The dim bulb hanging overhead flickered once, twice, before casting long, twisted shadows across the damp concrete walls.
Jongsuk lay motionless on his side, his breath coming in shallow, faint gasps. Standing directly over his limp form, the phantom figure looked down with eyes that held no warmth, no pity. He didn't rush to leave. Instead, he leaned down slowly, his dark coat brushing against the dust on the floor, his voice dropping into a smooth, terrifying whisper that seemed to cling to the stagnant air.
"What did you think, Jongsuk? Did you really think you could find me? No... you can't. It's me who can find you everywhere. So don't worry... I'll come for you again."
Without another word, the man straightened up, stepped over Jongsuk's collapsed body, and vanished into the darkness of the long hallway, his leather boots clicking softly against the concrete until the sound faded completely.
On the opposite side of the underground facility, inside the cramped, dark wooden cabinet, Jae Ahn's heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird. She held her breath until her lungs burned, her eyes glued to the thin crack between the louvers. She strained with everything she had to see the six-foot-tall man in the black coat, but the heavy shadows inside the secret room hid his face from view.
Suddenly, frantic shouts echoed from the main arena outside the corridor.
"Hurry up! Some outsiders are here! Find them! Find them!"
Instantly, the men inside the office panicked. They abandoned whatever they were doing, rushing out through the door to join the search.
The moment the room emptied, Jae Ahn didn't care about the documents on the desk anymore. She didn't care about the six-foot man. Her first, her only thought was Jongsuk.
She burst out of the cabinet, gasping for air, her knees nearly buckling under her own weight as her chest heaved. She sprinted into the dark hallway, her boots slapping against the floor as her eyes searched every shadow.
"Jongsuk... Jongsuk, where are you?" she whimpered under her breath, her voice trembling.
She reached the edge of the hallway near the back section. There, collapsed against the cold, stained floor, was a figure.
Jae Ahn's world stopped.
It was Jongsuk. He was lying on his side, completely unmoving. Blood dark, wet, and terrifyingly thick~was everywhere. It soaked the collar of his shirt, pooled on the dusty floor, and covered his hands.
Jae Ahn didn't remember crossing the space between them. One second she was at the corner, and the next, she was falling hard onto her knees beside him. Her hands hovered over his chest, shaking violently~afraid to touch him for fear of making the damage worse, but terrified not to touch him at all.
"Jongsuk." The word came out thin, fragile, and strange. "Jongsuk, please... please."
His eyes didn't open. He didn't groan. The only sound in the suffocating corridor was the hitching, broken sound of her own breath.
Driven by pure panic, Jae Ahn hooked her arms under his shoulders, trying to lift his heavy weight. She pulled out her phone with shaking fingers to call Do Hwan, but the screen flashed NO SERVICE. The basement was a complete dead zone.
"Dammit! Dammit!" she cried out, adjusting her grip to drag Jongsuk toward the exit as quickly as possible.
She turned the corner toward the main corridor, but suddenly, heavy, aggressive footsteps echoed against the walls. Five men the security guards hunting down the outsiders skidded to a halt, completely blocking her path.
"There they are! Grab them!" one of them shouted.
Jae Ahn paused. Carefully, gently, she lowered Jongsuk into the shadowed corner of the wall, ensuring he was protected from what was about to happen.
When she stood back up and turned around, something in her eyes died. The frantic, terrified girl was gone. In her place, a cold, lethal darkness surged to the surface.
That creepy, sharp smirk stretched across Jae Ahn's face a smile that had vanished for years, but somehow, this horror woke the old Jae Ahn back up. She knew exactly what was going to happen next.
The five men closed in, surrounding her in the tight hallway. The first guard lunged forward, throwing a heavy side-kick straight toward her chest. Jae Ahn didn't flinch. She blocked the kick smoothly with her arm, using his own momentum against him, and spun her entire body into a blinding, lightning-fast tornado kick.
CRACK!
The heel of her boot caught him square on the jaw, knocking him out cold before he even hit the floor.
The remaining four guards rushed her at once, trying to overwhelm her with brute strength. One swung a wild punch toward her temple; Jae Ahn ducked beneath his arm, grabbed his elbow, and drove her palm straight up into his ribs. Another tried to grab her from behind, but she drove her heel down on his foot, pulled his collar, and threw him headfirst into the concrete wall. Her fight moves are too brutal.
They tried to finish her, throwing heavy blows from every angle, but Jae Ahn controlled all five of them so smoothly, so effortlessly, that not a single strike landed on her. She dodged, redirected, and countered with brutal precision, leaving all five men groaning unconscious on the floor without a single scratch on her own body.
With the hallway cleared, she picked Jongsuk back up. Carrying him was brutally hard, his dead weight pulling at her aching shoulders, but she hauled him through the side door and out of that illegal facility as fast as humanly possible.
