After drinking the Wish Ticket and realizing the 'truth'.
My body collapsed, and Director Ho’s Security Team Uniform, which I had desperately forced my body into, instead had the opposite effect, causing me to become necrotic.
Thus, at the brink of death, I made the only choice I could.
-“All you have to do is sign.”
I signed the employment contract that Director Cheong handed to me.
Immediately afterwards, I lost consciousness… and by the time I regained my senses, I had already been transported to some unknown location.
A bleak little room.
The first thing I saw was a number.
[666]
It was the nameplate attached to the steel door.
The space, consisting only of a steel bed and a sink, was very old-fashioned and utterly silent.
The only light source was a single fluorescent lamp, everything was as quiet as a dead mouse.
However, during working hours, I could leave the room as much as I wanted. That was because from the first day until now, my duties had not changed, not even once….
-Your assigned duty is security work on the 13th floor of the Annex Basement.
Basement Floor 13.
My job was to guard this hallway.
-Security for Basement Floor 13 of the Annex.
But it was meaningless.
No one ever came.
With no windows or emergency exits, this place was just a hallway lined with iron doors, and I walked through it pointlessly.
I wandered the hallway.
Red and blue lights flickered.
The elevator was visible. The lights indicating the floor numbers flashed, showing the digits.
But I could not board it.
Because there were no buttons.
I couldn’t see them.
I could not leave.
Shhhhk….
Thick black smoke filled the air.
The pale hallway’s fluorescent lights flickered as the smoke trembled and rose.
It came out from my breath filtered through my gas mask.
I walked, locked away from the world.
As I gazed at the only thing that moved, the swaying smoke spreading and drifting through the hallway….
[Your working hours have ended. Please return immediately. Your working hours have ended. Please return immediately. Your working hours have ended. Please return immediately…]
It ends.
I returned to Room 666, just as specified in my contract.
Click.
The door locked, and I sat down on the bed.
Silence again.
Would most people find this horrifying?
Whether it's claustrophobia, the fear of isolation, or the terror of simply existing in the basement of a horrifying pharmaceutical company, unnoticed by anyone, would most people feel….fear?
I probably would have.
But I didn’t remember specifically what kind of emotion it would be.
However, not remembering isn't so bad either.
I just simply mull it over for a moment.
My work.
The Security Officer of Annex Basement 13th floor.
Performing security duties without questioning the things that exist beyond the steel doors and without leaving the designated 13th-basement floor hallway.
Regarding anomalies occurring upon contact, nothing has been identified so far.
Those forms that flash faintly in my head and then crumble.
If described in the style of the <Dark Exploration Records> Wiki, it might have been written like this.
Yes. That’s probably how it would go….
But even that faint, censored imagination does not last long.
Bzzzzt—
The silence is broken.
Light from a black-and-white screen casts a shadow over the steel bed.
[Special Entity Employee full of dreams and passion! Welcome to Daydream Inc.'s Security Management Team!]
The sound of a low-quality digital recording echoed through the cell.
[Yesterday, we told you in detail all about the wonderful work the Security Management Team does, right? Today, we’ll tell you the rules you absolutely must follow during your shift!]
A video continues to play on a small round TV mounted in the corner of the solitary cell.
It’s the <Security Management Team New Employee Training Video>.
It tells me the same things over and over.
[You cannot leave your designated work area!]
Two Mascots appear.
A Fox Mascot stands still in front of the hallway’s elevator, spinning around in circles.
A format I felt like I had seen somewhere before.
But, there was something distorted… Is it that which is twisted? The cheerful educational video about the lifestyle of an office worker and Daydream Inc. played in black-and-white, moving the light across the room.
[You are a contracted worker, and you cannot violate the labor rules!]
At first glance, it seems like a typical video for training new employees, but there are some slightly different points.
It also obsessively tells me what I should do when working hours are over.
[Go to sleep.]
[Do not violate your designated sleep time. You cannot wander around. You must rest. That is the normal behavior of a company employee!]
The light from the strangely bright and cheerful video flickered in the small confined room.
And then….
[This concludes the training in this video. Please rest comfortably!]
Click.
It disappears.
“…….”
The workday has ended.
In the now pitch-black small space, only faint red and blue lights flickered from beyond, through the iron door.
Sleep time.
Of course, I cannot sleep.
But as the training video said, I must not violate my sleep time. Because those were the labor rules.
So I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes.
As if I were sleeping.
Learning about ‘company work’ in this way, I continued my employment on the 13th Basement Floor of the Annex.
…….
