When they threw her on the solitary confinement floor, SolHi moaned again, feeling how her entire body fell apart, something that made her want to die. Then, feeling the coldness of the floor deeply entering her bones, SolHi shuddered because the clothes the guards put on her wasn’t thick, and this amplified the pain felt all over her body a lot. Even so, SolHi didn’t complain. She only gnashed her teeth, pushing herself up while supporting her palms on the floor when she tried to stand up.
She didn’t manage to stand up eventually because the blows received from the guardian that attacked her left her powerless. She also felt deserted inside and wronged because she didn’t hurt anybody so badly to deserve all the punishments they gave to her. Yet, even if she knew all that, SolHi understood that she couldn’t impress anybody. Why exactly? Because, instead of the guardian that attacked her, the one sent to solitary confinement was her, accused of attacking him when he tried to take her back to her cell. Something unbelievable if thinking carefully about this because the male guardians were prohibited from appearing at the showers. Yet, this detail hadn’t been taken into account by anyone. They just decided to punish SolHi for that incident and for her „dare” to fight against death and survive that night.
„Something I will always do, no matter what,” SolHi murmured, closing her eyes and forcing a smile. Then, as she always did when she felt weak, she „teleported” herself mentally to the seashore, on the same rocks where she stood last time with DooSan, having a soul-to-soul talk with him.
Getting there and looking into the distance, SolHi suddenly felt her heart freely beating in her chest. She felt that she got to Paradise, in the arms of love and maternal safety. She felt that even if this was a feeling SolHi was always banned from having, a feeling SinHa had never given to her child, but which SolHi had felt so many times before in front of the sea.
Why did SolHi mentally teleport herself there when she felt pain? Because… there was her source of power there. There, sitting on the rocks, with the sea bathing her barefoot feet with cold water drops while having her eyes closed, SolHi was listening to the silence of the surroundings. She was also listening to the waves struggling in the distance or the lonely song of the seagulls above the sea. Even the Saint breath of air she felt around there, something that often entered her bones and gave her a chance to breathe freely again.
With such images in her head, SolHi fell asleep eventually when the pain in her body weakened. She probably slept about an hour or more because she definitely lacked powers after that fight. Then, when she felt a strong scent of mold and moisture, SolHi awakened, shuddering inside again because she felt the cold-like ice air of solitary confinement. Even so, not even at that time did SolHi ask to be taken out of there and taken to her cell, saying that she was innocent or begging for mercy. She didn’t even complain because she received an undeserved punishment, as she heard the other prisoner did, who was closed into another cold and dark room, screaming her discontent this way.
No. Unlike the second prisoner, SolHi appreciated those moments of solitude. She was grateful for them because only this way she could fully feel that she lived and that she had one more chance to see the sun tomorrow. If she had cried, as the other prisoner was doing, she would have been probably beaten, a luxury she couldn’t afford at that moment.
SolHi definitely could not afford to be beaten at that moment. Not when her entire body hurt her like hell, especially the left side where she hit herself when she fell on the floor of the bathroom. Thus, feeling the harsh pain piercing her body, SolHi touched the left side of her belly and, gnashing her teeth, murmured, „I’ve broken something for sure. It wouldn’t be anything surprising because the floor was wet and I fell on my stomach.”
It hurt like hell. Even so, she was still satisfied because she suffered only that, and that it wasn’t worse. Yes, it could have been worse if the guardian had asphyxiated her and sent her to the other world only to make SolHi’s enemies happy, a satisfaction SolHi didn’t intend to give any of them, especially to Min SinJu or to that one who others called Scar.
When she remembered his name, SolHi frowned. Then she winced when she heard, somewhere to her right, a squeak. Raising her head a little, which she had supported by her arms by then, thinking that it was the only way the pain could weaken, SolHi tried to see something through the dark. Yet, all that was in vain. She only felt the unpleasant scent of a mouse, which probably came there feeling the smell of blood. This made her shudder and feel nausea, imagining for a moment that she could serve as food for that small creature called a mouse or worse - to a rat.
