The Executor's Stage

I can't stop.

“Do you sometimes feel that your thoughts, emotions, or actions are being governed by another being?”

It isn't something I can stop. It isn't me who asks. No. It is I who asks. I must keep asking.

“Have you experienced a weight loss of more than 4.37 kilograms within the past five months?”

“No. Have you had your pneumonia ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vaccination?”

“I'd have gotten that as a kid, surely. That's basically a shot for babies and old folks. Now, this one's about falls — have you taken a tumble in the past month?”

We must keep asking.

“I did ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nearly slip once while mopping the corridor……. Oh, but how many units of offspring have you birthed?”

“None. The pale tree is not my child. How many glasses of water do you drink on an average day?”

“Hmm, one or two? Honestly, I'm mostly drinking coffee or soda or……. Anyway, how much fruit juice or sweetened beverage do you have in a day……?”

We keep asking, and we keep answering. It is a perfectly natural thing to do. There is nothing strange about it whatsoever. It is something that simply must be done. Examining our bodies and our minds is a matter of the utmost importance.

We must be healthy.

We must be normal.

Blink.

“…….”

I blinked, dazed.

It felt like waking from deep, dreamless sleep on a holiday when no alarm had been set — sluggish, and yet strangely refreshed.

“Um…….”

“Is everyone…… all right……?”

“What on earth just…… how did……”

Strangely enough, all of us were seated.

Exactly as we had been when we first gathered in the waiting room. Unchanged.

……We're not dead?

I hurriedly checked the time. Barely fifteen minutes had passed.

“Whew, feels like I got possessed by somethin'……”

Kim Heesook shuddered. Yoon Geonmin ran his hands over his body, patting himself down for any abnormalities, while Jeon Yeonggwang shook his head and murmured that it felt as if his body were not quite his own.

“Hm……? This wasn't here before, was it?”

Kim Heesook, who had been glancing around in confusion, picked up a white envelope resting on the empty seat to her left.

“What does it say?”

“Hm? Here.”

Rather than opening it and reading it herself, Kim Heesook simply held the sealed envelope out — toward me.

Her instinct for offloading things onto me was truly masterful.

Not that I had any real objection, so I took it and examined the outside first. A plain rectangular paper envelope, standard postal size.

Nothing written on it but the sender's name, stripped of any excess.

No recipient, either.

“Doctor, do you happen to know a place called 'Children's Hospital'?”

“Hmm, well……”

Jeon Yeonggwang tilted his head.

“It sounds like a pediatrics clinic, but of the hospitals I know……”

“Does anyone else, know it?”

“Nope, first I'm hearing of it too.”

Kim Heesook answered, and Yoon Geonmin only shook his head.

I hadn't expected much either. I only asked on the faintest off-chance.

Because this was mail sent by the labyrinth itself.

“Then I'll open it.”

Rip, sssssk…….

A single sheet of paper, folded to fit precisely inside.

Sshk.

Fortunately, it didn't appear to be dusted with poison or anything of the sort.

Rustle.

“What does it say?”

Jeon Yeonggwang leaned his upper body slightly toward me.

“It says 'Children's Health Examination Results.'”

I lowered the paper so they could see it and read the contents aloud. There wasn't much detail to it anyway.

Pass.

What an ominous word.

“If it's a pass…… that's a good thing, ain't it……?”

“I think so too. Better than failing, surely. We're still alive, after all.”

I had no idea what criteria they'd used to pass us, but one thing was clear: when it came to the mental health and cognitive assessment portion, the standard was remarkably lax. Which meant it had probably been judged primarily on physical function instead — at least, on the assumption that none of the four of us here had any serious illness.

“Hmm, well then.”

The internist opened his mouth.

“Might it not be a different kind of pass? Rather than a pass in that sense……”

“Sorry? What kind of pass?”

“This floor.”

Jeon Yeonggwang pointed toward the hospital entrance.

“Might it not mean we are permitted to pass through this floor?”

“Oh. Ohh……! Of course!”

Kim Heesook clasped her hands together as if about to applaud, while Yoon Geonmin — still in pain from his left cheek — silently went wide-eyed.

“Let's hurry! Seon Yuhan, you too — what are you doin'? Come on!”

Kim Heesook hauled me up from where I'd been sitting blankly, and I let myself be pulled out and up the emergency stairs, still in a fog.

Why didn't I think of that? Why. Why didn't I…….

“Lordy, so it really was that kind of pass. We're on the sixth floor! The doctor had it right! What a relief, honestly. Right?”

“Yes, indeed. I'm glad we got out without incident.”

……Am I disappointed?

“Still, just like the three of you said, the floor really did change completely……? Goodness……”

At the sigh mixed into Jeon Yeonggwang's voice, I finally managed to shake my head and shake off my brooding.

The sixth floor.

“Ha…….”

“Hm? What's wrong? Seon Yuhan, you feelin' unwell?”

“No, it's nothing.”

I waved a hand at Kim Heesook.

“I told you, remember — I interviewed with the Agent teams. Seeing the directory signs just put me in a certain mood, that's all.”

“Oh. Aigoo……. Right, of course. That must be it……”

No. Not even slightly.

It was only that I was thinking of the seventh floor, where Agent Teams 3 and 4 of the Red Weaver Support Department used to be. Team 3's office, which had become the 'Doll House' labyrinth. And Team 4's office, which had become the 'Prisoner's Dilemma' labyrinth.

Each had turned into a labyrinth specialized to the Red Weavers that team managed.

If this sixth floor followed the same pattern…… then Team 1 and Team 2's offices would have transformed into contact-type labyrinths as well.

The problem was that I had no way of knowing what would come out. Each team handled far more than one or two Red Weavers, and exactly which team managed which ones was not something an outsider like me could know.

