Ch.31Rainy Spring Day (2)

I was living with my family at the time. The bathroom sink would often get clogged.

The reason was always—

Splash—

Hair tears through the rubber stopper and flows out.

Long black hair continuously pulls out from the faucet.

A damp, fishy smell fills the air.

“Get away quickly!”

Seok Hyunmin grabs Heo Yoon’s arm and throws her out of the bathroom.

Collapsed on the floor, dripping water, Heo Yoon backs away in a daze.

“What, what is that thing! Did you see it move?”

“It moved?”

“Yes! That thing is alive! Look now. It’s still coming out!!!”

While Seok Hyunmin tries to examine the bathroom with heightened senses, Heo Yoon struggles behind him, screaming frantically.

“We need to leave now. We need to get out of the house quickly and escape!”

“Just stay still! We need to see what that thing is!”

“What did you say before? You said you wouldn’t do unnecessary experiments. That it’s dangerous! Let’s get outside now!”

“Calm down, unni.”

For Heo Yoon, who always seemed so tough, to be like this—what horrifying thing must she have seen?

“Oppa…”

Looking to the side, I see Yoon Daju swallowing nervously.

Trying my best to maintain rationality, I tap Daju’s forearm.

“Let’s grab any weapons we can. Bring them now.”

“Okay.”

Meanwhile, the hair completely covered the bathroom floor.

The fishy stench grew worse, now giving me a headache.

“Hey, Seok Hyunmin! This isn’t the time to be staring at that!”

Choi Serim firmly grasped Heo Yoon’s hand as she began to sob.

“Unni.”

“No… we can’t stay here…”

“Look me in the eyes.”

“Ah… uh…”

“We can’t abandon the 7th floor. Besides, once the broadcast goes out, you know all the other floors will be the same.”

“……”

As Choi Serim looked her directly in the eyes, Heo Yoon gradually regained her senses.

“Tell me what you saw. Slowly.”

“……Hair. At first it was a corpse. White… squirming slightly… its eyes were open… ugh.”

“Unni. It’s okay.”

“But! But the eyes weren’t just open the eyelids were swollen and split open and suddenly… suddenly hair grew and wrapped around it……”

“How did you see that? Tell me how you saw it from in front of the sink.”

No answer came.

Heo Yoon, who had momentarily frozen, began convulsing again, violently shaking her head.

“It’s trying to come out now the corpse is trying to get out of the water tank I’m telling you ooooh!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Unni!”

Heo Yoon began banging her head against the floor. Seok Hyunmin shouted urgently.

“Hey. Hold her down!”

“Unni, stop this. Snap out of it!”

Blood flowed from her cracked head.

I rushed to grab Heo Yoon’s arms, while Choi Serim struggled to hold her head still.

Even during all this, the hair continued to flow out.

Continuously.

Squirming.

I see Daju running across the living room.

“Mister! Take this for now!”

She handed a crowbar to Seok Hyunmin, then immediately joined us.

“Unni, snap out of it!”

“Yoon Daju! Keep holding her!”

With my body in this condition, Daju is stronger than me. Plus, I’ve injured one hand.

Leaving Heo Yoon to Yoon Daju, I moved toward Seok Hyunmin.

The hair covering the floor takes on a human form.

Slimy sewage drips onto the floor.

The mass of hair slowly rises. From within, occasionally visible is,

A gaze looking in our direction.

Eyes half-open.

The torn, swollen flesh around them reveals dark red innards holding the eyeballs in place.

“……”

Seok Hyunmin hesitates momentarily, then quickly makes a decision.

Crack!

Crunch!

The part of the hair hit by the crowbar breaks off.

It wasn’t just hair clumped together; it seemed to have solid flesh and bone inside.

Thwack!

“Huff, huff…”

A disgusting liquid spreads across the floor.

Grayish-white mucus mixed with dark red blood clots forms vein-like patterns.

The black, smooth figure collapses to the floor, slowly unraveling strand by strand back to its original form.

“Noona! Are you okay?”

Seok Hyunmin quickly ran to Heo Yoon.

Heo Yoon was lying with her eyes closed, her head resting on Choi Serim’s lap.

“She just collapsed.”

“What?”

“She’s breathing. She probably fainted.”

“Phew……”

Seok Hyunmin puts down the crowbar and catches his breath. Yoon Daju holds Heo Yoon’s hand with a stiff face, and Choi Serim keeps checking Heo Yoon’s condition with her head bowed.

I was the only one who went to check the situation outside the hallway.

I slightly opened the front door and looked outside.

All I could see was blackness. Nothing visible. Had the lights gone out?

Ripple.

The horizon of the hallway ripples.

Waves spread from one end of the hallway to the other.

The writhing black waves cover the entire hallway, flowing toward the stairs.

Then suddenly.

As if noticing someone watching, one wave raised its head.

It crawls quickly in this direction.

The black, smooth hair changes direction like flowing water.

Bang!

I reflexively closed the door.

Splash-!

Clatter!

Clatter!

Thump thump thump thump!

Heo Yoon jumps up and screams at the top of her lungs.

“Aaaaaaah!”

“Unni!”

Again, I feel that gaze.

Empty eyeballs, looking at me.

I can’t see anything in front of me, but it’s watching.

