Escape Room Horror Cafe (1) - Is This Even the Right Place?
To be honest, I had no idea where we were headed today, but I'd already made up my mind to just tag along with the others.
Before long the club president was tapping away at the map app on his phone as we walked the streets, and eventually he ducked into some massive building. The rest of us followed him inside.
Inside the huge commercial complex with its lights already off, we climbed a flight of stairs. After that we rode an elevator down, circling around and around, sinking deeper and deeper into the place.
The president led us on such a winding path that I started to wonder if we were even going the right way, until he finally found an enormous escalator in the center of the building—one that plunged endlessly into the darkness below.
We stepped onto it and began our descent.
Following the president, we all boarded the escalator, and it wasn't long before the familiar cool air of the underground wrapped around us.
How long had we been going down?
Suddenly Yeom Sang-hyeon, who had been standing with the president on the moving steps, hopped down a few stairs and then climbed back up again, bouncing up and down like he was testing something.
"What was it again…? Is it this?"
He muttered to himself, glancing around, until the president grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him back.
"What the hell are you doing? That's dangerous."
"Ah, sorry, sorry. You know that escalator urban legend, right?"
I looked around. Nobody seemed to have a clue.
Sang-hyeon's face lit up with surprise.
"Huh…? Wait, none of you know it? And we're supposed to be the Occult Club?"
…It's just a social club, you popular bastard.
For a second it was like he'd overheard my inner monologue, because he looked straight at me and corrected himself.
"Hyung! You know it, right?"
What the hell? Why was this kid so sure of that?
Escalator… escalator… something about going up and down…?
"Uh… wasn't it a way to get to another world?"
"Whoa! I knew you'd know!"
The other members gave me looks of mild surprise while Sang-hyeon's eyes sparkled. I hurried to add,
"Well… I don't really know the details. Just stuff I picked up here and there."
Interest drained from the members' and the president's eyes just as quickly as it had appeared.
…And you guys don't know a single thing yourselves.
As if the introduction had been enough, Sang-hyeon turned to the rest of the club and launched into his explanation.
"You've all heard the elevator method for going to another world, right?"
Nods all around.
"Just for anyone who hasn't, it's simple. You get in an elevator, press the floors in a specific order, and wait. Then some woman gets on at a floor nobody pressed, and the elevator starts moving again. When the doors open next and you step out, you're already in another world. Easy, right? It's basically an urban legend that plays on the special properties of elevators as connecting spaces. There are tons of 'I actually did it' stories floating around, so a lot of kids tried it when they were little just for the thrill—and got yelled at by the apartment security guard. Pretty common childhood memory."
Sang-hyeon paused, watching the members nod in recognition, then continued.
"There's a way to do the same thing with escalators. It was pretty well-known for a while among people who like this kind of stuff. The basic idea is similar to the elevator version. The difference is that instead of pressing floor buttons, you go up and down the steps according to a set pattern. For example, on a descending escalator you go down one step, then up two, down two, up three…"
I watched him demonstrating on the moving stairs while he talked, and thought to myself,
That's not it.
As someone who actually liked occult stories—urban legends, shamanism, exorcisms, all of it—I knew a few versions of this one.
The escalator method did involve reverse-walking on a descending escalator like Sang-hyeon was showing, but the numbers and sequence were wrong.
The accurate version went like this:
1. Board the escalator (starting from the top and walking against the flow).
2. While on it, climb four steps, stop, then climb again.
3. Climb eight steps, stop, climb again; then sixteen steps, stop, climb again.
4. Keep going like that until you reach the lower floor—and that lower floor is the other world.
It's an empty parallel world. If you ever run into someone there, that someone is not human.
…
That was the real method.
But then again, even the elevator legend had branched into a dozen different versions, so maybe the escalator one had alternatives too. Elevators were so famous that people claimed you could reach not just other worlds but hell, the afterlife, or completely unknown spaces depending on the sequence.
…Not that any of it was more than a way to kill time.
While I was lost in those thoughts, Sang-hyeon kept talking and demonstrating, climbing higher and higher until he finally reached me at the very back of the escalator.
"So you just keep going like that until you get all the way to the to—ack!"
"Ugh!"
"Kyaa!"
Clunk.
The escalator shuddered and stopped dead.
Most of the members reflexively grabbed the handrails and held on, but Sang-hyeon, who had one foot floating unsteadily in midair, started tipping slowly backward. He was about to tumble all the way down the escalator.
Gotcha.
If I hadn't grabbed him, that was exactly what would have happened.
I shot my hand out on pure reflex and ended up snatching him by the collar.
"…"
"…"
"…Hey, don't get the wrong idea. I didn't mean to—"
"Whoa, hyung, your reflexes are insane! Life saver! Whoa!"
"Y-yeah… okay, just stop shaking me, you maniac!"
The kid didn't care in the slightest that he'd almost gotten seriously hurt. He just flashed me a thumbs-up.
This crazy popular-kid energy…
"R-right, okay. I'm starting to lose my grip here."
"Ah, yes sir!"
Once Sang-hyeon carefully shifted his weight, found his balance, and planted himself properly on the escalator again, the power came back on a few seconds later and the lights flickered to life.
We waited for the escalator to start moving once more, but the thing that had stopped once refused to budge.
Left with no choice, we started walking down on foot.
Luckily we'd already come most of the way while talking; the president at the front only had to take about three steps before we reached the second basement level.
The members who'd been clinging to the handrails filed down one after another under the president's lead.
Once even I, bringing up the rear, had stepped off, we found ourselves in a wide, empty plaza with corridors branching off in every direction. We headed into one of them.
Just before we entered the hallway I glanced back alone. The escalator was running perfectly normally again, as if nothing had ever happened.
How long had we been walking down that dim corridor?
From up ahead I could hear the president talking with Sang-hyeon.
"But is this really the place? There isn't a single shop with its lights on."
"Ah, shit… keep it down. I'm sure this is it. I heard they stay open even on holidays and the themes are solid… escape room… escape room…"
After the scolding, the president's muttering continued as he stared at the sign hanging over a tightly shut door.
Ah. Eavesdropping on their conversation finally told me where we were going.
An escape room cafe…
We wandered the dark corridors for what felt like forever, and a strange feeling began to rise in me.
Was it even possible to walk around a building this long and this far…?
Was a building… really this big…?
While I was turning that uneasy thought over in my head, the whole group rounded a corner and spotted a bright light far ahead.
"There it is…!"
Whether from relief or something else, the president started striding forward with big steps.
The other members began chattering again and followed, but I still couldn't shake the sense that something was off.
All around us were silent hallways, pitch-black corridors where you could barely make out shapes. And every single hallway we'd walked through—holiday or not—had every light switched off…?
Apparently I was the only one who felt the wrongness. Everyone else was simply heading toward that distant light.
Standing still by myself wasn't going to change anything, and there was a high chance it was all just my imagination, so I quietly started walking toward the light as well.
The closer we got, the stranger the scene became.
There was no ordinary glass storefront. Instead a massive wooden door stood there.
No sign either.
Just a huge door made of wood…
It looked so wrong that I forced down my introverted nature and was about to open my mouth to say something when—
"Whoa, the design on this place is insane!"
"I've never seen a door that looks like it belongs on a mansion before!"
…Ah. Maybe popular-kid culture was just naturally this eccentric?
Listening to them gush among themselves made my head feel faintly dizzy.
"Let's just go in."
Seeing how excited the members were, the president's face lit up. He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
We followed him inside one by one.
After every other member had gone through and I was about to step in last, I glanced back and felt something strange.
Before I could fully process that uneasy sensation, the door closed right in front of my face.