Under bright, cheerful lighting, people are walking toward the entrance in twos and threes.
Parents holding a child's hand, a young couple with towels around their necks, students laughing and chattering.
A scene that looked utterly ordinary and warm.
Reaching the entrance, they line up in an orderly fashion, roll up their sleeves, and hold out their right arms.
And waiting in front of them....... is a grotesque hand with syringes mounted on its fingertips.
A hand of unreal shape, human joints mixed with a machine frame.
The hand moves with a creak, and a huge needle stabs into their skin, THUNK!
The roughly driven needle tears the skin, and the red blood that runs out gathers at their elbows.
DRIP. DRIP. DRIP.
One drop at a time.
The fallen drops stain the white floor red.
The syringes suck the blood up as if famished, and the red blood flows along the clear tubes at their ends and into the wall.
A sight straight out of a horror game.
But every face is full of smiles.
As if paying a price that was only natural.
When the needles are pulled out, they keep their smiles and head into the pool.
One of them even humming.
"What is that.......?"
As I stood there blankly watching, someone grabbed my shoulder from behind.
I whipped around in shock, and saw a tall security guard looking down at me.
But the guard's face is strange.
A face fixed in an awkward expression, as though the skin of a human face had been pulled on.
"Are you here to swim?"
When he opens his mouth, the skin around it shifts faintly.
And beneath it I saw skin glistening like fish scales.
"Are you here to swim?"
A tone as even as a recording.
"...... Yes......!"
At my hurried answer he smiles mechanically and replies.
"Then please, get in line!"
The guard yanks me by the arm.
Dragged by that hand, I ended up standing in that strange line!
I glanced back, and the guard was still watching me.
Looking around, everyone but me is smiling.
The only one here not smiling is me.
The guard keeps watching me.
Probably because of how I'm acting....
I forced both corners of my mouth up.
I curve my eyes into half-moons and nod awkwardly.
Checking out of the corner of my eye, I see the guard's gaze finally move elsewhere!
So this was the right answer!
I've dodged the guard's attention, but a big problem remains.
THUNK!
That hand, greedily sucking up blood.
Just then I felt a faint vibration in my pocket.
I put my hand in and felt a glossy surface.
I pulled it out, and it was the shell the Pond Snail had given me.
The shell is trembling faintly.
When I concentrate a little harder, I hear a very faint sound from inside it.
I held the shell to my ear and heard someone's voice.
'Young Master.'
It was the Pond Snail.
I never thought I'd be so glad to hear that voice!
"Hey! What the hell is going on?! I'm suddenly at a swimming pool......!"
I must have gotten too worked up.
The people around me start staring at me.
Faces still brimming with smiles.
I lift the corners of my mouth again.
Only then do they take their eyes off me.
'You have entered a Ghost Story, Young Master.'
"...... A Ghost Story......?"
A Ghost Story? Did I hear that right?
'Young Master, you must find a single object in there.'
Watching the people around me, I whispered into the shell.
Like a child making a wish into a conch.
"What object?"
'A compass.'
"...... A compass......? At a swimming pool?"
The line keeps shrinking.
The sound of blood being drawn is getting closer.
'Yes. You, of all people, will surely be able to find it.'
"But...... that hand? What am I supposed to do about that?"
'Are you afraid of needles, by any chance?'
"What......?"
'Even if you are, you must endure it. That hand will not drive you as far as death. That is not this Ghost Story's purpose.'
"...... I won't die, so endure it?"
'Yes.'
Insane.
It can say that because it can't see how much blood that hand is sucking out!
Endure that?
"Isn't there another way? Now that I think about it, I think I'm pretty seriously afraid of needles."
'A Ghost Story shows no consideration for its prey.'
"Huh?"
'Break the rules even slightly, and all you will meet is death.'
Death? Mine?
"Hey, hold on. Then why did you bring me to a place like this?!"
'Lower your voice.'
I looked around, and the people were staring at me again.
