Courage Test (5)

It was difficult for a teacher to get a tattoo in a noticeable spot.
It couldn’t be helped due to the nature of the job, having to stand in front of students.

Imagine a teacher with a tattoo on their hand, arm, or shoulder.
It would inevitably seem strange.

Then what about the left ankle?
The left ankle likely wouldn’t be in a position easily seen by students during the teacher’s usual classes.

*Click clack*

Of course, it was clearly visible to someone like me who was lying face down looking at the floor.

“Is anyone there?”

The voice that had become quite familiar recently echoed in the faculty office.
It was the voice of Hong Miri, the first-year English teacher at Yeongji High School.

On Hong Miri’s left ankle was a black butterfly-shaped tattoo.
At first, I thought it was a birthmark on her skin, but upon closer look, it was clearly a butterfly-shaped tattoo.

“You guys. I don’t know who you are, but if you’re hiding here, it’s best to come out now. I’m saying this for your sake. Do you know how dangerous the old school building is? There’s a lot of broken glass and protruding nails.”

*Click clack*

*Click clack*

Hong Miri walked around the faculty office, warning us.
She seemed to have figured out that someone had snuck into the old school building but didn’t know exactly where we were hiding.

*Click clack*

Just as her high heels approached right in front of the desk I was hiding under… I couldn’t help but be a little surprised.

“……”

The black butterfly tattoo that had been on her left ankle just moments ago… had disappeared.
Do tattoos just appear and disappear as they please?

Or was I seeing things?

As I was thinking that, Hong Miri’s *click clack* high heels rang out as she left the faculty office and disappeared down the hallway. She seemed to be going up to the second floor.

“Whew….”

Only then could I exhale the breath I had been holding and calm down. Perhaps from being so tense for so long in an awkward position, my whole body ached, and cold sweat ran down my back.

“Is everyone okay? The teacher left!”

I asked in a small voice but loud enough for everyone to hear.
At that, Yoo Dahee slowly emerged from the empty cabinet.

“I hid in a hurry but managed to avoid getting caught. I think the game training came in handy for this urgent situation. If I hadn’t known where to hide, I definitely would’ve been caught.”

Yoo Dahee assessed that thanks to her experience hiding from ghosts while playing “Abyss Corridor” today, she was able to evade the teacher’s eyes.
Soon, Jeong Seok, who had been crouching in the blue PP box, also raised his head.

“If we had gotten caught, I don’t think it would have ended with just getting scolded. I wonder if we should stop now.”

The experience was thrilling.
Both Jeong Seok and Yoo Dahee seemed to have a hard time calming down.
However… I didn’t know when the teacher who went upstairs would come back down, so I thought it would be best to go down to the basement of the old school building while we had the chance.

“Let’s go quickly. To the basement.”

We all quickly dashed out of the first-floor faculty office.
However, finding the way to the basement of the old school building was more of a problem than I thought.

The dark corridor.
With the three of us together, the eerie feeling lessened, but we had no idea which way to go.

“Where are we supposed to go?”

We had to find the basement while avoiding the teacher’s surveillance, without even knowing the way.
That’s when Yoo Dahee spoke up.

“Guys. I think it’s this way. If we go past the bathroom over there to the end of the hallway, there should be stairs leading down to the basement at the dead end! I remember now!”

Perhaps Yoo Dahee had recalled a memory.

We lowered our strides as much as possible and carefully stepped on the glass shards scattered on the floor to avoid getting hurt or making loud noises as we headed toward the end of the hallway.
And there, just as Yoo Dahee said, were stairs leading down to the basement.

*Eeek*

However, it was terribly dark and filled with a damp, moldy smell, making us hesitate on whether we should really go down there.

It felt like ghosts or bad people could be lurking there.
It also seemed like it would be full of cockroaches.

“……”
“……”
“……”

Did everyone have similar thoughts as me? Neither I, Jeong Seok, nor Yoo Dahee could easily take a step forward.
At times like this, if Yang Juhui were here, she would have taken the lead, saying, “You scaredy-cats. Follow me!” in a reassuring way.

“Tsk. Alright. I’ll go first.”

As the leader, I decided to take the initiative.

*Clink clank. Jingle jangle.*

Carefully stepping on the glass shards haphazardly left on the stairs, I descended the staircase and felt the temperature drop drastically.
It felt like entering a cool refrigerator.

The air had been humid and stuffy the past few days with summer approaching, so the sweat that had been flowing suddenly felt chilly, giving quite an eerie feeling.

“Wow, geez. Look at all this mold.”

