Until the End
I tumbled hard across the fog-choked ground after crashing through the thicket that marked the village boundary.
Even without forcing it, the strange vision had already settled over my eyes of its own accord. A red filter seemed to coat the entire world; everything looked blood-red.
I brought the relatively intact arm—the one that hadn't blocked the Black Goat's horn—up in front of my face and waved it around. A quick check of my vision confirmed it: the red tint came from the burst capillaries in my eyes, ruptured during the escape from the Black Goat just moments before.
I closed one eye and, with the strange vision still functioning in the other, slowly scanned the surroundings. There they were—my companions, still at the very edge of the village boundary, walking slowly forward.
Thankfully, the smoke billowing from the ominous blood-drinking censer Yeom Sang-hyeon was swinging kept the surrounding fog and those strangely writhing shapes from drawing any closer.
I approached the group and grabbed Sang-hyeon's shoulder. His body felt as cold as ice.
"…"
Sang-hyeon said nothing. He froze for a moment in surprise, then started swinging the censer again and pressed forward. He must have thought the forest was trying to bewitch him.
"It's me, you idiot. Hyung."
"Hyung…?"
The instant I identified myself, Sang-hyeon turned his blindfolded head toward the sound of my voice. The sight of him that met my eyes was a complete wreck. His body, pushed past its limits preparing for the escape, was covered in wounds of every kind. The pale, bloodless face wrapped in black cloth was drenched in cold sweat. He looked ready to collapse at any second, yet Sang-hyeon showed no sign of strain. Instead he threw a question at me.
"Canned food."
"What?"
"…Canned food."
For a second I wondered if the kid had finally cracked and drowned in madness—then a memory from the past surfaced and I let out a hollow laugh as I answered.
"Sardines."
Only then did Sang-hyeon drop his guard. Looking as if he might topple over any moment, he spoke.
"…I thought… I thought you were something else. Weird voices keep… keep coming from everywhere…"
I opened my mouth to say something, but all I could manage was to open and close it in hesitation. It felt as though everything that had happened was the result of my own choices. Should I have just taken Sang-hyeon and escaped alone?
The dark thought rose—and in that instant Sang-hyeon turned his head toward me as if he could see exactly what expression I was wearing, exactly what I was thinking. It felt like he was staring straight through the blindfold I had torn and wrapped for him.
"Hyung didn't do anything wrong—"
I read the mood, gave his shoulder a light tap of acknowledgment, forced a grin, and asked,
"Crazy bastard. Can you run?"
Sang-hyeon grinned right back without missing a beat.
"Gotta do what we gotta do."
I looked ahead. Beyond the smoke rising from the censer, the forest was already revealing all manner of things. Nightmarish beings that belonged only in nightmares, swarms of tiny, hideous insects crawling in packs over the damp earth and roots. The sight created the illusion of storm-tossed ocean waves rolling across the ground.
With my expanded strange senses I also detected something unimaginably grotesque deeper in the woods. I hadn't even stretched my awareness that far—just a sweep of the immediate surroundings—and still a chill raced through my entire body. Those things simply hadn't noticed us yet because of the censer smoke. We had to get out of here fast.
I lifted my eyes, full of black sand, and stared forward. Looking into that forest writhing with dark malice and filled with the incomprehensible, the escape method written in the escape guidebook came back to me.
We had no green reagent.
But in the landscape spread before my eyes, a gray forest path was clearly visible. A narrow gray trail, as if viewed through a filter. The strange vision granted by my changing eyes could even see the escape route.
I boldly tore the hem of the pants the escape room had provided and fashioned a knot. I slipped one end around Sang-hyeon's arm and yanked it tight with one hand, securing it firmly. My original pants were still on underneath anyway, and honestly, who gave a damn if those escape-room pants got torn or burned?
I looked down at the shattered arm that had blocked the Black Goat's horn. The strange current of black sand was clumsily filling and scattering, swaying slowly—like sand inside an hourglass, flowing, flipping, piling up, then flowing again. And little by little it began to fall to the ground.
I watched the smoke that was digging into the black sand and dropping it to the earth. Smoke leaking from the censer. It had the advantage of slowing my transformation into something strange, but I could also see the disadvantage: it was dismantling the parts that had already changed.
As I stood still, Sang-hyeon looked at me as if he had sensed the strange current.
"Hyung…"
Had he noticed while I was clumsily tying the knot? As if he could truly see through the blindfold, he turned his head toward the vanishing arm. I tossed him a single line.
"You didn't do anything wrong either."
Before any reply could come, I ran forward.
