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[GSGW] Tenebrae (4790 words)
Title: Tenebrae
Fandom: Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work
Character/Pairing(s): Kim Soleum, Braun, Ryu Jaekwan, Agent Choi
Rating: PG-13
Warning: description of illusory gore
Summary: Kim Soleum stepped into the same Darkness twice, with drastically different results.
Objectively, Kim Soleum understood why he wasn’t told the details of the current mission. The Darkness this time was simple, and the C-rank meant there was nothing more than mildly dangerous, especially for those as illustrious as the elite squads.
He was briefly on loan to them while they searched for their newest member, and Soleum understood that none of the team were quite happy with him after he turned down their invitation with his asinine excuses.
But it wasn’t his fault! He didn’t want to be part of an elite team, never mind leaving the D-squad behind! They really should learn to accept rejection better!
All that was to say, of course, that the consequences of his own decisions was what led him here in the first place.
“Keep up, rookie!”
There was distinct laughter from Dolphin that went ignored by Butterfly, who continued down the stairs purposefully. Soleum ignored the snickers for the most part, understanding that it wasn’t a direct jab at him personally, but rather just a way to make fun of the newbie. That was fine. He wasn’t going to join their team, so he only had to endure for so long.
Hubris, Soleum thought somewhat sluggishly as he stepped behind the members of A-squad, was his downfall this time. Thinking he could get away with just rejecting an elite team like that… well, of course he couldn’t do it without consequences.
And the consequences were this.
Qterw-C-5444 - The Endless Stairs
A Darkness managed by Daydream, Inc primarily handled by elite or experienced teams on account of inexperienced field officers going missing when straying from protocol. A fairly harmless Darkness featuring a set of stairs within an older style apartment building going endlessly downward, becoming more haunted the lower it goes. Experience differs from person to person, but there have been no recorded instances of 5444 containing malicious objects of beings other than an overwhelming sense of dread.
Field officers are advised to stay together in teams and remain observant of any changes in the environment. Officers have reported feelings of entering a different space before they went missing, and often stated they felt something was off about the stairs in advance.
Kim Soleum trudged quietly alongside the A-squad, listening to the snickers and quiet banter as they made their way down carefully, each person holding a flashlight to light the way. From what he could figure, all they saw were a set of grey and gloomy stairs, a little old and grimey, with some paint peeling from the walls and old advertisements with faded ink still stuck on various edges.
He saw something entirely different.
He wasn’t staying silent on purpose, but rather because it was hard enough to keep his breathing and heart rate down as each step pulled at the bottom of his shoes like tar, and he tried to keep his gaze level toward the other people rather than on the curious movements of sludge and gore slowly sliding down the walls surrounding them.
For him, there were clumps of viscera on the ground in various states of decay, the smell cloying and rotten. He could hear the blood sucking to the bottom of his shoes with each step he took, and moved slightly to avoid the dripping sludge from the ceiling, bumping into the man in the Albatross mask.
“Late night, Roe Deer?” The man asks as he moves back, and Soleum could only nod slightly in agreement, not wanting to draw attention.
The group paused as they reached another landing, and Butterfly glanced around.
“Another level,” she grumbled and continued, “Is there a difference here?”
“They all look the same to me,” another potential A-squad candidate, this time in a Pony mask and a bright demeanour, said cheerily. “We just need to keep going until we find the exit, right?”
If they could make it down eight flights of stairs without anything changing, then a door would appear at one of the landings, leading to the way out. If not…
According to the Darkness Exploration Records, if they continued down 88 floors, then that’s when the Darkness became truly dangerous, and people started going missing, vanishing from right next to their teammates.
Or perhaps the wording shouldn’t be going downward, per say, seeing as going up the stairs counts as a floor as well.
“I can’t tell,” Dolphin grumbled with an exaggerated sigh, running her hands along the (bloodstained, pus-filled) wall as if she could feel the inherent difference. “This level looks like all the others?”
She pulled her hand back, and Soleum could see the gore stain her skin like a glove.
The trick of it, Kim Soleum knew from his detached reading, was that every time there was a different landing, they would have to go back up one level and descend down again.
The story had been a fairly tame one, and as such, it was a Darkness often used to familiarize potential members within new teams, testing observation skills and compatibility. With more than one elite team looking for new members, it meant that they were testing with various general team field officers, with only Butterfly and Dolphin leading three others this time around.
One of the other general members beside Soleum was Pony, who looked rather bored and slightly disappointed.
“It’s only a C-rank Darkness,” she sighed early on, but soon brightened, “But maybe we’ll find something interesting here!”
“I’ve read up on this Darkness,” a short man with an albatross mask eagerly volunteered, “and there’s no treasure to be found here. It’s just a regular walk-through ghost story that Daydream farms from time to time. Rather unremarkable.”
Soleum had never met the other man, but he couldn’t concentrate on figuring out his identity from the moment they stepped into the Darkness.
