episode_0092

Jerk, jerk.

Every time I took a step, I stepped on a pebble under my feet.

The surrounding area was an enormous wasteland.

The air is dry and the temperature is a little cold.

Jerk, jerk.

There are no traces of people.

Jerk, jerk.

How much time has passed?

It’s the same no matter how much you walk. The only thing that changes is the appearance of the art around you.

Next to me, Choi Se-rim is panting and wiping away her sweat.

As if I was lost in the desert.

“… … .”

“Dabin. Is this the right one?”

“I don’t know.”

There is a clear possibility that he was dragged into some strange space.

It’s like a trap that you can’t escape no matter how much you walk.

However, anomalous observation cannot be carried out hastily.

Because you may simply have lost your way.

Low, low, low.

“All right, Dabin. Hey!”

There was a person hanging on a tree in the distance.

When I looked closely, I saw that it was a plastic bottle cut up.

I made a human shape out of thin plastic pieces, and attached the neck to an old rope.

If it’s like this.

“Huh?”

“Wow!”

“Sister!”

Choi Se-rim suddenly grabbed her neck and fell down.

“Keheuk, heoheok.”

The whole world blinked again.

The original appearance is visible.

The real scenery here is absolutely not ordinary.

There are human bones on the floor.

Each plastic bottle contains something round.

It was a human eye.

I felt someone grab my neck.

“Wow!”

I can’t breathe.

Did you say that the reason you faint when strangled is because your blood flow is blocked?

The pulse that was beating from my heart stopped near my neck.

Not enough blood.

Every brain cell screams for oxygen.

Even then, my consciousness was hazy.

It felt like I had been administered a lot of general anesthetic and was thrown into flames on an operating table.

I tried to hold my mind through the searing pain.

I feel like I’m about to faint at any moment, but that’s because of fear. The body can still move.

You just need to come to your senses.

“Huh!”

Before I knew it, tears were welling up in my eyes.

The sky I looked up at while holding my neck was red.

Old twine holding on to the neck.

A shadow fell over my head.

It belongs to a person hanging from a tree.

However, parts of the body have been replaced with scrap items.

The place where the eyeballs were was taken by a metal bottle cap.

His hands are covered with tin cans, and his dusty feet are covered in discarded slippers that have melted and stuck to them.

The neck with the rope is decorated with a necklace made of woven yogurt containers.

It becomes increasingly difficult to come to your senses.

“Eye patch. No way… … .”

The words leaked out without me even realizing it.

Even while I was dazed and unable to breathe, my arm was throbbing.

The spout of the plastic bottle is stuck in the arm.

Like a life-sucking creature, large and small plastic bottles began to stick to my forearms.

“Aaaah.”

Suddenly-

Suddenly-

As they are repeatedly crushed and unfolded, bright red blood fills up inside.

Is it possible to suck blood through such a wide opening?

Perhaps because of the pressure, blood bubbles continued to form on the surrounding skin.

“Heh.”

And, I was laughing.

Now you can go up.

You can remain forever by abandoning your blood and flesh.

You can’t bury a person in the sky.

This is because funerals are the responsibility of the living, not the responsibility of the dead.

We believe that the afterlife is in heaven.

Plastic draped over your head.

First, the two feet of the dead man.

A string wrapped around the neck.

I didn’t know at first.

This was the oldest form of funeral.

Throwing away everything of the flesh and returning to nature.

The flesh and bones discarded before leaving are recycled and become scenery.

It becomes dirt. It becomes the wind. It becomes the nourishment that nurtures others.

And nature always changes.

Anthropocene.

Discarded plastic and glass bottles, as well as human traces, remained in the ground floor and formed a new landscape.

Gradually, your body becomes lighter.

“Hehe, hehe… … .”

A sense of relief that everything is now over, and a sense of satisfaction as if a very difficult task has been completed.

I was smiling as I became one with the junk.

Push!

With one kick, the tree collapsed.

