There’s Space Behind the Pillar (3)

“Seems okay, right?”

I asked Jeong Seok in the tone of a researcher conducting an experiment.
Jeong Seok also nodded while observing Yang Juhui inside the elevator.

“It seems fine for now. What are you going to do, Youngwon? Are you going to go inside that elevator too? There’s no guarantee that the 4th floor space where your mother is and that elevator are related.”

Jeong Seok was right.
There was no guarantee anywhere that the place where my mom disappeared and the 4th floor this elevator would take us to were the same place.
But I couldn’t just do nothing either.

“Seok, you said it yourself. Even if this perfume reduces the probability of being detected by ghosts from 99 percent to 1 percent, as long as it’s not exactly 0 percent, the possibility remains.”

“That’s true, but…”

“There’s also no guarantee that the 4th floor of this elevator isn’t the space where my mom disappeared. It goes both ways.”

What would be the probability that my mom disappeared into the space of this elevator?

90 percent?
1 percent?
The important thing was that no matter how low, I had to pin my hopes on that possibility.

I was already having a hard time getting used to being called a fatherless kid. If Mom disappeared, too, I’d be no different from a real orphan.

“I’m going, Seok. I won’t force you to come with me.”

Entering this elevator was like walking into a lion’s den.
It might be even more dangerous and bizarre than that.

My life could be at risk.
So I didn’t force Jeong Seok to come with me.

“Hoo… hoo… hoo, hoo…*

Jeong Seok took a few deep breaths.
He slapped his cheeks with both hands and said to me,

“Just be honest and say you need help. If you ask me for help, I’ll help you. I promised, after all. And to be honest, I’m personally interested too. I’m going too. In there.”

“Fuck, help me! I’m actually terrified!”

Seeing Jeong Seok willing to risk his life, I was deeply moved and my true feelings slipped out between my lips.

“I want to live too! Let’s go together! Together!”

Honestly, I didn’t want to go into that elevator.
But I had to save Mom.

If I had no choice but to go…
Even if it felt like a ghost luring me to my death, I’d rather not go alone!
Having others with me is better than going alone, even if it seems ominous!

*Pat*

Jeong Seok and I entered the elevator.
Yang Juhui, who had been watching this farce inside, spoke to us.

“Sheesh, scaredy-cats. Why do you talk so much just to come into an elevator?”

…No.
In this case, isn’t Yang Juhui the one who’s being too fearless and carefree?
Can a person really be this brave?
Maybe it would take something like the “Nightmare Corridor” to scare Yang Juhui.

“There really are only 4th floors. Let’s keep pressing the open button just in case.”

Jeong Seok said while looking around.

Except for the open and close buttons, all the floor numbers on the elevator were a mess of the number “4”.
There were about 100 of those switches.
It was bizarre how the spaces for floors 1 to 100 all had the number 4 written.

“What is this? What could it mean?”

Before pressing the button, I asked Yang Juhui and Jeong Seok for their opinions on the elevator plastered with 4’s.
Based on my experience with ghost incidents so far, even the most trivial things could be clues or solutions.
Yang Juhui spoke.

“Don’t know!”

It seemed Yang Juhui didn’t know.
Although I heard Yang Juhui studied well for a delinquent, book smarts and this kind of smarts were different.
Then what about Jeong Seok?

“Seok, do you think it has any meaning?”

“In East Asian countries like Korea, the number 4 is sometimes omitted from elevators. That’s because this number 4 is associated with the Chinese character for death.”

“Oh.”

“So sometimes the 4th floor is represented as F or something like that. This trend has declined these days, but it was common in the 90s and early 2000s.”

Jeong Seok was staring at his cell phone.
He seemed to be reciting what he searched on his phone.
At least this meant the phones worked normally inside this elevator.

*Swoosh*

Just then, someone entered the housing complex.
It was the lady who lived across from us and managed Taekwang Housing.
The lady got angry seeing the scattered papers and tape in front of the elevator.

“Oh my, what is all this! Who left this garbage! Do not ride the elevator. Where is there an elevator here for you to use to say that? We need to install CCTV! Oh, really!”

“……”

Jeong Seok and I were bewildered by this situation.
Only Yang Juhui bravely voiced the current situation.

“Can’t she see us? The elevator door is open. Ma’am! Ma’am!”

The 4th-floor manager acted as if she couldn’t see us on the 1st floor and the elevator with its door wide open, even though Yang Juhui shouted loudly.
Soon, Jeong Seok muttered softly.

“Could it be…”

Has he figured something out?
When I wanted to ask what had happened, he started anxiously explaining.

“Anyway, in elevators, the 4th floor means the Chinese character ‘sa.’ In other words, death. In this elevator, all the floors mean death. It’s totally an elevator of death.”

An elevator of death.
It seemed we were riding in that right now.

Hey guys, let’s just get off…
In less than 10 seconds, those words came up to my throat several times and went back down.

*Swoosh*

That’s when Yang Juhui moved her hand and pressed the 4th floor.
Both Jeong Seok and I were surprised by this bold and reckless action.
In Jeong Seok’s case, he even frowned and got angry.

“Hey! You can’t act so rashly! If you act so recklessly and carelessly, we could all really die!”

