10. Escape
— Whooooosh—!!
"The wind... that's actual wind."
I stood in front of the door and let the breeze wash over me. In an instant, a wave of cool freshness swept through the Backrooms, and my hair fluttered as if it were dancing.
"This is really the outside, right? Not some other spatial anomaly wearing a disguise?"
"Ha, haha..."
I pinched my own cheek, confirmed this was real, and let out a hollow laugh.
How long had I been trapped in here — a hundred days, give or take? In a stretch of time that was somehow both long and short, I had lost a great deal. My sense of time had been abandoned ages ago, and the faces of my parents and acquaintances had grown blurry.
Oh, right — I never knew my parents' faces to begin with. I'd been in the orphanage from the day I opened my eyes.
"Grrrrrk!!"
"Zzzing! Vreeeeng!!"
"Are you lot cheering for me? Little punks — you don't even know what an exit looks like."
When I turned my head, I saw the Goeboong-is congratulating me, each in its own way. The original Goeboong-i in the front row giving a standing ovation. The one hugging the Goeboong-is on either side and letting out a metallic screech. The one tracing its fingers beneath its eyes, wiping away tears...
Wait, you don't even have tear ducts.
Anyway — every single one of them seemed genuinely happy that I was escaping.
"Everyone, thank you for all your hard work until now. It couldn't have been easy understanding what I was saying."
"Right. Holding back your attacks every time the galle showed up — that must've been the worst of it."
The Goeboong-is. The original in particular had suffered more than anyone.
Low-intelligence anomalies, driven purely by instinct, attack everything that moves — but on my orders, the Goeboong-is had endured with everything they had, resisting the urge to pounce on the anomaly beyond the door.
'What did the galle compare it to again... like teaching a goldfish to do somersaults?'
My gratitude toward them welled up all over again. It couldn't have been easy — humoring my stubborn whim had meant nothing but suffering for them.
Granted, early on they did slip up and attack the galle a few times... but we worked it out in the end, so all's well that ends well.
And with that, enough wallowing. Time to cut the sentiment here.
"I'll be heading out soon, guys. Stay well, and don't get hurt."
"Grrrrng!!"
Standing with my back to the door, I gave the Goeboong-is a parting salute. Did they understand that this was goodbye? They clung to one another, bounced up and down, and saw me off with all the enthusiasm they had.
After letting my gaze rest on each and every Goeboong-i, I offered my thanks to my benefactor as well — the one most deserving of credit for this escape.
"Backrooms, you've worked hard too."
The Backrooms sent me off with warm words until the very last moment.
For some reason, the letters staining the wall looked damper than usual today.
"Leaving you is somehow the harder goodbye, you know."
"Thank you for everything. All of it — every single thing you ever did for me."
— Swipe, swipe.
After gently stroking the Backrooms' wall, I turned to face the exit head-on.
"Public-service conscript Kim Goeboong! I hereby declare my escape from this ghost story!"
""ZZZZZZT—!!!""
"Father! Mother! I despise you!!"
Using the Goeboong-is' screeching as my send-off anthem, I hurled myself through with a triumphant roar —
— Thump.
And just like that, I returned to reality.
"Eheheheh. Come here at once, you shameless little minx!!"
I squeezed my girlfriend tight against me on the bed.
For the record, my girlfriend is a blanket. A terribly lewd woman, at that — the second you get up, she's already spread out begging for more.
— Flop.
"Ahhh, bliss. Blankets beat sleeping bags every single time."
I pulled my girlfriend all the way up over my head. This was the comfort I'd been starved for. It made me admire, all over again, the special forces soldiers who have to sleep in sleeping bags night after night.
Thank you for always protecting our country.
Amen.
"Still... it feels so good to be back..."
Having finished my nonsense, I wiggled a finger and powered on my phone. And there it was — a screen so familiar it had gone beyond familiar and become almost heartwarming.
