CRACK, SNAP, CREEEAK....
The fissure extended all the way to our feet, then stopped.
As everyone stared at the sudden development, the crack split open and small holes dotted its length.
Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
'Sounds coming from inside the holes...?'
"That's the crack. Everyone, stay alert."
Kang Naju maintained her composure.
From inside the small holes came a continuous scratching sound, like a pencil scrawling across paper.
Skritch-skritch-skritch—
SCRAAATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH-SCRATCH-SCRATCH—
Kang Naju placed one of the item stickers over a hole, and the sound stopped.
BOOM—
The silence lasted only a moment before a massive tremor shook the entire moving walkway space.
Like an earthquake, the shaking was so violent that standing upright was impossible.
"KYAAAAAAH!"
"The cracks...!"
Around the female attendant at the very back, fissures spread outward like roots.
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
A massive hole formed, and the corridor floor began collapsing into it.
"Nobody panic—everyone get onto the moving walkway!"
The instant Kang Naju realized only the tiled floor was falling, she alerted everyone.
Looking around, the moving walkway itself was indeed perfectly intact.
We all scrambled over the dividers and threw ourselves onto the walkway.
THUD,
CRASH!
The remaining floor crumbled entirely into the chasm, forming what looked like a sheer cliff.
The hole was so deep it seemed bottomless.
Now all that remained were the walls, the ceiling, and this endless moving walkway.
Scratch, scratch-scratch-scratch.
SCRATCHSCRATCHSCRATCHSCRATCHSCRATCHSCRATCHSCRATCH.
The moment the tremors stopped, an unpleasant sound that tickled the ears rose from the enormous hole below.
"Oh. Something's coming."
"Huh?"
The First Officer showed no signs of alarm whatsoever, adjusting his sunglasses with an expression of pure fascination.
Following his gaze, something thick and heavy was slowly crawling up from the hole in the distance.
"What... the hell is that."
The female attendant beside me stared in horror.
...A palm!?
A grimy palm roughly twice my height, attached to a forearm at least three meters long, began emerging from the hole.
Then long, dark hairs came into view.
Blink.
Blink, blink.
Not hairs—
"......Eyes!?"
Beneath dense, tightly packed eyelashes, vivid purple irises emerged.
The area around the eyes was a mass of clay-like, dirt-colored flesh, with the arm attached to it—a sight that truly earned the word 'grotesque.'
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE.
The sound of a massive boulder rolling accompanied every movement of the irises.
A colossal eye—matching the enormous palm in scale—stared directly at us.
Then the eyelid curled into a crescent shape, as if smiling. The thing grabbed the moving walkway we were standing on.
"This appears to be the main ghost story inside this walkway."
"So we're supposed to stop that thing?"
Kang Naju and the First Officer assessed the ghost story.
Our only item was the stickers—could those really stop something that enormous...?
I swallowed involuntarily.
BOOM!
Just as the ghost story hurled its massive body onto the walkway with all its might—
BEEP.
WHIIIIIIIIINE—
"This just got serious."
"What!?"
The walkway—which had been motionless—began to move.
And at a fairly fast clip, it was moving backward, toward the ghost story.
"ACK— GASP!"
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD—
Everyone sprinted in the opposite direction of the walkway's movement and the ghost story.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The walkway rails kept running, and the ghost story—still far behind—used its sprawling palms as legs, crawling toward us.
In this Möbius-strip-like space with no visible end ahead, there was absolutely no gap to escape through!
"That thing's crawling toward us on its hands! It's going to catch up any second!"
The female attendant, barely managing to run, cried out between ragged breaths.
Forced to run on what was essentially a giant, never-ending treadmill, I couldn't begin to imagine a way out.
"Remember the report? It said to prevent the cracks. The cracks weren't the floor tiles—the ghost story itself is the crack."
"So we're supposed to keep it from breaking through to reality? But we've got no weapons, and— man, hahaha!"
The First Officer burst out laughing like it was a comedy routine.
Sir, this is not the time for laughing!
CRASH!
"KYAAAAAH!"
As if things weren't complicated enough, the female attendant—who'd been running at the back, practically sobbing—took a hard fall.
Her dress shoes had likely tripped her up mid-stride.
Blink.
Blink-blink-blink-blink-blink-blink-blink-blink!
The ghost story watched the fallen attendant and blinked at an inhuman speed.
Then, like a predator spotting prey, its pupil dilated and its eye flashed with eagerness.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The ghost story slammed its palms down hard and charged along the walkway. The fallen attendant was moments from being crushed flat under that enormous hand.
"S-save, dying, don't want, hic."
The fallen attendant—face drained of color—locked eyes with me. Sheer terror had robbed her legs of any strength.
As our eyes met, time seemed to slow to a crawl.
'I, I need to help her up...'
