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Chapter 9
In an instant, the school descended into chaos.
A student had fallen. Panic was only natural. Whether he had jumped on his own or it had been an accident, it was a serious matter.
An ambulance arrived, and the teachers tried to hold back the students who were trying to watch.
Through the crowd and the paramedics, I caught a glimpse of Jang Hyunwoo’s pale face as he was carried on a stretcher into the ambulance.
‘He won’t have died. If he had died… they would probably have covered his face with a white sheet.’
I tried to steady my nerves, but my hands were shaking violently.
‘Why?’
Jang Hyunwoo had not jumped by himself.
I knew that because, for only a split second, when he and I met eyes as he fell—
Hyunwoo had looked absolutely terrified, as though he was pleading for someone to save him.
‘Then did someone push him?’
I didn’t know that much. Above the floor where the third-year classrooms were located, there was only the rooftop, and I hadn’t been able to see what happened up there.
All I could hope was that Hyunwoo wasn’t too badly hurt.
Naturally, normal classes could not continue after that.
“Be quiet, everyone. Stop saying useless things and just study!”
In the end, the teachers gave up on teaching and spent their time calming the students down instead.
How many hours had passed?
Our homeroom teacher came into the classroom. He sighed and walked over to me.
More precisely, he walked over to Jang Hyunwoo’s desk.
“This is Hyunwoo’s bag, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
A white bag with a black keychain attached.
When the teacher lifted it, Chaesong asked,
“Why are you taking that?”
“I’m going to bring it to the hospital where Hyunwoo was admitted. Apparently, it’s a miracle he only broke his leg and is otherwise safe.”
“That’s a relief!”
“Phew.”
“Anyway, that Hyunwoo guy really knows how to scare people!”
The classmates who had been worrying together all voiced their relief in their own ways.
I, too, quietly let out a sigh of relief and turned toward Chaesong.
“Really, that’s such a relief, so—”
Since the three of us had been fairly close with Hyunwoo, I wanted to share in the relief.
“Teacher, can I take the bag to him?”
Chaesong’s gaze was still fixed on the bag the teacher was holding.
“I’m worried too, so I want to visit him and see his face.”
She sounded calm, but I could tell.
‘That look… she’s not worried.’
There was no concern on her face at all.
Instead, all I could feel from her was anxiety and impatience.
Her hollow eyes made it look like she wasn’t even properly looking at the teacher.
A chill ran down my spine.
If this had been the usual Chaesong, she would have been happier and more relieved than anyone to hear that Hyunwoo was not in danger of losing his life.
So why was she acting so strangely now? It was as if something had possessed her.
“Since only family can visit today, Chaesong, you should go straight home.”
“But—”
“Once Hyunwoo is better, I’ll make sure to tell him that you were worried about him.”
The teacher ended the conversation by saying he would also deliver the bag to the family, then left.
Chaesong, who still looked dissatisfied, flopped face-down onto her desk.
During class. During break. She did nothing but lie there.
“Chaesong, you should go get lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.”
She skipped lunch too and stayed motionless with her face buried on the desk.
I hesitated for a moment, then quietly left the classroom.
‘Something’s off.’
Chaesong’s behavior—especially how fixated she had seemed on Hyunwoo’s bag, and specifically the keychain—was suspicious no matter how I thought about it.
I needed to talk to her again.
Everyone except Chaesong and me had gone to the cafeteria long ago, so if I went back now, she’d be the only one in the classroom.
It was probably the perfect chance to talk quietly.
Just as I turned my head back toward the classroom after looking down the unusually silent, empty hallway—
‘Wh-what the hell is that?’
I was horrified.
Someone was holding onto Chaesong’s leg while she was lying face-down on her desk.
Her front seat.
More precisely, someone crouched beneath Jang Hyunwoo’s desk.
Long hair spilled down and covered the entire face, and the black limbs were covered in scars.
The pitch-black skin almost looked like it had been burned—or painted black.
‘I-I need to call Chaesong.’
Maybe that thing was the reason she hadn’t been able to stand up?
My heart pounded violently. Could I still go in, pretend I hadn’t seen anything, and pull Chaesong out?
The ghost’s hand moved from Chaesong’s ankle to her calf.
The movement was so ominous that just as I was about to speak—
“Chaesong—!”
“Shh.”
A large hand covered my eyes.
“Just walk as if you didn’t see anything.”
It was Dan Seohyeok’s voice.
Why was he here when he should have been in Class 1?
I tried to pull away the hand covering my eyes with my trembling hands, but he was firm.
“Don’t answer. Just move. It’s trying to recognize you.”
You should at least tell me what happens if it recognizes me! Does that mean it starts chasing me from then on?
Honestly, I was terrified.
