Work Text:
Working for an office has taught Ha-neul two very important things.
- You are disposable, especially if the office you work for is popular. Being sent on solo missions is a death sentence, and you should prove your worth before it ever comes to that point.
- The most important thing to an office is how much money you're bringing in. If you stop being a source of revenue, you stop being a valuable employee.
“Choi, you're being assigned a scavenge mission…” his coworker says, and places papers on his desk with the mission details printed neatly with black ink. Ha-neul's stomach drops; his hands shake, his eyes tremble, he looks through the packet. L. Corp facility, in the old wing – the old wing, isn't it being raided by the Thumb and Index? Oh god – and the scariest part – the part that makes him nauseous – is that the only name written for the excavation group is his. Written precisely: Ha-neul Choi. A solo mission. “You know those Golden Boughs? The team's thinking there might be some near here… so, yeah.” the coworker, bored and tired, returns to his own desk.
What should he do? Should he flee? No, he doesn't have nearly enough money to run away from home again, and being fired from a Fixer office looks terrible on the resume. Should he beg to have a group attached to him? He's only a Grade 8, he only just got promoted – it's not like he's the worst employee here. Kim Jiwoo does barely anything and skirts by; at least Ha-neul tries to be cordial, brings snacks and pastries for the break room; Dongmin is a Grade 7 who fights like a Grade 9 and steals the achievements of others, so why is Ha-neul being sent to die?
On the final sheet, it expresses that a guide will be accompanying him. A faint spark of hope beats wetly in his chest, and then fizzles out and dies when the guide is described as a “former employee of Lobotomy Corporation who knows the inner workings of the facilities and general layout of rooms.” So she isn't a fixer at all – it would've said so. So Ha-neul has no support at all.
This is a death sentence, and he has no choice but to take it willingly, say, “thank you for giving me an opportunity,” pray that he makes it out alive and can pay his rent next month while starving because he can't afford meals. This is a death sentence. The phrase rings through his mind, makes him drop the papers to his desk and clutch his forehead, his skull ringing fiercely: this is a death sentence. This is a death sentence. This is a death sentence.
He has to go in a week. He only has a week. What does he even do? No, shouldn't he stay optimistic? Yes, that's it: he has to think positive. He thinks about the positives while drinking cold tea and playing 2048 instead of doing work. The positives: this might make him a lot of money, if he finds a Golden Bough. The positives: he could be promoted if he makes it out alive. The negatives, the negatives, the negatives… he clenches his teeth, grinds them against each other, and doesn't think about anything at all.
He leaves the office, and Kim Jiwoo pats him, good-natured and friendly, angled teeth shining from his grin. “I heard you got a mission,” he says, voice full of humor. “First solo one?”
“Yeah,” Ha-neul replies. Probably my last solo one, he doesn't say, because then his mind will repeat every single way he could die. Look, it's doing it now: he imagines picking up something he shouldn't, and it explodes and mutilates him. He imagines being torn apart by a hungry abnormality. He imagines nothing, nothing, nothing, until Kim Jiwoo is gone from the peripheral and Ha-neul is talking his commute home, mind full of nothing but the steps his feet should take to get to the bus.
This is how he awaits his death sentence, thinking of nothing: he plays 2048, he makes a pie with cherry filling, he peels an apple and eats it for lunch. Watches reality TV, calls an absent cousin just for good measure, ensures his will is thorough and concise. He eats a popsicle. He spends more money than he should buying a fast food meal.
He doesn't think about it at all until he's being driven through ruins and rubble, right up to the entrance of a branch facility that extends to the underground. Distantly, he thinks it looks like it's been blown open with dynamite: right, weren't all of those buried? Right. A woman with a confident disposition is already standing near it, a sword in her hand that she has a hard grip on. Ha-neul looks her over, and feels a wave of guilt.
“I'm Eloise Nevada,” the woman introduces herself, shaking his hand firmly. Her hands are calloused, yet her fingers are thin. “I'll be your guide. I hope I can be of service to you.” Her disposition reminds him of a coworker, confident and professional.
“I'm Ha-neul Choi,” he copies, grip weak and pathetic. In contrast, he notes, his hands are smooth and pale, but slightly clunkier, and with less callouses and more burn marks, blemishes. “Grade 8 Fixer.”
At the mention of his rank, her face sours a bit before smoothing over. Had they told her she would have a grandiose Fixer with her? A Grade 3, perhaps? His upper lip twitched in dry humor. Her confident face dropped, and she smoothed her hands over her suit. Ha-neul almost appreciated the fabric. Too bad she might die with it, he thinks, and then he thinks of nothing at all. “I hope we'll both see the end of today,” Nevada says, with a grim smile on her face.
The person who dropped him off – Min-soo? – waves, says, “I'll come around 8.” That's 9 hours of dungeon crawling, Ha-neul thinks. 9 hours trapped in a facility buried underground. “You good? You look a bit pale.”
“I'm fine,” Ha-neul snaps. “See you, Min-soo.”