Constantly watching.

Thump thump thump thump thump!

The knocking on the door grew louder.

The splashing sound, like waves hitting coastal rocks, became the background noise.

Thump thump thump!

“Snap out of it!”

Seok Hyunmin screams while firmly holding Heo Yoon.

I could only stare at the front door, unable to do anything.

Countless words flash through my mind.

Breathing.

Heartbeat.

Oxygen.

Suffocation.

Grudge.

Blood.

Restraint.

Paralysis.

Breath.

Oxygen.

Body.

Water tank.

“Oppa. What do we do?”

“……”

“Oppa!!!”

When I finally came to my senses, Yoon Daju was beside me.

“Let’s get out.”

“What? How can we get out there!”

“Through the window.”

The hallway is filled with hair, but the windows are still safe.

We can escape that way.

Heo Yoon has calmed down for now. Seok Hyunmin raises a question.

“You want to go through the window? Then what? The other floors will be the same.”

“Where’s the water tank?”

“What?”

“We need to go there.”

I definitely saw the word “water tank.”

I don’t know what to do once we get there, but that’s our only option.

“On the roof. Press 13 in the elevator.”

“That works. First, we need to climb up through the window and get to the elevator.”

“What are you planning to do at the water tank?!”

In this extreme situation, Seok Hyunmin raises his voice.

“The water passes through there before coming out. The hair that’s coming out, probably…”

Boom!

With tremendous force, the front door slowly begins to cave in. The bulge is now visible to the naked eye.

“Alright. Let’s head to the window first.”

Supporting the dazed-looking Heo Yoon, Seok Hyunmin heads toward the window.

“I’ll climb up first and throw down a rope. You guys grab the rope and climb up. Got it?”

“Yes.”

Seok Hyunmin balances precariously on the balcony railing. Fortunately, he grabs the upper floor’s railing bars in one go.

Next, as he slowly tries to pull himself up,

Crash!

The door could no longer hold and fell off.

With a fishy stench, the black waves began to sweep through the house.

“Mister! We need to hurry!”

“I know, so close the window quickly!”

Daju locked the glass window, and I gathered items from the balcony with Choi Serim to stack them up.

“Done! Now grab the rope and climb up!”

Just entrust your body to the rope for a moment, and Seok Hyunmin will pull you up from above.

First Heo Yoon. Then Daju.

Only Choi Serim and I remained on the balcony.

“Dabin. You go first.”

“You go first, noona.”

“You’re lighter, aren’t you?”

“It was discovered because of me. Because I opened the door. So you go first, noona.”

“Dabin.”

My eyes met Choi Serim’s.

Half-closed eyes. A relaxed expression. Even a hint of a smile. Looking directly at that face, it’s impossible to go against her.

“Okay.”

I grabbed the rope and stood up.

For a moment, my feet dangled in the air,

“Lim Dabin! Hold tight!”

I could feel Seok Hyunmin pulling me up with all his strength.

Now only Choi Serim remained on the lower floor.

“Unni…!”

Yoon Daju looks down, her face pale.

“Go quickly. We should avoid all dying together.”

“Hey, Choi Serim. Stop talking nonsense and come up. Hurry!”

Seok Hyunmin shouted with a trembling voice, but everyone already knew it was too late.

The hair that rushed in instantly had firmly grabbed both of Choi Serim’s legs.

Like sinking into a swamp, Choi Serim was being dragged down into the black sea.

For a moment, my mind went blank, and I couldn’t gather my thoughts.

It was because of the hair.

“Let’s go, mister. We need to get to the elevator before they come up the stairs.”

“……”

Everyone was at a loss for words. Yoon Daju led us all.

“We just need to get to the water tank and solve this quickly, right? It’s not too late. She’s not drowning in water, it’s just hair, so there must be some space to breathe. Being under there would feel really bad though. But well, we can just throw away the clothes afterward. Ugh. Thinking about it, I feel so bad for unni. It’s disgusting enough pulling hair from under the sink. If she stays there too long, could she actually die from the filth? We need to get her out quickly. So…”

“……”

“So let’s go now!!!”

“Yoon unni, snap out of it quickly!

Mister, keep thinking about the 8th floor. This place was never safe to begin with.

And Lim Dabin!”

I was startled and looked up.

This was the first time Daju had called me by name.

“Oppa, stop crying and pull yourself together.”

“Huh…?”

“Let’s go!”

Yoon Daju roughly grabbed my hand.

After briefly taking the lead, Seok Hyunmin moved to the front again.

“Be careful. I’ll tell you about the 8th floor as we go. Listen.”

Opening the front door across the living room, we see the upper part of the 7th floor.

The appearance of the 8th floor comes into view.

A background that couldn’t be mistaken for a residential area. Looking back, the front door has already disappeared.

The good news is that there’s no hair visible in the hallway yet. But since the hair is gathering and climbing the stairs, it’s only a matter of time.

There’s only one way to survive.

We must break through the 8th floor corridor in time and board the elevator.

A dark space.

Seok Hyunmin shines a flashlight forward and begins briefing us in a heavy voice.

Tok tok.

Tap.

Intermittent noise mixes in.

The sound of water droplets falling.

It was a rainy spring day.