I stumbled now and then. Every time the blindfolded person flinched and nearly fell, I stopped. Running straight ahead through this forest with your eyes bound was madness in itself. The sensation of something enormous suddenly looming right in front of you made you freeze and flinch without thinking, or your foot would catch on a root or small branch jutting from the ground and send you sprawling. Each time, Sang-hyeon, as if possessed by sheer spite, silently hauled the fallen people back to their feet.
We raced along the gray path without exchanging words, yet the tightly gripped rope trembled as if it were transmitting our unspoken thoughts.
After about five minutes of running, everyone except me looked as though they had been rolling in the dirt. Yet, astonishingly, not a single person had fallen behind. Everyone had made it.
At the end of the gray path now stood a strange white door shaped like a diamond, with thin black root-like lines writhing and snaking across it.
"Uweeeehk—"
The moment I saw the diamond-shaped door, nausea surged up and I vomited on the spot. Anyone who reached this point without knowing anything, or who simply saw the door, would have felt no strange premonition and rushed straight through it. Having drawn so close to becoming a strange entity myself, I could sense the door's bizarre, beguiling wavelength. When I pulled up power to resist it, the nausea hit immediately.
That damn guide bastard had planted a trap even here?! Truly pathetic. If only one of us had escaped, or if fewer people had been escaping, there probably wouldn't have been this kind of dirty trick at the end of the escape route. A normal door must have existed. No matter how urgent it was, this bastard—
Just wait until I get out of here.
When I, who had been running ahead and guiding the way, suddenly started vomiting, the rope in my hand shook violently.
"D-don't… cough… don't panic! Just follow me… and run!"
I shouted as I sprinted along the gray path, then twisted my body sideways in an instant and threw myself into the empty-looking space beside the door. In that same moment the diamond door that had been next to me whipped around to the side. What had looked like a door revealed itself as a vertically split, diamond-shaped, disgusting giant mouth. Long teeth like thick tree branches, densely packed inside the mouth, snagged one of my legs and bit down.
Agony flared from my leg straight into my brain, but I ignored it. Leaving my captured body as it was, I swung the arm holding the rope with every ounce of strength I had. On the other end of the rope, Sang-hyeon was yanked through the air as if someone had grabbed and pulled him, tumbling into the empty-looking space I had originally been heading toward.
Only then did the true door reveal the form it had been hiding. Sang-hyeon, the vice-president, and the club members all went through the correct door.
I stared at my caught leg, cold sweat pouring down. The thick tooth had pierced my leg like a needle. From the mouth connected to the tooth came a grinding, crunching sound as it began to drag me in. While I was being pulled, I felt a powerful force yanking on the rope that still connected me to the correct door.
Sang-hyeon!
I tried to pull back with matching force, then suddenly hesitated. What if this dragged the ones who had already escaped back out with me?
Right then, as if telling me not to think stupid thoughts, a shout erupted from the correct door.
"We all said we'd go back together, damn it!"
Sang-hyeon, screaming with pure rage as he hauled on me, half-emerged from the door again. Behind him the club members and the vice-president could be seen clearly, gripping Sang-hyeon's torso and throwing their weight backward as if they were about to lie down.
"Uwaaaaaaaah!"
At the sight of the club members and vice-president screaming their lungs out, I poured my strength in as well. A cracking sound came from Sang-hyeon's arm, but neither of us cared. Sang-hyeon and I both roared as we hauled on the rope. Our hands drew closer—now literally right in front of our noses—yet the blood- and sweat-soaked rope connecting us made an ominous snapping sound as it began to fray.
"Ah, fuck this!"
Sang-hyeon cursed, let go of the door he had been holding with his other hand, and swung that free hand. The silver chain dangling from it whipped through the air, overlapping and binding my hand to Sang-hyeon's. The chain of the blood-drinking censer lashed our nearly touching hands together. Especially the censer's chain, as if it could not tolerate a non-human existence, seared hot enough to cook the hand covered in black sand—but neither Sang-hyeon nor I paid it any mind.
Now Sang-hyeon arched his back with everything he had, twisting his body as if he were about to fall backward. At the same time the club members and vice-president put in one final surge of strength.
"Uwaaaaaaaaah!"
"Shiiiiiiiiit!"
"—!"
I lifted my free leg and brought it toward the tooth that was jutting out unnaturally, piercing me.
"Time for you to fuck off."
—Bang!
I kicked the tooth that had skewered my leg with every bit of power I had left. An explosive crack rang out at the same moment my impaled leg bent at a grotesque angle—but the tooth came free with it, and I tumbled through the correct door along with the club members.