Braun is gone.
“W-what is it?”
“T-this person, they moved!!”
Seeing as there are no Silver Coins inside the doll's stomach, is the ‘Good Friend’ ritual itself invalidated? Or is it because this is a dream that it really only looks like a doll….
‘Stop!’
Deduction isn't the priority right now! Get it together!
You're inside a ghost story!
“Look over here!”
I snapped my head around.
Someone was screaming in a corner of the dark classroom.
It was the person who had been poking the ‘student’ who sat alone at a desk, frozen like a wax figure without the slightest movement.
But that wax figure….
“There!”
Had vanished from the desk.
And if you followed the finger of the person pointing, whose face had turned pale blue….
[Sekwang Technical High School]
The vanished student was standing tall at the back door.
Holding the door handle.
Expressionless.
Looking back at the classroom.
“…….”
“H-hey. You're joking right now, right?”
There was no answer.
No movement either.
“Wait a second.”
One brave person approached and waved a hand right in front of the face.
The ‘student’ didn't even blink. They were just vividly frozen at the back door, standing still….
“They're not breathing. It's not a person, it's a mannequin…”
“No, how does a mannequin move all of a sudden? Didn't they just learn a technique to make it look like they're not breathing?”
“Yeah, this is that. You know, like on variety shows or W-Tube where they observe people's reactions.”
It wasn't.
It was obvious, but there were no cameras here, nor any variety show production crew trying to surprise people.
[Ding- Dong- Dang- Dong-]
Instead.
[Students of Sekwang Technical High School! The graduation ceremony is about to begin. Please gather in the auditorium.]
“Graduation ceremony…?”
A cheerful and neat broadcast, typical of a school, rang out.
“Shall we go? This is fascinating.”
“Hey, we're in our high school forms right now, aren't we? Wow. What kind of dream is this?”
A few people who had decided it was entirely a dream chatted with each other without any tension.
Certainly, it wouldn't feel very scary until now.
‘It probably doesn't feel real.’
After all, they had returned to their high school selves. Rejuvenation is usually a pleasant thing.
And while a school at night is a common setting for ghost stories, it can also feel romantic when there are many people and a bit of moonlight streaming in.
However….
“Uh, this student mannequin? Look at this?”
One person approached the motionless student in front of the back door.
Then pointed to the hand the student had extended toward the back.
“This, the hand gesture looks exactly like….”
[Students, we will now close the automatic curtains and turn off the lights for heating and safety.]
“Like they were trying to lock the back door.”
Thud.
The window curtains closed.
“Mommy!”
“Ah, you startled me!”
The automatic curtains closed with a thunderous sound, and for a moment, the classroom was plunged into darkness.
Just for a second.
Flicker.
After a slight delay, the lights in the classroom turned on.
“Ah, thank goodness.”
“I guess they were just trying to turn on the lights… Huh?”
Blood was flowing profusely over the ivory classroom floor.
“Uh… Uh-uh-uh-uh?”
Following the blood with my eyes,
One of the people was collapsed near the back door with their neck completely snapped backward.
An enormous amount of blood poured from the neck, twisted at a bizarre angle that a living human could never achieve, pooling between the floorboards.
Their eyes were wide open in shock, as if they hadn't expected it at all.
“Aaaaah!”
“Kkeu-heoo-eok!!”
It had begun.
==========
Dark Exploration Record / Ghost Story
[In the Dark Shadow]
: A ghost story appearing in the <Dark Exploration Record>, Daydream Inc.’s identification code is Qterw-()-62, and the Disaster Management Bureau’s registration number is 2845PSYA.2016.Ha53.
If you fall asleep after reading a text file circulating on the internet, you wake up at Sekwang Technical High School at night and are chased by something non-human until you die.
All civilian attempts to find the high school in reality have failed, and it is currently identified as a place that does not exist in Korea.
==========
Right.
The only way to escape the ghost story in this nightmare is through ‘death’.
There is no way out of this school at night other than dying.
And… a ghost story featuring something non-human that was so impressive it became a cliché.
“That…! That person!!”
One of the screaming people pointed with a trembling hand.
At the student still frozen at the back door.
But there was exactly one difference.
“There's blood on their hands.”
“…….”
People's gazes stiffened as they turned.
And they confirmed the fact.
On the student figure's right hand holding the door, inside the curled fingers as if trying to hide it.
Blood was smeared along the fingerprints.
“…….”
People's gazes returned to the corpse.
On the back of the corpse's snapped neck, they saw
A bloodstain in the shape of a finger.
“Ack!”
“Mommy! Uh-uh-uh-uh! Heok!”
And again.
Flicker.
The lights flickered.
