No More Reset Buttons
"..."
I couldn't tear my eyes away from my smartphone screen.
The countdown numbers were actually ticking down, second by agonizing second.
This wasn't a dream. It was undeniable reality.
"Minjun, what's wrong? You're pale as a ghost," Minhye asked, noticing my strange behavior and looking worried.
"Alright, listen to me."
I laid it all out for the three of them: the horrific struggle I had just survived, the Judge I met at the end of it, and the new rules he had forced upon me.
They listened in silence, unable to hide their shock, before finally speaking up.
"So, to sum it up... there's no such thing as 'synchronization' anymore?"
Deokhu swallowed hard.
His face was a mask of pure confusion.
I calmly took Deokhu's hand and said, "Yeah. My sleep has nothing to do with my abilities now. It's like he forcibly rewrote the contract."
I showed them my smartphone screen.
"From now on, the moment the countdown hits zero, the disaster will manifest in reality, regardless of what we want. Every Monday at midnight. One by one, starting with the scenarios that received the lowest ratings."
"One a week, starting from the lowest-rated..." Seyeon murmured softly.
She seemed to be rapidly analyzing the situation.
"It's almost like... a homework assignment? No, more like a forced mission. A horrific mission where, if we fail, the world ends."
I nodded, my expression grim.
"The Judge called it an actual evaluation. He said it was my authority as the author, and my responsibility as the director."
The noisy chatter of the pork belly restaurant felt like it was receding like the tide. That was how distant and detached I felt. It was as if this restaurant had become a tiny, isolated island, and I was stranded on it, watching a colossal tidal wave rush toward me.
"Let's head back to the hideout first," I said, standing up.
There was no reason to sit here any longer.
Back at the hideout.
"The fact that this is definitely happening in reality... that's terrifying," Deokhu said, still struggling to believe it.
"Yeah. It's no longer possible for me to slip into a dream, resolve it beforehand, and make it so none of it ever happened. Everything from here on out happens in the real world, and it has to be ended in the real world."
"One a week... in a way, the conditions might actually be better," Seyeon said, repeating the rule to herself. Her eyes looked complicated.
"It's good that the rules are clearer, but the risk has skyrocketed. We can't just fix the problem and reset everything as if nothing happened anymore."
She was right. The reset button was gone from our fight. The consequences of every single action would be permanently carved into reality. If people died, they were dead for good.
A heavy silence fell over the room.
Then, Minhye clapped her hands together, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
"Oh, come on! Why the long faces, everyone?"
She forced a bright smile and continued.
"If you think about it, isn't this actually better? Now Minjun doesn't have to suffer alone in his dreams seeing horrible things, and we can all fight together! Plus, we've been given seventy-two hours to prepare this time, and we'll have a whole week for the ones after that, right?"
Minhye's optimism helped clear my head a bit. She wasn't wrong. I didn't have to go in alone and handle everything by myself anymore. And having a powerful weapon like 'preparation time' wasn't a bad thing at all.
Just then, Deokhu's eyes widened as if a lightbulb had gone off in his head.
"Hyung, isn't there something weird about this?"
"What is it?"
"If we have seventy-two hours, can't we just pull the threat out by its roots before the disaster even starts?"
It was a remarkably simple question.
"Like, before the countdown ends, what if we just go there right now and bulldozed the place? Or if there's an object causing the disaster, we could just steal it and destroy it beforehand, right?"
His logic was incredibly simple and clear. Eradicate the stage where the disaster is set to occur. There was certainly no surer way than that.
I fell into deep thought for a moment.
"Yeah... that makes sense."
I couldn't help but nod.
"We don't fully know all the loopholes in the Judge's rules yet, but it's definitely worth a shot. It might actually be the easiest solution."
I sat back down in front of my laptop.
"Alright. To do that, we first need to know exactly what our first assignment is. You all need to understand it perfectly."
"There's a solution written down too, right?"
I opened my scenario folder.
Then, I sorted the files by 'Rating.' These were the star ratings I had casually assigned to them in the past for fun. The lowest-rated, one-star scenarios floated to the top of the screen. The military base scenario was also one of them. And right next to it, another file with a single star caught my eye.
It was the exact title that had appeared on my smartphone.
I double-clicked the file.
"Alright, let's begin the briefing for our first official assignment."
I opened the file.