In that moment, he was startled from his recollection when Dolphin turned to him with an expectant look, “Roe Deer! See anything different here?”
How was he supposed to know? Unlike the others who only saw static metal and worn concrete, everything in his vision was moving ever-so-slightly, from liquids dripping down to pulsating cysts on the walls forming into alien expressions of curiosity following him.
Kim Soleum felt the cold sweat run down his back as he stood still and pretended to survey the surroundings, actively avoiding eye contact with some of the more terrifying things on the stairwell. Why did they ask him all the time??
“That area,” he said once he was sure his voice wouldn’t shake, jutting his chin toward a darkened corner, “I can’t see it properly, but it looks a little different.”
“Oh hey, he’s right!” Pony said brightly as she bound over toward the corner, tilting her head side to side until she concluded, “the shadows really do look a little bit different here! Good catch, Mr. Roe Deer!”
“Back up the stairs,” Albatross mourned, shoulders slumping despite his bored posture. He even had his hands in his pockets, like a teenager waiting around for the adults to finish. “I didn’t think we’d have to go up so many flights of stairs today. Boo.”
“Guess we’re starting the count all over again,” Dolphin agreed, and patted the shorter man on the shoulder, although he stumbled forward from the force of her comforting.
“Getting those steps in!”
Butterfly didn’t say anything, but she led the way back up the stairs, stopping at the next landing where Pony declared that everything looked exactly the same, before they started heading down again.
Please, Soleum thought as he found himself on the stairs between Pony and Albatross, please let the next eight floors look exactly the same—
This was one of those stories that felt tame to read, but now that he was in the midst of it, he just wanted out.
After several addendums to Qterw-C-5444 with each writer attempting to add a spookier element and instance of horror to it, they finally ended up with an update that revised the Darkness to say it had previously been branded wrong by the company.
Qterw-C-5444 The Endless Stairs soon became Qterw-C-5444: Manifestation of Fear.
Ignore it, ignore it, Soleum repeated to himself again and again, gluing his gaze to his colleague’s head as they went down again. He forced his breathing to be even despite how his lungs burned in protest. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look—
No one else acted like they saw anything different, but the lower they went, the darker the stairs and the more anomalies Kim Soleum could see. The stairwells stayed relatively similar in accordance to the rules of the ghost story, but the stairs themselves… That was a different thing altogether. It felt like a million eyes were watching him from the darkness, as if there were fluid movements just in the periphery of his vision.
Three floors ago, he could actually start to see the outline of a head with faintly glowing yellow eyes.
Manifestation of Fear.
The amendment to the story pulled it all together— the reason why some people went missing while others found this Darkness to be an easy one. Experienced field officers and elite squads were chosen from the fearless workers who long since stopped flinching at dangers thrown their way. Due to their stoicism, Qterw-C-5444 maintained a calm appearance for those officers.
But for the inexperienced individuals or those Daydream carefully weeded out due to faults such as fears and phobias…
The Endless Stairs became something straight out of hell.
Had his teammates not been there, Kim Soleum would have run down the stairs and taken only seconds at each stairwell before continuing, hoping to speedrun this instance before his fears could fully manifest in his scenario. Even he didn’t know what he would end up summoning!
From the looks of it and the leisurely manner the others were taking, the timeline hadn’t gotten to the point where they needed to amend the Darkness.
…Or so he would think had it not been for the fact that Kwak Jekwang had the widest and most unhinged grin when sending them off this time, the scientist’s gaze lingering unusually long on Soleum’s form.
“It looks clear this time!” Pony called out enthusiastically, fingers raised in a mock salute. She turned to beam at Soleum from under her mask. “I’m right, aren’t I? I’ll get a hang of solving this Darkness before we leave!”
He inhaled shakingly, at first thinking of agreeing, but then settling for nothing more than a nod. He didn’t know if his voice would betray his fear.
And what fear it was— a pressing malice against the back of his neck, closing in on him from all sides. It wasn’t merely the terrifying surroundings forming an illusion only he could see, that he could hear and smell, but the awareness of something lurking, of his elevated heartbeat, and a general sense of anxiety and panic that grew with each floor. A cloying, clenching layer of terror he could only breathe in combined with the dawning realisation that it was completely inescapable.
He raised a hand with slightly trembling fingers to press gently against the pocket with the pink bunny plush keychain, thinking: Is it really the same on this floor?
-It is, Friend! Would you like me to confirm this for you from here on?
Soleum paused, is that something you’d like to do?
Ahead of him, the others were setting off down the stairs once more, still as jovial as ever even as the ceiling started to drip a thick and bloody mucus that smeared against Dolphin’s hair. Kim Soleum mechanically set out with them, taking up the rear just ahead of Albatross.
Turning her head to see Soleum put his hand down, Pony perked up and said, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mr. Roe Deer— the bunny you have is so cute! You don’t seem to check the group chat very often, but a few of us were wondering where you got it. You carry it around a lot, don’t you? Is it really a lucky charm?”
