B1 - Prison (3)

“Zzz…”

I was sleeping soundly, completely oblivious to the passage of time, when a loud noise shattered my peaceful sleep.

Ding-!
Half-asleep, I opened my eyes at the sound of the elevator coming down.

“Morning already…?”

It didn’t feel like I’d slept much, but apparently morning had already come.
I rubbed my sleepy eyes and tried to clear the fog from my head.
Even then, exhaustion kept dragging me back toward sleep.
Was I sleep-deprived?

“Yaaawn.”

I barely managed to sit up and was leisurely yawning when Han Gyeong-ah came trudging into the basement.

“Hey. Morning.”

For some reason, she looked like a complete mess. It was nothing like her usual neat appearance.
Her hair was wildly disheveled, and her entire body was drenched in sweat.

“Gyeong-ah?”
“It was scary…”

The moment Han Gyeong-ah saw me, relief washed over her face and her eyes filled with tears.
What the hell? What was wrong with her?

“It was really scary…”

Her legs gave out, and she collapsed to the floor.
Then all the emotions she’d been holding back came pouring out as she burst into miserable sobs.

“Waaaaah!!”
“W-What’s with you all of a sudden?!”

It hit me like a storm out of nowhere.

**

After who knew how long, Han Gyeong-ah finally calmed down.

“You okay now?”
“Yes… sniff.”

Her swollen eyes said more than enough about how she’d been feeling.
After crying her heart out, she seemed to come back to her senses and flushed with embarrassment.

“Please forget what you just saw…”

Apparently aware of how embarrassing it had been, she fidgeted awkwardly. Unfortunately, it had been far too memorable to forget easily.

“What happened in the middle of the night? And why do you look like such a wreck?”
“Well…”

Han Gyeong-ah hesitated.
Seeing how she kept wavering, I got the sense this wasn’t something she could casually brush off.

“Um… Would you believe me no matter what I told you?”
“I’d have to hear it first.”
“Of course…”

Déjà vu. This was the exact reverse of our conversation during the day.
The balance of power when it came to trust had completely flipped.
The only difference was that, unlike a certain crybaby Han, my head wasn’t full of flowers.

“Just tell me first. Don’t sit there agonizing over it by yourself.”
“All right…”

After a great deal of hesitation, Han Gyeong-ah finally made up her mind.

“I’ll tell you. I don’t know whether you’ll believe me or not, but…”

Then she told me what had just happened on Floor 1.

“That really happened?”
“Yes…”

It was certainly the kind of story no sane person would find easy to believe. She seemed anxious, apparently thinking the same thing.

“Like I thought… It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“No. I believe you.”

I’d been a little uncertain before, but hearing the whole story convinced me.
She was telling the truth.
If anything, the sheer absurdity of it made it more believable.
I suppose that was only natural when we were caught somewhere between a game and reality.

“Wait a second?! You’re just going to believe me without doubting it at all?”
“Is that a problem?”
“It’s not that it’s a problem. It’s weird!”
“What’s weird about it? Do you want me to doubt you?”
“No, but…”

Han Gyeong-ah fidgeted awkwardly.

“Even I can barely believe it, and I’m the one it happened to. How can you believe it just from hearing me talk about it…?”

She’d just asked me to believe her, and now she was criticizing me for doing exactly that.
Talk about fickle.
How was I supposed to keep up when she kept changing her tune…?

“If you saw it yourself, then it happened. Why are you trying so hard to deny it?”

When reality itself became unreal, insisting on normal reality was the truly unrealistic thing.
There was already an extra who’d starved to death and gone back in time.
At this point, nothing bizarre happening would surprise me.

“You really believe me?”
“Of course. You couldn’t lie if you tried.”
“…”

‘That aside…’

This hadn’t happened before.
Originally, this part of the night should have passed without incident.
The only difference between then and now was the warning I’d given her during the day.
Was this the butterfly effect?
The tiny flutter of a casual warning had stirred up a storm.
Han Gyeong-ah had dismissed my warning as nonsense, but apparently it had bothered her more than she’d let on.
Since that was why we’d met like this, should I call it a good thing?
Either way, the important part was simple.

‘…The future changed.’

I’d gained at least one small clue that might help me avoid death.

“How are you feeling?”
“Not okay…”

Han Gyeong-ah leaned against the wall and tried to recover from her exhaustion. Her face was still pale, as if the memory remained painfully vivid.
Had the overwhelming fear left her traumatized?
At least seeing me seemed to have calmed her somewhat. I waited until she had settled down.
After resting for a while, some color returned to her face, and she looked a little calmer.

“So what are you going to do now? You can’t stay down here forever.”
“I’ll rest a little… then go back up once morning comes.”

It was still the middle of the night.
All of Floor 1 had gone dark.
Even if she went back up now, she’d just be stumbling around in darkness.
Waiting until morning was the best option. Once daylight came, the others would wake up too.

“…Did you know?”

She suddenly asked.

“Know what?”
“Don’t play dumb! You told me…! You said something big would happen on Floor 1 soon and that I should be careful…”

Han Gyeong-ah pressed me in agitation.
The warning I’d given her yesterday lined up perfectly with what had just happened.
There was no way someone as cautious as her would let that slide.

“Don’t you know something about this place?”

Was that police intuition kicking in again?
Her gaze was razor sharp.

‘What is this, some kind of game skill…?’