Eventually, SolHi smiled. „I’m afraid even of my shadow now,” she said when she remembered that she was afraid of mice as of the devil. Yet, she was also aware that more frightening than them were those rats with two legs called humans.
Because of this, she told herself that this new enemy, smaller in size, with four legs and fur, was easier to defeat than the one she had fought at the showers. And, to make sure she would win that small battle with that small gray devil with a tail, SolHi suddenly powerfully hissed through her teeth, imitating a cat about to fight another one. This seemed to have scared the poor mouse because, after this, a long squeak was heard while he headed toward his hole. SolHi heard him running in the same direction from where she heard him appearing there.
Acquiring a little bit of confidence, SolHi deeply breathed in. Then she sneezed when she felt the moisture and the scent of mold again, something difficult to breathe there. And, for the first time since she was in that prison, SolHi understood that it was probably the only reason why many of the prisoners had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and pneumonia and not because of cold or because they looked for it to escape prison as the guards had always said when someone asked about this.
„As though something like this can be avoided,” she said through her teeth when she remembered this. „Just as nobody escapes death or punishment. More when others agreed to make the victim pay for being attacked and not the attacker.”
Yes, it was as clear as the fact that the sun rose in the morning who was the attacker and who was the victim after the fight at the showers. It was also obvious that the guardian broke his official duties when he came to the showers and found her alone there. She wasn’t only alone but also naked.
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Generally, when a male guard found a prisoner alone in the showers and naked, he had to call a female guard to take her out of there. This did not happen in SolHi’s case because he didn’t call anybody else there but entered the shower room. Not only this: he also approached SolHi on tiptoe and attacked her. Yet, such detail didn’t make anybody pay attention to it: neither the other guardians remarked this nor the warden of the prison, whom SolHi heard was corrupt. This meant only one thing: the guardian who attacked her paid the warden of the prison and the guards to keep their mouths shut or Scar had more accomplices in Jail besides Min Ha Rin, who already confessed that she had a strict order to attack her.
When she remembered about Ha Rin, SolHi smiled. She sadly smiled, somehow devilishly. Then she looked at her hands, which she barely saw because of the dark, but which she felt were badly shaking. She also felt the wounds on her arms and all over her body burning like hell, especially the wounds on her neck, which she made alone when she scratched it with her nails to push the rope away from her throat.
Eventually, SolHi calmed down due to the cold air felt around her. Then, the pain weakened for a few moments, coming back seconds later. This made SolHi want her silence back. And, realizing that the cold air could calm the burning on her skin, she started to blow cold air over the wounds and scratches.
SolHi did that several times without result because the moment of pleasure was too short and too painful the moment after. That’s why she decided not to waste her time anymore or waste the energy she needed at that moment because she understood that she would be closed there for a long time. For how long? She could only guess. „They kept me here for three days last time. Now it might be for a week or more. This will finally give me time to be alone and quietly think about everything.”
Yes, she had to think about everything because it was the only way she wouldn’t have lost her mind being closed there. What to think about? She wasn’t that sure. What she was sure of was that she needed to think fast and find a subject to develop. Thus, she would have given herself time to think about everything and chase the pain that was pressing over her chest away, something that would have passed soon if time had passed quickly. A subject she found soon after this when she remembered the visit of the stranger a few days ago.
„Yes, it’s because of this,” she suddenly told herself. „First, the stranger appeared in my life, Lee SoRan. After that, I saw DooSan again. No, wait: Ha Rin appeared first in my life, then Lee SoRan, and, only after that, I saw DooSan. Is all this a simple coincidence? No, I don’t think so. It’ll be too weird to be like that. Yet, even so, if the three of them were somehow linked, what exactly linked them? The revenge? I don’t think so because if DooSan had looked for revenge, he would have pushed me off the roof then. It would have been damn easy for him to escape the punishment after because there aren’t surveillance cameras and he could have simply said that I jumped. Instead of this, he tightly held me to his chest. He even kissed me, something a man eager to kill someone wouldn’t have ever done. Or… am I lying to myself and all this is a well-made plan? A plan meant to torment me and make me burn on low heat, paying for everything that happened to Han YuSan?”