'But... won't I get caught too?'
'Still, I can't just pretend I didn't see!'
'I have to help...!'
Not knowing which choice was right, my head felt like it was boiling.
"Huff, gasp."
My heart hammered as the situation refused to compute.
"Stop thinking. You focus on the poster text."
The First Officer looked at me and grinned. Carefree, still bright and playful as ever.
Then he turned and broke into a dead sprint—toward the fallen attendant and the ghost story—without a shred of hesitation.
The First Officer stared down the ghost story's overwhelming eye first.
No, wait...
"First Officer!?"
The First Officer jogged with an easy stride, light on his feet.
"First Officer, what are you going to do!?"
All I could do was shout at his rapidly shrinking silhouette.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD—
The First Officer was wearing dress shoes too, yet his long legs never stopped pumping.
WHOOOOSH—
He practically slid to a stop beside the fallen attendant.
"You can stand, right? If you don't get up, you'll be flattened into a pancake by that hand—so up you go."
He quickly checked her condition, then grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet.
The attendant had been trembling non-stop since her fall.
If she tried to run again, her legs would probably give out once more.
Without a moment's deliberation, the First Officer said "Excuse me" and swept the attendant into his arms.
"EEEK!?"
"This is an emergency, so please—whatever you do—don't file a workplace harassment complaint."
"I, I won't!"
The First Officer secured his grip on the attendant's shoulder and the crook of her knees, and ran.
He was taller than me and clearly had better stamina, but still—
'How... is he even doing that...?'
Running in dress shoes, carrying a person, on a belt moving in the opposite direction—that was absolutely not easy.
CRASH!
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
Having lost its prey right before its eyes, the ghost story stopped in its tracks and raged, slamming its palms down over and over.
GROOOWL! GRRRR-RRUMBLE!
The mouthless ghost story let out a guttural, frustrated wail from somewhere deep in its core.
'That thing can scream too.'
"Cheongho."
"Yes, Senior?"
"Let's focus on the posters, like the First Officer said."
At Kang Naju's words, I stopped looking behind us and shifted my eyes to the wall—to the posters.
The only potential escape clue right now was exactly what the First Officer and Kang Naju had said: the densely lined advertising posters.
[From Flights to Hotels, All in One Hassle-Free Stop—'GoGoWay.' Travel Kits for the First 10 Customers!]
[Piacere! From Rome to Florence, Italy—MoreMore Tours]
[Quick and Easy Overseas Hotel Booking at HiTels]
All of them were random, unrelated travel and airline posters with no apparent common thread.
Was there really a clue hidden among these?
Even taking my time to think would barely be enough, yet trying to observe and reason while running nonstop made even a simple problem feel unsolvable.
That was when Kang Naju looked at me and said:
"Rather than just thinking, try doing something—you might stumble onto an answer."
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
She suddenly started punching the posters as she ran.
"S-Senior?"
I couldn't make sense of what she was doing.
"Does Cheongho have any other viable ideas right now?"
"No, I don't."
"Then this is what we do. Start checking the poster text, Cheongho. There's a reason these posters exist."
Without a hint of strain, as if she still had stamina to spare, Kang Naju kept punching posters and advancing.
Seeing her, I too began speed-reading the poster text.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
WHIIIIIIINE—
The walkway kept picking up speed, and Kang Naju ran even faster than the belt, throwing punches as she went.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
SHLORP—
About ten posters in, something happened.
Kang Naju's fist passed straight through the glass surface and sank into the poster. The poster where her hand had entered rippled like water.
"!"
But there was no time to celebrate the discovery.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
GRUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
Furious that it couldn't close the gap, the ghost story's pupils slitted vertically like a snake's. Its whites had burst with blood vessels, turning bright red.
The ghost story was practically a runaway freight train, only twenty paces behind—and showing absolutely no sign of stopping.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
Its enormous body kept scraping the walls, and the glass casings around the posters began to shatter.
"Did you check the poster text?"
"Huff, gasp— it said [One Random Customer Wins Maximum Mileage! GonAir.] The whole poster was, hah, simple—illustrations instead of photos."
Talking while running felt like my heart was going to leap out of my mouth and splatter on the ground.
My side was cramping too, so I had to clamp a hand over it while running.
"One random customer wins mileage...."
Something clicked as Kang Naju murmured the words.
THUD-THUD-THUD—
I overtook Kang Naju and started checking the posters ahead. Then one particular phrase grabbed my attention.
Come to think of it, I'd noticed a few like this before the ghost story appeared.
[Don't Miss Out! Asiago Air Spring Special OPEN! First 3 Customers Get Big Perks!]
[From Flights to Hotels, All in One Hassle-Free Stop—'GoGoWay.' Travel Kits for the First 10 Customers!]
