Ch.171Side Story) Left Alone (4)

When the unbelievable happens right before your eyes, you have no choice but to believe it.

That’s how it goes.

I died, and then came back to life.

Time rewound to just before my death.

That is, back to when the pounding on the door first began.

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

All other thoughts ceased.

Only one sentence was etched into my instincts.

‘I must survive.’

First, I can’t go out through the door.

I shouldn’t even go near it.

Just by peeking through a tiny hole, that thing crushed my eyeball.

The image of my eyeball slipping between my palms is still vivid.

But I can’t just stay still either.

In the final moment, it broke down the door and came in.

A situation where I can’t do this or that.

I need to figure out some way to deal with this.

But I don’t dare look outside.

“What do I do? What am I supposed to do!”

I screamed, frantically pulling at my hair.

I was in complete panic.

The door shook violently, looking like it would break any moment.

Right. The window.

Let me peek through the window.

From a spot far from the windowsill.

I dragged the chair from in front of the computer and stood on it.

Is this safe enough? My body is still intact.

I took out my smartphone, turned on the camera, and zoomed in to enlarge the screen.

“I can see it.”

I can see a bit of its form.

The black figure in human shape is excessively thin and tall.

It was extending its bizarrely elongated arms to shake the door.

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

More like tentacles than arms.

“What the hell is this…”

Instead of ways to deal with it, only terrifying thoughts keep coming to mind.

“What are you!”

Meanwhile, the door continues to break down. Now the hinges are wobbling precariously.

If I go near the door, I’ll be pierced and die.

If I stay still, it will break down the door and I’ll die.

Either way, death is inevitable.

“…”

Cold sweat runs down my face.

Why is this happening?

I want to live. I desperately want to live. But I see no way out.

The door is about to break.

I ran into the bathroom, locked the door, and crouched in a corner of the darkened room.

“Don’t come. Please don’t come…”

Crack-

The front door collapsed.

Thud. Thud.

It’s walking around inside the house.

Maybe, if I keep hiding like this, I might survive.

Crunch.

The bathroom door broke.

I immediately covered my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut, but couldn’t stop a moan from escaping.

“Ah. Ahugh. Huaaaa.”

“Why is this happening.”

“Why is this happening to me…!”

Time passed like an eternity.

Still, I’m alive.

Even though that thing must be right in front of the bathroom door.

Crunch.

A reflexive scream bursts out at the sound nearby.

“Aaaaaaahh!”

But still, I feel no pain in my body.

Perhaps this time too, the pain will come only after I see the wound.

Just like how the pain in my eye came only after I looked in the mirror.

My heart beats violently.

A strange impulse to know what’s happening, even if I die.

I slowly opened my eyes.

It wasn’t my body that was shattered.

Right next to me, crouched on the bathroom floor, were black fragments everywhere.

My smartphone, which I had carelessly put in my pocket, was completely smashed.

“Ah…”

But that doesn’t mean my body was unharmed.

“Ahughk…”

The pants where the pocket was were completely torn, with no shape remaining.

A chunk of flesh from my thigh was gone.

The moment I saw it. Pain surged like electricity.

With eyes tightly shut, I whimpered, enduring the pain.

Rustle.

I opened my eyes reflexively.

I can see it.

The black figure stands in the living room with its back turned.

Slowly.

It turns its head.

Our eyes meet.

A black face.

Two empty holes within.

Soon I couldn’t see anything.

Raising my hand to feel where my eyes should be, I touch several crushed, wet lumps.

I was too terrified to even make a sound.

In just a moment, both my eyeballs were completely crushed.

“Ahaha…”

I can’t see, but I know.

There’s a hole in my head right now.

“Ahahaha…”

I collapsed on the bathroom floor, laughing.

The laughter won’t stop.

Splash.

Splash.

I laughed, waving my limbs in warm, sticky liquid.

The trembling of my body. The seizure won’t stop.

“Haha…”

I have no memory of what happened next.

“Ha…”

Sinking endlessly.

In a feeling of suffocation.

“Huk!”

I opened my eyes again, taking a deep breath.

It seems this curse won’t let me go easily.

I’m trapped in the house, listening to the endless knocking on the door.

“Ugh.”

Nausea rises.

I ran to the bathroom and emptied my stomach.

Huk. Heuk.

I looked in the mirror, breathing heavily.

My body is clearly intact.

But shadows of death have already fallen under my eyes.

It seems I keep coming back to life even after dying.

My body keeps returning to normal, but the mental trauma doesn’t heal.

The face in the mirror distorts.

My eyeballs pop out and get crushed. Only empty eye sockets remain.

Crunch. My head shatters like a watermelon.

Looking down, the floor is soaked with blood. The flesh of my thigh is completely gone, exposing bone.

“Uuuugh!”

