“Gyeongwon?… Hayoon?”
I mumbled as I slowly started walking again, holding onto the wall as my only guide.
However, no voice answered my call.
The whole room was as quiet as a mouse.
What….
What’s going on?
As my breathing turned heavy, I turned around and started walking in the opposite direction of the direction I was circling until now. My footsteps frenzied, like a person who lost his way in the desert.
However, a blank wall.
An empty wall greeted me once again.
An empty corner, and a cold cement wall.
“….Huuu, huuu.”
As I kept spinning around, desperately trying to find any source of solace in the dark, my breathing became heavier by the second as my nerves became taut with fear and anxiety.
Stopping abruptly, I tried to catch my breath again.
What on earth is going on?
Where has everyone gone?
Was I wandering alone in a place with no one around?
The situation suddenly made me remember a memory when I was young. I was playing a game of hide-and-seek, and it was my turn to seek everyone. I closed my eyes and counted down the seconds, and by the time I realized why I couldn’t find anyone, everyone already went home.
I couldn’t help but think the situation was somewhat similar to that time, I thought it was just a simple game we were playing together. However, it turned out that I was all alone, with no idea where my friends had gone. The feeling of fear and emptiness rose at once in the pitch black darkness at the thought.
“Door… door…”
I have to get out here first.
Let’s go out and then think about what to do.
Perhaps because I was moving along the wall, I couldn’t find the members. There was a possibility that the members were hiding in the middle of the room, and I didn’t know that.
And the silence.
Something was different about it.
The terrible feeling that I was all alone gripped me like a snake.
“Huuu, huuu.”
Because I circled around the room many times, I had no idea where I was right now. So I began to fumble around the wall looking for the door.
One step… Two steps…
‘….Not here.’
What touched my hands was a smooth cement wall with nothing on it.
‘Next, next wall.’
As I slowly circled the room again, my mind began to run wild with thoughts.
They should have been with me in the room.
We all were circling around the room together.
And Gyeongwon.
He even touched me on the shoulder.
But why wasn’t there no one?
“Huuu, huuu.”
My head began to spin for wandering around in the dark too much.
I reached the corner right next to me while catching my breath.
Tak.
The wall didn’t even feel familiar.
It was nothing but a cold cement wall.
“Next, next wall.”
I grabbed the wall and stumbled to the next corner.
Step, step.
The thought of concealing my footsteps had gone out of my head a long time ago. I didn’t even care if I was making too much noise, all I wanted was out of that place.
For the sake of my sanity, I needed to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Leaning against the wall, I walked sideways, fumbling for the door.
Step, step.
As I frantically walked along the wall looking for the door, my body suddenly bumped into something.
Smack.
Raising my hand, I touched the thing which I bumped into.
It was a blank wall.
I hit an empty wall again.
“No, this can’t be…”
Fear and astonishment washed over me for a moment. But as I began to think about it, I couldn’t find it surprising.
There were a total of four sides of the wall.
I had fumbled around three sides of the wall so far.
The door must be on the next wall.
On the next wall.
But…..
Blank wall.
“It can’t be, it can’t be…”
Leaning on the wall, I walked sideways and began to look for the door frantically. Searching for a place where I thought could be the way out of there.
However, all I felt was nothing but cold cement.
Impossible, this is simply impossible.
I continued to circle the room again and again, never leaving the side of the wall.
Tuk.
The room, connected by cold cement walls with nothing in them, took me once again to an empty corner.
“Huuu, huuuh.”
Only then did realization dawned over me.
It wasn’t only the door which was missing, I couldn’t even find the window even after circling around the room for so many times.
The clubroom had a total of four walls, and only two of them were empty cement walls.
One side contained the entrance door, while another side, which was opposite to the door, had a window.
Then, something’s wrong…
Opposite side. Maybe I should go to the other side.
We had put paper boxes on the window.
The wall of the door and window would certainly feel different, so there was no way I would get confused.
Again, I should search, again.
“Huff, huff.”
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
After walking about twenty steps in the narrow pace, I arrived at an empty corner before I knew it.
“N, next…next wall…”
Again, again…
Circling around the room.
Again.
Again.
Panic rose inside me as I kept spinning around in the dark for a few more times, and I finally realized the truth.
There were no windows or doors.
All there were was empty cement walls.
Impossible.
Was this actually our clubroom?
Touching the wall with one hand, I stretched out my other hand as much as I could, searching and fumbling in the dark in case I could catch anything.
I felt like a fish out of water. It was as if I would really lose my sanity if I lost the wall that supported where I was.
Attaching my left hand on the wall firmly, I began waving my other hand in front of me in the darkness.