Min-soo looks a bit hurt as he crawls back into the truck. “My name is Min-seok,” he murmurs, but the rumble of the engine drowns out his voice, and then the truck is receding, falling away, lost from vision. Nevada watches it go too, with a look of wistfulness – resignation, and then turns to him again.
“Are you ready?” she asks. “I brought food, in case we got hungry during.”
“I brought my own lunch,” Ha-neul absently replies. “Do you like tarts?”
“...Huh?”
“I brought tarts. Cherry flavor.” He walks towards the entrance, and Nevada follows him, and they plunge down the rope that leads into the Control department of Y-5629.
Ha-neul's first thought as he slides down the rope carefully, ensuring he doesn't burn his hands, is: it's steep. Then, he thinks: we aren't even in a branch, we're going through dirt and stone. Above him, Nevada makes a sharp noise of complaint. Then, that upper layer of crust gives way to the concrete walls of a facility, and he sees a faint light at the very bottom. Before he knows it, he's jumping down and landing on concrete floors. He's about to offer to help Nevada down, as a courtesy, but she jumps down as well, brushing her hands against her suit again. Her sword is sheathed against her belt. Ha-neul reaches into his bag for a flashlight, shines it down the corridor they've dropped in.
The entire thing is filled with rooms, doors with windows that are slightly open. “Containment units,” Nevada informs, “to keep abnormalities inside.” Ha-neul assumed so, but the confirmation is nice. The doors are scratched, marked with large gashes in the material, and to the wall next to them are what Ha-neul assumes to be identification codes. They both take turns opening the units and seeing what's inside. Ha-neul gets the wall on the right, and both units are filled with some multicolored slick that reminds him of oil spilled on the road, but more intensely. It drips from the ceiling, is splattered against the floors, bathing the rooms in rainbows.
Nevada comes behind him. “Probably Dreaming Current,” she says, bluntly. “Don't worry about it. Are those corpses?”
In the back of the unit lay two corpses – skeletons, with all the meat and flesh sucked off – in fetal positions. Ha-neul looks to Nevada, but she seems unfazed, and she continues on into the door at the end of the hallway. He swallows thickly, goosebumps already irritatingly evident on his pale arms. “This should lead to the Elevator… should we go to the Main Room or continue down? We've ought to go down; more of a chance of finding something good if we continue down.”
She seems to be talking to herself, so Ha-neul busies himself with flashing lights around the corridor. There's dried blackness on the ceiling and floor – blood, probably – and rubble around the sides of the room. It smells like rotting bodies and… meat, strangely. Not a good smell of meat, no… it smells wet and raw.
“Right, then,” Nevada speaks up, and moves to an elevator. “We'll go on to Info, see if there's anything there. We can probably get some guidelines if we get anything.”
“Guidelines?”
“Abnormality guidelines,” she explains. “We always kept track of what work orders were most effective and what abnormalities would do in certain situations with abnormality guidelines. Things like, ‘if the abnormality was upset after the work, you instantly die.’” she chuckles humorlessly, stepping into the elevator, and Ha-neul follows. “They're good for missions like this where abnormalities might be lurking around in the facility, yeah?” The elevator dings, begins to go down. Ha-neul nods without listening much further.
Information's main room is purple and grimy, and rubbing his fingers against the wall cakes the tips in a layer of dust. A pile of rubble in the middle of the room serves as a nice centerpiece, he thinks, laughing to himself. The scent of blood is strong here, thick and musky, and he shines more light on the floor. The blood… is red. That's concerning. That means it's fresh.
“There might be something down here,” Ha-neul begins, but Nevada has already drawn her sword. Ha-neul takes his sword out, too. “Be careful.”
Naevada makes a noise of acknowledgement and leads him to an office. “Probably the Department Head,” she mumbles, searching through cabinets and drawers. Ha-neul faces the outside, sword in hand. The sound of papers is loud and makes goosebumps pitter up his skin, but it eventually stops and the sound of a zipper opening, then closing fills the room. “We can bring these back,” she says. “Bunch of ‘em. I've not heard of An Attempt to Play God, or Nosferatu, or Menace.”
They file out. “Disciplinary or Welfare… we might be able to find some E.G.O. in Disciplinary,” Nevada mutters to herself, loud enough for Ha-neul to hear. “That stuff is valuable since they haven't been able to replicate it with City tech.”
“Alright. Lead the way.”
Blood washes the black soles of Ha-neul's shoes red, but he continues anyway, and Nevada seems entirely unbothered by the coppery scent. They pass through a purple hallway, and then as the hallway gets progressively redder in tone, the blood mixes in with the colors of the corridor. Disciplinary's main room is large and somehow intimidating, with crimson tones and mahogany floors. There are corpses here where there were none in Information, and all of them are rotting, piled in the corner of the room like someone's saving them for later. Ha-neul dismisses the thought.
Nevada, though, seems delighted at the discovery of bodies that are not rotting, and she carefully walks over. “I don't recognize this E.G.O…,” she mutters, picking up a man and placing him a bit away from the rest of the group. She examines the cloth, and Ha-neul makes himself useful by standing near her with his sword unsheathed. “Must be an abnormality I haven't heard of. It's definitely E.G.O., though.” She begins to strip the dead man of his clothes, and Ha-neul has to look away as she does the same with the others, each one with an identification for the original abnormality: “this one is Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary, but it's been modified,” she mutters. “This one is Army in Pink… once again, modified…” she mumbles. “This is… oh, Judgement Bird! The golden bandages threw me off.”