She threw him into the passenger seat of her car, jumped behind the wheel, and tore into the night. She slammed her foot down on the gas pedal, increasing the speed higher and higher, weaving through streets while using one hand to shake Jongsuk's shoulder.
"Jongsuk! Wake up! Look at me!" she screamed over the engine.
She redialed Do Hwan over and over until the line finally connected. "Do Hwan!" she yelled into the phone, her voice frantic. "I have Jongsuk! He's hurt badly he lost so much blood! We are heading to the hospital right now!"
She hung up, continuing to call Jongsuk's name out loud just to keep him conscious.
When she finally arrived at the hospital, she rushed through the emergency doors, calling for doctors to bring a gurney.
The bleak, sterile smell of the hospital hit her nostrils the moment they wheeled Jongsuk into the Operating Theatre. That smell didn't make Jae Ahn feel peaceful... it brought back horrific memories. Her breath reached out, shallow and frantic, but she forced herself to control it.
"Why?" she muttered to the empty corridor wall, her voice breaking. "Why is it bringing me to the same situation again and again? Why won't this leave me... why?"
Outside the OT doors, Jae Ahn stood alone. Her eyes didn't tear up, but her hollow gaze told the whole story. She took a deep, shaky breath, fighting with everything she had not to lose control of herself.
"Everything is going to be okk... everything is going to be okk," she whispered to herself.
Footsteps echoed down the hall. Do Hwan and Eunwoo came running toward her, out of breath.
"Heyyy! What happened to him?!" Do Hwan asked, his face white with panic. "Didn't he just go to check the incident place? Then when did this happen, and how?!"
Jae Ahn explained everything that happened at the fight club in short, clipped sentences.
Do Hwan's worry instantly exploded into raw anger. "Why the hell did you have to go there?!" he yelled at her. "Did you want to find everything in one day?! Fine... but at what cost...?!"
He glared at her, furious that she had put Jongsuk's life in such extreme danger.
The moment Do Hwan shouted, that dark, terrifying voice started echoing inside Jae Ahn's head again:
"You're the reason... you did everything. Why did every bad thing happen to you? You're a murderer... you... are... a murderer..."
Jae Ahn gasped for air, clutching her skull. Eunwoo immediately stepped in, grabbing his sister's hands to calm her down.
"Big sis, are you ok?" Eunwoo asked softly. Then he looked at her pleadingly. "Please don't be mad at Do Hwan..."
"I'm not," Jae Ahn choked out, her voice barely a whisper.
At that moment, the doctor came out from the OT, pulling off his surgical mask. "He's out of danger," the doctor said. "But he needs rest because he lost a lot of blood, so he needs time to recover."
That relief flashed in Jae Ahn's eyes she didn't have to say a word, but her expression shifted instantly.
"Can we see him?" Do Hwan asked.
"No," the doctor replied. "You all can see him when we transfer him into the ICU. Excuse me."
With that, the doctor walked back inside.
Jongsuk still didn't regain consciousness.
Standing in the quiet corridor, Do Hwan felt a wave of guilt wash over her. I didn't have to tell her like that, he thought to himself, feeling terrible for saying those ruthless things to Jae Ahn. But his pride kept him silent, and he didn't apologize out loud.
Eunwoo turned to Jae Ahn gently. "Big sis, Do Hwan and I are going to get his prescribed medicine. We'll be right back, okkk? If you need anything, call us."
Inside the ICU, once they moved him, there was only silence and the heavy smell of medicine. Jongsuk lay unconscious on the bed, attached to monitors. That suffocating atmosphere affected Jae Ahn deeply. She wanted a shoulder to cry on so badly, but there was no one there for her.
She stood beside his bed, looking down at his pale face.
"All I did was to keep you safe..." she whimpered, her voice cracking as tears filled her eyes. "Today, or years ago... all I did was keep you safe... cause you're the only family member I had left. How could I let anything happen to you...?"
Her knees gave out slightly. "Please... pl...ease... ple...ase..."
Although it's all my mistake... it's my mistake...
The dark voice started echoing in her head again, louder and more vicious:
"You're the murderer. You're the reason everything happened. You... only you."
She almost fell to the floor, but then a sharp, violent noise exploded in her ears a loud ring... ring sound, high-pitched beep sounds continuously ringing inside her skull out of nowhere.
"Jaeahn... Jaeahn... Jaeahn..."
Suddenly, thick red blood started to flow from her nose, dripping onto her shaking hands. Her fingers trembled uncontrollably as the room spun in a blur of blinding white light.
Everything went completely blank in front of Jae Ahn's eyes.
As her body went limp and hit the cold ICU floor, a terrified scream shattered the silence from behind:
"JAEAHNNNNNNNNN!"