He’d expected it, but he truly never thought the evil spirit would actually create real fire. Could an evil spirit really manipulate natural phenomena like this? It was absurd beyond words.
Sim Seowoo came to deeply understand, from the very core of him, that the ‘balance of the world’ that Heun’s members had spoken of was incredibly important. Honestly, when he’d first heard that, he’d thought it was a rather abstract goal — but they truly were doing something remarkable.
Through the gaps of his fingers, he caught glimpses of the flames flickering. The red light pierced into his eyes painfully, yet it was difficult to look away.
‘It’s hot! It’s hot! It’s hot!’
‘Please save us! Save us!’
‘Oppa…….’
Sim Seowoo’s breathing faltered at the sudden rush of voices from some distant day. Something surged up inside him like nausea, and he bit down hard on his lips to force it back.
“T-the fire is spreading……!”
His friends let out screams at just the right moment. The flames the evil spirit had conjured were slowly expanding their range, and it looked as though the entire hallway would be engulfed any moment now.
Sim Seowoo shook his head at the sight of them stumbling backward. Barely holding onto his composure, he spoke.
“I’m sorry, but right now the only way is to run straight to the stairwell on the other side. I’ll try to clear a path, so stay as close behind me as you can.”
He didn’t know whether this method would work, but he had to try. Even though the path ahead was full of ghosts, the fire hadn’t spread that way — so that was the only route. He couldn’t help but feel that he had to take responsibility somehow, since it was because of him that his friends had gotten tangled up in playing tag with ghosts and were now trapped by flames.
When Sim Seowoo made his firm suggestion, his friends stared at him with dazed expressions.
It felt as though they were encountering expressions from him that they had never seen before, more and more frequently now. The Sim Seowoo they had seen throughout university felt almost like an illusion in comparison.
No — perhaps that was Sim Seowoo trying to appear ‘ordinary.’
“…….”
The three exchanged glances. In truth, they had been quite shaken by what the evil spirit had let slip just moments ago, but right now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.
“Alright, let’s go!”
“Crashing into ghosts beats burning alive!”
“I’ll follow right behind……!”
Sim Seowoo felt grateful for their willingness as he moved ahead. His steps toward the ghost-filled hallway held not a shred of hesitation — if anything, there was a boldness to them that bordered on reckless.
Thankfully, Sim Seowoo’s prediction held true.
[W-what the hell is this guy?!]
[It hurts! It huurrrts!]
Blue sparks erupted from the puppy doll once again, driving the ghosts back. The ghosts actually flinched and retreated in the face of Sim Seowoo barreling forward without a second thought.
The ghosts that had packed the hallway parted like the Red Sea.
“This actually works?”
“Just trust Maeng from now on. He’s right no matter what.”
Park Dongju stared at the ghosts pressed flat against the walls with a stunned expression, and So Dahyeon followed behind Sim Seowoo while continuously expressing her amazement. They had to stay close enough not to leave the range of the blue sparks. A little further and they’d be free from both the ghosts and the flames.
But Yang Gayeong, who had been feeling relieved along with the others, turned around and recoiled.
“W-we’re being chased……!”
[Haha, how long do you think that’s going to protect Hyung?]
The boy had started chasing after them.
During the ghost tag earlier, the boy evil spirit had been absent from the chase. He had set up the elevator as a trap and waited for the four of them to walk in on their own — but now, he was directly pursuing them. Crackling —! Blue sparks erupted, but the evil spirit stubbornly clung to the chase.
The more the boy collided with the sparks, the more his appearance began to change. As though the mask the evil spirit wore was shattering, his face crumbled piece by piece, revealing the pitch-black fog underneath — but the evil spirit didn’t stop the collisions.
Whoooosh!
Not only that, but the flames in the hallway persistently chased after them too, and Sim Seowoo quickly assessed his surroundings. Since they had now broken free from the swarm of ghosts, he needed to change their formation.
“From now on, let me bring up the rear. You three go ahead and open the stairwell door.”
Up until now, all four of them had to move together, so they’d had to go at a slower pace — but now the path ahead was completely clear, so there was no need for that. The three turned back anxiously at his suggestion to hold off the ghosts from behind, but upon meeting his firm gaze, they nodded.
Sim Seowoo felt relieved watching his friends move ahead, but in truth, the situation was hardly one to feel at ease about.
[Ah, what truly tearful friendship this is! Such a selfless attitude — are there kids you were once trapped in a fire with, perhaps? Did you fail to save them?]
The doll’s power was fading.
