It must be rush hour; the road is packed with cars.
The very reason I liked this place at first sight when I first came to the officetel was that a view like that was visible from it.
The cityscape I'd dreamed of.
And a room with a window.
When I lived at my uncle's house, my room had no window.
Because I lived in a converted shed.
And was it only a window I lacked?
In that house I was given almost nothing.
Desperate to escape, I'd been sneaking into town since middle school and working myself to death at part-time jobs.......
But the moment it looked like even a little money was piling up, my uncle, my aunt, my damn cousins, all of them would come up with every method under the sun to take it.
From then on I had only one dream.
Complete independence.
I thought it was finally coming true.......
'Young Master.'
The voice ringing in my head brought me back to reality.
I lowered my eyes, and there was a snail on the table, looking up at me.
'There is no time.'
Outwardly it's an ordinary snail.
Palm-sized, cute at a glance and disgusting on closer inspection.
"That guy Gap-o, and now you. What the hell...... are you people?"
The snail thinks for a moment, then answers.
'The human called Gap-o is a Drummer, and I, as you can see, am a pond snail.'
Right, not a garden snail. A pond snail.
"That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, why did you suddenly barge into my life and make it complicated?"
The Pond Snail comes slowly toward me.
'I have always been at your side, Young Master. You simply could not see me.'
"You've been beside me this whole time?"
'I know everything. What you like and dislike, and why you sleep badly every night.'
"......."
'I always wished to help you, but...... as long as you could not perceive me, there was only one thing I could do.'
The Pond Snail withdraws into its shell.
And a small song begins to come from inside it.
The song I'd heard in the elevator.
The one that settles my heart the moment I hear it, the one that even brings a feeling of longing.
So it was you singing.
I'm at a loss for words.
What am I supposed to say?
Absurdity, at having felt a warmth I hadn't felt in a long time from a pond snail rather than a human, and at the same time a strange sense that the loneliness I'd carried until now was being healed a little.
I didn't mind it.
This unfamiliar feeling I have right now.
"Anyway, forget it. The guy Gap-o said...... to hear the rest from you......."
It came out blunt before I could help it.
At my question the Pond Snail comes back out of its shell.
'Honestly, I dislike the human called Gap-o.'
"Huh?"
'There is a saying that knowledge is power, yes?'
"Why bring that up all of a sudden?"
'Here, it is not so. Here, to know is to be responsible.'
The Pond Snail hesitates, then continues.
'The Drummer laid far too much before you. That is not good for you.'
"What do you mean, not good?"
'And the Drummer deliberately leaked his aura to the Formless Special Division. He likely did not wish to wait any longer.'
'Wait for what?'
'For this time that Lady Chae-ryeong made for you. This time free of duty, in which one may enjoy an ordinary life, the Drummer never got to experience it.'
"...... Can you explain that a bit more?"
'That would be difficult.'
The Pond Snail seems to think for a moment, then goes on.
'At present you have inherited only Lady Chae-ryeong's duty. Without any power at all. The more you come to know, the greater the duty this building will press upon you.'
"Duty? What duty do I.......?"
'That you can now see me is not, in truth, a good sign for you. It means you have stepped one pace further into this world.'
"Pond Snail. You, that guy, why do all of you talk in riddles?"
'I do not wish to either, but...... it is all for your sake. Had the Formless Special Division not used Gu poison, I would not have revealed myself to you at all.'
"Gu poison? You mean that bug?"
'Young Master.'
Instead of answering my question, the Pond Snail calls me solemnly.
"What?"
'If things continue as they are, you will die.'
"Die? Why would I?! Because of that stupid bug?"
When I shout and stand up, the Pond Snail's long eyes flinch in shock and retract into its body.
A moment later they extend again.
And those eyes look at me once more.
'The bug is not a great threat. The duty given to you. That duty will soon close around your throat.'
Duty? What goddamn duty now?
What exactly have I ever gotten to enjoy?
Resentment surged, but I swallowed it for now.
"So what am I supposed to do?"
'You must inherit not only the duty but the power Lady Chae-ryeong left behind.'
"Power? How?"
With my question, the Pond Snail begins to grow.
Before long it becomes the strange masked being I met in the corridor.
"Wh......what......?! That was you?"
The spiral wooden mask looks down at me.
'Young Master, bring the key.'
I looked reflexively at the dining table.
The wooden box sits on it.
And inside it, resting quietly, the small iron key.
"If I take the key, does that really solve everything? My life, my mother's situation......?"
The Pond Snail doesn't answer right away.
After a moment it came slowly toward me.