“You're making a lot of noise,” Ha-neul says, if only to get her to stop talking with such a happy voice while stealing clothes from dead people.
“Right,” Nevada says, but her voice is snappish and annoyed. Ha-neul couldn't care less. They haven't seen anything – that scares him, how they haven't seen anything. Why would so many people be dead, yet they haven't seen anything? Could the abnormalities have escaped? If so, that's a bigger issue that someone else can deal with. If so, then maybe he's alone on this mission because they thought he was capable…?
No. No way.
They adventure into the hallway to the left of the room. Blood coats the wall, and an organ hangs out of a corpse attached to a containment unit’s door. At this, Nevada finally breaks a bit of her composure, pointing her nose up and frowning in disgust. Ha-neul thinks that this would be an awful way to die.
There's nothing in the hallway – the corpse was stripped of E.G.O. already – so Nevada doubles back and tries going down to Safety via the elevator. It doesn't work, so they take the stairs. The sound of rustling makes Ha-neul stop and throw his arm out so that Nevada stops as well. They're at the almost-base of the stairs that spiral down, so they can't exactly see the entrance, but Ha-neul makes a shushing motion with his finger and they both quiet their footsteps.
Rustling gets louder. Some growling? Ha-neul tightens the grip on his sword and makes a motion to Nevada, a ‘stay there’ – she doesn't look happy about it, but she complies, backing up a step and preparing to run if need be. Ha-neul enters the Main Room with his breath held, ready to strike, and… it's a blob.
A very black blob. More like a slime, really. Ha-neul tentatively walks towards it, expecting it to jump at him, but it just gurgles. Attached to the blob is the head of a man; brown hair, and glasses, and a slight dusting of facial hair. His eyes are closed and his flesh takes on a goopier quality, mixing in with the slimy part of him. It gurgles again. Ha-neul waits a second, two seconds, ten seconds, but it doesn't do anything but gurgle and growl occasionally, rustling papers spilled against the floor.
“I think we're safe,” Ha-neul shouts. “Just an abnormality that doesn't do anything.”
“Alright,” Nevada says. “I'll come out?”
“Yeah.” He backs away slightly.
Nevada's steps feel heavy against the stairs, somehow. She walks into the room, comes behind Ha-neul, stares at the abnormality. A beat, two, then three pass before she says anything, eyes locked on the abnormality's head.
“Well, look at that,” she says, voice calm, but her face takes on an unpleasant grimace. Ha-neul looks at her hands; they're trembling. “That's not good at all. Must be E.G.O. corrosion for Mountain of Smiling Bodies.”
Ha-neul cocks an eyebrow and nods at her.
“An ALEPH,” she shudders. “The most dangerous kind. We should kill it now before it multiplies or something.”
“...E.G.O. corrosion?” Ha-neul says. “Then it isn't an abnormality?”
“No, it's…” she breathes in shakily, turns away. The thing gurgles. “It's a human, but… it's not him anymore, so we should just kill it.”
“Him?”
She exhales. “Reminds me of someone I used to know. Couldn't be, though, so…”
The thing gurgles, opens its heterochromatic eyes. One is blue, one is green, and they stare up at Nevada with something akin to childish curiosity. It trills, an animalistic noise, and curls its body against her ankles. Ha-neul watches the display, but when he looks up at Nevada, she's frozen still, staring into its eyes. Her hands tremble harder now, grasping and unclenching at open air, and she slowly brings them closer to her face as her mouth opens wordlessly.
“Nevada, are you alright?” Ha-neul says, worried. Does the abnormality cause hallucinations? He touches her arm, and she heaves a sob, hands slapping against her eyes harshly. Her shoulders shake with tears shed. “Nevada?” he says, worried, and tightens his grip on his sword, prepares to swing it –
“ No! ” Nevada shouts. “ Nonono, don't hit him, don't …” she sobs again and the thing gurgles in confusion. She wrenches herself away from it, backs up against the wall, and Ha-neul hesitates for a split second before raising his arms again. If it's causing her to lose her mind, he should kill it now. “ No! ” she screams, kicking outwardly but not reaching him; she's writhing, not throwing a temper tantrum. “That's – that's – I know him, don't kill him, please…”
“He's what?!” Ha-neul says, irritated.
“He's my ex-husband,” Nevada gasps. “D-Don't kill him!”
The thing gurgles again, peering up at Ha-neul from the floor. Ha-neul drops his sword instantly, mind flashing with images of someone who he refuses to remember. He picks it back up with trembling fingers, takes a step backward hesitantly.
“We should go,” Nevada hiccups. “It’s an ALEPH, it might kill us…” So they do. Nevada runs to the side room and Ha-neul just follows her obediently, mind carefully blank. She slams the button to an elevator and it dings, carries them downwards, and the elevator’s walls go from green to black. Nevada pushes herself against the wall and falls hard, sobbing into her hands. Ha-neul doesn't watch – he stares at the wall instead, trying not to think about how she feels. Trying not to feel anything at all.
