Chapter 5
At Kang Ye-ra’s words, I suddenly felt anxious and looked down at the phone in my hand.
The phone was still showing no signal, with empty bars at the top.
“...Maybe no one is coming.”
I didn't add anything else, but everyone stared blankly at the phone in my hand all at once.
Everyone must have been thinking the same thing.
The disaster alert, followed by the loss of communication.
There were countless people who could have reported what happened here.
Yet, for the past twelve hours, no one had come.
The number on the screen told me that I had been awake for 40 hours.
Whether it was due to a state of arousal from tension or a lack of sleep, my head felt heavy as if submerged in fog.
I put the phone back in my pocket and spoke.
“I should see what it’s like outside for a moment.”
Kang Ye-ra, her expression stiff with tension, grabbed my wrist.
“What if those things all swarm in the moment they see you, Jihyeok-nim? What if there are even more of them than before?”
“But we can't just keep staying like this without knowing the situation. Everyone is exhausted... I'll just peek my head out slightly and hide right away.”
At my words, Kang Ye-ra reluctantly loosened her grip.
I slightly raised my head and looked at the brightly lit office.
The light flowing through the bloodstains on the glass was drawing red stains here and there on the conference room floor.
The hazy figures that had been standing beyond the film were no longer visible.
However, just like earlier at the restroom, they might be lingering a short distance away.
I looked for something to step on to check the outside properly.
But the chairs scattered around were all the rolling type, and since the table had already been tipped over, nothing suitable to step on was in sight.
Just then, I noticed a thin gap between the film in one spot on the conference room glass.
It was a gap so narrow that it would normally be difficult to find.
But in the dark conference room, it was clearly visible thanks to the light leaking through the gap.
I pressed my eye to the gap in the film and checked the office.
In the empty office, only the bleak white lighting filled the space.
“How is it?”
At Manager Kim's impatient question, I turned back slightly and shook my head.
When I lightly made an X with both hands, everyone's faces, which had been stiff with tension, relaxed as if in relief.
“For now, I don't see anyone... but let's watch for a little longer, just in case.”
Everyone nodded at my words, but Gu Hyeon-woo had a somewhat dissatisfied expression.
Although that expression was unsettling, I had received agreement for now, so I turned my head back toward the empty office.
I watched the outside for a while, but still no one moving was seen.
Around the time I thought it was about time to head out, Gu Hyeon-woo suddenly jumped up from his seat.
“Exactly how long are you going to wait? If we stay like this and those crazy bastards come back, we won't even be able to get out of here!”
After finishing his words, Gu Hyeon-woo strode over and unlocked the bottom latch of the door in one go.
“What are you doing, going out so suddenly like that!”
Kang Ye-ra shouted urgently, but Gu Hyeon-woo didn't care and even turned the top lock.
“If you don't like it, then all of you stay here until that guy says okay. What on earth is this? It's not like we're his subordinates.”
At Gu Hyeon-woo’s words, Manager Kim, perhaps realizing only then that he had been listening solely to an intern, cleared his throat and stood up from behind the table.
However, he still didn't go near the door, as if he still felt uneasy.
Gu Hyeon-woo, who had been acting like he was about to rush out immediately, also didn't move easily after unlocking everything, perhaps out of fear.
Seeing that, a sigh escaped me involuntarily.
But Gu Hyeon-woo’s words weren't entirely wrong.
Nothing would be solved by just staring outside like this anyway.
If we spent time like this and they came back, just as Gu Hyeon-woo said, we might be stuck for the next twelve hours again.
“Then, let Hyeon-woo-nim and me go out first.”
As I spoke while approaching the door, Gu Hyeon-woo made a very aggrieved expression.
He turned to look at Deputy Head Jeong, Kang Ye-ra, and Manager Kim, grumbling.
“What? Why me first...?”
As he continued, Gu Hyeon-woo suddenly seemed to recall his previous actions and shut his mouth tight.
When I stood in front of the door, Gu Hyeon-woo slinked off to the side, glancing at me to gauge my reaction.
That attitude was quite irritating.
Still, it wasn't like I didn't know Gu Hyeon-woo had this kind of personality.
Besides, who wouldn't be scared when their life is on the line?
I placed my hand, slick with cold sweat, against the cool glass and pushed it slightly.
The door opened without resistance with a faint sound of wind.
Cold sweat pooled in my clenched fists.
The area near the door was empty, just as I had confirmed from inside the conference room.
The moment I took a step forward in relief, Gu Hyeon-woo, seeing that no one appeared, pushed past me and began running toward the office exit.
Pushed by Gu Hyeon-woo, I nearly fell to the floor.
Fortunately, I managed to avoid a pathetic tumble by grabbing a nearby desk.
“Hyeon-woo-nim!”
I couldn't raise my voice in this situation.
I urgently called out to Gu Hyeon-woo in a voice that was almost a whisper.
However, my shout didn't seem to reach him.
Arriving at the exit, Gu Hyeon-woo looked around the hallway with an anxious expression.
Then, seemingly confirming that no one was outside, he hurriedly began pressing the door-open button.
