Chapter 3
Everyone in the world has dreams.
In those dreams, everything is contained—their desires, reality, and even the past.
However, there was one more thing hidden within dreams.
It was a ‘curse.’
……
There were six people in the elevator.
A terrifying ga where only those who get off at the correct floor can be safe.
It has begun now.
2F.
[2nd floor.]
The elevator doors opened slowly.
The elevator, which hadn't opened no matter how much it was pounded, was opening for the first ti.
Whir.
Finally, the sight of the 2nd floor was revealed.
“…….”
Everyone was holding their breath in tension and fear.
They all looked between the opening elevator doors with wide eyes.
“Huh? What is it?”
an apartnt hallway was visible.
The 2nd-floor lobby of an old apartnt with long hallways on both sides of the elevator.
Old facilities.
An ordinary hallway.
It was the sa apartnt sight they saw every day.
“Hmph, what’s this? There’s nothing here.”
The man shook his head as if it were absurd.
“Is this a joke?”
The others were still looking around, trying to grasp the situation.
“Can we just get off?”
“Wait a second.”
The woman raised her hand to stop the man.
“Doesn’t sothing seem strange?”
“Huh?”
“There’s sothing strange here.”
At the woman's words, the others began to scan the 2nd-floor hallway all at once.
“That.”
Looking closely, small wisps of smoke like mist were rising from the floor of the 2nd-floor hallway.
Since it was nightti and there were electric lights, they hadn't thought much of it, but the woman's observation was exceptional.
Beside her, the child was holding their mother's hand and trembling.
“Smoke? Is it fog?”
“I don't know what it is, but it's suspicious.”
“Hmm.”
While the people were contemplating.
I discovered sothing in the smoke at the center of the lobby.
“It’s that.”
“Student?”
The woman called 'student.'
“It’s over there. An incense burner.”
It was an incense burner commonly used in ancestral rites.
When performing ancestral rites and funerals.
Incense is burned to pray for the repose of the deceased, but now, mixed with a faint red light, it felt hazy and eerie.
“Oh, you’re right.”
“Ah, so that’s what it was.”
One falls into fear when the identity of sothing is unknown, but feels relieved once they know.
Perhaps fear is an emotion felt when one does not know.
“That's it. It was a joke.”
The man gained confidence.
He began to shout at the top of his lungs toward the ergency bell.
“You bastard. How dare you play with people?”
He then stepped forward confidently.
“See if I let this go. I’m definitely suing you.”
Thud.
I grabbed the man's arm.
“Wait a second.”
“Why?”
“We know the smoke is from incense, but everything else isn't certain.”
“What are you talking about? It's all a joke anyway.”
The man raised his head and looked at the CCTV.
“They’re playing pranks on us while watching through that. That piece of trash.”
After cursing as much as he wanted, he brushed off my attempt to stop him.
The man stepped right out of the elevator.
“Seriously, with the pranks. What is the world coming to these days?”
The people remaining. , the middle-aged woman, the elderly man, and the female student were still in the elevator.
“I told you it’s a joke! Nothing’s happening.”
The man laughed loudly.
“Look. What an absurd prank. Die? Bullshit.”
It was then.
“Mister?”
I saw sothing flowing down the man's face.
The man was the sa.
“Your eyes....”
The man's eyes had turned red and bloodshot.
Tears of blood slowly flowing down.
“Huh? What is this?”
The bloody tears did not stop.
“What on earth is this?”
[This floor is not the correct answer.]
It was the voice from the ergency bell.
At the sa ti.
Whir.
[The doors are closing.]
The elevator doors were closing.
I shouted.
“Mister, get back on!”
But.
The man was not looking this way.
He turned his head, which was shedding bloody tears, and looked to the side.
Toward the long hallway.
The man's bloodshot face was contorting.
Extre despair.
As if he had seen the ultimate terror.
“There... there's sothing there.”
