Prologue
Siwoo opened his eyes due to an excruciating headache. It felt as if his skull was about to shatter. Gritting his teeth to suppress a groan, Siwoo slowly raised his body.
Clang.
The dull sound of metal struck his nerves before the sensation of the crinkling bed sheets. He squinted his eyes and looked down.
“…What….”
He was lying on a single bed. It was a thin mattress, resembling a makeshift bed in an emergency room. The sheets were made of soft linen, like those in a hotel, and they were extremely white, without a single stain. Turning his gaze down to his body, he noticed he was wearing a top and bottom made of the same white linen material as the bed sheets. It looked almost like a patient’s gown. In fact, it was closer to a uniform from a detention center.
As he slowly sat up, his lower body moved reflexively. His knees bent slightly, and once again, the clang echoed in his ears. His ankles felt incredibly heavy. Siwoo stared blankly at his ankles. Something foreign caught his eye on the exposed bone beneath his pants. Rough leather shackles. The shackles were tightly secured with thick metal chains.
“What is this….”
He hurriedly looked around, but what met his eyes was a very unfamiliar square room.
There was a palm-sized window, and a white-painted iron door was firmly closed. The walls were entirely white and covered in rough plaster. White walls, white bed, white pillowcase, white clothes. The only thing in this space that wasn’t white was the shackles and chains firmly gripping Siwoo’s ankles.
“Are you awake, senior?”
Moreover, he was not alone.
About a meter away, someone was sitting on another bed. Like Siwoo, they were dressed in white linen clothing. The contrast between their exceptionally pale skin and jet-black hair was striking.
“San, Ho?”
Sanho, with a porcelain doll-like face, nodded. A strange expression briefly flickered across his face before disappearing. It was a look that seemed to blend fear and relief.
“Where are we? Why are we here—”
Sanho shook his head quietly.
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you, why are you here….”
“I don’t know either, senior.”
Only then did Siwoo notice Sanho’s thin ankles. Shackles identical to the ones on Siwoo’s ankles were tightly fastened around his, and there were numerous wounds scraped around them. Whether it was blood or something else, they were red and inflamed. It seemed to be the result of desperate attempts to loosen the shackles. Siwoo slowly lifted his gaze from the ground. When their eyes met, Sanho’s black pupils blinked.
“I don’t know where this is either. I don’t know why we’re here.”
After a brief silence, Sanho quietly continued.
“Perhaps, senior… it seems we are trapped here.”