The desk, whiteboard, and sofa had been pushed into the center of the room.
I thought I could barely maintain my senses if something familiar touched my hand.
Wave.
My waving hand in the air, couldn’t touch anything familiar. However, something caught my outstretched foot.
Surprised, I tried tapping it with my foot.
Whatever it was, it was a bit further away, over 1 meter from the wall.
Something was lying on the floor there.
What was it?
It was quite soft to the touch.
But the table and whiteboard were made of hard materials.
Then, was it the sofa?
But the sofa was made of leather, and the thing that touched my foot felt different than the rough fabric.
Tap, tap.
Feeling curious, I touched the thing again with my foot.
After poking the thing with my foot for a while, I came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t the sofa.
The only thing in this club room that had a soft texture was the leather sofa, however, what touched my foot felt certainly different than that.
The bottom of the sofa should be hard.
But the object which I poked right now didn’t have the texture of hardness.
What should I do?
Maybe I should examine it.
Although I was scared, I decided to think rationally.
I’ve already circled around the room more than I could count and searched everywhere on the walls.
However, nothing came in my hand. I had no other way in this quiet darkness than to move forward.
Quietly lowering my posture, I laid down on my stomach.
I couldn’t just jump on the object, not to mention it was dark all around, therefore, I moved carefully.
Even while going to check the object, I didn’t leave the side of the wall. For some reason, I felt like I would lose my only solace of sanity forever if I left the wall completely.
Pressing my feet against the wall, I spread my arms out as far as I could and began to search for the object that touched my foot.
Based on the perceived distance, this much arm length should be enough to reach the object.
Eventually, I caught the object in my hand.
And after poking it for a while, realization and shock ran through my body.
‘It’s a body!’
What I was poking with my hand seemed to be the thin arm of someone, and the rough fabric that touched my hand was the school uniform.
Who is it?
Gyeongwon?
In Hayoon?
Lee Jinhee?
Although Gyeongwon was a boy, he was quite thin and had a small physique compared to other boys of his age. Therefore, I couldn’t comprehend who exactly it was just by touching the person.
He wasn’t the only one with me.
Even though the person was lying down, I felt relief washing over me just at their mere presence.
Perhaps the person just passed out, and I didn’t realize that.
I tried to shake the person awake, but there was no response.
I called their names but still found no answer.
Not receiving any response, I began to slowly run my hand up on the person’s back and searched for their head.
Perhaps I could tell who it was by touching their hair.
If the person had long hair, it should be a girl, either Hayoon or Jinhee. Jinhee had her hair dyed, so her hair should be a little rough to touch.
As I kept wondering who it could be and began touching their back, my hand, which had been tracing up for the person’s head, suddenly ended up on the floor.
Some sticky warm liquid touched my hand on the floor.
Above the shoulders, there was no head.
“Huh, huh.”
The shock that ran through my body made me step back in instinct.
My body clung to the wall, almost wanting to climb it and hold it as close as possible.
“Huff, huff.”
I frantically wiped my wet hands on the cement wall while shivering. My body shook with so much intensity as if I was going to faint at the feel of the sticky blood.
What the fuck?
What the fuck, what the fuck…
At the sudden change of situation, I felt like I was going crazy with fear. I tried to think of a way to barely escape this situation, but nothing useful appeared in my mind.
Should I commit suicide?
I thought it would be much better to commit suicide than to tremble in the current incomprehensible situation.
Committing suicide meant I could go back in time.
After that, I could quickly think of a solution with the help of everyone.
“Huff, huff.”
I want to escape.
From the dark room where only corpses were lying.
Gasp.
‘…But how do I commit suicide?’
That was the problem.
I didn’t have a way of dying.
I barely killed myself last time with the help of Sunah. If she hadn’t pushed me from the rooftop of the broadcasting studio, I would have never been able to gain the courage to do so.
However, there was no one or nothing here with me.
I didn’t have any means of weapon to cut my wrist, or a window from where I could jump out of.
I didn’t want to bash my head against the wall until I died.
In movies, there are sometimes scenes where people die by biting their tongue or hitting their head against the wall.
However, I was just an ordinary high school student.
I couldn’t even think of doing something crazy like that.
Banging my head against the wall until death overcomes me?
Even the thought of it sounded crazy to me. It not only requires an enormous amount of will but also courage. Not to mention, it was perhaps the least easiest way to die.
If I hit my head, passed out, and woke up again, who knew what kind of terrible situation I would find myself in.
I should think of something else and hold off on that method.
What do I do? How do I commit suicide?
“Yes, Status Window.”
Pop.
