Gaslighting is My Specialty

We're fucked. This thing isn't listening.

Maybe it was stupid of me to think I could talk to an Aberration in the first place.

The fluorescent lights overhead were rattling like they wanted off the ceiling.

Crash—

The tubes hanging by a thread started dropping one after another, shattering against the floor. If every light in the tunnel went out, Manual Rule 2 — advance only while the ceiling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fluorescents are on — would lock us in place. We wouldn't even be able to move. What the hell was I supposed to do?

I at least need to know what the new rules are if I'm going to dodge them!

This bastard could rewrite the rules on a whim — something like don't stand on the solid line — and we'd just die. The turnstile was already locked. Going back to read the altered rules wasn't an option either.

Yoo Han-ah was crouched on the floor with her hands over her ears, shaking so hard her shoulders jumped. At least she hadn't panicked and bolted forward. Small mercies.

Stay calm. There had to be a way out of this.

If I couldn't get the altered rules out of OneWayLife, then I had to make the bastard cancel the alteration himself.

Damn it. I've never gaslighted an Aberration before.

…Did that land?

It was only the opening move, but at least the thing had taken the bait. Sparks were still jumping from the half-shattered fluorescents and the torn wiring overhead, but it wasn't getting any worse. The bastard had probably paused the work to type.

I didn't give it a second to think. I kept working the panel.

This little shit?

The foundation of gaslighting is dangling the bait right in front of their nose — offering it, pulling it back, never quite letting them have it.

Luckily, I already had the bait prepped. Among the recommended posts I'd been frantically scrolling through earlier, a few had snagged in my memory.

How to squeeze every last drop out of a human before killing them. Posts overflowing with malice, written by things that had zero intention of letting anyone walk away alive.

Terror. Pain. Despair. Regret. Rage.

Apparently the standard play was to wring out as much of those negative emotions as possible, then kill them in the cruelest way you could manage. And an Aberration that gorged itself on humans like that would eventually get quarantined by the government — dumped in a hole where nobody ever came to visit.

…So if you flip that around,

You still eat. You just let them leave. That's the better play, isn't it?

Then I had my answer.

Alright. Let's go with this.

A comment notification fired off immediately.

Yeah, yeah. I'd figured that much.

I worked the panel and stepped smoothly into the next phase.

I'd poked the one nerve that mattered: the fear of a government quarantine. For an Aberration, the idea of never eating another human had to be the fattest piece of bait on the hook. Once it got nervous enough, it would hand its own judgment over to me.

Got him.

Just as I'd planned, the bastard had handed me the reins completely. Now I had to drive the spike in for good.

One second. Two. Three.

After a stretch of silence, the comment thread exploded.

Who else would I be? I'm one of the two left, dumbass.

I swallowed a laugh and issued the final order in my most dead-serious veteran voice.

Flash!

The instant OneWayLife's comment went up, the fluorescents overhead snapped back to full brightness. The floor heaved and swallowed the broken glass and the bloodstains whole. The ceiling rippled, and the rest of the lights reappeared in perfect condition, as if they had never fallen at all.

In the space of a breath, everything had been rewritten like none of it had happened. The faint vibration under my feet was gone. The crawling presence in the walls had vanished without a trace.

I walked over to Yoo Han-ah, who was still crouched with her eyes and ears covered, and tapped her on the shoulder.

"……Is it over?"

She asked it carefully, like the wrong word might start everything again.

"Yeah. More or less."

"More or less…?"

I had no idea how to explain what had actually happened. I gaslighted an Aberration into postponing its Rule Alteration — was she going to believe that?

"That flickering earlier. I think it was just a fault in the lighting."

I made it up on the spot. Yoo Han-ah didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't push.

We walked the rest of the corridor at an easy pace. The fluorescents, the walls, the floor — nothing reacted. It was just a passage now. An ordinary one, if you ignored how aggressively bright it was.

The exit came into view ahead, and Yoo Han-ah slowed a little. Her voice dropped.

"Um, Yul. Shouldn't we report this? The wall. That person…"

She let the sentence die. The shadow was back on her face.

"Of course we should. Otherwise that man might just get filed as a missing person."

Workplace horror stories were always like that, weren't they. Companies that wouldn't process workers' comp. Companies that sat on your paycheck. Companies that made you quit on your own so they wouldn't have to pay severance. What was so different just because this one was a conglomerate. Quietly erasing a person might actually be easier here…

"R-right……"

For the family's sake, if nothing else, reporting it was the right call.

At the exit, I tapped my employee ID against the reader. It crackled and flashed red a couple of times.

Oh, come on.

I squared up toward the reader, bracing for whatever came next. Then a cheerful ding-dong chimed, a small slot opened underneath, and a palm-sized object tumbled out.

What is that?

A rectangular scrap of red cellophane, maybe four inches long. I stuffed it in my pocket for now.

The moment I stepped through the turnstile, a white so bright it hurt packed itself into every corner of my vision.

A beat later, my focus snapped back, and the familiar auditorium filled my eyes. Cold, dry air-conditioning. Chairs lined up with corporate precision. The place I'd just been felt like a dream, the room in front of me was so aggressively ordinary.

The other recruits ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who'd made it out first were clustered in little groups, talking in low voices. Some looked relieved. Some were ashen, leaning against the wall. One of them was shaking, crying without a sound.

"Jeon Yul. What happened?"

Manager Kang came toward me the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠moment he spotted us.

"You far exceeded the estimated completion time. I was worried. Did something happen?"

Worried, my ass.

"The person ahead of us accidentally put a hand on the wall. That's why it took a little……"

I let the sentence trail off and glanced at Yoo Han-ah. Her face was set, and she gave a small nod, backing me up.

Manager Kang's expression seemed to harden for a second. Then the corporate mask slid back into place.

"I see. That's unfortunate."

For someone calling it a shame, there wasn't a trace of actual feeling in his voice.

"That sort of thing happens from time to time. People encountering an Anomaly for the first time tend to get over-tense and make mistakes—"

So Padak wasn't lying.

Not that the truth mattered much at this point. Manager Kang's little speech lined up a little too neatly with what Padak had said last month — three people gone missing.

"We'll verify the employee's information on our end and notify the next of kin."

He checked his wristwatch, then climbed onto the platform and took the microphone.

"Alright, everyone. You all worked hard today!"

There was no applause. Tired faces stared up at the stage with nothing left in them.

"You've all completed your first field exercise in one piece. That's all for today. We'll wrap the orientation here."

The auditorium doors, which had been locked, swung open, and people in black suits filed in.

"Housing assignments will be handled on your way out — pick up your keys at the information desk. Official work starts tomorrow, so get some rest tonight."

And just like that, the first day was over.

"This is unreal……"

I muttered it as I dropped onto the bed like I'd been shot. The Arcana Residence. I was actually going to live in one of those ultra-luxury apartments I'd only ever seen on the news.

I'd sink into a softness I'd never felt in my life, and then the day would come back to me, and the whole thing would turn hollow.

How many days like this am I even going to get?

I stared at the ceiling for a while, then reached into my pocket. The red cellophane from the corridor. I held it up and squinted, looking for anything special.

Right. I can just ask the gallery.

"Come forth, Status Window!"

I spread my hand toward empty air and shouted it, and an actual hologram materialized in front of my eyes.

It actually works.

I pulled up the Anomaly Minor Gallery. A notification was waiting for me.

What.