Chapter 5
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: Moonlight Guests 1
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Fingers twitched and wriggled. Next, she could feel her own body, flung haphazardly onto the cold, hard floor. Her entire body throbbed dully because of it. Even just sitting up drew out a groan on its own.
Realizing she was breathing steadily, her eyes flew wide open. She hurriedly spread her hands out in front of her face.
Her fingers were intact. Both hands.
She patted herself down from head to toe, but nothing seemed wrong. No signs of anything severed or torn away.
Was it a dream? Just another nightmare? For a while now, Ibi's nightmares had dwindled to the point of being forgotten entirely. Were they finally coming back?
But that thought didn't last long. She soon realized one more new fact.
"Where... am I?"
Ibi let out a voice that felt utterly deflated.
It was a place she'd never seen before in her life. It looked like some kind of corridor, made entirely of wood. The walls gleamed with polish on what appeared to be high-quality timber.
Those walls were crammed full of unidentified gears and levers. Even those were all made of wood.
They were all impressive in their own way, but Ibi had no spare mental energy for admiration. Nothing but fear.
The crawling hand on her palm, and being devoured by that horrific little box, were still fresh in her mind. And then she opened her eyes to find herself in this inexplicable place.
"A dream. Dream, dream, dream."
Just her childhood nightmares returning. You know that. Dreams can't hurt you.
What if it wasn't a dream?
What if the crawling hand and being eaten by that grotesque box were both real? Then where was this? The afterlife? Hell?
She'd never given much thought to the concept of the afterlife. But if this was death, her first impression was that it was far more horrific than she'd imagined.
"......"
Calm down. Get a grip, first.
Ibi steadied her mind and looked around the corridor.
It was dim all around, but strangely, light seemed to filter in from somewhere, securing visibility three or four steps ahead. Anything beyond that was pitch black, making it impossible to guess the corridor's length.
At that moment, Ibi sensed something and jerked her head up. An ominous presence had appeared out of nowhere.
She realized what it was, and goosebumps erupted across her skin. It was the sound of something small crawling.
Scrape... scrape...
"Ah... aaa!"
In an instant, the gruesome sensation of her body being torn apart flashed vividly back to life. Without a second thought, Ibi bolted in the opposite direction of the sound.
The corridor wasn't that long. A door soon blocked her path. She grabbed the handle, half-worried it might be locked, but fortunately, it opened easily.
She rushed inside and slammed the door shut. There was no visible lock mechanism. Stumbling, she made her way to the center of the room.
The room didn't differ much from the corridor. Wooden walls crammed with bizarre mechanisms, just like before.
As if the maker suffered from severe OCD, the room was a perfect cube, equal on all sides. A burgundy carpet covered the floor, with a large "4" embroidered boldly atop it.
"Why... why do I have to go through something like this...?"
Her legs trembled again, but she barely managed to stay upright without collapsing. She turned around to eye the door she'd just come through. No sign of it opening.
Yet at each corner of the square room sat a door identical to the one she'd entered.
The sight made her head spin. In her blind panic, she'd lost track of which door she'd come in through.
Ibi panted for breath, shuddering. She'd clearly heard that horrific severed hand chasing after her. So why hadn't it followed her into the room yet?
The idea that it had given up didn't cross her mind. It was an inexplicable gut feeling. But with no clue which door it might enter from, her terror was driving her to the brink of madness.
Trembling, she unwittingly backed away toward the wall, step by creeping step. She felt the solid wooden surface against her back. A rustling sound reached her ears, and she glanced sidelong to see several sheets of old newspaper pasted there.
Why would something like this be here? Before the question could fully form, Ibi's eyes began scanning the articles printed on the papers.
...Day 1.
...That day, at around 1 p.m., the body of a female student, Son Yang, was discovered in Woncheon City's Seongnok District, where she had frozen to death amid the cold snap.
Autopsy results showed the time of death was 13 hours prior to discovery. Circumstances indicated she had been suffering from a severe flu beforehand. The opinion was that she had wandered the streets during the harsh cold wave while ill, eventually succumbing to exhaustion.
Son Yang was identified as a resident of Green Sound Orphanage in Woncheon City. Testimony stated she had run away seven days prior to her death...
...Day 2.
...Claims circulated that Son Yang, whose body was found the previous day, hadn't run away but had been expelled.
The director of Green Sound Orphanage, where Son Yang belonged, had testified that she ran away. However, conflicting accounts emerged from among the residents.
An anonymous resident from the orphanage claimed, "The director expelled her out of fear that her flu would spread inside. He told her not to return until she was fully recovered and forced her out after shoving a bit of pocket money into her hands..."
Ibi shook her head, as if entranced while reading the papers. It was a situation that defied common sense, which only made it more necessary to act calmly.
Mustering that kind of courage was no easy task. She had just barely steadied her nerves... or so she thought.
Suddenly, the gears on the wall began clicking and turning slowly. As the first one spun, all the gears across the entire wall interlocked and rotated in unison.
It was a chilling sight, as if the whole room had become a massive living organism. The sound of a spring being wound echoed from somewhere. Click, click, click.
And amid it all, eerie music began to play throughout the room—no, the entire space, including the outer corridor.
A solitary piano melody, progressing plainly without any harmony. Ibi recognized the piece.
"Moonlight..."
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The entire building—or whatever it was—moved like a single giant music box, producing the music.
If she could simply appreciate it as beautifully ordinary, that would be a dream. But being trapped in this bizarre unknown place, listening to a melancholic solo piano performance, was far from a pleasant experience, no matter how generous she tried to be.
Her heart, which she'd barely calmed, began racing once more. Meanwhile, the music was slowly drawing to a close.
And then.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
That sound she'd desperately tried to block out rang out again. An oddly muffled knocking. And it came simultaneously from all four doors, without the slightest discrepancy. As if to say there was no escape.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Me, guest."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Me, guest."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Me, guest."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Me, guest."
Finally, the music ended. Ibi stood frozen in the center of the room, her feet planted on the carpet. Then, she felt the wooden door behind her creak open quietly. It was a faint sound, like the moan of a dying ghost.
Creeeeak...
"Me."
Ibi panted heavily as she slowly turned around. The door had opened just a crack—enough for a single hand to slip through.
Thump!
The next instant, a small, pallid hand truly shot out from the gap and gripped the threshold. It was a hand like that of a frozen corpse, veins visible down to the finest detail.
"Guest."
Finally, its face appeared. A countenance drenched in blood streaming from the forehead. As shockingly pale as its hand, clad in a black school uniform.
Its limp body shuffled forward, one hand outstretched toward Ibi.
Ibi shook her head, retreating a step at a time. Overwhelmed by terror, tears welled up in her eyes.
"No. I didn't do anything to you. Nothing at all. Why... why is this happening to me...?"
The girl didn't stop. Her hand—so pale it bordered on purple—was about to touch Ibi's face.
At that moment, Ibi snapped out of it as if breaking free from a spell. Her legs nearly buckled beneath her, but she barely twisted away, evading that icy grasp.
There was no time for rational thought. The other three doors remained firmly shut, save for the one the girl had emerged from. Instinct took over.
Ibi dashed across the room and yanked open the nearest door. Beyond lay only a twilight-like darkness. Even so, she poured every ounce of strength into fleeing.
Soon, Ibi realized she was running down a corridor. The exact same one from before, where the pale hand had chased her. No matter how she looked at it, it seemed like the same place.
Had she exited through the same door and looped back to the start?
No one was there to give a clear answer. For now, all she could do was run with everything she had. Up ahead, that familiar-shaped door appeared once more. She seized the handle in a vise-like grip and threw it open.