Chapter 24: Crash Landing (2)

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“You really can’t see this?”

As soon as they arrived at Su-myeon’s place, he turned on his computer.

The many games of .

He pulled up the original game that Happy Ellis Hotel had been based on and showed it to the others.

If they could see it—if they could understand what they were looking at—then everything he needed to explain afterward would become much easier.

But the reaction he got was nothing like what he had expected.

“......Is there something we’re supposed to be seeing?”

“You’re just...... clicking around on the desktop.”

At Han-su’s and Ju-hee’s responses, Su-myeon clutched his forehead.

“Seriously? None of you can see any of this? There’s a ton of stuff right here.”

Su-myeon opened the countless documents he had saved about UTG games.

But the files stored only on his computer seemed completely invisible to everyone else.

“It’s just an empty folder, Su-myeon.”

“What are we supposed to be looking at? Wait—was there something in here before? Did it get deleted?”

Su-myeon wasn’t the only one bewildered.

The others looked every bit as confused.

Everyone was growing frustrated.

‘What the hell is going on?’

Anything related to UTG seemed completely imperceptible to them.

As though Su-myeon alone was capable of seeing it.

“This is insane. If you can’t even see this, where am I supposed to start explaining......?”

Everything he had demonstrated inside the hotel.

Everything he was basing his reasoning on now.

How was he supposed to explain any of it without the games or their settings to back him up?

His head began to pound.

Watching Su-myeon struggle, Young-cheol spoke cautiously.

“You can just tell us whatever you need to tell us, in whatever way is easiest for you. We can trust you even without knowing all the background.”

Background?

What are you talking about?

Seriously?

Young-cheol’s inexplicable certainty only made Su-myeon feel as though he were losing his mind even faster.

The man was clearly laboring under some kind of misunderstanding, but without any evidence Su-myeon could actually show him, there was no way to correct it.

“I understand that there may be things you can’t tell us completely.”

Apparently, that hotel really had cracked this doctor’s skull open.

But trying to explain himself further to people who literally couldn’t perceive the evidence was genuinely pointless.

In the end, Su-myeon gave up on explaining where his knowledge came from.

Cutting that part out entirely, he moved straight to his theory about their current situation.

“Do you all remember what the Red Queen said in the hotel?”

The story she had told them about the layers of a sandwich.

The scene had been shocking enough that none of them could have forgotten it.

As everyone nodded, Su-myeon continued slowly.

“She said that once we stepped outside, we’d see a new world—but beyond that world was yet another outside. Those were her exact words.”

And after leaving the hotel, they had indeed returned to a reality from which parts of the people around them had been cut away.

On top of that, the many UTG games stored on Su-myeon’s computer could now be perceived by him alone.

Drawing together those seemingly separate yet undeniably connected phenomena, Su-myeon spoke with growing certainty.

“I think we’ll have to clear several places like that—places connected to urban legends—before we can actually get out for good.”

Just like Ellis Hotel, weren’t there people trapped inside the many UTG games he possessed?

Groans and sighs rose from all around the room.

The theory was far too plausible to dismiss.

And their reality was already clearly broken.

Han-su asked without hesitation.

“You’re saying we have to enter those anomalies ourselves and find the people trapped inside them?”

“......Yes. I think that’s the only way to bring back the people who disappeared.”

Su-myeon nodded, then scrubbed both hands over his face.

These disappearances were clearly connected to the urban legends from the UTG games.

But saying that was easy.

Actually doing something about it was another matter entirely.

The horrors they had witnessed and endured inside Ellis Hotel were still painfully vivid in his mind.

Su-myeon’s voice trembled slightly.

“Of course, just living like this is also.......”

......Goddamn it.

Pretending none of it mattered and simply accepting things as they were might have been an option too.

Su-myeon had nearly said exactly that.

Instead, he swallowed the words along with a silent curse.

Sitting in an empty house, telling this impossible story to people who had, until recently, been little more than strangers.

This was his reality now.

How could anyone possibly accept that?

His family’s very existence had been erased.

There was no way he could choose to ignore that and still sleep peacefully at night.

Maybe he could pretend for a day or two.

But could he really keep doing it for weeks?

Months?

“That’s not an option.”

Ju-hee, apparently having reached the same conclusion, spoke with a grave expression.

“Someone important to me was taken away. I can’t just pretend this never happened. I have to get my reality back, no matter what it takes.”

Someone precious to Ju-hee had vanished as well.

The others nodded in agreement.

“We all feel the same way. Let’s find a solution together. Su-myeon, can I use your computer?”

At Ha-min’s request, Su-myeon stepped aside.

The boy carefully took the mouse, opened an internet portal, rolled up his sleeves, and leaned toward the screen with determination.

“If these things are urban legends, shouldn’t we be able to find something about them online?”

Everyone was determined to reclaim their own reality.

They couldn’t simply keep living after losing the people who mattered most to them.

If those people had died, then at least they could have mourned them and held on to their memories.

But this was different.

They didn’t even know whether the missing were alive or dead.

And if their own memories eventually faded, every last trace of those people would disappear with them.

“Would things like the Jangsan Tiger or the Red Mask count......?”

Ha-min had taken over the computer enthusiastically, but there was only so much he could find.

Watching him search, Su-myeon fell into thought.

Ellis Hotel had been almost identical to the game he had played.

A great many things had changed because of his intervention, but the overall structure had remained the same.

“I’ll find some specific locations and let everyone know.”

If that was the case, tracking down and navigating the other urban legends should work the same way.

