L*st and Death

“We’ll begin the blood draw.”

Joan Welch looked at the man’s hand holding his arm, his eyes swollen from crying all night. The man’s large hand, wrapped around Joan’s thin arm mottled with bruises, was warm to the touch. With practiced ease, he tied a bright yellow tourniquet around Joan’s upper arm, then tapped the inside of the elbow with calloused fingers to locate a vein.

Joan didn’t take his eyes off the sharp needle pricking his skin. When the man pulled the trigger on the pistol-like syringe, the needle embedded in his vein began drawing blood. The sight of his dark, crimson blood pooling into the large cylinder was chilling. Why were they—no, why was this man—drawing his blood?

Unlucky Joan. Joan Welch, forever making all the wrong choices. He never escaped the cycle of misfortune. Foolish and weak, he fell into drugs, became a prostitute, and drifted along the edges of society until he finally ended up homeless. Just barely surviving day by day, he was abducted without even knowing why and imprisoned on a remote island surrounded by an endless sea. And the island was full of others who shared his fate.

The people who kidnapped the homeless were young, brutal men. Their enormous builds called to mind the Nephilim—giants from ancient myths. Their volatile, unpredictable temperaments exploded at the smallest provocation, and their acts of cruelty stained the silence of the island with blood.

Joan had been broken in within three days of arriving on the lawless island where violence was routine. At first, he’d imagined calling the police officer who had once given him her number, fantasizing about being rescued. But he hadn’t memorized the number—and even if he had, he wouldn’t have dared to make the call. After witnessing another abductee get slaughtered for attempting to escape, Joan's will to flee was completely extinguished. He no longer had any sense of what day it was or how much time had passed since the abduction.

“You don’t look so good.”

As he transferred the blood into collection tubes, the man loosened the bright yellow tourniquet and spoke.

Joan couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “You don’t look so good”? It was such a normal sentence, it felt like a dream. Since arriving in this hellish place, he’d been beaten bloody in the mouth more than once just for speaking out of turn. And that wasn’t all—there were rumors among the captives that some were taken to strange experiments and then vanished, like lab rats in a facility.

Cautiously, Joan looked up. He thought he’d memorized the faces of all the madmen who ruled this island, but this one was new. It must have been around ten days since he last shaved—his short, wiry beard made him look worn and rough. The man stared at Joan with vivid blue eyes. Joan flinched at the intensity of it and quickly lowered his head, mumbling softly.

“I—I haven’t been sleeping well.”

The man calmly studied him, then let out a dry laugh.

“Fair enough. Here, there are only two options. You either sleep forever... or never again.”

His voice was calm but carried a chilling weight. Joan shuddered. The man rubbed Joan’s arm with an alcohol swab, then drew an unknown clear liquid from a vial into a fresh syringe. He found a vein and inserted the needle. Joan accepted the shot like a prisoner laying his neck on the guillotine, and mulled over the man’s words again and again.

Trapped on this remote island, where the only futures were endless, sleepless nights or a pitiful death without a grave. If those were the only two choices left in his life—

Joan’s body trembled violently. Tears streamed from his bloodshot eyes like rain. It amazed him that he still had any tears left. The injected drug coursed through his veins like acid, eating away at his insides.

“Hhkk... W-what kind of d-drug is this...?”

“Your cholesterol’s surprisingly high for someone this thin. It was a supplement to suppress cholesterol synthesis.”

Joan’s eyes widened. Locking up homeless people on a death island and injecting them with mere health supplements? It made no sense.

“L-lies. That’s a lie.”

The man simply pressed down on the injection site with an alcohol swab and applied a bandage in silence.

“Please let me go. I’ll disappear like I’m dead. I’ll hide, I promise.”

“Everyone has the same tired imagination.”

“...What?”

“That’s the twenty-first time I’ve heard that line today.”

Joan realized then that his desperation didn’t reach the man at all. Still, he noticed—maybe hopefully—that this man, unlike the others, hadn’t hurt him. Joan desperately threw himself to the floor, grabbing the man’s foot and pleading.

“Please... please let me live. I’ll do anything, anything at all. I can’t die like this, like some lab rat in a human experiment. Hhk—please, please, just let me live...”

