Editor’s Survival Guide — Chapter 5
Episode 1. When the Siren Wails (5)
By the time we emerged from the restroom, the corridor had already been cleaned spotless.
It had been a disaster of blood and broken glass when I ran out to vomit.
The cleaners in this place seemed extraordinarily diligent about erasing every trace.
That was why people could never know what had happened here.
The realization sent a fresh chill through me, and I slowed for a moment.
Sol passed beside me and glanced over.
Her look seemed to ask what I was doing instead of hurrying after her.
That alone somehow put me at ease.
But when we descended to the first floor, our positions reversed.
This time, Sol grew visibly tense.
I followed her gaze and discovered the lockers along the wall.
So although I had been walking ahead, I slowed down.
In doing so, I blocked those lockers from Sol’s view.
Sol stared at me, then gave a dismissive snort.
Fine. I would respect your wishes, adolescent child.
Walking side by side with Lee Sol, I searched with my eyes for the Row 7, Column 1 compartment that supposedly exchanged objects for money.
It was easy to find.
The actual compartment, however, was rather unexpected.
Whether they were lockers or bookcases, nearly all storage units had their largest compartments at the bottom and grew smaller toward the top.
That was because storing large, heavy objects below was both convenient and safe.
It was common sense, yet the thought had not occurred to me until I saw it for myself.
The locker in question occupied the first tier.
It was the highest compartment.
And therefore the smallest.
It was far too small for a person to enter.
Then how in the world had they put people inside it?
Against my will, I imagined what must have happened here.
But the area around those lockers was immaculate now as well.
As though nothing had happened.
After passing through that chilling space, we entered the corridor leading to the Lost and Found Center.
The farther in we went, the darker the corridor became.
There was an acrid smell too.
How could I describe it? It smelled like old ashes.
After we continued down the pitch-dark corridor, the Lost and Found Center appeared.
It was submerged in even deeper darkness.
Yet something faint stood in the midst of it.
By instinct, we knew it was the 「Rag Doll」.
“Ahjussi, make sure you see me outside. All right?”
Sol stopped and whispered.
It sounded far too much like a textbook death flag, so I smiled with a frown.
Then I handed Sol the small scissors from the first-aid kit.
Holding the scissors, Sol headed toward the Lost and Found Center.
—
When the 「Rag Doll」 appears, cut off some of your hair and offer it.
Afterward, kneel and bow down before it, then plead, “Please send me to my father.”
Those are the only words you may speak in front of the 「Rag Doll」.
Do not move, and continue pleading until the 「Rag Doll」 grants your request.
Once you have made your plea 121 times, the 「Rag Doll」 will return you to reality.
—
It was something even a child could do as long as they kept their head.
Sol was a middle schooler who could deliver spinning kicks to adults, so she would manage it easily enough.
I watched Sol enter the darkness, then turned away.
It would have been good to confirm her escape, but I couldn’t afford to take my time indefinitely.
I needed to go board the train now too.
Before that siren sounded again.
But after I had taken only a few steps, the space behind me grew bright.
Startled, I turned back and saw a pure white figure.
It had the form of a girl colored like undyed cotton from head to toe.
Its appearance was translucent and pale, as though it had been fashioned from candle wax.
Was that the 「Rag Doll」?
As the doll brightened, I could also see Sol lying prostrate before it.
Entranced, I watched the strange phenomenon.
Then Sol’s body suddenly heaved.
What was she doing? She wasn’t supposed to move.
I anxiously watched as something seemed to go wrong with her.
Sol appeared to be trying to maintain her prostrate position too.
But only for a moment.
“Ah……!”
At Sol’s short scream, I realized something had gone wrong.
As though burned, Sol sprang to her feet and dashed out of there.
And at almost the exact same moment, an explosion erupted.
Boom—!
“Aagh!”
Sol screamed and clung to me, and I grabbed hold of her in turn.
When flames surged through the Lost and Found Center, its interior grew even brighter.
That revealed the true nature of the darkness surrounding the 「Rag Doll」.
What filled that place was not an empty void from which light had been shut out.
It was blackness with physical form.
The inside of the Lost and Found Center was packed with layer upon layer of charred, twisted shapes, their bodies interlocked.
“What are those……?”
A groan escaped me without my realizing it.
They began to move.
Tearing their tangled limbs free, they struggled desperately to emerge.
One of the things that looked like fire-blackened corpses finally managed to stretch an arm outside.
Then the flames flickering inside spilled into the corridor, and the fire began spreading like water poured across the floor.
For the moment, I seized Sol’s arm and ran.
“What happened!?”
“I-I don’t know! I did everything it told me to……!”
Sol shouted, almost sobbing.
Then her face suddenly went pale.
“My dad…… he’s already dead.”
“What?”
Sol’s confession left me dumbstruck.
The words the rulebook had instructed her to say when pleading with that 「Rag Doll」.
*Please send me to my father.*
Could it be trying to send her to her father in heaven?
Then children without living fathers should never have been allowed to use this method in the first place!
But the rulebook said nothing about that.
They should have identified and written down such crucial information long ago……!
Fury boiling inside me, I sprinted on.
But the pursuing flames were too fast.
Little by little, the fire eventually overtook us.
Fortunately, it did not harm us.
Instead, everything in the railway station began to burn and melt the moment the flames touched it.
