Escaping the Mystery Hotel

*

Third Attempt

*

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 22

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 101 (Common Sense Renovating Media)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

I soon decided to head to the basement. There was a strong feeling that I should probably go upstairs for more valuable pieces of information, but that was out of the question. 

The upper floors of the TV Station would be densely packed with offices, which meant there would be a bunch of people. 

Even though I had the Administration Badge, even that could only push the people slightly back. It’s not like I could chase all of them out of the building, so going to crowded areas was just way too dangerous.

Since I was the only one left, I deemed it better to explore the basement and leave the upstairs exploration till later, where we would come back in after coming up with a strategy.

– Clomp. Clomp.

The sound of my footsteps started echoing across the corridor. There was not a single person in the corridor leading to the basement. Thanks to that, I wasn’t getting any headaches or hallucinations because of the curse, but this was also far from normal.

There should be cars parked by the staff in the underground parking lot, which meant there should be some people walking up and down, but I couldn’t spot a single person. How could there be not a single person walking around?

In turn, however, that might be the proof that I was going to the right location.

– Clomp. Clomp.

It did feel a bit spooky now that I was completely alone. It had been a while since I got used to all sorts of crazy things happening in the Hotel and seeing corpses nearby, but it seemed that there was still some primal sense of fear left inside me.

After a while, I arrived at the underground parking lot. There was a guard house at the entrance of the parking lot, so I walked up with the plan of forcing my way through with the badge.

Huhp!

I quickly blocked my nose and took a step back. 

An odour – an unbelievable stench was coming from the parking lot that made it literally unbreathable.

It was the stink you would smell from old and abandoned toilets with fermented excrements, and rotten food waste. 

The smell was making it incredibly hard to head further down.

However, that in turn made me believe that I indeed had to go to the parking lot.

This was clearly a strange phenomenon.

It was strange for such a smell to be coming from the parking lot, and it was also equally odd that no-one was taking care of it despite the unbearable intensity of the smell.

While somehow bearing with the smell that made me want to vomit, I walked towards the parking lot and realised that the smell was coming from the guard house.

How could a person even work in a guard house like that?

Firstly, I simply went closer to the guard house, and relied on my ability which I gained after entering Room 101 that allowed me to ‘sense nearby infected people’. 

I was right in front of the door but didn’t feel anything. It seemed that there wasn’t anyone infected inside.

However, it became even clearer after waiting in front of the door that the smell was indeed coming from the guard house.

What in the world was it though? I wanted to check whether it was the smell of excrements or rotten food waste so I quickly opened the door with the thought of immediately closing it back up.

And there…

…It was a scene straight out of hell.

…

What would happen if a person was locked up in a small area, while only repeating the process of eating and defecating?

The floor, walls, bins – everything was covered in stinky human excrements. There were empty cans of nonperishable food here and there, as well as rotten food and incomprehensible scribbles on the wall.

However, there was something more horrifying than anything else.

There was a human – a living one.

Drenched in fear, the man had discarded all hope and had become similar to a beast. It was the final form of despair where he threw away his life as a human despite being born as one.

The bony man stumbled his way towards me after seeing me.

His eyes were filled with wounds, as if he had been rubbing his eyes excessively to deny what was happening in front of his very eyes. Plus, more than half of his ears were missing, which might have been because he scratched his own ears in hopes of cutting off the frightening sound.

There were signs of self-inflicted wounds all over his body, and they were especially more prevalent on his left arm and right leg, which he couldn’t even move anymore.

“You’re… Administration… What, took you so long.”

“…”

“Uhik! Ahah. Smells amazing, does it not?”

“…”

“I ran out of normal food. It’s been a whole month. What do you think I have been feeding off of?”

“…”

After crawling his way up, the scrawny man moved his bony fingers to point at a piece of paper. There was a single laminated piece of paper that did not suit the hellish appearance of the guard house. It was clean, as if it was all by itself in another realm.

I picked it up as the man stumbled and rolled in the hell full of excrements and food waste.

“…Would you like to go out?”

“Please… show me mercy. Use that thing on your right.”

…

— Bang!

I left the guard house and closed the door behind me.

It smelled horrendous, but I wasn’t having any headaches. The man, who was finally at peace, was ‘someone who hadn’t been infected by the curse’.

He might have been lucky to avoid being infected by the curse on the first day, by for example turning the TV off immediately after sensing something strange. Added to the fact that he worked away from other people, he was able to avoid the curse by avoiding contact with others.

However, that didn’t mean anything. He was the only one left, and while the man was trying his best to keep himself sane, the world had already been tainted by madness. 

In the end, the man couldn’t even take a step out into the fearsome world and rotted away by himself inside his guard house…

I took out the piece of laminated paper that I picked up at the guard house. The paper itself was clean, but the odour from the guard house was on it so honestly, it wasn’t something I wanted to hold onto.

On the paper were three simple ‘warnings’.

1. You must not look inside the cars in the parking lot.

2. You must not turn around in the staircase to the basement.

3. Do not turn the lights on when looking for something in the storeroom of the basement. Use a flashlight instead.

It was pretty simple and straightforward. I read through them a few times and remembered it, before tossing the paper away.

Since the note mentioned the basement, I decided to head further down.

Ignoring the cars of the parking lot, I walked straight ahead and found a staircase leading to the 2nd floor of the basement. ‘Do not turn around’, was it?

Looking straight ahead, I walked down to the 2nd floor. As expected, nothing happened.