TITLE:The Record of Room 404, Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital
LOCATION:Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital
Located on the outskirts of Gyeonggi-do, Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital has been abandoned for over twenty years. It is a famous spot frequented by numerous horror-streamers and paranormal investigation clubs. The core of the urban legend revolves around Room 404 on the fourth floor of the main building, which is tightly locked and inaccessible. According to the rumor, electronic devices malfunction when approaching Room 404, and the sound of a typewriter clacking can be heard coming from the empty room.
Up until the 1980s, Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital was actually a horrific place where severe human rights abuses were committed. To build his reputation, the hospital director forcibly subjected patients to unverified, dangerous brain surgeries and electroconvulsive therapy, researching his own twisted "treatment methods."
In Room 404, there was a patient known as the "Stenographer." He was a former reporter who had been forcibly committed while trying to expose the hospital's corruption to the outside world. Every night while the director slept, he would sneak into the nurses' station and use an old typewriter to record all the horrific events occurring in the hospital—the patients' names, the illegal procedures performed, and the stories of those who died.
However, he was eventually caught and died while undergoing an illegal lobotomy personally performed by the director. The director burned all of his records and sealed Room 404, burying the truth forever. Thus, the vengeful spirit of the "Stenographer" came to inhabit Room 404 and the typewriter that had once held the truth.
The Typewriter Sound: The core of the legend heard near Room 404. Even now, the vengeful spirit continues his unfinished mission every night on an invisible typewriter. Furthermore, the phones or cameras of anyone who approaches Room 404 will automatically record photos or videos they never took. The content consists of horrific images: patients suffering in the hospital, surgical scenes, and other ghostly photographs and videos.
The curse manifests powerfully, centered around the space of Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital, particularly Room 404.
"Ugh..."
Minhye shuddered, looking thoroughly creeped out.
"It's a bit different from the typical psychiatric hospital ghost stories we usually hear, isn't it?"
I nodded in agreement.
"Yeah. It's similar, but with a twist. The rumors probably spread after people actually heard typewriter sounds or captured bizarre photos there."
Deokhu licked his lips and asked,
"So... how did you adapt it?"
I showed them the adapted version as well.
1. Active Aggression: Changed the entity from passive to active. The psychiatric hospital concept now actively lures in urban explorers and visitors.
— Static and noise automatically infect the smartphone camera of anyone who enters Namyeong Neuropsychiatric Hospital. If they take photos or videos through that glitched filter, horrific scenes that do not exist in reality (suffering patients, blood-stained surgical tools, etc.) will be captured with vivid, ghostly clarity.
My Intention: This is a bait laid by the vengeful spirit, who has become an evil specter, to make his presence known and lure visitors deeper into the hospital—specifically to Room 404. Streamers seeking sensational footage or people testing their courage will be mesmerized by this bizarre phenomenon and venture into increasingly dangerous areas.
2. Trauma Extraction: As they draw closer to Room 404, visitors begin to hear the clacking of a typewriter echoing in their ears.
— The typewriter sound translates the visitor's deepest traumas or the most horrific memories of their life into spoken text, whispering them directly into their mind.
My Intention: The spirit drags out the visitor's guilt and darkest memories to break them mentally, weakening their resistance to the curse and driving them insane. In their terror and confusion, the visitors are psychologically manipulated into opening the door to Room 404.
3. The Final Stage: The victim, completely entranced, opens the door to Room 404 and triggers the final stage of the curse. The moment the door swings open, the dusty typewriter inside begins to clack on its own. The terrified victim is paralyzed, their skin turning paper-white and their pupils pooling into ink-black.
4. Erasure: The moment the typewriter finishes typing a single sentence summarizing the victim's entire life alongside their name, the victim's physical body completely vanishes from this world (missing in action). They are trapped forever, becoming one of the many black-and-white photos hanging on the walls of Room 404, or a new ghostly image captured on future visitors' phones.
5. The Specter's Goal: To turn Room 404 into an archive, transforming the victims into part of his records—his "exhibits"—to keep him company for eternity.
"Ugh... that's so creepy."
Minhye looked away, unable to bear looking at the screen any longer.
Feeling a slight pang of guilt, I continued.
"When I adapted this scenario, I wrote it to emphasize the genre elements... I just took the scariest parts of the urban legend and threw them together. It ended up being a poorly structured script, which is why I gave it such a low rating. But looking at it again now... it's incredibly bizarre and terrifying..."
Before I could even finish, Deokhu cut in.
"It feels like classic horror!"
"Uh... really?"
This time, Seyeon spoke up.
"Then, what's the solution? How do we stop this... or rather, how do we resolve it once it starts?"
I bit my lip and showed them the section containing the solution.
"Here, take a look at this."