02.
–
“It was successful……! We finally succeeded in absorbing it!”
It was the last voice I heard before I passed out after being injected by something strange. I still lifted my heavy eyelids and blinked a few times with a blurred focus. The whole view was faded away. At first, I thought I was trapped in a white room. But soon I realized that wasn’t it. I stared at the lines drawn in the air before my eyes. It was a very different thread.
Dozens, hundreds……No, more than that.
Countless, tightly-knitted silks were wrapped around me like a cocoon.
“It’s amazing. I didn’t think you’d hold out…”
“I guess I should have experimented with a young object.”
“You’re the Doctor!”
“That’s right, how did you come up with this idea, you’re amazing!”
The voices flowing in my ears and my sense of smell were clearer than before. Somehow I felt better than before.
Buuk!
I raised my hand and tore up the wall in front of me. But this place was not the last bed I slept in. The moment I tore the stringed cocoon and pulled myself out, my feet fell flat. I was pulled down by gravity.
Poof!
But something from above supported me so I could safely land on the floor. At that moment, the people who were making a fuss around her held their breath in unison.
“Oh, you’re up!”
Only the man who brought me here greeted me with a big smile on his lips.
“How are you feeling? Where are you sick?”
I looked around without an answer.
I could see the white thread that was wrapped around me everywhere, like a spider’s web. It was a thread that continued from the ceiling that supported my body a little while ago. As I lowered my head again, a long black tread swept the floor. Surprisingly it was my hair. Originally my hair was a pale gold color, as if it had been drained of water. But when I woke up, it turned black as if I had dyed my hair. So I thought it was not my hair at first. Moreover, it was hard to tell when this long hair, which had been so short as to show my ears before I went to sleep, had become so long. There was a piece of cloth on the body that could be called a bag, not clothes. I felt like I was a little tall in between, and I felt like I had grown up a bit. When I looked up, I saw that my hand, which used to be filled with all kinds of scars, was as if it had been carved out of white jade. Not just the hands, but all the skin exposed from the fabric was the same. Come to think of it, my eyesight as well as my hearing and sense of smell seemed to have improved greatly, I was surprised. It was certainly strange, but I was not particularly impressed by the changes that occurred to me at that time. It felt so unnatural and abnormal. So I finished my brief observation and raised my head. I could see a couple of eyes staring at me around. I opened my mouth and said,
“I’m hungry”
I felt that my stomach was sticking to my back.
“Yes, yes! It’s been a long time since I’ve had the proper nutrition, so I’m hungry!”
Then the man responded in a big hurry and ordered the others in a haste.
“What are you doing there? Come on, get something you can eat!”
The man who brought me here was a doctor at the Bio-Experimental Institute here. He gave me the name ‘Arachne’ and, unlike in the beginning, stopped caring for me. Of course I was just an experimenter’s pet. Apparently I was the first successful result of this experiment. What they put into my body was an unidentified piece of debris found in the ruins, and I was told that there was a strange force in it. So, they were studying whether it could be absorbed by humans. I was the first to succeed there. It turned out that there was a three-year gap from the day I first came to the institution and passed out to the day I woke up again. While I was unconscious, the research seemed to have continued steadily. I came to realize that I sometimes felt a twitching pain all over me in my dream. They say that unlike other experiments who have died when they put the fragments in their bodies, I stayed alive longer than they thought, and they began to bring young children in and experiment with them instead. Even when I woke up, the researchers excitedly focused more on their experiments with other children. But as a final result, I was the only one who opened their eyes after absorbing the force of the debris. The people of the institute couldn’t couldn’t figure out what went wrong. So they took me again and began to do various experiments.
Three more years after that.
It was a time when I had to be trapped and experimented with various things. In the meantime, the researchers are good at it, so I had four children, including myself, who were successful in the experiment. The power of the debris I absorbed couldn’t kill or attack, and I could not escape from the lab by myself. In the meantime, the Doctor’s greed grew, and I had to absorb the debris several more times during the experiment. The same was true for the other children. But it was rewarding, and the strength I had in my body became stronger and stronger, and I could use my powers finely. Of course there were kids who couldn’t stand it. Unlike in the beginning, the power of the debris could be used to destroy something, the lab was talking about keeping me on the lookout and trying to isolate me somewhere. I foresaw that the day of escape was approaching.
Kwang……!
Then one day, ‘the man’ came in.
*********
Kwang……!
A huge roar ripped through my eardrums. At the same time, the outer walls of the building collapsed.
