Whether they thought he wouldn’t be able to escape even if he woke up, his hands and feet were also free. Though his body was burning with fever and he had no strength at all, he didn’t know what would be done to him if he stayed like this. Just in case, he looked for his phone but his pockets were completely empty.
Ian moved his trembling legs and got up from his spot. Supporting himself against the wall with his hand, he limped toward where the door was.
Though his upper body swayed forward from time to time, he persevered stubbornly. Finally his fingertips touched the round doorknob with peeling paint. The characteristic coolness of metal was conveyed through his fingertips.
As he gripped the doorknob in his hand, cold sweat flowed down. He rubbed his palm on his pants to wipe it and turned the doorknob. Click. The doorknob that seemed to be turning caught on the lock.
Biting his lips, he gripped it harder and turned. Click, click! But no matter how much he turned it, the door wouldn’t open. Normally doors should be opened and locked from the inside, but this door was like it could be locked from outside.
With a hopeful heart, he pounded on the iron door with his fisted hand. Bang bang bang! The iron door rang making a loud noise.
“Excuse me! Is anyone there? There’s a person here! Please save me!”
His breath filled up to the ends of his lungs. A tearing pain arose from inside his throat. But his desperate voice only echoed after hitting the basement walls. There was no answer coming back. He couldn’t hear any sign of people other than the sounds he was making.
Feeling the taste of blood welling up, Ian screamed while pounding on the door until his hands swelled up.
“Please save me! There’s a person, cough, here……!”
The voice that was gradually breaking down eventually scattered into a hoarse scream with the end completely cracked. His chest pounded as if it would burst. Ian collapsed to his knees at the throbbing pain in his heart. He whispered sobbingly with his forehead leaning against the iron door.
“Please……. Please save me…….”
Hot tears flowed down his tightly shut eyes. He missed his grandfather so much. The reality he faced without even being able to take off his mourning clothes was too cruel for Ian.
ლ
“Cough, cough…….”
Ian coughed slightly while curling up his shivering body. Every time he coughed, stinging pain arose from inside his throat.
The coldness of the floor where not even a boiler was on, combined with January’s cold, cruelly robbed Ian of his body heat to a brutal degree. The basement environment was so poor that if not for the boiling fever, he would have died from hypothermia.
All Ian could do on the bare floor without even a mattress was to cross his arms and curl his body as roundly as possible to preserve body heat.
“It’s cold…….”
It was too cold and his throat was parched. Because he had screamed so much, the inside of his completely hoarse throat dried up and cracked. Every time he exhaled, it felt like his throat was burning up.
His completely battered fingertips trembled finely. Though it was cold, his body was hot as if burning. His vision kept blurring from the heat, and even with slight movement, cold sweat poured down from his forehead.
He pounded on the door for a long time, but the iron door was immovable. Then he discovered a small window hazily covered with dust and approached it. But even when he lifted his heels with all his might, his fingertips couldn’t even reach the windowsill.
He cried out toward the window to save him too. However, looking at the quiet window without even a flickering form, he lost all his strength and collapsed on the floor.
It would be nice if there was at least a blanket. The basement with water pooled here and there only smelled strange and had nothing for survival.
His cheeks grew increasingly hot. Thinking he might really die if he fell asleep like this, he was holding out as much as possible, but his eyelids gradually sank down heavily.
His heart also seemed to have lost all its strength, going thump, thump. The thirst was so severe now that he wanted to see even the face of the man who kidnapped him.
His blurred pupils reached the puddle of water pooled on the floor. Ian unconsciously swallowed. Even his saliva dried up and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Every time he inhaled, it felt like the inside of his mouth was cracking.
He moved his Adam’s apple but the dry saliva only scratched his throat like sandpaper. It was dirty, rotten water. But that water kept looking sweet. From some point on, Ian could hardly take his eyes off the puddle, feeling like this terrible thirst would go away if he drank that water.
‘Wouldn’t it be okay to drink just a little? I’m going to die like this anyway…….’
As the situation didn’t improve, Ian’s reason gradually evaporated. Gathering his last strength, he crawled toward where the rotten water was.
A cold sensation touched his fingertips. Ian, who raised his upper body by pushing the floor with his elbows, brought his face to the puddle. The moment his appearance reflected hazily on the rotten water, a disgusting smell pierced his nose.
“Urk…….”
Even when he brought his head close to a trash can in midsummer, the smell wasn’t this terrible. Ian hastily pulled his body back at the smell so severe he absolutely couldn’t drink it.
But the thirst didn’t subside easily. Rather, because there was water in front of him, it was getting worse. He really didn’t know a moment would come when water, which he could drink anytime he wanted, would feel this precious.
It was when the focus completely disappeared from Ian’s pupils looking at the puddle, and he crawled toward the puddle again as if possessed by something. Finally, the closed door opened making a creaking sound.
“Oh my, our baby must be very thirsty. So much so that he’s drooling while looking at sewage.”
Hongdo laughed giggling while hanging gold necklaces around his neck. Ian, whose face flushed bright red with shame, dragged his buttocks and fled fumbling the floor with his hands. As soon as the wall touched his back, Ian’s pupils were dyed with despair.
Though it was fortunate the door opened, seeing Hongdo laughing so much his gold teeth were all visible made the nape of his neck damp with cold sweat.
Hongdo, who had been leisurely watching Ian like looking at a mouse in a trap, bent his knees and sat down. Thick, scar-covered hands brought forward the water bottle that had been hidden behind his back and shook it so Ian could see it well.
Clean water sloshed inside the transparent plastic bottle. At that moment, Ian felt a thirst as if his whole body was cracking.
Water……. It was clean water.
He swallowed while staring at the water bottle so intently he could bore a hole through it, forgetting even his fear momentarily. Pain like being stabbed with a knife arose in his throat that couldn’t swallow anything.
“You want to drink this?”
At Hongdo’s question, he almost nodded unconsciously. Ian barely grabbed onto his reason and put strength in his eyes. Seeing that there was still strength in the eyes glaring at him, Hongdo raised one eyebrow as if impressed.
A full day had passed since he locked the unconscious Ian in here. Since he had a lot of fever and kept sweating, it would be a thirst that ordinary people would have trouble enduring, yet seeing that he didn’t immediately beg, it seemed like educating him would take longer than expected.
Without taking his eyes off Ian’s face, Hongdo opened the water bottle cap. His long eyelashes trembled pitifully.
“You don’t want to drink it, well. I should throw it away.”
Without hesitation, he tilted the water bottle and poured the water on the floor. Ian made a shocked face while opening and closing his pale, chapped lips.
He belatedly reached his hand toward the water bottle, but the mouth of the water bottle was already facing the floor. Hongdo, who shook out every last drop onto the floor, straightened his bent body.
“Ah, what a waste. You’re not going to drink this water, are you?”
As he demonstratively trampled the puddle with his shoe, Ian’s pupils shattered silently. The water he had wanted to drink so much disappeared in an instant.
Only the floor, which had swallowed the water to its fill instead of Ian, was dyed a deep gray. The water bottle Hongdo threw on the floor rolled with a hollow sound toward where Ian was.
Ian urgently picked up the water bottle, put the mouth to the tip of his tongue, and shook it. As a barely gathered drop fell on his tongue, his eyes reddened. This wasn’t enough. A more terrible sensation spread through his whole body like poison, so much that it would have been better not to taste it at all.
