The torturer or the tormented?

"— Player four hundred and fifty-six, remember? We once spoke in this very car," I had prepared this phrase in advance. My heart was pounding as if in anticipation of impending disaster and triumph, and everything inside my chest tightened with anxiety and expectation. "—This one? Fancy. I didn't notice it back then," Gi-hun said with a cold sneer. — "I sincerely wished you well, hoped you would forget everything and live happily," I said with the tone characteristic of the Front Man, which had seemed to me then almost holy. At the time, I thought there was at least a grain of truth in it. — "I didn't know you cared so much about me. I'm touched to the depths of my soul," Gi-hun resorted to sarcasm, either to drown out his anxiety or for an illusion of control—it was obvious to me. — "You should have boarded that plane—it was the best thing you could have done," I replied dryly and rehearsedly. I often imagined: what would have happened if he had actually boarded that plane? Even now, it seems to me that phrase was so precise—like a prediction of fate. — "I haven't forgotten what you told me back then, that's why I wanted so much to meet you," he began speaking sincerely. — "Well, here we are. Say what you wanted to say. What do you need?" Chills spread across my body from the premonition and anxiety. — "Stop the game," he uttered suddenly with unexpected resolve. — "The game?" I repeated, understanding everything: my favorite scenario was unfolding. I craved confirmation of my rightness from his own lips. — "Yes, your game! The one that continues to this day," his words were honey for my vanity and salt on my wounds. — "We merely created it. All of you decided to play voluntarily," a mantra or an axiom escaped my lips with particular confidence; I had repeated it so often mindlessly that I had stopped noticing its meaning. — "Don't feed me that bullshit! You manipulate people who are in a dead end," he spoke from the heart; his voice sounded like a cry of pain and rage simultaneously, "you drive them to their deaths and enjoy it. Do you think their 'voluntary participation' turns this filthy game of yours into a charity event?" He was sincere then, while I represented cold calculation—or so it seemed to me at the time. He thinks I'm like the inhabitants of the island—a wild beast; but I myself wouldn't have refused to become one completely. — "They are just losers," I said clearly and without hesitation, "failures, trash—those who were eliminated from the competition." I had spoken so often and confidently that I had almost convinced myself. — "While we are talking, new trash is being dumped into this world by the ton," I felt my own sincerity. "Do you still not understand? Until the world changes, the game will not end." — "'That's how the world is. Accept it and shut up'? That phrase was invented by people like you. For you, people are horses at the races. And you are the owners of those horses." — "You've become much more eloquent," I noted with inner delight. "And so? Your plan is to convince the horse owners to stop the races?" I was bursting with delight: for everything was clear as day. Nothing could convince me otherwise. At the intersection, our sniper shot out the tires of the cars pursuing us—it was too obvious even for a blind man. Gi-hun was informed of this as quickly as I was. Only my brother's car remained: last night our people had attached a device to it—it prevented him from continuing. I only had to press a button… The shooting was more dangerous. — "So what? You intended to kidnap me?" my chest was bursting with delight again. Gi-hun was not prepared for such a turn of events. Panic seized him instantly: he fired a shot at the armored glass. — "Stop the car!" cries of despair and panic echoed through the cabin. — "Do you think a pistol will help you stop the game?" I broke into the flow of events; laughing at Gi-hun was so easy… Whatever spiritual changes he had undergone—he still remained a naive fool. — "Let me play again," the coveted demand. — "You want to play the game?" I was again waiting for confirmation. — "That's right," he said firmly, "I want to play the game one more time." — "But you just asked me to stop the game?" This resembled a predator toying with its prey. — "If I return to the game," he continued, "it will clearly amuse the fat cats… Whom you serve… So come on! Let me into the game!" When Gi-hun actually asked to participate again—I was speechless. No, no… Not surprise! It wasn't surprise at all; rather—something else: deeper and more obtuse… As if someone had gripped my throat with the hand of an older brother: my chest filled with feelings… And I forgot to breathe. My mask had become a part of me: it offered neither beauty nor protection—merely a shell… And my face contorted in a spasm, acknowledging its inner ugliness. 'What am I doing?' I asked myself aloud. The question rang in my ears like a bell in an empty temple. 'I need to stop everything! I need to break this circle!' — "What confuses you? Are you scared? Afraid of losing to me, like Oh Il-nam? He didn't want to admit it until his very death… He knew they had helped that homeless man, but refused to look out the window. But still. Drawing his last breath, I'm sure he knew he had lost." — "Have you seen 'The Matrix'? Had they chosen the blue pill, they would have lived peacefully. But they decided to play heroes and chose the red one… And you consider yourself a hero capable of changing the world?" My last hope was to open his eyes before it became too late… — "I will show you that the world isn't always the way you want it to be," he said quietly and firmly. Gi-hun remained unyielding: his stubbornness was unshakable, like a rock. Ah, why am I so attached to such stubborn and intractable people? Why do they excite in me that very sick desire to show, to prove, to grind down, to break? I didn't know the answer; I only knew that my chest seethed with hatred, pity, and some icy delight at the thought that I could control their fates. — "Very well… Have it your way." Gas filled the cabin. After he fell asleep, I opened the window and greeted the player with the words: "Player four hundred and fifty-six, welcome back to the game." I looked at him sleeping… And I smirked like a predator over its prey, lying right before him. In this mask, there was no longer In-ho, nor a man—only a role assigned from above. My caustic speeches—ready, sharpened like a scalpel—I had prepared in advance. I had had plenty of time for malice and for calculation. The upcoming conversation seemed to me an act of masochism: how not to let a wound heal, constantly cutting the flesh and tearing open the prominent edge again, to feel that you are still alive, and that this is the most terrible punishment. I craved this rupture and simultaneously, as if in mockery, desired to end it. And so—the most terrible thing had happened, the thing I feared and strove for had come to pass: I decided to follow my plan. I saw before me not just the move and the retort, but pictures, scenes, separate moments, like a series of atrocities, and in all of this—not cold, calculating evil, but a trembling, trained weakness, mixed with an indomitable will. Fear and anticipation blended into a single dagger, and I, trembling, prepared to strike. And in that instant, if anyone had dared to ask me directly who I was—the torturer or the tortured—I myself would not have known what to answer.