“Don’t you have something like that?” Dolphin asked the younger woman, her tone filled with amusement. “I thought all you rookies like to carry around ‘lucky charms’.”
“It’s a waste of money if I buy one and it doesn’t work! Everything in the company store is too expensive…”
-Oh my, she certainly has good taste, doesn’t she? This Braun is certainly very lucky!
Soleum couldn’t disagree with that, not when Braun seemed to be in a very agreeable mood and was volunteering to help them pass this Darkness.
He took another stiff step down the stairs.
-Hmm, it’s certainly dark enough here to be a tripping hazard! Friend, your view of this area is more interesting than I thought. I don’t think your current teammates are seeing the same thing you are.
Can you… see what I’m seeing?
-Of course! How else would I understand what my Friend is thinking?
“—well, Mr. Roe Deer?”
Soleum inhaled to murmur, “I bought it at a gift shop.”
“Aww,” Pony sighed, “I thought it might have been some super rare Darkness tool…”
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
“If you have the breath to chat, you have the breath to walk faster.” Butterfly’s voice was irritated from where she led the group. The delicate-looking mask turned to face Soleum as well, revealing only the sardonic curl of her lips. “We’ve been walking for over an hour— isn’t our resident Super Rookie supposed to set record times for this?”
…She was definitely still peeved at him for rejecting the A-squad.
“Aww, he’s doing good!” Pony spoke up. “I don’t think I’d be half as observant if I was walking around with such a hangover!”
As Albatross stepped next to him, he gave Soleum a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Sure have guts to enter a Darkness when you’re not feeling well.”
Except Soleum didn’t have a hangover, and he entered all Darknesses with the same (or worse) queasy feeling that made him feel like he might throw up at any moment. He caught a glimpse of what looked like something attempting to push its way into the stairs through suddenly malleable walls, and quickly turned his head away, thanking the heavens that the others thought his paleness and slightly shaking was due to a hangover.
On the ground, there was a puddle of gore that looked like an open mouth attempting to find prey. He scooted his shoe away from it.
“Roe Deer’s already carried his weight,” Dolphin dismissed Butterfly’s critiques; the only person on the team with the rank to do that. “Time for the other two candidates to show us their skills.”
“Sure,” Albatross said with an overly wide grin. “Time for me to shine, then.”
-Would you still like me to look things over, Friend?
If you don’t mind, Soleum thought, breathlessly glad for the others to take over the observation task from him. He was already using all his energy just to act calm.
-Of course not! It never hurts to have another pair of eyes when it comes to details! I must say, though, Mr. Roe Deer, the lighting in here is truly abysmal. My, if I were to tweak just one small thing about this area, it would have to be the lightning— there is such a thing as too much red! Subtlety is key, of course, and it’s always best to—
Soleum followed along the group, muscles slowly unclenching as Braun’s voice echoed with nonsensities in his mind.
—
“Urg, it’s these damn stairs!”
Agent Choi yelled up the stairwell, leaning over the railing to let his voice echo through the entire space. He paused a moment, but didn’t see or hear anything calling back, and sighed before pulling himself back safely back on the stairwell.
Kim Soleum didn’t bother to hide his distress, facing a corner and muttering to himself about how he didn’t want to be here— in his thoughts, he felt very aggrieved! How did he even end up on these stairs again, anyway? It just didn’t seem fair!
This was a Darkness managed by Daydream, and this time around Soleum really hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before due to insomnia and nightmares, and Braun… wasn’t around anymore.
There was a pointed silence before Soleum flinched as a hand came down on his head, ruffling his hair roughly. Then an arm rested on his shaking shoulders, pulling him away from the corner.
“Aw, junior, don’t be so alarmed! I know I gripe about this Disaster, but it’s really not so bad! It’s just— all these stairs, you know? I already got my exercise in today, so I’m going to be sore tomorrow if I have to go up and down all these steps…”
Soleum stumbled at the pull, and reached up to fix his askew glasses, spying Agent Bronze with a hand against his temple as if fighting against a migraine.
“It’s just that the entry conditions are so irritating!” Agent Choi bemoaned dramatically, squeezing at Soleum’s shoulder for a moment. “We can only enter if we don’t think about it, so we can’t try to get in but have to be directed on purpose by someone else. Isn’t that just the set-up for some malicious murder story?”
Soleum shuddered, and then moved away from Agent Choi as the man started making noises of protest to Agent Bronze’s unhappy stare.
“...Ignore him,” Agent Bronze told Soleum, his tone soft. “This is just another one of those Disasters that the Bureau patrols regularly in search for lost civilians. No matter how this place looks, it’s fairly harmless.”
Soleum lifted his gaze to stare blearily at the tall and stoic man. “...What does this place look like to you?”
