Corridor Conquest #5
Yu Da-hee spoke. If we didn't stay quiet, that woman would come.
“Talking about the shaman ghost?”
Right now I was more afraid of Yu Da-hee than any shaman ghost. I wanted to demand what she had done to Yang Ju-hui. The girl had gone up to the broadcast room only to vanish, leaving nothing but bloodstains. The question burned so fiercely inside me that I felt like I was losing my mind.
The sensation was so intense it felt as if stinging, itchy ants were swarming across every inch of my skin. Yet I couldn’t ask a single thing. Yu Da-hee’s palm was still clamped over my mouth.
Time stretched in a sluggish haze, as though every sense had slowed to a crawl. Five minutes. Ten minutes. I couldn’t really tell. After what felt like an eternity, she finally released me.
“She doesn’t seem to be nearby. Even so, we can’t relax. That woman wanders the first-floor corridor freely. If we stay in this broadcast room, it’s only a matter of time before she finds us.”
“Who the hell is she? The shaman ghost?”
Since it had come to this, I decided to ask her everything. The information might vanish after death, but there was always the chance I would survive. If I made it out of this run alive, the value of whatever she told me would be enormous.
“…It’s not the shaman ghost. I don’t know her exact identity either. I’ve never met her properly. But she’s dangerous. Encounter her and you will definitely die.”
“If she’s the third ghost… then what are you, Yu Da-hee? What exactly are you?”
She was like an onion—peel one layer and another appeared. I was nearly insane with curiosity and wanted a straight answer.
“Yu Da-hee. You promised to grant my wish. What are you? Human? Ghost? Tell me!”
Even with the lighter’s flame, the darkness hid her face. That uncertain silhouette only sharpened my fear. What was she really? The question gnawed at me so deeply that dying without an answer would leave me too resentful to ever rest.
Suddenly she took my hand and slowly slid it inside her school uniform.
“Wh… what…!”
The touch of smooth skin shocked me more than anything I had experienced since birth. My brain seemed to stutter, unable to process the moment. I remembered how inefficient human vision is—most of the brain devoted to sight. In this darkness, touch and hearing had grown sharper, so the hand she guided beneath her clothes became tongue, eyes, and nose all at once.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her heart hammered powerfully under the fabric.
“How is it? Do I still feel like a ghost to you?”
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
A living heart beat clearly between warmth and softness. For some reason its frantic rhythm matched my own flustered pulse. My mind half-dazed, I felt like a butterfly dissolving inside a soft, yielding hell.
Gasp—.
I snapped back to myself and yanked my hand free.
“Ahem. Yu Da-hee. The fact that you’re hiding something hasn’t changed. You look far too familiar with this situation. I’d appreciate the truth. If you don’t—”
“…If I don’t?”
What would I do? Hit her?
The question made me examine myself—Ha Yeong-won. Could I truly strike a girl?
“If you don’t tell the truth, I’ll beat the crap out of you. I really will.”
The words were almost a mantra to convince myself. Yu Da-hee let out a soft “Puhuhu—” laugh.
“Liar. Yeong-won, you could never do that. You’re a good person. Like the catcher in the rye.”
“No! I’m a seriously bad guy, all right? I’ll really hit you!”
“Waak!”
“Gyaak!”
I raised my hand and slapped her cheek with everything I had. Her sudden scream had startled me too much. The sharp smack against my palm felt shockingly vivid, and I was stunned at my own action. Me, hitting a girl’s face. This boldness had to be the Strong Heart trait at work. Right now I felt like the manliest bastard alive.
“Kyaa!”
Yu Da-hee clearly hadn’t believed I would actually strike her. She crumpled to the floor. I was flustered too, but what was done was done. I had warned her. It was her fault for startling me.
“Tell me the truth right now! What the hell are you!”
“…Wait. I’m genuinely shocked. I never thought you’d actually hit me. Ow, that hurts.”
“…I can hit you again! So tell me everything you know!”
I truly wanted to survive. I also needed to learn what had killed Yang Ju-hui. I was one step from complete madness. Perhaps sensing my desperation, Yu Da-hee spoke in a quiet, almost gentle voice.
“…Do you know the story about dreams? A girl is studying for finals in the classroom. She suddenly realizes it’s a dream. So she thinks, ‘Oh, this is a dream. I don’t need to study.’ But when she says it aloud, every classmate turns and stares at her.”
The tale began without warning. It had the same cadence I once heard from Jeong Seok.
“After that, the girl’s dreams grew clearer and clearer, more like reality. As if they were trying not to be discovered as dreams. They became longer. More elaborate…”
“A-and then?”
“In time the girl could no longer tell dream from reality. She lived trapped between the two worlds. In the end, which side was the dream? This place? Or…”
It was a chilling story. Was she talking about herself?
“Obviously this is the dream! So please, let’s just get out of here!”
Shff—. Yu Da-hee rose from where she sat. She pointed at the map I clutched tightly.
