CH 115

I climbed up the stairs. The floor above this one was the hospital floor. All the doors in that hallway were closed. As I walked down the hallway, I found Hyehyun, dead in front of Goyeon’s room. Leaning against the wall, he was sitting.His head was bowed down, so I could see his back.

The back of his neck looked like someone dug in deep with a shovel. The bones, spinal cord, and nerves were ripped out and tattered. Ripped out? No, they were probably bitten off. I looked around, but I couldn’t see the taxi driver, seemingly satisfied that he was able to end Hyehyun’s life.

I was a bit frustrated and tried to pull out my knife from Hyehyun’s shoulder. Perhaps it was due to rigor mortis, but the blade refused to budge as if it was caught onto a hitch inside. Hyehyun’s body leaned to the side and collapsed. His face was contorted, eyes wide as if he had seen something terrifying. Hyehyun’s nightmare seemed to have become a reality inside this mansion.

Although I had come to this point, I didn’t want to die on the same floor as Hyehyun. It was my last scrap of stubbornness. I had no choice but to continue upward.

Above was the abandoned school floor. There was nothing special about it. The pieces of chalk rolling on the ground crunched under my feet. Just then, I saw a flash of light. I was walking absentmindedly, but the light made my mouth open in surprise. Who…?

“Who’s there?” The other person asked first. The bright flashlight was pointed at me. I breathed in sharply, and the one who recognized me yelled, “Haeseo!”

I couldn’t see the other person well because of the blinding light, but I could tell who it was from his voice. “Seohang, you’re alive. Thank goodness.”

Woorim said that he was probably hiding in a room, and he must have been partly right. It was Seohang. I couldn’t see Hawoo until now, so I had the feeling that something bad must have happened to him. Still, I felt relieved that I found at least one other person. It was better that I met Seohang instead of Hawoo, who killed the stylist.

“…You look…” Seohang mumbled, still shining his light on me. He then took off his shirt and tossed it to me. I was staring at the clothes that fell at my feet and he said, “Wear it. It’s hard for me to see you like that.”

“Oh,” I said and decided to gracefully take his kindness. I felt like my appearance didn’t matter since I was on my way to die, but someone else felt uncomfortable. It seemed better to listen to what the other person said.

“…You said that you were going to kill someone, right?” Seohang asked as I put on his clothes. I thought it was strange that he wasn’t approaching me, but that must have been because he recalled what I had said to him before.

“Yes,” I replied flatly. Then, I smiled painfully. “It’s all over now. I just need to kill one more person.”

“One more person?”

“Myself.”

Seohang pursed his lips.

“I’m going upstairs. I have business in room 801,” I said.

Seohang still seemed reluctant. I was a man covered in blood with no pants. Said man had also said that he came here to kill someone. Perhaps it was a good thing that my knife was embedded in Hyehyun’s back. If I had a knife in my hands, Seohang would have surely screamed and run away from me.

I could sense his wariness of me as I plodded on. When I passed by him, he grabbed my hand. He was still shining his light on me, and Seohang said in a tense voice, “Let’s go together.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“I think I could win even if you were to ambush me.” He was being sincere, but for some reason, it sounded like a joke to me. I simply laughed and told him to do whatever he wanted. As he said, I didn’t have the strength to jump anyone. I could barely walk. I just wanted to collapse somewhere and sleep. I just needed to go a bit further… and rest in room 801.

“Don’t come out when it’s nighttime. I was told that if you followed the rule booklet, you wouldn’t die,” I rambled on about what I knew to Seohang, who could be the lone survivor in this mansion.

Don’t go downstairs if possible. Hyehyun Ham was dead on the grocery store floor; he said he had the map. He also said he had a few spare batteries, so search him and use them. Don’t use the secret passageway in room 607. There was something terrifying above the ceiling there. The dorm floor wasn’t the uppermost floor, but one shouldn’t go upstairs. The elevator that we took to go up could freely go up and down. The staff members’ bodies were there, so it might be sickening to use, but if you needed to…

When I had explained these things, I paused.

“If you follow the rules in the guide booklet, you won’t die. I think that could be right,” said Seohang, who was following a few steps behind me.

It reminded me of Raehee, so I paused and replied, “…Is that so?”

Did he also believe what Woorim said? Seohang did tell me that he was a long-time friend of Woorim Eun. I pondered whether I should tell him that I killed Woorim.