“A dark set of stairs,” Agent Bronze answered briskly as the three of them started downward. “I am well aware that people see different things here. Various civilian reports have indicated that this Disaster is comprised mostly of illusions to stimulate fear.”
He paused tactfully, and then asked, “What do you see, Agent Grape?”
Soleum looked down at his shoes, and squinted when he saw shadows moving on what should be clean floors. Like out-of-focus insects scuttling around. He didn’t respond, not knowing the appropriate level to reveal. Did they know that the Darkness got worse the lower they went?
It was a relief to not have to hide his fear entirely, but what could he reveal? It wouldn’t do for them to know just how scared he was, as he couldn’t risk being kicked out of the Bureau. If they had reports, then they might know what would be too much, and it was too late to pretend that he was entirely unaffected by this Darkness.
“Ahh, let our youngest save some face, Agent Bronze. It’s normal for rookies to be scared of the unknown! Although, what would you normally do in situations like this, Agent Grape?”
Agent Choi elbowed him lightly with a wide smile.
“This Darkness is safe with us around, of course! Think of this as an oral test to gauge your reaction—”
“I’d run down the stairs,” Soleum interrupted, not wanting to hear more about tests that might add to his already building anxiety. “Get it over with.”
Agent Choi was quiet for a moment. “...That’s dangerous, junior. If you didn’t know about this Darkness…”
“Then I wouldn’t be caught up in it, right? So if I knew this Disaster, I’d already know how to solve it, or at least how to stay safe. If it produces illusions based on fears, there’s a high chance the longer you stay, the worse it gets. Since we’re heading down instead of trying to break out, it means it might be a Disaster where the only way out is through. And if there are civilians who get trapped here, then it either indicates that there is a special set of circumstances needed to leave, or that time is a factor in trapping people. Stay too long, and you can’t leave by yourself.”
At this point, the other two Bureau agents had stopped mid-step, staring as Soleum nervously pushed up his glasses again.
All of those statements, of course, were taken from his pre-existing knowledge of Q-terw-C-5444 with just a sprinkle of misinformation to throw off the suspicion that he might have seen the documents.
An awkward moment, and then Agent Choi laughed and threw an arm around Soleum’s shoulders again, causing him to stumble half a step.
“You sure do know how to win someone over,” Agent Choi drawled, and chuckled. “As expected of our disaster king rookie!”
Soleum winced. It really was too much that he kept getting those titles no matter where he went.
Choi shoved a hand within Soleum’s view, holding up a finger to draw his attention and waiting with a smile until Soleum slowly raised his gaze to meet his teammates.
“But,” Agent Choi said, softer this time, “rushing through unknown Disasters is really too dangerous. Fear makes people do things they shouldn’t, and we’re here to make sure our youngest gets the experience necessary to not do anything drastic. Would our Agent Grape like a hint as to how to solve this Disaster without fear?”
A way to get through without fear?
Soleum swallowed. That wasn’t possible, not for him. The very thought of Darknesses and Disasters made him break out in a cold sweat, and while experience had dulled the initial terror, there was no escaping the breathless weight of fear that spread with each elevated heartbeat, curling through his veins within his body as a constant shooting reminder that he was out of his depth. That the ghosts would soon drown him completely.
The stories were so fascinating on paper! But there was a difference between fiction and reality, and Soleum would rather study these stories from behind a screen, allowed to admire safely with soft wonder and curious anticipation.
He didn’t want to think about how that was what Braun tried to offer him.
Braun wasn’t even here right now to distract him from the horrors.
“...How?” He finally asked, and Agent Choi’s smile widened into a grin.
“I should tell you all about this Disaster,” the scarred agent backtracked, but then they continued their downward trek with Agent Choi pulling Soleum along closely, “since it has to do with observation and matching unusual activity and there’s plenty of backtracking back up the stairs— but I feel you’ll excel at that.”
Choi winked, and wagged a finger as they made their way to their first landing.
“In fact, I’m sure our Agent Bronze can take care of the the observation details, he’s needs the practice anyway—”
“Hey,” Agent Bronze protested flatly, although his posture was relaxed.
“—but since we’re part of the Dispatch and Rescue Unit, our most pressing priority is finding missing civilians!” Choi paused, and then amended, “Safely, of course. Without endangering our own lives. But the best way to do something like that… is to let them come to us!”
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Soleum asked dubiously. Agent Bronze straightened from where he was examining the stairwell, and gave an approving nod, herding the three of them to start back down the stairs again.
For Soleum, the atmosphere was already starting to grow darker, shadows in places where shadows weren’t supposed to be.
“By announcing our presence. Of course, this doesn’t work for all Disasters, but for this one…” He cleared his throat rather dramatically, and then vocalized, “Ah… ahhh?? Ahh!”
Soleum caught Agent Bronze’s gaze, trying to convey his confusion with just his wide eyes. Agent Bronze, on the other hand, looked rather aggrieved before he turned his head away.
He actually looked away as if trying to distance himself from them!