They were words left behind like a final testant.
Along with a single scream, the man's waist was snapping backward.
And.
The elevator doors closed.
Thud.
“…….”
Silence flowed.
Apostasy. No one spoke.
Everyone was frozen; they were so shocked they couldn't even speak.
“…….”
Then, the voice from the ergency bell ca out.
[Moving up to the next floor.]
The voice was cold, like a chilling chanical sound, as if nothing had happened.
Around the ti everyone was shuddering at the horrific sight from before.
I was barely holding onto my fading senses.
“He said there was sothing there.”
The man's last words.
I focused on those words that remained like a final testant.
“A ghost?”
The elderly man muttered while trembling.
The middle-aged woman didn't say anything, just shaking, while I tried my best to calm down.
‘Even if you enter a tiger's den, you'll survive if you keep your wits about you.’
I don't know why this proverb ca to mind.
Maybe because today was a strange day from the start.
Since I have narcolepsy, it wouldn't be strange if sleepiness suddenly washed over at any mont, so I thought it was a relief that I was just holding on for now.
I knew it. If I fall asleep now, I die.
“What should we do?”
The middle-aged woman's voice trembled.
Then the ssage for 3F flickered, and soon the elevator stopped.
[3rd floor.]
At the hollow voice heard again, everyone was trembling in fear.
[The doors are opening.]
The elevator doors began to open.
Would it be the sa place this ti as well?
Whir.
It was the sa apartnt lobby.
This ti, too, there was an incense burner, and smoke with a faint hint of red light hung thick in the air.
[Those who wish to get off, please co forward.]
“…….”
No one ca out.
It was to be expected.
If they stepped out the wrong way, they would end up like that man.
“Excuse .”
The woman spoke to .
“What should we do?”
She asked with an anxious expression, but I was just a student who didn't know the answer.
“I also...”
I shook my head.
The tragedy occurring in this elevator from hell.
Smartphones without a connection.
A bizarre event that shouldn't happen in modern tis.
In this situation, fear transforms into helplessness.
It felt like being a cow being dragged to a slaughterhouse.
Despair ant death.
“It’s not this floor.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m saying we shouldn't get off here.”
[The doors are closing.]
When no one ca out, the elevator doors closed.
The woman looked straight at with eyes asking if I knew sothing.
“I saw it.”
I answered imdiately.
“Saw what?”
“What was in the hallway.”
I quietly recalled the image.
The smoke was definitely not just being emitted for no reason.
When the man was looking to the side while shedding bloody tears.
Actually, at that ti, I had been looking at the smoke first.
“That smoke. It took on a certain form.”
“What kind of form?”
“A monster.”
I replied.
It was the smoke that had targeted the man.
“The sa goes for the bloody tears. There’s sothing inside the smoke.”
“Then?”
“It’s just a possibility, but for now, I think it’s better to avoid any place where there’s smoke.”
Everyone exchanged glances and agreed with each other.
Since there was no other alternative, they shared the sa thought.
[Moving up to the next floor.]
Clunk.
The elevator was moving again.
This ti, it was that floor.
[4F]
The elevator display changed to those characters.
“The 4th floor...”
Everyone faced the ominous number.
The 4th floor.
The character for death, ‘Sa’ (死).
It was a cursed number.
Usually, one would dismiss it as a superstition, but now was different.
It was unsettling and they wanted to avoid it, but the 4th floor was an unavoidable place.
Like a despair that one would eventually face.
[4th floor.]
Thud.
The announcent flowed out like silence.
Everyone's faces turned pale, becoming deathly white.
Would the 4th floor be similar to the 3rd?
Or would there be sothing else?
Whir.
Little by little, the elevator doors began to open.
Rumble.
A small vibration.
A seeping, gloomy energy.
I realized this ti that the fact it looked the sa as usual could make it an even scarier place.
“...It opened.”
The elevator hallway was visible.