…her ex-husband?
He has a thought, bright and fierce, and it pulls at him. It's delusional, illogical, completely against what he's believed for years. Kimjisang is dead, probably sliced up and buried in a ditch, has been rotting for years after the Kurokumo clan split him open. Thinking about any alternatives – it's not an option for Ha-neul anymore. Kimjisang didn't even work at L. Corp. There's no way.
Nevada has calmed down by the time the elevator stops. It's a long ride, and when the doors open, she's pushed herself into a standing position, has wiped the tears on her hands and then on her suit. “I'm alright,” she says, finally. “Sorry about that.”
“It's okay,” Ha-neul says. Then, reluctantly: “are you sure it was him?”
“Yes,” she says. Her voice is cold and steelish, and it's an obvious plea for Ha-neul to be quiet. He doesn't, though, hands clenching and unclenching his sword.
“How?”
“I can tell,” she snaps. “I know what his face looks like, I know what his eyes look like. I know it's him.” her explanation doesn't give much. Somehow, Ha-neul feels like he could do the same thing, if he saw Kimjisang as a black blob. No, don't think about it – who's Kimjisang? Hah.
“Alright,” he concedes, and Nevada gives him a sharp look before turning into the main room of E.G.O. Management. It's darker here than anywhere else, with the walls absorbing light faster than any of the other rooms, and he turns his flashlight on again. It takes a bit to click on, and in frustration he presses the button over and over again. It makes a dreadful noise against the quiet.
“I’m not a Bucket, so I can't extract,” Nevada says. “That's why I took a bunch of E.G.O. from the corpses.”
Ha-neul really doesn't understand a single word of that. He isn't being paid to understand, though, so he just makes a motion for her to follow him – he's carrying the light, after all – as he ducks into another hallway. This one is black as well, dark imprints on the wall, but dry bones clatter at the edge of it. Ha-neul assumes it's another abnormality making a ruckus, and Nevada freezes from where she stands – she hasn't recovered, right. He shines his light at the end of the corridor to reveal a glass orb, writhing, writing pick me up, pick me up! inside of the glossy glass exterior.
Nevada steps closer. “Is that a glass ball?” she asks, hesitance lost in the presence of what Ha-neul assumes to be a lower-risk abnormality. “I haven't heard of this one.”
“Seems like you haven't heard of a lot of them,” Ha-neul mutters darkly, and Nevada glares but ultimately ignores his comment. She steps a bit closer, enough for the ball to begin rolling harder, vigorously, essentially chanting pleas within itself.
“I ought to pick it up,” Nevada says.
“Don't,” Ha-neul replies, swallowing hard.
“Well, why not? It can fit in my bag. They can analyze it at the workshop. I don't suppose they could learn to extract E.G.O. from it, hm?” she wrinkles her nose a bit, indignant.
“It's practically begging you to touch it,” he replies, voice hard. “If anything begs you to touch it, it's a death trap. What will you do if you pick it up and it explodes in your hand, throwing glass everywhere?”
“Well, I'll die if that happens,” she huffs. “Or maybe my eyes would be sewn shut from injury?”
In the meanwhile, the glass orb writhed more, rolling against the floor in an arc. Don't listen to him! Touch me! Touch me!
“I should touch it,” Nevada says. Ha-neul takes the hint and grabs her wrist, pulling her to the main room again, and then to the E.G.O. extraction chamber.
The place is… ambiguous, is how he describes it. He can't tell if one wall is over there, or if another is over here. The only thing that stays the same is a long, green stem in the middle of the room, thick and wild and especially untamed, extending from the floor and to the ceiling, with thick vines going horizontally against the walls. White flies, dim but glowing nonetheless, circle the phenomenon relentlessly. A faint muttering voice, coming from the thickest of the foliage: I won't succumb. I won't succumb. I won't succumb.
“E.G.O. corrosion,” Nevada says, and doesn't elaborate. She exits the room, so Ha-neul does the same and tries not to think about what E.G.O. corrosion actually is, because from what he's seen, it turns regular people into abnormalities. Nauseous, he tries thinking about people being experimented on in this facility. He discards that thought near-instantly.
Ha-neul takes out his sword while they're both walking along the tiles, filling the silence with their footsteps. He throws an arm out again, and this time Nevada doesn't hesitate to stop. A footstep or two, coming from the inky shadows of the corridor, make Nevada step backwards. “Maybe we should go up to Training,” she whispers, but Ha-neul shakes his head. The elevator makes a low ding ! noise when it opens its doors, and he doesn't know how fast whatever they're dealing with is.
“What's the worst type of abnormality again?”
“ALEPH,” Nevada replies. “First ZAYIN, then TETH, HE, WAW, ALEPH.”
Ha-neul shakes his head again. “What risk level was that corrosion we saw?” More footsteps; Ha-neul grits his teeth and holds his sword in front of him, stance ready.
“Snow White's Apple. WAW.”