“Arirang~ Arirang~” Agent Choi sang out the old folk song, his voice echoing dramatically through the stairwell. “Arirang alone~”
Is he serious? Kim Soleum trembled more as he imagined the monsters that would be attracted by the sound, feeling invisible eyes converge on them. He tried to squirm out of Agent Choi’s grasp, but the other man proved stronger than he thought.
“C’mon now,” Agent Choi chided, pausing his song to jostle Soleum gently even as he craned his neck to direct his intent to Agent Bronze as well, “join in!”
“N-no, I’d rather not—”
But to his surprise, Agent Bronze did indeed join in, his voice steady and deep, giving a warmth to the traditional song even as Agent Choi enthusiastically butchered some of the pitches and phrases, sometimes yelling out words directly even as Soleum cringed.
Before he knew it, they already descended six levels before they had to backtrack, and Soleum found that while frightening, the levels hadn’t really… grown much worse.
“What are the young kids singing these days?” Agent Choi asked as the song drew to a close, still holding onto Soleum. “K-pop? TeSTAR, maybe? Hey, Bronze, know any TeSTAR songs to start us off? What about you, Grape?”
Soleum shook his head when their attention turned toward him.
“This level’s clear,” Agent Bronze said, and Agent Choi finally released his grip on Soleum to lean over the railing once again and stare down into the darkness.
“Helloooo!” Agent Choi called out, letting the word echo all around them. “If there’s anyone trapped in this Disaster, we’re here to rescue you! We know the way out!”
Soleum thought it was a bit silly. Where would people even hide in this Darkness? There were only the stairs up and down, and it was never explained where the missing people ended up in the stories.
…The shadows along the walls seemed to agree.
“Well, we’ll find them if we find them,” Agent Choi said as he leaned back, and then they continued their downward journey again. “Any requests? Or should I start with children’s songs?”
While not narrow, the stairs were just wide enough for two people to cross paths if they were walking in opposite directions, yet somehow Soleum found himself squeezed in between Agent Bronze and Agent Choi from time to time, although most of the time Agent Bronze led the group closely and Agent Choi brought up the rear only centimetres behind Soleum.
…It wouldn’t help if one of them disappeared, but it certainly gave the illusion that no supernatural force could nab someone without the other two noticing.
Soon enough, Agent Choi started belting out Magical Boy, nodding along so enthusiastically that Soleum could feel him do it.
“Cast a spell,” Agent Choi sang loudly, “Make a wish come true!”
Soleum couldn’t help it, the singing was so terrible and off-key, it startled him into a brief laugh.
His eyes widened, and he brought his hands up to cover his mouth.
Rather than taking offense, Agent Choi jostled him from behind and only sang louder, prompting Agent Bronze to sigh ahead of them.
Like that, they exited the Disaster before going down even thirty stories, and Soleum blinked rapidly as the door opened to bright sunlight.
“Now, junior,” Agent Choi coaxed as they were all outside, straightening up from his earlier disappointment at not encountering or saving anyone in the instance. “How scary was it? You can be honest.”
“It…”
The first time, he spent all his energy trying to hide his fear and after exiting the Darkness, he barely managed to make it home and collapse onto bed, both physically and mentally exhausted from trying to keep it together. He slept more than 12 hours that night, and woke shaking from lingering nightmares.
This time, it was merely stairs. Scary, yes. Dark and suspicious, for sure. Perhaps grimey and unpleasant, and with a sense that something evil was lurking in the shadows.
But other than that…
Soleum’s surprise must have shown through, because Agent Choi laughed. Agent Bronze hung up the call he made to the Bureau regarding their safe exit, and pocketed his phone.
Soleum found himself reaching upward for a non-existent pocket, flat against his chest due to a non-existent plush bunny as his fingers found only cloth.
“Stay with us, junior,” Agent Choi said warmly underneath the bright sunlight and bustling city traffic a mere street away, sights and sounds filled with people just living their lives sweetly and obliviously. “And I’ll teach you tricks of the trade to keep yourself safe.”
Soleum nodded numbly, letting himself be manhandled by the other two.
He thought about his colleagues back in Daydream when they traversed a Darkness.
He thought about a home that didn’t have any ghosts or monsters at all.
Then Kim Soleum looked up, squinting against the bright sunlight, and marveled.
Fandom: Got Dropped into a Ghost Story, Still Gotta Work
Character/Pairing(s): Kim Soleum, Braun, Ryu Jaekwan, Agent Choi
Rating: PG-13
Warning: description of illusory gore
Summary: Kim Soleum stepped into the same Darkness twice, with drastically different results.
Objectively, Kim Soleum understood why he wasn’t told the details of the current mission. The Darkness this time was simple, and the C-rank meant there was nothing more than mildly dangerous, especially for those as illustrious as the elite squads.
He was briefly on loan to them while they searched for their newest member, and Soleum understood that none of the team were quite happy with him after he turned down their invitation with his asinine excuses.