'The key is only the beginning. Starting with it, you must gradually recover what the Mistress left for you.'
Not one thing here is clear or easy.
Haa...... it all still feels like a dream.
What happened before dawn, the man called Gap-o, the man who fed me a bug.
The masked being in front of me now.
Aren't they all just figures out of my own delusion?
.......
No, thinking that is nothing but escapism.
What is happening in front of me is entirely real.
For now, I brought the key from the table.
It says I'll die at this rate, so I might as well listen.......
And today, in a short span, I met a number of people.......
But unlike the others, only the Pond Snail seemed to be on my side.
So I decided to trust it, once.
I took the key out of the box.
"What am I supposed to do with th....?"
That was when it happened.
The key in my hand slowly melted, turned into a lukewarm liquid, and seeped into my palm.
"Wh...... what the.......?"
I shook my hand in shock, but the liquid was already gone.
"What just happened?"
'You are now the master of this officetel, Young Master.'
"I'm the master?"
It says I'm the master, but nothing has changed.
No power exploding inside my body, no knowledge pouring into my head.
Only the air around me feels subtly different than before.
A little damper, I suppose?
'Young Master, let us go now.'
"Go where?"
'To claim the power the Mistress left behind.'
***
The officetel's basement.
Inside the management office, the CCTV room.
Hong Yeon, watching a dozen or so monitors, fixes her gaze on one of them.
"The target is moving."
Behind her, a huge man lies half-reclined in a chair with a newspaper over his face.
Dae-ho pushes the newspaper aside and speaks.
"Probably going out for some air. Leave him be until the day after tomorrow if you can. This whole thing sits badly with me......."
"He is walking toward the stairs."
At Hong Yeon's answer, Dae-ho gets up from the chair in a hurry.
On the monitor she'd been watching, the twelfth-floor corridor.
Do-yul is walking past the elevator toward the corridor on the far side.
He stops in front of the emergency stairwell entrance.
He looks up at the camera.
Red energy begins to shimmer in Hong Yeon's eyes as she watches him.
"He is not alone."
"What?"
The being in the spiral mask comes into her field of vision.
It passes through the emergency exit door, and Do-yul follows the mask in.
Dae-ho rushes out of the room.
Hong Yeon stares into the monitor for a moment, then follows him.
***
I'm going down the emergency stairs, following the Pond Snail.
But.......
The surroundings look different from before.
Barely a few hours have passed.......
Where before it was simply old and worn, now there are talismans stuck here and there....... and the doors to each floor are sealed with thick straw rope, heavy nails, and wire all tangled together.
"It wasn't like this before......"
The Pond Snail stops at my words.
Its mask turns toward me.
'How does the floor look to you?'
"The floor?"
The floor is...... ordinary.
The same gray floor as before.
When I answer that, the Pond Snail starts moving again.
'There is still time. Tell me if the floor begins to look like a wooden floor.'
"What happens if it looks like wood?"
I asked, hurrying after it.
'The aberrations will begin to hunt you.'
"Hunt me, why?! What did I do?"
'They could do nothing while Lady Chae-ryeong was here, but if they learn that the master of the officetel is now you, they will not sit still.'
"What the hell is this officetel, really?"
'I cannot explain now. The more you come to know, the more of Lady Chae-ryeong's remaining power will drain away.'
"......."
It's maddening.
I know nothing, and I'm told not to try to know.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
The Pond Snail's countless legs scrabble busily at the floor as it descends...
But hold on...!
It said it was a pond snail?
Is one supposed to have hard legs, and that many of them?
.......
I pushed down the questions rising in me and followed as close behind as I could.
"So what floor are we going to?"
'The fourth floor.'
Why the fourth floor, of all floors?
How ominous.......
The Pond Snail stopped in front of the door to the fourth floor.
When I stepped up, it quietly held something out.
A black, glossy pond snail shell.
"...... Why are you giving me this?"
'Do not lose it. Keep it on your person at all times.'
When I took the shell, the Pond Snail stepped back.
"You're not coming?"
'Only the master who holds the key, only you, Young Master, can pass through this door.'
"...... So you're telling me to go in alone?"
In that instant, what I went through before dawn today comes back to me.
The thick darkness pooled in the corridor....... and the front doors heaving as if something inside were about to burst out.
"Hey, I can't fight......."
'Keep just two rules and you will be fine.'
"Two?"
'First, when you reach the corridor, you must enter the door with the red handle.'
"Red handle......."
'No other door will do. It must be the red handle. Understood?'
"Got it. And the other?"
'Do not lose the shell.'
"...... All right."