The students of Sekwang Technical High School do not move while someone is watching.
But the moment the gaze is gone—
In the blink of an eye, when the classroom brightens again.
They move with inhuman speed.
The person who had been pointing at the doll vanished.
“Ack!!”
That person was found on the floor as a corpse with everything below the chest crushed.
Flump.
The pointing finger, having lost its support, limply collapsed to the floor.
“Ah…….”
“…….”
“Aaaaah!!”
Panic, terror, and frenzy.
“N-now! Let's attack now! Hey? You, the person close by, hit it!”
“F-fuck! Then you do it, why the hell are you telling me!”
Flicker.
“Hik.”
The number of corpses increased by one.
One of the people who had been shouting was stuck upside down in a desk.
With only their lower body remaining.
“…….”
“…….”
In the silence of terror,
People turned their heads.
Now the ‘student’ at the back door was staring intently at the people.
A strange smile was etched on their face.
“…!!”
“Hieeeeek!”
“R-run! Run!”
“Open the door right now!”
People rushed toward the front door to avoid the back door blocked by the student. However….
It was already too late.
“This way… Aaaaah!”
The person who opened the front door collapsed.
A smiling student was standing in front of the opened front door.
[Sekwang Technical High School]
The same name tag was attached to that female student with neatly cut bangs.
“Go, you can just go to the side!”
“Go!”
People ran past the smiling student. And again.
Flicker.
The lights flickered.
“…….”
The student at the front door vanished from my sight.
Aaaaah!
…Desperate screams echoed from the hallway.
And the screams vanished one by one.
“…….”
“…….”
A maddening silence.
The sound of panting breath, distant wails, and people staring at the door with eyes bulging as if they were about to pop out.
“Slowly,”
I said quietly, looking around the classroom.
“Let's move slowly. While checking if anything starts moving again. Both the front and back doors.”
“Ah, ah…….”
Adults who looked no different from high schoolers recoiled and staggered back from the door, shuddering.
“…….”
Among those who woke up in this class.
Half had run away, making it impossible to confirm their survival, and the rest remained in the classroom.
No, rather than remaining, it was closer to say they were frozen, unable to move.
I thought quietly amidst them.
‘I'm screwed.’
It shouldn't have started like this.
I should have definitely run out alone before the curtains closed and it became completely dark, grabbed an emergency flashlight first, and then hidden after taking necessary items.
‘I missed the timing.’
I was flustered by Braun's absence, and my judgment was delayed.
In the meantime, some people finally began to realize the situation.
“T-this is that thing!”
“Pardon?”
“Don't you know? The monster that can't move if you're looking at it!”
“D-do you know about it?”
“Damn it, why don't you know?? You know, the monster that follows you if you don't look at it! It can't move right now because we're looking at it!”
A person whose voice had turned strange with terror and excitement babbled on.
Asking if everyone had seen that weird text file, saying it seemed like we'd entered a game, asking if it was a possession….
Even people who would normally have ignored it listened, caught in the panic.
It was a development I'd seen many times before.
And the conclusion of a group overwhelmed by terror is also… simplistic and violent.
“Then we have to hurry! Attack it and get rid of it!”
“Pardon?!”
“I'm telling you, it'll just keep chasing us if we run away now anyway! Everyone dies because we don't look at it! You saw the people who went out! Hurry! Before the lights flicker again!”
“Ah!”
As if possessed, people rummaged through the empty classroom to find anything that could be a weapon. Brooms, chairs, mops, box cutters….
‘No.’
This is a shortcut to a typical bad ending!
“Please wait a moment….”
It was then.
Someone covered my mouth.
“…!”
I almost threw a punch.
To avoid provoking the situation, I slowly turned my head back to identify the person muzzling me.
My eyes met a familiar face.
‘…The civil servant!’
It was a Disaster Management Bureau agent!
Agent Ryu Jaekwan, whom I had met at the mountain cabin, had short hair like a high school student, but his appearance itself wasn't much different from the present.
‘Where was he sitting?’
No, that's not what's important!
‘Right. Civil servants could enter too!’
This wasn't a ghost story currently being ‘contained and secured’ by Daydream Inc.
In other words, it meant I could meet people from other organizations like this.
But still, to see the same agent again? Aren't you working a bit too hard?
“I'll let you go if you don't scream.”
I immediately nodded with a serious face, and the civil servant released me without another word.
‘Phew.’
“You really have a constitution for getting caught up in these things, don't you?”
“……Yes.”
Let's just say it's something like that.
“And, some of what that person said earlier is correct.”
“…….”
“Keep looking at that student figure no matter what. You can't take your eyes off it, so blink your eyes one at a time, and if the lights go out, you must bow your head. And….”