“What all of a sudden!”
“What’s going on?”
Everyone in the lab was confused by the sudden situation.
Thud. (heavy footsteps)
Soon there was a man in black who stepped out of the dust.
No……
His face, with a little strange childishness, still seemed to be in its late teens, and he could hardly be called a boy.
“Ah, I have a bad smell on my clothes.”
A faint, bored voice clung to my ear.
“It’s like a maggot lair too, and it smells disgusting.”
The man was amazingly beautiful. Apparently what stretched out in his background was the dust created by the collapse of the building’s walls, which strangely gave rise to an optical illusion that seemed to have a halo on his back. Even in a dust pit, the unmarked golden hair sparkled to the point of ecstasy, reflecting light on a broken piece of glass, and the eyes beneath it shone cold and clear, like a clear ice lake. The gentle and calm face was so harmonious and well-balanced that I could believe it was a piece of art. He was a flawless and sacred beauty that made me feel as if I were in a cathedral of pure white, not a bloody lab. His face and body were covered with red blood.
“You, you!”
As the doctor recognized him, he opened his eyes. Then a smile came to the man’s face with a feeling of regret. Then the voice that flowed from his lips was as sweet as honey, but the contents were bloody.
“I’ve told you before not to look so X-like. I came here because I want to crush your face.“
Everyone around him is now agitated by the conversation, and he is the only one who is relaxed. The doctor gibbered with a look of shock.
“Is this generation just starting to change? No, but why did you come here… how did you…Don’t tell me you’re…”
The man twisted his muzzle and twisted his lips as if it were the same in the doctor’s response(?)
“I guess you’re buried in a pail of maggots, and don’t know what’s going on out there?”
There was a definite laugh that came out of his mouth.
“Nevertheless I didn’t think I’d get beat up by those little bastards.”
Even the haughty arrogance that stood on his beautiful face suited him well.
“More than…”
At the next moment, a glass like pupil left the Doctor and looked around him once.
“What the hell is this? Are the maggots even going to get their eggs?”
He brushed the objects in the room with a sharp glance and asked if they were cold at the entrance.
“I’ve hit something so many times, it makes me sick.”
I didn’t notice until now, but the man seemed to be in a very bad temper.
At last he gave notice.
“I will close this institute from today.”
02.
–
“It was successful……! We finally succeeded in absorbing it!”
It was the last voice I heard before I passed out after being injected by something strange. I still lifted my heavy eyelids and blinked a few times with a blurred focus. The whole view was faded away. At first, I thought I was trapped in a white room. But soon I realized that wasn’t it. I stared at the lines drawn in the air before my eyes. It was a very different thread.
Dozens, hundreds……No, more than that.
Countless, tightly-knitted silks were wrapped around me like a cocoon.
“It’s amazing. I didn’t think you’d hold out…”
“I guess I should have experimented with a young object.”
“You’re the Doctor!”
“That’s right, how did you come up with this idea, you’re amazing!”
The voices flowing in my ears and my sense of smell were clearer than before. Somehow I felt better than before.
Buuk!
I raised my hand and tore up the wall in front of me. But this place was not the last bed I slept in. The moment I tore the stringed cocoon and pulled myself out, my feet fell flat. I was pulled down by gravity.
Poof!
But something from above supported me so I could safely land on the floor. At that moment, the people who were making a fuss around her held their breath in unison.
“Oh, you’re up!”
Only the man who brought me here greeted me with a big smile on his lips.
“How are you feeling? Where are you sick?”
I looked around without an answer.
I could see the white thread that was wrapped around me everywhere, like a spider’s web. It was a thread that continued from the ceiling that supported my body a little while ago. As I lowered my head again, a long black tread swept the floor. Surprisingly it was my hair. Originally my hair was a pale gold color, as if it had been drained of water. But when I woke up, it turned black as if I had dyed my hair. So I thought it was not my hair at first. Moreover, it was hard to tell when this long hair, which had been so short as to show my ears before I went to sleep, had become so long. There was a piece of cloth on the body that could be called a bag, not clothes. I felt like I was a little tall in between, and I felt like I had grown up a bit. When I looked up, I saw that my hand, which used to be filled with all kinds of scars, was as if it had been carved out of white jade. Not just the hands, but all the skin exposed from the fabric was the same. Come to think of it, my eyesight as well as my hearing and sense of smell seemed to have improved greatly, I was surprised. It was certainly strange, but I was not particularly impressed by the changes that occurred to me at that time. It felt so unnatural and abnormal. So I finished my brief observation and raised my head. I could see a couple of eyes staring at me around. I opened my mouth and said,
“I’m hungry”
I felt that my stomach was sticking to my back.
