Nightmare.
A dream that won’t break.
Agent Henry Russell, affiliated with Base 17, was wishing that the situation he faced right now was just that—a dream.
Huff… puff… huff…
Breathlessness surged to the tip of his chin.
His lungs felt like they were about to explode.
Or perhaps they already had.
But despite that, he couldn’t stop running.
Because something unknown was chasing him from behind.
“Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look…!”
He wanted to check the distance between himself and whatever it was, but Henry gritted his teeth hard enough to shatter them, resisting the temptation to look back.
Because seeing it in his line of sight would be the equivalent of signing his own death warrant.
From the moment he first encountered it, a sense of déjà vu washed over him.
Chills prickled all over his body, accompanied by nausea.
And then there were the unknown bits of information crashing into his mind, making it feel like his head would burst from the pressure, an inexplicable headache.
All these symptoms were more than enough to halt his legs, which were currently racing at breakneck speed.
Even though he felt the fear of being caught by whatever was chasing him, he trembled at the thought that turning around would lead to an irreversible fate, so he pressed forward.
‘Where did it all go wrong?’
He wanted to deny reality, but soon stifling his desire to feel at ease, he began to calmly analyze the situation.
Before falling into this hellish space, he was surely at Base 17, where he worked.
And, just like always, after lunch, he had chatted with other employees for dozens of minutes before moving toward the security room to switch shifts with his colleague.
But upon entering the security room, the scene before his eyes wasn’t of the familiar room, but rather an expansive and enormous space that couldn’t even fit within Base 17.
At first, he thought he might be dreaming.
To the casual glance, it seemed like just an ordinary massive shopping mall.
However, there was this eerie ambiance that felt otherworldly.
And there wasn’t even a single insect in that grim landscape, exuding a discomforting gloom like the uncanny valley.
But being a part of the Abnormal Phenomena Management Office, he quickly regained his composure despite the extraordinary situation that would’ve left ordinary people almost catatonic.
He quickly attempted to flee back through the door he had entered, but the door that he was sure he had grabbed the handle of, which should have been wide open, had suddenly transformed into a fully blocked path without any way back.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it…!”
Cursing under his breath, even though he knew it wouldn’t help the situation, Henry couldn’t help but blurt out those words.
After all, he knew all too well what would happen when an abnormal phenomenon existing in Base 17 failed its containment procedures.
And he also realized that among those who had inadvertently stepped inside after the procedures failed, not a single one had ever shown up outside again.
‘How did this happen?’ Henry thought.
After all, the 1983rd entity was not a moving abnormal phenomenon, nor was it sentient.
The bizarre phenomena that occurred when the door was closed and the dangers lurking outside were merely risks.
It was only natural for him to never step inside that containment as part of its procedure to maintain the door open at all times.
For it to be possible, some new bizarre anomaly not previously detected in the 1983rd entity would have had to occur, leading to his being the first unfortunate victim.
And though he didn’t want to admit it,
Seeing that he had ended up here, it seemed that unfortunate fate had indeed struck him.
— — — Ah, ah, ah, ah, aaaaaaaah!
The sound echoed from not far away.
He didn’t want to hear it, he didn’t want to hear it.
The moment he heard its cry, chills raced down his spine, and his body began to tremble.
Yet, he had to listen closely to its sounds.
He couldn’t look directly at it, so he had to hear it to gauge the distance between them.
—Aaaaaah, aaaaaah, aaaaaah, ah, ah, aaaaaah!
Its wails rang in Henry’s ears.
The grotesque sounds were now echoing from much closer than before.
It was definite.
The distance between him and that thing had shrunk significantly compared to moments before.
And even if he continued to run without a plan, in the not-so-distant future, he would undoubtedly be caught.
‘What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?!’
He had to avoid being caught at all costs.
Even though he often joked that he’d rather die, he instinctively realized from the first moment he laid eyes on it that failing to escape would lead to something far worse than death.
At that moment, he even felt hopeless enough to prefer taking his own life rather than getting caught by it, but his gun, hanging at his waist, had already emptied all its bullets into it, leaving it as nothing but a hunk of useless metal.
In despair over the irrational reality, while hoping that he might stumble upon some railing to drop down somewhere, he suddenly spotted something he hadn’t seen before.
‘Wait, that’s—’
It was a door.
A red door with a sign that read EXIT, featuring a pictogram of a person running outside.
A so-called emergency exit.
In that fleeting moment, many thoughts flooded his mind.
This place was certainly somewhere he had already been.
After being chased by it, he couldn’t return via the path he initially took, and above all, he had already thoroughly searched the path he had come from.
This area, the first part of his journey, had become very familiar to his eyes.
But he had never seen a door like that.
He had searched for a means to escape, while scouring every hidden corner of the place, yet this door, with its unmistakable appearance, had never come into his view.
It was a suspicious situation.
After all, wasn’t it evident to anyone?
An emergency exit appearing right before a crisis.
It felt as if someone had set a sweet trap for him and was beckoning him over.
Upon stepping through that door, it could very well transform into a gaping maw that would swallow him whole.
‘But, there’s no other way…!’
