1. The Prelude to Madness and Shame
Inside the bedroom, a bizarre, suffocating silence hung in the air. The heavy blackout curtains, draped resolutely as if to bar even a single speck of outside light, completely severed all connection with the world. Only the bedside lamp, flickering precariously at the head of the bed, bled a dim, murky crimson light, treading heavily upon the stagnant atmosphere.
The organization's chairman, a man in his sixties infamously known as the "Old Fox," stepped slowly toward the bed, leaving his grotesque, aging frame entirely exposed in nothing but a pair of boxers. Held between his withered fingers, a silver syringe glimmered sinisterly as the colorless liquid inside caught the crimson glow of the lamp.
Twenty-five-year-old Yeong-ae clung desperately to the edge of the bed, her entire body trembling violently like a leaf in a tempest. Paralyzed by the mounting terror, her eyes had long since turned stark white, utterly drained of life.
"Chairman... please, anything but that... I beg of you..."
Yeong-ae’s pitiful pleading disintegrated sorrowfully into the empty air, never reaching the Old Fox's ears. The old man let out a foul, predatory smirk and roughly snatched her frail arm. As his callous fingers dug deep with crushing force, vivid bruises of blue and purple instantly bloomed across her pale skin.
Thud—
The needle pierced through her flesh without mercy. Yeong-ae’s shriek was cut short, failing to burst outward and lingering like a faint ghost inside her mouth before vanishing entirely. Soon, the icy, demonic fluid surged through her slender veins, and her vision began to blur instantly. Looking down at her with eyes steeped in madness, the Old Fox wasted no time in plunging the needle deep into his own arm as well.
The old man closed his eyes briefly, waiting for the vicious intoxication of the drug to take absolute command of his brain. A heavy, ominous silence blanketed the room. From somewhere far away, the distant sound of a bathroom shower echoed like an elusive hallucination.
When the Old Fox finally opened his eyes, they no longer belonged to a human being. His pupils had constricted into pinpricks, and his bloodshot whites rolled back in a grotesque display. Completely overtaken by the chemical high, the old man’s face contorted violently into the visage of a demon wearing human skin.
Struggling against the overwhelming rush of the drug, the Old Fox stumbled and staggered toward Yeong-ae, barely maintaining his balance. Yeong-ae held her breath in sheer, primal terror, but the old man’s cruel palm struck her pale cheek without warning.
Smack—!
The sharp, merciless crack shattered the stillness of the room. Yeong-ae’s head snapped back powerlessly, offering no resistance. A crimson handprint surfaced instantly on her smooth cheek, and her frail body collapsed helplessly onto the bed.
At that exact microsecond, the boundaries of time and space collapsed, and the cruel phantoms of her fracturing soul began to overlay seamlessly with reality.
As Yeong-ae's gaunt spine crashed defenselessly onto the mattress, the memory of a stench-ridden rural kitchen from fifteen years ago bled through like a transparent ghost. The terror-stricken face of ten-year-old Yeong-ae, trembling uncontrollably before her stepfather's combat boots while clutching shards of a broken plate, was brutally superimposed onto the back of the present Yeong-ae. The terrors of the past had not retreated a single step; they still held an unwavering, suffocating grip on her throat.
Then, the Old Fox’s filthy hands began to viciously tear her outerwear to shreds. Over those destructive hands ripping through fabric as it shrieked in protest, another bizarre afterimage flared crimson. The agonizing screams of a man engulfed in roaring flames at the bottom of a deep pit, and his beast-like thrashing as his flesh melted away, twisted in perfect unison with the old man's violent movements. It was a Mobius strip of tragedy born of violence and karma.
Finally, her garments were completely stripped away, leaving her shameful, naked form entirely exposed, stripped of all protection. The air in the room grew ice-cold in an instant as Yeong-ae was thrown down defenselessly onto the bed.
With the scars of her past—those she had desperately wished to hide—exposed so humiliatingly, the Old Fox stared down at her with a gaze consumed by madness, savagely scattering the shredded ribbons of fabric into the empty air. Uttering the guttural groan of an animal stripped of reason, the old man lunged over Yeong-ae. It was the beginning of a claustrophobic, sadistic violence from which there was no escape.
"How dare you betray me and run off with some young punk? Did a worthless bitch like you truly believe she could betray me and survive?"
The Old Fox’s voice was cracked and mumbled from the drugs, but the malice woven into his words was as sharp as an awl. He pressed down heavily on Yeong-ae’s throat, violently satisfying his twisted desires.
"Ah... Chairman... I am... I am not the Madam... I am Yeong-ae..."
Yeong-ae groaned in agony and humiliation, offering what little, feeble resistance she could muster. Yet her fragile voice was buried and lost beneath the old man's ragged breathing and the harsh rustling of the shredded fabric.
2. A Cruel Chronicle (The Phantom of Ten Years Ago)
Amidst the crimson light of the bedside lamp, the very texture of the room warped and dissolved, shifting the scenery back to a harbor hotel room from ten years ago.
