Anomaly: The Backrooms [3]
Do Ga-bin looked oddly delighted as she casually delivered what felt like a death sentence.
“What, did you think I actually get dragged into these things just because of my constitution? These anomalies call to each other. You might go your whole life without ever experiencing one, but you can never experience just one.”
Even so, she added, I was actually pretty lucky. My first anomaly wasn’t a ghost-type but a space-type one. And not even the malicious kind that carried its own evil will—just the endlessly repeating rooms of the Backrooms. Her own first anomaly had been…
She had been chattering brightly, but after a stretch of time that was neither long nor short, she suddenly fell silent. Then, as if forcibly cranking her mood back up, she continued in a noticeably brighter voice.
“Anyway, you’re one of the lucky ones. Let’s hurry and find the real classroom already.”
She changed the subject so obviously that it was clear she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Respecting her wishes, I kept my mouth shut and went back to searching for the classroom.
We opened door after door, but none of them was the one we wanted. Then, without warning, the subtle unease I had felt earlier when I was alone began to creep over me again.
It wasn’t just my imagination. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a chill crawled slowly up my spine.
My heartbeat started slamming against my ribs like it had lost its mind.
“Ga-bin.”
At the tremor in my voice, Do Ga-bin, who had been walking ahead, turned around.
“Yeah? …Wait, what did you just say?”
Without realizing it, I had grabbed her wrist in a death grip. My voice was shaking so badly it was pathetic.
“We need to find it… fast. Right now.”
“Huh? All of a sudden?”
She tilted her head, looking genuinely puzzled.
“Something’s chasing us. It’s instinct. Whatever was following me when I was alone earlier… it’s definitely coming toward us now.”
Do Ga-bin let out a small laugh at my words.
“What are you talking about? The one who came to find you earlier was me. This space doesn’t have any will of its own, remember? Backrooms-style anomalies are usually just traps or puzzles. They don’t usually mix with ghost-types that actively chase people with malice. You’re probably just overreacting because it’s your first time.”
She spoke with the confidence that came from experience. Logically, she was right. Between her, who had survived multiple anomalies, and me, who was going through my first, whose judgment would be more accurate? Yet the intuition that had always been faint inside me was now screaming at me to run, flooding me with endless dread.
Do Ga-bin studied my rapidly paling face for a moment, then let out a small sigh.
“Fine, okay. If you’re that anxious, let’s pick up the pace. I need to get out and finish my assignment too. No matter how used to it I am, I hate staying in places like this for long.”
She was trying to reassure me as she started walking again. That was when it happened.
Screeeech. Scraaaape.
From far down the silent hallway, a skin-crawling sound rang out—like something dragging across the old floor. It was exactly the same noise that had stabbed into my eardrums when I was hiding under the lectern earlier.
“…Huh?”
The relaxed expression on Do Ga-bin’s face hardened in an instant. Her eyes shook as they turned toward the distant darkness where the sound had come from.
“There really… is something chasing us? A ghost-type anomaly mixed into a simple replication space like this?”
Before her bewildered murmur could even finish, heavy crashing sounds—boom, thud!—echoed one after another. The bizarre metallic screech was closing in at terrifying speed.
We locked eyes. No further explanation was needed.
“Run!”
At Do Ga-bin’s urgent shout, we sprinted down the hallway like mad.
Clack, bang! Not this one. Clack, bang! Not here either.
We flung open the doors of the fake classrooms and slammed them shut again and again. My breathing grew ragged, my thighs felt like they were about to burst, but I couldn’t stop. The scraping sound that had seemed far away before was now crystal clear, right behind us.
“You said this kind of thing didn’t happen!”
“I don’t know… this is my first time too! Backrooms-type space anomalies are supposed to just give you the feeling that something is watching or chasing you. They’re not supposed to actually send something after you!”
“Here!”
When my breath was burning in my throat, Do Ga-bin violently threw open the back door of one classroom and shouted. The moment I frantically looked inside, every cell in my body screamed that this was the real one. The wall clock above the blackboard was ticking in the correct direction. The desks were arranged neatly enough, though still scattered in the casual way students left them. And for some reason, the sense of familiarity. This was exactly the real classroom where we had fallen asleep.
“Found it—!”
I leaped inside with a sigh of relief and glanced back. My eyes widened in pure horror.
From the darkness of the hallway, a geometrically distorted black shape was hurtling toward us, devouring the space at insane speed.
“Ga-bin, get inside, hurry!”
But instead of entering the classroom, Do Ga-bin stayed in the hallway, gripping the back door’s handle with white-knuckled force.
“Ga-bin! What are you—!”
