Ch.127Kind Hotel (6)

People looked at us with eyes full of expectation and asked.

“Um, excuse me…”

They were so excited they could barely string their words together.

“How did you two get in here?”

“Do you know about the entrance, miss?”

“Please tell us.”

But I couldn’t give them the answer they wanted.

“Dabin. What should we do?”

“We don’t know either. The last thing I remember is being chased by some slime-like monster.”

“?”

Yebin shot me a puzzled look, but only for a moment.

“Ah…”

Sighs erupted from all around, while a few who hadn’t lost hope asked more questions.

“So you woke up here after passing out?”

“Or maybe you accidentally came in here while running away?”

“You came in here directly, right? Right?”

“I-I’m not sure. I…”

I shook my head as if I knew nothing.

To an outsider, it would look like a group of people bullying an innocent girl.

“I think I was caught by a monster at the end.”

“And then? Do you remember what happened next?”

People pressed on, trying to grasp even the smallest clue.

“Wait, hoo. Just a moment. Suddenly…”

This was acting, of course.

At times like this, an innocent face helps. Not that I like giving that impression.

I took deep breaths as if recalling painful memories, then looked up with dead eyes.

“I remember now.”

“What? Your memory?”

“Yes… I… I definitely died…”

Hope faded from people’s eyes.

“I was living in a parking lot with others, but everyone died. I was caught while trying to escape, and my body dissolved in the slime.”

“No…”

People let out sighs of despair.

I looked around at the audience with blank eyes.

“But why? Why did I wake up here again?”

Only silence filled the dark space.

“I see. Nothing we can do then.”

“It was a pointless hope.”

Disappointed people left, and only one remained.

A timid-looking boy who appeared to be no older than elementary school age.

“Um, hello.”

The boy greeted us awkwardly.

“Everyone just left, so I thought I should at least explain something to you.”

He took a deep breath, preparing his next words.

“You two are probably dead.”

“…”

A moment of silence.

After waiting a bit, I spoke first.

“So this is the afterlife?”

“Yes. That’s how everyone else got here too. Some had their heads explode while reading a strange book, others had their bodies melt after taking a wrong turn in a maze.”

“So everyone died in the apartment.”

“Yes.”

An afterlife is necessary everywhere.

Even in an apartment isolated in space and time.

Souls that have lost their physical bodies must gather somewhere.

“Everyone seems to want to leave this place. Why is that?”

“Well…”

The boy rolled up his sleeve to show us.

A faucet was sprouting like a seedling beneath his pale skin.

“If you stay here too long, furniture starts growing from your body.”

“I see. Is there anyone who doesn’t experience this?”

“No. Everyone becomes strange, but…”

The boy looked around quickly, then changed the subject.

“Yes. Everyone becomes strange here. That’s why we need to leave quickly.”

“Wait—”

“I’m sorry!”

Leaving only those words, the boy quickly disappeared.

Once again, only the two of us remained in the hallway.

“It’s good that only we came.”

I spoke to Yebin in a bitter voice.

The afterlife set up in the hotel basement. Everyone who died in the apartment would likely gather here.

If I wanted to, I could run into people I knew. Many survivors had died and new ones kept coming.

I still remember the faces of the men who led the survivors at first.

People who had hope of escaping the apartment, only to lose their lives in vain.

And now they were suffering in a place like this even after death.

No one should know this truth.

If someone must know, the fewer people, the better.

It was a kind of intuition I’d had since first arriving here.

“Dabin.”

Yebin quietly grabbed my sleeve.

Even her usually expressionless face now showed complex emotions.

“Why did you lie earlier?”

“…”

“We came in through the emergency exit.”

“It’s about belief.”

“Belief?”

Yebin repeated my words as if she didn’t understand.

“I don’t really get it.”

As I was about to start explaining, Yebin added one more thing.

“But I believe in you.”

“…Yeah.”

“These people. They can get out, right?”

“Probably.”

The afterlife takes the form of the apartment.

The dead still couldn’t escape from this space filled with anomalies and irregularities.

Emergency exits, stairs, and endless corridors and homes.

The apartment was such a cruel space that everyone dying believed they could never escape.

I sighed and stood up.

The cold cement floor stretched endlessly. Abandoned furniture was scattered throughout the excess space.

The most noticeable thing was that chair.

“Yebin. Can you come up here for a moment?”

“What?”

Yebin hesitated but climbed onto the chair.

“Good. Stay like that.”

I kicked the chair with all my strength.

Yebin, naturally, tumbled toward the floor but stopped, caught by something.