Sim Seowoo had noticed the blue sparks weakening for some time now, but he hadn’t said a word of it to his friends. The boy cackled as he chased, and the other ghosts, having sensed the change as well, began gathering behind the boy one by one.
Dark, crimson eyes glinted with hunger, as though they were ready to engulf the humans the moment the sparks died out.
[Kihihit, kihik, it’s almost time! Almost!]
[We’re going to smash that wretched doll to pieces no matter what!]
The ghosts cheered the evil spirit on as they followed in a swarm. Sim Seowoo, firstly, found it uncomfortable that adult ghosts were cheering on what was, even if fictional, a child doing a full-body tackle — and secondly, wanted to correct them that it was a plush doll and wouldn’t actually break.
Stray thoughts that popped up like that were practically a habit for him.
There were simply too many moments where he could only endure by thinking thoughts so absurd and disconnected from reality. Because if he didn’t, the truly horrible situations that kept happening — he might have crumbled under the weight of them and gone mad.
[Ahaha! I’m going to make Hyung tremble with fear no matter what! Enough to cry and wail, enough to want to lose his mind entirely!]
The boy laughed as he chased, and Sim Seowoo answered inwardly that he’d already half lost his mind, so there was no need for such effort. More than half, perhaps?
Could they really make it to the stairwell……
By now, the blue glow of the sparks had grown faint, and their range had narrowed considerably. He was just starting to think it was getting dangerously close when Park Dongju, who had been running at the front, reached the stairwell.
“Finally!”
He cheered as he frantically grabbed the door handle and turned it — but.
Clank——!
“The d-door won’t open!”
Clank, clank! No matter how hard Park Dongju pulled, the door didn’t budge. So Dahyeon and Yang Gayeong arrived next and threw themselves at the door as well, but nothing changed.
[Hahahaha! How long has this been my domain now — did you really think you could escape from here?]
The boy burst into uproarious laughter. The humans making such futile efforts were apparently too funny for words, and he stopped mid-chase to cackle so hard he bent backward.
Come to think of it, throughout the entire run down the noisy hallway, they hadn’t seen a single other person. Even if all the other screening rooms were showing movies at the time, at the very least an employee should have come looking — and yet, even with a fire blazing now, no one had shown up. An alarm hadn’t even gone off.
Sim Seowoo suddenly recalled that a violent gust of wind had blown through the area the moment the boy had pointed at all of them in the restroom. Perhaps that had been the signal that the evil spirit’s domain had been established.
[It’s finally time to swallow everyone whole.]
The boy smiled with his lips stretched wide. By now, more than half of his face had crumbled, leaving nothing but pitch-black fog writhing in its place — but it was palpable just how thoroughly the evil spirit was enjoying himself.
Squeeeeeal——!
The evil spirit, having sensed that the blue sparks would only manage to hold back the malevolent energy one final time, came hurtling toward Sim Seowoo with the flames at his back. The force of the charge made it clear that his intention was to shatter the doll’s barrier and engulf him in the same instant.
“OOAAGH, Sim Seowoo!”
“Dodge!”
Sim Seowoo heard his friends’ screams as he faced the evil spirit blankly. His senses were entirely consumed by the red flames trailing behind it, more so than the countless ghosts in its wake.
If the blue sparks went out, the fire would end up swallowing his friends too.
‘……Ah, so in the end, I won’t be able to save anyone this time either.’
Sim Seowoo was paralyzed, caught in a daze. Over the three friends gathered at the stairwell, the faint silhouettes of three small children flickered and overlapped, and a creeping horror washed over him.
Death had come right up to his doorstep, yet all his mind could conjure was the voice from some distant day.
‘Let’s promise each other that we’ll all live an ordinary life together!’
He had tried to honor that promise — but it seemed like it had been a little difficult, in the end. It was unfortunate that he’d ended up seeing ghosts right at the last stretch, making even an ordinary death feel out of reach — but this wasn’t something born of his own will, so surely they could forgive him……
[Hyuuuung!]
Just as Sim Seowoo let out a quiet laugh upon coming face to face with the evil spirit’s grotesque visage filling his entire field of vision —
“This bastard dares to get in anyone’s face, what the fuck.”
A hand laden with rings appeared before his eyes.
Boom! A presence burst through the stairwell door with enough force to blow it off its hinges, and a hand grabbed the evil spirit’s face roughly — and hurled it to the other side. It had been thrown with such force that the evil spirit flew all the way to the elevator on the opposite end and slammed into it with a sickening crunch.
The veins bulging on the back of the hand that had entered his field of vision were a truly fierce sight.
