Courage Test #2
“W moves you forward. A is left, S is backward, and D is right. Moving the mouse changes your view like turning your head.”
The WASD control scheme was something anyone who’d played even a little computer gaming would know. But Yu Dahee seemed completely unfamiliar with it, so I had to explain everything from the beginning. Fortunately, I had Jeong Seok—the group’s strategist and resident teacher—on hand.
“Alright, try moving around. Hold Shift to sprint, but watch your stamina gauge—if it runs out, you’ll be forced to walk. Sprinting also makes your footsteps louder. You’ve got the ‘Slipper’ item equipped, so it’s fine for now.”
After giving her the basics, Jeong Seok spoke to Yu Dahee like someone removing training wheels. She placed her pale, slender fingers on the keyboard and pressed the keys slowly.
“How strange. So this is how you move in a game.”
“The ghosts wandering the corridors usually track you by sound. It’s best to stay quiet. If you think you’re in danger, hide in a locker before they spot you.”
“I’ll give it a try!”
And so the game began. We all stepped back and watched Yu Dahee’s play with interest. For a moment, I wondered if she might have some hidden talent and would blaze through the dark hallways. That thought didn’t last long.
“Ah— I died.”
She was caught and killed almost immediately. The controls were still unfamiliar to her.
“Ah. Died again.”
She kept dying after that. At this rate, she needed to master the controls before she could even attempt progress.
“You have to use the mouse and keyboard together. Dahee, when you move the mouse, stop pressing keys. When you’re steering with the keyboard, don’t touch the mouse.”
“Yeong-won, should we lower the difficulty? Or maybe turn on some cheats?”
Jeong Seok and I debated how to make the experience more enjoyable for her. Yang Ju-hui, watching the whole exchange, clicked her tongue in clear disapproval.
“Hey. Hey. Forget it. Who cares about the game? Let’s just eat.”
It was already lunchtime. We decided to order delivery through an app and settled the menu with rock-paper-scissors. Yang Ju-hui lost and ended up ordering hamburgers.
Ding-dong.
“Delivery’s here.”
We ate together in that casual way. Weekends always seemed to fly by. While we sat chatting and laughing, the day felt genuinely fun. As Yu Dahee wiped sauce from her lips with a tissue, she spoke up.
“By the way…”
There was a certain weight to her voice that drew everyone’s attention.
“Why are we playing a game full of scary ghosts, anyway?”
What did she mean? Was she asking why we chose a game that resembled the Nightmare Corridor, or was she simply puzzled by the appeal of horror games in general?
Jeong Seok answered first.
“Fear is a fundamental human emotion. Watching horror movies or playing horror games can serve as training for real-life emergencies. That’s what the research says.”
I hadn’t known that either. Yu Dahee, however, raised her elegant eyebrows slightly, as if she still didn’t quite understand.
“Real-life emergencies… like actual ghosts appearing? Honestly, I don’t see how being chased by ghosts in a game counts as useful training.”
Jeong Seok added, “It’s a divisive genre. Horror games do have a somewhat niche appeal. Anyway, if everyone’s finished eating, shall we get back to the game? What do you think?”
I was the leader of this group. Jeong Seok looked to me for a decision. Today’s goal had been to play through the Abyss Corridor and clear it together. Even if the mood had shifted, sticking to the plan felt right.
“I’ll take over from here.”
# # #
I decided to play myself. Progress was quick; I found the exit in Stage 1 and moved easily into Stage 2. Stage 2 wasn’t just a dark corridor anymore—it was a far more sinister place crawling with ghosts. It felt like hell itself, so pitch-black that even I struggled to navigate.
“Damn it. Keep dying.”
As I kept dying, the others grew bored. Jeong Seok was on his phone, and Yang Ju-hui had turned on the TV to watch a variety show. Only Yu Dahee remained behind me, still watching.
“Ah. If I just grab all the keys and reach the exit… It’s so dark I can’t see anything. A flashlight would be perfect right now.”
“Yeong-won, if you go right from here, there should be stairs. Try that way.”
At some point, Yu Dahee had grown tired of just watching and started giving advice. A girl who could barely handle the controls was now backseat gaming. Still, I turned right on a whim—and was genuinely surprised to see the stairs she’d mentioned.
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t notice earlier, but this place looks like somewhere I’ve been before. If you go down the stairs, there should be a front door leading outside.”
Sure enough, the front door was there at the bottom. I escaped successfully. It was time to move on to Stage 3, but the screen returned to the loading menu. The game had ended.
“Hey, Jeong Seok. There’s no Stage 3?”
“It’s early access.”
“Early what?”
“It means the developers sell an unfinished version to fund completing the rest of the game.”
What a strange system. The important thing was that the game ended here. From playing it, I’d learned that Jeong Seok wasn’t good at horror games, Yu Dahee was a complete beginner, and Yang Ju-hui screamed at every ghost on screen. In the end, it had been worthwhile—the game really did resemble the Nightmare Corridor. And Yu Dahee pointing out the exit at the end felt strangely significant.
“Dahee, you said this place reminded you of somewhere you know. Where was that?”
