com—"
Blood-foam rose from the young man's throat.
The word could not finish. The young man coughed. Something red flowed from the corner of his mouth and dripped from his chin. He opened his mouth once more. This time the sound came louder. Still barely a whisper.
"Comrade."
Lee Kang's stride stopped.
Two steps away. Close enough to reach with an outstretched hand. Closer still if he reached with his teeth. Lee Kang stood frozen at that distance. The young man's eyes were looking at Lee Kang's face. Looking, yet not seeing what that face had become. His focus was half-gone.
The young man's gaze moved to Lee Kang's clothes.
The coat hung open. Beneath it, dark marks showed on exposed skin. Whip scars. Procedure scars. Needle tracks. And traces stained by yellow liquid. How Lee Kang appeared in the young man's eyes—Lee Kang could tell.
A prisoner.
One of the victims of this hell. A Korean who had been caged here. A countryman half-dead trying to escape.
The young man's hand moved. His left. A hand drenched in blood. It pressed against the floor and reached toward Lee Kang. Almost no strength remained. His fingers crawled like insects and touched the hem of Lee Kang's trousers.
It was hot.
The temperature from the young man's hand climbed up through Lee Kang's ankle. A palmful of warm blood. That blood soaked Lee Kang's trousers. Through the thin fabric, the heat reached skin.
Lee Kang's jaw spasmed again.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The young man did not hear. The sound of Lee Kang's teeth finding each other.
"...hur... ry..."
The young man found his breath.
"Before... it's too late."
Blood pumped out once more. From the torn place on his thigh. His body flinched once, then went slack. Still his eyes would not release Lee Kang.
"Run... sir."
Lee Kang did not answer.
He could not. If he opened his mouth, he did not know what would come out. It might be a growl instead of words. Or something worse. An opened mouth that would not close again and would turn toward the young man's nape. Half his body was already tilting that direction. Half his weight pitched forward. One step. Half a step more and he could have it. The place he would bite, not yet cooled.
The young man's fingers gripped Lee Kang's trouser hem tight. The strength of that grip was fading.
"Korea..."
The young man's lips moved. Almost no sound.
"...needs people... like you..."
Lee Kang's eyes were fixed on the young man's nape. The hollow beneath the collarbone. The artery beating there. The rhythm of blood pushed by a heart still alive.
"...people who—"
Lee Kang's torso tilted forward. Not by intent. His body moved first. Teeth showed.
The young man looked up at Lee Kang.
In those eyes, Lee Kang's face was reflected. Amber pupils. Bared canines. Dried yellow stains at the corners of his mouth. Blood trailing down his cheek.
The young man's eyes wavered for an instant.
But the waver did not last. His mouth moved once more. This time in the shape of a smile. Both corners of his lips lifted, barely. A small smile made on a blood-soaked face.
"...please... live."
The young man's fingers released Lee Kang's trouser hem.
The growl in Lee Kang's throat surged once, loud—then caught. Lee Kang's body pulled back. Half a step. Not a conscious motion. The moment the young man's hand let go, Lee Kang's center of gravity drifted rearward.
Lee Kang looked down at the young man.
The young man's eyes were still open. Still watching Lee Kang. Lee Kang could not know what he appeared as now. A comrade. Someone who must be saved. Someone who must survive.
Lee Kang's tongue swept the inside of his own mouth. Saliva still pooled. The aftertaste of yellow clung to his palate. The smell of the young man's blood still filled his nose. One step. Half a step. Lunge and he could have it. The place where he would bite, still warm.
Lee Kang's teeth closed.
He forced his jaw shut. His tongue caught between his teeth. Blood tasted. His own this time. That taste held him still one beat longer. The yellow aftertaste inside his mouth, his own blood, and the blood of a stranger in the air—all mixed together.
He dropped his gaze to the floor. So he would not see the young man's face.
"—"
His lips parted, then closed. No sound emerged. Something that was neither apology nor answer nor gratitude circled in his throat, then was swallowed back down.
Then—
The ceiling shuddered.
Scene 4. Teeth
It was not the boom of an explosion.
A different kind of sound. Something moving fast across the ceiling above. Like a four-legged beast sprinting over sheet metal. The sound came from three directions. One from the center. One from Lee Kang's left. One from farther right.
Lee Kang's head rose slowly.
The collapsed hole in the ceiling. Where concrete had been torn away, opening into black darkness. From inside that darkness, something was looking down.
