CHAPTER ONE
PRESENT
TUESDAY
"Tuesday, October 27, another day of misery."
"Buzz...Buzz..."
The sound of a radio woke me up. I opened my eyes for a brief moment to try to comprehend what happened. I touched by aching forehead that was covered with a bandage. I'm guessing that whoever did the bandage wasn't a great first aide. My bandage was still soaking with my own blood. I found myself in a dimly lighted room, with a light bulb stand next to me.
Questions started to run in my mind. I could vaguely remembered being smacked by something but that was it. I wish I'm wasn't the type that got knocked out that easily.
I took a quick look around and realised that the room I was in was a little dingy. At the corner, was a toilet bowl for me to do my business. The walls were painted grey with some graffiti on it. Taking the handle of the light bulb, I managed to see some of the words written.
End this suffering.
Confused, I crawl around the room quietly, hoping to spot some graffiti that might help me to understand what was going on but I saw nothing. The same words 'end the suffering' was scrawled repeatedly all over the place with different colours of paint spray. Graffiti of knives filled the entire room with decoration.
I have to do something. No way was I going to wait for death or for the unknown to happen.
Turning to my front, I saw a tall metal door that resembled like a door for a jail cell. I crawled up to the door as I started to bang on it. Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Hello?" I yelled. "Is anyone out there?"
I continued doing it until my hands started to ache from all the knocking. I was starting to get frustrated at the lack of response I was getting. What the hell was this kidnapper doing?
"You must be very stupid or you just have a death wish." Someone said.
I immediately turned around at the voice, only to see no one. Had I already gone loony? Did staying up everyday made me insane till the point I was hearing things?
"Who's that?" I asked, my hands shaking. I looked around and grabbed onto the light bulb handle tightly, holding it like a weapon. All I thought was protecting myself from who the voice was. After all, I was still young and I didn't want to die early.
"Over here," The voice answers. My eyes wandered around and saw a small hole. I cautiously walked towards it. "Yes, come closer." The voice encouraged.
I quickly kneeled down and place the light bulb beside me, as I saw someone's eye. The hole was only big enough for me to see through the eye, which only enabled me to look into the person's eye. I could tell from the eyes and the voice that whoever this stranger was a guy.
"You shouldn't bang on the door and go around shouting like that," The guy informs me. "Anytime, The Creator can be back and you'll be dead by now."
A small gasp escaped my lips as the guy shushed me. "You will also be killed if you make any loud noises like screaming. The last time someone did that, she got killed the next day."
K-killed?
Cold sweat started to form on my forehead. My body started to shiver even though it wasn't particularly cold. Just the word 'killed' was enough to make me shake in fear.
I cleared my throat as I uttered my question to the guy from the other side.
"What the hell is this place?" I whispered. "Why are we all being locked up?"
The guy sighs at my question. "Are you really stupid or something?" He questioned. "How could you not know?"
I shook my head. "I guess I'm just not...paying a lot of attention to things that happened around me."
The guy let out a low sigh. "You must be the new victim, seeing that you know nothing about this horrific place."
Horrific place?
"W-what do you mean?" I stuttered nervously. "What do you know?"
The guy didn't answer me immediately. I could see his back facing me from the small hole as I heard some fidgeting from the other side before it stopped. A deep sigh was then sounded again.
He turns around looking at me with the one eye that I could only see. "Many things about this place," He finally answered. "The Creator will explain the rules when he's back later."
Whoever this Creator person was, it was starting to freak me out. Who knew what will The Creator do if I messed up? Was the consequences only death, judging from how someone got killed for making noises?
I couldn't wait for The Creator to tell me that.
"Can't you just tell me?" I asked. "It'll be nice to give me a heads up-"
"No," The guy interrupted. "Just shut up, sit around and wait for The Creator."
Hearing his words made me stunned. How can he react so coldly? Aren't we in the same situation? It made no sense for him to refuse helping me.
Gripping onto my sleeve tightly, I decided to muster up my courage to question who was The Creator. Cold or not, he would have to tell me.
"Why can't you tell me?" I questioned. "We're in the same situation aren't we? So why don't you-"
"You'll know what is this place soon," The guy interrupts me again. If weren't for the wall in between us, I would have smacked him for interrupting me. "The sermon will start soon."
I was about to ask about the sermon when a crackly robotic voice interrupted me. I immediately stopped talking as I looked up and saw a radio perched on top of the wooden board.
"If you're still here, listening, it means you still refuse to end the suffering," The robotic voice said. "Let me tell you why you should end your suffering."
I turned to the small hole but I realised that the guy was gone. I looked back up as an eerie tune started to play for a while. It sounded creepy. It sounded satanic. It sounded like a funeral song.
