CH 71

Act 10

Didn’t Raehee mention that there were secret passages in the Holmes mansion? She then said that she hoped that this mansion wouldn’t be like Holmes’ mansion. I too wished the same. But it seemed like our hopes were one of those insignificant things of life, unfortunately.

The door that we came in from was completely useless to us thanks to the pile of trash that the mansion spewed down at us. I tried to climb over the heap some way or another, but the perilously stacked objects started to tilt and fall to the ground. Despite nothing falling overhead, one wrong step, and I could be crushed by the avalanche of surrounding junk.

We were trapped helplessly in this room. When I said that, Woorim shook his head. “I found a small door under the pile of mannequin parts.”

Exactly as he said, he pointed at a square, wooden trapdoor in the floor. With rusty hinges and a simple handle, it looked like a basement trapdoor in one of those kitchens in one of those old southern mansions. I was wondering why he was digging through the mannequins while separated from the group, but he must have had his eyes on this door.

Since we didn’t have anywhere else to go, we decided to open the door and go downstairs. Before we even decided who would go down first, Woorim lifted the door and went down. Beyond the trap door was a ladder, like one could see in a manhole, instead of stairs.

Clang, clang, clang.

I felt uneasy as I slowly descended, stepping down on each metal rung. No, it would be more accurate to say that I was a bit scared. I felt like everything we refused to believe in came true. This place could be a murder mansion as Seohang had said—one that killed you, not with poisonous gas or starvation like the Holmes house, but by making one wander aimlessly and endlessly in despair.

“I wonder why objects fell from the ceiling,” I wondered out loud.

Woorim replied, “It’s one of the so-called ‘tricks.’ Remember, from the booklet? It said that in a room with a trick, there was bound to be a hint.”

Indeed, that was what was written. However, wasn’t that a rule made arbitrarily by the dead filming crew? What did abiding by those rules matter at this point…?

As soon as that thought occurred to me, I decided to change my perception. Didn’t the man below me say so as well? Didn’t he suggest that the staff died because they went outside, contrary to the rules? Who in the world died because they failed to follow the rules that they had made? Maybe the one who wrote the rules was someone else.

Then, that must be it…

“I reached the ground.” Woorim, who planted his feet on the ground first, walked to my side and helped me down. The ladder wasn’t slippery, and the floor was flat with no obstacles. I could have gotten down by myself easily, but Woorim insisted on holding my hand and waist. I felt a bit weird about that.

I didn’t like physical contact that was more than necessary. Yeonseon was overly well-mannered with me. What I meant was that he made excuses to touch me on purpose. When we walked on a rainy road, he made me hold his hand while saying that I could slip, and when it snowed, he held my hand because he thought my hand looked like it was freezing.

I could see that Woorim had similar habits.

“…” I chewed on the inside of my mouth and pointlessly rubbed my pants pocket. This was a well-maintained holding pen. Despair and hope poked their heads out and bit each other’s tails. They both hurt, so I had no idea which one was admitting defeat.

Could I properly become angry at Yeonseon’s misfortunes?

“There are a lot of toys here. The room that Goyeon fell into had a lot of dolls too, no? Then this must be the floor that Goyeon fell into. We can finally go to the room that she was in.” When Woorim said that, my head snapped up. I saw Woorim pointing his light here and there as he walked a full circle around the room. The yellow luminescence landed in various spots of the room.

As he had said, the room we were in looked like it had a lot of toys. On the walls was a garden of colorful folded paper, and on the floor were broken toy train tracks. Disconnected in random places, the tracks weren’t connected properly, and there was a cloying smell.

“Do you also smell pancakes with strawberry jam on top from somewhere?” Woorim asked.

Yes, I could smell it. Milk cream, sweetened with sugar, and the smell of golden brown pancakes.