"Why are you still here? Shouldn't you have vanished the moment I left the Backrooms?"
The Horror Minor Gallery's homepage glowed in the darkness.
"I really can't figure you out. Weren't you only running because you were borrowing the Backrooms' credentials?"
— Tap, tap.
I jabbed at the screen with my fingernail as I grumbled. All this time, I'd assumed the Gallery ran on the Backrooms' power.
I mean, you know how it is — a kid borrowing their parent's account to post on the internet. That's exactly the vibe I'd gotten from it.
"Not that I ever had a parent to borrow from, of course."
I'd naturally assumed the account belonged to the Backrooms, and I had never once doubted it. And yet — well, what do you know. Still connects just fine, even with the Backrooms behind me?
I pondered the phenomenon deeply, and in the end arrived at a single conclusion.
— Sweep.
"It's probably this little guy, huh? One look at it and you can tell the Backrooms tossed it in."
The unidentified cube I'd just fished out of my pocket. Its sickly yellowish tint positively screamed Backrooms. Must have been a parting gift, thrown to me before the door closed.
Oh — and the exit had shut itself automatically the moment I stepped through. I'd come out through a closet door, but when I opened it again, there was nothing inside but a plain white T-shirt.
"Not that it's bad news for me. I can even stay in touch with the Goeboong-is now."
Helping me right up to the very last second... truly, the grace of Mom — I mean, the Backrooms — is as boundless as the sky.
Just as I was offering silent thanks and about to get back to browsing the Gallery—
— BAM BAM BAM!!
"Hey, debtor! Time to pay up, you little punk!!"
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
The single biggest reason I had tried to end my own life — Mr. Kim, the loan shark next door — was hammering on my front door.
"The hell, you were alive? You went dead silent for a whole month, I figured you'd croaked."
Had he heard my voice? Mr. Kim's thick curses drifted in from beyond the door.
A month.
So a month had passed here on Earth.
Certain location-type ghost stories were said to warp time as well, weren't they? Apparently the Backrooms counted among them.
Lost in thought, I took too long to answer —
— CRASH—!!
— and a massive jolt shuddered through the front door.
"You're ignoring me now?! If you're alive, hand over the money, and fast!?"
"Are you serious right now? When exactly did I finish paying off the principal, and you're still droning on about money?"
Heat flashed through me, and I stalked to the entrance and snapped back at him through the door. I had borrowed ten million won. I had repaid two and a half million. And even after all that, more than a billion won of debt still hung over my head.
In other words, those loan sharks were charging interest beyond the bounds of sanity.
"Ha! You pay the interest, you deadbeat! I leave a credit-deficient loser breathing, and you raise your voice at me?!"
"You absolute—!"
"What, you want me to open the door and give you one across the face? No need to be nervous. I brought tools today — specifically to rip your door off its hinges."
— BANG!! BANG!!
The instant he finished speaking, the front door shuddered violently. He was going to smash it down, no doubt about it. Maniac. Normally he'd just spit a few insults and leave, but today he'd finally crossed the line.
'What do I do? If he's holding tools on the other side, I don't stand a chance.'
Scrambling for options, my face twisted into a knot — when suddenly, a single word surfaced in my mind.
Backrooms.
"If only the Backrooms were here at a time like—"
— KRAKOOM!!
Before I could even finish muttering, a gaping hole tore itself open in the front door, and Mr. Kim wedged his body through it into my home.
"Goddamn it. It's a dirt-cheap one-room, but the door's built like a bank vault."
"..."
"What is that thing, a toy that wiggles in your hand? No money to pay your debt, but money for that, huh?"
"Sorry, what's that supposed to m—"
At Mr. Kim's words, I glanced down at my right hand — and went rigid with horror.
"...What's gotten into you?"
The cube, docile as a lamb up until that very second,
writhed and squirmed grotesquely —
— SHLOOP! —
and in the blink of an eye, it swallowed both me and Mr. Kim whole.