I wanted to help Chaesong, but if I imagined that eerie thing grabbing me…
“It’s okay.”
Dan Seohyeok’s voice was steady and firm.
Strangely, it gave me a sense of relief.
I slowly walked as he led me.
Even though I couldn’t see ahead, I wasn’t afraid.
Somehow, I had the instinct that Dan Seohyeok would lead me along a safe path.
“Stairs. Be careful.”
As we reached the stairs, walked through another hallway, and then descended another set of stairs, Dan Seohyeok lightly wrapped the hand that wasn’t covering my eyes around my shoulder.
That hand felt reassuring.
How long did we walk like that?
Only when I began hearing the voices of other students did Dan Seohyeok finally remove his hand.
As soon as my vision returned, I looked around first.
We were on the first floor.
“Why do you keep getting involved in pointless things?”
At Dan Seohyeok’s voice, tears suddenly welled up in my eyes.
It wasn’t just because his words were blunt. I was shocked, scared, and worried about Chaesong being left alone with a ghost.
“Dan Seohyeok, what should we do?”
“Was that the thing you were talking about earlier?”
“No… that one suddenly appeared.”
It started appearing after Hyunwoo’s accident, though… was that incident connected to it somehow?
When I told him the suspicious parts, Dan Seohyeok spoke in a calm voice.
“It might be the ghost attached to the keychain.”
Since I had closed my eyes just now, my vision still felt blurry.
I looked toward the direction of his voice, and he continued asking,
“Then what was that girl in the classroom just now?”
“I don’t know. But she kept seeming strangely interested in the keychain… and then she spent the whole morning lying face-down on her desk. I never thought something like that would be holding her.”
“Looks like the target shifted.”
Dan Seohyeok muttered quietly.
By then, my blurry vision had started to clear.
When I looked over his shoulder—
“Ghk…!”
I clamped both hands over my mouth to stop a scream.
“Why?”
Up the stairs leading to the second floor, the ghost that had been holding onto Chaesong’s leg was staring down at me.
It had been lying flat on the floor, but had lifted its head, revealing a face I hadn’t been able to see in the classroom.
When it met my eyes, it grinned.
Its facial skin was also pitch-black.
It wasn’t burned skin.
It was black because it was densely covered in strange writing.
I must have passed out just like that.
My vision went black again, with the last thing I saw being Dan Seohyeok’s face as he reached out toward me in alarm.
‘What happened to the ghost?’
That was the first thing I thought when I came to.
Cold sweat had dampened my palms.
Even while wiping them on my clothes, I looked around anxiously.
I was that frightened by the shocking face of the ghost I had last seen.
‘I’m scared.’
It was on a completely different level from Red, who at least still looked and acted like a child and was almost cute in comparison.
It was also different from the writhing arms I had only ever read about in the novel, or the ones I had seen in Eden Villa.
The ghosts in Eden Villa were a threat in the sense of, “if they catch you, you might die.”
But the ghost attached to the doll…
How should I put it?
‘More than a threat, it feels like a rejection and fear of being involved with it at all.’
Everything about it was black.
Even the part that should have been the whites of the eyes was black, which was horrifying enough.
‘The irises were a dull gray…’
At a glance, they looked a bit like the eyes of someone who had lost their sight, but there was something far more disturbing about them.
The corners of its torn mouth looked like they had been roughly stapled together.
Most of all, I couldn’t forget the expression it made after locking eyes with me—an expression of genuine delight, as if it had realized I was afraid and was pleased by it.
That malice was terrifying.
“Are you okay?”
I twisted around, trying to figure out where I was, and saw that I was lying on a bed with curtains around me.
It must have been the infirmary.
As if noticing my movement, Dan Seohyeok appeared, pulling back the curtain.
“You were here too.”
Even so, I felt relieved seeing a face I knew.
Dan Seohyeok pulled over a stool and sat beside me.
“Did you see something?”
“Yeah. Behind you… there was something, but I got too shocked.”
“So it finally recognized you.”
Dan Seohyeok let out a sigh.
“Ghosts get more curious and clingy when they notice someone who looks like they can see them. Next time something like that happens, you should naturally avert your eyes.”
“I didn’t know…”
“It’s normal not to know. It’s not your fault.”
It was a blunt kind of comfort.
I had expected him to call me stupid again, so that surprised me a little.
“For now, it looks like you’re not being targeted because there’s another priority.”
He was talking about Chaesong, wasn’t he?
I splashed some water on my face.
Maybe because I’d been so stressed lately, even my hands and face felt rough.
“Once that target is handled, you’ll probably be next.”
“……”
Does he not even notice that I’m stressed too?
In yet another sense, that somehow made me stressed all over again.
