A Stop for the Night, Part 2 (Dal-Geon)
Dal-Geon removed the scarves that covered his wounds. The fabric was glued to his skin with dried blood, forcing him to peel it off forcefully. He could feel the warm, gooey substance welling in his palm, then dribbling down toward his elbow, staining his arm. He turned around to grab a bottle of water, opened it, and drenched his arm. He put the bottle down and started to scrub the patches of dried blood. The throbbing was significant, but it didn't bother him much, the one in his head overpowering everything else. He repeated the process a couple of times more, and finished with rinsing the wounds one last time. He climbed inside the trunk, closed the door behind him and settled on the wooden box, spreading the bloodied keffiyeh scarves to his feet.
He took a deep breath, trying to hold on to his determination, and pulled the little flashlight from his pocket, then unsheathe his knife. He used the iodine solution from the medical kit to sterilize the sharp tip, and turned on the flashlight, placing it between his teeth, directing the beam of light over the long gash on the inside his left arm. The cut had already stopped bleeding for the most part, other than a few spots where fresh blood sprouted after peeling off the scarf that stuck to it.
Using his dominant right hand, he pressed the tip of the knife into the now closed laceration, just in the middle of Black Sun's tattoo. He pushed it down forcefully, going in a millimeter deep, then maintained the pressure as it went in another millimeter, and another one, and another one… Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead and streamed down his brow, into his eyes, some were disappeared into the mask, some fell to the floor, mixing in with the blood that was already drenching the scarves beneath him. His back was soaked with cold sweat, his head was pounding and heavy, his ears ringing. He felt the edges of his vision going darker as the stream of blood became thicker.
His knife scraped against a hard object, as he finally reached the chip buried under his skin. He felt heavy, like he was about to pass out again. It took quite a bit of effort to cling on to his consciousness as he widened the cut enough to access to the chip, in order to pull it out. He let the bloodied knife drop to the floor and shoved a hand into the first aid kit, pulling out a pair of surgical tweezers. He ripped the thin cellophane with his teeth, and sunk the edge into the deep cut. He dug around inside, under the tattoo, his mind too cloudy to acknowledge the pain, and managed to grab the chip with the tweezers. He lost his hold on it several times while trying to pull it out, trying again and again, breathing laboriously and sweating profusely. At last, on the fourth or fifth try, he successfully removed the damned bug.
He dropped the tweezers and flashlight, letting them fall in this bloody puddle underneath him, then grabbed a piece of gauze and pressed it hard on the gash, trying to stop the bleeding. He was almost at his limit. Breathing was already hard and the moist mask felt like it was about to suffocate him. He waited as long as he could before removing the gauze, and though the bleeding eased, it didn't stop. With no energy to be bothered by it, he decided that was good enough. He grabbed the iodine bottle and poured the brown antiseptic over the cuts unceremoniously, directly from the bottle, then used his fingers to smear the cuts with ointment before hastily wrapping up both wounds with a bandage. Thanking heaven that it was over, he picked up his knife and used his last bit of strength to drive it into the little chip that was lying in a bloody puddle. The knife went through it and lodged itself into the car's floor. Black Sun's chip was in pieces. Finally, he could allow himself to pass out in peace, seated on top of a wooden box.
He came to some time later, a bit disoriented, woken by the sudden movement as he caught himself before falling off the box, banging his shoulder against the car's wall in the process. His neck was sore from the awkward angle in which his head must have hung while he was out. He rubbed the back of his head, experimentally turning it this and that way, trying to ease the tightness in his muscles, when he happened to notice the bloody bandages.
Wrapped hastily, the layers weren't thick or tight enough, and since he didn't bother tucking the edges, it also came loose. He quickly redid it, this time properly, and taped the edges down. He forcefully dislodged the knife out of the car's floor and wiped it on a relatively clean part of the keffiyeh at his feet, though some of the blood had already dried and stayed on it. He put the knife back in his belt and proceeded with removing the flashlight and tweezers from the bloody mess that also consisted sweat and iodine, and looked thoroughly disturbing and sinister. He tossed them aside, then shoved the scarves into a random plastic bag and tied it up tightly.
He felt a lot better. the pain killers finally kicked in, but he was still exhausted. It has been a long day and he had lost a lot of blood. He turned around to look over at Hae-Ri, it looked like she had fallen asleep. He quietly moved to the back seat and slowly sat down next to her. As he thought, she was sleeping, her breathing came and went in a slow, even rhythm. Thinking it couldn't be too comfortable, he considered flattening the back of the passenger's seat and moving her to it, but decided against it. He will make up for it by providing her with a bed when the reached the safehouse.
There were still a few hours before the sun came up, and he planned to hit the road at dawn. He quietly moved to the driver's seat, flicked the lights off, closed his eyes, and was fast asleep.
Dal-Geon was seated on top of a large boulder that comprised one of the several rocky hills that covered the mountain. Everything around him was in shades of yellow, orange and brown. The air was dry, but there was an occasional pleasant breeze. The sun was blazing in the sky, and the heated sand bellow sent heat waves upward.
He was looking at his target through the scope of his sniper rifle. He couldn't see the target's face, but he had a clean shot, no obstruction between them. Just when he was about to squeeze the trigger, a sudden gush of wind came out of nowhere and whipped the target's hair, forcing her to turn and stand with her face to the wind. She was looking straight at him, like she knew he was there, watching her.
