I stood motionless, pressed against the cold, decaying surface of a brick wall. My breath was hitched, my eyes fixed on the chaotic dance of violence unfolding in the narrow, suffocating alleyway of Gangnam. In the center of that concrete trap, a girl—S—was engaged in a desperate struggle against a pack of wolves, the low-level pawns of the city's underworld.
She looked like a wild cat cornered by hyenas. Despite her small, almost fragile frame, her movements were a blur of lethal fluidity that the human eye could barely register. She wasn't just fighting; she was performing a macabre ballet. One by one, they fell. She struck with a calculated precision that suggested this wasn't her first brush with death—it was her natural habitat.
I watched, paralyzed by a mixture of awe and terror, until the rhythm broke. Like a bird struck by a stray, invisible bullet, she suddenly collapsed. Her strength vanished in an instant, and she began to fall toward the filth of the pavement. Without thinking, I lunged forward. I caught her before her body could hit the cold ground, the impact of her weight jarring my shoulders.
As I lifted her into my arms, she felt lighter than she should, yet she carried a strange, dense energy. She was bleeding, her skin turning a ghostly, translucent pale. I didn't wait to see if the others were coming. I began to run.
The rain started to pour with a renewed vengeance, hammering against the rusted corrugated iron sheets that lined the alley. Red and blue neon lights from the towering skyscrapers above bled into the puddles at my feet, shimmering like shattered glass. Each step I took sent a splash of oily water into the air. My lungs began to burn, a searing heat spreading through my chest with every ragged breath I took.
She was small, yes, but her body felt strangely solid—a warrior's build hidden beneath a girl's exterior. Her skin was growing colder by the second, her breathing shallow and erratic. I glanced down at her neck, and that's when I saw it again.
S#003.
A single raindrop landed directly on the ink of the tattoo. To my horror, the water didn't roll off; it evaporated instantly with a faint hiss. Then, the mark began to throb. A dull, ominous red glow pulsed beneath her skin, accompanied by a low-frequency vibration. It wasn't a tattoo—it was something mechanical, something deeply embedded within her very biology.
I knew I couldn't take her to a public hospital. A girl like her, hunted by the shadows of Gangnam, would be flagged the moment she entered the ER. I headed for the only safe place I knew: an old, abandoned warehouse that once belonged to my father.
The air inside was thick with the suffocating scent of dust and oxidized iron. Cobwebs draped from the ceiling like ghostly shrouds, clinging to forgotten crates and rusted machinery. I knelt, my knees cracking against the hard floor, and lowered her gently onto a tattered mattress in the corner. A massive cloud of grey dust billowed into the air the moment her weight settled on the fabric.
With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone. My voice was a jagged whisper when the call finally connected.
"Hello, Dr. Yohan... I need a favor. A big one."
"Ming? Do you have any idea what time it is?" his voice crackled, weary but alert.
"There's a girl... she's wounded. I found her in an alley in Gangnam. She's... she's connected to the gangs. I can't risk taking her to a hospital. Please, Yohan."
"Fine," he sighed after a tense silence. "Send me the coordinates. I'm on my way."
Yohan had been my closest friend since we were children. We grew up like brothers, sharing dreams of a better world until the harsh reality of adulthood split our paths—I became a detective, and he chose the path of medicine. I knew he wouldn't betray me. In this city of betrayals, he was the only anchor I had left.
I slid down against the cold wall, burying my face in my hands. "What are you doing, Ming?" I muttered to the shadows. "Are you really risking your life and career for a ghost from the triads?"
The weight of my decision pressed down on me. If Mr. Kim found out I had sheltered a high-profile fugitive, my life would be forfeit. But there was something about her... her combat skills weren't just elite; they were unnatural. A terrifying thought crossed my mind: What if 'S' isn't just a victim? What if she is Tian Long himself?
The warehouse remained silent, save for the rhythmic tapping of rain on the roof. I watched the tattoo on her neck, trying to decode its meaning, but it remained a cryptic enigma. She began to stir, her lips moving as she drifted in and out of a feverish consciousness.
"Tian Long..." she whimpered. "Sai... Papa... Who... who am I?"
Her words were fragments of a shattered memory. Fire and shadows seemed to dance in the red glow of her mark. I tried to piece the names together, but the puzzle was missing its most vital parts.
I closed my eyes for a second, trying to steady my racing heart, when I heard it.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed from outside the warehouse doors. My blood turned to ice. I lunged forward, pressing my hand firmly over S's mouth to stifle any sound.
"Yohan? Is that you?" I whispered toward the door, my other hand reaching for my phone.
A text flashed on my screen. It was Yohan: [Ming, sorry. An emergency came into the clinic. I'll be late. Don't open for anyone.]
The footsteps grew louder. The tattoo on S's neck began to emit a high-pitched static noise, like a radio searching for a signal that didn't exist. The closer the footsteps came, the more violent the vibrations became. They were tracking the mark.
S's eyes snapped open. They were sunken, framed by dark circles, her lips parched and cracked. She looked at me with a terrifying clarity.
"Run, Ming," she rasped, her voice trembling with a desperate urgency. "They... they are here."
I froze. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped animal. I looked at the heavy iron door, then back at her. Should I leave her? Leave her to drown in her own blood at the hands of these monsters?
But that look in her eyes—the raw, naked vulnerability—told me that if I walked away now, the guilt would consume me long before the gangs ever could.
The door began to creak open, its rusted hinges screaming in the silence. I slowly turned my head, my muscles coiled like a spring, waiting for the nightmare to step into the light.