It was a lovely two-story building. It was a happy home where a five-year-old girl lived with her father, mother, and puppy. However, at the moment, they were trapped in a nightmare.
"Please, I beg you, spare the child…"
A hand dyed red grasped SoYoon"s ankle. She froze, forlornly staring down at the hand.
The short moment of hesitation must have bothered them, as the man standing with SoYoon angrily said, "What are you waiting for?"
SoYoon brought down the knife she had lifted above her head. A small head drenched in blood rolled and stopped in front of the father.
"Emily! Emily! You devils! G.o.d"s wrath will fall upon you!"
"You are the ones receiving G.o.d"s wrath. You must not have learned from your mother that you shouldn"t go sticking your nose in other people"s business. Did you, reporter man?"
Another person alongside SoYoon stepped forward and handed over some doc.u.ments. After perusing and discussing its contents, they turned to SoYoon.
"Finish it."
The young father"s agonizing screams echoed throughout the house.
SoYoon, not bothered by the blood splattered on her face, waited for the man"s next instructions. The man scowled and said, "Hey, someone move this to the bathroom. They said if we get blood on the sheets again, they will charge us a cleaning fee."
"Who did?"
"The accountant, Holly. She"s a mere newbie, but she sure has a lot to say…"
SoYoon headed to the bathroom belonging to the family she had just killed. As she washed up, the bathroom door remained wide open with a person standing guard over her. Although his gaze—scanning her naked body up and down—was unwelcome, she didn"t pay him much attention. She showered mechanically and changed into the new suit that had been hanging on the bathroom door handle. As she finished, the guard approached her and slapped handcuffs around her wrists.
"Put it on," said the guard.
The guard pulled at the chains attached to SoYoon"s handcuffs.
SoYoon followed without resistance, pa.s.sing the horrific scene she had caused. As she walked toward the door, her eyes locked with a pair of lifeless green eyes. She felt no guilt.
As SoYoon was dragged into the car by the guard, she sat, staring blankly at the moving scenery outside the window. The view and her reflection took turns flas.h.i.+ng across the black window. She focused her attention on the white-haired reflection.
She remembered the moment she opened her eyes, nine years ago. The moment she had believed that she had survived—that she had been taken to the hospital in time. That was what she had naively a.s.sumed. However, the reality that she had fallen into was more outrageous than anything she could have ever imagined.
She had opened her eyes not on Earth but in another world altogether. On top of that, she had awoken in her 18-year-old body. Later, she found out that she had been the 137th person to have traveled here.
It was a strange place. Everyone around SoYoon was Caucasian, but the only language she heard was Korean. It would have been better if she couldn"t understand them. At the time, SoYoon could do nothing but lie in bed and listen to the future plans that the people of this world had chosen for her.
Without a choice in the matter, she became the government"s experimentation subject. The things that had happened afterward were h.e.l.lish. The researchers had sliced her skin and ground her bones. To test the speed of recovery, SoYoon"s body had been repeatedly broken down, and SoYoon had to continuously endure the painful side effects of the drugs they had forced upon her.
Due to the drugs, SoYoon"s voice had lowered, and her once brown hair had been bleached white. Over and over again, experimentation, surgery, research, dissection, reattachment, and finally, what they called feedback, which incorporated other subjects in a battle royale. SoYoon, who had been forced to endure this grotesque repet.i.tion, suddenly became engrossed in the fact that she was not the first to relocate to this realm.
"What happened to the others before me?"
It was a question that was blurted out by a subject who had previously lost the will to talk. The researcher in charge of her had grabbed her chart and recorded the question. Without hesitation, the researcher had answered, "Unable to handle the experimentation any longer, they died."
"…All of them?" asked the patient.
"All of them," the researcher repeated.
"Why?" asked the patient.
"It was a bit extreme," replied the researcher. "Back then, the researchers didn"t know where to draw the line at "enough." Dimension movers were rare, so we can"t help that they didn"t know. Count yourself lucky. The a.n.a.lyses of previous failures are what have allowed you to stay alive. You will probably be an unprecedented success."
"Then…" said the patient.
SoYoon"s voice had cracked. Although she could have predicted the answer to her question, she had asked anyway in hopes that one might find an oasis in a waterless desert.
"Was there anyone who returned back to their original world?"
The researcher had lifted his head. SoYoon had been able to read the answer as she looked into his curious eyes.
"Do you want to go back?" asked the inquisitive researcher.
She had remained silent.
The researcher laughed for a long time then approached her. "I pity you, so I will answer you."
