The Boy’s Abyss (2)
Chapter 1. The Nightmare Corridor begins.
Please select players from the list.
You can select up to 4 people.
From the moment the status window appeared, it felt like I was in a game.
The word ‘player’ made it feel even more so.
But “The Nightmare Corridor”?
Just hearing the name made me gulp anxiously with an ominous feeling.
No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t seem like anything good.
Is there no more detailed explanation?
As I tilted my head, more letters floated up before my eyes.
One day, when you opened your eyes, you were lying in a dark corridor.
From that pitch-black corner, terrible sounds can be heard, and an ominous presence keeps drawing closer.
In this bizarre situation, you had no choice but to start walking in order to survive and escape. In the end, you reach a shocking secret and strange taboo…
…It really sounds like a game description.
If I had to categorize the genre, it’s a horror game.
The number of players that can be selected is 4.
The names on the ‘list’ of players were all people I knew by face.
Could I make 4 of them participate in this horror game called “The Nightmare Corridor”?
It was only natural for my heart to pound with excitement in this unfamiliar situation.
I had been longing for something like this to happen for the past two months.
The abnormal that would completely shatter my daily life.
Although the “hypnosis app” I had hoped for wasn’t there, if I got discouraged now, it was clear I would never escape being a sandbag.
Not long ago, Yang Juhui had said, “Youngwon, you live alone with your mom, right? Your mom comes home late every day?” and tried to ask for my home address.
My home becoming the hangout for a gang of delinquents?
Absolutely not!
I’ll protect my family and my daily life.
After much deliberation, I dragged the names I knew well from the player list as if filling in the slots.
- Kim Geonho
- Yang Juhui
- Jeong Sojin
Thinking it over in many ways, these three had to be fixed entries no matter what.
Then I had to fill the remaining one spot…
I examined the names tied to the list.
Among them was the name I was most familiar with.
After agonizing over it to the point of possibly going bald, I filled the last empty slot with a name.
- Ha Youngwon
It was my name.
It may be somewhat reckless, but if ‘something’ happens because of me, I feel I need to see with my own eyes what unfolds and what the results will be to feel at ease.
Also, I had been turning a blind eye to it in many ways, but I might find out the reason why this bizarre ‘Status Window’ appeared before me.
The part in the description of The Nightmare Corridor that said, In the end, you reach a shocking secret and strange taboo...
bothered me especially.
“So… what happens now?”
There were still 20 minutes left before lunchtime ended.
In this free time, I paid attention so as not to miss even the slightest change while examining my surroundings.
But was I being too sensitive?
Nothing happened until lunchtime ended.
“……”
There was truly nothing unusual.
If I had to point out something bothering me, it was that even after lunchtime ended and class started, delinquents from Class D, like Kim Geonho and Yang Juhui, didn’t come to the classroom.
It wasn’t that uncommon for Kim Geonho to skip class, but…
What was unusual was that Yang Juhui and the class president, Jeong Sojin, also skipped class.
Wasn’t Jeong Sojin extremely sensitive about grades and school records? I thought Yang Juhui also fiercely managed her grades despite being a delinquent.
*Tap tap*
The history teacher holding a hanbok tapped the podium with a danso flute and asked,
“Does anyone know where these kids are? Someone try calling them on the phone. It makes no sense for our class president Jeong Sojin and Juhui to skip class during this history teacher’s period, even if I can understand Geonho doing it.”
Originally, it was school policy to collect cell phones, but due to the female student disappearance case that occurred early in the semester, our school didn’t collect phones and only prohibited their use.
A few children tried calling the absent kids, but no one answered.
The kids didn’t return to the classroom even when the next period came, nor even when it was time to go home.
“Hey, Ha Youngwon. Did you tell the teacher? That I bully you?”
*Smack!*
When I came to my senses from the pain of being hit on the back of my head, the little tyrant Yang Juhui was frowning at me with a scowl.
“Are you trying to ruin my school records on purpose to screw up my life, you pervert!”
“What!? No, what bullshit is this? Why am I a pervert?”
*Pow!*
Before I could finish speaking, Yang Juhui’s fist hit my chest.
My breath was completely blocked, and I let out a scream.
“Argh!”
Someone might say, what’s a healthy boy doing whining about being hit by a girl the same age?
But that’s something said by someone who’s never been hit by Yang Juhui’s fist.
I’m a scholarly boy who’s on the frailer side, even among boys─.
It was only natural to cry after being hit by the delinquent Yang Juhui.
“Youngwon! Are you trying to ruin my life on purpose? I know everything! I know, you bastard! Give me back my life! My life! I wanted to become successful and leave my shitty home so badly!”