Eyes came first.
Amber.
The same color as Lee Kang's. But larger, brighter, more desolate. The placement of the pupils was wrong. Not two. Three. The left eye sat in its proper place. The right sat on the opposite side. And in the center of the forehead, one more. Three amber lights looked down at Lee Kang simultaneously from the darkness.
It dropped.
One shadow leaped from the ceiling. Leaped was the wrong word—poured. From roughly three stories up. Landing the way a cat does. When it touched the floor, there was no sound. Its joints absorbed the body's full weight perfectly.
Three meters in front of Lee Kang.
A monster.
It had the outline of a person. Two arms, two legs. One head. That was where it ended. Every proportion was wrong. The arms were too long. Fingertips hung below the knees. Shoulders narrow and hunched, with no neck. The head sat directly on the shoulders. Skin was pale, and beneath it, muscle fibers knotted in deformed patterns. The feet—if they could be called feet—had only four toes each, and every one curved like a hook, digging into the tile.
The mouth was split in two.
A double jaw. Outer and inner. Between them, teeth showed in two rows. Saliva dripped.
A second shadow dropped. Behind Lee Kang's left.
A third dropped. At the far end of the corridor.
Lee Kang was surrounded.
His brain calculated the fact. On one side. On the other side—a completely different calculation was running. Not mathematics but smell. The scent that came from these three beasts. The same kind of thing that coursed through Lee Kang's own veins. Faintly. But unmistakably.
Kin.
Stamped out of the same factory.
Three sets of amber watched Lee Kang. One of them looked past him. Toward the young man's body. The first monster's head tilted once. The way a beast sniffs. And then—
It leaped.
The monster launched itself. Too fast. Lee Kang's vision could not track it. Past him, to the place where the young man lay. Lower half pinned beneath concrete. The face that had been looking up at Lee Kang just moments ago.
The monster's foot came down on the young man's torso.
Crushed it.
A sound. Like the burst of a watermelon mixed with the snap of breaking bone. Heavy, wet, a rupturing. The young man's chest flattened. His head snapped in a wrong direction. Something flew upward. Bone fragments. And something smaller, softer. Gray-white.
One piece landed on Lee Kang's cheek.
It was hot.
Lee Kang did not move. Could not move. Time stopped. Inside Lee Kang's field of vision, the young man's pulped form settled slowly—very slowly. The warmth of the piece on his cheek seeped into his skin. His tongue moved reflexively. It did not reach his cheek, but it swept across the corner of his mouth once. Over the yellow stain already there, something else had landed.
Lee Kang's nostrils flared.
The smell of what had been crushed. The smell of a heart that had been beating moments ago. The smell of lungs that had been breathing moments ago. The smell of the mouth that had just said please live to Lee Kang.
Over that smell—the monster's smell.
Lee Kang's amber pupils opened completely.
The black vanished. Both eyes flooded entirely with amber. His pupils tore into vertical slits. Lee Kang's jaw opened. This time, not to form human words.
Grrrrr.
A low vibration climbed from the deepest part of his throat. Low and heavy enough that the flames in the corridor seemed to shudder with it.
The first monster raised its head. From atop what it had trampled. The young man's flesh still crushed beneath its foot. Three amber lights turned toward Lee Kang. The second and third did the same. Six amber lights. Nine eyes.
The corners of Lee Kang's lips peeled back. Both canines fully bared. Between his teeth, a single line of blood—from the tongue he had just bitten—trailed down. Along his jaw.
The canteen in his coat's inner pocket sat heavy over his heart.
On top of that weight—beneath it—Lee Kang's heart was beating. In the same rhythm the young man's heart had pumped moments before. But the target of that blood had already changed. Not thirst. Intent to kill.
This is my hunting ground.
There were no words. Language had been stripped away. Lee Kang's body spoke it through reaction. His waist dropped low. His knees bent. One hand touched the floor. A posture close to four legs. The posture of a beast preparing to spring.
The first monster's double jaw opened. The inner jaw's teeth rose above the outer jaw's teeth. Saliva dripped. Hit the floor. One drop of saliva dissolved the tile. Hiss, it went.
Lee Kang's growl dropped lower.
Flames burned along both walls of the corridor. Concrete continued to fall from the collapsed ceiling. The young man's corpse lay crushed underfoot. The remaining charges inside the bag rolled uneasily in the heat.
Six amber lights faced each other.
In a place where language did not exist.