Mercy Does Not Come

I peered into a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠darkness where even the boundary of a shadow could not exist.

Slosh, slosh — the footsteps of Mercy drifted to my ears.

"What's wrong with you all of a sudden? You're scaring me. Is there something behind me?"

I studied the face of the easily frightened accountant. Choi Jaeha, who had been bent over checking a tire, looked, to my surprise, perfectly fine.

"Ah—no, it's nothing."

I shook my head.

"Nothing at all."

A misfire, then. As always. Mercy does not come to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me.

"Ha, so it's not this one either."

"Uh, wait — are you not supposed to be looking at the pattern photos?"

When I held up the photo on my screen, Jaeha ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gave it a glance and waved a hand in refusal.

I let roughly half of CPA Choi Jaeha's lecture on the tread patterns of his own car's tires wash over me. It was nothing critically important, and nothing entirely new to me either.

There was a time, once, when I was consumed by the traces left behind like scars at the places where someone's life had been stolen. A very long time ago.

Even now, I occasionally catch myself calculating the precise speed required to crush my own femur. A bad habit.

"Ha, but the patterns are all so similar-yet-different. Trickier than I expected."

His eyes, tired from straining against a none-too-bright flash, blinked over and over.

"Let's switch. I'll take this section."

This time Jaeha held up his phone as a light source while I examined the tires. Just as he'd said, every detail was subtly different, and each one demanded a careful look.

And yet — that skid mark. It kept flickering at the edge of my mind.

"For a mark to be that long and that distinct..."

"Huh? What? Did you find it?"

"Ah—no, not that."

I kept comparing tire patterns as I went on.

"Those tire tracks from earlier. Normally they wouldn't be left that long and clearly, would they?"

"Hmm... well, true. To leave a mark that dark you'd need some real speed. The car was probably parked that far away front and back."

"Could it be the scar of an accident?"

"Could be. Or maybe some wild animal darted out. Who knows."

Jaeha shrugged like it hardly mattered.

"But does it matter? Isn't it just a fake the labyrinth whipped up?"

Whether it was fake or real wasn't the point. The point was that the labyrinth had made it.

"It could be a clue to reaching the next floor, couldn't it."

"Ah... you think? But nothing like that happened on the second floor. Couldn't it just be that there aren't any clues to find?"

"That's—"

The words caught in my throat.

Come to think of it, this man believed we had cleared the second floor 'because we saved Jeong Jiho from the Uri Saenal Daycare.' He knew nothing of the fact that the librarian at Ollae Bookshop wasn't human — none of the clues pointing to it, either.

In that moment, an incomprehensible rage churned in my gut.

That the labyrinth is not a place you escape by saving people. That saving a child does absolutely nothing — not one damned thing — for your escape. That perhaps what I had truly wanted to save was never that child at all. That what the labyrinth truly demands is not a resolve to die, but a resolve to kill. That life is not something handed to you for free, but a phenomenon barely sustained through filthy, desperate struggle. That, just as it was outside the labyrinth, survival is combat, and combat can never be elegant. That, and therefore, at last, inside the labyrinth, we had finally become equals.

That all of you know nothing...

"We may have simply failed to notice a clue we had, and gotten lucky with a blind guess."

I forced down the blind cursing and the surging bile. Swallow it. Swallow it. Swallow it. Swallow it, damn you. The sharp, undigested shriek clawed at my insides.

"Really? Ah, right — you said you were hoping to be an agent, didn't you? So that's how you know about labyrinths? Hmm, well, fine. Maybe Seon Yuhan's got a point after all."

Shortly after, we switched roles again. Jaeha went over the tires one by one while I held the flash for him, brightness turned down low.

Ji-ing.

The moment I picked my phone back up, a fresh stream of text messages began arriving in a chain.

What kind of shady ad is this.

Delete.

Who's trying to get a rise out of me.

Delete.

No. I am not dying today. Not even if it kills me.

Delete.

The one doing the grunt work is me.

...No. Wait. Delete.

I'm not the one with a little sister.

I do want to get out, though. Right now. To somewhere with no one at all.

Delete.

No. There's no way.

...Delete.

Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Del—

"Huh? Found it—aaah!"

"My... heart. Please."

