THERE’S A CROCODILE AFTER ME

Jeong-eun went to work the following morning. But when exactly it was that she left, I wasn’t sure. Because she walked with such soft steps, she rarely made a sound. She was a silent human, so to speak. Perhaps her ancestors were ninjas. Or maybe it was just because I took too many sleeping pills.

I lay on the sofa all day and stared at the dog. It was a massive dog that didn’t bark and didn’t seem to like me. Its ancestors dragged sleds across the Alaskan ice in -60°C weather. What was a dog with genes like that doing in a cramped apartment like this? “What on Earth are you doing?” I said as I firmly tapped the dog’s nose. The dog stared at me for a moment with a blank expression before sauntering off into the corner.

There were times when I would suddenly remember something frightening or be overcome with anxiety for no reason. When this happened, I would grab a kitchen knife and hide in Jeong-eun’s closet. I spent several months at Jeongeun’s place. Since being kidnapped, I wasn’t able to leave this apartment even once. Jeong-eun said that she had seen men dressed in black suits in front of the research center. But she also said she couldn’t be positive that those men in black suits were the same men in black suits that I had seen.

Fear and lethargy took turns attacking my body until I was like a boxer down for the count. Each day, my emotions faded from bone-shaking apprehension to utter lethargy. And on days when I was most lethargic, I would just lay down next to that dog that never barked and stare up at the ceiling. By the way, did I mention the dog didn’t like me? Because Jeong-eun didn’t have a television set, the only sound in her house was the occasional dripping of water droplets from the sink. When I got hungry, I would eat the food Jeong-eun left out for me on the kitchen table. It’s embarrassing to admit, but because it was impossible to lift a spoon with my fingers, it sometimes took more than an hour to finish a single bowl of rice. Sometimes, having forgotten that I had taken a bite of rice, I would just sit there drooling.

The fingers that had been reattached were in poor condition. Three of them had been reattached successfully, but both of my pinky fingers turned black and rotted. I was now convinced the doctor didn’t have a license. One day I stuck my hand into the sunlight, and like a dry leaf, one of my pinky fingers fell off with an audible snap. The other one fell off too, but when it was that it fell off, I couldn’t be quite sure. And even the fingers that had been successfully reattached still couldn’t be considered normal.

Jeong-eun was silent. She didn’t speak much. After cooking me dinner, she would go into her room and sleep. Sometimes I thought about whether we might have sex, but for some reason, after being released by my kidnappers, I couldn’t get even the slightest of erections. It could be because I wasn’t attracted to her sexually. But it could also be because I was suffering from PTSD.

“Is it uncomfortable having me here?” I asked.

“It is. I’ve never had someone live with me before. But it’s OK. It’s not as bad as I thought,” she said.

“That’s fortunate, that it’s not as bad as you thought.”

And it was fortunate. If she had asked me to leave, there wasn’t a single place on Earth I could go. But I couldn’t stay here indefinitely. If they found out I was staying here, they would kidnap her too. They would take her to that half-dental office, half-corporate office place. And then that smooth-talking man would cut off her fingers. Who knows, he might even cut off other parts. He was more than capable of it. When I explained all of this to her, Jeong-eun made an unabashed smile saying, “It’s fine. I can spare a few parts.” Another thing that worried me was that, as someone who didn’t talk much, Jeong-eun would have trouble answering the man’s questions. And that would put him in a bad mood. And if that happened, the result wouldn’t be good. The extreme anxiety from imagining what might happen to Jeong-eun prevented me from sitting still and would force me to pace about the living room.

I kept thinking that I had to leave this place, both for Jeongeun’s sake and my own. But there were eyes everywhere. I didn’t have the strength to keep running. And because my toes were completely shot, I wouldn’t be able to run away from someone chasing me. I had no strength to fight, nor did I know how to fight. I tripped a boobytrap. I had no idea I had already boarded the Misfortune Express. I had lived my life forgetting that things completely unrelated to me could suddenly insert themselves front and center into my life. I was an idiot. But what had I done wrong?

One morning, after Jeong-eun left for work, I picked up the bottle of sleeping pills by my bed. It was empty. I had started with just one pill, then two, then three. These days I needed six to fall asleep. If I kept this up, I’d eventually never wake up. I stared at the empty bottle of sleeping pills for some time before finally picking up the phone and dialling the number for Will Execution Inc.

“I’m in need of that safe house. There’s a crocodile after me.”