The Dead Are Here

I read the paper I'd been given over again, and turned it over in my head.

Punishment? Are you kidding me?

How pissed did you have to be to hand someone a slip like this? It was honestly ridiculous. This line definitely hadn't been part of the original. Ridiculous or not, a chill still crawled up my spine.

Is there something up ahead?

The dead were waiting, it said. Some kind of anomaly was almost certainly out there, and if I kept walking without a thought in my head, it would get me killed.

I have to go another way.

I stopped and meant to call the others back. I was already too late. In the brief moment the paper had stolen my attention, everyone else had long since passed me. My pace must have slowed more than I'd realized. They were already far ahead, and the only one left anywhere near me was Yoo Ari, wearing that thin, creeping smile.

"What's the matter?"

One short sentence, and the distance between us had opened up like that? What the hell had she done? I looked at Yoo Ari with open suspicion.

"Hey—does anyone else see something weird?"

The voice carried from up ahead just then. Something strange had already appeared in front of them. I broke into a run on reflex and stared straight on.

"What is this...?"

Crosses stood there, and none of them made any sense. They weren't clean iron or steel. They'd been carved from old, shabby stone, and they were large—so old they looked ready to collapse, stone dust already drifting off them. Whatever holiness a cross was supposed to hold, I couldn't feel a trace of it.

The ground rose in tight, rounded mounds. Graves, by the look of them: countless graves choked under weeds, and those same crosses planted all through them. Why would there be graves in a place like this? What were the crosses even supposed to mean? I had no idea.

A raw, bloody stench hit the tip of my nose. Rotting corpses, or mold blooming on bark—I couldn't tell. I'd rarely smelled either. It simply wasn't familiar. It was only a smell I didn't want in my lungs.

"Do you think that's the punishment?"

Yoo Ari said it beside me, her voice perfectly calm. The tone itself wasn't the problem, but to my ear it sounded like mockery. It grated. Irritation flared.

A heavy atmosphere pressed in from all around. I was about to open the gallery and figure out what the hell was going on.

That was the moment. A grotesque sound came from somewhere, like rusted iron scraping rusted iron—and worse, threaded faintly through it, something like breathing. Everyone turned at once toward the noise.

A skeleton stood there. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't tell what it had been. It walked, bones knocking together, that strange sound coming with every step.

Clack. Clack.

An alien, irregular noise. Fear caught fire at the sound of it.

The things creaked and dragged their ankles like machines, hauling themselves along. Slow—but there were so many of them. Skeletons threaded the gaps between the trees, and little by little they were closing in on us.

"Wh-what the hell is that?"

Kang Joohyuk was the first to get his mouth open. The panic in his voice snapped me back to myself. I had to open the gallery, fast, and see what Anomaly Girl was thinking.

As expected, there wasn't a real hint in it. Still, I was all right. I had one method left. I dropped a comment at once, and waited in the hope of even a scrap of a hint. Fortunately, a reply came up almost immediately.

Son of a bitch. A curse nearly slipped out, but I swallowed it. Right—times like this, I had to keep commenting like any ordinary person. With that in mind, I wrote another.

The moment I saw that reply, I sank into thought. A hint? She'd given one? When? Where? While I was still reeling, I finally read the paper in my hand again.

The number zero. Which meant there was probably a one, and a two, after it. Belatedly, I realized what I had to do. I turned and shouted at the others.

"Everyone! Search the area, now! There'll be papers! We only survive if we know what's written on them!"

At the sound of my voice they were too busy being startled to move. They clearly hadn't imagined being ordered around like this.

"Hurry! One or two we might manage, but if all those skeletons close in, we're finished! Move!!"

Figuring I'd said everything that needed saying, I started searching at once. There had to be more papers nearby. Only by reading them could I deal with those skeletons.

Damn it. Where are they!

Watching the skeletons draw closer, gooseflesh bloomed across my whole body. How the hell was a skeleton moving as if it were alive? I didn't know. Not knowing was what made it terrifying. The fear deepened. The fog grew heavy and clung.

But I held on to my head. My reason went colder than it had ever been, and I glanced around.