Even the grotesque fingers that were drawing blood have stopped and are pointing at me.
'It is only because this is a comparatively kind Ghost Story that you are still alive.'
Kind?
I force a smile. But smiling is really not easy.
I hold the forced smile, eyes crinkled, until their gazes move elsewhere.
My cheeks tremble.
Then the Pond Snail's voice in my ear.
'Young Master, do not be too tense. You will get through this well.'
Damn it.......
"So if I find the compass, I can get out of here?"
'Yes. And there is one more thing you must do.'
"What?"
'I will tell you that when the time comes.'
***
At the moment Do-yul was being swallowed by the Ghost Story, Dae-ho and Hong Yeon still had not made it out of the officetel's basement.
<All Green Cherville> was a building managed by the Formless Special Division, but that did not mean they could access every area of it.
The permitted floors were no more than a handful, including the first basement level and the twelfth, and every other area was classified as unknown territory.
When <All Green Cherville> was first discovered, there had been an argument for exploring everything inside it and putting it on a list.
But that was impossible from the start.
Because <All Green Cherville> was expanding every moment.
A building whose top floor had been the fifteenth as recently as last year had grown to eighteen floors this year.
The number of units on each floor also changes with every observation.
As things stand, it is not even possible to determine exactly how many units exist inside the building.
But more fatal than that was the building's attitude toward outsiders.
<All Green Cherville> defined any approach to a floor other than the permitted ones as intrusion, and responded by trying to thoroughly eliminate the intruder.
The agents who had died attempting to enter unauthorized floors already numbered more than ten.
As a result, the Formless Special Division judged <All Green Cherville> to be X-Grade: an object of management, but one that could not be conquered.
And that X-Grade Anomaly was now holding Hong Yeon and Dae-ho in place.
Keeping them from reaching Do-yul.
"......."
Dae-ho picked up the pink sticky note stuck to the floor.
"Haa......."
Dae-ho let out a sigh.
Where he and Hong Yeon were standing was the landing between the first floor and the first basement level.
No matter how long they climbed the stairs, the place they ended up was here, the landing marked with the sticky note.
Like being trapped in an infinitely repeating space they could never escape.
"Shall I break it?"
At Hong Yeon's question, Dae-ho shook his head.
"I told you. When you deal with a Ghost Story, you approach more carefully."
"Yes. Understood."
Her flat-faced answer must have frustrated him; Dae-ho let out another sigh.
"Haa... I didn't want to use this...."
Dae-ho reached into the bag at his waist.
What he took out was an old tape measure.
Outwardly an ordinary tool.
Except that on its body, letters worn faint with use remained.
'Always rewind after measuring.'
Dae-ho held the tape measure carefully in both hands.
"How many centimeters should do it?"
Hong Yeon studied the ceiling for a while, then answered.
"Twenty should be enough."
At her answer, Dae-ho slowly drew the tape upward.
Then Hong Yeon gripped his shoulder.
When Dae-ho let go of the tape, it returned to its original place.
CLACK!
The instant the tape measure came home, Hong Yeon and Dae-ho vanished.
***
THUNK! THU-THUNK! THUNK!
The sound of several thick needles punching through skin.
That repulsive sound is right in front of my nose.
One, two, three.......
Only three people left ahead of me now.
'Are you nervous?'
The Pond Snail asks.
Of course I'm nervous. What kind of question is that.......?
I don't have the energy to answer.
All I can see is that enormous needle.
The man whose blood was drawn leaves the line, and what's left is one middle-aged man and one child in front of me.
I'm next after that.
I can see the shoulders of the man whose turn is next trembling faintly.
The huge hand reaches slowly toward him.
That was when it happened.
The man stumbled backward and shouted.
"I...... I can't do it!"
The huge hand lunges as if to snatch him.
But it's connected to the wall, so it can't reach him.
Seizing the opening, the man breaks out of the line and starts running.
[Customer, come forward and submit your entrance fee.]
A grotesque voice from the speaker mounted on the wall.
