How to Survive the Horror Novel I Wrote
Chapter 26
Jab.
My stomach stung as though I had swallowed needles.
Jab. Jab.
Unconsciously, I pressed down on the aching spot. A thin, sharp anxiety was jabbing at my gut.
As I was reflexively looking down at my stomach, a hand suddenly reached in and touched my forehead.
“You seem to have a fever.”
That hand slid down like a snake and cupped the back of my neck.
“You’re breaking out in a cold sweat, too.”
The moment I heard Ugeum’s low voice, the words that would follow flashed through my mind.
‘Must have struck a nerve.’
The hand wrapped around the back of my neck would seize my throat just like this. My breath catching, my head forced back on its own. With a placid face, Ugeum would look right into my eyes and interrogate me.
‘You have to answer. Why you asked that.’
Terrified by the chilling delusion, I slapped Ugeum’s hand away with a sharp smack.
Beside me came the sound of a sharp intake of breath. Glancing sideways, I saw On-dam looking on anxiously with a flustered face.
Slowly, I raised my head and looked up at Ugeum.
There was no predator baring its fangs. Ugeum merely wore a somewhat startled expression, his hand frozen in midair just as it had been reaching out to me.
His face held nothing but concern and surprise as he looked at me, yet I could not bring myself to believe it at face value.
What kind of expression was your real face making behind that tender mask? Why were you acting like you hadn’t heard a thing?
In my head, I knew. I had to salvage this situation. I shouldn’t provoke Ugeum. It was only asking for trouble.
I’m sorry, you startled me. While my brain scrambled for apologies and excuses, my mouth moved on its own.
“Leave.”
I shocked myself the moment the word left my lips. Extreme stress was overpowering my reason.
Ugeum asked, his eyes scrutinizing me.
“Ji-an-ah, are you angry?”
“It’s not that, so just leave.”
“But your condition—”
“I said I’m fine, so just go!”
I exploded. Uncontrollable fear erupted like lava, only to freeze cold in an instant. My body stiffened along with it. Unable to look at Ugeum, I averted my gaze.
‘I can’t do that. Not when you know everything.’
The imaginary Ugeum replied calmly. But what Ugeum actually said was, “All right.”
Unexpectedly, Ugeum left without a fuss. Leaving behind a tender promise.
“Call me if you need me. I’ll come anytime.”
* * *
Even after Ugeum left, the stomachache did not subside. What if he came back? What if he had figured everything out and decided to hunt me down? Awl-like anxiety and dread kept stabbing at my belly.
Without the Cursed Keyboard, I had no way of knowing whether Ugeum had disappeared or not. I couldn’t feel at ease in the slightest.
I took a painkiller, went into my room, and sat in front of the computer. Even though I knew the manuscript would also vanish if the Cursed Keyboard was unplugged, I checked anyway, clutching at straws. Sure enough, it was gone.
A wave of irritation surged. As the saying goes, even dog shit is hard to find when you need it for medicine. Of all times. Truly a piece-of-shit keyboard. And an even shittier fate of mine.
This won’t do. Grabbing my car keys, I headed for the front door. On-dam, who had been watching TV in the living room, followed me with a puzzled look.
“Teacher, where are you going?”
“Just out for a bit.”
“You’re not feeling well, will you be all right?”
“I’m fine. Go to sleep first.”
Barely brushing off On-dam’s worried remarks, I left the house. I got into the car and rushed to the school.
Arriving after about ten minutes, the school was so pitch-black and silent that it looked abandoned. If the first-floor night-duty room window hadn’t been brightly lit, I wouldn’t have even dared to step inside.
A school at night is terrifying. But a suspicious Ugeum is far more terrifying.
Clenching my teeth, I walked into the school. Into the long, stretching darkness.
The moment I stepped inside, a chilling draft and a dreary silence greeted me. My footsteps echoing down the empty hallway sounded like someone else’s. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as if someone were chasing me.
I shouldn’t be scared. Because then, I’ll start imagining terrifying things.
Too late. I ended up imagining Ugeum standing at the end of the dark corridor. Standing motionlessly with a blank expression, as if he knew I would come here, as if he had been waiting for me.
Ugeum’s shadow stretching long to my feet, and a dry, emotionless voice devoid of even a single grain of feeling.
‘You knew everything all along.’
Undoing all the relief from the painkiller, my stomach twisted in knots. Clenching my fists, I sprinted down the hallway. As the cold sweat dried, a frigid chill swept down my spine.
Before I could even reach the night-duty room, its door opened, spilling light into the hallway.
“Who’s there?”
The security guard, who had popped out with a tense face, let out a sigh of relief upon seeing me.
I, too, felt relieved because of him. I apologized to the guard for startling him and received the key to the Teachers’ Room.
The first-grade Teachers’ Room wasn’t far from the night-duty room. The moment I entered the Teachers’ Room, I flipped the lights on first.
The Teachers’ Room was dead silent. In other words, there was no sound of typing. That meant Ugeum had disappeared. Relief washed over me.
At least he won’t come back to me tonight.
I went to my desk and sat down. Turning on the computer, I took out the Cursed Keyboard stored in the drawer, plugged it in, and opened the manuscript file that appeared on the desktop.
Scrolling down, skipping all the other scenes, I found the part where I had shouted at Ugeum.