Through the thick curtains that barred even the midday sun, the stench of foul desire drifted like a wandering ghost. A thirty-five-year-old woman—the wife of the organization's boss and the Old Fox’s brutal plaything—lay locked in the embrace of a twenty-five-year-old gigolo with smooth, youthful skin.
It was not love. It was merely a brief, desperate struggle to break free from the suffocating touch of an aging, withered husband. Entirely oblivious to the fact that her soul was being slowly eaten away, she hung onto the false warmth provided by that youthful flesh.
spers they exchanged were already flowing directly into the Old Fox's cold, listening ears through meticulously placed wiretaps. The sweet tryst they indulged in was nothing more than a prelude announcing their impending funeral.
The gates of hell flung wide open along with a blood-red sunset. Deep within a mountain forest where even the wild beasts held their breath, a massive pit yawned open, swallowing the darkness. At the bottom of that cold pit lay the young man from the hotel room, his entire body bound tightly in ropes.
The man’s face was already mangled beyond recognition, and a terror worse than death ruled over his entire being. Above the pit, beside the boss—then in his fifties—knelt a woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to the present-day Yeong-ae, weeping bitterly. She clutched at her husband’s trouser cuffs, sobbing hysterically, but no sound came out. Only her trembling lips silently shaping the words "please save him" conveyed the true depth of her despair.
The Old Fox did not move an inch. His eyes were as arid as a desert, and a faint, mocking sneer remained etched on his lips. With a slow wave of his hand, two burly men guarding the perimeter stepped down into the pit, hauling heavy cans of fuel.
The men mercilessly poured the fuel over the bound man's body. The pungent reek of gasoline heavily corrupted the crisp evening mountain air. The Old Fox slowly pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. Taking a deep drag, he flicked the still-glowing ember toward the gasoline-soaked body at the bottom of the pit.
Whoosh—!
The wall of fire erupted even before a scream could escape. The man’s body was instantly enveloped in a massive inferno. Unable to endure the searing agony, he thrashed and flailed wildly inside the pit, writhing pitifully like a burning monster. It was a grotesque vision of hell where human dignity and form dissolved simultaneously.
Witnessing the spectacle head-on, his wife was too paralyzed by sheer horror to even scream. She collapsed into herself, buried her face in both hands, and wept like a wounded animal. Her soul had already been reduced to ash, burning alongside the man in that very fire. Listening to his wife’s hysterical weeping, the Old Fox let out a vile, satisfied smirk.
3. Solace Beneath the Setting Sun
Is a sunset beautiful only because it signals the absolute end of the day and the grand beginning of darkness? A blood-red twilight poured heavily through the massive glass doors of the hotel suite that looked out onto the distant sea. Inside the room, a silence as heavy as death itself had settled.
In the dead center of the room, a white rope dangling from the ceiling swayed like a specter. Standing precariously atop a chair, the Old Fox’s wife slowly slipped her neck through the waiting noose. Her eyes were completely hollow, devoid of any emotion. No terror remained, nor any sorrow; there was only a profound yearning for eternal rest.
With her slender foot, she quietly kicked the chair away. Her body hung suspended in midair, dissolving softly into the crimson sunset. Silhouetted against the blazing twilight, her final form was heartbreakingly beautiful and tragic. It was the most sorrowful solace the demon had ever granted her.
4. A Name Cried from the Abyss (Present, Night)
Back in the present bedroom. The harsh spray of water from the shower blended with Yeong-ae’s ragged breathing, weaving a jarring, discordant melody. The droplets splattering across the tiled floor absorbed the bathroom’s icy chill, turning freezing cold.
Yeong-ae sat huddled in the corner of the bathroom, her face deathly pale as she hugged the base of the toilet. Left without a single shred of clothing, her frail body was covered in contusions and dark bruises, stamped across her skin like a sadistic tattoo. They were the indelible marks left behind by perverted torture and violence. She dry-heaved weakly, but her stomach had been emptied long ago; only the bitter taste of bile and the copper scent of blood lingered inside her torn mouth.
The sole reason the Old Fox kept her locked away in this horrific manner was his pathological obsession and delusion regarding his deceased wife. He was using Yeong-ae as a surrogate, projecting his warped guilt and twisted desires onto her.
Yeong-ae stared blankly at her blurred reflection in the fogged bathroom window. Dull, vacant eyes, mottled skin, a split lip. The pure, innocent Yeong-ae who used to smile so brightly outside the shoemaker's shop with Seung-hwa was nowhere to be found. Only a hollow shell of a creature, trampled by a demon's filthy hands, sat there in wretched misery.
Gazing out at the pitch-black sea beyond the window, she murmured in a voice barely audible. It was not a prayer directed at the heavens. It was a desperate shriek tearing out from the very bottom of the abyss, meant for only one person.
"...Brother, I'm so scared and it hurts so much. I feel like I'm going to die. Please, get me out of here. Out of this hell..."
The water from the shower continued to fill the bathroom with an indifferent roar, and Yeong-ae’s sorrowful cries scattered silently across the cold tiled floor, sinking into nothingness.
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