Ch.104Blood Capsule (3)

“Ten years ago?”

“Yes. Interesting, isn’t it?”

Yoon Daju smiles as if having a pleasant dream.

In the dark counseling room, on the soft bed.

A dreamlike atmosphere naturally forms, but Heo Yoon remains alert.

“So what do you plan to do with me now?”

“…”

A completely different light flashes in Daju’s eyes.

“I’m going to fuck you senseless.”

“What?”

Before Heo Yoon can properly grasp the situation.

Firmly gripping her wrist to prevent escape, Yoon Daju moves in close.

“Hey, Yoon Daju. Let go of me.”

Her startled voice trembles.

Heo Yoon gradually backs away until she’s blocked by the wall.

All she can do now is squeeze her eyes shut and shake her head.

“No! Let go! Let go!”

“It’ll only take a moment, unni.”

“Aaaah!!!”

That was exactly where it ended.

Yoon Daju bursts into laughter while wiping away tears.

“Ah. This is seriously hilarious.”

“What the… you…”

Her wrist is finally released.

Heo Yoon catches her breath and straightens her clothes.

“What do you mean? Just typical Yoon Daju. How do you fall for the same pattern again, unni?”

“…”

Heo Yoon is left speechless.

The normal Daju wouldn’t act like this.

She keeps to herself the feeling that the level of Daju’s pranks seems to have become much more extreme than usual.

She checks the time.

Seven minutes have passed since Yebin left with the blood capsule.

If nothing unusual happened, Dabin, who’s waiting at the elevator, should have received the capsule by now.

Still, they can’t leave this place yet.

They need to wait three more minutes.

This is extra time they’ve set aside in case Yebin is still in the corridor of this floor.

That’s enough time for conversation.

Heo Yoon starts:

“So Daju. What’s different from before?”

“Nothing really changed. My old memories just became a bit clearer?”

Yoon Daju sits back down on the edge of the bed, swinging her feet.

“I took a capsule too. It seems to fix memory loss and mental confusion. So now I can recall things that happened before.”

It’s almost like being under hypnosis.

It feels as if Yoon Daju is experiencing a past life, and she’s become the person asking questions.

“Before? You mean you were one of the researchers ten years ago?”

“Yes.”

Daju nods with a bright smile.

Heo Yoon pieces together what she knows.

The facilities within the apartment. If someone could run experiments on machinery and organize data, they weren’t an ordinary survivor.

That means an organization completely different from the survivors.

Though information is extremely limited, Heo Yoon knew another answer.

“…You were a Foundation researcher.”

Daju didn’t bother to answer, but it was clear.

Yoon Daju glances at Heo Yoon’s phone screen, then gets up from the bed.

“Shall we go now?”

“Wait. We still have things to talk about.”

Many things.

There are dozens of questions coming to mind right now.

But the biggest one is:

“How old are you exactly?”

“Hmm… On average, about 20.3 years old. You’re still my unni.”

That only raised more questions.

***

When I opened my eyes again, it was with countless memories.

Memories that weren’t mine became mine.

Among those memories, there were quite a few scenes of reading books intently.

That’s how I know how Frankenstein’s monster was created.

Body parts from various corpses were stitched together to create a body, then shocked with electricity.

This body is the same.

No. Should I say the mind?

The purpose of the experiment was to gather memories from various people to create a single consciousness.

I am the result.

Even now, countless memories are mixed in my head.

– I was a man who could use simple telekinesis. I used this ability to create a cult and rape many women.

– A bright, smiling red-haired girl. She worked at Subway. Honey oat bread. Italian BMT with an extra scoop of egg mayo and sprinkled with shredded cheese is the most delicious.

– A scene of being high on drugs. Looking in the mirror, a disheveled woman stands there swaying.

However, the most intense were the memories of “Yoon Daju.”

A researcher from the Foundation.

Then teratomas grew all over her body, and she was torn into thousands of pieces and died.

She had created a terrible epidemic by messing up an experiment.