It was also a probability. A very small one, but it still existed. Yet, something still bothered SolHi after this thought because „What would have he won if making me suffer? More than that, he wouldn’t have relished all this if not seeing the pain with his own eyes. No, Han DooSan is the kind of man that looks his victim in the eyes before killing her. It’s what he did on that lavender field. Then… is it all because of Lee SoRan?”
This last thought wasn’t also credible because „Why had she looked for revenge if she didn’t have a reason for this? More than that, why would she have told me about her father’s betrayal if this meant burying him? Not that he isn’t buried already, but… still!”
„Keep your mouth shut!” SolHi scolded herself in her mind. „You think too much lately, Ian SolHi, don’t you think so? You confuse yourself thinking about all this, just as you have done in front of DooSan. Yes, you gave yourself away that day, like a stupid, accepting something that you swore to reveal ever. Yet, you did that: trusting Fate more and not yourself. That’s why you tempted that fate, entering jail, without even being aware of what you were accused of. More than that: why didn’t you know about the knife wounds on YuSan’s body? It’s what you should have known in the first place once you said you killed him. Bullshit: if you had known this, you wouldn’t have accepted being sent behind bars ever.”
SolHi’s mind was right in thinking about all this because if she had known about the knife wounds, she wouldn’t have ever accepted Lee’s offer, not even to protect DooSan as he had told her. The reason? She would have realized that everything was a trap and would have run away from the Captain like running from hell. Yet, being stupid and not reading the document he wrote for her, she entered jail, just as it happened eight years ago when she had been tortured at Yun Marie’s order.
„No, wait: it might have been not Yun Marie who ordered Ha Rin to attack me eight years ago, but that Scar. Damn idiot, who prefers to hide and not look into my eyes once he considers me his victim. No, he, like a coward, prefers to hide, thinking that I’ll shake because of fear and want death as he plans for me. No, „friend,” dream of it because you won’t ever have the chance to get rid of me. Not forcing me to kill myself. I would rather escape from prison and, finding you, I’ll break your neck for sure, something I should have done eight years ago. Thus, even if I had been closed now, I would have gotten revenge.”
SolHi said all this with hatred, staring in front, at the image of the past she was seeing at that moment. What image? The face of that bastard with a scar on his beard, a scar she clearly remembered. And, seeing it again, SolHi shuddered. „Ah, damn: I’m again afraid and shudder like a stupid when I should have killed him! Why, SolHi? Why are you a coward when you shouldn’t have been? Why?”
Saying this, SolHi’s eyes filled with tears. She was crying again because she remembered that she lost her hair because of the other prisoners who hated her and wanted to turn her into an ugly duck. Not only the prisoners did that but also the guardians. They did that that day to „punish her for disobedience.” Something SolHi would have liked to yell right into their faces: that they were stupid and that they didn’t know that they made an innocent soul suffer.
„As though this matters to them,” SolHi said through tears, understanding this cruel truth for the umpteenth time: whether she was a victim or not, it mattered what others thought about her… that nobody had ever believed in her.
Thus, feeling herself trampled under their feet, even if the victim had been her that night, SolHi cried a lot. She cried in silence, with her head lying on her arms, hiding her face from the entire world and from herself too. Then, when she finally cooled her soul, SolHi raised her head and looked in front, at that imaginary DooSan who was so beautifully smiling at her, as though trying to give her the power to resist that challenge.
SolHi didn’t smile but squeezed her fists. She did that because of the hatred she felt. And, because of the same hatred, she suddenly hissed through her teeth, „I’ll make all of you pay for this, I swear. I’ll make you crawl to my feet, asking for mercy, but I won’t have time for this… only to punish you! I swear!”