Chapter 73

Braun isn't here.

“Wh-what is it?”

“Th-this person moved!!”

With no silver coin inside the doll, had the Good Friend ritual itself been nullified? Or did it really just look like a doll because this was a dream...

'Stop!'

Figuring that out wasn't the priority! Get a grip!

You're inside a ghost story!

“Look over here!”

I whipped my head around.

Someone was screaming in a corner of the dark classroom. It was the person who had been poking the “student” sitting alone at a desk, rigid and motionless as a wax figure.

But that wax figure...

“There!”

Had vanished from the desk.

And following the pointing finger of someone nearby, their face deathly pale...

[Segwang Technical High School]

The missing student stood at the rear door.

Holding the door.

Expressionless.

Looking back into the classroom.

“...”

“H-hey. You're playing a prank, right?”

There was no answer.

No movement, either.

“Hold on.”

One brave soul approached and waved a hand right in front of his face.

The “student” didn't even blink. He simply stood frozen before the rear door, so vividly lifelike...

“He's not breathing. It's not a person, it's a mannequin...”

“How could a mannequin suddenly move over there? Maybe he's learned some technique to make it look like he's not breathing?”

“Yeah, that's what this is. You know those things on variety shows or Wetube where they watch people's reactions?”

No.

Naturally, there were no cameras here, nor any variety-show crew trying to scare people.

[DING-DONG-DANG-DONG]

Instead...

[Attention, students of Segwang Technical High School! The graduation ceremony will begin shortly. Please gather in the auditorium.]

“Graduation...?”

A bright, crisp announcement, just what one would expect at a school.

“Should we go? This is fascinating.”

“Hey, we look like we did in high school, right? Wow. What kind of dream is this?”

Some had decided outright that this was a dream and were chatting without a trace of tension.

Granted, it probably wasn't all that frightening yet.

'It wouldn't feel real.'

They'd reverted to their high school selves, after all. Growing younger was generally a pleasant experience.

And while schools at night were a staple of ghost stories, with plenty of people around and a little moonlight streaming in, they could feel romantic, too.

But...

“Uh, this student mannequin? Take a look.”

Someone approached the motionless student at the rear door and pointed at the hand he had stretched behind him.

“The way his hand is positioned, it's like...”

[Students, we will now close the automatic curtains and turn on the lights for warmth and safety.]

“He was trying to lock the rear door.”

THUD.

The window curtains closed.

“Oh my God!”

“Ah, that scared me!”

The automatic curtains shut with a deafening noise, plunging the classroom into darkness.

Just for a moment.

A flicker.

After a brief delay, the classroom lights came on.

“Oh, thank goodness.”

“I guess they were just turning on the lights... Huh?”

Blood spread in a pool across the ivory classroom floor.

“Uh... uhhhh?”

Following the blood with their eyes, they found someone collapsed near the rear door, neck bent completely backward.

An enormous amount of blood poured from that neck, twisted at an angle impossible for a living human, and pooled in the seams of the flooring.

Their eyes were wide with shock, as if they hadn't seen it coming at all.

“Aaaah!”

“Gaaaah!!”

It had begun.

* * *

Records of Dark Exploration / Ghost Stories

[In the Black Shadows]

: A ghost story appearing in <Records of Dark Exploration>. Daydream Inc. identification code: Qterw-()-62. Disaster Management Bureau registration number: 2845PSYA.2016. Ha53.

A ghost story in which those who fall asleep after reading a text file circulating online awaken in Segwang Technical High School at night, where something inhuman pursues them until they die.

All civilian attempts to locate the high school in reality have failed. It is currently understood to be a place that does not exist in Korea.

* * *

Right.

The only escape from this nightmarish ghost story was “death.”

There was no way out of this nighttime school except to die.

And... this ghost story featured an inhuman entity so memorable that it had become a cliché.

“Th-that...! That person!!”

One of the people who had been screaming raised a trembling hand and pointed.

At the student still frozen by the rear door.

But one thing had changed.

“There's blood on his hand.”

“...”

People stiffly turned to look.

And confirmed it.

On the student mannequin's right hand, the one holding the door, inside fingers curled as though trying to hide it...

Blood marked the ridges of his fingerprints.

“...”

Their eyes returned to the corpse.

They saw bloody finger marks on the back of its broken neck.

“Ah!”

“Oh my God! Aaaaah! Hah!”

And again.

A flicker.

The lights flickered.

The students of Segwang Technical High School did not move while someone was watching them.

But the instant no one was looking...