[Pale as a corpse, Ji-an lunged at Ugeum and grabbed him by the collar.
“Where is On-dam? What did you do to On-dam!”
The moment her voice shrilly pierced the air, afterimages of past days flickered through Ugeum’s mind.
The terrified look in Ji-an’s eyes when she appeared in the alley on that rainy night while he was strangling his prey.
Her face staring at him as if looking at a ghost when he returned to her house at dawn that day.
Her eyelids twitching in stark contrast to her willing permission when he asked if he could borrow the Night Series.
“Why do you ask that?”
Ugeum habitually tilted his head.
What did he do to On-dam? What did that mean? What did she know to say such a thing?
“What do you think I did to On-dam?”
Ji-an probably did not know. That the light from outside shining behind Ugeum’s back illuminated her expression. Even her innermost thoughts.
Ah.
With a look of sheer realization that she had made a mistake, Ji-an froze. Her gaze trembled helplessly in plain sight. Ugeum narrowed his eyes.
The suspicions he had turned a blind eye to, buried and pretended not to notice—suspicions that had nevertheless taken deep, thick root within his heart—surged to the top of his head in an instant.
Ji-an knows something. Just what does she know? How much does she know? And how does she know it?
As all kinds of questions silently raged, the doorbell rang. On-dam, who had gone to the convenience store, had returned.
Ji-an practically flew to the front door, unlocked it, and collapsed right there on the floor upon seeing On-dam walk in.
Ignoring On-dam’s flustered attempts to help her up, she stared at Ugeum with a dazed expression. Fear was vivid in her eyes.
Why?
Yet he did not ask. Ugeum helped her up and sat her on the sofa. Ji-an’s hands, pressing down on her stomach with a hunched back, were bloodlessly pale.
Ugeum recalled the emergency room he had once rushed to while carrying Ji-an in his arms.
‘It’s acute stomach cramps.’
It was just like that day. And that fact deepened Ugeum’s suspicions even further.
Why are you suddenly under such terrible stress?]
My heart beat so fast it hurt. It felt as if it would stop. Clutching my chest, I gasped for air.
I knew it. I knew Ugeum would catch on. On top of that, Ugeum knew all about the past mistakes I thought I had hidden.
[“I said I’m fine, so just go!”
Ji-an, having shrieked at the top of her lungs, instantly flinched and ducked her head, averting her eyes.
Apart from the suspicions swirling inside him, Ugeum’s gaze looking upon her was filled only with pity and concern.
In his eyes was reflected a frightened beast. A small beast baring its fangs, extending its claws, and letting out a sharp cry to protect itself.
There was only one thing Ugeum could do for her. To disappear.
“Call me if you need me. I’ll come anytime.”
Forcing his reluctant feet to move, Ugeum left her house. Leaving rampant suspicions behind the firmly shut iron door.
It’s fine. There’s plenty of time anyway.]
The manuscript ended there.
I sat there blankly for a long time until the security guard came to the Teachers’ Room and asked if I wasn’t heading home.
* * *
I stayed up all night.
I couldn’t sleep because I was terrified and anxious.
All throughout getting ready for work, dragging a body that sagged like waterlogged cotton, I desperately wanted to pack my bags and run away.
I felt sorry for On-dam, but I just wanted to abandon student, school, and everything else to flee. If only I could.
But I knew. That I could never escape.
Ju Ugeum would hunt me down to the ends of the earth. Because I made him that way.
Inside the car as I drove On-dam to school, On-dam brought up Ugeum.
“Teacher, have you tried the carbonara Ugeum oppa made? It was really delicious. Seeing him yesterday, Ugeum oppa is super good at cooking.”
The child who, just the day before yesterday, had hidden behind my back and glared at Ugeum with eyes full of hostility, was now calling him oppa before I even realized it.
Looking at On-dam, I was reminded of how sociable and charming Ugeum was, and how effortlessly he won people’s hearts.
If the human heart were an instrument made of countless strings, Ugeum was a musician who knew precisely which string to pluck and how, to produce whatever sound he desired.
Thus, he knew how to play his counterpart at will. To make them perform the exact music he wanted.
Perhaps I, too, without even knowing it, was playing the music Ugeum wanted.
* * *
After dropping On-dam off three hundred meters before the school, I arrived at the Teachers’ Room. Together with the Cursed Keyboard.
This cursed excuse for a keyboard was typing away diligently from the morning. It meant Ugeum was in action.
Checking the Cursed Manuscript, Ugeum was searching for traces of the Night Series characters today as well.
In the end, he would find out. The fact that none of them had ever existed.
As Ugeum drew one step closer to the truth with every passing moment, I felt like I was going to die of anxiety.
It felt like blades were closing in from all sides. A siege of razor-sharp edges seemed to be tightening around me.
It wasn’t easy to focus on work all day long.
I spent the day half-dozing and the other half trembling with anxiety.
Time, like a rubber band, dragged on slowly as if stretched out while I worked, but snapped forward with blinding speed as quitting time approached.
When I went home after work, Ugeum would come. I wanted to catch the flying time and tie it down.
Vrrr.
The vibration of my phone shattered my thoughts. Snapping back to my senses, I saw most of my fellow teachers standing up and exchanging farewells as they got ready to leave.
I checked the message that popped up on the screen.
「I’ll come pick you up.」
It was Ugeum.