I nearly had my heart ripped clean out of my chest thanks to that goddamn exclamation. Make it out to be nothing, why don't you.

"Huh?"

It was nothing.

"What is that?"

What Jaeha was pointing at was...

"Looks like... a package."

A small delivery box, sitting abandoned on the hood of the car. A compact thing, its width, depth, and height each smaller than an adult man's hand.

"No, I mean — there was nothing there until a second ago! I was looking at the tire, thought, this is the one, looked up, and it had just... appeared!"

"Let's not open it for now. Bring it back and we'll look at it with the others."

First, I took photos that captured the car's license plate, its appearance, and its position. Go-1020, black sedan, D11.

Meanwhile, the accountant was observing the box on the hood with something like fascination.

"'Samme Delivery'... there's a company called that? Address, Seoul... that's this building. Huh? Go-1020? What kind of address is that? What lunatic orders a package to his own car?"

"...The labyrinth is insane."

Reading the recipient's address printed on the shipping label, there was no doubt about it — this was a gift from the labyrinth.

I lifted the box one-handed. The box itself wasn't all that large, and the contents felt smaller still.

"Shall we head back?"

"Yeah. Hey, you think there's anything in there? It feels really light."

"Hard to say..."

We walked through the dark, leaning on that faint light while doing our best not to look into it. Now and then we'd check that nothing blocked the way ahead, that we were headed in the right direction — then immediately drop the beam back down to the floor.

A light so faint you could barely see by it was, in its own way, more frightening than a darkness in which you could see nothing at all.

"You know, that was my first time seeing CEO Yu Hyeonjae in person from that close. He's so handsome it goes straight past attractive and lands on scary. For me, anyway."

The accountant sidled a little closer to me and muttered under his breath.

"Well, I get why he's popular. And he's got that vomit-induc— ahem, anyway, there seems to be some humanity in him too. I've gotta brag later that I met Yu Hyeonjae."

...If we get out. He tacked that on a beat late, and his voice trembled, just slightly.

He looked somewhat anxious, but he seemed to be holding up better than I'd expected. He didn't seem to be seeing anything... wrong. Not like me.

When CEO Yu Hyeonjae floated his hypothesis that we shouldn't make loud noises — screams, especially — if we could help it, honestly, Jaeha worried me more than Jeong Jiho or Hwang Juyeon did. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠big man with a small tolerance for fear and a flair for theatrics. I'd wondered if he'd be the one to crack.

"Ah, right — my niece is a huge fan of CEO Yu Hyeonjae... no, wait, isn't it kind of weird to be that into some company's CEO? A while back she begged me to buy her those dolls of the Yuwi Red Weavers or whatever, so I went to look, and they don't even sell CEO merch. How do you even fandom somebody like that? Though honestly, if they did make CEO merch, the Red Weaver dolls probably wouldn't sell half as well. Oh — and those little dolls were insanely expensive. Palm-sized, and what, tens of thousands of won each? But what could I do? Had to buy it. The kid wanted it. That kid is terrifying, I'm telling you. Calls me every single day — Uncle, buy me this, buy me that, take me here, take me there. I know I'm a pushover for her. Anyway, I spoiled her rotten, that's on me. Would be one thing if she took after my older brother and sister-in-law, but no — she had to go and take after her aunt, out of nowhere..."

"Ah — seriously."

So he's the type whose mouth runs faster the more nervous he gets. Officially retracting my earlier assessment that he was holding up fine.

Jaeha's machine-gun chatter had one of my ears ringing numb. He'd been all right while we were hunting tire patterns, but now that there was nothing left to focus on, the fear was creeping in, it seemed.

In a situation like this, monster or no, one bad glance at a passing beetle and he'd let out a full scream — that was my worry.

...I didn't care to see that sight again.

Didn't care to live through it, either.

Ji-ing.

Then —

A faint tremor passed through my palm, and the locked screen blazed to life.

"...Ha."

I sucked in a breath at the incoming call screen.

It felt as though someone had pried my ribs apart and seized my heart in their fist.

A call was coming in from 'Aunt.'

I hurriedly jabbed the side button and declined it. The phone vibrated again.

Declined.

I must not answer. Absolutely not.

And not merely because calls and messages were impossible here, same as the internet.

It was because there is no 'Aunt' in my contacts.