I started running like mad.
Had the school hallway ever felt this long before?
“Haa… haa…!! Help me…!!”
A person gripped by terror can run faster than you’d think.
The pain dulls, and the body moves far more dramatically than usual.
This was probably the second time I’d experienced it.
I remembered the time I’d escaped by a hair’s breadth from that murderer who had killed my mother and then tried to finish me off too.
At last, tears began to leak out.
—Crack, crack, crack.
Every time the guard walked, a spine-chilling sound rang out.
The school floor was made of stone, so there was no reason for such a sound to occur.
It was coming purely from him.
“Stu… dent… it’s dan… gerous there, this way, this way.”
The unpleasantly cracking voice of a middle-aged man scraped at my eardrums.
Even if I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t.
‘It feels like it’s being driven directly into my head….’
Thinking that, I reached the bend in the corridor and hurriedly ran on.
“Hrk… hrk… damn it, what the hell is this now…?”
Then an obstacle appeared before my eyes.
Tangled desks and chairs were strewn all over the hallway.
Some were even caught on the classroom windows, as if they had been something trying to escape.
There was even a desk sitting forlornly in the entrance, looking as though something had crushed and broken it.
“What the… can I even get through?”
Even as I thought that, the eerie sound of the monster reached me.
This was no time to pick and choose.
I could only resent the fact that I had to turn down this hallway to reach the central stairs.
To get to the central stairs, I stepped over the chairs and desks and pushed forward.
In the middle of doing so, I looked back, and there stood the guard, staring fixedly at me as if he were grinning.
I couldn’t see any eyes, nose, or mouth.
There was nothing that could be called a face at all, so why could I feel his gaze so clearly?
“Stu… dent… it’s dan… gerous there, come here, come here.”
As he said that, the guard let out that unpleasant voice.
He shone his flashlight endlessly at me and twisted his hand in a grotesque motion.
Looking at that hand, dried, shriveled, and blackened, I felt nauseated.
The piano was still echoing throughout the entire school.
For now, there was still nothing seriously wrong with my body.
* * *
After escaping the pursuit, I wandered for a long while, searching for an open classroom, but—
“…There aren’t any.”
Not a single classroom was open.
They were all empty, too.
At this point, it was frightening.
Just what had to happen for there to be no people to this extent?
All I could see were broken desks and chairs.
There wasn’t a single desk standing normally.
Those were the only traces of people.
Desks lay scattered in disarray.
Just what on earth had happened while I was asleep?
“…Why am I worrying about those bastards?”
For a moment, a surge of emotion welled up inside me.
Weren’t they all bastards who had ignored me?
They insulted my mother, who had sacrificed herself for me.
They were animal-like bastards who tore my heart to shreds by saying I had killed that very mother.
Then this was actually for the best. I no longer had to see them.
Tears fell, drop by drop.
I hadn’t even been hurt, yet it hurt so terribly.
Listening to the sound of the piano, as if it had been tuned wrong, I headed toward the central stairs.
The lights were still crackling, and my heart was pounding like mad.
The central stairs I arrived at.
As expected, broken desks and chairs were spread all over this place too.
“…If there’s one difference from before… there’s chalk scattered everywhere.”
The difference from earlier was that a whole lot of chalk had been smashed to pieces.
Feeling puzzled by that, I slowly walked down toward the central entrance.
The sound of the desks breaking struck my eardrums clearly.
The more it did, the more I felt like I was going to throw up.
The creaking, squeaking sound continued for a long while.
I could only hope the sound I was making now would be buried beneath that horrifying piano and disappear.
“…Disgusting… why…?”
I didn’t know the reason, but either way, I had to live, so I headed toward the central entrance.
As soon as I came down the stairs, the central entrance was right there.
I couldn’t see the guard anywhere nearby.
“…It should be fine, right?”
Thinking that, I ran toward the glass doors of the central entrance.
Then I heard footsteps.
—Crack, crack!
Startled by the sound, which seemed faster than before, I hurriedly tried to open the door, but—
—Rattle, rattle!!
“The lock…!!”
The lock above the door was fastened.
So I stretched out my left arm, undid the lock, and opened the door. At that very instant—
—Squeeeeeze!!
A pitch-black, dried, shriveled hand clamped down on my left arm with insane force.
“Stu. dent. Where are you going?”
Immediately after that, a voice sounded beside my ear.
A crazed pain surged through my left arm.
“Ah… this.”
I knew what the next scene would be.
Yes, because I had seen it in my nightmare.
—Riiiiip!!!
Far too futilely, my arm was torn away along with my school uniform.
