Chapter 25
Despite the commotion, the dormitory corridor remained quiet, though one might expect someone to come out to see what was happening.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could vaguely make out the room. I sighed and looked around, feeling puzzled.
“Huh? Where is this?”
At a glance, it didn’t seem like a dormitory room. It looked more like a storage room filled with items.
I quickly looked up to check the room number next to the door.
B101.
It was the first basement floor. But the girls’ dormitory doesn’t have a basement…!
Click, click.
I frantically tried knocking on the door, pulling it, and pushing it. But the door wouldn’t open. Cold sweat broke out. It seems we’re trapped here.
“The door won’t open?”
I nodded glumly at Erica’s question.
“No.”
Erica sighed, patting my head.
“We should catch our breath and think for a bit.”
We sat together, brainstorming escape methods, but couldn’t come up with anything.
‘Where did Blackie go?’
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Blackie for a while. It would be nice if ghosts appeared at times like this, but there were no ghosts either.
“I’m sorry, Erica. About saying there’s no such thing as ghosts or ghost stories.”
After looking around for a while, Lady Sutherland apologized to Erica in a more subdued voice.
“It’s true that I didn’t help when Eyerose kept seeing and suffering from ghosts. I have no excuses either.”
Erica replied with an even darker expression than before. Her characteristically cold expression and tone had softened considerably.
“I would have done the same. How could anyone believe in ghosts or ghost stories? Unless they experience it firsthand like this.”
Lady Sutherland’s voice was tinged with tears at the end. She spoke to me as if she had made a firm resolution.
“This is all thanks to you, Melody. If we escape from here alive, I’ll definitely repay you.”
Now she’s calling me Melody instead of Hastings, sounding more friendly. Then she shook her head and let out a heavy sigh.
“You looked so brave, leading the way to protect us with that delicate body that looks like it might break if you put too much strength into it…”
B-brave? Given the context of the conversation, she must be talking about me, right?
“I, Sally, was so moved that I had no choice but to follow the fragile Melody’s words.”
I replied, feeling a bit uncomfortable with Lady Sutherland’s, no, Sally’s third-person speech.
“We’re not out of danger yet, so we can’t let our guard down.”
I warned the two as I looked around. I was checking if there were any other exits.
It was too dark, without even windows since we were underground.
Only after my eyes adjusted to the darkness did objects start to become faintly visible.
In the storage room of about 5 pyeong (about 16.5 square meters), there were four rows of shelves filled with items.
Huh?
But between them, I saw a black shadow.
You might say it’s already dark, so what shadow, but there really was something large between the shelves.
Getting a bit closer, it looked like something was covered with a black cloth on top of the items.
There seemed to be something huge, about the size of a person, underneath.
It looked just like a cloth draped over a person crouching down.
I got close, but I was afraid to check. Who knows what might happen if I disturbed it unnecessarily.
In the end, I decided to look for a way out of here first. But still, no other emergency exit was visible.
That’s when it happened.
Knock, knock, knock.
The sound of someone knocking on the door was heard.
There’s only one door in this storage room. The door I came in through is now locked.
‘Wait, no. The sound definitely wasn’t coming from the entrance direction.’
It was coming from behind.
‘Huh? It’s gone.’
The black cloth that was between the shelves just moments ago had disappeared. As if nothing had ever been there.
Knock, knock, knock.
Then the knocking sound was heard again.
“What’s that sound?”
Erica and Lady Sutherland, who had followed me at some point, whispered to me in lowered voices.
Instead of answering, I just shook my head as if I didn’t know. Somehow, it felt like we shouldn’t make a sound.
We held our breath and followed the sound, passing between the shelves to reach the end of the storage room.
There was something like a cleaning supply closet there. The closet was covered in students’ graffiti.
“Is, is anybody there?”
A human voice could be heard from inside the cleaning closet.
“Help, please help me. sob hic Someone’s trapped in here.”
I hastily opened the cleaning closet.
It seemed that while it wasn’t locked from the outside, it couldn’t be opened from the inside.
Inside was a female student wearing the Saint Gloria’s Private School uniform, crouching down.
“Are you okay?”
She raised her head, her face covered in tears, at my question.
[Anna Belouille]
That was the name written on her name tag.
Compared to the worn-out name tag, her uniform was impossibly clean. Her legs exposed beneath the uniform skirt were covered in blood, but her shoes looked new.
‘Something’s off.’
Overall, there was a sense of incongruity. A chill ran down my spine and my whole body’s hair stood on end.