"Why should you cry when there is a way to end your suffering? You don't deserve it," The radio voice said. "Why did God created us to make us suffer?"
The eerie tune was starting to get on my nerves. I covered my ears with my hands but I could hear the tune. In fact, it got louder instead like the radio knew I was trying to stop listening to the sermon.
Fear was starting to build inside me rapidly. Cold sweat began to drop off my forehead as the radio go on and on.
"Death...it's the way to go..." The satanic like radio voice said. The sound was slowly starting to make me go insane.
"Stop it, stop it..." I mumbled, shaking in fear. "Stop doing this to me..."
Again, nothing happened. No response or signs of stopping. It goes on again, repeating the same thing, repeatedly saying 'end the suffering'. I raised my head slightly and saw the words 'end the suffering' from the wall in front of me.
"Foolish human, why are you still living in suffering? Aren't you tired of how corrupted this place is?" I pulled my hands to my head. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout. But the only thing I did was just cry. Just tears, and nothing but tears.
The words was starting to get into me. It was starting to torture my mind. I was slowly losing my sanity before I knew it. The tears wouldn't stop flowing. I felt I was suffocating, like someone was holding me by the edge of the world.
"Oi, why are you crying?"
It was the guy from the other side of the hole. I heard the same fidgeting sounds from a while ago as he said "I told you not to make any noises didn't I?"
I didn't answer him. I was so afraid. Afraid of what's going to happen to me. I could barely even talk, the feeling of being numb, I've never ever experienced till today.
"Just let me cry." I mutter. I knew his intentions, I knew why he wanted me to stop crying. I know, I know. But, if I can't cry, I might really go insane to the point I can't think straight.
We didn't say anything for a few moments. I could feel him looking over at me while I was just crying silently. The more I sob, the more I felt helpless. I felt weak. No, I am weak. I'm letting a few words get into my own mind. I'm letting all this get into me.
Lee Arin, since when you've gotten so weak?
"Are you done?" The guy asked. "You sound irritating when you cry."
"Quit it." I mumbled while I heard a soft chuckle from the other side. I wiped my tears as I turned behind and saw the guy looking back at me.
"What?" I said. "Why are you laughing?"
"I just wanted you to feel better," The guy answered. "You have to control your sanity if you want to survive."
Survive?
"Aren't we here because we're going to die either way?" I questioned. "What makes you say that?"
The guy merely sighed. It was as if he had given up on me and he was tired of talking to me. "You don't die directly after you're being locked up," He explained. "The Creator will give you several tests which will lead to your fate."
"What test?" I asked.
"I don't know," The guy said. "I heard it from next door."
A chill was sent down my spine. I could imagine hearing the victims' cry for help, but I couldn't help them myself. This is sick. This is insane. This is the definition of crazy.
It then came to me to ask the guy a question. If he knew so much about the place, he must have been here for quite a time.
"How long have you been here?" I questioned. "You seem to know a lot about this place."
Again, silence. It took the guy a few minutes to answer my question. "You shouldn't ask too many questions," He said. "Knowing too much won't do you good."
"Is that why I'm here?"
He shrugged. "How did you get here anyways?"
I stopped for a moment, as I tried to recalled from the faint yet horrific memory that I probably won't want to remember again. "I saw a girl."
"You saw a girl?" He repeated my words, probably speechless after hearing me.
"She was bleeding," I answered. "And she was..."
I paused. The look of helplessness came back into my mind. The girl's blood stained cheeks mixed with tears pop up in my mind. I did not want to revisit back to this memory of someone pleading me for help while I just helplessly let her get dragged away. I could not help but felt guilty. Guilty that I was not able to help her out of her situation. But then again, what exactly was I supposed to do? I wondered what happened to her.
"Calling for help," I finally said. "And the next thing I know, I got smacked by the cra—"
The guy interrupted me by shushing me loudly. I looked at him, giving him a 'what' look. "Don't call him that word! He'll go ballistic if he hears you."
I raised an eyebrow. If he's interrupting me just to warn me this, it might be safer to speak without using any profanities. I cleared my throat, keeping in mind not to say what I initially intended to say. "The next thing I know, I was here, with a bloody bandage." I said, pointing to the bandage on my head.
"That must've hurt like hell," The guy remarked. "Does it still hurt?"
"Why wouldn't it? Um...," I admitted. I realised that all this while, I was referring him as 'The Guy' that I didn't even catch his name.
"Oh, how rude of me!" I exclaimed and immediately introduced myself.
"My name is Lee Arin," I said. "What's yours?"
"Me?" The guy asked, surprised that I was asking him his name.
"Is there anyone else in the room other than you?" I answered.
The guy then muttered something under his breath. "My name is Jun Yeong. Park Jun Yeong."
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