*Pow, pow, pow!*
Yang Juhui wildly pummeled my body with her fists.
I thought I would suffocate and had no choice but to desperately make excuses.
“…What are you talking about! Why would I ruin your life! No way!”
“Really? You swear?”
“Really! I swear!”
*Swick*.
Only then did the fists mercilessly hitting me stop.
However, Yang Juhui was still furious, like a demon with horns growing from her head.
“But isn’t it proper for you to take responsibility for my life? Be a man and take responsibility.”
“Responsibility? What responsibility?”
“You perverted bastard! You always looked at my legs, didn’t you! I’ve become dirty because of you. You take responsibility! You said you liked me before, didn’t you! Do you like me? I like you too, Youngwon!”
Yang Juhui threw herself at me.
The fragrant scent of cosmetics strongly wafted over.
For me, who had studied for 3 years in an all-boys middle school, it was an extremely stimulating feminine scent. In our Yeongji High, known as a delinquent school, this kind of smell was always rampant.
I felt like my blood was suddenly rushing down, and my whole body was melting like jelly. Yang Juhui was throwing herself at me. How could this have happened?
Thanks to that thought, my brain rapidly cooled down.
“Ah, fuck, this is a dream. No wonder it felt weird.”
No, this wasn’t just a dream.
It was definitely a wet dream!
“No! If I stay like this, I’m really screwed!”
I desperately tried to pull myself together.
Then, as if a submarine that had been submerged deep in the sea was rising to the surface at full speed, I felt my consciousness resurfacing.
“Gasp!”
Letting out a huge scream, I shuddered.
When I came to my senses, I was lying on the blanket in a dark room.
“Haa…”
My body was soaked in sweat like someone who had a nightmare.
But what mattered now wasn’t that, but whether or not I had a wet dream.
Checking inside my pants and underwear, fortunately, the thing I had been worrying about didn’t happen. I was just soaked in sweat.
“Did I fall asleep without even changing out of my school uniform? No wonder I had such a terrible dream sleeping so uncomfortably.”
I had the talent to exert superhuman willpower and stop it when I thought I might have a wet dream. It was honestly an amazing skill.
It’s because when I had a wet dream in middle school, I got teased for a week after being asked by my mom, who came to wake me up in the morning, “Our Youngwon became an adult? What kind of dream did you have? Did you have a naughty dream? Who appeared in your dream by any chance?” which became an extreme trauma.
“Ha, damn. It was really shitty… I was too busy to jerk off yesterday… But still. It’s only been two days since I did it, and it’s already…”
Why don’t men have a cooldown time for wet dreams?
Unlike women’s menstrual cycles, isn’t there a total amount that has to fill up? I thought you don’t have wet dreams until that fills up.
I found it quite strange that it was already full.
“I almost had a big accident. No, but why did I have that kind of dream of all things…”
It must be because I secretly peeked at Yang Juhui’s legs up close yesterday.
“That bitch. She must have shown her legs on purpose to make me have a wet dream. She must have shortened her skirt to harass me, too. What a psycho bitch.”
Cursing Yang Juhui as if cursing the enemy of my parents, I headed to the living room.
I woke up already, so I was going to have a glass of water, but…
“No, what the hell is this─?”
Opening the door of my room and going out, the world was a pitch-black tunnel.
The living room of the dilapidated and cramped two-room house, damp enough for cockroaches to sometimes come out, was nowhere to be seen, and a dark corridor was greeting me!
“Oh, shit… I’m really fucked.”
Did someone kidnap me while I was sleeping and lock me up in a weird room?
For a moment, I thought that, but I wasn’t stupid.
I immediately grasped that this situation wasn’t normal.
I wanted to find out more details about what was going on, but that didn’t seem important right now!
*Jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle*
The bells ringing from far away felt especially bizarre and ominous!
“Advice!”
For now, I decided to use the ‘Advice’ function, which I could use up to twice a day from the status window.
The only funds I had after opening the shop, 1 point, disappeared, but I didn’t care.
Advice from the [Broken Clock]
In the Nightmare Corridor, there are hiding places like cleaning supply closets and lockers arranged where you can avoid the horrors for a set period of time. Who could have possibly prepared such things?
Hiding places!
*Pat*
Fumbling in the dark corridor, I grasped something like a rusty iron door. This seemed to be the cleaning supply closet the advice mentioned!
*Clank, creak*
The stench of rotten rags wafting from the cramped cleaning supply closet I hurriedly hid in was so foul it twisted my nose—.
*Jingle, jingle, jingle*
Something I couldn’t have even imagined began to pass by in front of the narrow iron bars I was hiding in.