“Shit,” Ha-neul curses. “So many damn dangerous things in this facility.”
“Must've been a productive one,” Nevada mutters. The footsteps grow louder, wetter, and they both finally quiet their nervous conversation to listen for it. Ha-neul doesn't shine his flashlight down; after all of this, he's a bit scared of what he might find. But when Nevada reaches into her bag, produces her flashlight, he hesitantly nods, eyes hard.
The light shines. It's more powerful than Ha-neul's flashlight – probably why she hasn't used it much so far. It makes a thick beam of light, and that produces a shadow on the far wall: a figure, crouched down on the floor, with what seems to be messy hair and a hand sticking out from their head. A wet gurgle, and a chirp, and then the figure stands with trembling legs.
Ha-neul's throat clenches. His hands shake. He almost drops his sword, but he finds that he can't take his hands off of his weapon no matter if he tries. He walks closer, face screwed up in confusion. Distant confusion, as if he's watching a particularly confusing video, and not staring directly into the delighted eyes of his dead husband. “Kimjisang?” he hears himself ask, but his stomach has dropped, his lips are quivering. “Kimji, is that you? What – how are you…”
Kimjisang smiles at him, wide, grin stretching his face unnaturally, twisting the skin at his cheeks. A fleshy red hand sprouts up from his hair, displacing his usual style, but Ha-neul blinks for a split second and the hand is gone now, and it's just Kimjisang. Kimjisang, in a suit with a red tie, looking remarkably okay except for the grin plastered on his face.
Kimjisang has never smiled like that.
Ha-neul takes another step forward: Nevada grabs him, gripping the fabric of his suit. “Who is he?” she asks, sharply, yanking him backwards. When Ha-neul doesn't answer, still staring in disbelief, she swats him on the waist and asks again: “who is he ?!”
“Kimjisang,” Ha-neul breathes. “My husband. He's – he's okay, right? We have to bring him to a hospital.”
“No, we don't,” Nevada whispers, voice choked with pity. Ha-neul feels something rotten stuck in the back of his throat. Kimjisang does nothing but stare and look around absently, like a toddler in a new environment. His smile stays on his face. “He's not right, Choi.”
“No, no, he… why is he here? He – Nevada, he died. He died. ” Ha-neul's voice peaks, desperate, pointing his sword at Kimjisang, who stares at him.
Nevada stares at Ha-neul. “He did die,” she says, bluntly. “He died, just like my husband died. We have to go, Choi.”
“No, no…” Ha-neul mutters, clutching his hair. “Let me go.”
“We have to go .”
Ha-neul, against his good senses, pushes her off of him. She hits the ground with a thud and a yelp, and then hisses at him, curses at him – he can't hear it. He steps forward, steps forward again, until he's running at Kimjisang and clutching his shoulders, patting him down. “Kimji, are you alright? Did – what's wrong with you? Hey, it’s me, Ha-neul. You remember me, right?”
Kimjisang looks at him. Cocks his head. His eyes are empty. His smile is wide. “Ha-neul,” he chirps, in Ha-neul's own voice, light and airy. “Ha-neul. Ha-neul.”
Ha-neul wants to vomit.
Kimji sways a bit, and Ha-neul holds his shoulders hard enough to bruise, sword digging into the space. “ Kimji , listen to me. We have to get you out of here. How did you survive? W – Why are you down here?!”
“ It's Mimicry! ” Nevada shrieks, hysterical. “We have to go, Choi!”
“Kimji,” Ha-neul asks, one last time. Kimji smiles. Blinks. “Ha-neul,” he replies.
Ha-neul steps backward, grip tight on his weapon, and slices Kimji's head off. It falls to the ground with a wet thud. The smile doesn't leave his face, even as his body falls to the ground. Ha-neul backs up, turns around, runs: Nevada's footsteps join him afterward, and they both slam the button to the elevator up to – Training, he thinks? He doesn't know.
It doesn't work .
The elevator opens up, and the corridor upwards is empty and hollow. Quick footsteps sound in the hallway, and Ha-neul doesn't have time to think before Nevada is yanking his wrist and pulling him into the main room, and then into an office. He hadn't even seen this during their initial check. Nevada breathes harshly, but Ha-neul doesn't feel like breathing at all as he stands, staring at the wall in front of him.
Kimjisang was here.
What did that mean?
“I don't know what it is,” Nevada heaves, “if it's the actual abnormality, or just E.G.O. corrosion. But e-either way,” she says, grabbing his arm, “that isn't him.”
He rips her grip away and stares. “It was.”
“No, it wasn't,” Nevada hisses. “It – it wasn't Alexis, either. They both aren't them.”
Alexis must be her ex-husband's name. He smiles, despite himself. “It has to be E.G.O. corrosion,” Ha-neul says. “It has to be. Because that was him.”
“That abnormality – I think it was Nothing There,” Nevada explains, voice gentle. “Nothing There can transform into different people. Your husband, he might be dead. It has to take their skin.”
“ It was him ,” Ha-neul says.
