CH 91

He must have been referring to the hidden door that I used to escape my room.

“But then the hallway lights suddenly went out. I was searching through the rooms, but because I wrecked all the doorknobs, they didn’t close. They fell open even when you closed them. And besides, I would be the first suspect if the door was closed differently than before, you know? So, I was digging through the rooms quietly with my light off.” Then, he mumbled, “I need to escape this damned mansion, you know.”

We arrived at room 607, yet Seogeung was still standing behind me. He shone a light on the doorknob. It seemed like he wanted me to go inside. Raehee was still crying. I had no choice but to do as he instructed and enter the room.

Creak. The sound the door hinges made as I opened the door felt disturbing.

“I wondered what in the world was going on and ran out of the room… And met face to face with Seoyoon Kim,” Seogeung said as he continued to light the way I needed to go.

I went to where Seogeung pointed to and searched around the area. It was the wall next to the bathroom—at first glance, nothing seemed to be there. Then, I found a groove in the wall. The groove was covered with identical wallpaper as the wall, but it was shaped like a sliding door handle.

A hidden door.

I hooked my fingers in the furrow and pulled it to the side. Perhaps it was because the mansion itself was old, but just like the door that I had found before, I needed to pull quite hard to move it. It slowly opened with a heavy rolling sound. Beyond the door were stairs.

They led upstairs.

“That guy was feeling around the wall next to the door of room 801. He looked a bit anxious, so I could just tell. Oh, he just turned off all the lights. So, when I called out to him, he jumped and looked at me. Then, he turned all pale and went into room 801 and closed the door.”

“…Seoyoon turned the lights off?” I couldn’t believe what Seogeung just said. What did that mean? Why would Seoyoon do that?

I looked back without thinking and stared point-blank at Seogeung’s flashlight. I covered my eyes with a groan. From the sudden exposure to the bright light, my eyesight was slow to return. Maybe the darkness was taxing on my eyes.

Seogeung drew circles with the light over my head and replied, “Yeah. I don’t know how exactly, but there was probably a device that could turn off the hallway lights.”

“…Goodness.”

“He was so shocked that he must have forgotten that all the doors of the staff rooms were destroyed. When I opened the door back and entered, he pushed the wall.”

I wiped off the tears that came out naturally from the exposure to light and looked at the stairs beyond the door. Used to the darkness again, my eyes could make out what was at the end of the stairs. It looked like another door—a door on the ceiling. It was a square door that had a handle that looked like it led to the attic.

“But when he laid his hands on the wall, it flipped over. He fell—just like that.” Seogeung laughed. “He was such an unlucky b*stard. Of all places, he had to lean against that.”

I could tell what happened from what Seogeung had just told us. Raehee must have come to the same conclusion as her sniffling grew worse. Seoyoon screamed and disappeared into that room, just like the stylist.

The only difference was that this trap didn’t need a switch to activate it.

“When I ran over and looked, the room he fell into had a bunch of long spikes on the floor. Seoyoon fell on those and was bleeding a lot. Right—just like Goyeon’s corpse. Every part of his body was impaled by those spikes. He looked like a porcupine. I’m sure the architect of this building was insane.”

I swallowed. Raehee muttered quietly, “No way…”

Finally, Seogeung lit up the small door at the end of the stairs. I knew immediately why he made me lead the way here. Didn’t he just say that Seoyoon fell into a trap in front of his very eyes? Plus, he learned about the device that dropped the stylist to her demise.

He was questioning whether this secret passageway was a trap or not.

“Go upstairs,” Seogeung ordered.

“…”

“Hurry up.” Seogeung egged me on.

I climbed each step at the same pace as when I walked here. Because the stairs led to the ceiling, I had to crouch the more I walked up. Eventually, I crawled on all fours. I reached the door handle of the small door.

“…” Perhaps it was because of what I had just heard, but I hesitated to open the door. Seogeung said with laughter in his voice, “Open it. Let’s see if that place is safe.”

“Even if you die, it’s just a f*g dying. Nobody would be against that,” he muttered maliciously. I pushed the door with all my might, and it groaned as it opened.