It wasn’t a tree.

It’s nothing more than a crude structure made of scrap materials.

Wooden chopsticks covered in black slime.

An ice cream stick covered in sticky sugar.

Wooden furniture with nails sticking out of the joints.

As the structure collapses, the hanging items also fall down.

Pieces of plastic bottles.

A man’s body decorated with scrap items.

My body and Choi Se-rim’s body.

thud!

At the same time, the thing that was choking me disappeared.

“Huh, huh. Huh… … .”

I took a deep breath and enjoyed the sweet air.

I felt my feet fall to the floor, as if I had really been suspended in the air.

I finally came to my senses.

I lay down on the spot and turned my head to the side.

Choi Se-rim was panting with blood on her face.

“Sister. Are you okay?”

Choi Se-rim nods without saying a word.

“Be careful from now on.”

You must not tamper with the ‘works of art’ here.

I almost died just now, but I also found out something.

“Scraps collected here. It seems like the observers are being dragged into the world of the work.”

“To the world of art?”

“Yes. Each work of art has something it wants to express. Communicating that is also the purpose of art. A surreal characteristic intervened there.”

“I see… … .”

“We almost got hit just like the work.”

I barely sat up.

I tried to look for the man hanging from the tree, but he had already disappeared without a trace.

“… … .”

“… … .”

Choi Se-rim strokes her own neck.

Red marks were already forming on the back of my sister’s white neck.

It was Choi Se-rim’s voice that broke the silence.

“Then Dabin.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t this a fake work of art too?”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because the same scene keeps repeating itself.”

Choi Se-rim swallowed his saliva and continued speaking.

“Do you know how perspective is expressed in art?”

“Yes. Of course I know.”

Before I came here, I was drawing like crazy.

I know better than anyone else how to express perspective.

I remembered the scenery of Garosu-gil, which I learned most representatively.

Straight lines that are actually parallel. However, from a perspective perspective, the two straight lines appear to be inclined toward each other.

The trees standing along a straight line gradually become smaller and eventually gather at one point and disappear.

But what about this?

“The lines extend infinitely like this, then converge at the vanishing point and disappear.”

As she said that, Choi Serim pointed to a very distant place.

There is nothing to be seen at the end of the endless vacant lot.

“Then, here is also a picture drawn in that way. Is that it?”

“Yes! Dabin is smart?”

Choi Se-rim suddenly pulled the hem of my dress.

It’s not a sharp pull, but a gentle pull.

“Sister?”

The sound of breathing is heard nearby.

Choi Se-rim was exhausted. She also wanted to depend on others.

“Good job, Dabin.”

As always, the mind appears differently depending on the person.

Sometimes, it turns out to be an action that is completely opposite to the original idea.

In Choi Se-rim’s case, her desire to be dependent was expressed in her actions of caring for others.

“Huh? Do you hate being petted?”

“No. just… … .”

“Come here.”

I quietly tilted my head.

Ssuk suk.

I feel a soft hand on my hair.

Serim Choi leaned close next to me and praised me in a soft voice.

“Good job.”

“We can get out of here in a little while, right?”

“Let’s find the other kids and get out to a safe place quickly.”

The brief peace ended.

As if she couldn’t waste any more time, Choi Se-rim tried to get up.

“Sister. Just a moment.”

Choi Se-rim stands tall on the spot.

I held on to my sister’s hand and didn’t let go.

“You said this is like a painting with a vanishing point, right?”

“Yes.”

“There is one more.”

The artworks here draw visitors into their own world.

The vacant lot we first saw was also a huge work of art.

“We came up to this point while talking.”

“Yes.”

“If you think about it a little more, I think you will find the answer.”

Slowly, let’s look back on what we saw.

“When we first got here, why didn’t anyone notice anything strange?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Anomaly observation. I can do it, but Haewon and Hyeonmin can do it to some extent too. This is definitely a strange space, but no one noticed at first.”

