Bailonz Street 13-Chapter 248.2
‘Ah.’
Right. The concourse is part of the subway station.
If we’ve been counted as passengers at this station.
If our presence is now known to the station.
Then the forest in the concourse knows about us too…
Enough to chase us.
Up to now, the only reason it hadn’t chased us onto the platform was because the talisman had been blocking our presence in our stead.
But now that it snapped.
“Back—”
The very next moment.
Fog came pouring down below the stairs and completely blanketed the platform.
“…!!”
The platform, wrapped in fog, seemed to grow unnaturally wide, and shadows of trees began to appear.
Trees with hanged corpses on them.
…And nooses without corpses.
– In the ■■■ Forest, notorious as a so-called ‘suicide hotspot’, new bodies have been discovered. The latest are five unidentified male and female corpses found hanging side by side from trees near the subway connecting passage.
– According to witness testimony, it is presumed that they attempted to board a subway train but gave up and ultimately chose to take their own lives. Their final recorded words were…
– Don’t you want to give up too?
“Dodge.”
I ducked my head. I tried to grab the shoulder of the person next to me, but once again, what my hand found was a corpse.
I shook it off, panicked.
“Everyone, to the screen doors!”
Thankfully, voices still carried.
And within the fog, I could faintly see the trail of blue fire and hear the sound of a bell.
A presence driving back the fog.
“Over here!”
I hurried toward it.
As I got closer, a silhouette took shape in the fog. Agent Choi, by the screen doors!
Passengers, please observe proper etiquette and board safely.
“As soon as the train doors open, we—”
Hook.
“…Agent?”
Just now.
Just now, right before my eyes, didn’t Agent Choi get caught by a noose and get hoisted up, dangling into the tree?
Huh?
What… is this?
Why did it suddenly happen like that? This was clearly a ghost story that lures victims, but since we’re registered as station users, there’s no need to lure us? Because the talisman that had been holding it back broke like a breached dam? Because we violated the etiquette? No……
Just now.
He died?
He di—
“Shit.”
……
…Assistant Manager!
I forced my wits back together and shoved through the fog, searching for a voice. The assistant manager should be, should be somewhere around here…
Hook.
Another figure snatched by a noose and yanked upward.
It vanished into the fog.
– Don’t you want to give up too?
I froze.
‘……Ah.’
The platform was already completely smothered in trees and fog.
Maybe everything I just saw was a hallucination? Could it all have been an illusion? I mean, there’s no way two people would just suddenly die like that, so then…
But other presences…
“Agent Grapes!”
Agent Bronze.
“Agent.”
Silhouettes came toward me. Beside him I could make out Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae. The glow from the little glow-in-the-dark star sticker stuck to the back of her hand lit the fog just enough to see.
We were almost right next to the screen doors.
Beyond the fog, I could faintly see the light from the open train doors.
“Get on n—!”
This time.
I saw it.
A noose shot out of the fog, seized Agent Bronze by the neck, and yanked him upward.
He was snatched up into the fog.
“…!”
I grabbed his lower body on reflex. At the same time Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae grabbed his feet.
But it was pointless.
Because it was around his neck.
With a pressure that made no sense, the noose slipped through our hands and went up.
Crack. There was only that sound.
The sound of a neck breaking.
“……”
The screen doors are now closing. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎
I hurled myself toward the train.
My scrambled head wouldn’t settle on any proper conclusion, just reeled. Escape. Are we really escaping like this? Isn’t there anything we can do?
It’s already too la—
…!
And this time I saw it.
By the light of the glow-in-the-dark star on Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae’s upraised hand as she ran, I saw the cord dropping through the fog.
A noose.
It was one of our turns.
‘No.’
I shoved Assistant Manager Lee Seonghae, almost throwing her through the closing train doors.
At the same moment.
– Don’t you want to give up too?
A noose caught my neck and yanked.
Hook.
Pain.
Pressure.
Can’t breathe.
……
Death.
Blackout.
* * *
Would you like to continue?
* * *
“Haa—!”
“Agent!”
Ryu Jaekwan opened his eyes. He was panting like mad. The crushing pain and constriction at his neck, the shock, reverberated through his chest and body.
He raised a hand to touch his neck, but someone stopped him.
“Calm down. You’re at HQ!”
……HQ?
He snapped into focus.
A modern room strung with warding ropes and talismans. A bed, the smell of disinfectant and rice…
The bureau’s contamination infirmary.
“……”
He finally let the strength drain from his hand. The infirmary agent peering down at him sighed in relief and spoke.
‘A nightmare?’
Is that possible? Had he had a nightmare as a kind of supernatural disaster?
Then where did the nightmare start? What if where he was now was actually a dre—
“We told you not to use the well as a transit path anymore! And you just had to use it… Everyone who used it has been unconscious for two days straight. You’re the first one to wake up, Agent Bronze.”
“……”
“I’m sure Agent Choi was the one who told you to use it—”
“Wait, agh, wait a moment.”
Ryu Jaekwan asked urgently,
“Did the well actually function?”
“It functioned, sure! All of a sudden here at HQ, a supernatural disaster and a bunch of Daydream employees all appeared unconscious together. It’s absolute chaos.”
“……”
“And since everyone being unconscious felt artificial, we figured you’d all been hit by some weird supernatural phenomenon… Agent?”
Agent Bronze clutched his neck again.
‘…My voice won’t come out properly.’
And there was this strange tightness, like a lingering auditory hallucination clinging to him.
…Like a noose.
“Are you alright? We’re planning a full work-up, but…”
“Yes.”
There was odd pain, a trembling in his body. It felt like some uncanny aftereffect remained…
He’s alive.
‘I didn’t die.’
He realized it.
Sekwang Special Metropolitan City.
The reason they could connect to a place erased from reality, a place that couldn’t even be perceived.
It is a dream.
Through the well, they had entered Sekwang City in a dream.
And then…
“Ah, it sounds like the others are regaining consciousness. But… it seems like one Daydream employee is still out.”
They had left one person behind.
Salt Goblin
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