The monster’s black-gloved fingers moved in a sweeping upward motion.
With that smooth gesture, every basement-floor button on the elevator panel lit up.
The new employees stared blankly at the sight.
Just now.
What did it do?
“C-c-cancel! C…!”
Too late.
It took only the blink of an eye for the elevator to move a single floor.
Ding.
[Basement 12.]
The elevator doors opened wide, defenselessly.
A scene from a few hours earlier flashed through their minds like lightning.
-Uuuugh… hhk.
-W-what is this…?
The elevator that had gone down to Basement 12 to carry out a “mission” had come back with the employee gone without a trace, and nothing left but thick red blood pooled across the floor….
[Doors opening.]
And in the elevator’s light, the dark corridor of that Basement 12 emerged dimly. The new employees sucked in sharp breaths.
“……”
“……”
But there was not a single drop of blood in the corridor. Unlike the elevator.
“Haa…”
Before instinctive relief could settle in, something alien caught their eyes. Things like greasy dirt-dust had piled up on the floor and become wedged into the cracks around the elevator.
‘Dirt…?’
They lifted their heads to find the source.
Lumps, scattered here and there through the corridor like markers on the ground, came into view.
Lumps that looked weathered.
But on closer inspection, eyes adjusted to the dark could distinguish the silhouettes.
An ankle near the anklebone, a piece of ear and temple, a right…