The civil servant quietly whispered the standard manual I already knew.
“Those things are very sensitive to sound.”
Right.
The students show a clear trend of chasing people who make noise, such as screaming, cursing, or shouting.
“You mustn't raise your voice. Never.”
I nodded slightly.
“But, is it right to let people attack that….”
“Your own safety comes first right now. Saving people caught in the disaster comes after that.”
The civil servant declared familiarly.
“Assume everyone caught in a supernatural disaster will die and move accordingly.”
“…….”
This was… a typical Disaster Management Bureau-style manual.
‘They think it's more important to properly understand and seal or destroy this ghost story.’
Because that would prevent the countless deaths that would follow.
It was a value judgment that would pull the lever to kill one person instead of five in the trolley dilemma without hesitation.
“I'll also tell you the timing to run away. For now, just keep in mind what I've told you.”
“…Yes.”
Arguing with the civil servant here and now was a suicidal act.
For now, I kept my mouth shut.
In the meantime, people were approaching the student with weapons.
‘Damn it,’
Once more, I wove a question to deliberately induce an answer.
Because I needed to know this for my future actions to be natural.
“Um, but isn't this a dream? Then, even if we die, won't we just wake up from the dream….”
It was the standard way to escape a nightmare.
The moment you meet death in a dream, you wake up and return to reality.
Hearing only this far, one might think it's better to just commit suicide quickly, but it's not like that at all. You must not make such a choice….
‘I need something.’
“…That is correct, but there are conditions.”
I knew it.
“Conditions?”
“Yes. Do you see the name tag over there?”
The civil servant pointed a finger at the ‘student figure’.
“You can only wake up ‘normally’ if you die while holding that figure's name tag. …If you fail to do so,”
If the release conditions are not met.
The explorer becomes bound to ‘In the Dark Shadow’.
“You will be subject to a rather unpleasant influence.”
“…….”
“There are a few other conditions for dying safely, but I'll tell you the details as we go along.”
“G-go along?”
“Yes.”
Wait a minute.
But however he interpreted my bewilderment, the civil servant wore an expression that seemed to say ‘there's no need to be sorry’.
It meant he was trying to force a smile as if to reassure a child.
“Don't worry. Many other agents besides myself have been deployed right now. Someone will surely have made it through.”
Not just one, but several Disaster Management Bureau agents…?
‘This… it looks like the rounds of exploration have really overlapped.’
There would be a corresponding round.
I tried to pull up candidates by rummaging through past Exploration Records in my head, but the change in the situation came first.
“D-die!”
Finally, people began to attack the student figure.
Then, surprisingly.
Crack.
“Ack!”
“B-blood…!”
The ‘Sekwang Technical High School’ student was injured just like a normal human.
There were sounds of blood bursting, bruises forming, and bones breaking.
“Ack!”
“What do I do, oh, damn….”
‘…Sigh.’
Terror and frustration crept up my spine.
But the civil servant, seemingly used to it, gestured slightly toward the front door without being shaken.
“First, let's take this chance to…… Hm?”
It was then.
Human figures appeared on the bright central staircase visible outside the open front door.
“…!”
It was three or four people walking up with muffled footsteps.
They had one thing in common.
Specifically… they were all wearing bizarre animal masks!
‘It's the employees!’
And I even saw a familiar mask.
Bison!
‘Mr. Jang Heowoon.’
It was the Team Y Rookie I had shared life and death with in the theme park ghost story!
‘Was he reassigned back to the general team?’
How long has it been?
My own circumstances had been so chaotic lately that I hadn't been able to check other people's periodic reassignments, but it looked like he had survived the three months well.
‘Anyway, it's good to see you, truly.’
But next to him… is a human who isn't so pleasant to see and whom I saw just a moment ago.
A black goat mask.
“…….”
It's Baek Saheon.
‘Did the two of them wake up in the same class?’
They all seemed to be following the company's safety recommendation to ‘take a mask and wear it if possible’.
‘I'd like to wear one too if I can.’
I also wanted to check the items I brought and use them to increase the Escape Probability.
All things considered, it would be better to naturally part ways with the civil servant and join that group.
“Um, Agent…….”
“Daydream Inc.…!”
“…….”
Uh-oh.
“Be careful. If you meet people in suits wearing animal masks in a place like this, you must never pretend to know them.”
The civil servant gritted his teeth and shot a look of contempt forward.
“They're likely people dispatched from a disgusting pseudo-religion company, so never get involved with them.”
“…….”
“Most of the employees are also psychos with abnormal ethics. You must be careful.”
“……Yes.”
Never.
Never! Let's not get caught!
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