Ch.80Graffiti (2)

My mind feels hazy.

Countless letters swirl around in my head.

Like a collage made by cutting and pasting magazine pieces, the letters tear, get cut off, and mix together.

The torn paper fragments are circulating inside my body. The pieces pierce my lungs and travel through my blood vessels.

I shed tears of blood while unable to see anything.

My head hurts.

It feels like my insides are burning. With each breath of oxygen, the flames grow until they become unbearably hot.

I vomit up something boiling. I breathe in through the pain of severed nerves. I contract the muscles in my throat. My heart is beating roughly. And then, I throw up.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

My vision returned with the scream.

As if there was something I needed to do immediately.

Shhhhhhhh-

I turned on the faucet and scrubbed the inside of my cheek vigorously with a toothbrush.

The water pooling in the sink gradually turned magenta.

Blood spreading like rising smoke.

My mouth felt raw and stinging.

“Huh. Huff……”

What was I doing?

Shhhhhhhhhh-

I unconsciously licked the wound with my tongue.

The metallic taste is clearly noticeable.

The mucous membrane of my cheek, once smooth, had become rough like an old rag.

“Oh.”

And then all the sensations rushed in at once.

Pain like thousands of needles stabbing the inside of my mouth.

The metallic taste of blood continuously seeping out.

The sound of water.

I heard a faint sound of wind, and something cold and smooth touched my shoulder.

Thud!

The backlash from forcibly attempting to observe anomalies was coming.

Even as I was losing consciousness, I continued to vomit.

Now only one thought comes to mind.

Please.

Go away.

Please.

I feel like I’m dying.

When I came to my senses, I was lying in the middle of the living room.

As soon as I opened my eyes, Heo Yoon’s face came into view.

“Dabin! Are you awake? Are you really okay?”

Yoon asks various questions in a raised voice.

Judging by her urgent movements, she seems to have been really worried.

“Yes.”

“What on earth happened in the bathroom?”

I was about to give a long answer about what had happened, but I gave up.

The inside of my mouth was swollen.

All my senses were distorted, and I couldn’t even properly feel where my tongue was.

“……”

“And this one. This one found you.”

Heo Yoon pointed to the AI standing beside her.

It was standing there blankly with an expressionless face.

“It said it felt something strange and went to check on you, and found you collapsed on the bathroom floor.”

Morning, when we should all have been gathered for breakfast.

The atmosphere is heavy.

Choi Serim is sitting on the sofa, silently watching me.

Yoon Daju is also sending concerned glances from beside her.

Heo Yoon asked again.

“What happened?”

“I saw the graffiti. Ugh.”

I spat out the blood that had pooled in my mouth.

“Something’s strange. The graffiti keeps increasing……”

Seok Hyunmin stepped in when he couldn’t bear to watch anymore.

“I think I roughly know what’s going on, so tell me later.”

“…Okay. Let’s disinfect the wound first.”

Heo Yoon picked up a medicine box from the floor.

The white plastic first aid kit contained all sorts of items.

Bandages, tape, alcohol swabs and red medicine. And antibiotics that she said were only used in real emergencies.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly useful here….. I think we need to disinfect the wound with mouthwash. Can you bear it?”

I nodded.

“Okay. Daju, can you bring that over?”

“Yes, unni.”

What Yoon Daju handed over was a mouthwash I’d never seen before.

It seems to be green.

The name, Listerine?

“It’s going to sting quite a bit.”

“…I’ll be fine.”

I took the mouthwash cap without much concern.

The swishing mouthwash liquid. As soon as I put it in my mouth,

“Kack!”

I immediately coughed.

It’s too strong.

It feels like holding mentholated ointment in my mouth. Not only that, but it’s like cauterizing the wound with fire.

“That’s because the disinfectant contains ethanol. There are other disinfectants, but they’re hard to find here.”

Heo Yoon came beside me and patted my back.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded.

After barely enduring for about a minute and spitting out the mouthwash, much of the metallic taste in my mouth was gone.

“Phew……”

“Can you eat? Should I make you some porridge?”

“I’ll just eat something a bit later.”

What’s important now is the matter of the graffiti.

Being careful not to brush the wound with my tongue, I slowly began to speak.

“You know the graffiti we saw with Hyunmin yesterday? It keeps increasing.”

“Increasing?”

“Yes. Graffiti is spontaneously appearing everywhere.”

I explained how I had gone around looking for graffiti with the AI.

At the front door. In the closet and storage room.

And inside my cheek.

“Any other characteristics?”

“I’m not sure. But as I kept looking at it, suddenly I got really scared. There’s definitely no characteristic that drives people insane. It’s just an ordinary drawing, but somehow that happened. So I tried to erase the drawing with a toothbrush……”

Heo Yoon nods with a surprised expression.

“So that’s why the inside of your mouth was a mess.”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

Seok Hyunmin sinks into thought with a serious expression.

Now it was Yoon Daju’s turn.

“But someone like oppa can see most things, right? So you’re saying even you can’t see anything?”

“Yeah. Even when I try anomaly observation, I can’t see anything. It’s just an ordinary drawing.”

“Huh. Then what is it?”

There was no one left to provide an answer.

Anomaly observation didn’t work, and we didn’t know anything.

Jung Haewon, who had been listening quietly, spoke up.

“Could someone be secretly going around stamping it?”

“That location makes no sense, idiot.”

Daju says, tapping Jung Haewon’s shoulder.

Indeed, the locations make absolutely no sense.

Even if someone somehow secretly went and made graffiti on the apartment exterior wall or front door, it’s clearly impossible to make graffiti on the inside of someone’s cheek without being detected.

Still, Jung Haewon continues to elaborate on his idea.