A rope that had somehow wrapped around her neck.

Crack—

With the sound of her neck breaking, Yebin’s feet dangled in the air.

She didn’t even have time to make a sound.

Yebin closed her eyes peacefully, as if she had instantly lost consciousness.

But confusion still remained on her face.

“I’m sorry.”

Yebin didn’t answer.

“I had no choice.”

My hands trembled as I spoke.

Despite preparing myself mentally many times, the shock was immense.

After all, I had killed a person—Yebin—with my own hands.

“I’m sorry.”

So I repeated to myself.

“Where do you think you’ll go if you die here?”

Dead but not dead.

No matter how much I denied it, Yebin would still be hanging in the air, but she was already gone.

To a higher place.

Everyone’s belief. To a heaven above heaven created by ideals.

Even if they had given up on escape, they believed.

That somewhere in the apartment, there was a safe space.

***

“Dabin!?”

Gasp.

Yebin inhaled sharply as she opened her eyes.

Reflexively, she felt her neck, but there was no particular sensation.

If there were bruises or broken bones, it would be extremely painful. But it just felt like touching normal skin.

“…”

Her surroundings were where she had been initially.

The hotel corridor before they went down the stairs.

Yebin silently got up. She still had something to check.

Knock, knock, knock.

When she knocked on a door halfway down the corridor, it soon opened.

“What? Yebin?”

Yoon Daju, holding the doorknob with sleepy eyes.

She was squinting, as if not fully awake yet.

“What is it? Did something happen?”

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

She had returned.

From the endless emergency exit stairs and dark space, back to the original hotel.

With too much to think about, Yebin couldn’t show any reaction.

Death.

Death was the only way to escape the afterlife.

Then was Dabin planning to kill everyone trapped underground?

Did she send me here because she couldn’t do it alone?

Did she send me to bring others?

Thoughts connected one after another.

Yebin focused on her memories.

She recalled what Dabin had said just before they parted.

“It’s good that only we came.”

Since she said that, it didn’t seem like she wanted Yebin to bring others…

“Hey. Are you sick? Hey! Lim Yebin. Hey!”

“…”

“Are you sleeping? Your eyes are closed.”

Daju continued shaking her body.

Instead of answering, Yebin kept her eyes closed.

So the other person could understand without any explanation.

“Is this sleepwalking or something? She suddenly developed a sleeping habit.”

Now Daju would shake her awake, and then she could pretend to have just woken up from sleep.

“Wow… she’s sleeping so strangely. I’ll take you back, so stay still.”

“Ah!?”

While her eyes were closed, her body was suddenly lifted.

Surprised, Yebin accidentally let out a small sound.

“Huh?”

“…”

She continued pretending to sleep.

Pretending to sleep while thinking.

What was Dabin thinking?

She could have at least explained properly.

***

Even now, if I look up, Yebin’s fingertips are hanging limply, swaying.

I thought my mental strength had improved, but it seems not.

I’m more shaken than I expected.

Just standing still makes me short of breath, to the point where everything goes dark.

It was inevitable anyway.

The moment we set foot in here, death was the only way to escape.

I’ve known that for quite some time.

That’s why I wanted to send Yebin off as quickly as possible, without fear.

No matter if you come back to life, dying is still terrifying, so I did it suddenly without telling her.

Now it’s my turn.

But my hands won’t move as I want them to.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Is it because of psychological shock?

Or because of trauma that has built up over time?

Yebin is still hanging there.

Looking at that makes everything go dark and I can’t do anything so I need to move somewhere where Yebin isn’t but I already can’t do anything so I can’t move and then Yebin will continue floating in the air and I’ll have to spend eternity under her gradually withering corpse and the cycle will keep repeating

“Hoo…”

I slap my cheek hard and lift my head.

There’s still a bit more to go.

Just don’t think about anything and focus only on the goal.

Don’t look for reasons, just move your body.

Ridiculously, my legs wouldn’t move, but by leaning against the wall, I could somehow move forward.

That felt like a miracle.

Now, toward death.

When I knocked roughly on the apartment door, it opened slightly.

A pair of eyes glared at me from the darkness.

Steadying my trembling breath, I spoke as clearly as possible.

“I know how to get out of here.”

The belief that would save the people here.

“And you can never escape this hell.”

The door opened.

He held the doorknob with a hand that had doorknobs sprouting from it, tears streaming down his face.

“Not for a single moment. You cannot find peace.”

Kindness, they say.

They say we just misunderstood the Creator’s goodwill.

The world does not exist for us.

Not even for a single moment. Not even for an instant.