(Continuation of Park Kyung: Accidental Captor:)
I felt someone touch my shoulder and say something I didn’t understand. Oh no.
“What?” I asked as I looked up into his face. He was a man with beautiful eyes and a face hidden by a mask.
“Oh, you speak English. Are you American?” he asked with a look of concern.
“I don’t know,” I said as I began to cry again.
“Huh?” He looked surprised.
I couldn’t think of the name of the forgetting disease so I said, “I have a forgetting disease.”
“Alzheimer’s? You are too young for that. Amnesia?” he asked.
“I think that’s it. I got hurt and now I can’t remember anything. Tom was sending me home but he had to go and now I don’t know what to do because I don’t speak Chinese.” I continued to cry.
The man looked confused for a minute then he said, “You are in Korea. South Korea and I think we need to get you to a doctor.”
“Tom gave me this ticket and said I’m supposed to meet someone in Amsterdam.”
He took the ticket and looked at it and said, “This is a ticket for Amsterdam but,” he looked at the screens hanging from the ceiling, “I think this flight is gone. You know what, it doesn’t matter. I want to get you to a doctor. Do you know your name?”
“Sarah. What’s yours?”
“Kim Junmyeon.” He took off his mask. “But you can call me Suho.”

I watched as Suho went to talk to a man in a long blue overcoat. After a few minutes, the man turned and left and Suho walked back over to me.
“We are going to get you to a hospital and they will take good care of you, alright?” he said with a smile.
“Are you going with me?” I asked hopefully.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. I have a flight but I’ll call to make sure you are being taken care of.”
I tried not to cry but hot tears began to fall anyway. Suho sat down next to me and put an arm around me.
“Don’t cry. We have excellent hospitals here and they will figure everything out. They’ll help you. I promise.”
“I’m really scared. I don’t understand anyone but you.”
“I’m sure they will have an interpreter there.”
“Okay,” I said. But it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all.
I calmed down, on the outside at least, and Suho sat with with me until the man in the blue coat returned with a woman I didn’t know. He talked to Suho and whatever he said made him frown. The crowd that was being held back by the security guards was growing. People were taking pictures and yelling to get Suho’s attention. Who is Suho anyway?
He turned back to me but his smile had not returned. He took my hands in both of his and said, “This lady, Doctor Choi, is going to take you to the hospital now. I’m afraid they don’t have an interpreter on staff right now but she knows some English and they will find someone soon. We told her about your condition and she’s going to take good care of you. I’ll call you tonight to see how things are going. Don’t be afraid okay? We will get this sorted.”
I didn’t say anything. Doctor Choi took my hands from Suho and I noticed that he stood and watched as she led me through the growing crowd. The farther I got from Suho the more uncomfortable I felt. I felt like an alien. Everything was strange and nothing made sense. Nothing but him.

Doctor Choi didn’t know very much English as it turned out. She talked to me but I didn’t understand any of it so she mostly just smiled. The hospital was huge. We took an elevator to the eleventh floor and when we stepped out, there were three long hallways leading away that looked identical. All of the signs were written in what I now knew was Korean and apparently I hadn’t learned to read that either. Why had Tom lied about it being Chinese?
I was taken to an examination room where I was given a thin gown to put on and left alone. I changed and got up onto the table. A different doctor and what I assumed was a nurse came in and I was given a thorough and uncomfortable examination. They asked me questions which I couldn’t answer so I just smiled. A lot of blood was taken and I had to give a urine sample. They seemed very interested in the tiny cut marks that were covering my body. The cuts were new but I had no idea how I had gotten them. They also seemed concerned during the female exam. The doctor kept looking at me with pity and concern. What happened to me?
I was taken to a very nice patient room, put into a bed, and given the remote for the television. The nurse that put me into the bed gave me the same look of pity as the doctor had as she ran a hand over my head and smiled down at me and then left the room. I turned on the tv but I couldn’t understand any of it. I left it on anyway. It was company and the noise helped me not to think of how screwed I was. After awhile I was given a tray of food. I didn’t recognize any of the foods so I tried them all. Most of them were good but there was one dish of noodles that made me feel uneasy so I put them to the side. I didn’t know what it was about the noodles but just looking at them made my stomach queasy.
About an hour later, I was completely bored but that didn’t last. The door opened and the doctor from the exam came in followed by two police officers. They said hello but that was all they said to me because they knew I couldn’t understand them. They talked to the doctor extensively though and one of them held up a picture beside me. They kept nodding and then they said something that I recognized. They said the name Elizabeth. I didn’t know why that was familiar but I knew that name. I got a peek at the picture and it was me. One officer took a photo of me with his phone and the three of them left. A few minutes later an nurse came in with two white pills which I took without question and half an hour later I was asleep.