Still, I couldn’t exactly start blabbing about possession and regression. I shrugged and denied it as casually as I could.

“Nope. How would I?”
“What?! Don’t lie! You warned me yesterday!”
“I told you. I’d had a bad nightmare.”
“How does that even…”

Han Gyeong-ah seemed too dumbfounded by my excuse to finish her sentence.
All she had was suspicion.
Without any decisive evidence, questioning me wouldn’t get her anywhere.
She could try all she wanted.

“Stop asking pointless questions and get some sleep. You’ve been up all night. You should rest while you can.”

She’d stayed awake all night and had reached her limit both physically and mentally.
She needed sleep if she wanted to recover any strength.
Sure enough, she was already nodding off.

“See? You’re exhausted.”
“Be quiet and answer my question…”

Whatever else was going on, it was still the middle of the night. More than enough to lull one clueless police officer into a deep sleep.

“You’re really… a strange person…”

After nodding off for a while, her eyes finally slid shut. All the fatigue she’d built up came crashing down at once.

“Gyeong-ah, you asleep?”
“…”
“Guess you are.”

She slept so soundly that someone could probably carry her away without waking her. I looked at Han Gyeong-ah as she slept.

“That’s what you get for wandering around alone in the middle of the night.”

I’d never really noticed before, but seeing her sleeping quietly like this, I had to admit she was pretty.
She’d been the protagonist’s ally in the game too, and easily the most popular character.

‘Her personality’s just prickly.’

She was especially touchy with me. Another legacy of Kim Yohan.
Even after everything, that trash villain was still making my life harder.
Would the day ever come when Han Gyeong-ah and I actually got along?
For now, that day felt impossibly far away. Then my eyes happened to fall on the watch around her wrist.

[04:44]

Why did the time look so ominous?
Anyway, it was 4:44 a.m. The hotel started its morning routine at eight sharp, if I remembered correctly.

“Yaaawn…”

There were still more than three hours left.
Staying awake through the rest of the night would be unbearably boring. I might as well get some more sleep too.
Maybe because I’d only just woken up, drowsiness was already creeping back over me. With nothing else to do, I lay down on the floor.
Once morning came, the others would handle everything somehow.
With that, I pushed my tangled thoughts aside and closed my eyes.

[04:44]

Without noticing that the time remained frozen in exactly the same place.

**

“…up!”

“…Wake up!”

.
.
.

“Wake up!”

At the urgent shout, my eyes flew open. I staggered upright, my body stiff from sleep.

“Morning already…?”

My fatigue was completely gone, so I must have slept for several hours.

“Get up! Something’s seriously wrong!”

Han Gyeong-ah shook me awake in an urgent voice, visibly restless and anxious.

“What is it, Gyeong-ah…? You still haven’t gone back up to Floor 1?”

By now, morning should have come and everyone should have been awake.

“Look at this…!”

Han Gyeong-ah hurriedly thrust her hand through the bars, exposing the pale, slender back of it.
Maybe because police work involved a fair amount of physical activity, there were a few small scars here and there.

“You must’ve had it rough.”
“No, not that!”

Guess that wasn’t it.

“Look at the watch!”

Han Gyeong-ah snapped and pointed at her wrist. I looked at the watch strapped around it.

[04:44]

4:44 a.m.?
What the hell? Why was the time like this?
Her watch still read 4:44.
Exactly the same time I’d seen just before falling asleep.

“Not even a minute passed?”
“Exactly! The watch isn’t moving at all. It’s been like this the whole time!”

Neither the hour hand nor the minute hand moved even a single tick. The separate digital display was frozen too.
As if time itself had stopped.

“Gyeong-ah, you said you took a nasty fall upstairs earlier. Maybe the impact broke your watch too.”

She’d said she’d tripped over a carpet while running on Floor 1 and broken her flashlight.
So who’s to say the watch had survived?
Maybe both the flashlight and her watch had broken in the fall.

“No… That shouldn’t be possible. This isn’t an ordinary watch.”

Han Gyeong-ah took the watch off and showed it to me. A logo was clearly engraved on its face.
Even someone like me, who knew next to nothing about watches, recognized the name.

“X-Shock?”

You know, the kind supposedly tough enough to survive a one-ton truck driving over it or an elephant stepping on it…
That brand famous for being ridiculously durable. It wasn’t going to break from one little fall.
Which meant the watch itself should still be functioning normally.

‘How does that make any sense?’

“Gyeong-ah, how long did you sleep?”
“I’m not sure exactly… but I think around five hours.”

Five hours, give or take.
The middle of the night should have been long over by now.

“I only woke up a little while ago too. I thought it was morning, so I tried to go back up to Floor 1…”

Han Gyeong-ah glanced anxiously toward the corridor. Then she told me the shocking news.

“The elevator’s broken.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t respond when I press the button. It won’t move at all…”

The news hit like a bolt from the blue. The elevator was broken?

It had been working perfectly fine just a short while ago. She’d literally used it to come down here from Floor 1.

“You’re sure you checked properly?”
“I’m sure! It only says ‘Out of Order’… It’s completely stopped!”

Time frozen at 4:44.
An elevator that had suddenly stopped working without warning.
There was no way these things were mere coincidence.

‘Don’t tell me…’

My heart sank.
As reality set in, confusion and tension steadily rose.
The oppressive silence pressed down heavily on my shoulders.
Only then did I realize it.
We were trapped underground at 4:44 in the morning.

[04:44]