I had a similar feeling when I realized the people of Chesswind Village weren’t human…
“Oh my, Lady, are you alright?”
“What grade are you in? Why were you trapped in here?”
Sally and Erica reached out to Anna with worried faces.
I quickly blocked their hands and said to Anna,
“?uoy era ohW”
[“Who are you?”]
“Melody, what’s wrong?”
“What kind of spell is that?”
Ignoring Sally and Erica’s confusion, I spoke to Anna again.
“?uoy era ohW”
[“Who are you?”]
Anna grinned. Her mouth split to the ends of both ears.
“Caught you”
I hastily pushed her back in and closed the cleaning supply closet.
Hee hee hee hee hee! Hee hee hee hee heek! Play with me! Play with me!
Strange laughter echoed loudly from inside the closet.
I pressed both hands against the closet door, breathing heavily. Cold sweat ran down my hands from tension.
“Melody, what was that just now?”
“W-what on earth just happened…?”
I silently kept pressing on the closet door, ignoring Erica and Sally’s questions.
After a while, the closet went quiet. Only then did I let out a sigh of relief and remove my hands.
“I’ve heard somewhere that ghosts do everything backwards. Something seemed off, so I tried saying it, but I didn’t expect it to be a real ghost.”
Erica and Sally looked surprised at my answer. They stood there, unable to continue speaking, just looking at me.
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Melody, you have really good situational judgment, huh?”
“So this is what it means to get a perfect score on the transfer exam. I didn’t believe it at first, but Melody really is smart.”
This is too much for something like this. I scratched my cheek in embarrassment and shrugged.
“Let’s think about how to get out of here again.”
We need to find the medium. There must be a medium the evil spirit of this ghost story used, but what could it be?
‘Could it be the elevator after all?’
A medium that exists both in the other world and this world. And the number code 1748.
Then I thought again about the student named [Anna Belouille].
I’ve heard that ghosts don’t have names. So why did she have a name?
I opened the cleaning supply closet again.
Anna Belouille was still there, crouched down and asleep.
「Chapter 17, verse 48 of the Bible.」
「Thus, the door was opened. The lambs lost their way home.」
I recited the Bible verse again and said,
“It seems ‘the lost’ lamb was referring to her.”
“M-Melody, what are you doing!”
“It’s dangerous! Close the door quickly!”
I shook my head and said,
Blackie said that evil spirits and wandering spirits exist in this world.
“I think she’s not an evil spirit, but a wandering spirit.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
Sally asked back. But there was no time to explain in detail.
I took out the holy water Blackie had given me, sprinkled it on the sleeping Anna’s body, then pressed the cross necklace against her forehead.
Hiss—
Anna’s eyes flew open.
“Wh-what…!”
This is the method Blackie told me. He said that for wandering spirits like this, just sprinkling holy water and pressing a cross is enough to exorcise them.
Sure enough, I could see Anna writhing in pain.
“Aaaargh!”
Gray, hazy smoke rose from her body. As if she was burning away.
Eventually, she turned to ashes and disappeared.
That’s when Sally pointed behind the cleaning supply closet.
“Gasp. There’s a door here!”
“Melody, are you okay? Come over here too.”
Erica and Sally peered into the cleaning supply closet. There was definitely something behind it.
Together, we pushed the closet to the side. Then a small emergency exit with an iron door was revealed.
[Doors and mirrors are passages connecting the ‘other world’ and this place. If you accidentally cross over to the ‘other world’, the way back is always the same. Find the medium and return to reality through a door or mirror.]
Blackie had said something like that before.
Come to think of it, the student council president from 903 said something similar.
“Be careful of doors and mirrors. If a door somewhere is open, you should always close it. Miss Hastings, you need to be especially careful.”
Erica grabbed my shoulder.
“Are you okay, Melody?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for worrying.”
I smiled at her.
There was a mountain of things to think about, but I didn’t want to show it to them.
And then I belatedly noticed Blackie sitting next to the door.
“I wondered where you went, but you were here.”
Blackie didn’t answer, just silently looked up at me.
“Blackie, is this the right way to escape?”
“Melody is talking to the cat again.”
Sally looked at me like I was a weirdo and picked up Blackie.
“Let’s go for now.”
I smiled at her and opened the door with a click. As we exited, we saw a long corridor. Thankfully, it was indeed an escape route.
“Gasp, we’re out!”
We’re out. We made it out.
Sally kept mumbling the same words, sobbing. Eventually, she hugged me. Her body was trembling with intense emotion.
🐈⬛
Thank you for reading! ♡
