"Hunting is a simple word.
Every living being hunts those weaker than itself.
But what about the merciful? Whom can they touch?"
I was not a fool for thinking these thoughts. The voice of my conscience, about to be suppressed, was overflowing. As the sound of the music I loved was erased from my ears, I could not carry the self of mine trapped between the ramparts. There are regions inside a human that cannot be filled with water and food. As the darkness pierced through me like a master executioner, I felt my foot touch something. I stopped. There was no strength left in my legs. What was this?
On the ground lay a simple wooden box, as I could tell from its texture. I bent down and continued to feel it with my hand. I searched for something like a lock. Before long my hand touched metal. At that moment the lights came on. This soothed my fear a little. On the locking part of the box there was only a latch.
When I lifted the hinge, an envelope appeared before me.
There was nothing written on the face of the white envelope. The inside of the box was filled with emptiness.
My confidence was shattered. Barely moving my fingers, I reached the opening of the envelope. At the same time, I prayed that the light would not go out. It did not. My eyes began to scan the lines with great hunger. I was able to read this:
"If you have found this, know that it means I am dead. How painful it is to speak of this, but I added years to years. Through how many autumns did I wait for which spring? Not every spring brings blossoms, not every rain brings a storm. Sometimes waiting is a lifelong trial. Does this seem unjust to you? It is not. None of what you hold today belongs to you. What will be taken from you never truly belonged to you anyway."
The letter paper began to sway weakly between my fingers. Who had written this? It hurt as if a little salt had been pressed into the wound in my deepest place. It was as though someone had written it in such a way that I felt all the words belonged to me. At that very moment I felt the sting in the corners of my eyes. There was the pain of years there. Just as there were the bruises of years beneath my eyes. After reading the paper a few more times under the trembling lamp light, I continued walking.
I did not leave the envelope there, inside the box.
Instead, I claimed it and put it into my pocket.
Without even knowing what I would do with that envelope.
I began to retrace my steps. I was alone. In this narrow place, I began to have difficulty breathing.
The moment I remembered the sentence never cry, I forgot that I was human.
When I reached the staircase with great difficulty, I lifted my head and looked above me. I climbed the steps. My hands were slipping. When I reached the top, I struck the hatch. The metal rang. I struck it once more. The fear inside me said, "What if this door does not open?" "Then what will happen?" Once again I struck the hatch with my fist in a wretched state. Fortunately, it worked. At that moment footsteps approached, and the hatch was suddenly lifted by someone clearly strong in every respect.
I took a deep breath and tried to swallow. The moment the light touched my eyes, I wanted to smile. When the hatch was moved aside, I came face to face with the weary-looking face of the group leader. He waited for me to free myself from the last step of the staircase and come out. As I looked into his eyes, I wondered, "Does he know about this envelope?" In his gaze, however, there was mostly an indifferent, accustomed-to-everything state.
Since I had to say something, I said, "Thank you. There was food down there."
He looked at my face without reaction, as if he had not understood what I said.
Then he turned his back and began to walk away.
As the rest of the group, like robots, moved in the other direction, I saw the familiar figure leaning his back against the wall. Even in the coldness of his distant gaze, it was as if someone deep and thoughtful was hidden.
Sis withdrew his gaze from the group leader and directed it at me. That coldness had not diminished for even a moment. An air current of unknown origin settled between the ramparts.
As my hair scattered with the effect of the wind, Sis ceased to be a small dot and began approaching me. Was he going to say something? Since being rebellious would gain nothing, I moved toward him as well, though my heart was pounding hard. At that moment the light dimmed. Like a four-cornered veil, it shaded Sis's forehead.
Was it because I saw myself in his image that I began to be afraid? It was as if there was a mirror on his face reflecting me back to myself. And this was the literal meaning of realizing a resemblance with someone without ever speaking, without ever knowing them. "Why?" he said when my steps stopped. I looked at him without understanding.
With a pain appearing in my forehead, I asked, "What?"
Fixing his eyes tightly on me, he said, "Why did you come here?" He had applied a generous pressure to the words.
Yet the tone of his voice was controlled.
"You know the reason…" I sufficed with saying. Was he mocking me?
"I don't think so," he said. "I don't know at all. Not even my own…"
My gaze shifted. I did not know anything either. Only the letter in my pocket came to mind. The words moved back and forth in a circular way inside my head.
"Explore this place like I did, or you will die of hunger and thirst," I said with complete clarity.
"Really?" he said absently. The corners of his lips pulled upward. "If I am having a bad dream, I want to wake up."
"This is not a dream," I said in a low voice. With a new pain piercing the nape of my neck, I bent over. The sky above seemed to have poured onto my hair. "This is a mechanism." My tone continued to drop, and finally in a whisper I said, "A strange house where death and life live intertwined." Before my words were even finished, Sis was about to open his mouth when we both fell silent at the loud voice coming from the speaker.