“No. There’s an entity that’s going around stamping, not a person. We could think that this thing has abilities like invisibility or approaching without being detected. It might also have flying abilities, or maybe it’s not bound by physical laws at all.”

“Oh….. Could that be it?”

“Yes.”

Jung Haewon shrugs and says to Daju.

“Idiot.”

“Calling noona an idiot?”

Daju pinches Jung Haewon’s arm hard while saying this.

It was a brief attack, but the effect was definite.

“Aaaack!”

While the two were bickering, Seok Hyunmin stepped forward again.

“What are you two doing? This is serious.”

“Aack! Stop! I’m sorry!”

Seok Hyunmin asks with a deep sigh.

“What do you think about what Haewon just said?”

“But I didn’t see any such entity either. If someone was going around leaving graffiti, I should at least be able to find some traces. I didn’t see anything.”

“Then is the graffiti appearing by itself?”

“That might be the case. In fact, when I saw it, that possibility seemed even more likely.”

This time it’s Choi Serim.

“Dabin. So is that graffiti still increasing now?”

“Yes. It probably is. Even a few hours ago, the more I looked, the more it kept increasing.”

The more I think about the graffiti, the more questions remain.

The drawing itself is ordinary.

What’s strange is the process of how the drawing appears, but there’s no way to confirm that.

The graffiti always appeared in places I wasn’t looking at.

Wait a minute.

Maybe…?

“Did you think of something?”

“Yes. I think I might have an answer if I think a bit more.”

I sank into thought under Choi Serim’s watchful gaze.

The drawing is ordinary.

But can an ordinary drawing appear by itself?

Still, the graffiti is ordinary.

☾

It looks like a crescent moon, or maybe a fingernail.

Anyway, for such an intricate pattern to form, there must be a cause.

Someone would have to secretly come and draw it or do some kind of work.

But there’s no trace of that to be found. The graffiti even appeared indoors where there wasn’t even a breeze.

I have no choice but to believe the graffiti appeared on its own. But that’s impossible.

Because the graffiti is ordinary.

Ordinary…?

For a moment, my mind goes dizzy.

When I came back to my senses, the surroundings had completely changed.

The walls are covered with red writing.

☾

Graffiti. Graffiti densely filling the walls.

To the point where the shape of the walls is barely recognizable.

Meanwhile, a broadcast was playing from the TV that had turned on by itself.

Chiiiiik…

[Breaking News] ☾ The graffiti is ordinary.

The first thing visible was the caption at the bottom of the screen.

Then the screen flickered and showed the inside of a dark room.

A woman in formal attire was standing with a microphone.

Due to the darkness around her, I could barely make out her form.

She seemed to be inside a home, and red light was seeping through the gaps in the curtains of the darkened house.

That was the only illumination.

The caption revealed her identity.

[Reporter Son Ajin]

Reporter Son Ajin’s head is hanging low toward the floor, and her toes are drooping. Her long hair forms a curtain in front of her face.

Tick-tock. Her toes sway with the wind. She was standing about 10 centimeters higher than her actual height. Her stockinged toes dangle in the air.

The red light in the living room. The reddened curtains.

The black silhouette hanging in front of them.

After a moment, she began her report.

“This is Reporter Son Ajin at the scene. The graffiti appearing in various places across the country causing confusion is ordinary. Although research results have been withheld, the government has issued a statement. The graffiti is just an ordinary drawing. Do not be anxious and do not doubt. The graffiti is ordinary and does not possess any anomalous characteristics. The graffiti moves within the most common-sense laws of the world. Even if the numbers increase, it’s just an illusion. There are cases where invisible people engrave graffiti as a prank. They are the strange ones. The graffiti is ordinary. Also, there are cases of people complaining of symptoms such as obsession after seeing the graffiti. In this case, it is a coincidental manifestation of accumulated stress or underlying conditions. There is no problem with the graffiti. Tolerance so that ☾ can remain with us.”

“Really? Then what happened?”

“What? …you say?”

I turned to the side with a start.

Everyone was covered in graffiti from head to toe, staring into space with vacant expressions.

People muttering nonsense as if talking to someone.

“Yoon Daju! Snap out of it. Hey! Jung Haewon! Yoon noona!”

Even when I shook them violently, they showed no signs of waking up.

Rather, it seemed to be getting worse.

“What the? Get away!!!”

Whoosh-

Yoon Daju throws herself into the middle of the empty living room.

Crash!

The dishes and cups on the dining table spill down and shatter.

Daju thrashes about in the midst of it, screaming.

“Don’t come. Don’t come!!!”

As if fighting with someone invisible.

Are they seeing hallucinations?

The voice from the TV repeats the same words.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

The graffiti is ordinary. Tolerance so that he can remain with us.

“Huh-uck.”

And the moment I raised my head to check the living room again.

It felt like my breath stopped.

Red light began to seep in through the curtains.

The clear images of the other people gradually changed into black silhouettes.

Even my hands and feet touched by the light… gradually…

I approached the window on trembling legs.

Swoosh!

I closed the curtains with a rough motion.

The curtains blocked the incoming light, but not for long.

Graffiti began to cover the curtains.

☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾

And like an old blanket rotting away, the curtains began to tear as each thread unraveled.

The decomposed fabric pieces and dust hung dangling over the windowsill.

Behind them, red light poured in.

As I tried to get up to enter a room alone,

I realized.

Crumble.

The solid apartment wall turned to powder and fell away.

I hadn’t even applied much force. It happened just from placing my hand on it.

☾ ☾ ☾

Graffiti engraved everywhere.

It wasn’t a drawing.

It was more like a mark.

Fingernail marks created by ‘something’ clawing and tearing at reality.

A new reality was hunting the existing one.