“I’m an idiot.”
Yang Garam turned away in the gymnasium, muttering the word that Jin Sangjin, one of his bullies, habitually spat out.
“Hey, see? I told you that bastard would come.”
“But are you really going to do it? He’s the third son of the Yang family.”
Yang Garam’s shoulders stiffened at the voices coming from outside the storage room, though just moments ago he had thought no one was there.
“Who cares? We’re just going to have some fun.”
As he turned around, he saw Jin Sangjin standing in front of a group of guys blocking the storage room door. Click, click. Yang Garam’s gaze shifted to Jin Sangjin’s hand at the strange interlocking sound. The blade of a box cutter repeatedly popped up and disappeared.
Yang Garam’s eyes filled with terror as he immediately realized what they intended to do. Jin Sangjin entered the storage room leisurely, smiling vilely.
“Today we’re going to play a bit differently.”
Jin Sangjin, who had been showing off by twirling the box cutter in his hand, stood in front of Yang Garam, who was just trembling and couldn’t even think of running away. He held the knife right next to Yang Garam’s face and extended the blade with a click, smiling as tears welled up in Yang Garam’s eyes.
That’s when it happened.
“Shit, we’re caught! Hey, run!!”
Jin Sangjin looked back and forth between the sharp blade and Yang Garam’s terrified face, clicking his tongue briefly.
“What terrible timing.”
The spectators had already left the gymnasium storage room, and Jin Sangjin kicked Yang Garam in the stomach. Crumpled on the floor, Yang Garam couldn’t get up immediately due to the pain in his stomach and curled up into a ball. The storage room door, which had been letting in light, slammed shut with a bang, and the bustling noises faded completely.
Misery and unspeakable sadness welled up inside him. He knew Jin Sangjin treated him worse than an insect, but today had gone too far. If they hadn’t been caught by a teacher, he might have been lying on this dirty floor bleeding by now.
‘I’m scared.’
He leaned against the wall, clutching his kicked stomach. Through today’s incident, Yang Garam became terrified of the future awaiting him. The pain in his stomach was nothing compared to that fear.
‘Why do they only do this to me?’
Tears welled up, but he bit his lip and held them back. He couldn’t even imagine how much longer Jin Sangjin would play with him like a toy before being satisfied.
‘Will I be able to endure this from now on?’
Even in this moment, his fragile nature leaned toward bearing it alone rather than seeking help from others. Maybe he could somehow endure until middle school graduation. That was the extent of his thinking. The possibility of getting revenge on Jin Sangjin didn’t even exist in his mind.
“…!”
And at that moment, he felt the ground vibrating. The backlash was so severe that it made his head ring, and Yang Garam sprung up from where he had been leaning against the cold wall.
The sharp alarm sound ringing in his ears indicated what the vibration meant.
— Attention, emergency situation. A gate has opened in the school gymnasium. The gymnasium will now be sealed off. Teachers, please end all classes, and students, please evacuate immediately. I repeat, in the school gymnasium…
Evacuation orders were repeated throughout the school. The resulting commotion reached the gymnasium storage room. Yang Garam didn’t immediately understand the announcement and slowly moved his body from the wall to grab the door handle.
‘If the gymnasium is sealed off, doesn’t that mean I can’t get out either?’
Yang Garam, who was about to open the storage room door, dropped his hand from the handle. The situation was more serious than he thought. He needed to escape before the gate fully formed, but if the gymnasium was already sealed off, leaving the storage room inside it would still be problematic.
‘I left my phone in the classroom, what should I do?’
Jin Sangjin often took Yang Garam’s phone to play games during class. He had been caught by teachers numerous times because of this. As a result, Yang Garam tried not to bring his phone when he might encounter Jin Sangjin.
Feeling his heart racing, Yang Garam quickly scanned the storage room. Snacks he had brought were scattered messily on the floor, and the dusty sports equipment were all useless in the current situation. As he became extremely tense, even the musty smell characteristic of old sports storage rooms, which he hadn’t noticed until now, felt nauseating.
‘A window or ventilation fan I could escape through… There it is!’
Covering his mouth with his palm to suppress the urge to vomit, Yang Garam looked for a hole to escape through. Then he discovered a small window beyond the high-stacked vaulting horse.
