Editor’s Survival Guide — Chapter 4
Episode 1. When the Siren Wails (4)
The girl in the school uniform struggled desperately to shake me off.
When that failed, she twisted around and kicked me with all her strength.
Thud—!
Her kick struck my injured arm.
I nearly collapsed, but forced myself to hold on.
“Let go of me……!”
The girl tried to scream.
I hurriedly clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Mm, mmph……!”
When I gripped her jaw, she thrashed even more violently.
So, still holding on to her, I pleaded desperately,
“It’s okay, it’s okay……!”
I felt the girl flinch at my voice.
Trying to calm her, I whispered even more softly.
“I’m sorry I scared you. Just don’t scream. Then I’ll let you go.”
Her resistance subsided at my request.
Soon, the girl looked at me and nodded.
When I slowly removed my hand, she kept her promise and did not scream.
Instead, perhaps because the strength had left her legs, she crumpled to the floor.
She looked about middle-school age.
She wore an ordinary winter school uniform.
Her long hair was tied in a single ponytail, and she was of average height.
Her face had gone as white as a sheet, making it impossible to tell what her usual expression might be like.
“Are you alone?”
At my question, the girl looked up at me.
Her gaze was fierce rather than pitiful.
So I changed the question.
“How long have you been here?”
“……I don’t know.”
“Are you waiting for someone?”
The girl closed her mouth again.
Apparently, she did not want to admit she was alone.
“If you’re alone, do you want to come with me?”
I said it because I couldn’t leave a child behind.
But the girl stared at me, then spoke in a stubborn tone.
“Forget it and just drag me along. But if you get out of here, at least tell my mom that I died.”
“What are you talking about?”
When I asked again, unable to understand, the girl replied as if challenging me.
“You’re going to kill me and buy a train ticket, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“Why are you acting surprised? It’s written on that paper.”
The girl jerked her chin toward the paper lying on the floor.
It was the rulebook I had dropped when the door flew open just as I was about to set it down.
As she said, that rulebook explained how to leave this place.
But what she was saying was completely new to me.
“There’s no method in there that says to kill someone for a ticket.”
A corpse was not among the successful barter items for the 「Something Wearing an Old-Style Uniform」.
No, it was a prohibited item, in fact.
But the girl ignored what I said and merely furrowed her brow.
Sensing that we were talking past each other, I simply took out the ticket I had and showed it to her.
“Look. I already have a ticket. So I have no reason to kill you.”
When she saw the ticket, the girl’s expression wavered slightly.
But she did not lower her guard completely.
Before that opening closed, I hurriedly continued.
“How old are you?”
“……Fifteen.”
“Then you can get out of here right away.”
“What are you talking about?”
The girl stared at me in surprise.
Her reaction left me equally puzzled.
She had spoken as though she knew about the rules.
Yet she knew nothing about the very provision most favorable to her.
I picked up the rulebook from the floor.
Then I showed her the section I had skimmed because it was useless to me.
—
Route B. Escape via the 「Rag Doll」
This escape method is available to children and adolescents under sixteen years of age.
The 「Rag Doll」 does not reveal itself to people sixteen years of age or older.
If you do not meet this condition, please select another route.
—
In other words, it was a route I, a twenty-eight-year-old adult, could not even attempt.
Instead, while “Route B” was restricted to a specific group, its difficulty was low.
I had thought that even this place apparently had some concept of protecting minors.
And this girl happened to be fifteen.
Assuming she would be relieved now, I looked at her.
Instead, tears began spilling from her eyes.
The way she bit down hard on her lip made her look deeply furious and wronged.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something like this existed, but no one told me.”
“There were other people?”
“Yes…….”
“Where are they now?”
“Some of them died, and some left with the money.”
The mention of money puzzled me again.
When I continued to look confused, the girl added,
“Those bastards killed people and exchanged them for money.”
At last, I realized my mistake.
All this time, I had been thinking only of bartering with the 「Something Wearing an Old-Style Uniform」.
But that wasn’t what the girl had been talking about.
The thing that exchanged objects for money.
That was the locker on the first floor of the waiting hall—the option I had given up on early.
—
Place the item you wish to exchange in the compartment in Row 7, Column 1, then close the door.
The item placed inside the locker will then disappear, and cash equal to seventy percent of that item’s market value will be dispensed automatically.
—
Surely not.
I remembered a thought that had occurred to me while passing through earlier.
—If I cut out the organs inside my body and put them in, wouldn’t they fetch about enough for a ticket?
I had dismissed it as a stupid idea.
But there were people who had actually tried it?
Stunned, I asked,
“How many of these bastards were there altogether?”
“Three.”
“And how many people did they kill?”
“More than two.”
Figures began turning over in my head.
I had once heard something in the news or a movie about black-market organ prices.
I seemed to recall that three or four major organs went for one or two hundred million won apiece.
Even by a conservative calculation, one human body was worth four hundred million won.
Seventy percent of four hundred million was two hundred and eighty million won.
A ticket cost 15.78 million won.
Then what did that mean?
Had those bastards continued murdering people for money even after securing tickets for themselves?
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“Where are those people now? Were you hiding here because of them?”
“That’s…….”