Dr. Choi woke me the next morning and told me that I couldn’t remain at the hospital since I wasn’t technically sick. She said my family couldn’t come to get me for a week so I had to stay at a state house, whatever that was. I was given my clothes to put back on and ushered out to a car driven by a man I had never seen before. To say I was frightened was an understatement. How does she know who my family is? Do they know who I am and why do they know? Who am I? Why didn’t they tell me anything? What if they aren’t really my family? Something bad happened to me and I felt like something bad was still happening to me.
The state house looked like a run down halfway house. I was taken to the second floor and shown into a small room. It was dingy and damp. There was a small heater in the corner but it was still cold enough to see my breath. It had a tiny refrigerator and a hotplate with one pot to cook with. The bed was the only place to sit and the blankets were questionable. There was no tv or any kind of entertainment that I could see. The bathroom was in the hall where a man that I assumed was drunk was laying in a pool of what smelled like pee. We had to step over him to get to the bathroom. It hadn’t been cleaned in forever. The toilet seat was broken off and the sink was rusty. There was no shower curtain and green stuff was growing around the drain. We went back to “my” room and the man sat a bag of groceries on the counter and left. I reached over to lock the door and when it clicked an image of the bedroom door in Tom’s apartment entered my mind accompanied by a very panicky feeling. That was strange. I started to sit on the bed when I saw a roach crawl from underneath one of the wrinkles. I wrapped my coat around me closer and sunk down in the corner with the heater that I turned to face me. I looked around and started to cry. I cried for hours until my head hurt and I felt dizzy. I didn’t move from that corner for the rest of the day except to get the bag of groceries. I ate the vegetables and drank the soda but I wasn’t about to cook anything in that pot. I could hear weird noises throughout the rest of the house. Bangs and shouts and moans. Someone tried to turn the door knob but left when they realized it was locked. I didn’t sleep a wink. It was a miserable night and I had a whole week of this ahead of me.
The next morning I heard a huge commotion. I was terrified. Someone was very angry. They were shouting and throwing things and getting closer. Then someone banged on the door and I almost jumped out of my skin. I curled up into a tight ball in the little corner that I had made my home and wished for them to go away. Then I heard a familiar voice. My heart leapt!
“Elizabeth, it’s me. It’s Suho. Open the door.”
I couldn’t believe it. Maybe I was going crazy and I was hearing things.
“Please Elizabeth. Open up. I’m taking you home.”
Wait! I’m Elizabeth? I jumped up and opened the door so fast that it slammed against the wall. When I saw his sweet face I almost fell in the floor from the flood of relief that struck me. My legs felt like jelly.
“Are you alright? You aren’t hurt are you?” Suho began looking me over.
“I’m good. I’m okay. What are you doing here?” I still couldn’t believe my eyes.
He pulled me into a hug and said, “I’m sorry I left you. I shouldn’t have trusted them. I came as soon as I heard that they had put you here. Bastards! Come on. Let’s go home. I’ll tell you everything that I know when we get there.”
Suho grabbed my hand and led me out of the house. He had left a path of destruction in his anger and the other people cowered away from him as we walked by. We got into his car and for the first time since this had started, I felt safe.

Notes