Chapter 3.2

Chapter 3.2

Eyes pointed at me, sharp as if loosing an arrow. With her head cocked at an odd tilt, she smiled and whispered.

“Another b***h is sitting inside you.”

“……”

“You think you can fool us?”

My heart dropped. The meaning of her words sank in, and my pulse shot into a gallop. My dry lips stuck together as I tried to wet them with my tongue. I had just managed to open my mouth when—

Skittering fast on her knees, Eyes lunged at me and grabbed my face. The movement was so unnatural it was terrifying. My breath hitched in my throat. Her crossed eyes locked onto mine.

“You’re cursed.”

“……”

“You’re going to die in here.”

“……”

“The moment you take one step outside this place, you’re dead.”

It was too serious to brush off as nonsense. Her words sounded like a grim certainty, and my lips dried again though I had only just moistened them. The ominous whisper clung to me like grime, and I wanted to spit just to rid myself of it.

By the time saliva finally pooled in my parched mouth, her pupils had shrunk back to normal. As if nothing had happened, she looked down at the hand clutching my collar, then crawled back across the floor. She calmly began picking up the scattered barley grains, just like I’d seen her do for weeks.

I never believed in shamans, folk rites, or superstitions. I didn’t even have stage jinxes the way other people did.

But now that something unexplainable had happened, I had to grab at anything. I hurried and caught Eyes by the wrist as she picked up the barley grains.

“Eyes, what did you mean by that?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You just told me… that I’m going to die.”

“Me?”

Eyes looked genuinely puzzled. I wanted to scream in frustration.

“You said if I go outside I’ll die—”

“Hey, you stupid b***h. Of course if a prisoner runs out past the walls she’ll get shot. Do you think she’ll live?”

Wangnyeo snorted, dismissive.

“She kept her mouth shut like she had glue on it, and once it opened it’s all nonsense coming out.”

Yera, who’d been rubbing Wangnyeo’s forearm, chimed in nastily. Wangnyeo chewed the inside of her cheek and said with a grin.

“Yeah, you’ll die. I’ll make sure I beat you to dust one day. Heh heh.”

She sniffed her grubby hand and laughed.

Eyes lifted her face in a prim little pout.

“I spout nonsense sometimes. My general comes down every now and then, y’know.”

Then she shrugged like it was nothing and put the pouch back in her waistband, crawling back to her place.

I felt hollow. While I stood there like a spent thing, Yera sidled up and grabbed my arm hard, whispering.

“If you start crawling on Deputy Ki, I’ll be the one to kill you first, got it?”

“……”

“Try flashing your chest one more time and see what happens.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“That’s what I thought. We’ll see about that.”

Who did they take me for? Every day was survival and a maze of questions; I didn’t have the headspace to care about Yera’s threats.

I jerked my arm free and turned to go back to my spot, nearly shouting when my eyes landed on someone who had been sitting like a stone statue all along, without a sound.

“…Don’t scare me.”

Whether I was startled or not, the woman with her hair neatly braided sat expressionless against the wall the whole time.

She rolled the beads of a rosary between one bony hand. Everyone called her Sole of the Room because of the callused, sun-browned pads of her feet. Her face was a leathery map of age spots and wrinkles; I couldn’t guess how old she was. Maybe in her sixties.

Even though she was the oldest, she had no presence in the room. In the last week I hadn’t heard her voice even once.

“…Ha.”

Reality hit me again. Five of us were crammed into a room the size of the apartment bathroom I’d known. And all of them were criminals. I hardly dared believe it.

For a while I’d held on to the hope that this was some bizarre, sudden thing that might suddenly be reversed, that one day everything would snap back.

Now, in this moment, a heavy feeling settled in me that maybe things would not go easily at all.