"One of the items belonging to the mechanism has been stolen! The person who stole the item! Please return the item to where you took it from! If the order is not fulfilled within one minute, the second collective game will be initiated!"
The letter in my pocket grew heavy at that moment. Seconds stopped, time fractured. I felt the sweat trickling down from my temples. My dried lips pressed together.
Sis's blurred eyes roamed over me. Was I the only one who knew what was in my pocket?
When my vision blurred, I staggered. I had to remain standing.
I turned around. The others in the group stood frozen where they were, straining to listen to the voice. They began whispering among themselves. At times a word could be heard, but it was difficult to understand what they were saying. It was as if they were beside themselves. In their already frail bodies, the manifestation of death wandered.
Clenching my fists, I would have liked to think about whether to give the letter or not. But there was no time. And why one minute? How could I go and put the letter back in the same place within a minute? If only they had given more time—but no. Possibilities did not speak.
When I loosened my fingers, my sense of time and space had been damaged. My eyes stung as if from an allergy, and I felt a numbness along the bridge of my nose. The pain piercing my nape was sharp like a scalpel. My eyes were caught in Sis's gaze. But his eyes had already taken control. Within seconds everything changed. The pain at my nape became unbearable. Clenching my teeth, I tried to maintain my balance.
What was happening?
On one side, the last thirty seconds of the countdown remained; on the other, a cloud had enveloped Sis's eyes. At a moment I never expected, something incredible happened. His hand suddenly went to his waist, and when I opened my eyes the only thing I saw was the barrel aimed at me.
I heard screams.
Only I did not have the strength to scream.
He… was looking at me with sharpened eyes. His finger was on the trigger.
In shock, I had swallowed my tongue. This had never been a calculated possibility.
I questioned everything. My life passed before my eyes like a film. Even that life I had so often wanted to give up. For a moment I thought it had value. My heart was split in two. But what flowed out was not blood and sweat, but anger. How had the gun entered here? Who was he? I knew nothing. The only thing I could think of was to close my eyes to lessen the pain. The traces of the bullet that would soon pierce my forehead or chest would belong to the life I believed in after death.
Why? Within milliseconds I could not find an answer to this question. I would only realize it in a few milliseconds with the pain that pricked my skin like a needle, then, like every other mortal, I would fall to the ground and mix with the soil. Even my corpse would be dragged away in a garbage bag. A smell like rubber in my nose. A cramp in my stomach. Trembling in my hands. Everything was specific to that moment and terrible.
The end of the barrel facing me was still in the same place. But the slight tremor in the hands pressing the trigger did not escape my notice. These hands were not skillful. They were not the hands of an avenger, but of a coward.
"Why?" I asked; twenty seconds remained until the countdown ended.
The wound on his face deepened as if covering one of its missing pieces.
"What do you want? Why me? What did I do?" I arranged the words while stammering. My kneecaps were trembling. Whatever was in my stomach turned upside down.
"Give me the envelope…" he said.
I was not surprised enough by what he wanted.
Perhaps it was a possibility I had anticipated.
So he knew. In that case, we were playing the same game.
The devil was sitting right between us.
"Where did you find the gun?"
My question fell into a well of silence.
He moved his index finger but did not answer.
"I waited for you to find it."
The sentence that came after the silence struck me like poison.
"15, 14, 13…" As the counted time decreased, I felt fear, but suddenly my breath was cut off. The countdown was heard and a "Ding!" sound rang out. Everyone must have perceived it as a death warrant, for they screamed in fear. Except me. I did not know what was happening. My death would not matter to anyone.
Had my time run out?
"The item has been delivered!" the voice echoed.
All my thoughts turned to ash.
At that moment I wanted to take a deep breath, but the barrel did not allow it.
So the item they were looking for was not the letter.
Then who had placed the letter there?
"Put that down," I said as if I were the strong one.
He narrowed his eyes like a hunter and lowered the gun toward my chest. "Give me the letter."
"They will take that gun from you," I said.
He laughed. "The mechanism?"
"The mechanism," I answered indifferently.
Though I appeared icy from the outside, somewhere in my heart there were remnants of pain.
How much longer would he continue threatening me?
"Who are you working for?" I said, provoking him one last time.
Amused by my words, he murmured, "Guess," in a melodic tone. Then my vision blurred. A gunshot was heard in the air. It mingled with the sound of a dove flying across the sky. The unconditional discord between those two sounds was stained only with blood. I swayed with something burning that pierced through my chest. I felt what was inside me flowing out, but I could not keep my eyelids open.
He had fired. When my eyes closed, as my eyelashes trembled in a final farewell, I felt it. The pain covered my body; the strength draining from all my cells forced me to collapse to the ground.
I wish I had not died like this.