But it wasn’t his fault! He didn’t want to be part of an elite team, never mind leaving the D-squad behind! They really should learn to accept rejection better!
All that was to say, of course, that the consequences of his own decisions was what led him here in the first place.
“Keep up, rookie!”
There was distinct laughter from Dolphin that went ignored by Butterfly, who continued down the stairs purposefully. Soleum ignored the snickers for the most part, understanding that it wasn’t a direct jab at him personally, but rather just a way to make fun of the newbie. That was fine. He wasn’t going to join their team, so he only had to endure for so long.
Hubris, Soleum thought somewhat sluggishly as he stepped behind the members of A-squad, was his downfall this time. Thinking he could get away with just rejecting an elite team like that… well, of course he couldn’t do it without consequences.
And the consequences were this.
Qterw-C-5444 - The Endless Stairs
A Darkness managed by Daydream, Inc primarily handled by elite or experienced teams on account of inexperienced field officers going missing when straying from protocol. A fairly harmless Darkness featuring a set of stairs within an older style apartment building going endlessly downward, becoming more haunted the lower it goes. Experience differs from person to person, but there have been no recorded instances of 5444 containing malicious objects of beings other than an overwhelming sense of dread.
Field officers are advised to stay together in teams and remain observant of any changes in the environment. Officers have reported feelings of entering a different space before they went missing, and often stated they felt something was off about the stairs in advance.
Kim Soleum trudged quietly alongside the A-squad, listening to the snickers and quiet banter as they made their way down carefully, each person holding a flashlight to light the way. From what he could figure, all they saw were a set of grey and gloomy stairs, a little old and grimey, with some paint peeling from the walls and old advertisements with faded ink still stuck on various edges.
He saw something entirely different.
He wasn’t staying silent on purpose, but rather because it was hard enough to keep his breathing and heart rate down as each step pulled at the bottom of his shoes like tar, and he tried to keep his gaze level toward the other people rather than on the curious movements of sludge and gore slowly sliding down the walls surrounding them.
For him, there were clumps of viscera on the ground in various states of decay, the smell cloying and rotten. He could hear the blood sucking to the bottom of his shoes with each step he took, and moved slightly to avoid the dripping sludge from the ceiling, bumping into the man in the Albatross mask.
“Late night, Roe Deer?” The man asks as he moves back, and Soleum could only nod slightly in agreement, not wanting to draw attention.
The group paused as they reached another landing, and Butterfly glanced around.
“Another level,” she grumbled and continued, “Is there a difference here?”
“They all look the same to me,” another potential A-squad candidate, this time in a Pony mask and a bright demeanour, said cheerily. “We just need to keep going until we find the exit, right?”
If they could make it down eight flights of stairs without anything changing, then a door would appear at one of the landings, leading to the way out. If not…
According to the Darkness Exploration Records, if they continued down 88 floors, then that’s when the Darkness became truly dangerous, and people started going missing, vanishing from right next to their teammates.
Or perhaps the wording shouldn’t be going downward, per say, seeing as going up the stairs counts as a floor as well.
“I can’t tell,” Dolphin grumbled with an exaggerated sigh, running her hands along the (bloodstained, pus-filled) wall as if she could feel the inherent difference. “This level looks like all the others?”
She pulled her hand back, and Soleum could see the gore stain her skin like a glove.
The trick of it, Kim Soleum knew from his detached reading, was that every time there was a different landing, they would have to go back up one level and descend down again.
The story had been a fairly tame one, and as such, it was a Darkness often used to familiarize potential members within new teams, testing observation skills and compatibility. With more than one elite team looking for new members, it meant that they were testing with various general team field officers, with only Butterfly and Dolphin leading three others this time around.
One of the other general members beside Soleum was Pony, who looked rather bored and slightly disappointed.
“It’s only a C-rank Darkness,” she sighed early on, but soon brightened, “But maybe we’ll find something interesting here!”
“I’ve read up on this Darkness,” a short man with an albatross mask eagerly volunteered, “and there’s no treasure to be found here. It’s just a regular walk-through ghost story that Daydream farms from time to time. Rather unremarkable.”
Soleum had never met the other man, but he couldn’t concentrate on figuring out his identity from the moment they stepped into the Darkness.
In that moment, he was startled from his recollection when Dolphin turned to him with an expectant look, “Roe Deer! See anything different here?”
How was he supposed to know? Unlike the others who only saw static metal and worn concrete, everything in his vision was moving ever-so-slightly, from liquids dripping down to pulsating cysts on the walls forming into alien expressions of curiosity following him.
Kim Soleum felt the cold sweat run down his back as he stood still and pretended to survey the surroundings, actively avoiding eye contact with some of the more terrifying things on the stairwell. Why did they ask him all the time??
“That area,” he said once he was sure his voice wouldn’t shake, jutting his chin toward a darkened corner, “I can’t see it properly, but it looks a little different.”
