SATURDAY 32

Ugh…!

I am staggering, but the people remain motionless, their heads bowed and arms hanging limp. Only then did I begin to feel a sense of terror.

How far am I falling? When will it end? While I was trembling, the elevator finally stopped.

The doors opened. Outside was a dark subway station with only a few dim streetlights turned on. The sound of a bell announcing an approaching train echoed eerily through the station, where not even the sound of a single cricket could be heard.

People stepped out of the elevator. I thought about whether I should get off too, but the moment I tried to be the last one out, the man grabbed my arm. His hand was so cold that I nearly flinched away instinctively.

The man turned me around and bowed his head strangely. He bent only his back so his face remained visible. However, that face was completely unrecognizable, as if hidden behind a black mist.

He reached out with both hands. I wanted to back away, but if I did, I would be forced out of the elevator. As I hesitated, the man’s hands touched my stomach. Placing his ice-cold hands on my belly, he made a gesture as if sweeping or gathering something away and said:

I shall take it.

And then the man vanished. Inside the dimly lit elevator, I panicked. The door slammed shut with a “thang” and the elevator ascended at a rapid speed.

The moment I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them, I was suddenly standing in front of the main gate of the house. Lili let out a small cry.

“Was it a dream…?”

Just then, I saw someone opening the main gate and leaving. Is it Mr. Taeseon? But the figure was too small for that. A very small silhouette opened the gate and went outside.

Feeling as though I shouldn’t let it get away, I threw the gate wide open, but there was nothing outside. There was only the dark path leading away from the house.

The moment I saw that dark road, my head suddenly felt dizzy. My breath grew short. It was difficult to breathe, as if a panic attack had hit, and suddenly my stomach began to hurt as well.

I collapsed right there in front of the gate. It was a pain that felt as if someone were jumping up and down on my stomach. It felt strangely slippery below. Wondering what was happening, the moment I clutched my stomach, my vision went pitch black.

“Heuk…!”

I opened my eyes, barely letting out a sound like a scream. It was my room.

“Ah, uugh, ack….”

I felt a violent pain in my stomach. It felt as if a knife were stirring around inside my belly. Lili moved busily back and forth around me, making sounds like “waa-eng,” “ua-ang.” While struggling in pain, I suddenly felt a sense of strangeness and stood up, enduring the agony.

And the moment I pulled back the covers, I nearly fainted on the spot.

The space between my legs was completely soaked in a pool of crimson blood.

Seeing the image of Lili looking at me once before turning around and walking away, I finally realized, “Ah, I was dreaming again.”

When I opened my eyes again with a shudder… I was lying blankly on a bed in a private hospital room.

So it was all a dream. No, how much of it was a dream? Clutching my throbbing head, I pushed myself up, looking disheveled. For starters, the part where I collapsed is not a dream. The fact that I bled is real, too. But the pool of blood large enough to soak the bed was a dream.

I even took an ambulance, but because the staff were strictly silenced, it didn’t get out anywhere. However, I didn’t enter the special ward even after arriving at the hospital. Because if I went in there, my parents would definitely be contacted.

Then I would have to explain this situation.

This situation….

But how, and what would I say?

I collapsed at home and was rushed to the hospital. To be precise, I lost consciousness at the same time I began hemorrhaging. Hemorrhaging…. It was a situation I hadn’t even considered, so I was incredibly flustered even as I fainted.

I entered the emergency room with a hazy mind, and once I regained some consciousness, I was flustered again upon seeing the name tag of the doctor looking after me.

Obstetrics Professor Min Ji-yeong. Obstetrics…? Not the department of internal medicine for traits, nor family medicine, but why….

Before I could even properly ask “What happened?” with my dazed head, I lost consciousness again. The last thing I heard was the professor saying, “Patient, don’t close your eyes!” Regrettably, my eyes closed of their own accord.

When I woke up, I was still in the emergency room, and next to the bed with the curtains drawn, the obstetrics professor I had seen a moment ago—actually, I don’t know if it was a moment ago or if much more time had passed—was staring at me with a somber expression.

“Um, excuse me….”