They would follow the settings laid out in the games Su-myeon possessed.

At least he wasn’t alone.

That alone was an enormous relief.

Taking comfort in the thought, Su-myeon made up his mind and asked,

“When is everyone free?”

“Ah...... I probably have the least free time.”

Ha-min answered cautiously.

As a high school baseball player, he had practically no spare time between school and practice.

But his lifelong rival—and friend—had disappeared.

Now Ha-min was just as desperate to reclaim his reality as everyone else.

“I’ll come whenever I can!”

“I’m free outside work hours.”

“Same here. As long as I’m not on shift, count me in!”

Ju-hee and Du-pal stated their availability without hesitation.

Han-su and Young-cheol followed.

“Mine is...... irregular.”

“Same here, honestly.”

A detective and a surgeon were hardly professions known for abundant free time.

Once everyone had explained their schedules, Su-myeon furrowed his brow slightly.

“I’m...... unemployed, so I just...... always have time.”

Young-cheol nodded knowingly.

“Ah. So that’s the cover story.”

Su-myeon had no idea why everyone else was nodding along with Young-cheol instead of correcting him.

Too exhausted to keep fighting the misunderstanding, Su-myeon simply nodded too.

***

From then on, the group pursued every urban legend Su-myeon brought to them.

They traveled all over the country, investigating locations based on UTG titles set in schools, hospitals, abandoned factories, and more.

But the overwhelming majority turned out to be nothing more than ordinary buildings.

[Ju-hee: It just felt like doing a haunted-house dare.]

[Du-pal: Nothing even scares me anymore!]

[Ju-hee: (video)]

The group had created a group chat while investigating the anomalies.

Riding the subway with Han-su, Su-myeon opened the video Ju-hee had uploaded.

Two people had entered the basement of an abandoned factory to show Su-myeon what the place looked like, cautiously making their way through the darkness.

It was a cold, damp, decaying building.

Even through the screen, the chill and moisture seemed almost tangible.

As the two crept through the silent basement, something suddenly startled them.

They screamed and bolted for the stairs—

then stopped.

On the screen was an adorable kitten.

[Ha-min: Ahjussi, you were SO scared though]

[Du-pal: When did you even record that?]

[Ju-hee: You and Han-su said you’re heading to Sadang Station today, right?]

Su-myeon checked the route.

The next stop was Sadang Station.

[Yeah. Almost there.]

True to Sadang Station’s reputation for crowds, the platform was busy even at the awkward hour of midafternoon on a weekday.

----- Title: Anyone else unable to get out of Sadang Station Exit 4? Author: Anonymous

I had a weird experience at Sadang Station Exit 4 last winter.

I was drunk and got to Sadang on the last train, so I was kinda out of it.

I followed the signs for Exit 4, but the stairs just never showed up.

The sign overhead clearly said Exit 4, and I was definitely following it.

But every time I went that way, it just led to another corridor, then another connecting passage.

I swear I went around in circles like 50 times.

I was alone in this underground passage, there wasn’t a single person anywhere, and all I could hear were my own footsteps echoing.

But seriously, Sadang Station is never THAT empty, right?

I got so freaked out that I basically started running.

Then, out of nowhere, I heard flute music.

Not like a recorder or anything......

It was a sound I’d literally never heard before in my life.

The last train was already gone, there was nobody around, and it felt like every CCTV camera was pointed away from me.

Total chills.

I checked my phone for the time.

12:40.

12:40.

12:40......

Time wasn’t moving.

My battery kept draining, but the clock never changed.

Eventually I just kept wandering around.

I don’t remember how I got out.

The next thing I knew, I woke up collapsed at the bus stop in front of the station.

I checked my phone, and it was 2 PM the next day.

A whole day and a half had just disappeared.

Everyone around me acted like they had no idea what I was talking about.

I still won’t go anywhere near Sadang Station.

└ You probably just passed out drunk on the street and slept for a day lol

└ Whoa, I feel like I’ve seen another post like this before.

└ That place is famous. The flute sound at Exit 4.

└ I heard someone actually disappeared for good. Just ended up as a cold case. -----

Su-myeon and Han-su reread the online post describing the urban legend as they stepped off the train.

It was certainly an unusual account, but nothing about it seemed especially remarkable.

Still, if Su-myeon was being honest, the mere fact that he had been able to find the post online had sent chills down his spine.

He knew for a fact that its contents had originally existed as part of the script for a fan-made game called .

‘And yet when I searched for it, it came up as a real post.......’

Han-su’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“There were several similar accounts. The key detail seems to be the flute sound near Exit 4.”

Su-myeon nodded, and the two left the platform.

As they walked through the station’s long, sprawling underground passageways, neither of them made much conversation.

Neither was particularly talkative or sociable to begin with.

And since both were straining their ears for the flute that might begin playing at any moment, the silence came naturally.

“.......”

Then Han-su suddenly grabbed Su-myeon by the arm.

“......?”

They were almost at Exit 4.

The stairs leading aboveground should have appeared at any moment.

So why had Han-su stopped?

In that instant, a chill crawled over the back of Su-myeon’s skull.

He stopped too.

“Why.......”

Why is there no one here?

Only the two of them remained.

The instant Su-myeon became conscious of that wrongness—

Fweeee.

A shrill flute note, almost like a whistle, drifted toward them from somewhere in the distance.

At the same moment, both men looked down at the phones in their hands.

“.......”

That painfully familiar, utterly unwelcome heart symbol.

And on the backs of their phones, now marked with a single heart, a set of rules they had never wanted to see again began to load.