Banquet Hall (2)
“N-no way. What we’ve been eating this whole time was... uwaaagh!”
“There he goes again.”
Leaving Namgo behind as he doubled over and retched at the pile of animal carcasses stacked high on the table, I took a look around for anything that had changed.
Other than all the food having turned into fresh, raw ingredients, there wasn’t anything especially strange about it.
Honestly, by this point I thought I’d gotten used to it.
I still frowned, sure, but thanks to the tongue parasitizing that spider woman covered in maggots, I’d developed a little resistance to this sort of thing.
“...But, uh... this kind of looks tasty...”
“You puked once and now you’ve lost your damn mind? Shut up and keep your eyes open.”
“W-why? People eat yukhoe too.”
“If you don’t want your hand chopped off, keep it to yourself.”
I stopped him with a threat for now, but I was losing my own mind too.
The rich, mouthwatering smell of meat, and that bloody scent that felt like it didn’t need any sauce at all, sent a flood of saliva into my mouth.
What the hell.
Even seeing this mess, I wanted to eat it badly enough that a vicious hunger was already closing in.
I absolutely could not eat this.
The instant I touched it, I knew I’d never be able to turn back.
To test myself, I deliberately shoved my face toward a fish head that reeked like it would go bad any second, and nearly bit straight into those rotten dead-fish eyes.
Pressing my bitten lower lip against my teeth, I swallowed a mouthful of blood and forced myself to ignore the table as we walked.
“Damn it, this is the first time I’ve ever missed school lunch.”
“You only realize spring’s there after you’ve left it behind.”
“You were the one who dragged me here!”
“Snap out of it and keep watching the carcasses. There might be a mystery hiding among them.”
For all the tension I’d worked myself into, the banquet hall stayed strangely quiet.
As if it had merely changed the menu.
I kept fighting off the hunger for what felt like ages, and then, at some point, the menu changed again.
“Ugh...”
“This fucking...”
Even I was having a hard time with this one.
Splat.
Something sticky slid down beneath the table.
A huge red thing, like pudding.
It was tangled with bits and pieces of things I honestly had no desire to identify.
It felt like someone had taken everything from before and shoved it into a giant blender whole.
Especially when my eyes met a pair of eyeballs half-mixed in like grape skins that hadn’t been fully crushed, I squeezed my eyes shut before I could stop myself.
That insane fucking monster.
What was this supposed to be?
Was it changing the food because it thought, maybe this one will be better if they don’t eat the others?
It wasn’t some grandmotherly spirit, so what the hell kind of stunt was this?
“W-would I be crazy if I said it looks... sweet?”
“The moment you put your mouth on that, I’ll decide you’re a mystery and rip your throat out.”
“I won’t, I won’t! I’m human too, you know. I don’t want that crap!”
I kept my eyes on the ceiling and endured.
If the space kept changing, then there had to be a gap somewhere.
I was scared of what might show up next, but I forced my gaze forward and searched for any opening that might appear.
“Oh! It’s back.”
“...We’re back at the start.”
“But there’s something weirdly rotten in the air...”
After wandering for what felt like forever and finding no answer, we returned to the banquet hall where the original food had been laid out again.
No, that wasn’t right. This was another space entirely.
One wall was covered in writing so dense it made my head spin.
This... was that garlic crumbs on it? Did someone use food seasoning to scribble all this?
1. Where am I? Who trapped me here? The food is wrong too. I keep getting hungrier and I can’t stop
2. What the... I was startled when writing just appeared out of nowhere. Looks like someone was here before me, but did they get out? Stop messing around and get me out too
3. This is probably one of those ghost stories... fuck, don’t eat the food. The hunger’s out of control. If you’re seeing this, do not eat it! I... think it’s already too late for me. My hand won’t listen to me anymore
4. ...What am I supposed to do if this room only shows up after I’ve already eaten for a while? Damn it, whatever, I’m just going to keep eating. If I finish it all, maybe something will happen and I can get out?
5. Something felt ominous, so I went back down the corridor I came from, but there was no path. After I grabbed one bite because I was starving, I blacked out for a second from stuffing myself. What happens now?
6. The more I keep eating, the more a corridor appears. Did everyone escape through there? It smells weirdly delicious, so I’m going to check it out
7. It’s a corridor. Bye!
8. What are you all trusting so much that you’re just walking into the corridor? No one’s come back? At least leave something written... I’m scared of eating, but I keep eating anyway... It keeps smelling delicious from the corridor. I shouldn’t go, but I’m running out of food and I’m scared
Judging by the different handwriting, they were all different people.
And the fact that the number 3 matched numbers 1 and 2 made it look like entry 3 had set the order.
The remaining people had followed along in sequence, each adding their own number and describing their situation.
A rulebook written in food was pretty unusual.
But the nasty part was that the room where the rulebook had first been written ended up appearing at the very end. What kind of trick was that?
“This... looks like traces left by people who were dragged into the Backrooms before us.”
