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Since S.E. had a front gate, it probably had a back gate as well, and it seemed like I had broken one and gotten out of one of the old, unused side doors. No, I hadn’t broken it, the man had melted it. I looked around, and the sight of a rugged mountain dense with trees spread out before me made all the high-end facilities I’d seen so far look silly.
I had heard rumours that S.E. was built by carving out a whole mountain. It was said that Mount Achung, where S.E. was located, was a national security zone where civilian entrance was controlled and that even airplanes were not allowed to fly over it. People held a big interest in S.E., but with so little known about it, all sorts of rumours spread out. I wasn’t really interested, so I only listened to them in passing, but it seemed as though the real S.E. was more like a village in a large forest than I had expected. The round walls went on with no apparent end, sideways and upwards. Suddenly, what had happened inside seemed like a dream.
I didn’t know where to go first, so I hiked up a mountain with no path. Looking for a road where people and cars pass by, I realised I didn’t seem like someone running away. I didn’t know how the man who was breaking and melting iron was defending himself, but no one came out of the molten door. My speed wasn’t improving at all, but I figured it would be faster than walking, so I ran. However, I soon ran out of strength to run, so I walked. I walked at such a crawl that I could pull grass from the bare ground, but something was strange. Why was it so easy? It was as if someone was pushing me in the back to run away. Yeah, the man did push me in the back.
In the movies, even if you managed to escape, there’d be a helicopter or something flying around, brightly lighting up the area as it chased after you, but my surroundings were very quiet. I could only hear the sounds of my footsteps, my breathing, birds singing, and leaves rustling in the wind. It was as if nothing was happening. It was to the point where I had no idea what I was doing and no sense of reality. Were they thinking that there was no need to chase me anymore, as if they’d never been guarded against me in the first place? No, maybe they weren’t even guarded against me. If there were that many people out there who could melt iron, then what was the point of handcuffs and prison?
No one was chasing me, but I had to be chased. I didn’t know where to go, and I had no talent whatsoever for running away, but I felt hopeless in front of the reality that I had to move. I grasped the gun in my hand, but I’d never shot it properly before. I’ve had some rough lessons in the past, and I was even shot recently, but I didn’t have the confidence to make an accurate hit. Maybe if I did land an accurate hit on someone, it’d make things worse for me.
As the sun overhead gradually tilted to the west, I heard the sound of a car in the distance. Even as I stood on guard, I hurriedly quickened my footsteps. After a long way down the mountain road, I came to a two-lane road that I couldn’t tell was an expressway or a highway. I was almost moved by the sight, but quickly came back to reality. There were very few cars passing by on the road, and the ones that did pass were going frighteningly fast. The area around the road was as dense with trees as it had been earlier, but there was no sign of human life.
The sun was gradually sinking, and I no longer had the strength to even crawl, so I sat down. I had to hitch a ride with a passing car to get to Cheonwol. However, it didn’t seem like anyone was going to pull over for me. I glanced at the gun in my hand. Rather, as I was unfamiliar with the murder weapon in my hand, it became a threat to me. There was nowhere for me to throw it away, so I just kept it with me in my arms.
I thought of how people would block moving cars with their bodies to stop them. I got up to put it into practise but sat back down after a silver passenger car moving at a speed not unlike that of a race car whizzed past me. It’d be unfair to the person driving if I got hit by their car and died. I’d been experiencing an excessive amount of injustice lately, so I didn’t want to make anyone else feel that way as well.
Eventually, the red in the sky faded, and a black darkness began to fall. The sparse streetlights along the roadside flickered on. Then, in the distance, a truck rattled and slowly approached. It was an old truck, its blue paint peeling in places and dented here and there. I felt some kind of hope. I pushed myself up against my knees and stood up, waving. However, the truck just passed by me with a rattle.
“Damn it.”
I tried to flop back down again, but the truck pulled over. I walked towards the truck. I wanted to show my sincerity with a run, but I didn’t have the energy to do so at all. When I got near the stopped truck on the shoulder of the road, the passenger-side window rolled down. Over the window, I could see a middle-aged man with a good impression, so I greeted him, hopeful. He stared at me before asking, “Are you a student?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Yes.”
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“Cgf sbe ublcu ab Jtfbckbi ys jcs mtjcmf?”
“P’w ublcu rbwfktfgf cfjgys, yea ktja jgf sbe vblcu tfgf jibcf?”
“Ft… P kjr agjnfiilcu jmgbrr atf mbecags bc ylxf, jcv… P ibra atf ylxf…”
It was a ridiculous excuse, but it sounded more convincing than running away from S.E., so I just said whatever came to mind.
“…Get in.”
I hurriedly climbed onto the side of the truck. I sat down on the hard seat and relaxed a little.
“You look like you’ve been starving for three days.”
“…Ah…”
I didn’t know how long I’d been starving, but it seemed to have been three days. Then, I thought of the pudding. I thought of the man who had fed me the pudding as well. I shook my head to shake off the thought.
Then, the man handed me his leftover water bottle. Looking at the water bottle, I was reminded of the man again. I shook my head again, then quickly stopped, worried that the middle-aged man I had finally gotten to give me a lift would think I was crazy. He spoke with a pitying look, “Buy yourself a bowl of rice soup when you get there.”
“…Thank you.”
I gulped down the last of the little water there was. Even though I had emptied it, I tilted the water bottle to get another drop, but there was no more water to wet my tongue.