When I first came here, it seemed like an ordinary space to me.

If there was anything strange, I would have figured it out immediately.

But the truth was different.

This is a very dangerous space full of anomalies.

A vacant lot that spreads infinitely.

Sometimes, it possesses people and causes them to ‘recycle’ their bodies.

So, which one was wrong?

“Well. I’m not sure, Dabin.”

“The correct answer is that both were normal.”

Anomaly observation functioned normally.

It is also true that this is an abnormal space.

However, there is a saying:

‘In a crazy world, being normal is crazy.’

Again, this is a story about the standards of reality.

Although it clearly goes against common sense to have an infinitely wide open space, it is natural in works of art.

Because of this, nothing could be found even through observation of the anomaly.

This is the ability to find parts that conflict with the ‘reality’ that one currently exists in.

I was dragged from ‘reality’ to another ‘reality’.

Like what happened recently on the 7th floor.

“Then. Something like this would be possible.”

“Dabin?”

“This. Hold it and show it to others when they come.”

Choi Se-rim took the book with a puzzled look on her face.

What is written on the page is the highest level ‘antimeme’.

A treatment that allows even people who are possessed by a meme killer to come to their senses immediately.

All you have to do is just let them read it.

“What is it? Did you find out something? Do you know where the other kids are?”

“No.”

I shook my head.

“I will bring it here.”

Next moment.

Chorak-

With the sound of an opening book, four people appeared at once.

Daju Yoon, Yoon Heo, Hyeonmin Seok, and even AI.

It didn’t look that bad.

People who are still muttering nonsense as if they are possessed by a meme killer.

“Sister!”

“Okay!”

When Serim Choi illuminated the antimeme, light began to appear in the cloudy eyes one by one.

“What… … . What has been so far?”

“Ah! It hurts!”

“Surely he was a meme killer again?”

“Ugh.”

People were dumbfounded for a moment, then frowned at the belated pain.

The skin was torn here and there, and some had pale complexions, as if blood had been drawn.

The one who was most seriously injured was Daju.

“Huhhh. Ugh… … . brother… … . Brother… … .”

Hair is empty here and there.

Blood is still gushing from the gums where the raw tooth was extracted.

So much so that the remaining teeth are barely visible.

He must have pulled out his fingernails himself, so there was only flesh hanging off his empty fingertips.

“What should I do? Daju. What should I do?”

Choi Se-rim must have been shocked by that sight and keeps muttering the same thing.

I quietly approached Daju and gently pressed his shoulder.

“Just be patient. It will get better in a little while.”

“It hurts… … . How am I… … .”

Every time Daju spoke, blood poured out of his mouth.

“Don’t be scared. Just be patient.”

It didn’t take long for the wound to heal.

Scraps were gathered here and there in the vacant lot.

Items made through ‘recycling’.

Just looking at it makes me feel sick.

Making a teddy bear out of bloody hair?

Even if someone asked me to come up with something like this, I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Anyway, the recyclables collected from all over were dismantled and returned to their original owners.

“… … .”

Daju quickly fell asleep.

Although there were still wounds here and there, the miserable appearance from earlier was nowhere to be found.

The others also fainted, probably from exhaustion.

I quietly watched the group.

“I’ll rest here for a bit and then move on right away.”

“It’s just us left again.”

I nodded quietly.

Serim Choi and I.

It’s just the two of us again.

“What did you do earlier?”

“Didn’t you know everything? It didn’t really stop me from reading thoughts.”

“Yes, but. I think what Dabin explains is different.”

Choi Serim rolled her shoulders as if she was somehow embarrassed.

… … I think I know what it is.

“Are you going to praise me again?”

My older sister, who found out what was going on, laughs and says.

“Yes.”

What I did was really simple.

And the reason I was able to do it so easily was also thanks to Choi Se-rim.

“Then I’ll show you this first.”

In peace regained after a long time, I began to explain.