And right in front of me—a poster with blooming cherry blossoms and a large airplane—bore a massive headline:
[May, the Month of Family! Warm Spring Welcome—Seat Upgrade for the First 1 Customer! Seb Airlines]
I matched my running pace to a steady rhythm, swallowed hard, and reached my hand toward the poster.
SHLOOOORP—
The glass surface and poster swallowed my arm, sinking inward.
A strange, squishy sensation—like touching mud—passed through, and then I could feel an empty space beyond.
"People! Look for posters that mention a specific number of people!"
"Is that the escape route?"
"'Prevent' means stopping the ghost story from getting out. Right now, this is the most likely exit!"
The First Officer smirked as if the theory checked out.
"Okay, confirmed."
He immediately poured on the speed. He sprinted toward the poster where I'd stuck my arm in.
"Tell me what's inside."
"...What's inside?"
The First Officer practically launched the attendant he'd been carrying straight into the poster!
The poster was large enough for a person to duck through, and like a secret door, it let the attendant pass right through.
"Can you hear me? What's it like inside!?"
[It's, it's reality! There are tourists, other staff—everyone's here!]
From the other side of the poster, the attendant's voice rang out, brimming with tearful joy.
BANG-BANG!
The First Officer punched the same poster again, but the glass had resolidified—no passing through this time.
Retracing the text: the promotion was for the first 1 customer only.
"We might only be able to exit in the exact number stated on the poster!"
Kang Naju nodded, then stuck a 'Restricted Access' sticker above the poster the attendant had entered.
"This seems to be the prevention method."
The ghost story barreled forward on its massive arms and hands at a terrifying speed.
With that hulking mass charging toward us, the other posters it had already passed were smashed—glass shattered, posters torn or punctured.
But the poster Kang Naju had placed the sticker on remained pristine, even when the ghost story slammed into it.
The 'Restricted Access' sticker.
The only way to prevent the ghost story from following through the exit.
"Those stickers aren't the item for nothing. Mystery solved."
"Wait—if that's the case...."
After entering a first-come-first-served poster to escape... someone had to stay behind to apply the prevention sticker—otherwise, everyone's safety wasn't guaranteed!
If the poster was damaged after someone passed through, there was no telling what might happen.
Which meant someone had to stay behind until the very end.
...Which one of us three?
"Ngh."
Just then, the First Officer—who'd maintained a bright smile the entire time—furrowed his brow. The sunglasses hid most of his expression, but something looked pained.
"Are you hurt, sir?"
"Should've done more leg day. Tweaked my ankle a bit running with her."
The First Officer laughed sheepishly.
Kang Naju and I looked at his ankle. Even amidst the frantic running, his entire ankle was clearly swollen and flushed red.
It looked agonizing at a glance, and he'd kept running while carrying someone on top of that?
GROOOWL! GRR-RRRUMBLE!
As if to deny us any time to worry, the ghost story roared and closed in.
Then, unable to reach its prey, one side of its clay-like body started bubbling.
Something pointed jutted out abruptly.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—
After the sound of a joint snapping, what emerged from the body was its second arm—the right one.
The car-sized palm stretched forward—not toward the ground, but straight ahead. One fall now, and we'd be snatched without so much as a whimper.
"We're out of time. You two go first—"
"No."
Kang Naju looked at me. I caught her signal and nodded simultaneously.
The two of us grabbed the First Officer's arms and shoved him toward a poster reading [Carry-On Pouch for the First 1 Customer].
"Wait, hold—"
SHLOOOORP!
The poster swallowed the First Officer whole—from his head down to his swollen ankle—as if drinking him in.
Immediately, I peeled off a sticker and slapped it firmly over the poster he'd gone through.
"Cheongho, how many stickers do you have left?"
"Four."
"Give me all of them."
"......"
...That means she's going to stay behind until the very end?
My legs kept moving, but my head felt like it was freezing over, every thought grinding to a halt.
"Yes, I do plan to get Cheongho out first—but I'm going to escape too. I've been doing this for a long time. I should get married at least once, shouldn't I?"
Kang Naju read my expression and spoke with a confident smile.
At this rate, I'd hit my physical limit before the ghost story caught me.
My running stride was so tangled I felt like I'd fall any second—I was barely holding on through sheer willpower now.
'But, even so.'
I didn't even realize that the hand clutching the stickers was trembling with tension.
It was frustrating as hell, I knew that. But I had no idea how Kang Naju planned to escape on her own, and I couldn't just hand them over and say 'okay' without understanding the plan.
"It's your first flight today—don't go activating your martyrdom mode already. Just trust your crew."
Kang Naju's firm words, combined with the memory of Jeong Siun saying she'd practically solo-cleared a ghost story in two hours, pushed me past the point of resistance.
I handed over every last sticker I had to Kang Naju.