TIN 106

I had been constantly plotting ways to escape the mansion. The first thing I did after arriving here was to figure out the CCTV layout, that really says it all.

It was partly due to habitual behavior. Even if I couldn’t completely hide my movements, I needed places to hide in case of an emergency. Unfortunately, there weren’t any real blind spots, but at least I was relieved to learn they didn’t monitor inside the rooms. Thanks to that, I could hide money under the mattress without anyone knowing any better.

When I first looked for escape routes, I thought about asking to be taken to Oceans. Or perhaps faking illness to go to a hospital. I thought it would be easier and safer than trying to get past the mansion’s high walls, anywhere outside would be better.

However, the problem was that this vast mansion had more than five resident medical staff. Even when I had a fever and fainted, I received IV fluids inside the house. Unless something was broken, there was no way I’d be allowed to go to a hospital.

Oceans was the same. Joo Do-hwa, who spouted nonsense about there being too many men there, wouldn’t willingly take me there. Even if I did go, who knows what hell I’d have to endure after I got there.

So later, I looked for the routes used by employees. There were many employees here, and not all of them lived in the mansion. If there were people who commuted, using their access routes seemed the most feasible option.

But this too carried great risks, so I surveyed the garden daily looking for other escape methods. The dog hole I used as a child was naturally gone, and even if it existed, I was no longer small enough to pass through. Thinking about it, it was strange that such an escape route had existed in such a perfectly managed mansion in the first place.

So what I selected was the drain located in a corner of the garden. The drain, large enough for one person to enter, would probably lead deeper underground if the cover was removed. If I couldn’t climb over the walls, maybe crawling underground would be better.

Well, actually, this was until recently. The escape route I’d kept in mind hadn’t been necessary for quite a while. In the end, I chose a different method anyway.

“…Ha.”

Taking deep, stifled breaths, I buried my face between my knees. Among the tightly packed boxes, there was barely enough space to hide my body. With both hands covering my ears and eyes shut tight, a voice from my childhood echoed in my head.

‘Don’t make a sound.’

I didn’t make any sound.

‘Don’t ever get caught…’

I wasn’t caught.

‘Live.’

I’m still alive.

“…”

But for how much longer do I have to do this?

I chewed the inside of my cheek and curled my toes, which didn’t even have shoes on. Despite there being no reason to feel cold, chills ran through me making my teeth chatter incessantly. Even though I wasn’t in a box like that time, just being in this narrow, dark space made my breathing quicken.

‘…Are you afraid of the dark?’

Truth is, yes. Not a single moment in a dark space was okay. When I couldn’t even turn off the lights to sleep, when I barely managed to close my eyes relying on moonlight, and even now as I curl up hiding in this cargo hold.

“Huh, huk…”

Perhaps because my heart was pounding as if it would burst out of my chest, at some point I started feeling short of breath. Though I tried to calm down, my breathing only grew more ragged. Scratching my chest and clutching at my clothes did nothing but intensify my anxiety that I might die like this.

“…Hm.”

Around the time I tasted the metallic blood in my thoroughly chewed mouth, the vibrations from the floor gradually began to stop. The rattling noise disappeared, leaving only the faint sound of the engine.

“…”

I thought we might have hit a red light. Or maybe we stopped for a break. Since this had happened several times on the way here, I just gratefully tried to steady my breathing during this moment of silence.

But why was this stop different from the others? Since leaving the mansion, the engine had never been turned off, but this time even the engine sound cut off abruptly. The silence that felt like time had stopped made it harder to grasp the situation.

“…?”

I raised my barely opening eyes and looked around. Though I couldn’t see anything, it was a reflexive action born from anxiety. With my hand on my still-pounding chest and blankly blinking, a thought crossed my mind.

“…”

Had we arrived?

It takes about 4 hours from the city center to the harbor by the sea. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since the truck departed, but if I had passed out for a while, it was possible. Even in childhood, an hour or two would fly by while trembling and holding the child’s hand.

After holding my breath for who knows how long, I heard small noises coming from outside the truck. The sound of a car door closing, footsteps approaching, and voices of several people.

“Why suddenly…?”

“…That…”

The voices kept cutting off, perhaps because the air was completely blocked. So I unsteadily got up and stood close to the door. Pressing my ear against the small gap, I could hear the outside noise and voices more clearly than before.

“Did we forget something?”

“No way. Does that person look like someone who would forget anything?”

“Of course not.”

The voices conversing belonged to two unfamiliar men. One of them let out a groan as if stretching, followed by a heavy sigh.

“Anyway, I’m scared to death. Did you see earlier? Almost like a ghost, I tell you, a ghost.”

“That’s your fault. Why did you leave the door open?”

“No, I checked several times. There’s no way I’d be careless with Chairman Joo’s orders.”

My chest went cold at the mention of Chairman Joo. These must be the drivers moving this truck. From the acrid smell, they seem to be taking a smoke break outside the vehicle.

“If I mess up, I might be the next corpse in those boxes. Ugh, just seeing those eyes gives me chills…”

The thoroughly disgusted voice didn’t sound like a joke or exaggeration. Whoever this Joo Do-hwa was, they must not be someone to be taken lightly even among them.

“At least we didn’t go far.”

“That’s true.”

The man who quietly agreed let out a long breath. As the smell of cigarettes wafted in again, I covered my nose and mouth with my hand to suppress a cough. As I swallowed my blood-tinged saliva, the man clicked his tongue.

“We came all this way just to be told to turn back.