…….
How many days have I been on the job?
A week?
Fifteen days?
A month?
Seven years?
Or ■■■?
I didn't know and it was difficult to calculate. But it doesn’t matter. The contract didn’t state the duration of employment, so I just remain like this.
Soon, working hours will return again.
And, in the silence, I will….
Knock…knock.
…….
Knock, knock, knock.
A sound.
I heard a sound.
It’s the sound of hard knuckles wrapped in soft skin, moving cautiously and hitting metal.
The sound of knocking on the steel door.
……
A knock.
A person.
I pulled the door open.
“Hiek!”
“Eeeek!”
The steel door of Room 666 opened.
The ones holding the handle jumped back in shock, collapsing into the hallway, about to point their fingers at me….
“Aah… hmmmp.”
They covered their mouths.
And lowered their heads.
“He-hello.”
“We are new employees. We offer our greetings.”
They spoke.
Their voices were stiff, as if they had practiced, but it was real.
And I realized that this was the first time in ages that I had heard someone’s living voice.
No….
Are they really alive?
“If you don’t mind, could we visit for a moment….”
No. It is the sound of the dead.
Every voice of a living person heard through my auditory organs crackled as if heard from an old training video.
As if filtered, as if recorded, every voice I see and hear through the gas mask blurs the shape of the person, making it impossible to clearly identify them.
And then….
“……Um.”
There were no faces above the suits.
No, I cannot identify their faces.
The area where the face should look like a completely melted mosaic.
It was distorted in red and black, as if someone tried to reconstruct a damaged film by gathering every last scrap.
‘Why is that?’
Was it because according to the employment contract I don’t need to see them, or is it because my collapsed body had also collapsed my perception system? I did not know.
But it didn’t matter.
There was no problem identifying them by their clothing, build, and intonation.
And no problem in grasping the situation.
New employees, suits, a team of three, panic and confusion, no masks.
And one more thing.
“…….”
I looked back at the one who had spoken first.
Hearing their ragged breathing, I reached out a hand wearing a black glove.
“Huuuuhp!”
I took out what was in the person’s suit breast pocket.
A note.
I go down to Basement Floor 13,
at the door of room 666,
I will knock and then go inside.
This is….
I see.
‘Experiment Name: New Employee Orientation’ 21st Attempt
: Assigning missions using the Luck Draw Box (Qterw-E-382). A configuration to explore the Annex Basement and encounter the Security Team member ■■■■ in charge of the corresponding area.
Like sparks flying from my mutated head, the record surfaced for a moment, lingering as I took it in.
I ‘understood’ what kind of situation this was.
“Hiek!”
I put the note back into his breast pocket. The one touched by my black-gloved finger shuddered.
A large-statured person who had been standing in the back stepped forward, as if to calm things down, and after gently pushing the other new employee forward, he spoke calmly.
“…We were following the company’s orders.”
“…….”
“We're simply performing our assigned duties.”
That’s right.
If orientation was also considered part of the job, that is.
I looked at the three pitiful new employees who had merely participated in the ‘New Employee Orientation.’
And then….
I stepped back from the door.
As if inviting them in.
“…….”
“…….”
“I-is it alright… if we enter?”
>Entry of authorized personnel does not violate work regulations.
“Th-thank you… Thank you…….”
Trembling, glancing about nervously, their stiff bodies stepped into Room 666 to carry out what was written on the note.
Then, they burst back out the door as if they had stepped into a pit of fire.
…There was no need to go that far.
“Hiiiiek!”
I tried to reach out my hand to the two employees who had almost tripped over each other trying to get out, but before I could, the two began to crawl away as if to escape.
Right.
They’re running away.
There’s an exit.
The elevator, right there.
“Huff, huff!”
“Wait, calm down….”
The large-statured one seemed to be trying to stop them, but they kept hammering on something.
The elevator buttons.
So there were buttons after all.
Was it just that it wasn't visible to the security officer?
Soon, with a cheerful sound, the elevator doors opened and light poured into the hallway.
A brightly lit interior of the elevator.
“C-close it! Just clo…!”
I moved after them. With every step, smoke rose from my gas mask.
The moment the black smoke entered the elevator.
You cannot leave your designated work area!You cannot leave your designated work area!You cannot leave your designated work area!You cannot leave your designated work area!
It rang in my head.
You cannot leave your designated work area!You cannot leave your designated work area!You cannot leave your designated work area!You cannot leave your designated work area!
…….
No.
What I’m doing isn’t leaving my work area.