At my answer the Pond Snail bows its head deeply.
'You will be fine, Young Master.'
With its encouragement, I looked at the door to the fourth-floor corridor.
I slowly reached out toward the handle.
The door tangled with thick twisted straw rope and talismans.
The moment my hand touched it, the talismans began to melt, and the straw rope went limp and slithered away like a snake retreating, leaving, soon, nothing but a common gray steel door.
"...... I'm heading......."
I looked beside me, and the Pond Snail was already out of sight.
As if it had never been there at all.
What remained was me, alone.
I opened the door carefully and put my head through, and there was the corridor.
Ordinary.
So ordinary it mocked every worry I'd had until then.
The walls are clean, the fluorescent lights on the ceiling bright and even.
No talismans, no dust, no rusted steel doors.
A wholly bright corridor.
So clean it felt wrong, if anything.
But there is one oddly strange thing.
The handles on the doors lining both sides of the corridor are all different colors.
Silver, gold, blue, purple.......
No pattern to it.
Still, seeing it more ordinary than I'd expected, warmth starts returning to my body.
I can do this!
The red handle.
Don't chicken out. Think about nothing but that.
I stepped into the corridor.
CLACK—!
The door shut behind me.
Then the door vanished without a trace.
......?
It really, completely vanished!
I felt along the wall, and it was smooth.
As if there had never been a door there.......
I'm the master here now, right?
I took the key, didn't I?
Then shouldn't I be able to come and go?
I raised my head, and there was the corridor again.
It hadn't changed, but somehow it felt colder than before.
Don't chicken out! Kang Do-yul.
The red handle!
That's all I think about!
I move forward, checking each handle's color one by one.
The nearest one is gold.
The next door is a plain steel handle, the one after that bronze.......
I kept going, then stopped.
A red handle in front of my eyes.
But...... can that be called a red handle?
It's an old handle thick with red rust.
Red it certainly is.......
The moment I reached my hand toward it, the color of the corridor's fluorescent lights began to change.
To the same red as the handle.
The corridor stained red by the light of those lamps.
I yanked my hand back in shock, and the corridor returned to its original color.
Ominous.
No matter how I think about it, this doesn't seem to be the door.
Right, with this many doors, there has to be a red so obvious at first glance that it leaves no room for doubt.
A handle like that will surely turn up.
That one is absolutely not it.
I steadied myself again and went on down the corridor.
Fixing my eyes on every single handle.
Silver.
Purple.
Bronze.
Sometimes blue, yellow, even handles that looked like clear glass.
But 'that color' alone was nowhere.
I'm straining my eyes hard enough to make them water, but no red handle appears.
And then, at some point, I stopped.
A familiar sight.
In front of me, again, was that rusted handle.
'...... I've gone in a circle.'
I hadn't noticed, walking with my eyes only on the handles, but I'd made a full lap of the corridor.
I looked at the handle one more time.
It is red.
But...... that's because of the rust.
A color like dried blood.
Muddy rather than vivid, artificial rather than natural.
'Is this really the right door?'
What the Pond Snail said was the door with the red handle.
If this door with the rusted handle really were the one I'm supposed to enter, wouldn't it have said 'rusted handle' from the start instead of 'red handle'?
My knees go weak.
Over nothing but the color of a door handle.
I hesitated in front of it for a long time, and in the end, started walking the corridor again.
'One more lap.'
I must have missed it.
There must be a red handle somewhere.
There has to be.
One lap, two laps.
I circled the corridor over and over.
But the place I always stopped was in front of the rust-covered handle.
The red handle was this one and no other.
.......
No choice.
I reached out my hand.
A rough texture under my fingertips.
The doubt was still there, but the choice was made.
Right, they say long deliberation is a certain loss.
It said red, and right now this corridor has only this one.
This is the answer.
No, it has to be the answer.
The moment I gripped the handle, the fluorescent lights began pouring out red light, and that light stained the corridor red.
The whole corridor looked slathered in blood.
I hated the sight, the color, so much that I instinctively pulled the handle.
CLACK.
The door opened, and inside it was thick darkness.
The darkness spilled out and brushed past my body, then began clinging to my skin.
Like stepping into a cloud.
A humid, heavy, damp black cloud.
And the air changed.
I had drawn only one breath, and this smell, soaked with moisture, seeped deep into my lungs.
Not mold, not rotting floor vinyl.
A smell I had definitely smelled somewhere.
Familiar.
Even nostalgic.
'...... Chlorine.'
As the darkness lifted, a space opened in front of me.
Before I knew it, I was standing at the entrance of an indoor swimming pool.