“Hm? You don’t recognize it, Yeong-won? This is Yeongji High School. Or… maybe you wouldn’t know. More precisely, it’s the Old Building now. The hallways and stair locations match exactly.”
“Have you been to the Old Building before?”
We first-years had all started classes in the new building right after enrollment. The fact that Yu Dahee had visited the Old Building bothered me a little.
“It was back in elementary school. I went there with some police officers. They seemed to be looking for something… Yeong-won, could you start the game again? I feel like I might remember more if I see it.”
“Hey! Yu Dahee! Stop lying already!”
Someone suddenly shouted. I turned to see Yang Ju-hui—whom I’d thought was watching TV—her face flushed bright red with anger. She looked so furious I half-expected an egg on her forehead to fry on the spot. Jeong Seok and I were both startled; neither of us had imagined the atmosphere turning like this. We were both guys who’d been bullied by tough delinquent girls before, so in situations like this, all we could do was freeze.
Yu Dahee frowned.
“I’m not lying. What lie did I tell?”
“It is a lie!”
Yang Ju-hui snapped, then stormed out of the house. We heard her footsteps racing down the stairs.
“Yeong-won, I didn’t lie.”
Yu Dahee’s voice was pleading. Yang Ju-hui was getting farther away. I felt like two choices had appeared in front of me, and I had to pick one quickly.
“Ah, damn it.”
I decided to chase after Yang Ju-hui. I hurried down the stairs and found her crouched in front of the first-floor villa. What on earth was going on?
“Hey. What was that about?”
I asked about her sudden outburst. She looked genuinely angry and didn’t seem ready to speak easily.
“Ju-hui. Yang Ju-hui. If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, how am I supposed to know? You and Yu Dahee have some kind of history, don’t you? What happened? Talk to me. If you don’t say anything, I won’t understand.”
At first, I’d assumed Yang Ju-hui was simply jealous of Yu Dahee—pretty, rich, and popular. People like Jeong Seok and Yu Dahee could sometimes become targets of envy for ordinary kids like us. But her anger didn’t quite match that theory.
“Did Yu Dahee lie to you before? You kept saying she lies. ‘Kept’ implies it’s happened more than once. She lied this time, and she lied before too.”
Gotcha! I pressed her like a defense attorney cornering a witness. Even I thought it was a solid deduction. Cornered by my perfect logic, Yang Ju-hui finally spoke.
“When my older sister went missing, there was a witness. A girl the same age as me at the time. Her testimony was the only evidence we had to find my sister.”
“……”
“The police and my family trusted that girl’s word and searched for days. They even combed through the school after hearing she’d seen my sister there late at night.”
“And then? What happened?”
“About a week later, that girl suddenly claimed she didn’t remember anything. She changed her story like she knew nothing about the incident. They even used a lie detector, and it turned out she really didn’t remember.”
“Wait… so some kid who knew nothing had been feeding the investigation false information?”
“That’s the kind of person Yu Dahee is. The moment I saw her again in high school, I knew exactly who she was.”
So Yang Ju-hui and Yu Dahee had met back in elementary school. They had that kind of bad blood between them.
“Why would Yu Dahee tell a lie like that?”
Could an elementary-school kid really disrupt a missing-person investigation out of mischief or curiosity? If so, it would have been pure malice. Yet I couldn’t sense any malice from Yu Dahee. If anything, she seemed genuinely well-disposed toward us.
“Yu Dahee is a liar.”
But what Yang Ju-hui said was clearly fact as well. A true contradiction—neither side could be dismissed.
“I’m leaving. Honestly, I’ve already put up with being around her just because of you guys. I think I’ve done more than enough. If you’re going to keep hanging out with her, don’t call me anymore.”
Pat.
Yang Ju-hui stood up and walked away. I couldn’t bring myself to stop her. If my own mother had disappeared for three days, and a witness had appeared whose testimony led the investigation down the wrong path—only for that testimony to be proven false—and if we’d never found her afterward… I’d learned recently that missing-person cases have a golden window: twenty-four to thirty-six hours. After that, the chances of finding the missing person drop exponentially. In other words, Yang Ju-hui’s family had lost their golden window because of Yu Dahee’s lie.
“She has every right to be furious.”
Thanks to my own experience with a family member’s disappearance, I understood Yang Ju-hui’s feelings. That was why I couldn’t call out to her as she walked away.
Kid, damn it. If I’d known about this earlier, I would’ve just sent Yu Dahee home.
Shff.
I climbed the stairs and returned to the apartment. Jeong Seok and Yu Dahee were waiting. I turned to Yu Dahee.
“Can you tell me about what happened back in elementary school?”
If I heard her side too, I could cross-check the stories. Just then, Jeong Seok called me over.
“Yeong-won, a moment.”
By the front door, he spoke quietly.
“It’s probably best not to ask Yu Dahee about the elementary-school incident so casually. I went to the same private elementary school as her back then, so I know a bit about what happened… It was a pretty big deal.”
“A big deal?”
“Anyway, I can’t be the one to tell you. You’ll have to hear it from Yu Dahee herself. Whether she’ll actually talk about it is another question…”