SoYoon had said nothing.
The researcher had ignored SoYoon"s reaction and said in a straightforward manner, "There were none. Well, we did experiment with it—discovering a door to another dimension is quite phenomenal, isn"t it? But each one failed. We have yet to figure out the reason. Although someday we may be able to." Then the researcher had added with a laugh, "The day you return will never come."
That night, SoYoon had attempted suicide. However, the standby researcher had performed emergency procedures to bring her back to life. This place didn"t even allow the freedom of choosing life or death. She lived like a corpse.
Time had continued to pa.s.s. Eight years after arriving in this realm, SoYoon had finally been able to breathe in the outside air. Although she had been given the respectable t.i.tle of "agent," she was nothing but the government"s hunting dog.
SoYoon stared out the window with emotionless eyes.
I finished my work today, so tomorrow—no, it"s past midnight, so today—I am free from dealing with the researchers.
Stuck in a state of robotic monotony since becoming an agent, she realized that she felt nothing as she watched the scenery outside. It was a miracle that a flamboyant billboard caught her attention: /WONDERLAND/(Gothic).
It was so late that even the signs over the pubs were turned off, and within this pitch-dark world, the billboard flashed with dancing lights.
"Wonderland," SoYoon silently mouthed.
About half a year ago, SoYoon had recognized this place as the setting of the fantasy novel Wonderland. She had been carrying the same novel with her the day she was stabbed. When she had first learned of Wonderland while eavesdropping on the conversation of other agents—who, unlike her, were government employees, instead of a prisoner—she hadn"t thought much of it. No, it was more accurate to say that she couldn"t think much of it, because back then, it didn"t matter if this place had been inside a story or a different dimension.
But, strangely, the moment the sign had caught her eye, a thought had started to creep into SoYoon"s mind. Hidden deep in the recesses of her mind was a spark of hope.
In "Wonderland," the billboard was made 10 years before the start of the storyline. On account of the various happenings that had occurred due to the main character, Alice, the first letter "W" was no longer lit, and until the end of the story, it never got fixed. This meant that there was a good chance that the plot of Wonderland had yet to start.
What if, when the story ended, SoYoon could go back to her world? They had told her that not a single person had been able to return home. But you never knew. The chances were slim, but couldn"t it be that none of the others had known that they were in the story?
The "D" in the middle of the sign glowed red. Not even the most beautiful woman could compare to SoYoon"s lovely smile. Sparks flickered out of the "D." The fluttering of SoYoon"s eyelashes could not have been more seductive.
There were four agents in the car. The handcuffs around her wrists were the only things restraining her. They had relaxed their guard because SoYoon had previously been docile and inattentive. The only thing that might prove troublesome was the tracker SoYoon was forced to wear, and the poison that all agents ingested when leaving the research facility. According to Wonderland, Wonderland was a non-aggressive community, and there was also a very skilled—although controversial, due to his personality and s.e.xual preferences—potion seller.
Making up her mind, SoYoon flexed her wrists with strength. Though the handcuffs used in the research facility magically bound her, the cuffs weren"t foolproof. Even in the real world, they would sometimes fail. Strength beat all.
Crack!
Her strength surpa.s.sed the magic bounds, and with a small sound, the handcuffs broke.
"I think I heard a sound—ack!"
SoYoon jabbed her fingers in the eyes of the agent next to her and clenched her fist. Between her blood-soaked fingers fell the remnants of brain matter and shards of broken skull.
"Defenses…!"
To hide the horrors left inside the house, the agents specializing in magic started to cast their spells. Magic required four stages: summoning, detection, chanting, and casting. However, the agent"s chanting was stopped when SoYoon"s white fingers reached into his mouth and yanked out his tongue.
SoYoon threw the red-stained organ over her shoulder and pulled out a knife from her jacket"s inner pocket. At the same time, flames blasted at her from the pa.s.senger side. SoYoon maneuvered around them effortlessly and killed the driver.
The car swerved haphazardly until the decrease in horsepower brought it to a stop. The door swung open, and slender legs wrapped in a black suit touched the ground. Following behind her was a pool of blood and organs.
SoYoon closed the car door, and, after walking a couple of steps, returned to the car. Opening the car door, she searched the corpses. Four wallets, two knives of varying sizes, one pack of cigarettes, and four walkie talkies activated by magic. She took every last item in the car, including a can of coffee they had brought as a snack. Finally, SoYoon was content; she closed the door and started to walk, within the darkness, toward the only light blinking in the distance.