“Yes, yes! It’s been a long time since I’ve had the proper nutrition, so I’m hungry!”
Then the man responded in a big hurry and ordered the others in a haste.
“What are you doing there? Come on, get something you can eat!”
The man who brought me here was a doctor at the Bio-Experimental Institute here. He gave me the name ‘Arachne’ and, unlike in the beginning, stopped caring for me. Of course I was just an experimenter’s pet. Apparently I was the first successful result of this experiment. What they put into my body was an unidentified piece of debris found in the ruins, and I was told that there was a strange force in it. So, they were studying whether it could be absorbed by humans. I was the first to succeed there. It turned out that there was a three-year gap from the day I first came to the institution and passed out to the day I woke up again. While I was unconscious, the research seemed to have continued steadily. I came to realize that I sometimes felt a twitching pain all over me in my dream. They say that unlike other experiments who have died when they put the fragments in their bodies, I stayed alive longer than they thought, and they began to bring young children in and experiment with them instead. Even when I woke up, the researchers excitedly focused more on their experiments with other children. But as a final result, I was the only one who opened their eyes after absorbing the force of the debris. The people of the institute couldn’t couldn’t figure out what went wrong. So they took me again and began to do various experiments.
Three more years after that.
It was a time when I had to be trapped and experimented with various things. In the meantime, the researchers are good at it, so I had four children, including myself, who were successful in the experiment. The power of the debris I absorbed couldn’t kill or attack, and I could not escape from the lab by myself. In the meantime, the Doctor’s greed grew, and I had to absorb the debris several more times during the experiment. The same was true for the other children. But it was rewarding, and the strength I had in my body became stronger and stronger, and I could use my powers finely. Of course there were kids who couldn’t stand it. Unlike in the beginning, the power of the debris could be used to destroy something, the lab was talking about keeping me on the lookout and trying to isolate me somewhere. I foresaw that the day of escape was approaching.
Kwang……!
Then one day, ‘the man’ came in.
*********
Kwang……!
A huge roar ripped through my eardrums. At the same time, the outer walls of the building collapsed.
“What all of a sudden!”
“What’s going on?”
Everyone in the lab was confused by the sudden situation.
Thud. (heavy footsteps)
Soon there was a man in black who stepped out of the dust.
No……
His face, with a little strange childishness, still seemed to be in its late teens, and he could hardly be called a boy.
“Ah, I have a bad smell on my clothes.”
A faint, bored voice clung to my ear.
“It’s like a maggot lair too, and it smells disgusting.”
The man was amazingly beautiful. Apparently what stretched out in his background was the dust created by the collapse of the building’s walls, which strangely gave rise to an optical illusion that seemed to have a halo on his back. Even in a dust pit, the unmarked golden hair sparkled to the point of ecstasy, reflecting light on a broken piece of glass, and the eyes beneath it shone cold and clear, like a clear ice lake. The gentle and calm face was so harmonious and well-balanced that I could believe it was a piece of art. He was a flawless and sacred beauty that made me feel as if I were in a cathedral of pure white, not a bloody lab. His face and body were covered with red blood.
“You, you!”
As the doctor recognized him, he opened his eyes. Then a smile came to the man’s face with a feeling of regret. Then the voice that flowed from his lips was as sweet as honey, but the contents were bloody.
“I’ve told you before not to look so X-like. I came here because I want to crush your face.“
Everyone around him is now agitated by the conversation, and he is the only one who is relaxed. The doctor gibbered with a look of shock.
“Is this generation just starting to change? No, but why did you come here… how did you…Don’t tell me you’re…”
The man twisted his muzzle and twisted his lips as if it were the same in the doctor’s response(?)
“I guess you’re buried in a pail of maggots, and don’t know what’s going on out there?”
There was a definite laugh that came out of his mouth.
“Nevertheless I didn’t think I’d get beat up by those little bastards.”
Even the haughty arrogance that stood on his beautiful face suited him well.
“More than…”
At the next moment, a glass like pupil left the Doctor and looked around him once.
“What the hell is this? Are the maggots even going to get their eggs?”
He brushed the objects in the room with a sharp glance and asked if they were cold at the entrance.
“I’ve hit something so many times, it makes me sick.”
I didn’t notice until now, but the man seemed to be in a very bad temper.
At last he gave notice.
“I will close this institute from today.”