As the classroom lit up again in the blink of an eye...

They moved with inhuman speed.

The person who had been pointing at the mannequin was gone.

“Ah!!”

They were found on the floor, a corpse smashed to pieces below the chest.

THUMP.

The pointing arm, no longer supported, buckled and dropped limply to the floor.

“Ah...”

“...”

“Aaaaaah!!”

Panic, terror, frenzy.

“N-now! Let's attack it now! Huh? Hey, whoever's close, hit it!”

“F-fuck! Do it yourself, then! Why the fuck are you yelling at me?”

A flicker.

“Eek.”

Another corpse joined the others.

One of the people shouting had been driven upside down into a desk.

Only the lower half of their body remained.

“...”

“...”

In the terrified silence, people turned their heads.

Now the “student” at the rear door was staring straight at them.

A peculiar smile rested on his face.

“...!!”

“Eeeeek!”

“R-run! Run!”

“Open the door, now!”

Avoiding the rear door blocked by the student, people surged toward the front door. But...

It was already too late.

“This way... Aaaaah!”

The person who opened the front door crumpled to the floor.

A smiling student stood outside the open doorway.

[Segwang Technical High School]

The girl with the neatly trimmed bangs wore the same name tag.

“G-go around her!”

“Go!”

People ran past the smiling student. And again...

A flicker.

The lights flickered.

“...”

The student at the front door vanished from my sight.

“Aaaaaah!”

... Agonized screams rang through the hallway.

Then, one by one, they fell silent.

“...”

“...”

A maddening stillness.

Panting breaths, distant cries, people staring at the doorway with eyes bulging from their sockets.

“Slowly,” I said quietly, looking around the classroom.

“Let's move slowly. Keep checking that nothing starts moving again. Watch both doors.”

“Ah, ah...”

The adults, looking no different from high school students, shuddered and staggered back from the doors.

“...”

Of the people who had awakened in this classroom, half had fled, their fate unknown, and the other half remained.

No, rather than remaining, it was more that they were frozen, unable to move.

Amid them, I thought quietly,

'I'm screwed.'

This wasn't how I should have started.

Before the curtains closed and plunged everything into total darkness, I should have rushed out alone, grabbed an emergency flashlight first, then gathered what I needed and hidden.

'I missed my chance.'

I'd been so rattled by Braun's absence that I'd been slow to act.

Meanwhile, someone had finally begun to grasp what was happening.

“Th-this is that thing!”

“What?”

“Don't you know? A monster that can't move while you're looking at it!”

“Y-you know what it is?”

“Damn it, how do you not know? Those monsters that chase you when you aren't looking! It can't move right now because we're watching it!”

Their voice distorted by fear and excitement, the person rambled on.

Had everyone read a strange text file? We seemed to have entered a game. Had we been transported into another world...?

Even those who would ordinarily have ignored them listened in their panic.

I'd seen this development plenty of times before.

And the conclusion reached by a group overwhelmed with fear was likewise... simplistic and extreme.

“Then we need to hurry up and attack that thing! Destroy it!”

“What?!”

“If we run now, it'll just keep chasing us! We'll all die if we aren't looking! You saw what happened to the people who left! Hurry! Before the lights flicker again!”

“Ah!”

As if spellbound, people searched the otherwise empty classroom for anything they could use as a weapon. Brooms, chairs, mops, utility knives...

'No.'

This was a shortcut to a typical bad ending!

“Please, wait a mom—”

That was when someone covered my mouth.

“...!”

I almost threw a punch.

Not wanting to provoke anything, I slowly turned my head to see who was clamping a hand over my mouth.

My eyes met a familiar face.

'... The government employee!'

It was an agent from the Disaster Management Bureau!

Agent Ryu Jaegwan, whom I'd met at the mountain lodge, had short hair befitting a high school student, but otherwise looked little different from his present-day self.

'Where was he sitting?'

No, that wasn't what mattered!

'Right. Government agents could get in, too!'

This wasn't a ghost story Daydream Inc. had “contained and secured.”

Which meant I could encounter personnel from other organizations here.

But still, running into the exact same agent again? Weren't you working a little too hard?

“If you won't scream, I'll let you go.”

I immediately nodded with a solemn expression, and the government employee released me without another word.

'Whew.'

“You really are prone to getting caught up in these things.”

“... Yes.”

Let's just leave it at that.

“And some of what that person said earlier is correct.”

“...”

“Keep watching that student mannequin, no matter what. You mustn't look away, so blink one eye at a time. If the lights go out, duck immediately. And...”