On the 2nd floor of the basement were a supply room, toilet, offices and a room that had a strange-looking machine that was still in operation. 

There was no-one here.

I looked around but didn’t find anything special, so I thought of the next place to go to.

Storeroom in the basement.

On the piece of paper, it had a warning for when you were looking for something in the storeroom in the basement.

Maybe there was something there?

I went back to the staircase and started walking down to the 3rd floor.

— Kagagak… Kon kon kon.

It was when I took a few steps down the staircase leading to the 3rd floor of the basement. 

The sound of metal sliding down the stairs started echoing from behind. 

…

‘Do not turn around in the staircase to the basement’, right?

Holding my breath, I continued walking down.

Slowly, I felt my head starting to ache.

Only after reaching the corridor of the 3rd floor did I turn around.

There was nothing.

It was becoming increasingly harder to understand what was going on. I started exploring to find out what was happening, and yet I was getting more and more questions instead of getting any answers.

In the first place, what were they warning me about?

There weren’t many rooms on the 3rd floor of the basement. When I followed the corridor all the way down, I found a large door and a flashlight hanging on the wall.

Was this the storeroom? It said not to turn the lights on in the storeroom, right?

Opening the door of the storeroom, I followed the warning, ignored the switch for the lights and scavenged around with the flashlight.

It was a normal storeroom. There were clean piles of A4 paper, toners for printers, chairs and other stationery. It was a place people would come to when they ran out of certain items in the office.

For about 20 minutes, I went through everything but there wasn’t anything noteworthy. There was no-one here, nor anything that warranted my attention.

…

In the end, I couldn’t figure out anything. The only thing I found after coming to the parking lot was the security guard, who rotted away by himself in pain while trying his best to escape the curse, and a piece of paper with warnings.

Did I take the wrong approach?

After some thought, I realised something.

In the first place, why did I come down to the basement? Was it for survival?

No.

I didn’t come here to survive and instead, I was here to ‘obtain crucial pieces of information’.

Following the warnings written on the note and going the safe route was what main characters of a horror film would do in order to save themselves.

What I had to do was the exact opposite.

I had to go against the warnings. Even if that was to kill me, my job was to figure out what exactly was going on here. Escaping the room was up to Seungyub.

Now, it was my turn to die for everyone else.

*

1. You must not look inside the cars in the parking lot.

2. You must not turn around in the staircase to the basement.

3. Do not turn the lights on when looking for something in the storeroom of the basement. Use a flashlight instead.

I reminded myself about the warnings. 

From now on, what I had to do was look inside the cars in the parking lot, turn around in the staircase to the basement, and turn the lights on in the storeroom.

Coming back up to the parking lot, I looked around. The horrendous odour was still there, as well as dozens of parked cars.

It was strange though. Considering how there were so many cars here, wouldn’t the owners of these cars be coming here at the very least? And no matter how strange their minds were because of the curse, did it make sense for them to not smell such a distinct stench?

Looking back, however, I remembered how my fake family and I ate raw ducks when I first entered Room 101, as well as how we praised how fresh the meat was. Maybe even a stench like this was considered fragrant in this world with a renovated common sense.

I cut off my line of thought and looked into the cars.

Choosing one of the cars, I walked up to it. It was hard to see the inside because of the sunshades on the windows, so I walked even closer and popped my face right in front of the window and—

The sight inside the car surprised me so much that I accidentally fell back on my bum. 

There was a person inside, and the fact that I did not get any headache until I was this close could only mean one thing.

‘There are people that are not infected by the curse.’

Standing back up, I calmed myself down and observed the inside of the car again.

It was bizarre.

The inside did not resemble anything from a car. I was definitely looking inside through the windows of a car, and yet reflected on the other side of the window was another dimension. Inside was a bed made of steel and handcuffs.

An unknown man was lying on the bed handcuffed.

He was drooling from his mouth and the bed was already full of horrible signs of negligence. It was evident that he had been tied there for a long time without receiving much help.

I tried tapping on the window but didn’t get anything out of him.

It felt like this side of the car and the inside were completely different dimensions altogether.

— Bang!

I broke the window.

Only then did the scrawny person inside turn to me with his hazy set of eyes.

“Are you okay? Where is this place? And who are—”

“Hahh, hahh, hey…”

“…Sorry?”

“Call sir for me. Call sir for me.”

“Which sir are you takling about?”

“SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR SIR.”

– Kung!

“Listen! I can’t help you if you don’t tell me which ‘sir’ you are talking about.”

— Kagack.

It was then. The sound of metal sliding across the floor echoed from somewhere.

Suddenly, the man’s voice turned incredibly soft.

“Coming… coming… The nurse is coming. Old man. Student. Save me. Save me.”

Despite begging for help, he didn’t dare raise his voice, as if he was deeply frightened by the one coming towards him. 

This man was not sane. Seeing how I wasn’t getting a headache, he wasn’t infected by the curse, but he was a crazy man nonetheless.

Words weren’t going through to him.

After heaving a sigh, I walked away from the car and immediately, the window that I broke with the gun started to repair itself.

…

It was too late for me to be surprised by things like this.

I broke the windows of two more cars but they were the same. People that were not in their right minds were tied to the bed and I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

By ‘sir’, were they talking about the doctor? They also said ‘nurse’. Were they in a hospital?

Next, I headed to the staircase leading to the basement.

I decided to turn around on the way down and figure out what it was that was coming after me.

Before that, I filled the magazine with my blood.