[2019, April 26 | Friday, 14:37]
[Lee Joon – Number of Attempts: 2]
[Ghost Story Points: 225]
[Causality Rate: 12%]
To get rid of this fear and anxiety, I opened the Status Window.
Fortunately, the Status Window didn’t seem to be affected by whatever was happening and appeared clearly even in the dark as if engraved in my eyes.
Seeing it suddenly in the dark, I felt a little more at ease.
“Haa. Haa.”
Status window. Status window.
It was like the only light of hope that helped me calm down my dizzy mind every time I returned after my regression.
A window with clear measure that shows the current date and time even in any confusion.
“Huu… huuup.”
I took a deep breath again.
Status window.
Status window.
In this darkness where there was no light, no sound, and nothing to judge the situation, the Status Window was the only ray of light for me.
“Huu. Huu.”
[2019, April 26 | Friday, 14:37]
[Lee Joon – Number of Attempts: 2]
[Ghost Story Points: 225]
[Causality Rate: 12%]
Quietly looking at the Status Window, I began to run my mind.
As I began to process the information normally, I understood that the current situation was most probably the result of ghost stories being intertwined and coming into existence.
However, the question was, which ghost story was I involved in now?
In the story of Corner Game, there was no mention of people having their heads cut off and being locked in darkness.
Something was definitely different, but I couldn’t comprehend what was.
What was different?
‘….Gyeongwon. If only he were alive now.’
Regret poured over me, but soon I shook my head.
Gyeongwon was already dead.
I would ask him for necessary information after returning back in time. However, to do that, I had to get out of the current predicament first.
I should try to figure out what occurred that landed me in such a situation.
One of them was when and how the members died.
I couldn’t bring myself to wander around in the dark amidst the corpses lying everywhere, but I had to…
Besides the corpse lying in front of me right now, the rest of the members were probably lying dead somewhere in this room.
Gyeongwon, Hayoon, Jinhee, the members who played the Corner Game with me in the clubroom.
And me.
My intuition was telling me that I was the only one alive.
‘When, Why on earth…’
I slowly began to trace back on the things we did when we first started playing the Corner Game.
Hayoon was probably the one who moved silently at first.
The next careless step seemed to be Jinhee.
The person who hit my shoulder after that was clearly Gyeongwon. As I thought back, thinking how they could be killed.
Everyone should have been alive before it was my turn to change corners.
They could have definitely not died before that.
And after arriving at the last corner, I decided to move to Hayoon’s corner to surprise her.
‘…Everyone died in that short period of time?’
Beheaded?
It only took me a few seconds to arrive at the corner where Hayoon was staying. What on earth happened in that short period of time?
Who and how did they cut off the heads of three people in this pitch-black darkness so easily and swiftly, without making a single sound?
“The headless woman floated in the darkness, giggling at her poor prey. The headless woman floated in the darkness, giggling at her poor prey.”
In the pitch black darkness where nothing could be heard except the beating of my heart, the sound of a little girl’s voice rhyming in a sing-song voice was heard all of a sudden.
Fuck, fuck. What the hell is this?
“Huuuh, huuuh.”
Without a second thought, I stood up and began to frantically walk away from the voice, leaning my weight leaning against the wall.
“The headless woman floated in the darkness, giggling at her poor prey as she chased him around.”
“Huuuh, huuuh.”
However, the voice, like the call of death, followed me from behind in the darkness.
I was in a state of panic, and all I could think was getting away from that voice anyhow.
However, even after running through the darkness for a long while.
I didn’t stumble upon any corners.
No, it wasn’t that the corners evaporated in thin air and I couldn’t find them.
But rather, I wasn’t standing on the ground anymore, leaning against the wall.
Before I could comprehend what was happening, I started losing all feelings below my neck.
My attempt to escape, wanting to run away was merely my illusion and nothing else.
‘My head is severed.’
Just as the thought entered my mind, I felt my vision turning fuzzy.
It was because my head, which had been severed from my body, fell from the air where it was hovering and began rolling around on the floor.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud!
At the same time, the sound of someone running around the dark clubroom entered my ears.
While my head bounced around like a rubber ball, that footsteps pounded in the darkness frantically, like a lost person desperately searching for a way out.
“I, Lee Joon, President of the ghost story club, had my head severed by a headless woman. And my headless body was occupied.”
With the woman’s head resting on my severed body, it ran around the clubroom frantically. That voice singing the eerie melody was using my own vocal cord and muttering a ghostly message.
And that was the only thing that entered my fuzzy hearing before I lost all consciousness.
[You are dead.]
[Restarting from the previous checkpoint.]
[Loading……]
Perhaps It was the first and only time when I was so ecstatic hearing the system delivering the message of my death.
T/N: If you like my work, consider supporting me on Kofi.