Tap-tap-tap-tap—
The sound of repeatedly hitting the thin plastic plate filled the office.
Whether Gu Hyeon-woo’s urgent behavior made the others impatient as well, Manager Kim and Deputy Head Jeong emerged from the conference room.
“Let’s get going quickly, too.”
Manager Kim ran past me, but then came to a dead stop.
Deputy Head Jeong, who had also stopped next to me, clamped both hands over her mouth as if to stifle a scream.
There was a small pantry near the exit.
It wasn't a space large enough for chairs or tables, so it wasn't completely blocked off, but an opaque partition reaching the ceiling had been set up there for aesthetic reasons.
From right behind that wall, a man in a black short-sleeved t-shirt emerged, dragging his feet.
A faint sound of dragging feet—skrrr—was heard.
Gu Hyeon-woo, busy pressing the door-open button, didn't seem to hear the sound of the man approaching him.
The friction sound from the slowly opening exit was also enough to mask the man’s small footsteps.
I hurriedly looked around for something to use as a weapon.
Just then, a thick industrial cutter knife lying on the desk right next to me caught my eye.
The man, his mouth wide open, lunged as if to bite the back of Gu Hyeon-woo’s neck.
Gu Hyeon-woo was still looking toward the hallway.
“Hyeon-woo-nim!!”
I gripped the cutter knife firmly and shouted Gu Hyeon-woo’s name.
With a puzzled expression, Gu Hyeon-woo reflexively turned his body to look my way.
Thanks to him turning his head, the man’s teeth narrowly missed Gu Hyeon-woo’s neck.
The man, his body slamming into the wall next to the exit with the momentum of his lunge, tangled with Gu Hyeon-woo and fell to the floor.
“Aaaaagh! Aaaaagh!”
Seized by panic, Gu Hyeon-woo screamed and kicked the man.
The man, his limbs twisting as he was pushed back a couple of steps, glared at Gu Hyeon-woo and let out a shriek—kyaaaaak!
Pale as death, Gu Hyeon-woo scrambled out through the gap of the exit, which had opened wide and was now slowly closing.
Following that, the arm of the man chasing Gu Hyeon-woo got caught in the closing door.
Soon, the exit, detecting an obstruction, began to open again with a small sound—ssshhh.
The sound of Gu Hyeon-woo’s footsteps running frantically was heard from the hallway.
“Go back in, let's go back in! Hurry! Gu Intern is too late anyway!”
Manager Kim, who had retreated into the conference room, shouted toward us while urgently pulling Deputy Head Jeong in.
Unfortunately, Manager Kim’s shout drew the man’s attention.
The head of the man, who had been staring straight beyond the slowly opening door, turned toward us with a snap.
His face, stained with dark red blood and featuring a nose bent strangely as if it had broken when he hit the wall, was horrific.
Meanwhile, Manager Kim, who had pulled Deputy Head Jeong into the conference room, let out a gasp.
The moment the man, who had pulled his arm out from the gap in the door, turned toward us and lunged, Manager Kim closed the conference room door.
“Manager!”
Kang Ye-ra rushed over urgently and pounded on the door.
A clack sound of the door being locked was heard as if in response.
“Hey, you son of a bitch!”
Kang Ye-ra kicked the conference room door.
As expected, no answer came from inside.
While the commotion continued behind me, I faced the man running toward us head-on.
Moving my hands soaked in cold sweat, I extended the blade of the cutter knife long.
“Get back!”
Clinging to a shred of hope, I thrust the cutter knife forward and threatened the man.
However, he lunged toward me instead.
I became tangled with the man and fell to the floor.
I felt the sensation of the cutter knife's blade piercing through a thin piece of cloth and sinking into something.
The feeling transmitted to my hand of the blade digging into firm flesh was skin-crawling.
Perhaps because where the knife hit was between the ribs, the cutter knife, pressed by the man's weight, sank into his body without much resistance.
A lukewarm, sticky liquid flowed down onto my hand along the cutter knife that had dug in up to the handle.
At this point, his lungs or heart must have surely been pierced, but the man, like the person I met in the restroom, kept trying to attack me while vomiting blood.
The moment the man, his mouth wide open, tried to bite me as I was pinned beneath him, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Ack! Jihyeok-nim!”
Kang Ye-ra’s urgent shout was heard.
Strangely, the expected pain did not follow.
When I peeked my eyes open, I saw Kang Ye-ra holding a backscratcher, frantically pushing the man’s forehead away with the handle side.
“Go away! I said go away!”
Her terror-stricken shout was half-mixed with sobbing.
Thud-thud.
The sound continued as red marks increased on the man’s forehead.
Then the skin peeled away, and dark red blood welled up from the wound.
Viscous-looking blood flowed slowly down the man's forehead, but he still did not stop his attack toward me.
The man, staring at my nape with glistening eyes and clashing his teeth together, had his head jerked back once more as he was pushed by the handle of the backscratcher.
And because of his head suddenly lifting, the backscratcher, which was extending to target the forehead again, missed its mark and landed on the man's eye.
Then, before either I or Kang Ye-ra could show any reaction, the handle sank deeply into the man's eye.