L*st and Death

“What the hell is there to say. It was a fucking nightmare.”

Just remembering it made Baek Kyung feel like he'd been punched in the solar plexus. A fury close to pain surged through him. The car purchase had taken longer than expected, and flooded roads were blocked off everywhere due to the downpour, so he arrived at Curry King far later than he had planned.

And what Baek Kyung saw in front of Curry King shocked him. The security shutter had been torn off like paper and was now flapping down the street, the glass door smashed to pieces, shards scattered everywhere. The moment he heard someone scream through the roar of the rain, his grip on reason snapped.

“Kyung-ah! Hey you—! Fucking Baek Kyung!”

Only after hearing that familiar curse—a spell permitted only from Yoon Siron, pulling him to the surface like magic—did Baek Kyung come to his senses. The loosened screw in his mind tightened again, and his distant sense of reality finally caught up and slapped him across the face. Even just recalling that moment made his vision go white.

“How far along is Yoon Siron's trait transformation?”

Isaac responded with mocking indifference.

“Dunno. I’m not allowed to disclose patient information, remember?”

“Fuck off with that shit! That bastard outside clearly sensed something from Siron. He ripped off a locked door just to get to him! You think some rutting alpha just randomly rapes a passerby? He tore down a locked door to get to the person inside! That doesn’t happen unless Siron was leaking pheromones. It’s completely irrational otherwise!”

The sarcasm on Isaac’s face cracked, slowly twisting into something closer to unease.

“Tell me the truth. How far has Siron’s transformation gone?”

Isaac fell into a long silence. Baek Kyung’s blood boiled, wanting to smash through that maddening quiet—yet the silence felt almost like a confession: that Siron had become an omega. That thought sent madness spiraling through him.

“He’s mid-transition,” Isaac finally said with a bitter smile. “But as of now, Siron’s still more like a beta.”

“Then how the hell did that bastard find him?”

Isaac once again avoided answering, deliberately silent like someone hiding the truth. Baek Kyung couldn’t take it anymore {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} and stood up abruptly. Just as he stepped over the corpse and made to lunge toward the rapist, Isaac spoke calmly.

“Very rarely, an alpha is born with exceptional tracking ability.”

“Tracking ability?”

“Hyperdevelopment of the Class-X receptor. They can detect even trace pheromones, or chemical particles at the ionic level.”

“So they’re superior to regular alphas?”

“In some ways, yes. They respond sensitively not just to omegas, but even to the pheromones of other alphas.”

“How far can they track?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that such people exist. Siron’s omega transformation is only just past the midway point. I couldn’t detect any changes in his pheromones myself. That means I can’t say for sure whether the transformation succeeded—or if he’s still technically a beta.”

“So if that bloodhound tracked Siron, it means his transformation is progressing stably.”

It was what Baek Kyung had wanted for so long—and yet, a wrenching sorrow tore through his chest. Siron had unknowingly crossed a river he could never return from. That harmless, meaningless smile he used to give everyone—*everyone but Baek Kyung*—would now be shattered, bruised dark blue by the hunger of ravenous alphas. And yet, Baek Kyung’s mouth watered like a lion eyeing prey, his pulse pounding harder than ever.

“How many of those pheromone trackers are out there?”

“Rare. I’ve never met one until now.”

Still lost in thought, eyes lowered, Isaac drew the knife from his pocket once more.

“I think we’ll have to kill him.”

“You’re serious?”

Isaac looked down on Baek Kyung’s shaken face with contempt.

“If you want even a scrap of Yuri Berekh’s research journal, then help me. Best if we handle this without Siron knowing.”

Without waiting for Baek Kyung’s reply, Isaac walked toward the door. But beyond the wide-open threshold, the man was gone.

And so was Siron.

***

Just over two months ago, Lewis had fallen into a vegetative state from a car accident. It had been the day Anna, her friend, and Lewis went to Melber Beach to catch the powerful waves blowing in from the North Atlantic.

That day had been the very first time paparazzi followed Lewis. Since his debut as an actor, he’d lingered in obscurity—so when Anna saw them, she thought finally, her brother was about to become famous.

