## Chapter 15 – Reflection
“I’m sorry, I had some work to do today,
It took longer than I thought.”
I hurried down the stairs and swiped my ID card on the reader.
With a ‘beep’, the door slid open.
I was the only one standing in the quiet, dark lab.
I put down the bag I was carrying and took out the lunch box.
I pushed the lunch box through the small hole under the glass tube in front of me.
“……….”
“Please eat, I prepared fish today.”
Something moved beyond the thick glass wall.
Then, it began to devour the lunch box I gave it.
I could barely see what was happening inside the glass wall with my naked eyes.
Even I don’t have enough information about the experiment that has just begun.
I’m gradually increasing the brightness of the lights every day, as she may be sensitive to light.
Temperature, humidity, light, etc., I’m adjusting it to the environment in which ordinary humans live.
A silhouette in the glass wall illuminated by a faint light.
I could see the figure of a woman with long hair.
“That’s right, you’re doing your best to survive.”
I smiled contentedly and put my hand on the experimental tube.
I closed my eyes and felt the fierce sound of life in the small environment she was creating, like a mother examining fetal movements.
“Listen, I think I’ll be away for about a week.”
“……..”
Whether she understands language or not,
I don’t know yet, but it doesn’t matter.
If she understands, she survives, if she doesn’t, she dies.
“The fish in that lunch box is your food for a week.
If you can practice restraint, it’s enough to last a week.”
With this meeting as the last, I will be away on a mission to capture the Sacred Assembly parasites.
It’s a short time of a week, but
her physical structure is still close to that of a human.
Humans can’t survive for 3 days without water and food, so I wonder what will happen.
“Then I hope to see you later.”
With those words, I turned around and walked out of the dark lab.
————————
I woke up at dawn.
I woke up earlier than I thought because my body still doesn’t need to sleep.
I, who was sleeping on the floor, raised my head and checked from the bed.
Chaeyoon, who was still not awake, and Seohee, who should have been sleeping next to her.
But Seohee had disappeared without a trace.
“…Did she go home?”
I got up and went closer to Chaeyoon to check on her condition.
Judging from her sleeping soundly,
Seohee’s first aid seems to be more effective than I thought.
After fixing my head, I decided to take a walk, which I always do when my thoughts are not organized.
I didn’t really like walking before.
I put on my slippers and came down the building to walk, and I saw someone crouching.
“…She didn’t leave.”
“Yeah.”
Seohee was crouching and smoking a cigarette. Come to think of it, she used to be a smoker.
“Do you want one?”
“No, I don’t like cigarettes.”
I politely refused Seohee, who handed me a cigarette from her arms.
Even if I drink a lot of alcohol, my body doesn’t get drunk, so smoking one cigarette won’t make a big difference.
“I’m sorry for saying harsh things earlier.”
“…No, what you said is all right.”
Chaeyoon became like that because of my ambiguous attitude.
I thought I had thought a lot, but no,
it wasn’t at all.
“Honestly, I felt good doing it with you guys?”
“…..?”
She spat out cigarette smoke and looked back at me with a look that she couldn’t understand the flow of the conversation.
“When I first met Chaeyoon and she said that she could control all women,
I pretended not to, but honestly, I was so excited.”
“…So.”
“I liked doing it with you, I liked controlling the head of the department who was a complete stranger, and I’m trash, so it’s okay to do this.
I was comfortably rationalizing myself…”
My voice trembled.
“…I think I only thought about what was good for me.”
“…..”
Seohee, who had already finished one cigarette, quietly took out another one and lit it.
“I was just happy and running around like a dog.
I thought there would be problems if I did this,
but when the problem was right in front of me, I was so scared.”
I noticed that my body was shaking, not my voice, and grabbed my shoulders with both hands to stop the shaking.
“What about the plan you confidently made yesterday? Weren’t you scared then?”
“No.”
I was scared then too.
But I was afraid that if I didn’t do it, the fear that someone would target me would overwhelm me.
I’m not as strong as them.
These creatures have all the guides for survival imprinted in their DNA,
and they will do anything for their prosperity.
But I’m not.
