Editor’s Survival Guide — Chapter 6
Episode 2. I Thought I Had Escaped (1)
“Rescuee Number Twelve has regained consciousness.”
I turned my head toward the voice.
Everything here was white.
So I thought I might be in a hospital.
That ordinary assumption collapsed the moment I saw the person standing beside me.
The one looking down at me was not a doctor or nurse, but a person encased in a protective suit.
It was nothing but pure white protective gear, without so much as a single strand of hair visible.
“Are you coming around? Can you see this?”
The person in the protective suit asked while waving a ballpoint pen before my eyes.
But the motion was far too perfunctory.
It didn’t seem as though my condition genuinely concerned him.
“Where am I……?”
“Don’t worry, you’re in reality! Fortunately, you made it out alive. All four limbs intact too—not a single thing severed or broken!”
A young man’s voice came from inside the protective suit.
He even volunteered information I hadn’t asked for.
“That was seriously incredible, giving the kid your ticket at the end. And then you went, ‘Pay it back to anyone later’—whew……! It was like watching a movie. I’m telling you, I actually got chills.”
I listened blankly, then sprang upright in alarm.
No—I tried to, and failed.
The moment I lifted my shoulders, the bastard in the protective suit pressed me straight back down.
The act felt closer to subduing me than restraining me, and I protested at once.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t move. The examination isn’t over yet.”
“What examination?”
“We’re measuring your Contamination Level. Let’s see. You’re speaking fine for now, and your pupillary response looks…… mm, it looks all right. Blood pressure and pulse are both normal. This part hurts a little, though, doesn’t it?”
“Aagh!”
The man in the protective suit pressed hard on my left shoulder.
Precisely where the fire extinguisher had struck me.
When I writhed in pain, he snickered.
“You’re fine. It’s only an abrasion.”
Utterly dumbfounded, I stared at the protective suit.
Then, laughter mixed into his voice, the man inside said,
“Rescuee, no one would have blamed you even if you had ridden out on the train. Naturally, your own life matters most. Right?”
What was this about all of a sudden?
“So none of us expected much either, but then you put the kid first and even made it out alive yourself. You had all of us excited for the first time in ages! We spend every day watching nothing but sickening things, and then, for once, we got an entire superhero movie. So hold still for just a little while. We can’t quite treat you like a hero, but we’ll show you a reasonable degree of courtesy.”
He called it courtesy while jabbing me right where I was injured…….
I was dumbfounded, but I pressed myself back against the bed for now.
I had caught a glimpse while trying to sit up, and I was in no position to argue at the moment.
Instead of clothes, I had some scrap of cloth draped over my body.
The sort of surgical patient gown that would leave me naked if a single tie came undone.
Facing someone in full protective gear while dressed like this gave me the distinct impression that something had gone terribly wrong.
So I calmed myself first and asked the protective suit,
“Is that girl here too?”
“You mean Sol? Yes, she made it out safely too.”
“Where are my clothes?”
“Scheduled for incineration. Did you have something important in them?”
“Incineration?”
“You might have brought something out on them.”
It was absurd, but I had no rebuttal.
So I let the minor issue pass and asked the more important question.
“How am I alive?”
My last memory was of Sol boarding the train in my place.
And of the black shapes mercilessly crushing me beneath them.
I could still vividly feel the pressure from that moment.
The rough texture of those black shapes too, along with their acrid, gamey stench.
Surviving was stranger than dying would have been.
The man in the protective suit answered my question.
“We don’t know.”
“What?”
“That’s why we’re analyzing you. We can’t make heads or tails of how you managed to return alive either.”
Beep—
At that moment, a machine sounded beside us.
The man in the protective suit glanced at the monitor next to the bed, then spoke into a radio.
“Contamination Level measurement complete. Normal.”
Who was he reporting to?
Click—
Then a door some distance away opened.
What came through was not a person, but a serving robot.
It rolled naturally toward me, carrying clothing instead of food.
“Once you’ve changed, the person in charge of you will come and collect you.”
The person in charge?
That explanation left a great deal unsaid, but the man in the protective suit was already gathering his things.
Then, before turning away, he gave me an incomprehensible thumbs-up.
“You’ve got this, Rescuee!”
Encouragement just as incomprehensible.
Afterward, the man in the protective suit left through the door the serving robot had entered.
With deep misgivings, I unfolded the delivered clothes.
They were a gray tracksuit, divided into top and bottoms.
I really had been rescued, hadn’t I?
Setting aside my confusion, I pulled on the trousers first.
I was pushing my head through the collar of the T-shirt when another door flew open.
“Seo Do-un.”
The man who opened it called my name from the doorway.
He was a tall man dressed in a black tactical vest, perhaps a security officer for this place.
Unlike the man in the protective suit, who had behaved as lightly as though a gust might carry him away, this man spoke in a voice devoid of both emotion and inflection.
“Follow me.”
At the weight of his voice, I rose for the moment.
I slipped into the sandals beneath the bed and stepped through the door, emerging into a broad corridor.
Its atmosphere resembled a hospital.
But it was far larger than an ordinary hospital and far more desolate.
There were not even any windows.
What was more, even after ten minutes of walking, the same corridor continued without end.
“Where are we going right now?”
At my question, the man stopped abruptly.
At the same moment, the ivory wall beside us suddenly vanished.
No—it became transparent.
What? Had this not been a wall, but something like a two-way mirror?
Beyond the now-transparent wall, I saw a spacious room.
Like the place where I had awakened, it was entirely white, with only a single bed sitting forlornly inside.
And a girl in that room saw me and ran over.
Who was—no, was that Lee Sol?
The person running toward me was none other than Sol.
What? Why was she also……?
Like I had been a short while ago, Sol had a scrap of surgical cloth draped over her body.