WEEEOOO—!
The siren I had heard earlier sounded again.
The rulebook had said it rang every forty-seven minutes.
I must already have spent about an hour wandering around since entering this place.
I covered my ears against the sound shaking the entire station.
The girl, however, screamed and clutched her head instead of her ears.
Once again, the siren cut off abruptly after only a few seconds.
The moment the sound stopped, the girl looked around frantically.
Then she saw me and let out a relieved breath.
“Those people have probably all left by now. Because of that sound.”
“That sound?”
“Whenever the siren goes off, one person always dies.”
“What?”
Startled, I sucked in a breath.
This was the first I had heard of it.
But a scene instantly came to mind.
“How do they die?”
“They just…… get crushed. Like a bug.”
So that was it.
That was why the man who gave me the rulebook had died.
A chill crept up my spine.
I had already heard the siren twice.
Which meant death had brushed past me twice.
Then why wasn’t this written in the rulebook?
Had its author failed to figure it out?
No, that couldn’t be.
They had determined that the siren rang every forty-seven minutes, yet they didn’t know someone died each time it did?
This had been omitted deliberately.
For what purpose?
Because knowing it would not allow anyone to avoid or prevent it?
I forced down my shock.
Then I tried to reconstruct what the girl had experienced here.
It seemed she had been with several people from the beginning.
They must have gathered to discuss what to do and discovered the rulebook as well.
I had no idea which Archimedes among them had thought of putting a person into the locker.
In any case, they had tried it, and they had succeeded. Eureka.
Afterward, I couldn’t say whether the taste of money had driven them mad or the taste of blood had bewitched them.
Several of them formed a pack and began to hunt.
They stuffed one person after another into the locker.
But even that had not lasted long.
Because every time the siren sounded, someone was inexplicably crushed to death.
The first time, they must have thought it was a coincidence.
The second would have brought suspicion, and the third, certainty.
At that point, they would have fled without delay.
Carrying bags of money made from other people’s corpses.
I imagined the sequence of events and sighed.
At last, I understood why the girl had remained so wary.
Even now, she was watching me uneasily.
As though afraid that hearing her story might make me turn on her in exactly the same way.
I watched the girl avert her eyes for a moment, then opened my bag.
From it, I took the portable first-aid kit that had been rejected during the barter.
“Here.”
“What is this?”
“There are bandages inside. Put one on. Your neck is bleeding.”
It had been bothering me for some time.
For some reason, the back of the girl’s neck was covered in scratches.
They looked like fingernail marks.
The girl looked back and forth between me and the first-aid kit with startled eyes.
Then, in a voice that had grown markedly smaller, she said,
“You’re bleeding a lot more than I am, Ahjussi…….”
“What?”
When I didn’t understand, the girl pointed a hand at my head.
I felt around my forehead and touched something slick.
When I looked to see what it was, my hand was stained bright red.
“Agh……!”
What was this? Blood?
Was it coming from me?
Come to think of it, I had been wondering why so much sweat kept running down my face!
I must have been cut when the glass shattered earlier……!
When I recoiled in horror at the sight of blood, the girl stared at me.
Then she tore off a great wad of toilet paper and handed it over, and I hurriedly pressed it to the wound on my head.
The girl found disinfectant and gauze in the first-aid kit and took them out.
Even after we finished administering first aid, I sat there blankly, somehow unable to shake the shock.
Then the girl muttered, so softly I could barely hear her,
“It’s amazing you managed to survive like that, Ahjussi.”
There seemed to be a barb hidden in those words.
“If you have a ticket, you should leave quickly. What were you thinking, waving it around like that? What if someone stole it?”
I hadn’t imagined it.
The girl was lecturing me.
“I showed you because you can get out without a ticket…….”
The girl snorted at my excuse.
It was thoroughly contemptuous, but it was the first smile she had shown all the same.
Perhaps her guard had lowered somewhat, because she too began taking bandages out and applying them to her wounds.
Watching her, I spoke.
“What’s your name?”
“Lee Sol.”
“Lee Sori?”
“Lee. Sol. My given name is one syllable.”
Her name was Sol—as in a cleaning brush.
Was she all right with a name that sounded so easy to tease her about?
“All right, Lee Sol. I’m Seo Do-un, and I have a ticket. You have another way out of here. If we waste time and the siren sounds again, it might be our turn next. So for now, let’s focus on getting out. What do you say?”
Resisting the urge to tease her about her name, I spoke with perfect seriousness.
The girl—Sol—stared at me for a long while.
Then she gave a small nod and said in a timid voice,
“I’m sorry I kicked you earlier.”
Yes, that was an apology I ought to accept.
I had very nearly died back there.
Unable to bring myself to say it was fine, I gave her a petty little smile and nodded.
—
If you are a child or adolescent under sixteen years of age, proceed to the Lost and Found Center carrying a cutting tool such as a knife or scissors.
Once you arrive at the Lost and Found Center, running is prohibited.
Smiling is prohibited.
Crying is prohibited.
Looking around is prohibited.
Breathing too much is prohibited.
The actions you must perform to earn the mercy of the 「Rag Doll」 are as follows.
Please learn them precisely and return safely.
—