A staggering pain washed over me, and my vision blurred, but—
I couldn’t die here.
“Aaaaaaagh…!!!!”
With fresh blood spreading before my eyes, I shoved open the doors of the central entrance and ran.
I started running like mad.
—Thump, thump, thump.
My heart pounded insanely, battering me.
I ran like mad, gasping for breath.
The spot where my arm had been torn away burned hot.
Tears burst from my eyes.
‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die…!!’
Sobbing uncontrollably, I bit down on my lower lip and ran like mad.
* * *
The passage closest to the central entrance was the basketball court behind the school, connected to the back mountain.
“Haa… haa…….”
My head spinning, I somehow staunched the blood pouring out like mad and reached the court.
The crimson sky and the beautifully colored autumn leaves of the back mountain created a cognitive dissonance.
I couldn’t collapse here.
I’d come this far. I couldn’t collapse.
Pushing back the dizziness surging over me, I headed toward the iron-barred gate.
“…It’s open.”
Fortunately, it was open.
After confirming that, I opened the gate and slipped out of the school.
And just as I was about to lock the gate again—
“…!!!”
My eyes met the guard’s as he stared at me from far away.
As if grinning broadly, the guard began running toward me at an insane speed.
He was fast.
Fast enough to rival a decent track athlete.
—BANG!!!!!
“If I just catch you…!! If I just c-c-catch yoooou…!!!!!”
“Hiiik…!”
The guard screamed like mad from beyond the iron bars.
When I fell over at that, he started huffing and puffing, then fumbled around in his clothes and pulled something out.
“…Y-you, wa-wawant this, don’t you?”
“My… arm…?”
My face went deathly pale in an instant, and I scrambled backward like mad.
The only fortunate thing was that the guard seemed unable to come outside the school.
He merely kept repeating, “Student, it’s dangerous there.”
Ignoring him, I climbed up the back mountain.
“I survived…….”
Though about five minutes later, I would realize I had forgotten the rest of the prophetic dream.
In the end, I collapsed.
Only then did the ending of the dream begin to come back to me.
‘If I stay like this, then definitely… Mom… no, that monster will come…….’
I tried somehow to put strength into my body.
I wanted to resist fate, but my body failed me and collapsed.
I had no strength left.
And then.
—Step.
…Just like in the prophetic dream, I heard the sound of fallen leaves being softly stepped on.
Goosebumps rose all over my body.
‘I want to live…!! I want to live, Mom… I’m sorry, I’m sorry I was the only one who survived… What do I do? Huh? I promised I’d go back… I can’t die here…!!!’
Inwardly, I prayed desperately that I wanted to live.
And as if answering me—
“Do you want to live?”
“Ah…….”
The voice of my mother, who should already have been dead, flowed gently into my ear.
My mother’s kind voice.
That voice, which I could only hear in my memories, tickled me.
I knew. This was not my mother.
“Ahh…….”
That was why I couldn’t say anything.
Wanting to live, my body writhed.
Just like in the prophetic dream.
To me, the monster slowly spoke.
“My son, do you want to live?”
“…!!!”
I turned my head and looked back.
Just like in the prophetic dream.
And just like in that prophetic dream, a hideous monster was staring at me.
Smiling wide, in a terribly grotesque way.
‘Jangsanbeom…….’
A creature that copies beings within human memories.
If it was going to eat me, I only wished it would at least show me my mother’s form.
Thinking that, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Then my mother’s voice reached me.
“If you want to live, run, my baby.”
“…!!!”
My mother’s last words.
Speaking those words, the monster mocked me like mad in my mother’s voice.
“Hey… you son of a bitch…….”
An unbearable rage rose inside me, and I looked at the Jangsanbeom as I spat out the curse weakly.
Then the monster opened its maw wide.
Perhaps it had already finished feasting; blood and bits of flesh were stuck between its white teeth.
I could see some hair, too.
Now, it was time to die.
I thought it was a grotesque end befitting a truly wretched life.
—Crack!!!!!
Blood splattered everywhere, and my life ended.
No, it certainly should have.
And yet, for some reason, I was now looking at myself in the full-length mirror in my studio apartment.
* * *
It hurt.
It hurt terribly.
The process of being swallowed by the white monster was as if every part of my body were being chewed away.
So I thought I must have died just like that.
And yet, for some reason—
“…Huh?”
I opened my eyes in my studio apartment.
In the form of a girl wearing absolutely nothing.
When I looked into the full-length mirror, I saw a black-glowing X mark in my eye.
“…An X mark in my eye…? What is this…? Wasn’t I dead in the first place?”
I had become a beautiful woman my own age.
It was the moment I was no longer myself.