“...A lab rat, huh.”

“Yes, yes. Please, I don’t want to d-die like this...”

Unfortunately, the only word in all of Joan’s frantic begging that made any impression was “lab rat.” The man’s thoughts had already moved elsewhere. His voice dropped to a mutter, more like a sigh.

“Who knows. You might be one of the lucky ones.”

“...What? What do you mean—”

But before Joan could beg further, the door opened and four gigantic men entered—like warriors out of a myth. They handled Joan like garbage, dragging him out of the barren room alongside medical waste. The man watched with a cold, emotionless gaze.

There was no one here to laugh bitterly at his joke-like truth. Isaac Bazelli let out a frigid chuckle on behalf of his lucky lab rat.

“Put the phone down, please. People will talk.”

Baekgyeong lifted his head at the voice coming from the front seat. It was Chief Manager Kim Seontae, his mother’s loyal aide and subordinate, staring at Baekgyeong through the rearview mirror. The mirror had clearly been angled to reflect the back seat so he could glance at Baekgyeong between turns.

Baekgyeong raised his middle finger toward the mirror.

“So what? The funeral’s over.”

“There are still many formalities left. Even if you’re not grieving, at least pretend to be.”

Baekgyeong leaned his cheek against the car window and closed his eyes, as if the advice were boring him. He had avoided riding with his father and brother to the crematorium and ended up in Kim Seontae’s car instead—clearly the wrong choice. The man talked far too much.

“I am sad that she died... I’m just thinking about something else.”

What he couldn’t stop thinking about was Siron, who had yet to respond. Anna had barely gotten back to him, which offered a sliver of relief, but he was still anxious not having heard Siron’s voice. He was terrified Siron might disappear again like before—abandoning him and vanishing without a trace.

And now that damned Lewis was hovering near Siron, watching for the chance to snatch him away. It was like handing a fish to a cat—a perfectly prepared sashimi platter no less.

“So the reunion wasn’t that emotional, huh?”

Baekgyeong didn’t answer.

“Don’t cling to someone who’s already halfway out the door. You can’t force it to work.”

Kim hadn’t named who Baekgyeong was obsessed with, but Baekgyeong knew he was talking about Yoon Siron. His gay sex scandal had become a tabloid favorite not only in Korea but also in Vile Group’s U.S. headquarters. For Kim, who had served as his mother’s secretary, Baekgyeong’s scandal wasn’t entertainment or dopamine—it was a professional nuisance.

“I °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° never thought he’d come back easily. I’ll use industrial glue if I have to. And stop sticking your nose in things you don’t understand.”

Kim gave a cryptic smile at that. It wasn’t the forced smile he gave whenever he had to deal with his boss’s unbearable son. This one seemed to carry a hint of prophecy—as if he knew Baekgyeong would understand someday.

“The more you cling to the past, the more it turns to poison. Sometimes, letting go is the better path for both.”

“And if I can’t let go?”

“Then you become a narrow-minded monster. But hey, you know—there are plenty of men. Plenty of women, too.”

Baekgyeong tugged at his tie, loosening it irritably.

“You’re unusually chatty today, Chief Kim.”

“Ha! Did I overstep?”

“You passed the line long ago.”

“Oh dear. With the chairwoman gone, I guess I can kiss my job goodbye.”

The face in the mirror offered a mockingly playful smile before drifting into pensive silence. On the man’s gaunt face bloomed a deep, unmistakable sorrow. He was clearly thinking of Choi Baekhee’s death. Watching him quietly, Baekgyeong unexpectedly felt his heart soften.

“You worry too much. Our family treats you like family, you know.”

“...Is that so?”

A faintly mocking smirk flickered across Kim Seontae’s face and vanished like a flash of light. It was the kind of sneer you’d miss if you weren’t watching closely. Apparently, he hadn’t been treated all that kindly while Baekgyeong was locked away in the psychiatric hospital. Baekgyeong’s father—though he’d never admit it—had always been suspicious, perhaps even jealous, of Kim Seontae, who was not only his wife’s right-hand man but also her most trusted confidant.

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