IX

Yongsun places thinly cut plates of steel over burnt flesh, wrinkling her nose at the foul stench. She can not believe that the military is going to send them out onto the field again, it is cruelty at its worst. With guilt in her heart, Yongsun admits to herself that she will not see this soldier again.

Her hands shake, this is not right, this is not right, her mind screams as the steel sinks effortlessly into the skin, as if it had been destined to be there all along. She pulls her hands away quickly, stands up and wraps her arms around herself.

She sees a doctor, a real doctor, not a phoney one like her, scribbling something on a notepad. She is Yongsun’s superior, the one that taught her how to ‘heal’ by covering wounds with steel, but Yongsun finds that contradictory because she is destroying what makes us human. The doctor’s blonde fringe falls in front of her face, she pushes it away but it falls again. Yongsun lets out a cough, trying to attract the doctor’s attention.

She stops scribbling, looks at Yongsun with remarkably soft eyes, brows lifting innocently. Yongsun feels her blood boil; how can the doctor stand there and do nothing else but obey the commands given by the government? The world is descending into madness, losing all sense of direction, humanity is decaying, steel is flourishing. «Doctor, the patient has been fully decorated.» Yongsun says, dropping her gaze.