The storage room door connected to the gymnasium, but the window faced outside the gym, so his only option was to escape through there. Yang Garam piled mats and various stackable sports equipment like a tower on top of the vaulting horse. When it seemed high enough to reach the window, he stopped piling and carefully stepped onto it. Having stacked everything hurriedly, the structure beneath his feet wobbled unstably.
‘It’s too small.’
He managed to reach the window, but it was smaller than he expected. Even though Yang Garam was smaller than his peers, he wasn’t small enough to pass through a window the size of a young child’s head.
Thump, thump, thump.
While he was struggling to climb up to the window, the gate must have fully formed, as the quiet gymnasium was now filled with non-human presences. They were obviously monsters, even without looking. Sweating coldly, Yang Garam looked out the window. All he could see from the gym storage window was a side path behind the school. That path connected to neighboring Sewon High School and was mainly used by Sewon High School students for commuting. In other words, it was a path that ordinary people rarely used.
‘To request help, I need to speak.’
But if he opened his mouth, not only would people outside hear him, but so would the monsters inside the gymnasium.
The unstable footing beneath him wobbled, and as the mat tilted, the scoreboard that had been wedged in fell to the floor with a thud.
Then, like ants discovering sugar crumbs, many footsteps approached, and something hit the gym storage door with a bang. With goosebumps rising to the top of his head, Yang Garam stopped thinking and covered his mouth. By the time the cold sweat on his forehead had trickled down his temples and gathered at the tip of his chin, the noise hitting the storage room door had also stopped.
‘I don’t think I can even make a sound like this.’
It would be nice if Jin Sangjin and his gang, who knew he was trapped here, would willingly disclose his whereabouts, but that would mean confessing they were the culprits, so it was hard to expect.
Yang Garam wavered, unsure whether to wait to be rescued or to keep watching the window and request help if anyone passed by.
“Ugh, my body feels like crap.”
At that moment, someone trudged out from the side path. Wearing a Sewon High School uniform, he was walking slowly along the path with his head down, pressing his forehead.
Yang Garam looked back and forth between the gym storage door and the person beyond the window, swallowing dry saliva with a parched throat. As Yang Garam’s dilemma continued, the Sewon High School student was moving farther from the window. Yang Garam’s thought to wait quietly for rescue was interrupted by a sudden loud bang.
‘I didn’t make any sound, why?’
Turning his head in surprise, he saw that the thick iron door of the gym storage room was noticeably dented. The door hadn’t opened, but if pushed with such force a few more times, it was only a matter of time before it would be torn off.
“Wait!! You, Sewon High hyung!!”
Fearing for his life, Yang Garam raised his voice as loudly as he could, desperately hoping the Sewon High student, whose back was now visible, had heard his shout.
Due to his timid and fragile personality, Yang Garam had rarely raised his voice, and he didn’t even realize how loudly he had shouted as he gasped for breath. Fortunately, the student seemed to have heard his cry, as his steps halted.
“…Who?”
It was the moment when the face of the student, who had been keeping his head down, was revealed. He looked directly at Yang Garam, who was peeking his head out of the window, and their eyes met.
Looking at his face, flushed red from the heat, Yang Garam was somehow reminded of fully bloomed peach blossoms.
Embarrassed by this inappropriate image, Yang Garam hurriedly lowered his gaze and discovered the student’s name tag.
[Woo Jeongjae]
Seeing the neatly stitched name, something hot welled up inside him. His throat tightened and his eyes burned in an instant. The yellow name tag indicated that he was only a first-year high school student, just two years older than himself, but nevertheless, the relief that had begun to spread wouldn’t subside.
Yang Garam’s lips trembled as he tried to speak, but his voice was choked and wouldn’t come out properly. Woo Jeongjae waited patiently, and Yang Garam, with his youthful voice that hadn’t yet broken, spoke in a voice that sounded like he might lose his breath at any moment.
“Hic, hyung. P-please, hic, save me. Sniff.”
At the unexpectedly dark content, Woo Jeongjae’s face became serious.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you a Semo Middle School student?”
“Here, a dungeon opened, hic, in the gymnasium, and I’m trapped in the storage room.”
“A dungeon?”
Momentarily shocked by Yang Garam’s words, Woo Jeongjae quickly came to his senses and took out his phone. Just as he was about to press the emergency call button, a loud boom echoed from the gymnasium.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