In an instant, the pristine station became a burning ruin.
The glittering glass ceiling collapsed in its entirety, exposing a hideous skeletal framework.
And beyond it, something was there.
Beyond a hazy veil that might have been mist or cloud.
Something immensely, simply immense.
Something so immense it could not even be measured.
Like a mountain never conquered even once.
Or like a god, it existed there.
I stopped walking.
The desire to flee vanished.
My will to live was rapidly worn away.
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“What are you doing, Ahjussi!”
The sensation of someone tugging at me jolted me awake, and I lowered my head.
Sol was pulling me with desperation written across her face.
Belatedly coming to my senses, I looked back and saw black shapes pouring from the corridor.
Kagak—kagagak—!
They crawled across the floor, scaled the walls, and charged forward on a single leg or a crushed shoulder.
Together with Sol, I ran again toward the platform entrance.
The instant my foot landed on the stairs descending to the platform, the siren wailed.
WEEEOOO—!
Perhaps because the ceiling had collapsed, its deafening roar pressed down on me with even greater weight.
Every cell in my body tingled, and my brain boiled as though it were about to evaporate.
Amid that suffocating pressure, I understood.
The thing in the sky was what produced the sound of the siren.
While we struggled helplessly, the siren stopped.
The girl and I looked at each other uneasily.
It shouldn’t have been time yet.
But we did not even have a moment to wonder why the siren had sounded so soon.
Splash—!
The sound of liquid came from a shop beside the staircase.
When I turned, blood was flooding across the floor.
……Someone must have been hiding there.
Anyone with a ticket had to pass through this point to board the train.
Overcome by an indescribable feeling, I raced down the stairs.
The black shapes already filled the waiting hall and were surging toward us.
There were far too many of them.
Hundreds—no, it looked like there might be thousands.
We ran breathlessly all the way down to the platform.
But the moment I saw where the train stood, my breath caught again.
A hand lay sprawled beside the train.
It was a gigantic hand, large enough to make the railway tracks resemble toy rails.
—
Once you have obtained a ticket, proceed to the platform.
The 「Severed Station Attendant」 is inspecting tickets on the platform.
You must be in possession of a ticket when boarding the train.
Any person who boards the train without a ticket will be eliminated by the 「Severed Station Attendant」.
—
By now, it felt as though this rulebook was taking pleasure in my misfortune.
The 「Severed Station Attendant」 had the form of an ordinary hand.
Except that it had been cut cleanly through the forearm and was so enormous I could hardly bear to look straight at it.
But we could not stop.
The black shapes were pouring toward us from directly behind.
And so we continued running blindly, but we both knew.
There was only one ticket.
When we finally reached the train standing on the tracks, I looked back at Sol.
Sol was looking at me too.
She was out of breath from running at my pace.
Even then, her gaze remained fixed on me.
Her young eyes wavered helplessly, steeped in despair.
The black shapes had reached us.
There was no time to hesitate.
Driven by instinct, I shook Sol off.
She let go of me more easily than I expected.
As though she had known from the start that I would do this.
So I snatched her arm again.
Then I threw her into the train.
“Ah……!”
Shoved without warning, Sol lost her balance and fell.
Bracing herself against the train floor, she looked back at me.
“Later.”
Unable to bring myself to smile, I spoke to the girl.
“Pay it back to anyone.”
Sol stared at me blankly.
Then she discovered the ticket by her feet and cried out in shock.
“Ahjussi!”
With that voice as the last thing I heard, the black shapes devoured me.
* * *
Everything went dark.
One moment, I felt searing heat; the next, a pressure unlike anything I had ever experienced crushed my entire body.
What followed after that was:
Falling
Darkness
Silence
Joy
Reality
A meeting with the author
And the starting point of infinity.
『It’s all right. Death may be kinder than you think.』
While I was still running, I had kept thinking.
About what I would do when we reached the train.
One thing was certain: whatever I chose, it was my freedom to do so.
The ticket belonged to me, and Lee Sol was neither family nor anything else to me.
She was a perfect stranger I had met for the first time today and whose name was all I knew.
I had even helped her as much as I could.
No one could blame me, therefore, if I withdrew my hand here.
Because the choice was entirely mine, I had chosen freely.
Between “escaping while leaving a child in mortal peril” and “getting the child out first,” I chose the one I found less distasteful.
Of course, the former was not a bad choice either.
I had no intention of condemning someone who chose it.
If they survived and lived well because of it, then that too was an innate blessing.
In fact, even if someone cursed the latter choice as hypocrisy, narcissism, or pointless meddling, I would have nothing to say.
Had I had a family, I would not have made this choice either.
Moreover, I was no hero or anything of the sort.
But everyone has a narrative of their own.
So do I.
This was simply the kind of person I was.
I stood before two choices, neither of which appealed to me,
chose the one I found less distasteful,
and died because of it.
It simply happened that way.
So I wished whoever was watching would stop now and send me on my way.
Because this condition did not seem to suit expressions like *rest* or *eternal sleep* at all.
Wondering why death was so noisy, I let out a deep sigh.
“Hoo…….”
……What?
Just as I wondered how I could breathe when I was dead, my eyes opened.
What came hazily into view was not a beautiful afterlife, but a white ceiling.
Then I heard an unfamiliar voice.
“Rescuee Number Twelve has regained consciousness.”
Apparently, I was still alive.