Even though there’s nothing left to throw up, I collapsed over the toilet.

I looked in the mirror again. My body is fine. It was all an illusion.

But if I die even once more, I might cross a river of no return.

Calm.

Stay calm.

Shaaaaa-

I closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower.

The thumping sound from outside is muffled.

I adjusted the temperature to warm and wet my body.

My clothes got soaked, but I didn’t care at all.

Old habits prove effective even now.

This is what I used to do whenever I got stuck while drawing webtoons.

As my body warmed from head to toe, my thoughts finally started flowing.

I slowly review everything that’s happened so far.

For convenience, let’s call the first time I died Round 1.

And the second time I died Round 2.

In Round 1, the first thing that got hit was one eye.

While peeking outside through a small hole in the door, I felt something wrong with my vision, and when I checked, that “eye” was completely shattered.

Then the door broke right “before my eyes,” and I immediately lost my life.

Next.

In Round 2, what was the first thing that got hit?

I need to think about this.

I looked outside through the window but nothing happened immediately. Then I got scared and went into the bathroom.

Soon the front door and bathroom door broke in succession.

And then.

“My smartphone was smashed.”

The smartphone in my pocket was the first thing to be destroyed.

In the process, a chunk of flesh from my thigh was also cut off.

Why is that?

I rewind a bit more.

When looking through the window, I was quite far from it.

So I stood on a chair and took out my smartphone, using the camera’s zoom function.

“Then. What’s the difference from Round 1?”

The difference from Round 1 is about “how I saw” that thing.

In Round 1, I saw it with my “naked eye” through a hole in the door.

In Round 2, I saw it through the window, and then again through my “smartphone.”

The first thing that got destroyed in each case is the same.

In Round 1, I put one eye to the door to see it. Then that eye was completely pulled out.

In Round 2, I saw it through my smartphone. Then the first thing to be completely shattered was the smartphone.

The key is “seeing” it.

Crack-

A thunderous sound echoes through the house, too loud to be masked by the shower.

This is the third time I’m hearing this sound.

But this time I know roughly how to tackle this.

I turned off the shower.

Roughly placing a towel on my body, I listened to the sounds outside.

Thud. Thud.

It’s walking around the house.

The footsteps grow louder, and soon it will be in front of the bathroom door.

Meanwhile, I mapped the structure of the room in my head as best I could.

Open the door and go out. Two steps from there.

Turn right, pass through the living room, about five steps.

It’s a bit difficult to gauge the position of the front door. I’ll have to feel my way there.

And I squeezed my eyes shut.

I can’t see anything.

With a cracking sound, the bathroom door shattered, and I immediately started walking quickly.

I must never open my eyes.

I must never look at it.

Thud.

I bumped into something.

A sensation distinctly different from walls or household objects—something hard yet slimy, a cold touch against my body.

It’s that thing.

“Hmph.”

A low laugh echoes in my head.

Never. I must never open my eyes.

“Dabin! Lim Dabin!”

A somehow familiar voice reaches me.

A voice that feels almost recognizable, a voice I miss.

“Open your eyes! Open them!”

“…Serim unni?”

Even as I say it, I can’t quite remember.

Serim unni? Who was that?

And I’m a woman. Why am I calling her “nuna” instead of “unni”?

But despite these questions. The feeling of missing her fills my heart uncontrollably.

“Yes. Quickly open your eyes! That’s how you’ll survive!”

It happened before I could consciously control it.

I unknowingly opened my eyes slightly, and immediately squeezed them shut again, but.

Slash-

One eye was cut.

“Ugh.”

It was a trap.

What I glimpsed was just a fragment of the black figure leaning toward me.

Five steps from the living room.

Which step was I on now?

I can’t remember, but I kept walking quickly.

Thud!

Suddenly I hit something and stubbed my toe hard.

I bit my lip tightly, enduring the pain.

If I just hit something with my foot, it must be the broken front door.

After feeling the shape of the door with my toes, I carefully stepped onto it.

Clang!

Clang!

The sound of stepping on metal plates echoes loudly.

Just a little. Just a little further and I’ll reach the corridor.

“Dabin. No!”

The voice of “Serim unni” calls desperately from behind me.

This time I didn’t open my eyes.

Walking quickly forward, I felt cool air on my skin.

I’ve left the house and entered the corridor.

Now I turn left and run straight ahead.

Until I’m as far away from the house as possible.

When I think I’m far enough, I plan to slightly open my eyes in front of the apartment entrance.

Urgent footsteps echo through the corridor-style apartment.

I don’t hear any footsteps following me.

Taking a deep breath, I slightly opened my eyes.

I can see the glass entrance door.

“Good. I just need to get out now. Almost there…”

Just as I was about to open the apartment entrance door, muttering to myself.

A black figure reflected in front of my eyes.