Amused by the cameras tailing Lewis, the three of them eventually got used to the shutter clicks and stopped even noticing them. Slipping along the surge of those massive, violent waves, they relished every second of freedom. Exhausted and hungry, they decided to head across the coastal road to a steakhouse.

The sun was blazing down on the earth. The ocean glittered like it had been dusted with diamonds. The soft sea breeze and gentle crash of waves made it an afternoon of pure peace.

It was a weekend, and the nearby shops were bustling with surfers. Lewis, groaning about how he was starving enough to eat leather, took off ahead to grab a table. He was crossing an unmarked pedestrian intersection when it happened: a speeding SUV appeared out of nowhere. Hidden behind a bus stopped in the second lane, the vehicle and Lewis didn’t see each other. The crash was unavoidable. Lewis was hurled onto the road and smashed his head against the guardrail dividing sidewalk and street.

He was rushed to the hospital unconscious. Despite emergency treatment, he never woke up. The doctors declared his brain no longer functioning, and hooked him up to life support in preparation for organ donation.

Everything happened in an instant, yet it felt like an eternal nightmare. Anger and grief surged behind the dam of Anna’s mind, ready to break. If she crumbled even a little, the whole dam would collapse and she’d drown in sorrow. That’s when Dealer H approached her.

Dealer H introduced himself as a broker, connecting families of brain-dead patients with “comprehensive, individualized treatment facilities.” He offered Anna access to one: a place called New Life Clinic. It was an unlicensed facility that genetically modified male brain-dead patients and treated them through experimental procedures.

What they claimed sounded like something out of a superhero comic—reprogramming human genes to exceed physical limitations. And yet Anna remembered, faintly, something she’d overheard long ago: talk of genetically enhanced “Alphas.”

It had been during a brief visit home for her father’s birthday, when she was still living with her boyfriend. Her father had locked himself in his study while the guests waited below. Furious after 20 minutes of waiting, Anna went to drag him out—and from the terrace connected to his office, she overheard his hushed phone call.

He was a police officer, speaking about an ongoing investigation. About Alphas suffering from “unquenchable lust.” About how these men committed serious crimes and yet walked free with probation or minor oversight instead of imprisonment.

The idea that these rut-ridden beasts shared elite genetics and a past of being brain-dead patients was like something from a crime novel—but at the time, Anna only cared about how hungry she was. She eventually barged into the study and dragged her father down to dinner.

And that dinner would become the single moment she most wished she could undo. The very next day, the McCarthys died under suspicious circumstances. Her father’s phone disappeared, and the call logs for that night were erased. Anna couldn’t get to the truth. The corrupt police force offered no help. Every private investigator she hired vanished after taking the retainer.

Haunted by grief and regret, Anna eventually followed in her father’s footsteps and became a police officer in her thirties. But as a fresh graduate barely out of trainee status, there was nothing she could do within the uncooperative system.

Time flowed mercilessly as she wasted away doing traffic duty. Then, right before Lewis’s vegetative life would be cut off, a door opened. Dealer H—holder of the key to the “unquenchable lust” Alphas—reappeared.

New Life Clinic demanded \$300,000 to treat Lewis—and full silence from Anna about anything she learned. She had no choice. To save Lewis from being torn apart and disconnected from life support, she sold part of her mother’s inheritance and handed him over to the clinic.

But never, not once, had Anna wanted Lewis to turn into some rutting monster, rampaging outside and hurting people.

Now, Anna stood dazed in the rain outside Curry King. The scene was empty—but there was no doubt Lewis had been here.

The shredded security gate fluttered in the storm, the shattered glass scattered like glittering knives. Who but a genetically enhanced Alpha could unleash this kind of raw, senseless power?

It was past 1 a.m. when Anna arrived at the scene. If she had come to Riverland’s Curry King instead of patrolling the nearby Linhart district, maybe she could’ve stopped Lewis. But she missed the chance.

And Lewis... had vanished again.

“Fucking bastard. What the hell did you do this time?”

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