They called me in once the treatment was done.
The room smelled faintly of herbs and old wood. He lay still on the cot, pale but breathing steadily. They assumed we were siblings. That lie had bought me time.
I sat beside him, glancing down at the book in my lap. The pulsing had stopped. The letters no longer shifted. The page hadn't progressed. Maybe this part… wasn't over yet.
I reread the old, inked lines. That's when I saw it.
His name.....Seonwoo.
Now that I knew it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It suited him—sharp, strong, like someone born to endure this ruined world. I was curious. Maybe too curious.
But the fear hadn't left. The walls outside the room might've offered shelter, but not safety. My fingers dug into the fabric of my clothes as I tried to calm my racing thoughts.
"How long had I been gone?"
"Did anyone notice?"
"Would anyone ever find me?"
…Or had I just vanished? Like I never existed?
A soft groan broke through the silence.
I looked up. Seonwoo was waking.
His brow furrowed slightly as he shifted, pain flickering across his face. I hurried to grab a nearby cup of water and helped him sit up slowly.
He drank, coughing lightly. Then his eyes met mine.
"You again," he said, voice rough. "Who are you? Where… where is this place?"
"Shhh." I leaned in quickly. "Lower your voice. I need to tell you something important."
He frowned, but listened.
"We're not safe here," I whispered. "These people—they're not what they seem. I lied to them. Told them you were my brother."
There was a beat of silence. Then he nodded once. "Smart."
"My name is Seo Harin," I said quietly.
"…Seonwoo."
We sat there in strange silence. Two strangers in a ruined world, bound by a lie and a threat we hadn't fully seen yet.
After a while, I asked him, "Where… are we?"
He stared at me, something like disbelief in his expression.
"You really don't know," he said slowly. "From your clothes, your voice… you're not from here."
Before I could explain anything, there were footsteps outside. My heart skipped.
"Someone's coming," I whispered. "Act sick."
He gave me a sharp look—but obeyed, slumping back against the cot.
The door opened.
Jorin stepped in with a bowl of food, a bundle of cloth, and a small bottle of medicine. His expression was neutral, maybe even friendly.
I was too tense to care.
"Your brother's looking better," he said. "Try to get him to eat later."
I forced a nod and took the tray. My fingers nearly slipped under the weight.
As soon as he was gone, I placed the food down on the stone floor and backed away from it.
Seonwoo gave it a long, quiet look. "You're not eating that?"
"No," I said firmly. "And neither are you."
He pushed himself up slightly, brow furrowed. "They're feeding us. Giving us medicine. These people saved our lives. They didn't have to. And now they're feeding us, healing me—what more do you want?"
"I want to live," I said coldly. "Not end up on a plate."
He blinked. "You're being ungrateful."
"I'm being careful."
"There's no reason for kindness… unless there's something to gain."
When the door shut, I exhaled hard.
Seonwoo glanced at the bowl and frowned.
He glared at me, jaw clenched. "So what? We starve to death because of your paranoia?... I don't even know you yet you're stopping me!"
His words were true, we weren't even close and it has only been a day since we met but I knew that if I let him eat this food he would soon come to regret his choice like what the book said.
"If that's what it takes to survive a little longer—then yes."
For a long moment, he didn't say anything. Just stared at the bowl, his expression torn between hunger and anger.
Then finally, with a rough exhale, he shoved the tray away.
"Fine. Have it your way," he muttered. "But don't expect me to thank you if we die hungry in this cursed hole."
That night, we didn't sleep so much as take turns watching the door.
The stew sat untouched in the corner, its smell turning sour in the stale air. Our stomachs growled in protest, but we ignored it, each silently pretending the hunger wasn't there. Seonwoo lay with his back to me, and though his breathing eventually slowed, I knew he wasn't fully asleep.
Neither was I.
By morning, the ache in my limbs had spread to my chest. Everything felt heavy.
The door creaked open again.
The four figures we had met—Jorin, Kael, Mira, and Thorne—entered together, their presence filling the small chamber with quiet authority.