“...alright,” Nevada gives up, throws her arms in the air. “Where are those tarts you mentioned earlier, since we have a monster chasing after us. Good job on that, by the way – he was looking pretty docile until y –”
The sound of running cuts her off, and they both quiet while something passes them, racing as fast as a car. It's no guess as to what it is.
“Until you cut the head off,” she continues. “Why did you even do that?!”
“He's supposed to be dead,” Ha-neul says. He doesn't know why, is the truth. He panicked. What do you even do – knowing your husband has presumably been alive enough to hop into an old facility, and he never told you a damn thing even though you would've been perfectly happy to run away with him – what the hell is that about? What is he supposed to think? He panicked. He panicked. His hands are still trembling, and he aches to still them by blowing warm air into his palms.
The running cuts through his words. Whizzing past the closed door. Nevada becomes increasingly nervous, drags a chair over to the door. She sits down on the floor, lays her head against the ground. “We're going to die here,” she says, resigned.
“Yes,” Ha-neul replies, because he does not know what else to say. He is going to die to the corpse of his husband. He laughs, suddenly and quietly, shoulders shaking as he covers his mouth. “We are going to die,” he repeats, chuckling.
Nevada doesn't ask if he's alright. Instead she takes out a lunchbox from her bag and opens it. Inside are two simple turkey sandwiches, two fruit cups, and a few energy bars. It reminds him of what a mother would pack for her child's school lunch. It might be an invasive question, but he figures that they're both going to die anyway, so he doesn't hesitate asking the first thing that comes to his mind as he, too, sits on the ground and pulls out a tin full of cherry tarts: “are you a mother?”
Nevada's hands still, and then move again. “I used to be, yes.”
“Oh,” Ha-neul mourns. “What happened?” He takes the sandwich passed to him and hands her two tarts in return. Her face brightens at the food, but not at the question.
“She died in a car accident when she was young.”
“Oh.”
“It was what caused me and Alexis to part,” she continues, even though Ha-neul did not ask. “He didn't take the news very well, and spent his time gambling. He wasn't there for me at all. I couldn't stand the lack of unity we had.”
“I see.”
“I don't regret it,” she says. “But I still love him. That's why…”
“I get it,” Ha-neul says. He really does. When the room quiets, he realizes that Nevada has spilled a part of her guts to him, and he should do the same in return. Usually he would have a hard time forcing the name Kimjisang out his mouth, but after seeing his corpse with his own two eyes, it slides easily. “Me and Kimjisang – we lived in a collapsed Nest. Had to pay the Kurokumo clan for protection.”
Nevada makes a noise of sympathy.
“Fees started stacking up. We couldn't pay them with the measly jobs we had. They gave us one more chance, but we couldn't reasonably pay for it either. On that day, before we were supposed to die, Kimjisang suddenly disappeared. I didn't know where he went, but I assumed he got killed by the Kurokumo clan.” he swallows a bite of sandwich. “I ran away after that. I would've been content dying with Kimjisang by my side, but him dying gave me a sort of… spiteful reason to live. I had to live for him, you know?”
“But…” Nevada hums. “He's been alive.”
“Apparently.”
“What if he worked for Lobotomy Corporation?” Nevada suggests, and something in Ha-neul breaks.
That really is the what if, isn't it? What if he worked for Lobotomy? What if he ran away without Ha-neul? What if he left Ha-neul to die on his own? What if, what if, what if. “I don't want to think about it,” Ha-neul mutters, voice dangerous, and Nevada doesn't reply.
They spend about fifteen minutes down there, enjoying lunch and freezing in place when the whizzing starts up again from behind the door. Ha-neul says, eventually: “I've figured out the pattern. It goes from one side to another, but it takes longer than it's supposed to because it's checking containment units… I think. It's pretty even, though, so if we run out at the right time and be very quiet, we can avoid it.”
“That's a terrible plan that will get us murdered,” Nevada says.
Ha-neul shrugs. “It's either get murdered or starve to death. I'd rather get murdered. Might be faster.”
“Might not be,” she mutters in return, but she picks herself up anyway, moves the chair out of the way of the door quietly. “It must not know about this office,” she says. “Makes sense. the offices are always hidden, for some reason.”
“Mh,” Ha-neul mumbles. “Very pink in here.”
“Very,” Nevada says. “Next time he whizzes, we go?”
“He'll be whizzing to the next side, so yeah,” Ha-neul says.
They wait quietly. The sound of steps picks up loudly, brushes past them like a tornado, and Nevada opens the door as soon as they echo off into the distance. Quietly, without creaking it, they both go off into the left hallway and press the button to go up to Safety.
“Will you be alright?” Ha-neul whispers. Nevada nods, hands against her mouth. The elevator opens slowly, makes a sharp ding noise, and the footsteps in the echos stop before picking up. Fast. They squeeze themselves in and Ha-neul manually wrenches the doors closed, falling against the wall.
“What time is it?” Ha-neul says. Nevada shrugs. “I want to go home,” Ha-neul bemoans, and Nevada nods in agreement.
The elevator brings them to Safety again. Presumably, Kimjisang can't use the elevators – if he can, they're screwed, aren't they? Thankfully the gloopy Alexis creature is gone, and Nevada lets out a breath of relief when he's not present in the main room. “Should we leave?” he asks, and Nevada nods.
