Chapter 5
[21F]
…
[17F]
……
The elevator continued to stop at every floor as it descended.
It was slowly going down toward the 1st floor.
And.
[5F]
We arrived at that horrific floor number again.
“Here?”
Everyone remembered.
It was the floor where the grandfather had gotten off.
“Ah....”
Everyone had a distressed expression.
They might confirm the grandfather’s life or death, but in the worst case, they might face a tragedy they didn't want to see.
“…….”
The female student turned her head away.
The middle-aged woman also hung her head low to avoid the sight.
Because they were too filled with terror to look directly.
I was staring forward, tense.
[The doors are opening.]
Whir.
The doors were opening like Pandora’s box.
It was originally an empty lobby, but this time, a quiet incense was rising like mist.
There were no bloodstains, no grandfather, no one to be seen.
“There’s no one here.”
Everyone stared blankly ahead with bewildered expressions.
What on earth happened to the grandfather?
It was around the time such a question would not go away.
“Kyah!”
An unknown roar.
Then, a being with two red eyes slowly began to appear from the darkness.
“Who is it?”
Reddish, bloodshot eyes.
Foaming at the mouth.
Even rotting skin.
Because of the light from the elevator, the monster's identity was revealed as it drew closer.
“Grandfather?”
An appearance transformed into something like a zombie.
“Grandfather, are you okay?”
I shouted.
There was no answer.
Just Grrrr.
There was only the sight of the grandfather spitting out foam and vomiting blood while twisting his entire body and making grotesque movements.
Awe-inspiring.
Terrifying.
Grotesque.
All sorts of emotions were messily mixed and blended together.
This time, the female student was faster than me.
She hurriedly pressed the close button.
“Let’s go down quickly.”
A horrific tragedy.
The miserable end of someone who got off at the wrong floor.
At that moment, I recalled the last words the grandfather had spoken.
“Everyone, be careful.”
I felt a surge of emotion at those words.
Sadness and regret.
Pity and anguish for him having met such an end were spreading through my body.
“Sob.”
The female student was shedding tears.
The middle-aged woman’s expression was on the verge of crying, and the child buried their face behind their mother and hid.
I, too, was on the verge of losing my mind from feelings of sadness and anger.
“Not yet.”
I must survive.
I became even more determined.
“I have a guess about the meaning of the incense. Could it be incense for the victims who got off on that floor?”
“…….”
Incense to pray for the repose of the victims.
Is it really incense for those who became monsters like zombies?
Perhaps.
It also meant that there were more of those zombie-like victims on the floors where incense was lit.
[Moving down to the next floor.]
This cursed elevator.
I was filled with the determination to uncover the truth at the end of it.
[4F]
[It is the 4th floor.]
Nothing happened here.
[3F]
It was the same here.
But the floor below that was the problem again.
[2F]
[It is the 2nd floor.]
This was where the man had gotten off.
It was the floor where the first person to get off had been sacrificed.
“What about the man?”
No one could look straight ahead.
Because the man's end would likely be the same as the grandfather's.
[Those who wish to get off, please come forward.]
[…….]
[The doors are opening.]
I had never wished so much for them not to open like this.
But it was cruel.
As if determined to make us see that sight in the end.
Like an emotionless machine, the elevator opened its doors.
And.
We witnessed that horrific sight again.
Watching that unavoidable moment once more, we were swept away by despair.
“So that's what happens when you die, right?”
The middle-aged woman asked.
Instead of an answer, I nodded.
The female student was already covering her face, which was a mess of tears.
The atmosphere reached its absolute worst.
'I want to get out right now.'
Everyone had only that thought.
[The doors are closing.]
The hellish sight was closed off.
Now that we had seen the horrific ends of the man and the grandfather.
We were now heading toward the final 1st floor.
“Now it's the last one.”
Next was the 1st floor.
Everyone waited for the moment to leave the elevator with the same hope.
It was then.
It was the moment an anomaly occurred.
[Moving up to the next floor.]
What?
It's not going down any further?
The elevator did not descend to the 1st floor but headed back up instead.
“This makes no sense.”
The female student pressed the emergency bell in shock, but there was no response.
“Hahaha.”
The female student let out a hollow laugh.
It was a tone of voice that contained a state of mind on the verge of going crazy.
“I see. That's it. You intended to make sure no one could get out of here.”
And she despaired.
“So that no one can get out alive.”
A heavy atmosphere settled in.
Only the female student's despairing screams and sobs filled the space.
“Sob, sob, sob.”
Crying doesn't provide answers.
In the silence, I finally had to bring up another thought I'd had from the very beginning.
“You should stop with the jokes.”
I spat out the words for someone to hear.
“This elevator was strange from the very start.”
My words echoed loudly inside the elevator.
It was a power even I hadn't known I possessed.
The female student, who had only been crying, and the middle-aged woman, who had been shedding tears in despair, reacted to my words.
“Mister?”
Well.
I’m only 25 years old.
But I guess to a student, I’m a ‘mister.’
“Yeah.”
I nodded.
“There was something strange from the start.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I felt a sense of dissonance as I got on the elevator.”
Dissonance.
A feeling of something being unharmonious and somehow awkward.
Unfamiliar.
Something is different.
I’d had those thoughts from the very beginning.
“Unlike other places, this elevator doesn’t have that.”
“Pardon?”
The female student and the middle-aged woman scanned every corner of the elevator.
It was just an ordinary interior, and there was nothing strange.
“It doesn’t have it.”
“What is it?”
“A mirror.”
An elevator without a mirror.
Elevators installed in apartments, whether new or old, always have mirrors.
“Our apartment originally had mirrors here and here.”
I pointed to the left and right walls.