“Get to your seat right now!”
With her piercing shout, the door slammed shut in front of me with a deafening bang!
CRAAAAASH—!!!
The instant the door closed, something slammed into it with a horrifying impact, as if trying to smash its way through. The old door buckled like paper, and from the other side came the dull scraping sound of Do Ga-bin throwing her whole body against it to hold it shut.
“No! Ga-bin! Open it! We have to get out together!”
I tried to get up, my face drained of all color, when an urgent, fierce voice came from beyond the denting metal door.
“Don’t come! Lie down on your desk and sleep right now!!”
Boom! Crash!! The heavy metallic ringing of something pounding on the door stabbed into my ears. “You go first. I’m used to this kind of thing. If you get out first, I can shake this monster and escape right after! So hurry up and sleep—you take longer!”
Her voice was strangely calm, as if nothing was wrong. But the very end of each word trembled faintly. She had to be terrified too.
Even so, she was telling me to sleep with an unidentified monster right on the other side of a single door trying to smash it to pieces. Adrenaline was flooding my veins, my heart was pounding like it would explode—how the hell was I supposed to fall asleep?
But she was right. If I lost my mind here and opened the door, everything she was risking her life for would be meaningless. Just like she said, I had to close my eyes first so she could survive.
“Fuck…!”
I collapsed onto my desk, clamped both hands over my ears, and squeezed my eyes shut.
Bang! Creeeeaaak!!
The horrifying sound of the door buckling and Do Ga-bin’s suppressed groans reached me. I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth felt like they would shatter, trying to block out every noise.
I desperately crammed fragments of reality into my mind. The assignment due tomorrow. The professor’s sleep-inducing voice. The campus sunlight that was starting to feel a little too warm.
CRRRRACK—
The instant the terrifying sound of the back door’s hinges being completely ripped off slammed into my ears, everything—the screams, the noise, the terror crushing me—cut off as cleanly as a lie, dropping into deep, black sleep.
“Uwaah!”
I shot upright with an involuntary scream, driven by the sound of the iron door being torn away and the horrific instinct that something was coming for me.
But what spread out before my panting eyes was a wall clock ticking in the correct direction and, beneath it, our professor writing “Korean Literary History” on the green blackboard. Students sat in scattered groups, listening to the lecture with lazy postures at their casually arranged desks. The intense contrast between the life-or-death anomaly I had just been running through and this peaceful reality left my mind blank, bleached white. I couldn’t move or speak.
“Hmm… Ga-in, did you have a nightmare? You suddenly slumped over and started sleeping, so I left you alone because you looked tired. But now you’re screaming and standing there in a daze?”
The professor said something, but it didn’t really register. Or maybe my brain simply couldn’t process the situation.
“You must have been really exhausted. Well, class is almost over anyway, and since our department’s only male student is like this, shall we call it a day? Good work, everyone. See you next week.”
At the professor’s announcement, the students cheerfully began packing their bags and leaving. Soon the once-noisy classroom held only me, standing blankly, and Do Ga-bin, who remained slumped over her desk as still as if she were dead.
“Huh? What’s up with Ga-in? He’s usually the first one out the door after class, but today he’s sleeping? Should I wake him?”
“He looks tired. It’s assignment season anyway—just let him sleep. If you wake him and mess up his rhythm, he’ll be even more exhausted.”
Listening to my classmates’ passing conversation, I forced my trembling body to move and walked over to Do Ga-bin’s desk. My whole body was shaking violently. Had it really just been a nightmare like the professor said? Logically, there was no way an experience like that could have been real. But then why was Do Ga-bin still lying there without moving at all? Had she not escaped? Was she dead? Because of me? Please, please.
With a trembling hand, I carefully reached under her nose. A faint but warm breath touched my fingertips. She was breathing. I shook her gently and spoke.
“Ga-bin. Do Ga-bin. Wake up. Class is over. Let’s go home.”
Some time passed. She slowly lifted her head, rubbing her eyes sleepily.
“Hwaaam… Must be because there are too many assignments. I dozed off. What’s up, Lee Ga-in? You woke me? That’s unusual. Hnnng, ugh! Anyway, time to go home. Thanks for waking me~”
She stretched and packed her bag as if nothing had happened, looking far too casual. It was impossible to believe she had just gone through a life-and-death anomalous event.
I couldn’t hold back any longer and asked in a stiff voice.
“Do Ga-bin. Don’t you… have anything to say to me?”
She paused midway through slinging her bag over her shoulder, put on an expression of genuine confusion, and asked back.
“Huh? About what? What do I need to tell you? It’s not like we’re close enough to have things to talk about, right~?”