Ha Joon's skin was torn.
Face like a mud pit.
Bruises blooming—brown, gray, purple around the eyes.
Skin painted red.
Big bruises. Small bruises. All over.
Chi-Long stood over him in the medical room, her hands hovering above his shoulder where the goblin's teeth had torn through fabric and flesh.
Her hands were long.
Pale.
Surprisingly soft to the touch when they pressed against his skin.
Then—
Fire.
Red and pink flames erupted from her palms, wrapping around his wounds, burrowing into torn flesh, forcing cells to multiply, forcing skin to knit back together, forcing bones to remember their shape.
Ha Joon screamed.
Not from relief.
From pain that felt like being unmade and remade in the same breath, like his body was being taken apart at the molecular level and rebuilt wrong, like the fire was eating him from the inside out.
His back arched off the table.
His hands gripped the edges until his knuckles went white.
The flames didn't stop.
Chi-Long's face remained unchanged.
Calm.
Clinical.
Observing.
When the fire finally died, Ha Joon collapsed back onto the table, gasping, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face mixing with tears he didn't remember shedding.
Chi-Long stepped back.
Examined her work.
The wounds were closed.
Pink new skin where there had been blood and torn flesh.
Perfect.
She looked at him.
"Don't confuse healing with kindness."
Her voice was flat.
Matter-of-fact.
She turned and walked toward the door.
"You're dismissed. Return to your quarters."
The door closed behind her.
Ha Joon lay there.
Still.
Breathing.
Staring at the fluorescent lights overhead that buzzed and flickered and gave nothing back.
---
That night, Ha Joon lay on the top bunk.
Staring at the dark ceiling.
The room was silent except for the faint hum of ventilation and the occasional drip of water somewhere in the walls.
The only thing on his mind was the goblin.
Turned into meat.
Pulp.
Something that used to be alive.
He could still hear it.
The sound of bone cracking under his fists.
The wet thud of flesh splitting.
The way the goblin's skull had felt when it finally gave way.
Soft.
Wrong.
The fear.
The moment he realized he'd pissed himself, warm liquid running down his leg while he kept hitting and hitting and hitting because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant understanding what he'd become.
And Eun Byol.
She'd been second to enter her room.
But first to leave.
He didn't know what that meant.
Didn't know if it mattered.
Didn't know if she'd killed faster or slower or with more control or less.
Didn't know if she'd screamed like he had.
He shut his eyes.
The images didn't stop.
They played behind his eyelids like a film he couldn't pause.
Green skin.
Yellow eyes.
Blood.
So much blood.
He opened his eyes.
The ceiling stared back.
Blank.
Empty.
Offering nothing.
Something in him had cracked.
Not loud.
Not clean.
Just enough.
He whispered to himself.
"Say it."
His voice barely made sound.
Louder now.
"Say it!"
Nothing came out.
Just breath.
Just the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears like drums.
He wanted to say he was okay.
Wanted to say he could handle this.
Wanted to say it didn't matter.
But the words wouldn't form.
Tears snuck out.
Slowly.
Hot against his cold skin.
Betraying him.
His hands rose to his face.
Slowly.
Each movement carried weight.
Like lifting stone.
Like dragging something heavy through mud.
He felt a single tear on his fingertip.
Warm.
Real.
His hands shook.
Then stopped.
No more tears came.
Just emptiness.
Just the hollow space where something used to be.
He lowered his hands.
Rested them on his chest over the thin blanket.
Felt them vibrate to the rhythm of his heart.
*Thump.*
*Thump.*
*Thump.*
Breathing was difficult.
Shallow.
Tight.
Like his lungs had forgotten how.
He tried to steady it.
Couldn't.
The silence pressed down.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
He stared at the ceiling and thought about his father.
Wondered if he'd felt like this.
Wondered if killing monsters had broken something inside him too.
Wondered if that's why he never came back.
Not because he died.
But because he couldn't.
Because coming home meant facing what he'd become.
Ha Joon's chest tightened.
"Eun Byol."
His voice came quiet.
Broken.
"Are you awake?"
Pause.
"And if you're not... sorry for waking you up."
No sound.
Just silence stretching long enough to make him think she wasn't going to answer.
His hands stayed on his chest, feeling each heartbeat, each shallow breath that wouldn't come easy, each second ticking by in the dark.
Then—
"No."
Her voice.
Soft.
Hesitant.
"I'm... not... asleep."
Ha Joon's eyes opened wider.
He stared at the ceiling.
Tried to keep it all in.
Tried to hold the dam.
But it broke.
Everything came out at once.
"I'm so sorry."
His voice cracked.
"I'm so sorry. I'm useless. I thought we were gonna die. I don't know what to do. I'm no hero. I want to be a good person. I want to be a good guy. But I'm not. I'm not."
The words spilled out faster than he could control them, running together, breaking apart, reforming into something desperate and raw and honest and pathetic.
"What if next time I freeze? What if I can't do it again? What if—"
He stopped.
Breathing hard.
The silence that followed felt like judgment.
---
Eun Byol lay on the bottom bunk.
Staring at the underside of Ha Joon's mattress above her.
She could feel the small vibrations he made.
Each word.
Each breath.
Each break in his voice sending tremors through the bed frame.
She didn't move.
Didn't speak immediately.
Just listened.
She'd heard him screaming in that room.
Heard the sounds.
The wet thuds.
The cracking.
She'd made those sounds too.
Different room.
Different monster.
Same result.
Her hands rested on her stomach over the blanket.
They didn't shake anymore.
That scared her more than the shaking had.
She closed her eyes.
Saw yellow eyes staring back.
Opened them.
The darkness was better.
"It's okay."
Her voice came out steadier than she expected.
Calmer than she felt.
"No one's expecting you to be the hero."
The words felt true.
Cold.
But true.
A pause.
She added quietly:
"I understand."
Because she did.
She understood the fear.
The shame.
The crack.
She just wasn't ready to say it out loud yet.
Silence settled between them.
Not comfortable.
But shared.
"Good night, Ha Joon."
"Good night, Eun Byol."
---
The silence crept back into the room.
Thick.
Heavy.
But somehow lighter than before.
Not forgiveness.
Not comfort.
Just acknowledgment.
Two people who'd crossed the same line.
Two people who couldn't go back.
Two people trying to figure out if forward was even possible.
Eun Byol stared at the darkness above her.
"I didn't sleep either," she whispered.
So quiet Ha Joon almost didn't hear it.
"Last night. I just... lay here. I can still see it when I close my eyes."
Ha Joon said nothing.
But his breathing slowed slightly.
"I thought it would feel different," she continued. "Being strong. Being... awakened. I thought it would feel like something."
Pause.
"It just feels empty."
Ha Joon's hands pressed harder against his chest.
"Yeah."
One word.
But it carried weight.
Agreement.
Understanding.
The ventilation hummed.
Water dripped somewhere in the walls.
Their breathing synced without meaning to.
Slow.
Uneven.
But there.
And eventually—minutes or hours later, neither could tell—they fell asleep.
Two broken people.
In a broken facility.
In a broken world.
Still breathing.
Still here.
That was enough.
For now.