Good. Everyone's searching.

I'd worried they might not have understood me, but no one seemed quite that stupid. Rather than question the order, they were following it. They'd chosen courage over fear.

I kept searching too. If I didn't find anything, I could die. I had to think, judge, and move, so I looked farther out—and by chance I found a place where a tunnel had been dug into the earth.

"...What is this?"

Something bizarrely shaped lay inside. An animal's corpse, an insect's, a person's—I couldn't even tell whether it was a corpse at all. Whatever it was, the stench of rot came off it hard.

"What the..."

It was probably a creature that didn't exist in this world. A frame of limbs I couldn't tell were legs or arms, clustered together like a spider's. What passed for a torso had only ribs—no spine, no pelvis, not even shoulders. Lungs, a heart, and guts were tangled between those ribs, squirming as if they'd been alive until a moment ago. Just looking at it was revolting enough to drive me insane.

"Did you find anything?"

Yoo Ari, who'd been wandering nearby, came up beside me. I startled and stepped back.

"Oh my. Are you all right?"

She was smiling at me. A hard chill came off that smile, and the reason was obvious: out here, it was only me and that Anomaly Girl. I took another step back to keep her from getting any closer, then spoke as normally as I could, pretending nothing was wrong.

"...What are you doing here? Didn't you hear me? We have to find the papers, fast."

"I came all the way out here because I was looking, you know. So what did you see that startled you?"

Curiosity bright on her face, Yoo Ari peered into the burrow. Even after seeing that repulsive thing, her expression didn't so much as flicker. If anything she stared longer, as if she'd found something interesting, then murmured to me.

"There's something in there, isn't there?"

"What?"

Startled, I looked again, more carefully. She was right. Inside, there was something like a sheet of pure white paper.

"I'll get it. Just a moment."

With that, Yoo Ari slipped lightly into the burrow and simply tore the corpse's bones apart.

Fuck.

My stomach turned. Even I, who could stomach gore just fine, felt sick enough to vomit.

A moment later Yoo Ari came back out with the white paper and held it out to me, utterly unfazed. I took it and read at once.

Truly strange wording. What was that supposed to mean? And more than that—number two? Where the hell was number one? Was I supposed to keep searching?!

"I wonder what it means?"

Yoo Ari asked it with a perfectly innocent face. I didn't drop my guard. If anything, my anger only grew.

You made this, you son of a bitch.

You already know exactly how all of this ends. And you're asking me that? Honestly, the rage was burning hotter than the fear. I ignored the question as best I could and forced my thoughts into order. There wasn't enough time left anyway.

Corpses come out of the graves and don't go back. What does that mean?

The corpses were probably the skeletons closing in on us now. The earlier paper had even said the dead were waiting, which meant those things didn't go back into the graves. Was that supposed to be important?

I kept turning it over. The skeletons were getting closer, but I couldn't stop thinking. If I didn't find a way this instant, I was dead. Right now I held not only my own life in my hands, but everyone else's too. I had to figure it out.

They don't return to the graves? Then what happens if I go inside one?

Huh?

Only then did the answer come clear. I yelled toward the others.

They heard me and still froze, too rattled to move. Did they need more of an explanation? It was frustrating, but I just shouted again.

"Those skeletons can't go inside the graves! So get into a grave and you'll be fine!"

Only then did they understand. Even so, Park Jihye, standing nearby, still looked doubtful. Trembling with fear, she asked me:

"How? How are we supposed to get inside a grave?"

Ah. Too late, I understood it myself.

Graves are buried in the ground.

I'd been so desperate I hadn't even realized.

So there's a separate way to get inside?

Did I have to find more papers after all? But the skeletons were already this close. I was about to keep thinking when Yoo Ari, beside me, raised her voice.

"I found a shovel nearby earlier! It's behind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that big tree over there. If you take it and dig the graves open yourselves, you should be able to get inside!"

A shovel? While I was still startled, everyone ran to get it.

In that moment I looked at Yoo Ari, suspicion rising.

What are you?

Why are you helping us? Do you have some motive?