“Oh hey, he’s right!” Pony said brightly as she bound over toward the corner, tilting her head side to side until she concluded, “the shadows really do look a little bit different here! Good catch, Mr. Roe Deer!”
“Back up the stairs,” Albatross mourned, shoulders slumping despite his bored posture. He even had his hands in his pockets, like a teenager waiting around for the adults to finish. “I didn’t think we’d have to go up so many flights of stairs today. Boo.”
“Guess we’re starting the count all over again,” Dolphin agreed, and patted the shorter man on the shoulder, although he stumbled forward from the force of her comforting.
“Getting those steps in!”
Butterfly didn’t say anything, but she led the way back up the stairs, stopping at the next landing where Pony declared that everything looked exactly the same, before they started heading down again.
Please, Soleum thought as he found himself on the stairs between Pony and Albatross, please let the next eight floors look exactly the same—
This was one of those stories that felt tame to read, but now that he was in the midst of it, he just wanted out.
After several addendums to Qterw-C-5444 with each writer attempting to add a spookier element and instance of horror to it, they finally ended up with an update that revised the Darkness to say it had previously been branded wrong by the company.
Qterw-C-5444 The Endless Stairs soon became Qterw-C-5444: Manifestation of Fear.
Ignore it, ignore it, Soleum repeated to himself again and again, gluing his gaze to his colleague’s head as they went down again. He forced his breathing to be even despite how his lungs burned in protest. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look—
No one else acted like they saw anything different, but the lower they went, the darker the stairs and the more anomalies Kim Soleum could see. The stairwells stayed relatively similar in accordance to the rules of the ghost story, but the stairs themselves… That was a different thing altogether. It felt like a million eyes were watching him from the darkness, as if there were fluid movements just in the periphery of his vision.
Three floors ago, he could actually start to see the outline of a head with faintly glowing yellow eyes.
Manifestation of Fear.
The amendment to the story pulled it all together— the reason why some people went missing while others found this Darkness to be an easy one. Experienced field officers and elite squads were chosen from the fearless workers who long since stopped flinching at dangers thrown their way. Due to their stoicism, Qterw-C-5444 maintained a calm appearance for those officers.
But for the inexperienced individuals or those Daydream carefully weeded out due to faults such as fears and phobias…
The Endless Stairs became something straight out of hell.
Had his teammates not been there, Kim Soleum would have run down the stairs and taken only seconds at each stairwell before continuing, hoping to speedrun this instance before his fears could fully manifest in his scenario. Even he didn’t know what he would end up summoning!
From the looks of it and the leisurely manner the others were taking, the timeline hadn’t gotten to the point where they needed to amend the Darkness.
…Or so he would think had it not been for the fact that Kwak Jekwang had the widest and most unhinged grin when sending them off this time, the scientist’s gaze lingering unusually long on Soleum’s form.
“It looks clear this time!” Pony called out enthusiastically, fingers raised in a mock salute. She turned to beam at Soleum from under her mask. “I’m right, aren’t I? I’ll get a hang of solving this Darkness before we leave!”
He inhaled shakingly, at first thinking of agreeing, but then settling for nothing more than a nod. He didn’t know if his voice would betray his fear.
And what fear it was— a pressing malice against the back of his neck, closing in on him from all sides. It wasn’t merely the terrifying surroundings forming an illusion only he could see, that he could hear and smell, but the awareness of something lurking, of his elevated heartbeat, and a general sense of anxiety and panic that grew with each floor. A cloying, clenching layer of terror he could only breathe in combined with the dawning realisation that it was completely inescapable.
He raised a hand with slightly trembling fingers to press gently against the pocket with the pink bunny plush keychain, thinking: Is it really the same on this floor?
-It is, Friend! Would you like me to confirm this for you from here on?
Soleum paused, is that something you’d like to do?
Ahead of him, the others were setting off down the stairs once more, still as jovial as ever even as the ceiling started to drip a thick and bloody mucus that smeared against Dolphin’s hair. Kim Soleum mechanically set out with them, taking up the rear just ahead of Albatross.
Turning her head to see Soleum put his hand down, Pony perked up and said, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mr. Roe Deer— the bunny you have is so cute! You don’t seem to check the group chat very often, but a few of us were wondering where you got it. You carry it around a lot, don’t you? Is it really a lucky charm?”
“Don’t you have something like that?” Dolphin asked the younger woman, her tone filled with amusement. “I thought all you rookies like to carry around ‘lucky charms’.”
“It’s a waste of money if I buy one and it doesn’t work! Everything in the company store is too expensive…”
-Oh my, she certainly has good taste, doesn’t she? This Braun is certainly very lucky!
Soleum couldn’t disagree with that, not when Braun seemed to be in a very agreeable mood and was volunteering to help them pass this Darkness.
He took another stiff step down the stairs.