"I...... I said I can't!"
But.......
What was waiting for him....... was that tall guard, the one who had grabbed my shoulder.
The guard's face is grotesquely twisted.
Facial skin covered in heavy creases, and beyond it, through the gaps, glistening, revolting skin.
The guard seizes the man.
Lifts him clean up.
The man thrashes.
The guard grabbed the man's right arm.
CRUNCH!
And tore the right arm clean off!
The sound of bone breaking first, then the sound of blood vessels snapping, and then the man's scream.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
A scream vivid enough to make the skin crawl, dragged up from somewhere deep inside the body.
My brain goes blank, frozen by the brutal sight in front of me.
But that's all. The shock is smaller than I'd expect.
Like watching a scene from a slasher movie.
The sight in front of me is so unreal my thoughts can't keep up with it.
The guard carries the torn-off arm to the hand with the syringes.
DRIP. DRIP. DRIP.......
A trail of red blood follows the guard's steps.
The machine hand drives its needles into the torn arm.
Some nerve response must remain; the arm twitches, and blood begins to be sucked through the tube.
But it runs dry almost at once.
Then the voice flowed from the speaker again.
[Entrance fee insufficient.]
The guard strode back toward the man, lifted him again where he lay twitching intermittently, apparently unconscious.
CRUNCH!
The guard tore off the man's remaining arm.
This time there's no scream.
The guard flings the man aside like garbage.
And the entrance fee is submitted once more.
[Entrance fee submitted.]
With a DING, the smile returns to the guard's face.
But the creases remain in his facial skin.
The guard picks up the man who has lost both arms and throws him toward the entrance.
Watching all of this, the people still haven't lost their smiles.
I'm...... barely managing to stand.
I'm terrified, but I don't dare run.
The more thoughts pile up, the stiffer my body gets.
A terror far beyond understanding.
Then someone taps me on the back.
I turn around, and a middle-aged woman is looking at me with a smiling face.
Still smiling, she points at something for me.
And there, the needle-tipped fingers are waiting for me.
It's my turn.
I stepped forward as if pushed, and the grotesque hand raised its needles toward me.
My thoughts, rebooting late, make me feel extreme terror.
My whole body starts shaking, and my heart begins to pound as if it will burst.
The Pond Snail's shell in my pocket is vibrating faintly again, and the needles begin to close in.
Just as their cold touch was about to reach my skin, I squeezed my eyes shut.
And then.......
DING!
The speaker rang.
And then the voice.
[You hold an annual membership at our center!]
At that I opened my eyes again.
The approaching needles are moving away again.
[Thank you for your continued patronage, member.]
With a sparkling effect, the words 'Thank you' appear on a monitor.
The tall guard came over and pointed at the pool entrance with a smiling face.
"I can just go in?"
At my question the guard nods, smiling.
The entrance door stands wide open for me.
I passed through it with a dazed face, and there in the corner was the man's corpse.
I forced my head up and walked past it.
The shell in my pocket is still buzzing.
Once fully through the entrance, I took the shell out.
"What just happened?"
'The Mistress of the House had already submitted the entrance fee.'
"Then why are you only telling me now?!"
'Young Master, I judged this process to be necessary for you.'
"What?"
'Considering the trials that remain ahead, you must be able to get through something like this easily.'
Maybe it was the tension suddenly letting go?
The strength went out of my legs and I sank to the floor.
'It is not over yet.'
Let me rest a minute, you little punk.
I don't have the energy to speak.
But the Pond Snail's brutally practical advice continued.
'The real danger begins now.'
...... F*ck.......
I forced myself up at that.
Around the corner, a fork appeared, leading to the changing rooms.
The left path, toward the men's changing room, is brightly lit, while the right path, toward the women's changing room, has lights out here and there, leaving it relatively dark.
And in the middle of that fork, a tall woman who looks about my age is standing.
Our eyes meet, and she comes toward me.
She stops in front of me and asks, her face serious.
"You got dragged into this too, right?"