“Too dangerous. Two ALEPH corrosions and a WAW one could mean bad shit for us if we stay down here any longer.”
“Alright,” Ha-neul says. “We have enough stuff to satisfy?”
“If I had gotten the orb, we might've gotten props,” Nevada says, “but this isn't a job suited for a guide and a Grade 8. I can't believe they didn't assign a group with you.”
The mention of his rank makes him irritated. “Sorry I'm not strong enough to take out an ALEPH,” he mutters, stalking towards Information. She scoffs.
“That isn't what I meant,” she says. “And you know it.”
“Just a bit annoyed, that's it,” Ha-neul scowls. “Trust me, I didn't want to solo this either.”
The argument dies off before it even begins by the sound of whizzing footsteps. It starts from the hallway in Information, the right one parallel to the one they're in. Nevada backs up, but Ha-neul can only stare at the figure coming towards them, red and pulsing and grinning widely with eyes of nothingness. “Ha-neul,” it says, in Ha-neul's voice. “Nevada,” it says, in Ha-neul's voice.
Ha-neul raises his sword.
“No, you idiot,” Nevada says. “We have to run.”
“Go on,” Ha-neul whispers, not sure if he's in control of his own body. Nevada doesn't think twice before darting in the other direction, leaving him facing the monster heading towards them. He can point out differences now – the head is back on, but the neck is twisted and warped, as if it tried to screw its head back on. The torso fades out into a red, meaty texture, blue and green eyes wrapping around folds of flesh. His nails are sharp, misshapen. His legs are sharp, misshapen. His eyes are dull. A hand sticks out of his hair.
He's smiling.
Ha-neul pulls his sword back and thrusts it into Kimjisang's chest as he rushes towards him with a smile. His chest falls apart easily, and Ha-neul raises the sword, splits it between Kimji's face. His upper body, cut in half, bleeds red all over the room, sprays an unnatural amount of blood on Ha-neul's clothes. Ha-neul doesn't stop. Abnormalities are immortal, aren't they? He swings his sword down again and again, and blood splatters on his chest. Humans don't bleed this much. Because this isn't Kimji as a human – it's his corpse, and Ha-neul has to desecrate it for his own survival.
“Kimji,” Ha-neul asks, voice hoarse and croaking: “did you join Lobotomy without me?”
Kimji doesn't answer, his mouth split in half. His sword isn't even strong enough to rip through normal bone. Why is this so easy? He cuts, he cuts he cuts he cuts he cuts he cuts he cuts he cuts he cuts.
He thinks he might've zoned out. When he opens his eyes again, Kimjisang isn't there, and he's beating on an egg. An egg, pulsing and as fleshy as Kimji's body was, that throbs and bleeds white puss and red fluid on the floor. Ha-neul backs up once, twice. “ Nevada, ” he shrieks, to check if she's still in the facility – he doesn't get a reply for a few seconds and his heart drops, but then it soars when she yells back, a sharp “ what?! ” throbbing through the hallways.
“ There's an egg, ” Ha-neul yells. “ What does that mean? ”
Again, she doesn't answer. Then, she screams louder than before: “ Fuck !” It startles him, makws him back up further. “ Choi, get the fuck away from it before it – ”
A crack.
An arm peeks out, presses a wet, slimy palm against the floor. The arm is red, shiny with slick and covered in blood at the same time. It looks like raw meat. It smells like raw meat. Ha-neul holds his breath, tears in his eyes. Another arm. A leg. A person. A naked man, red and disgusting and ugly, with a mop of black hair, mottled with blood and gore. An eye stares at Ha-neul from where the face is covered.
“Ha-neul,” it says. Kimji says. With his own voice. Then his spine bends backwards, and his arms contort and twist, and his body pulses and throbs and grows larger, larger, larger – a mouth opens itself on Kimji's stomach, bloated and hungry, a tongue lolling out and panting. His arms grow teeth and eyes and ears. His waist twists and bends. His legs break unnaturally, repair themselves, and then break again. He breathes harshly, in pain, and makes a wounded noise as an arm grows from his back, twists and bends to grip the side of his stomach-mouth, rips it open more to reveal the molars inside the intestines.
Ha-neul vomits instantly.
“H-Hello,” Kimji says. “Hello. Hello. Hello.”
Ha-neul runs.
He runs. He runs. He doesn't know where to run, so he runs until the hallway ends, and then he is pulled into a Disciplinary containment unit at the very end of the hallway with thick footsteps echoing behind him, a hello muffled in the chamber. The door shuts with a sharp hiss, and Nevada covers his mouth, but he taps her shoulder and moves to the corner and becomes violently sick, quietly throwing up.
Hello .
Ha-neul stares at the floor. At his puke. Hello.
“He said my name,” Ha-neul says.
“Oh, God,” Nevada whispers. Hello. “We need to leave. Now.”
“From here,” Ha-neul heaves, “the fastest route, since the elevators do not work: forward, then go up to Information, then up to Control, then book it.