Had he driven for about an hour? A tollgate appeared. I saw a sentence that said, <Welcome to Ganghae City>. The truck drove through the tollgate and onto the streets of downtown Ganghae. Colourful signs shimmered, and people roamed the streets peacefully. My heart hurt unnecessarily at the sight of such an ordinary scene. I thought that, whether or not I was suffering somewhere, the world continued on just fine. After a while, the truck stopped near an intercity bus terminal.
“I’d wanted to give you a ride all the way to Cheonwol, but I have a delivery to make. Take the bus from here.”
“Thank you.”
I bowed my head. As I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the truck door, the middle-aged man said, “You got fare money?”
Come to think of it, I didn’t even have a penny. I shook my head.
“Buy yourself a bowl of rice soup and pay the fare.”
He handed me two blue bills. I ignored my shame and took them. I bowed again and got out of the truck. The truck disappeared with a rattle again.
When I entered the bus terminal, there were many buses travelling to Cheonwol. There were buses coming every twenty minutes, according to the timetable on one wall. Since Cheonwol and Ganghae weren’t far apart, the fare wasn’t expensive either.
There was a queue of people waiting in front of the window selling bus tickets. I went to the end of it and stood there. However, as my turn gradually approached, I didn’t actually know where to go. If I go to Cheonwol… then, what do I do after that?
At first, I had a vague plan to go back home, but S.E. would probably already know my home address. I no longer wanted to go to Cheonwol, thinking that there might be people from S.E. standing in front of my house or inside it waiting for me. I couldn’t contact my father either, since he was the one who had agreed to the experiments. It hadn’t even been a year since I’d been living in Korea after elementary school, so I didn’t have any friends to contact in this situation either. I looked at the bus schedule again, thinking that I should go to the furthest place from Cheonwol. The bus to Jinhan cost 50,000 won.
“I can’t get any rice soup, huh…”
Even if I didn’t eat any rice soup, I still didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket to Jinhan. Well, even if I suddenly received 30,000 won and somehow got to Jinhan, I would be at a loss for what to do next. Then, a clear voice broke me out of my thoughts.
“Sir? Where are you going?”
The clerk on the other side of the window called out to me. It was already my turn. I now had to buy a bus ticket, I had to go somewhere, but I had nowhere to go.
“…Ah, I apologise.”
I left the window front as if being chased away. The person behind me glanced at me. I sat down on a backless waiting seat for now. Whether it was Cheonwol, Jinhan, or anywhere, would I be able to live while avoiding S.E.? Would I have to leave Korea? Would I be able to get on a plane? What if they checked my arrivals and departures? Then, should I take a boat? How do I stow away? Do I need to forge a passport? Where do I buy a forged passport? Is it expensive? I can’t go to the bank for money, can I? No, stowing away is like secretly getting on a boat, why would I need a passport? But I need money, don’t I? Will S.E. know about my bank transactions as well?
The more I thought about it, the less real it seemed. I rubbed my face with my hands, feeling stupid. Thinking about it, maybe S.E. wasn’t chasing after me anymore. There wasn’t really any point in trying to catch me after I had escaped. I mean, what would they use me for? I wish someone would tell me why, but they weren’t such kind people.
Not too long ago, I was just a normal high school student, and I found my situation bewildering as I somehow managed to get myself chased by a government organisation. I didn’t want to become a member of S.E., but I didn’t have any strong aspirations to run away either, and somehow things seemed to have gotten worse.
I stared at the twenty thousand won in my hand. I needlessly fiddled with the gun in my arms as well. Then, I got up from my seat. I decided to try the rice soup the middle-aged man had mentioned first. I had heard of it but never tried it. Somehow, it seemed like it would suit the current situation well.
When I exited the terminal, I found myself surrounded by restaurants. I entered a rice soup restaurant that claimed to be the original. I looked at the menu for a while and ordered a sundae and rice soup. Soon after, the soup was served in an earthen pot. The meat soup, which I would’ve usually found a bit fishy, tasted better than a three-star Michelin stew. I stuck my head in the bowl and ate for a long time, and before I knew it, the bowl was empty. It suddenly seemed ridiculous that I was eating so well in such a situation. I paid and walked out. The cherry blossoms bloomed beautifully, shining under the streetlights.
I decided to go to Sucheon. I had once heard that Sucheon was my mother’s hometown. I went back into the terminal, queued up at the window, and bought a bus ticket. I looked at the date on the bus ticket and was dumbfounded. It was now April. For three months, I had been pushed to the brink of death several times and suffered from all sorts of experiments. Come to think of it, the weather was warmer than I had last remembered. I didn’t even have the time to think about how the seasons had changed. Touching my hair, I realised it had grown long and shaggy, reaching my shoulders. I grabbed a strand to measure its length and suddenly felt a twisting pain in my stomach. As if my stomach were rejecting the food I had suddenly shoved in, I felt nausea rise up my throat, and I ran to the bathroom to vomit it all out.
“Ah… what am I doing?”
I threw everything up, as if I had never eaten well. I staggered out and looked at myself in the mirror, and what a sight that was. I had dark circles under my eyes, hollow and haggard cheeks, and hair that looked like it had grown whatever way it wanted to grow; I looked like the most wretched of beggars.
My stomach was still churning, but the time for the bus to depart was imminent, so I got on the vehicle. My stomach churned even more as the rattling of the vehicle intensified. I almost didn’t make it back on the bus because I threw up at a rest stop in the middle.
It was dawn when I arrived in Sucheon. All the money I had amounted to a little over 3,000 won. I couldn’t afford a place to stay overnight with this much money. I just walked the deserted early morning streets. I kept going. Then, I no longer had the strength to walk, so I sat down. I closed my eyes because I didn’t have the strength to keep them open.
Poor baby
;;
Yup, they’re definitely testing him