“Probably. They all touched the food and that was the start of it. And a corridor? That seems like the singular point. When does it appear?”
More numbers continued to describe their situations after that, but most of them were just saying they’d thought the passage was an exit and gone to check it out.
There was no way a plain, ordinary exit would be sitting out in the open in the Backrooms.
Then, stretching on for a long stretch, came writing done in dried blood, clearly different from the food-sauce scrawls before it.
21. I figured it was suspicious, so I didn’t eat. Looking at these notes now, I think I made the right call... but when does this corridor show up? I’m starving, and I’m reaching my limit for holding out
21. It’s me again. I didn’t touch the food and suddenly they put out carcasses instead. Did they think I’d like it fresh? What a lunatic
21. The corridor isn’t appearing...
21. It’s funny how, if I don’t touch the food, it just keeps changing. Today it put out something that looked like they just dumped everything in and ground it up
21. Haha. How long has it been? I’m starting to hit my limit.
21. I guess you have to eat... but I can’t move anymore. Goodbye. If someone comes after me... sorry.
And at the end of it all, there was a single corpse lying collapsed there, with almost nothing left but bones.
“T-this person died here? Number 21?”
“Looks like they chose to starve to death in the end.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to eat and leave through the corridor?”
“After seeing the carcasses turned into paste, they probably didn’t want to eat. Since they hadn’t touched the food like we did, they could hold out... no. Maybe they couldn’t hold out after all.”
From number 21’s fingers all the way to the elbows, there were plenty of marks scratched into the bones by something.
Scratches going up and down.
Looking closer, I realized they were the shape of teeth marks.
“D-don’t tell me they ate themselves?”
“That hungry, huh... Then they either bled out or couldn’t move anymore and just died like this.”
“Damn it, I don’t want to end up like that. I’d rather eat and die.”
Was it ridiculous to say I kind of understood number 21?
I’d been doing my best to hold out too, but part of what I’d done was wash down my throat with my own blood. I guess I’d been slowly losing my mind too.
“All right, fine. So the point is that we need the corridor to show up. Then we eat.”
“You planning to swing a knife the second it appears?”
“I told you, no. So hurry up and eat.”
“But now that I’m imagining all this as carcasses turned into that bloody mush...”
“Do you want to eat now or after it turns into a carcass? Quit yapping and get eating.”
“What about you?”
“This is enough for me.”
“...Wow. You really are the kind of bastard who’d save his own skin first.”
I grabbed only the fruit from the salad and held it in my mouth, sucking on it. The juices dulled the maddening hunger a little.
“You’re already starving yourself sick anyway, so you want to eat too. If we have to make the corridor appear, then eat.”
“What a dirty bastard... shit, whatever. If I’m going to die, I might as well die eating!”
“That’s the spirit.”
Namgo’s sacrifice, if you could call it that, finally paid off.
I clapped for him as he rapidly cleared his plate, as if he were trying to make up for everything he’d been holding back.
“There you go, eating well. Eat up, eat up.”
“Don’t praise me like I’m your damn dog!”
“Aww, good boy.”
“This fucking—”
Namgo snapped and yelled, but by now his hand was moving on its own, shoving food into his mouth automatically.
The way he tried to curse and then clamped a hand over his own mouth was grotesque.
How long had it been like that?
Just when I was getting sick of watching Namgo empty the plates like a trash disposal machine, a corridor I’d never seen before suddenly appeared.
There it was. The same corridor the others had escaped through.
“Hrk... Finally.”
“Wow, you really ate all that. How is it? Feeling full?”
“...No. I feel like I could keep eating forever.”
That worked out nicely.
Because from the new corridor came a smell even more appetizing than the food had given off until now.
Spitting out an orange I’d sucked dry of juice, I shoved a new one between my cheek and teeth and pointed toward the passage.
“Go on, Namgo-mon! Get in there and eat everything!”
“You’re sending me first because it looks like a trap, aren’t you? No way. You think I’m dumb enough to fall for that? You’ve already made me do this much, so now it’s your turn, boss!”
“Yeah, right. You won’t last anyway.”
“Aaaagh, you crazy bastard!”
I kicked Namgo in the ass and shoved him inside.
He yelped in surprise and tried to leap backward, but his feet stopped dead.
Then he turned and started walking deeper in.
“Go check what’s there and come back. It’s a straight corridor, so just keep coming back.”
“Hah, fucking hell, this is obviously a trap... but my damn legs won’t stop moving... ah, that smell, shit...”
As Namgo muttered and cursed under his breath, his feet kept marching forward without hesitation.
By the time he’d reached the middle of the corridor, the bright passage had vanished, and the tunnel had turned into a mass of crimson intestines, with countless teeth sprouting at random.
“Namgo! Come back!”
“Shit, I told you I wasn’t going in for a reason, you fucking idiot!”
His scream rang out from the darkness inside the corridor.
Crunch.
The mouth of the corridor snapped shut.
“Hmm... may he rest in peace.”
Kim Gwakcheol, deceased here and now.
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