This ti, incense emitting grayish-white smoke was lit.
A faint mist.
Incense smoke swaying like a haze.
It swayed faintly as if soone were performing a dance.
“It’s the sa.”
It was the sa as the other floors.
On the 2nd and 3rd floors, only the incense smoke flowed; there was no other movent.
Why?
Only then did I realize a single point of question.
“…….”
And.
[Those who wish to get off, please co forward.]
The 4F light flickered.
No one dared to step forward hastily.
It was because the man's end on the 2nd floor remained clearly etched like an imprint.
The final death throe he spat out at the end.
My body rembered that horrific scream.
[The doors are closing.]
Everyone waited with bated breath.
They were despairing at this situation where they couldn't get off and had no choice but to go up.
“Do we have to get off before the elevator goes all the way up? How many floors was the top here?”
The middle-aged woman asked with a face pale with terror.
“It’s the 24th floor.”
I answered.
Since we passed the 4th floor, 20 floors remained.
If only we can survive until then....
“What should we do?”
“Why did this happen to us?”
“Can we get out alive?”
The female student, the middle-aged woman, and the elderly man.
Everyone was in despair.
‘I must desperately find a way to survive.’
It sounds like an obvious thing.
But when faced with death, the emotion of despair felt like a hamr striking my head.
‘Fear kills people.’
My mind was collapsing and my body was breaking down.
If one were to experience true despair even once, they wouldn't dare to easily tell soone to overco it.
I couldn't say anything either.
“Still.”
Alive.
So it will be okay.
Even those words provide no comfort.
[5F]
The lamp flickering again.
[5th floor.]
We moved past the 4th floor, which felt like a cursed stretch.
[The doors are opening.]
The elevator doors opened again.
It was the lobby this ti too.
But it was different.
“It’s not there.”
There was no smoke.
There was no incense.
It was dark, but an ordinary lobby nonetheless.
“Isn’t it okay here?”
The female student asked, but no one could answer.
The middle-aged woman opened her mouth, her lips trembling.
“I don’t know.”
“There’s no incense. There’s no smoke this ti.”
It had certainly changed.
But could one be certain with just that?
A choice where life and death diverged?
“…….”
Then, one person stepped forward.
“I’ll go out.”
A person who had been watching quietly from the back ca forward.
It was the elderly man.
“Grandfather?”
“If no one goes, it won’t be resolved, right?”
“It could still be dangerous.”
“It’s fine.”
The middle-aged woman tried to stop him, but the elderly man raised his hand to restrain her.
“It’s scary, but... still, it’s okay to try it once, isn't it?”
The elderly man turned his head and scanned around.
He looked at everyone—, the female student, and the middle-aged woman—and then spoke again.
“Look. Right now, I'm the only one who can go out.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve lived a long life, you see.”
The elderly man muttered.
“I even had cancer surgery. Back then, I was given only three months. I'm lucky to still be alive, but... that's why it feels like I've lived twice.”
“Grandfather....”
“It’s okay. I’ll check and then call for you.”
The elderly man did not hesitate.
And he slowly stepped to the front of the elevator.
One step.
Two steps.
The elderly man stepped out and stood on his two feet, and nothing happened.
“He made it.”
Everyone inside also shouted.
“This is the exit.”
Then a sound ca from the ergency bell.
[…….]
[This floor is not the correct answer.]
“What?”
Jubilation and joy turned into bewildernt and despair in a single instant.
Incense appeared in the ordinary lobby, and smoke spread thickly.
[The doors are closing.]
“Everyone.”
The elderly man raised his hand.
It was already too late to co back.
“Be careful.”
No sooner had his last words ended.
Beyond the elevator doors.
Crack!
The sound of sothing breaking.
Splatter!
The sound of blood splashing.
And thud!
The dull sound of a body collapsing was heard.
“Ah....”
Everyone ca to realize.
That they would not be able to leave this elevator alive.
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