The government employee quietly whispered the standard procedures I already knew.

“Those things are extremely sensitive to sound.”

Right.

The students showed a clear tendency to pursue people making loud noises—screaming, swearing, shouting.

“You must not raise your voice. Ever.”

I gave a small nod.

“But is it really right to let those people attack it...?”

“Your own safety comes first. Saving others caught in the disaster comes after that.”

The government employee recited with practiced ease,

“When dealing with people caught in a supernatural disaster, proceed on the assumption that all of them will die.”

“...”

This was... typical Disaster Management Bureau protocol.

'He thinks it's more important to understand this ghost story and seal or destroy it.'

Because that would prevent countless future deaths.

It was the sort of value judgment that would have someone pull the lever without hesitation in the trolley problem, killing one person instead of five.

“I'll tell you when to run, too. For now, just remember what I've told you.”

“... Yes.”

Arguing with the government employee here would be suicide.

For the moment, I shut my mouth.

Meanwhile, the others were approaching the student with their weapons.

'Damn it.'

Once again, I framed a question to deliberately elicit the answer I wanted.

I needed to have this knowledge for my actions from here on to look natural.

“Um, but isn't this a dream? Wouldn't we just wake up even if we died...?”

It was a classic way out of a nightmare.

The moment you died in the dream, you woke up and returned to reality.

Hearing only that, one might think it best to kill oneself quickly, but that was completely wrong. You mustn't make that choice...

'There's something you need.'

“... That's correct, but there is a condition.”

Exactly.

“A condition?”

“Yes. Do you see that name tag?”

The government employee pointed at the “student mannequin.”

“You can only wake up ‘normally’ if you die with that mannequin's name tag in your possession. ... If you don't,”

If the release conditions were not met, the explorer became bound to “In the Black Shadows.”

“You'll suffer some rather unpleasant effects.”

“...”

“There are several other conditions for dying safely, but I'll explain the details as we travel together.”

“T-together?”

“Yes.”

Wait a minute.

But whatever he made of my bewilderment, the government employee gave me a look that said, “There's no need to feel bad.”

In other words, he tried to force a smile as though reassuring a child.

“Don't worry. Many agents besides myself have been deployed. Some of them are sure to have made it in.”

Not just one Disaster Management Bureau agent, but several...?

'It looks like our explorations really have overlapped this time.'

There had to be a corresponding entry.

I frantically searched the past exploration records in my head, trying to narrow down the possibilities, but the situation changed before I could.

“D-die!”

The others had finally begun attacking the student mannequin.

And, astonishingly...

CRACK.

“Ah!”

“B-blood...!”

The “Segwang Technical High School” student suffered injuries like an ordinary human.

Blood spurted, bruises formed, and bones audibly broke.

“Ah!”

“What do we do? Ah, shit...”

'... Whew.'

Fear and conflicted emotions crawled up my spine.

But the government employee, unperturbed as though accustomed to this, gave me a small gesture toward the front door.

“For now, let's use this opportunity to... Hmm?”

It happened then.

Figures appeared on the brightly lit central staircase visible through the open front door.

“...!”

Three or four people were coming upstairs, their footsteps hushed.

They had something in common.

They were all wearing bizarre animal masks!

'Employees!'

And I even recognized one of the masks.

Bison!

'Mr. Jang Heoun.'

The Team Y recruit who had shared my hardships in the theme park ghost story!

'Was he transferred back to a regular team?'

It had been so long.

My own circumstances had been too chaotic lately for me to check anyone else's regular assignment, but it seemed he'd made it through three months safely.

'Anyway, it's genuinely good to see you.'

But next to him... was someone I wasn't so pleased to see, and whom I'd seen only earlier.

A black goat mask.

“...”

It was Baek Saheon.

'Did the two of them wake up in the same classroom?'

They were all faithfully following the company's safety recommendation to “bring your mask and wear it if at all possible.”

'I'd like to put mine on, too, if I can.'

I also wanted to check and use the items I'd brought to improve my chances of escape.

All things considered, it would be better to find a natural way to part from the government employee and join them.

“Um, Agent...”

“Daydream Inc...!”

“...”

Yikes.

“Be careful. If you encounter people in animal masks and suits in a place like this, you must never acknowledge them.”

The government employee gritted his teeth and shot a contemptuous look ahead.

“They'll have been sent by that disgusting cult of a company. Do not get involved with them.”

“...”

“Most of their employees are psychos with warped moral compasses, too. You must be careful.”

“... Yes.”

Never.

I must never, ever let him find out!