In the neglected basement, mold was blooming everywhere, like flowers or murals.
There was so much moisture down here.

The rumor about the school being built on a water vein must be true.
The mold is seriously severe.

‘Ghosts live here’
‘Red Mask’
‘If you see a ghost, the ghost also sees you’

Someone had scribbled things like this all over the walls in black and red spray paint, which looked very ominous and gave an eerie feeling for no reason.

It seemed like delinquents had snuck in at night like us and graffitied, but because of the atmosphere, it looked really creepy.
The scariest part was this:

‘Do not turn on the lights’
‘If you turn on the lights, the ghost will come’

Don’t turn on the lights?
How can we not turn on the lights in this darkness? Talk some sense.
Jeong Seok and Yoo Dahee soon followed me down.
I asked Yoo Dahee,

“Does anything come to mind?”

“Hmm…”

Yoo Dahee pondered for a while, either deep in thought or trying to recall a memory.
Then, as if she remembered something, she grabbed my wrist.

“The atmosphere is different from what I remembered before. Youngwon, can you turn off your phone light for a bit?”

Turn off the light? If we turn it off, we won’t be able to see anything at all.

But there was no other way. I was the leader, but our goal was to cooperate so Yoo Dahee could regain her memories.

*Click*

As Yoo Dahee said, I tried turning off my phone light.

Perhaps because it was a basement, not a single ray of light came in, and many things were swallowed by the darkness.
Perfect black.
It was so dark that it felt like even Yoo Dahee and Jeong Seok right next to me had disappeared, and I couldn’t even see my own hand.

It was so dark that I suddenly got scared.
What if when I turn the light back on, Jeong Seok and Yoo Dahee are gone?

“Guys. Are you next to me right now?”

I asked those around me out of unreasonable fear.
Then, from the darkness, Jeong Seok spoke.

“Yeah, we’re here. Wow. Turning off the light makes the atmosphere seriously no joke. Dahee, does anything come to mind?”

Jeong Seok asked Yoo Dahee.
In the darkness, Yoo Dahee pondered again with a “Hmm…”

“Youngwon, let me hold your hand for a bit.”

Someone grabbed my hand.
It was a soft, warm hand with very slender fingers.

So this was Yoo Dahee’s hand.
I instinctively recognized that, but through various experiences, I wondered if it might be a ghost pretending to be Yoo Dahee holding my hand, so I pinched the back of that hand.

“…Eek! Something bit me!”

Yoo Dahee screamed.
It seemed it wasn’t a ghost after all.
Soon, from the darkness, Jeong Seok spoke.

“…You don’t think there are bugs living here, do you? Since it’s damp, there might be things like centipedes. Should we turn the light back on?”

Jeong Seok’s voice was trembling.
It seemed he was already getting sick of this darkness and wanted to turn on a light.
However, Yoo Dahee hastily said,

“No. Absolutely not. We absolutely cannot turn on a light. Now, we’ll slowly advance forward. Youngwon, you hold Seok’s hand tight. Never let go. I’ll say it again, we absolutely cannot turn on a light.”

Holding hands and advancing through pitch-black darkness where we can’t see anything?
It sounded crazy.
In this scary school basement as it is…

“Hey, Seok. Hurry and grab my hand. Quickly.”

Still, if I’m holding onto both Yoo Dahee and Jeong Seok with each hand, it should be less scary.
I reached my hand out into the darkness and was soon able to grasp Jeong Seok’s hand.

“Hey, Ha Youngwon. This is your hand, right? It’s not some ghost hand or something, is it?”

It seemed Jeong Seok had imagined something similar to what I had.
This scaredy-cat bastard.

Anyway, we ended up slowly advancing through the darkness while holding each other’s hands.

The basement where a chilly cold air clings to your body like sticky vanilla ice cream.
Walking there consumed mental energy much faster than expected, so in order to reduce the psychological burden, I wanted to open my mouth and say anything.

“Dahee, is there a reason we can’t turn on the lights?”

“…I remember walking like this before. Someone held my hand… It was really scary but also reassuring.”

I kind of get it.
Right now, I’m really scared, but it’s somewhat reassuring to be with everyone.

*Step*
*Step*

We advanced through the darkness like that, relying on each other’s body heat.
Then suddenly, I got scared.

“Hey, Jeong Seok. The one behind me is you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What jungle champion do you usually pick?”

“Kha’Zix and Nidalee.”

Oh.
Indeed, it was Jeong Seok behind me.
Then is the female in front of me really Yoo Dahee?

“Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three…”

Yoo Dahee was counting some numbers.
I thought she was simply counting down, but she abruptly stopped walking at “forty-four.”
She must have been counting her steps.

“Why are you counting steps?”

I asked.
Then, instead of Yoo Dahee, Jeong Seok spoke up.

“Come to think of it, there was a rumor that at Yeongji High, there’s a ghost that answers three questions. If you go into the last stall of the girls’ bathroom in the basement and knock facing outward, then ask three questions… Someone waiting outside will answer all those questions.”

“Hey, what the hell. Are you kidding me? Why are you telling that story now? It’s scary.”

If you tell ghost stories at a cemetery, ghosts will appear.
Of course, this place wasn’t a cemetery, and I had already destroyed the feng shui ghost, so even if we tell ghost stories, ghosts won’t actually appear, but still…

But… The ghost that answered three questions didn’t seem unfamiliar.
Isn’t that the “Lady Ghost”?
It was a ghost I had already defeated before. Nothing much to be scared of.
Jeong Seok spoke in a trembling voice.

“When I first heard this story, what I thought was that Yeongji High School doesn’t have an underground bathroom. But now that I see it, this old school building has a basement…”

That was true.
Right then, Yoo Dahee’s steps stopped again at 44.
Like before, Yoo Dahee turned her body 90 degrees to the left and started walking again.

Soon, Jeong Seok asked,

“But Youngwon, don’t you think it’s strange no matter how you think about it? We… have turned 90 degrees twice now and are walking in a ‘C’ shape. The old Yeongji High building should be ‘L’ shaped. We are now…”

“Hey, that’s only if you look at it from above ground. The basement layout could be different.”

I scolded Jeong Seok out of unreasonable fear.
I was starting to get scared.
Yoo Dahee just kept counting numbers.

“Forty-four.”

Yoo Dahee’s steps stopped again at 44.
And she turned 90 degrees again and started counting from one.

“Youngwon, if we walk 44 steps again this time… you know we’ll end up returning to our original spot in a square shape, right? Is the old school building basement a square corridor?”

*Buzz*

Right then, someone’s phone rang.
It was Jeong Seok.

“Oh? I think I just got a message.”

“Hey! Absolutely do not check your phone! Whatever it is!”

Out of impatience, I warned Jeong Seok.
My phone was also buzzing continuously with vibrations.

But it made no sense.
I had turned off my phone itself earlier when Yoo Dahee asked me to turn off the light, just in case!
How can a turned-off phone vibrate?

“Forty-four. I think this is it…”

Right then, Yoo Dahee’s steps stopped.

*Whoosh*

And some bright light source exploded.
Yoo Dahee had turned on her phone and shone the light.

Stairs were visible.
The stairs we had come down to the basement.
Had we returned to the starting point?
No, that didn’t seem to be the case.

“…What, what is this.”

Someone let out a startled voice.
It seemed to be from Jeong Seok’s side, but honestly, it didn’t matter who it was.

‘Save me’
‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’ ‘Save me’

Red letters we hadn’t seen before were densely covering the walls.
And instead of the mold blooming like flowers of the netherworld, black and slender things were sprouting everywhere.
Their thickness and visible texture… looked similar to human hair.

“I remember. Some unnie… said she’d get me out of here, so to hold her hand, close my eyes tight and count numbers… That unnie said she came here to find something… like a round ball…”

Yoo Dahee seemed engrossed in recalling her memories as if this sudden change wasn’t scary.

“…Why did I forget about this until now? The magic wand unnie gave me… I dropped it here…”

*Swish*

Yoo Dahee seemed to not understand herself.
She soon reached out and picked up a magic wand from the floor that young girls would likely play with. It had a red diamond embedded at the top of a pink rod.

“Hey, you guys wanna die?”

*Flash*

Right then, the basement lit up brightly.
Turning our heads, we saw a teacher in pointy high heels glaring at us from the direction of the 1st-floor stairs.

“……”

Startled, I looked around.
A basement filled with mold was visible in all directions.

‘Ghosts live here’
‘Red Mask’
‘If you see a ghost, the ghost also sees you’

There were no pleas to save us and no hair covering the corridor.
Teacher Hong Miri looked down at the basement and said,

“You punks! If you don’t get up here right now…!?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jeong Seok and I went up to the 1st floor feeling like we survived.
Yoo Dahee also followed us up, and in the bright light, I saw that at the end of the handle of the magic wand Yoo Dahee was holding, there was a circular name tag attached.

‘Yang Juhui’