The elevator is currently at the 13th basement floor, and I am merely entering a connected space as part of the 13th floor.
Nowhere was it specified that the elevator was excluded from the 13th-basement floor work area.
…….
…….
It became quiet again.
“Ack! Wa-wait….”
I naturally boarded the elevator again.
The doors closed.
Thud.
Black smoke filled the interior of the elevator.
“Ah, aaaaa■■.”
“Ooooh, o-oh, ■■-nim, th-th-that’s■”
I heard the groans and mutterings of the employees beside me. Maybe it was hard to breathe because of the smoke? I held my breath and sucked the black smoke back into my gas mask.
Within the smoke, the mosaic of human faces appeared, tinged with transparency.
It looked as if bodily fluids were seeping from their eyes, nose, and mouth. Still, their breathing seemed to have stabilized….
I tried to direct as much of the smoke as I could toward the wall to keep it away, but one person, trembling under my gaze, finally spoke.
“D…Do you mean, we should stay quiet?”
Mean?
Is there a meaning behind my actions of moving the smoke….
Ah.
“…….”
Was this… how it was done?
>Meaningless expression.
“H-Hangeul!”
When I formed the letters with the smoke, the mosaics wavered in shock and amazement.
Even amidst the noise, I could sense a strange relief or comfort.
“Um, are you… are you going to attack us…?”
>Current status: Negative.
“Ah…!”
Their voices become much brighter. The relief of something familiar, the strange comfort when something unknown shows an understandable side.
Emotions I once knew.
The sound of sighing brushed my ears in dull sound quality.
And then, another question.
“T-Then, where a-are you go-going…?”
“…….”
I looked at the elevator buttons.
These were things that couldn’t be seen from the 13th-floor basement hallway.
Among them, there was a button that the new employees were reaching for while glancing at me for my reaction.
1st Floor.
“…….”
That won't do.
Right now, I cannot set foot on the surface. Leaving the elevator would be a complete departure from my designated work area, which was the absolute limit of any loophole I could exploit. I cannot leave.
Then why did I board the elevator?
“…….”
Because there are things that I could do without getting off the elevator.
I reached out my hand.
***
Frozen inside the elevator, the previously smug new employee gasped for breath.
What the hell is this? What the hell is going on?
The thick black smoke in the elevator now, and what could be seen through that smoke….
Yellow eyes, like gas lamps.
‘Fuck, fuck…!’
Huge antlers or rib-like horns sprouted above the gas mask. Wearing a black full-body Uniform that didn't reveal a single patch of flesh, it was like a nightmare crammed into the shape of a human silhouette.
The ‘Security Team’ nametag pinned to its chest felt like some kind of gruesome joke.
The thing from Room 666 on the 13th-floor basement.
I-if we act politely, our chances of survival go up…!’
He poured out accusations and curses inwardly as he looked at the teammate who had introduced himself as ‘Jang Heowoon.’
Jang Heowoon, who was staring intensely at the monster, rather than meeting his eyes.
‘Still pretending to be calm!’
At the same time, he conveniently forgot, for the sake of blame, that he was not dead yet, and that it wasn't Jang Heowoon who had put him in this situation.
Only then did he, absentmindedly realize why there had been dead people in the elevator before.
‘They all tried to escape into the elevator…!’
But there hadn’t been anything… that had boarded with them.
He swallowed hard.
Could it be, did it kill them out of spite because it couldn't board?
‘Then this thing… H-How did it manage to board?’
The only saving grace was that apparently, some kind of communication was possible… but, damn it.
Can I really go back to the first-floor lobby… with that thing?’
In horror movies, this is exactly when everyone left in the lobby gets slaughtered. Cold sweat formed on the tip of his chin and dripped off.
However, his survival instinct came first.
He wanted to get out. He would get out. He was going to escape this insane, hellish space in the basement!
‘Yeah. Yeah!’
At least he wasn’t dead!
Let the bastards left in the lobby fend for themselves! There was no way he’d be the only one to die here!
Almost out of his mind, he reached out and pressed the button for the 1st floor and….
His eyes met those of the entity.
“Ah.”
The yellow eyes looked straight at him through the smoke.
The new employee froze again.
But the strange being who was holding a lantern did not stop him from pressing the 1st-floor button.
Instead it, too, reached out a black hand.
And with a tap, pressed the buttons for the 12th-basement floor.
“Huh…?”
11th basement floor, 10th, 9th, 8th… all the way up to the 1st floor.
It pressed every single button.
As if pressing piano keys, it swiped through them all.
TL Notes: -
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