My throat was closed up, so my voice wouldn’t come out properly. When I coughed, the professor picked up the water bottle placed at the head of the bed, opened the cap herself, and handed it to me.

“Thank you….”

Why was she being so kind? Conversely, my heart was in an uproar. Should I say I had an ominous premonition? The fact that Mr. Taeseon was nowhere to be seen also fueled my anxiety.

“Patient, first… it seems you’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress, and you also seem to have taken an overdose of suppressants. Is that correct?”

“Yes….”

I wasn’t sure about the stress, but it was true that I had taken far too many suppressants. Just a few days ago.

“It even seems you took pheromone stimulants and suppressants together.”

“Pardon? I’ve never done that….”

“…Patient.”

“Yes….”

“By any chance, did you know you were pregnant?”

For a moment, I doubted my ears. Pregnant? Subsequently, a hollow laugh escaped me. Pregnant, of all things. The professor watched me with a serious face as I laughed.

“Ah…. I’m sorry.”

I apologized, thinking that laughing might have looked strange, but the professor shook her head.

“You were twelve weeks pregnant.”

“…I ‘was’?”

I felt an oddly chilling sensation.

“We couldn’t get in touch with your husband; is there something going on?”

“Husband… Ah, Mr. Taeseon…. Well, I don’t know, he’s probably busy.”

I couldn’t bring myself to say he wouldn’t be interested in my affairs, so I made an excuse. The professor let out another sigh.

“He’s the sole guardian, so what should we do if we can’t reach him? Oh, I didn’t inform your parents. You kept talking to yourself, asking me not to tell your parents….”

I must have said it quite desperately. She said she didn’t contact them, wondering if there was some sort of circumstance.

But… even then, I couldn’t properly understand what had happened to me. I just looked at the obstetrics professor in that state.

In fact, although I had frequented this hospital often, I had never had a reason to meet an obstetrics professor, so her face was very unfamiliar.

However, I could tell by her expression. This professor genuinely pitied me. Although she maintained a professionally blunt expression, the emotions hidden behind it couldn’t be completely concealed.

“To me… did something happen?”

An unidentifiable ominous feeling surged. Pregnancy, the past tense, the professor’s attitude. The professor took my hand and slowly began to speak.

“It’s not certain yet, but looking at the amount of bleeding… the possibility of the fetus being safe is slim.”

“….”

A fetus…. You’re saying there was a baby inside my belly?

I became dazed. She said twelve weeks. I slowly tried to trace back my memories. If it was twelve weeks, it roughly matched the time when Mr. Taeseon had knotted inside me previously.

Did I take the contraceptive pill that day, or not? At the very least, I didn’t take it.

“But…. Contraception….”

“What method did you use?”

“Tae, Taeseon…. My husband, he took the medicine.”

Though we were busy with wedding preparations, it was still before the marriage. Mr. Taeseon had been taking contraceptives diligently, saying he couldn’t have me get pregnant before the wedding and that I was still young. The professor shook her head.

“The contraceptive rate for Alpha-use pills is 99.9%, but in the case of knotting, it drops to 98%.”

“….”

So, absurdly, it meant I had fallen into that remaining 2% probability and gotten pregnant then, only to miscarry this time. My head was so blank that I couldn’t think of anything.

“First of all, the miscarriage….”

The professor explained in detail how I had miscarried and why no additional procedures or surgery were necessary, but not a single thing entered my mind.

“Since we haven’t taken an ultrasound yet, I can’t say for certain, but with this much bleeding, you can consider it almost certain.”

“Yes….”

That was how I came to be up in the patient room, waiting for an ultrasound. Twelve weeks pregnant, a miscarriage, and then I remembered. Even just twelve weeks ago, I was sharing a bed with Mr. Taeseon. While receiving plenty of Mr. Taeseon’s love….

With Mr. Taeseon?

The sense of incongruity I had been feeling frequently lately surged up again. A miscarriage, she said a miscarriage…. The child was twelve weeks along. It was true that he knotted around that time. If it was a baby conceived with Mr. Taeseon, the timeline fits. But….

The true nature of that incongruity reared its head.

This is not my body.