Kael's eyes immediately flicked to the untouched tray. "They didn't eat."
"What a waste," Mira muttered, frowning. "We're not made of supplies."
I stood quickly and dipped my head. "I'm sorry," I said. "My brother wasn't feeling well last night. The wound was giving him trouble."
Seonwoo, already half-leaning on the wall, let out a soft groan to sell the act. He looked pale, tired—but his eyes flicked toward me briefly, silently acknowledging the play.
Thorne narrowed his eyes. "He should still eat something."
"I tried," I said, keeping my tone apologetic. "But he kept throwing it up. I didn't want to waste more than we already had."
Jorin waved a hand. "No need to be so tense. You're safe here."
That word scraped against my nerves.
Kael crouched beside Seonwoo, inspecting the bandages. "He's healing well," he muttered. "Another day or two and he'll be able to move around."
I nodded again, though my mind was racing. Another day or two. That's all we need. We leave before then.
"Get some rest," Mira said, softer this time. "We'll bring new food soon."
As they filed out, I saw Jorin glance one last time at the bowl in the corner. His gaze lingered—not just on the food, but on us. Then the door closed behind them.
I sat down slowly, heart pounding.
"They're watching us more carefully now," I whispered.
Seonwoo grunted, lowering himself back onto the bedding. "Because you keep refusing everything."
"I'm not wrong."
"Hope not," he muttered. "Because we won't last much longer like this."
Later that night, when the fort had quieted, we made the decision: once he could walk, we'd leave.
But they had different plans.
The next morning, guards came and locked our door from the outside. A guard came by every few hours with food, which we quietly disposed of behind the loose stone near the cot. I was getting dizzy. Seonwoo was pale. But we didn't stop.
I began searching the room. Desperate.
Looking for anything—a rock, a shard, a tool. They'd taken his sword. Left us with nothing.
He noticed. "What are you doing?"
"Just… let me think," I muttered.
He grunted and laid back, too exhausted to argue.
Then our chance came. It had to be now.
We were both too weak to last much longer, and our plans to escape were crumbling by the hour.
Jorin came in alone.
He was humming something low under his breath, a casual tune that made my skin crawl. He didn't see the look in my eyes. Not yet.
"I brought more stew," he said, setting the tray down. "You should really eat this time. You're not doing yourselves any favors."
Seonwoo groaned from the bedding, still playing the part of the weakening patient. I sat close to him, gripping the cloth I'd been pretending to fold.
Jorin walked over to check Seonwoo's bandages again.
That's when I saw it—the hilt of a small blade strapped at his thigh, barely hidden beneath his coat.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
I moved. Fast. Clumsy. Loud.
Jorin turned, confused. "What are you—?"
I lunged forward and grabbed the blade. My fingers wrapped around it just as he reached to stop me.
He was too slow.
I jammed the knife forward. It slid across his throat. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then blood.
It gushed from the gash in a horrible sputtering arc, hot and thick. It sprayed across my face, my hands, the floor.
Jorin stumbled back, gurgling, clutching at his neck. His eyes were wide, betrayed. Terrified.
He collapsed with a heavy thud.
Silence.
I stared down at him, chest heaving. The room tilted sideways.
I'd killed someone. I could still feel the blade's vibration in my hand. My fingers wouldn't let go.
Behind me, Seonwoo slowly sat up. His voice was quiet—flat. You just killed someone who was helping us."
"I… I didn't have a choice."
I wiped my face with trembling fingers, smearing blood across my cheek.
"He was going to kill us eventually. All of them would."
"Tell me you're not wrong about them… because if you are—"
"Then we just became the monsters."
I turned away from the body and looked at the book, still pulsing faintly on the floor beside Seonwoo.
The words on the page shimmered—changing again, forming new sentences I hadn't seen before.
"And just as he had once been saved by them, so too was he betrayed. In the end, it was not courage, nor fate, but a stranger's blade that spared him from the butcher's table."
I stared at the line until the blood on my hands began to feel like ink.
"They're not real," I whispered to myself. "It's just a story."
But the blood soaking into the stone floor said otherwise.