Dal-Geon wanted to drop the weapon, but he was frozen in place, feeling like he lost control over his body. He wanted to cry out, to warn her, tell her to run away, but his entire body was as rigid as if he was made out of marble.
"There's your shot", the distorted voice came out of nowhere, and sounded like it belonged to the devil himself.
Dal-Geon struggled to get out of his frozen state, but it was in vain. He couldn't move a muscle. Though his mind was racing, his heartbeat was levelled, his breathing calm, as if this situation was a natural occurrence. Other than the sweat that soaked in his shirt, there was no evidence that this was out of the ordinary. It felt wrong.
"What are you waiting for?", the devil's voice came again. He tried to answer, to yell back at the voice, to tell it to fuck off, but he couldn't make a sound. He used all his strength to try and get his finger off the trigger, but not even a single finger would bend according to his will.
"Take the shot", the voice came back, louder this time, hurting his ears.
"Shoot the target right now!", the devil ordered in its booming voice. His internal battle proved to be futile, when finally, he fulfilled the devil's will. He pulled the trigger, and watched through the scope as the bullet went through Hae-Ri's forehead. She was still looking at him as a red spray of blood painted the white car behind her. She closed her eyes as she collapsed and hit the ground, her blood pooling under her. It was over. She was gone, and there was nothing he could do.
Dal-Geon's eyes shot open as he woke up from his nightmare, covered in sweat. His mask was soaked and made it hard to breathe. Without thinking, he tore it off his face and tossed it aside, letting his head drop forward, resting it against the steering wheel. He wiped his face on his sleeve and realized that though he was indeed profusely sweating, shirt uncomfortably clinging to his body, his face was covered in tears that wouldn't stop falling.
Though it was still dark outside, he could see a thin pinkish-yellow stripe, low in the horizon to the east, marking the approaching sunrise. Soon, it will be dawn.
He turned around and looked back when his eyes came to rest on Hae-Ri's sleeping form. He quickly turned back to face the front, his mind suddenly flooded by the memories of recent events. Waking up from the nightmare, feeling disoriented, he almost forgot that she was with him in the car. Luckily, it was dark and she was sound asleep, so he wasn't caught. He reached to the glove's compartment and took out a fresh mask. He slung it over his ears, started the car, and drove it just a few meters away from the shrubbery. He stepped outside, took the ghillie suites off the car and threw the messy heap in the trunk, quickly got back in and navigated the jeep down the hilly path.
It took some time to get back on the road, and as the car rattled and shook on the unpaved path, he noticed through the rearview mirror that Hae-Ri was waking up. She too seemed to be a bit disoriented as she frantically looked around her and jiggled her handcuffs. Dal-Geon felt a pang in his heart when he heard the harsh metal clink. She raised her eyes just in time to catch him look away. Bashful, he adjusted his hat, pulling it down.
Finally, they hit the asphalt. They rode quietly, Hae-Ri not saying even a word, as they made their way to the little village. Though Dal-Geon felt rather confident by now, he kept checking the mirrors for anything suspicious, but the road was almost empty save numerous camels on both shoulders, and an occasional ancient car now and then. They drove past a small supermarket, one of the only stores in the area that served a cluster of tiny villages, mostly of Bedouin descendants who had settled down, in a radius of 5 to 10 kilometers around it. It was Friday, the official Islamic resting day, which left the sandy makeshift parking lot empty.
When they reached the end of the paved road, going back to gravel and sand, just a few kilometers left until they reached the safehouse, Dal-Geon noticed that Hae-Ri was getting restless and nervous. He thought the godforsaken place she was being taken to might have made her panic, and though he believed he couldn't feel guiltier than he already did, he proved himself wrong.
The safehouse was actually located at the outskirts of a small village inhibited by Bedouin, and comprised of families with a permanent residence who owned livestock, and nomadic Bedouin families that pitched their temporary residences in that area. Since the settled Bedouin weren't officially recognized as citizens of the kingdom, they didn't enjoy its massive wealth that came from oil, and mostly kept to themselves with minimum intervention of outsiders, including the government. With the lacking infrastructure in that part of the country, the villagers lived mostly off the grid, which made the gamble of staying among them relatively safe, even for a stranger.
Going around the main residence area, using a shortcut that would keep them far from the prying eyes of curious villagers, they passed two small family estates and several clusters of Buryuut Hajar tents, each boasting a handsome number of camels, sheep, goats, donkeys and an occasional sheepdog around it. For a few panicky minutes he thought he had lost the way, though he followed the instructions he memorized. He had been here before not too long ago, but the scenery looked pretty much the same wherever you looked, with no remarkable landmarks, and too many provisional housings that weren't there before and made it look like an entirely different place. He thought of pulling over to take out his map, when a looming grayish-off-white structure came into view in the horizon, far up ahead.
He looked in the mirror to check on Hae-Ri again, when he noticed she was getting jittery, almost vibrating in her seat, teeth sunk into her lower lip. He wasn't sure, but he thought she looked like someone who desperately need to use the bathroom, and quite urgently. He wondered why she hasn't said anything, and feeling the urgency as if he was the one who had been holding it in, he stepped hard on the gas and raced forward on the gravely path, making the car frame rattle vigorously. Finally, the safehouse was within sight.