TEB Ch 2
by STAR“Where am I?”
When Suhyuk opened his eyes to the sudden shaking from below, all he saw was darkness. Suhyuk groaned, barely able to calm down the nausea he was feeling, and tried to remember the last thing he saw.
“Ugh…”
Dim warehouse light, with the smell of decaying food and rotting mixed together. Suhyuk was busy examining the inside of the warehouse, which was filled with piles of gun barrels and rusty sacks. It was important evidence.
Even if they are human trash, they wouldn’t do something like that. The moment he lifted the tent, hoping his expectations were wrong.
He saw the damaged, decomposed bodies of young puppies in the tent. Which was the center of the foul smell.
“Ugh…”
While working as a veterinarian, Suhyuk had seen many disgusting scenes until now, but this was something he couldn’t stomach. They were all young puppies, not even a month old. There were some puppy breeds who were not born meeting the criteria for sales due to their appearance.
Suhyuk shivered in disgust when he remembered the man who bragged about his dog being a champion at a dog show and that his dog was raised by the royal family in some country.
“Here at our shop, you don’t have to worry about genetic diseases or mixes. We thoroughly manage and sell them, guardians can trust us completely and leave them to us.”
From the moment the man set up shop right next to the hospital where Suhyuk worked, Suhyuk didn’t like him. Despite not being an official staff member, the man frequently roamed around the hospital, even entering the operating room and the director’s room. Customers who went to the man’s shop trusted him because he was close to the hospital.
Thanks to the manager’s strict management and collaboration with the hospitals, the pet shop was known as a place that provided healthy puppies and maintained perfect quality that was even broadcast on TV and had celebrity customers. That was the image the man portrayed.
“We’re not a puppy mill or anything like that. We’re experts who selectively breed only healthy puppies.”
As the man claimed, the puppies he provided perfectly satisfied the customers’s demands. Healthy and aesthetically perfect, with low “failure rates.”
This was a sinister truth hidden beneath all of this.
“You crazy bastards…”
Suhyuk couldn’t help but curse, thinking about the puppies that had died in the man’s hands because they didn’t fit the desired appearance. Feeling exhausted, Suhyuk considered going to the police station to report or maybe writing an article first as soon as he left the warehouse. However, at that moment, as he was about to leave, he heard a rustling sound from a corner.
“Meow!”
Looking closely in the direction where the sound was, Suhyuk discovered a cat trapped inside a filthy cage, which he hadn’t even known existed due to its dirtiness. He thought there were no living creatures inside. It was fortunate to find at least one alive and able to be rescued. But just as Suhyuk reflexively took a step forward…
Thunk.
He felt tremendous pain from head to toe, and his body collapsed.
The last thing he heard was a familiar voice saying.
“Ha, bastard. You really made a big mistake. I was just trying to make a living and feed my wife and children.”
It was a familiar voice. I shouldn’t fall like this. Suhyuk mustered the last of his strength and grabbed the man’s ankle, but Suhyuk’s body crumpled with a single kick.
“You brought it upon yourself, so don’t blame me for this. When the time comes, you’ll like it too, since you’ll be buried with those puppies you like.
The memories ended as a thick tent covered his cold, lifeless body.
Where am I, then? Suhyuk couldn’t help but panic, trying to check the back of his head. However, his arms were tightly bound behind his back, making it impossible for him to move.
“What is this? What’s going on?”
Suhyuk realized the shocking truth when he attempted to move.
“Why am I… Why am I so small?”
It was not just a matter of size. Both his arms and legs were unbelievably thin and fragile, to the point where he couldn’t believe he was an adult. It was absurd. Suhyuk, with his wrists tightly bound, realized that his hands were no bigger than those of a child under 10 years old.
“How did this happen? Am I going back to when I was a child?”
As he was panicking, just as the floor shook once again, the vibrations he had been feeling for a while stopped.
“We’ve arrived. Move.”
Someone outside pulled down the tent and gave orders. Soon, the sound of a child trying to hold back crying could be heard.
“What are you doing?! Someone higher than you could dare to imagine is waiting for you. Shut your mouth before I kill you!”
Following the man’s harsh command, one by one, people were forced to stand up through the opening. Only then did Suhyuk realize he had been trapped in a wooden, moveable storage space (like a cart) and that he was not alone.
“Mommy…”
Eventually, when one of the children burst into tears, the man grabbed the child by the neck and laughed.
“Mom? Are you calling that pathetic woman your mother? The one who sold you for a month’s worth of pig feed is coming to soothe you when you cry.”
With a snickering laugh, Suhyuk was also dragged outside like a piece of luggage. A dense forest stretched endlessly, and a secluded mansion stood in an odd clearing. It was clear at a glance that this wasn’t a village where people lived.
After a while, a woman covered in a robe came out of the dark and gloomy building.
“How many people today?”
The woman asked, and the man who brought the cart answered the woman’s question indifferently.
“Eight people.”
“Not enough.”
“Do you know that, thanks to your owner, the price for children has risen? Since you keep choosing only children, do you think there will be any left for others?”
“Just stop with the useless talk. Next time, either raise the price or keep your mouth shut.”
The man spat on the floor as if he understood and then grabbed the pouch of money handed to him by the woman, quickly checked its contents, and complained.
“Why does it seem like they are missing?”
Upon hearing this, the woman responded with a sneer.
“None of the kids we brought last time succeeded. The master was very angry. Be thankful that we keep continuing to use you.”
“No, aren’t you treating the kids too harshly? They are healthy and strong, without any illnesses. Why do they keep dying like that?”
The woman considered the conversation worthless, as if it were no longer worth talking about, as she pulled the rope tied to the children.
“That’s none of your business. Just get lost.”
At that moment, Suhyuk’s small head was pounding as scenes of unknown events flashed through his mind. A family with too many members lived in a desperately poor house where they had to make watery porridge to share. His father drank every day, and his mother fought with him to keep the money from being taken from her and eventually broke down in tears.
“This can’t be…”
Suddenly, something crossed through Suhyuk’s mind. But it’s too unexpected. Why would something so absurd happen to me? Without time to think further, Suhyuk, like the other children, was dragged into an unknown place.
The old mansion, made of wood, was clearly not a modern-style building. It resembled a Western-style mansion made of wood, like those seen in modern or medieval settings. Each step made a creaking sound, and the place they arrived at was a strange laboratory.
“Put your hands forward.”
Fearing what might happen if he disobeyed the woman’s order, Suhyuk stretched his hands. Suddenly, a small needle pricked his hand. Drip, a droplet of blood fell downwards.
The blood that fell transformed into a vine-like stem, slowly climbing up the wall like a crawling plant, and soon turned completely black.
“Only one person survived.”
The woman removed Suhyuk’s ragged clothes and roughly rubbed his cheek to make his face more visible so she could see his face more clearly.
“You’re going to say hello to the master. Behave well, as he is someone of a high status you can’t even imagine. If you dare to go against his wishes, you won’t even see the sun tomorrow morning.”