Fellow researchers took pictures of my body and wrote documents.

I screamed for help because it hurt so much, but they didn’t even give me a single painkiller.

I don’t particularly hold a grudge. It was my fault.

Still, there aren’t many experiences that can beat this.

And if there’s one more thing that comforts me, it’s that I’m not the only failure.

The experiment that created me failed too.

The goal was probably to mix memories from different people in appropriate proportions to create an entirely new soul, but it didn’t work as planned.

The control shifted heavily toward the most intense memories.

Among the mixed memories, those of researcher “Yoon Daju” were just a tiny part, but the amount of memories didn’t matter much.

Someone must have extracted memories from “Yoon Daju’s” corpse and planned this experiment.

I don’t know who it was, but I’d like to go and mock them.

…Three minutes have passed.

That’s enough time for Yebin to return to the elevator, so we don’t need to stay here anymore.

I walk to the counseling room door and look back.

Yoon unni looks like she still doesn’t trust me, but she’s silently following behind.

It’s dangerous to walk so far apart.

The long, dark corridor of the deserted hospital.

As we walk forward, laughter gradually becomes clearer.

It’s coming from behind the patient room doors on both sides of the corridor.

Ahaha…

Haha…

Hahahaha…

They say laughing ghosts are more dangerous than crying ones.

There’s also a saying that child ghosts are the scariest among ghosts.

Even without delving into such superstitions, this corridor is quite dangerous right now.

If anyone becomes isolated, they probably won’t survive intact.

Yoon unni seems to feel the unease too.

“Daju. Slow down a bit.”

“Yes, stay close behind me, unni.”

“…”

I stop walking and wait for unni.

She hesitates instead of coming straight to me.

Meanwhile, I notice something unusual at the end of the corridor.

Flicker. Flicker.

One of the rooms in the distance repeatedly turns its light on and off.

It’s just light leaking through the door crack, but it’s impossible not to notice.

Tick,

Tick.

Tick,

Tick.

I can hear the sound of a switch being pressed.

How loud can the sound of a switch being pressed behind a door be?

And it’s quite far away.

But I can hear it clearly.

In the long corridor, there’s only one “flickering room.”

It’s located at least ten rooms away.

Now nine rooms.

Gradually, the flickering room gets closer.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Blinking with an irregular rhythm.

The sound of the switch being pressed becomes increasingly clear.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Laughter and noise mix together.

After watching the light’s movement, I turn back to Heo Yoon.

“Unni. Come over here.”

Finally, unni comes and stays close to me.

Feeling suddenly emotional, I point to the flickering room and ask:

“Still, I’m better than those things, right?”

I wanted to hear an answer.

But unni just silently stares at the shadows.

“Huh?”

“…”

Even when I ask again, it’s the same.

“Tell me I’m better.”

“…Huh?”

Unni finally snaps out of it and answers.

“Y-yeah. Daju.”

Unni approaches me.

I hold her hand tightly and fidget with it.

Tick, tick, tick.

Now we’re just five rooms away.

Elements that weren’t visible from a distance can be seen more clearly.

First, the number of rooms.

The flickering room wasn’t just one.

As if drawing a boundary in the corridor, two rooms facing each other flicker in pairs.

“Unni. Wait a moment.”

I let go of the hand I was holding.

What I’m about to do is a simple test.

I take out a snack bag from my backpack and throw it toward the flickering light.

Thud.

I immediately shine a flashlight to observe.

Pop!

The nitrogen-filled snack bag makes a crisp sound.

But there’s nothing visible around it.

Scratch scratch scratch-

Next comes the sound of something like fingernails scratching a smooth surface.

Still, there’s only the snack bag in the corridor. Nothing else is visible.

Finally, the bag bursts with a bang!

Potato chips scatter all over the corridor with the torn plastic.

“…”

Heo Yoon, who had been quietly watching the experiment, gasps.

“Is there something where the light is coming from?”

“Yes. We need to be careful.”