I’m an ordinary human who was supposed to meet an ordinary spouse, have children, get a job, and receive a salary regularly, not a fierce survival, but steeped in peace.
Such a person was suddenly dropped alone in a jungle full of beasts.
“…Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I’m so ashamed of myself that I’m humiliated.
In other words, I’m an ordinary person dropped in the jungle.
But instead of being dropped in the jungle,
I came ‘on my own’.
I heard that there were delicious fruits in this place,
and I stepped in on my own, and now I’m scared and begging to be saved?
I’m ashamed to think that what I’m doing now is such an unsightly sight.
Why do I have to be so humble?
No matter how hard I try to think of a reason, I can’t think of one.
The fastest thing that all living things’ brains learn and the thing they never forget is pleasure.
I have already experienced a pleasure that ordinary people can never experience,
and even if I somehow return to a normal life, I will live trapped in boredom and emptiness as before.
I don’t want to go back to that kind of life now, but I don’t want to die either.
It’s a selfish thought, but it’s a natural thought.
Which human would want to live a hard and arduous life and die?
A comfortable and pleasurable life.
At least that’s what I want.
“It’s not possible anymore.”
“What?”
“No one can touch me, no one.”
I thought of it late.
I’m still scared to death right now.
But I can’t go back anyway.
I’ve come too far, and I’m even more unsure if I can live even if I go back.
Since I can’t do this or that, let’s choose the better one.
I’m not confident that I won’t regret it.
Even now, I can still see the black hands of the men in iron masks reaching out right in front of me.
“I don’t want to die yet.”
The trembling in my voice stopped.
But my body was still shaking, and Seohee had finished her cigarette.
Seohee, who was crouching, got up and looked at me and said.
“Then do it right.”
In the morning, I’m standing in front of the white dome that is still in the crowded university district.
“…She’s still here.”
There’s no way a fisherman who knows that the target is here would leave,
but the scale is extraordinary.
Just in case, I looked around,
but the owners who spread this dome are still not visible.
But that doesn’t mean they’re not watching the situation.
I can’t see them now, but there are definitely eyes watching people here and there.
“This is troublesome.”
Thinking that if I drag on any longer in such a situation, I will be noticed by them,
I hurried away and pushed myself into the dome.
I closed my eyes tightly, just in case.
I had a fleeting anxiety that it might have been a simple coincidence that I wasn’t caught yesterday,
but even after walking for a few minutes inside the dome, no pursuers were chasing me.
“That’s a relief, right?”
“…….”
Chaeyoon is next to me with her arms crossed.
I brought her into the dome with me.
Last night.
“She’s still not awake.”
“….”
I was lost in thought for a moment after seeing Chaeyoon, who had not yet regained consciousness despite the long conversation with Seohee.
“You guys, is it impossible to get out once you go in?”
I roughly thought about the principle of the dome,
but my case and Chaeyoon’s case are different.
First of all, if you look at the commonalities of the two people, it is that the parasitic creature has invaded the brain.
The difference is female and male,
and the biggest difference is who has the control of the body.
The original owner of Chaeyoon’s body is already gone.
Strictly speaking, isn’t it a completely different creature that is controlling her body?
Of course, it is true that the creature is also in my head,
but rather, that creature has been eaten by my brain.
So, her ‘main body’ is in Chaeyoon’s head right now,
and I don’t have it in my head.
What if that’s the difference between finding us and not finding us?
“It’s more sloppy than I thought, you morons.”
Chaeyoon’s ‘main body’ is with Seohee now.
Chaeyoon, who is next to me now, is like a car without a driver.
So even if I talk to her, she doesn’t answer,
and her actions and conversations are only possible through my commands.
“Do you have to listen to the lecture well today?”
“……Yes..”
Chaeyoon answers with a blank expression.
It was quite difficult to bring Chaeyoon in this state this morning.
Since the ‘main body’ in charge of everything about her disappeared,
she couldn’t even walk, talk, or even breathe without my command.
“Call me if anything happens.”
From a distance, it may look like a couple worrying about each other, but the reality is the complete opposite, so I can’t help but laugh.
I put on a fake smile, turned around and scanned the dome covering the school,
took Chaeyoon’s arm and headed to the lecture room.
