Ch.0Moving In

I’m not a genius.

I had harbored bitterness toward this sentence.

“Should I put the luggage here?”

“Sorry for just standing around.”

“What are you sorry for? Your back is wrecked and you can barely stand.”

Moving into a visibly old corridor-style apartment. My brother sets down the moving boxes on the floor.

He works at a major corporation and is thirty years old. My much older brother who recently got married.

“You don’t have many reasons to sit around now, so try to exercise a bit.”

“Yeah, I should.”

“When your back gets damaged, you need to support it with muscles, not bones. Oh, want to join the gym around here? A friend of mine runs it, and he’ll take good care of you.”

“I’ll think about it. For now, I just want to rest.”

Some careers can’t be achieved through ordinary effort.

No. It would be more accurate to say there’s not enough time to put in the effort.

Even drawing a single picture properly requires considerable skill. If you need to string hundreds of them together to create a story, ten years would be laughable.

During that time, your livelihood falls apart and your parents sigh with disappointment.

-The art style is beautiful but somehow ambiguous.

-It lacks the charm to captivate people.

I wanted to become a webtoon artist.

But the comments were all feedback I couldn’t possibly fix. On top of that, people in the webtoon industry were terrifyingly indifferent.

What was even harder to bear was the fact that young newcomers appeared every year.

I gritted my teeth. I was determined to make up for the difference in talent with effort. I took on commissions left and right. I earned money through part-time jobs, and in my spare time, I sat in front of my tablet drawing.

“Right, your tablet. Did you throw it away?”

“Yeah. I tossed it while moving. Couldn’t stand the sight of it.”

“…Good for you.”

My brother made a bitter expression, then quickly turned his gaze toward the door.

“I’ll be going then. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay.”

Thud.

After moving from one small room to another, I finally moved into this apartment with my brother’s help.

This was the first day.

All old residential complexes follow the same pattern. First, people leave, then the shops close down. Then churches start moving in one by one.

Before you know it, dozens of neon crosses light up every night. It becomes like a cemetery.

This place is the same.

I opened a beer. Sitting by the window, I could vividly feel the cold air and the noise from the surrounding roads.

Empty streets. But hundreds of crosses.

Strange. This is the first time I’ve seen such an imbalanced place.

A red wave rises. All the streetlights are off. The noisy road suddenly goes quiet.

Click-

The lights inside went out.

A power outage? Thinking strange thoughts at a time like this makes me anxious.

I can barely see anything. Shining my smartphone light around doesn’t help much.

Right. I’m tired anyway. I might as well just go to sleep.

“Electrical inspection! Is anyone home?”

A man’s voice echoes through the corridor.

“You need to open the door so we can check the circuit breakers! Please cooperate for quick power restoration!”

…My body feels heavy. I think I might have a fever too.

“Is anyone there?”

“Yes.”

I don’t know why they’re going door to door instead of checking at the management office during a power outage, but I guess that’s how things work in a rundown apartment.

I crossed the living room and grabbed the door handle.

Clank!

I closed the door immediately without time to think.

What’s outside the door isn’t human. It has a human-like form, but something’s wrong. I couldn’t see clearly, but I think it was around the eyes…

Did I see wrong?

Wondering if I made a mistake, I cautiously spoke.

“Um…”

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Just before the door lock could turn. Suddenly, an enormous force pushed in, preventing the door from closing and forcing it inward.

Thud!

Click-click-click-click

With my last bit of strength, I put the bolt on the door.

A small gap, just big enough for an arm to fit through. Through that gap, I could see it.

A chilling black silhouette.

From the completely empty eyes, somehow, I could feel its gaze.

Slam!

I barely managed to close the door.

“Electrical inspection!”

“Please open the door!”

As if nothing had happened, the voice passed through the corridor again.

“Huff. Huff. Huh…”

I barely lay on the floor, catching my breath.

“What the hell. What the actual hell…”

But something feels strange.

“Huh?”

“Ah. Ah.”

“Ah?”

My voice sounds strange. It sounds almost like… a woman’s voice.

I went into the bathroom and shined my smartphone flashlight.

Me, standing in the mirror.

The blood that had rushed to my head suddenly drained to my feet.

A woman with an innocent impression was staring back at me, terrified.