“How do we –”
“ Run ,” Ha-neul says, like a prayer. “ We run. ”
Run. Run. Run. Ha-neul and Nevada are reduced to mere prey in the presence of an apex predator. Thoughts of Alexis are pushed out of the mind, replaced with the ugly wet thing that is the thought of Kimjisang, beating and running through the hallways. “He’s large, but we can duck under him if he rushes,” Ha-neul says, crazed, mumbling and clutching his knees. “We can do it. We can live. We can live.”
“We're going to die,” Nevada says.
They are. “We can live,” Ha-neul says. “Let's go.” the sound of the hello has moved far, far away, to where it is only a distant echoing. Ha-neul doesn't ask Nevada for permission before he grabs her arm, and she doesn't seem to care, and he opens the door quietly and steps out. He's lost his sword, somewhere in between puking his guts out in front of Kimji and running. “It's bulky. It's not as fast now,” Ha-neul says. “So we can make it. We can.”
“We can make it,” Nevada whispers.
They enter the main room, still searching for that sound of thumping. When they don't find it, they press against the walls of the Information hallways, covering the sounds of their breathing with their fingers. They inch towards the side room, enter the main room. “Elevator. Fuck,” Ha-neul says. “We're almost out.” his hand has moved from her arm to her hand, and it's desperation and delusional hopefulness that makes her squeeze his fingers.
“Almost out.”
“Almost out.”
Kimji roars. Hello. They press the button. The elevator is already downstairs, so they don't have to wait. The thumping becomes louder very quickly, and the elevator dings ! And Ha-neul swallows a fearful ball of saliva. “Almost out,” he repeats, a mantra. “Almost out.” the door opens. Kimji is close enough to where they can hear his loud, heavy breathing. He roars down a hallway.
“Don't look,” Ha-neul says, and pulls Nevada into the elevator. Wrenches the doors closed again. “Don't look at it. Don't keep it in your sight. We're almost out.”
“Almost out,” Nevada breathes. They take the elevator up to Control.
The lower hallways require another elevator to go up. Ha-neul pulls her into a containment unit at the very end of the hall, closer to the elevator than the others. The sound of rumbling comes from where they were, and then Ha-neul hears a thud, and a crash. That elevator is broken. Alright. That's alright. They just have to make it to this one, and they'll be out. Almost there.
They waut until his voice and breathing is at the opposite end of the hallway. There's no place for secrecy, but they stop breathing anyway when they exit. He's too close to them to be careless.
Almost out.
Almost out.
The elevator dings. A roar. Almost out. The door opens. Almost out. Ha-neul feels something thick and sharp cut into his leg and he cries out, falling to the floor, but Nevada harshly pulls him inside without regard to his injury. Almost out. They press the elevator’s up button.
“I can't walk,” Ha-neul babbles. “I can't walk, Nevada, I can't –”
“Call me Eloise!” Nevada shouts, as the elevator door opens, and the sound of thumping gets louder. “And get the fuck up!”
He does. He staggers, leaves the blade embedded in his leg as they walk. He can barely run, but he manages it anyway, hyped off of adrenaline. His hands are shaking. The rope is placed in the middle of the main room. Nevada pushes him on it, and when he's up a few feet, she hops on as well.
Almost there.
Kimji roars again. Pounds the floor. Hello. Ha-neul doesn't think about it, doesn't think about it, doesn't think about it at all unt he can see the afternoon sky glazing orange and red and yellow, beaming hope at him, even as his leg bleeds and aches, even as his palms ache and tremble! Almost out!
Fuck, fuck, damn it, fuck!
He grabs stone and pulls himself up.
“ Out,” he says, tapping the ground, laying against the concrete entrance. “Out.”
Eloise doesn't come back up. Ha-neul gasps, staring down at the corridor. Eloise is gripping the rope, but her eyes are shut, and her lips are screwed up. “Choi,” she calls. “Leg broke.”
“Fuck,” Ha-neul says, and crouches down at the entrance. “I've got you.” He grips the rope and begins tugging it up – it's hard, Eloise is heavy, but goddamn it, he won't let her die here, not now, not so close. “I've got you,” he says again, voice wobbly. “Call me Ha-neul.”
Eloise reaches the end. She crawls out of the hole.
“Fuck,” she gasps, and lays against the concrete, sceewing her eyes shut. “Fuck, fuck, my leg…”
“Me too,” Ha-neul laughs, and Eloise is so incredulous that she laughs too, and they laugh and laugh until the sky blots into slight darkness and Min-seok approaches in the same car.
They're treated at Ha-neul's office. He insists that Eloise is treated as well, because she sustained injuries because of his carelessness. Her leg is fractured, but not too badly. His leg is cut, and the amount of moving he was doing with a blade stuck in him fucked it up more, so he'll have to be in heavy casts for, like, three months.
Ha-neul pumps his arms in victory, sitting in a cot. “We didn't succumb,” he says, and Eloise snorts an ugly laugh, cackles until tears stream down her eyes. She raises a weak fist. “We didn't succumb,” she says, and smiles, and they both laugh and laugh.
Ha-neul watches the sun set from the window.
It's beautiful.