“Then what are you going to do? Just stay here and keep pressing the open button? In the end, we can’t know exactly what’s there until we go to the 4th floor!”

Jeong Seok was right, and Yang Juhui was right, too.
Yang Juhui even continued to express her opinion.

“Youngwon’s mom is trapped in a strange elevator. Is there any law saying this won’t happen to our families or moms? If the elevator keeps appearing around us and making people disappear?”

“That’s… There’s no guarantee it will happen… But there’s no guarantee it won’t either…”

“I can’t bear to see my mom or dad go missing too.”

Yang Juhui was a friend who had personally experienced a family breakdown due to the disappearance of her older sister “Yang Dohee.” She must not have been able to stand the thought of an elevator that eats people targeting her family.

“Maybe my sister is on the 4th floor. I’m going. If you’re scared, you guys can get off now. I’m going to press the close button in 5 seconds. I’m counting down. 5… 4…”

As Yang Juhui began a death countdown to 4, Jeong Seok and I looked at each other’s faces. We had a lot we wanted to say to each other, but Jeong Seok moved his hand first.

*Swoosh*

He pressed the close button with his outstretched hand.

“Fuck. Let’s go. Go.”

His voice was trembling.
Even if he was the son of the market district head and smart enough to dream of becoming a prosecutor, he was still just a 1st-year high school student after all.
We were all like that.

We weren’t young enough to fully rely on adults’ protection, but we weren’t adults either - people of that ambiguous age.
Honestly, it was scary and frightening.
Even so, how reassuring it was to be together…!

*Ding dong*

At last, we arrived at the 4th floor.

“Doors opening.”

*Swoosh*

As the elevator doors opened, there was only pitch-black darkness beyond.
Jeong Seok asked.

“Youngwon, what does the advice feature say?”

These days, I was using the advice feature as sparingly as possible.
I was saving it so I could use it only for important moments.

“Advice.”

Advice from the [Broken Clock]:

Where there is an entrance, there is also an exit.

It was simple advice.
But the brightness of hope the sentence carried was quite strong.

“It says where there’s an entrance, there’s an exit. I think it means if we go in here, we’ll definitely be able to get out somewhere.”

“Hey, Ha Youngwon. Look at this.”

Yang Juhui pointed to the floor panel with her long finger.
Below the number “4”, the words “Capacity Exceeded” could be seen.
It was the same composition as the photo my mom took.

“The buttons don’t work either, except for the open and close ones.”

At Jeong Seok’s comment, as he examined the elevator, I was struck with a realization.
Now, we only had two choices left.

“We have two options. Either stay in this elevator. Or go outside.”

“I’ll go first.”

*Hoo*

Yang Juhui took a small, deep breath and stretched her foot into the darkness.
Jeong Seok and I carefully observed Yang Juhui, and after confirming there were no problems, we slowly followed behind her.

“Doors closing.”

The elevator doors closed.
As the light emitted from that rectangular box disappeared, the “4th floor” was engulfed in complete darkness.

This inky blackness clung to the skin like sticky ink.
Just as I thought it felt familiar, a dazzling light struck my face.

Jeong Seok had taken out his cell phone.

“It’s out of service. The phone screen is totally glitching, too. The time is weird. I can’t even control it. How about your phones?”

Jeong Seok and I also took out our phones.
Just like Jeong Seok’s, my phone and Yang Juhui’s were out of service and the text was garbled.
It felt like they had broken down.

*Uweeeeek*
*Chiiiiick*

Just then, a terrible noise came from our phones.
It sounded like a deliberately broken radio wailing its unpleasant death throes.
Everyone was startled.

*Clatter, clack. Clatter. Clack*
Some kind of presence was felt from beyond that dark passage.

A person?
Could it be Mom?
Jeong Seok and Yang Juhui spoke.

“Seems like something is coming from over there?”
“Could it be Youngwon’s mom? This sound, it’s like high heels.”

I had thought about calling out loudly, but I felt an ominous premonition. My mom was someone who didn’t wear things like high heels.
My mom was the type who liked sneakers and flats.

‘The phone is dead and keeps making scary sounds, so I threw it away.’

Jeong Sojin’s story, which I had heard long ago in The Nightmare Corridor, came to mind.
This darkness and the presence felt from afar were not unfamiliar to me.

“Hey, let’s look around for lockers or boxes. Quickly! I think it’s best to get away from here for now! We need to find a place to hide! There must be one! Like a box or a locker! Throw away the phones!”

I pushed Jeong Seok and Yang Juhui’s backs.

And amazingly enough, we found a trash can large enough for the three of us to fit in.
It was a large-capacity trash can that you might find on a street corner.
As we squirmed inside, we saw talismans haphazardly stuck to the interior.

Just as I thought my nose would be bent from the awful stench of garbage…

*Crack, creak, crack-. Clack. Clack.*

Something began to pass by the trash can we were hiding in, making sounds as if joints and bones were unnaturally breaking and colliding.

“Wh…what is that…”
“Shh. Jeong Seok, be quiet.”

At that moment, I realized.
This ‘sa’ floor.
This place was a nightmare mixed with reality.

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