“Hmm……. Mr. Yoon Geonmin?”

“Mm?”

The former HR employee lifted only an eyebrow, as if to ask why I was calling him.

“Do you happen to know which Red Weavers Team 1 and Team 2 are in charge of?”

This time his round, widened eyes rolled this way and that, as if to ask why I'd want to know that.

“I only asked in case it might be a clue before we go in. Something related to the Red Weavers could show up. ……If you don't know, never mind.”

At that, Yoon Geonmin shook his head almost spasmodically and only then opened his mouth.

“No, I do know, actually.”

What an easy man to read.

“……You know who I mean, right? That, uh, the UDT guy……”

Unable to open his mouth wide on account of his aching left cheek, the patient spoke through a tight grimace as he recited the Red Weavers each team handled, one by one. Considering the headcount, it seemed he wasn't telling me everything.

“……Even the ajumma would know 'em ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if she'd seen it. Yes, that's right — the kid who won that show after coming out of there. He's Team 2's……”

Following his explanations, I sorted through my head which contact-type labyrinths might have grown out of Team 1 and Team 2's offices.

“Anyway, it's not like I know everything just 'cause I was in HR…… Agents are employees, but Red Weavers are basically freelance contractors…… and this wasn't my department anyway…… so I just picked it up here and there…… it's not some huge secret or anything…… but still, don't go telling people I told you, okay…….”

Watching his tongue grow a mile long when nobody had even said a word to him, I almost felt sorry for him.

“Of course. Thank you for telling us. It couldn't have been easy.”

Having soothed Yoon Geonmin more or less adequately, I pointed down the left corridor, where Team 1 was located.

“I'm thinking we check Team 1 first. Any objections?”

“Hm, nope. We've gotta go somewhere either way.”

“Huh, but Team 2 feels like the better vibe…….”

“I have no objection to starting with Team 1…… but Mr. Yoon Geonmin, do you have some particular reason for that?”

“Uhh, nah, I mean. Team 1's fine too……”

A token objection was raised, and then promptly folded — because everyone had already agreed that moving together as a group beat splitting up and leaving anyone stranded alone.

“Then…….”

Swoooosh.

We opened the door to Agent Team 1's office.

“Huh……?”

“This is……. Wait, didn't we just walk into an office……? Why is there a theater……”

The office was nowhere to be found. In its place stretched a space like the grand auditorium of this building — a space that closely resembled a playhouse.

“Whoa, crap, there's somebody sittin' over there……!”

Like an audience member who had misremembered the showtime and wandered in at the wrong moment, I gazed up at the stage from the back of the empty seats.

There, at the center of that stage, someone sat in a chair with their back to the audience.

“…….”

No. No. That can't be.

Before I knew it, I had stumbled backward — and now I slowly, deliberately stretched both legs forward again.

One step. Another.

The closer I drew to the stage, the harder my breath came.

It felt as though someone were wringing my heart dry.

“Excuse me, student? Why are you sitting way over there?”

“Hold on, Doctor. A student? Uh, she looks more like our ajumma here than a student…….”

“Hm? You're both talking nonsense. That's clearly just our, well, our average mister from behind……”

The voices reaching me failed to be parsed into meaning and crumbled into noise.

I simply stared, hollow, at the figure on the stage.

Hair that hadn't seen a salon in ages, its waves gone entirely, tied up carelessly and left hanging long and dry. The two small dots at the nape that only showed when it was tied up. Shoulders so thin that grasping them would feel all bone.

……No. It can't be her. That woman is dead. It's already been ten years since I flushed that woman's remains down the drain.

Yes — ten years, a full decade, and still.

Every moment of that day remains vivid enough to touch. The weight of the urn in my arms, engraved with those three syllables of her name. The cold of the bathroom tile where I had collapsed. The shattering shriek of porcelain, fine to the point of cruelty, cracking against the floor like someone I knew. The tiny particles that bloomed like mist between the shards, hazy, then scattered — drawn in with my breath before I could stop them, coughed back out as powder of bone. The murky color of the water swirling down into the drain.

All of it. Everything you left behind. It still hasn't died. It's still inside me.

So it can't be you. There's no way you came back alive…….

“Ah.”

As though the hot steam that had once filled that bathroom were finally clearing, the things that had clouded ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my mind began to fade into focus.

I think I know what kind of labyrinth this is.

But something doesn't quite sit right…….

Still, there is no other answer.

“Seriously, what part of that looks like a mister, and what part looks like a schoolgirl……? From behind she's just a total, our……”

Kim Heesook, Yoon Geonmin, and Jeon Yeonggwang couldn't bring themselves to step onto the stage; they stood somewhere between the first and second rows, gazing up at it and debating heatedly.

“Excuse me.”

“Oh, right, yeah! Seon Yuhan, what do you make of that person?”

My first labyrinth.

My eternal labyrinth — the one whose chance of escape I let slip through my fingers.

That's what it looks like. To me.

“More importantly — among contact-type labyrinths, do you happen to know one called The Executor's Stage?”

“Of course. Naturally I do……. Ah.”

“As if anyone wouldn't……. Ah.”

“Hm? I know it, sure. Why do you……. Ah.”

All three answered in unison, and all three arrived at the answer in the same breath — and at last, their faces went ashen.

The Executor's Stage.

A contact-type labyrinth so problematic, in so many senses, that you could rant about it for three days and nights and still not run out of complaints.

And the greatest problem of all — this labyrinth's rule — is this:

We are not the ones being executed.

We are the executors, the ones who carry out punishment upon the condemned.

'……Aunt.'

And the condemned — wears the face of the person we most desperately wish would come back to us alive.