The elevator mirrors that had been there as recently as this morning were missing here.
In fact, because I often fell asleep due to narcolepsy, I had a method of remembering that was different from others.
The habit of remembering things exactly as they appeared in my field of vision had become like a special ability.
I could take a mental picture of a situation like a photograph and remember it.
As clearly as a photo.
“Why would they be gone?”
“I was curious too, so I thought about it.”
The reason for the mirrors' absence wasn't the important part.
“Why should only the mirrors be gone? I think there’s a reason they shouldn’t be here.”
I looked around.
“Look, the mister and the grandfather got off at the wrong floors and turned into monsters. Time and space have somehow changed. This elevator must be the same.”
“It’s a plausible hypothesis.”
“Yeah.”
I felt like I was gradually finding the answer.
A hypothesis can become a conspiracy theory.
However, it could also be the process of reaching out through pitch-black darkness to find the right path.
The reason mirrors must be absent.
“Mirrors are objects that reflect things. Maybe someone removed them because they hated being reflected in them?”
It was a new hypothesis.
“For example, if they don’t show up in mirrors.”
The female student got goosebumps at my words.
“A ghost?”
“It’s not out of the question. This situation can’t be explained otherwise.”
A world turned into zombies.
An elevator operated by a ghost.
An urban legend.
If that was the reality we faced, we had to look into it.
“And there was one more strange thing.”
“Pardon?”
“Someone among us kept saying things that seemed to lead us on.”
Having narcolepsy, I remember everything.
Since I ruined things by constantly falling asleep, I tended to remember as much as possible or at least take notes.
It’s hard at first, but memory also improves the more you use it.
“The person who said this elevator would go to the top at first. In fact, there was no such thing in that strange guided announcement.”
The female student thought deeply.
However, the situation was so urgent that she couldn't remember minor details.
But I, who remembered the situation like a video or individual photographs, remembered everything from the voice announcement to the elevator scenery without exception.
“And if you’re a resident here, you press the elevator buttons every day, so is there even a person who doesn't know how many floors the apartment has? Yet, there was exactly one person here who asked.”
“Pardon?”
The top floor of this apartment is the 24th floor. No resident gets confused about the top floor of the apartment they live in and asks about it.
“Also, the person who kept suggesting we get off whenever there was an opportunity. The person who told others to get off instead of themselves. Especially the person who said we should go out at the top floor because it had opened to the outside.”
I knew the person who said all these things. I remembered. The female student seemed to be gradually realizing it too.
“I like ghost stories and mystery novels. In those, there was always a culprit hiding inside, pretending not to be.”
That’s right. This was what I wanted to say. The final hypothesis.
The culprit is inside here. One person entered with us and was sending us out one by one, all while hiding a cruel smile.
“You.”
I stared at one person. At the same time, the female student stared at that person too.
“Pardon?”
It was the middle-aged woman. I stared at her intensely and pressed her.
“You were strange.”
“What are you talking about? Don’t go framing an innocent person.”
“Everything just now is only possible if you are the culprit who was targeting us here. Do you think it’s a coincidence?”
“I don’t know anything about that. Don’t corner me.”
“So you’re going to play dumb?”
I looked at the female student and then at her backpack. It was probably there.
“Do you happen to have a mirror? Like a hand mirror.”
The middle-aged woman flinched. As if it were obvious, the female student opened her backpack and took out a hand mirror from among several cosmetics.
“Here it is.”
The student’s face was strangely fair, as if she were wearing makeup, which is why I asked. If she’s a girl who wears makeup, she’d naturally carry a mirror.
“If you’re really human, ma'am, you’ll be reflected clearly in the mirror.”
“Pardon?”
“If I’m wrong, I will apologize.”
I didn't give her any room to escape. Because the mirror that would reveal the truth of this elevator was now in my hand.
“……”
The middle-aged woman stared at the mirror in my hand with a panicked expression.
Mirror. There is a common belief that ghosts cannot be reflected in mirrors. If my final hypothesis is correct, you are not human.
Flash!
It was right as I held up the mirror toward the middle-aged woman.
“Ah!”
Thud.
Suddenly the elevator stopped, and all the lights went out. It turned into pitch-black darkness. As the situation turned for the worst, the female student’s scream was heard.
And. I felt an eerie chill on my body.
“……”
It was an ice-cold chill. I felt that it was frost being emitted by something like a ghost. As if demanding a price for realizing the truth. It was a coldness that felt like it would freeze my entire body.
And. The lights turned back on.
Now that cold sweat was flowing down my whole body, my senses were slowly returning.
“Huh?”
There was no one inside the elevator where the lights had brightened again. As if there had been nothing from the very start.
Only I was left here alone.
And.
An announcement came from the emergency bell.
[You have found the correct answer.]
What?
Soon, the elevator stopped.
[0F]
[It is the 0th floor.]
I was still dazed and didn't know what the situation was.
But I saw something round rolling on the floor.
I inadvertently grasped it in my hand.
A voice different from before was heard, as if being transmitted into my mind.
『You have acquired *** .』
What?
It was then.
[The doors are opening.]
Whir.
As the elevator doors opened, I felt light pouring in.
In that vast and warm sensation, the fatigue that had weighed down my entire body felt like it was about to melt away.
『The domain of ** is deactivated.』
The moment I thought everything was over.
An eerie and desolate energy grazed past.
It was an instant.
At the same time, a spine-chilling voice passed by my ear.
‘Na…… keu…… sya…….’
What is it?
This voice.
Even before I had a moment to think carefully, the vast light visible outside the elevator doors was so dazzling.
Soon.
I saw someone in the distance beckoning to me.
And they spoke as if whispering.
“Let’s go out.”
Then they continued.
“Because you shouldn't be here.”