However, truth be told, there was no other option but to step through that door.
As far as he recalled, this area wasn’t far from where he first entered.
His original entry point was now a dead end.
Choosing to ignore that door and continue running would essentially mean sealing his fate of getting caught.
—Aaaaaah, aaaaaah, aaaaaah!
The wailing echoed again.
The source of the sound was much closer than before.
In this desperate moment, his mind raced with choices being made repeatedly in mere seconds.
Finally, without hesitation, with a determined expression, he charged toward the red emergency exit.
—Bang!!
As he forcefully slammed into the emergency exit, the door swung wide open with a rough noise.
Perhaps to prepare for unexpected circumstances, he had planned to save time, but thankfully, the door wasn’t locked.
In front of him lay a set of stairs going both up and down.
But the stairs leading downward were blocked by a pile of rubble.
Henry made his way upstairs, the only option left to him, without looking back.
How long had he been climbing?
Realizing that whatever was pursuing him had ceased its chase, he sat down on the stairs, panting heavily.
Huff… phew… cough, haah…
He was thirsty.
But regrettably, it seemed that there was no drinking water in this place.
He couldn’t tell how long he’d been wandering around, but after thoroughly searching the area, he couldn’t find any food suitable for human consumption.
Of course, even if he found something to eat, it was another issue if he could safely consume it.
At present, if offered something to drink, he would chug it down without a moment’s thought, as he was parched.
“…Is rescue not coming?”
Muttering in a tone filled with despair, Henry knew well that due to the nature of the 1983rd entity, it was exceedingly rare for anyone trapped inside to be found, let alone for a previous space to reappear.
However, the only glimmer of hope left for him was that someone from the management office might come to rescue him.
And whether that hope was a rotten straw or not, it was all he could do—waiting for that straw to descend to him.
“Damn it….”
A heavy sigh escaped him.
Despair tends to lead people to act in certain ways.
Despite successfully escaping from the entity pursuing him after dashing toward the emergency exit,
Ultimately, this method didn’t provide a solution to escaping here.
After all, the path going up was blocked off just like the stairs that led down.
It was filled with rubble, completely impassable.
There was only one way out.
To go back down to where he had come from,
To retrace the path he’d been chased along.
Whether he discovered a place to escape or a spot to end it all.
That was the only option he had left.
“Haah….”
Another sigh escaped him.
Agent Henry, overwhelmed by his grim reality,
Began to return down toward the area where something ominous might be lurking.
Before long, he soon found a door.
The same red emergency door he had seen before.
If he opened this door, he should see the place he had just been.
And undoubtedly, inside it,
The entity that had chased him around would be lurking somewhere.
But going through that door was the only option left to exit this vast place.
“….”
Grasping the emergency door handle, Henry thought.
In his memory, there had to have been a large opening in the center of the mall.
Though blocked by a railing, the height was such that he might be able to climb over it.
Earlier, he hadn’t been able to run toward it because he was being chased, but perhaps if circumstances unfolded as they had before, it might be better to fall down from there.
Of course, he wasn’t planning to give up his life so easily.
After all, there were still unexplored areas in that space,
And with the slightest, faintest hope,
He might still find some livable space.
After all, for humans,
Denying their birthright to live is not something one can easily claim, even in jest.
Creeeak—
As he pulled the door, a sound grated uncomfortably in his ears, a chilling contrast to the rough noise from when it swung open earlier.
To put it simply, it was merely the creaking sound coming from old hinges rubbing against each other.
Yet, psychologically, sounds have a significant impact on people.
Gradually, the space beyond the opening door began to reveal itself.
Slippery floor tiles that looked like marble.
And unblemished white pillars with empty shops that only had signage.
However, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed.
After all, the space he glimpsed through the door was now much darker than before.
‘…Had the lights gone out?’
He looked up at the ceiling where the lights should be, yet light was still seeping down as it had before.
Not bright enough to light up every corner, but a dim glow that didn’t quite erase the shadows entirely.
While the place he had wandered just moments ago likely felt as bright as day—
Of course, with shadows of no living beings present, the ambiance evoked not only fear but a sense of eeriness.
Yet at that moment, the darkness was not something that pertained to that feeling.
So why did he suddenly feel something off about this space?
Henry soon discovered the answer.
Upon flinging the door wide open, he was greeted by the view of—
The center of the store, where there had been a large hole above and below.
A place that had welcomed bright light, and where he’d resolved to leap over the railing before irreversible consequences occurred, was now—
As if concrete had been poured and time had taken its toll,
That very hole had been completely sealed, leaving no gaps.
“What the…?”
In less than an hour, the space had undergone a complete transformation.
He didn’t even need to think to conclude that this was a hostile change directed toward him.
His entire body went rigid, and he found himself speechless, only to finally say—
“Haha….”
As if surrendering everything,
He slumped down like a marionette with its strings cut, beginning to laugh like a person who had lost all hope.
In the vast central area,
A pillar suddenly appearing,
——Meant there was nowhere to escape.
As if to rob the hope of those who had come here,
A harshly scrawled message hinted at the cruel reality awaiting them.