“So the entire corridor section between the flickering rooms is dangerous.”

“That’s right.”

I nod lightly and add one more thing.

“And the distance we need to cross is about 1 meter.”

“How do you know that?”

“By looking at the range where the potato chips were crushed.”

The potato chips placed where the light flickers are shattered, but the chips that went beyond that area are intact.

Especially the chips scattered in front of the door keep breaking repeatedly, now almost reduced to powder.

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker.

Ahaha.

Ahahahaha.

Footprints appear on the potato powder.

Potato.

Potato powder.

Suddenly, with dizziness, my mind clears.

What was I thinking when I packed that?

“Uuugh!”

“Why are you suddenly like this?”

“Potato…”

Tears just start flowing. My mind goes blank and I can’t speak properly. My body trembles involuntarily, making it impossible to stand properly.

“I’m scared of potatoes… There are potatoes in that corridor…”

I wonder how I even thought to bring potato chips.

Did I momentarily not recognize them because I’ve seen raw potatoes, baked potatoes, and steamed potatoes, but never fried ones?

But that’s potato powder.

Though it’s different because it’s fried, I’ve seen potato powder many times.

Potato.

Please stop.

Please.

With trembling fingertips, I barely manage to grab unni.

“Unni. Save me.”

My voice comes out crying involuntarily.

“Unniiii.”

If it were my researcher days, I would never have been like this.

But too many other memories are mixed in. The self is mine, but the thought patterns and reactions feel pre-set?

In short, it feels like I’ve become a completely different person who mistakenly thinks they’re Yoon Daju.

“…”

Unni looks at me quietly.

In her gaze, I could no longer find any doubt.

She smooths my disheveled hair and adjusts her bag.

Her gaze directed toward the end of the corridor.

“Just close your eyes for now.”

I did as unni said.

“Is there no other way from here to the elevator?”

“No.”

“Then let’s run through in one go.”

“What? There are potatoes there, and we’re going through?”

“No. We’ll wait here and then pass through. There are no potatoes there.”

***

Heo Yoon comforts Yoon Daju while keeping her eyes on the corridor.

A pair of flickering lights approaches, moving through the corridor.

“So, Daju. The potatoes are inside the corridor, right? If we wait here and jump over the light, it has nothing to do with potatoes, right?”

“Is that, *hiccup!* Is that so?”

“Yes. I’ll clean up the potatoes later.”

What happened to the person who aggressively said she’d fuck her senseless? Yoon Daju sits in the corridor, trembling and whimpering.

It’s ridiculous in a way, but also pitiful.

This is the usual Daju.

Her pranks might be a bit extreme, but she hasn’t changed much.

As for the questions that come to mind, Daju will answer them later if asked slowly.

That’s the kind of person she is.

Seeming a bit calmer now, Daju wipes her tears and asks:

“But won’t we die if we just go through? Even the snack bag was shattered.”

“It was fine for a short while.”

“There were constant impacts even then. It could withstand because of the nitrogen inside.”

“That’s true.”

Heo Yoon fell into thought for a moment.

“Daju. You packed clothes in your bag, right?”

“Yes.”

“Take them all out.”

Heo Yoon also opens her bag and takes out all the clothes inside.

Tick, tick, tick.

The light has now approached just five rooms ahead.

Just five more doors and it will be here.

This time, as a test, she throws a plastic water bottle.

Crunch-!

Unlike the snack bag that held out for quite a while, the water bottle immediately crumples, spraying its contents everywhere.

“…This is going to be really tough.”

There were only one or two sets of clothes in the bag.

Heo Yoon bit her lip firmly.

“Daju. Wear everything you can and run.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t trip and fall, just run for your life. Got it?”

“Yes.”

The light approaches.

After confirming that Yoon Daju is ready, Heo Yoon layers all the clothes she has on her body.

Thickly layered clothes.

They might not be sufficient shields, but perhaps they can at least buy some time.

She decided to place her hopes on that.