Unkind

What awoke me first was, probably, the cold and damp sensation on my body. The ground upon which my body was lying was hard and uneven. I could feel my clothes plastered onto my skin uncomfortably. It could also be the sound of a girl weeping somewhere that pulled me awake. The sound was both close and far as I struggled slowly to open my eyes and fought the prickling and numbing sensation on my head. By now, I had remembered fragments of details from what happened before I was in this cold place. Instantly, I wondered where Min Gi and Yeo Joon were now.

"Oh, she's finally awake," a girl from somewhere near me said as I stirred. When I peeled my eyes open, I realized there was hardly any light in that room. Later I would find out that the only light there came from a lantern put high on the wall, with a small candle that gave weak light to the entire room.

The speaking girl earlier continued, "She shouldn't be awake, it's better if she sleeps longer. Those people should've given her a stronger drug."

"Wait, she's gonna scream," said another girl as I pulled myself to sit down on the hard ground. I could almost detect her smirking, but I said nothing.

I heard a rustling movement right next to me, and before I could react, a girl's face was in front of me, inspecting my face closely. "She doesn't scream," she said. Her voice was chirpy. "She looks confused. A bit surprised, though, maybe because I shoved my face in front of her nose." She giggled.

"Whatever. Just hit her if she screams. My ears hurt from hearing screams and wails since …" The first girl had gone quiet. "I feel like it's been forever."

"Forever?" I muttered. "You don't know how long you've been here?"

The sarcastic girl snorted loudly. "In this dank place, how am I supposed to know? Can you see any calendar hanging on the wall here?"

I went quiet and put my hand in front of me, trying to grasp what kind of a dank place I was in. The air was stale and a little icy here. When I stuck my arm behind my back and found the wall, it was also bitterly cold and humid. Nonetheless, I scooted closer to the wall even though the cold bit directly into my bones. But at least I could sit and recline on the wall while hugging my knees, even though the hard ground hurt my bottom and, to tell the truth, I was shivering.

Where on earth was I now? Whatever I did earlier with Min Gi and Yeo Joon had clearly been discovered and angered someone or some people. Then they knocked me unconscious and brought me to this unknown place. Perhaps someone had been spying on us when we were at that house back in Sangpan-ri, and they knew our intention. Perhaps, they had been following us from Seoul, even. Or perhaps, whoever they were, had followed me all this time? From Daegu … but since when?

To my horror, I realized that I might have been followed since I saw those strangers inside Min Gyeong's apartment. So, it seemed like I didn't save myself from being caught by them. Apart from seeing those strangers that night, there was nothing else that might be the reason for me being chased by unknown people. I hardly had any friends; I had only been living my life in that small neighborhood in Daegu; I practically never left Daegu. I had no social media. I never owed money to anyone, and I never cheated on anyone. The only thing that made sense was that night when I saw unrecognizable people rummaging into Min Gyeong's cabinet and drawers. What I saw that night must have made me a witness to something I shouldn't have seen.

It also meant those people might have brought me to the place we'd been looking for—the place where they confined all the missing girls, including Min Gyeong.

I raised my head and said, "Min Gyeong?"

The sound of weeping had turned into sobbing, and it still hadn't stopped after I called for Min Gyeong. I raised my voice, "Oh Min Gyeong?"

"Shut up," the sarcastic girl replied sharply. "Just shut your mouth."

"Min Gyeong, it's me, Sook Ja," I ignored the sarcastic girl. I didn't care if this made me look like an insane person by talking to myself. But I prayed that I wasn't wrong. That Min Gyeong was also with me in this place, however ironic that sounded. "I've been looking for you with your brother, Min Gi, and his friend, Yeo Joon. We were in a house in Sangpan-ri where Yeo Joon said he found your handbag and suitcase. We thought you might be nearby. Please talk to me if you're here."

By now, the light had reached my eyes, and I started to see things better in the room. I saw that it was more like a jail cell, humid and windowless save for the iron bars. Maybe we were down in a basement, but still, I had no clue. The walls and the ground were bare earth. Where I lay down just now, there was a puddle of mud. No wonder my clothes got wet. However, I couldn't count how many people were inside the cell once I saw their rough figures, but through my cracked glasses, I could see that the cell was near full. A girl was sitting across from me, with her back also leaning to the wall, staring at me intently as if a hawk watching over its prey. I assumed she was the sarcastic one, although she didn't open her mouth when I glared back at her. I was sitting with my elbow protruding through the iron bars and my left side glued to another girl (the chirpy one). To my right, I could see another cell straight across, also brimming with girls inside.

There was no answer to my calling Min Gyeong's name, so I took a deep breath and screamed, "MIN GYEONG!"

"Shut up!" the sarcastic girl hissed. "You're gonna make the guards come down here and grab you!"

But there was a delicate voice coming from somewhere, another cell that wasn't too far from mine. "Sook Ja? Is that you? It sounds like you."

I stood up abruptly and clenched my fists around the iron bars of the cell door. "Min Gyeong? Min Gyeong, it's me, Sook Ja! Where are you?"

It was too dark to see around, and there was no light in the long corridor. However, I noticed a head appearing from about two cells to my left. When it turned right, I almost shouted in relief. That girl's head with the pixie haircut was too familiar for me, and I couldn't possibly forget the form, although right now I couldn't see the face belonging to it due to the crack in my glasses and the dimness around us.

"Min Gyeong! Thank God you're alright!" I laughed.

Min Gyeong also laughed, albeit weakly. "Sook Ja! I can't believe you're here. But," she paused, "what are you doing here? How come you're in this hell?"

Footsteps echoed, and I turned my head to see a brighter lantern illuminated the end of the corridor. Min Gyeong retracted quickly back into her cell. It took me longer to be aware of the situation before someone pulled me back.

"Hush," someone whispered in my ear. "Don't say anything. They're coming."

"Who are—" My mouth was quickly covered by the girl's hand, which later I recognized as the sarcastic girl's hand.

"Just stay quiet and don't move," she slowly released me and pushed my body toward the wall. I hit the damp wall pretty hard, but I kept quiet while watching the bright lantern light moving ever closer to my cell.

The "guard," which I later understood as the way the girls spoke of this burly man dressing in black, shone the light on every cell in the corridor. He was shouting, spewing foreign words that I suspected might be swearing or cursing judging from his rude tone of speaking. When he reached my cell, he seemed to be standing there a little longer, scowling at every girl's head. The fact that he was lingering close to the iron bars made me curious, and I lifted my head.

At that moment, the guard spotted me and started to aim his finger at me, repeating the curses he'd said before to the other cells. But I wasn't paying attention to his words; I was looking at the image tattooed on his forearm, the lantern light shone on it and made it look brighter.

The coat of arms of the Báthory family. Plain as day in front of my eyes. It couldn't be wrong; I remembered the shape of the three white teeth in the middle of a curling dragon.

So, I'd been brought to the dragon's lair.