Seeing her from an observer’s perspective gave me an abrupt sense that something was deeply wrong.
One bed in that vast space, and a single person in surgical clothing.
It was difficult to regard this as an ordinary medical facility.
Didn’t it look like a place where they might conduct some kind of experiment?
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A strange chill passed through me as I looked at Lee Sol.
Aside from her clothing, at least, she appeared unharmed.
That much was clear from the way she came racing over.
Sol reached the glass wall and shouted something.
But the soundproofing was so thorough that I couldn’t hear her at all.
Bzzzt—!
Then an electronic noise sounded beside me.
—……jussi! Can you hear me?
At the same time, Sol’s voice came through, mixed with static.
When I looked over, the man was holding a radio with an impassive expression.
Sol’s voice was coming from that radio.
Apparently, he meant to let Sol and me speak.
I looked between the man and Sol, then answered.
“Yeah, I hear you.”
—Ahjussi, are you okay? Do you know how scared I was? I really thought you were dead!
The moment I answered, Sol burst out shouting.
Before long, however, the corners of her eyes reddened and she lowered her head.
—Ah, seriously…… thank goodness…….
At Sol’s choked voice, I too released a breath of relief.
Only now did it feel real.
We were alive. Both of us.
“Are you okay?”
—I don’t really know. I think I’m okay, but the people here keep…….
Sol sniffled as she answered my question.
But her words cut off abruptly.
When I looked beside me, the man had already switched off the radio and was putting it away.
“Lee Sol requested to see you so she could confirm your condition. Now follow me again.”
When the radio went dead, Sol frantically pounded the wall.
But the wall had already turned opaque ivory once more.
Sol was no longer visible.
I remained stubbornly in place as though protesting the one-sided cutoff and asked,
“How long does that girl have to stay in there?”
“She will remain in isolation until her safety has been secured.”
But what came back was the most perfunctory of answers.
* * *
“Yes, I understand it went to print. Thank you, Editor-in-Chief. Yes, yes. I’ll contact the author myself later. No, no. Yes.”
I did my utmost to grovel into the phone.
I had no choice.
When I checked the date, a full three days had passed since the night I left work.
Thanks to that, I had become a bastard who had disappeared without contact and missed work without permission for three days.
All while failing to show up for both the new-release preparations and the author meeting.
Fortunately, the Editor-in-Chief had handled the urgent matters, so the schedule had not been disrupted.
Moreover, for some reason, the official story was that I had been in a traffic accident.
“My condition…… yes…… I’m fine.”
Perhaps because of that, the Editor-in-Chief was actually asking after me instead. Ugh.
My conscience ached as though I were using a lie to evade responsibility.
But this situation was in no way less serious than a traffic accident, so I would accept the compromise for now.
“Yes. I’ll contact you when I’m discharged.”
I ended the call and placed the borrowed phone on the desk.
The person sitting across from me calmly retrieved it.
It was the same man who had escorted me here.
Seen properly face-to-face, the man was remarkably—no, extraordinarily handsome.
He had perfectly proportioned, wolfish features, stood close to 190 centimeters tall, and possessed a muscular body that showed the signs of constant training.
In several respects, he looked too exceptional to be an ordinary civilian.
But regardless of how handsome he was, his frigid air made it difficult to feel any fondness for him.
What was surprisingly incongruous was his long hair.
Given his rigid demeanor, a military buzz cut seemed as though it ought to suit him.
For some reason, however, he had twisted his shoulder-length hair into something resembling a topknot.
Yet even that gave no impression of vanity or laxity.
If anything, it made him resemble a member of some suspicious organization operating above the law.
Still, since they had let me contact my company, perhaps this wasn’t an entirely sinister world after all.
As I silently gauged the atmosphere, the topknotted man spoke.
“There are several things we need to confirm. Please cooperate.”
But what came from his mouth was not the kind of statement I had expected.
“Before that, where am I?”
“You will be provided with a video orientation later. Please ask your questions then.”
“Shouldn’t you at least tell me who you are?”
“I belong to the government.”
The topknotted man answered perfunctorily.
Then, without giving me time to ask again, he continued.
“Do you remember what happened after you put Lee Sol on the train?”
“I don’t.”
“Did you hear any sound or have any dreams?”
I answered reluctantly, then knitted my brow.
A sound? A dream?
I didn’t remember.
And yet I felt as though I might have dreamed something.
“That will do. Then please describe what happened while you were bartering with the 「Something Wearing an Old-Style Uniform」.”
“What part do you want me to explain?”
“Your barter succeeded on the fourth attempt. We would like to know what led you to use the book in your possession as the item of exchange.”
I considered the man’s question, then frowned faintly.
“……You watched all of that?”
“Monitoring is conducted at all times.”
“Then why didn’t you come rescue us?”
“Our response followed the manual.”
The manual?
I repeated the man’s answer in my head, then challenged him.
“You’re telling me your manual says to stand by and watch while people die?”
“An uncooperative attitude may delay your return home.”
The man spoke as though I were a nuisance.
For a moment, I was left speechless.
That living hell I had crawled out of was supposedly a zone managed by the government.
Several people had died inside it, yet this man claiming to belong to the government had simply watched.
He even said that was the manual.
Appalled, I stared at him.
He met my gaze for a moment, then placed a bag on the table.
With mechanical movements, he opened it and showed me the contents.
“This is the compensation scheduled to be paid to you, Seo Do-un.”
Inside were stacks upon stacks of fifty-thousand-won banknotes.
“However, at my discretion, either the amount of compensation or the date of payment may change. Will you cooperate?”
The unexpected fortune left me speechless for an entirely different reason.
It looked like tens of millions—no, hundreds of millions of won.
I stared at the money, then opened my mouth again.
“……What was the question?”