“I’ll mark the statue’s location for you. But it won’t be easy. That woman will be guarding it. If anyone touches the statue, she begins to move. She’s already active.”
First-floor women’s restroom
Shff—. She drew an X on the map. First-floor women’s restroom.
“The statue for this floor is there. I saw it myself, so it’s certain. But the chance that woman is guarding it is high. She prevents anyone from leaving the school freely.”
Fortunately the first-floor women’s restroom was very close to the broadcast room. Still, the probability that the woman Yu Da-hee kept warning about stood right outside was painfully high.
“Yeong-won. There is only one escape talisman. Only one of us—you or me—can leave.”
Her voice sounded eerily hollow. Did that mean we were supposed to fight a deathmatch over the ticket? I’d think about that later. If it came down to it, my superior physical stats meant I could simply overpower her and take it.
I asked, “Da-hee. You said you’ve been dreaming of this corridor for a long time. Have you ever been caught by a ghost here? Have you ever died?”
“…No. Not that I remember. I always escaped from the basement statue.”
For real? She had been a beginner in the game Abyss Corridor yet a veteran of the real Nightmare Corridor. Come to think of it, when we played the game she had said, “Interesting. So this is how it moves.” At the time I thought it was simply a first-timer’s reaction. Now I realized it was an exclamation comparing the game to reality.
Da-hee continued, “That day was the same. I obtained the talisman from the basement again. But for some reason other people had entered the corridor besides me. Kim Geon-ho. Yang Ju-hui. Jeong Sojin. And… you. Ha Yeong-won.”
My breath caught. I knew exactly which day she meant.
“I’m the one who’s curious, Yeong-won. How are all of you having these dreams?”
Both of us had questions, it seemed. I hesitated, wondering whether I should tell her about the Nightmare Corridor and the status window I possessed. About Heroes and Watchers. It occurred to me that I was the mafia in that cursed game.
“…I don’t know either. Honestly I want to know too. I thought you might have the answers, Da-hee.”
I chose to dodge. Yu Da-hee made a soft “Hmm…” sound through her nose. I couldn’t tell whether she accepted it.
Anyway, we headed for the first-floor women’s restroom. Neither the hair ghost nor the shaman ghost appeared nearby. In a way it was lucky amid all the misfortune.
“Yeong-won. Are you really going into the girls’ bathroom?”
She asked as if teasing a boy about to trespass. Did she actually feel like joking at a time like this? Or was the joke only possible because of the situation?
With a slightly trembling heart I stepped into the old building’s women’s restroom. Unlike the men’s, it had no urinals—just rows of stalls. The stench was worse than expected, making every breath difficult.
“Is the statue really in here?” I asked, pinching my nose.
Yu Da-hee pointed at the fourth stall. “It’s in the fourth one. We got lucky. No ghosts in sight. This is only my guess, but I think the ghosts don’t know where the statues are. That’s why they can’t guard them.”
Shff—. I opened the fourth stall door. Sure enough, a bizarre statue waited inside. If the basement one had carried a Buddhist half-body bodhisattva motif, this resembled a Western Virgin Mary. The head was still severed. The talisman, however, was clearly affixed to the chest. Burning it should let me escape.
But what if Yu Da-hee suddenly turned on me and tried to take it?
I was beginning to watch her reactions closely when I sensed a chaotic presence. It was the intuition forged by crossing countless deadly lines—an almost spiritual sixth sense. I turned my head without thinking.
And I saw it standing at the restroom entrance.
It was enormous. At least two meters tall. It had to fold its body almost in half to fit through the doorway. It wore a vivid red dress and was barefoot. Its eyes were pure white with no irises, and it wore a bright red mask.
“Re… red.”
What does a mouse feel when it suddenly faces a snake? I understood that terror perfectly. Every nerve and muscle locked rigid; breathing became nearly impossible. Heart attack. Without the newly gained Strong Heart trait I might have suffered exactly that.
“F-fuck!”
I snapped back to my senses and seized the talisman. The red-masked woman grabbed Yu Da-hee. She opened her mouth to an impossibly huge size. Only then did Yu Da-hee seem to regain herself.
“Yeong-won. This time I’ll send you out—”
Creeeaaak!
The maw stretched wider than thought possible. From inside came a murmuring like the screams of hell itself.
Crunch, crunch, crunch— Crack, crack, crack—.
Yu Da-hee melted into blood and flowed away.
I could only watch as a human being disappeared without a trace through the jaws of hell. Yes. I watched. Because that was all I could do.
Thanks to that, I saw the vivid scar slashed across the woman’s neck—the sight so ominous it could stop a heart—and the butterfly pattern on her face. It was something painfully familiar, a vital clue.
The third ghost whose identity no witness had ever lived to reveal.
I had met her and survived to escape.
Steadying my trembling hands, I ignited the talisman with the lighter’s flame.
Whoosh—!