-Hmm, it’s certainly dark enough here to be a tripping hazard! Friend, your view of this area is more interesting than I thought. I don’t think your current teammates are seeing the same thing you are.
Can you… see what I’m seeing?
-Of course! How else would I understand what my Friend is thinking?
“—well, Mr. Roe Deer?”
Soleum inhaled to murmur, “I bought it at a gift shop.”
“Aww,” Pony sighed, “I thought it might have been some super rare Darkness tool…”
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
“If you have the breath to chat, you have the breath to walk faster.” Butterfly’s voice was irritated from where she led the group. The delicate-looking mask turned to face Soleum as well, revealing only the sardonic curl of her lips. “We’ve been walking for over an hour— isn’t our resident Super Rookie supposed to set record times for this?”
…She was definitely still peeved at him for rejecting the A-squad.
“Aww, he’s doing good!” Pony spoke up. “I don’t think I’d be half as observant if I was walking around with such a hangover!”
As Albatross stepped next to him, he gave Soleum a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Sure have guts to enter a Darkness when you’re not feeling well.”
Except Soleum didn’t have a hangover, and he entered all Darknesses with the same (or worse) queasy feeling that made him feel like he might throw up at any moment. He caught a glimpse of what looked like something attempting to push its way into the stairs through suddenly malleable walls, and quickly turned his head away, thanking the heavens that the others thought his paleness and slightly shaking was due to a hangover.
On the ground, there was a puddle of gore that looked like an open mouth attempting to find prey. He scooted his shoe away from it.
“Roe Deer’s already carried his weight,” Dolphin dismissed Butterfly’s critiques; the only person on the team with the rank to do that. “Time for the other two candidates to show us their skills.”
“Sure,” Albatross said with an overly wide grin. “Time for me to shine, then.”
-Would you still like me to look things over, Friend?
If you don’t mind, Soleum thought, breathlessly glad for the others to take over the observation task from him. He was already using all his energy just to act calm.
-Of course not! It never hurts to have another pair of eyes when it comes to details! I must say, though, Mr. Roe Deer, the lighting in here is truly abysmal. My, if I were to tweak just one small thing about this area, it would have to be the lightning— there is such a thing as too much red! Subtlety is key, of course, and it’s always best to—
Soleum followed along the group, muscles slowly unclenching as Braun’s voice echoed with nonsensities in his mind.
—
“Urg, it’s these damn stairs!”
Agent Choi yelled up the stairwell, leaning over the railing to let his voice echo through the entire space. He paused a moment, but didn’t see or hear anything calling back, and sighed before pulling himself back safely back on the stairwell.
Kim Soleum didn’t bother to hide his distress, facing a corner and muttering to himself about how he didn’t want to be here— in his thoughts, he felt very aggrieved! How did he even end up on these stairs again, anyway? It just didn’t seem fair!
This was a Darkness managed by Daydream, and this time around Soleum really hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before due to insomnia and nightmares, and Braun… wasn’t around anymore.
There was a pointed silence before Soleum flinched as a hand came down on his head, ruffling his hair roughly. Then an arm rested on his shaking shoulders, pulling him away from the corner.
“Aw, junior, don’t be so alarmed! I know I gripe about this Disaster, but it’s really not so bad! It’s just— all these stairs, you know? I already got my exercise in today, so I’m going to be sore tomorrow if I have to go up and down all these steps…”
Soleum stumbled at the pull, and reached up to fix his askew glasses, spying Agent Bronze with a hand against his temple as if fighting against a migraine.
“It’s just that the entry conditions are so irritating!” Agent Choi bemoaned dramatically, squeezing at Soleum’s shoulder for a moment. “We can only enter if we don’t think about it, so we can’t try to get in but have to be directed on purpose by someone else. Isn’t that just the set-up for some malicious murder story?”
Soleum shuddered, and then moved away from Agent Choi as the man started making noises of protest to Agent Bronze’s unhappy stare.
“...Ignore him,” Agent Bronze told Soleum, his tone soft. “This is just another one of those Disasters that the Bureau patrols regularly in search for lost civilians. No matter how this place looks, it’s fairly harmless.”
Soleum lifted his gaze to stare blearily at the tall and stoic man. “...What does this place look like to you?”
“A dark set of stairs,” Agent Bronze answered briskly as the three of them started downward. “I am well aware that people see different things here. Various civilian reports have indicated that this Disaster is comprised mostly of illusions to stimulate fear.”
He paused tactfully, and then asked, “What do you see, Agent Grape?”
Soleum looked down at his shoes, and squinted when he saw shadows moving on what should be clean floors. Like out-of-focus insects scuttling around. He didn’t respond, not knowing the appropriate level to reveal. Did they know that the Darkness got worse the lower they went?
It was a relief to not have to hide his fear entirely, but what could he reveal? It wouldn’t do for them to know just how scared he was, as he couldn’t risk being kicked out of the Bureau. If they had reports, then they might know what would be too much, and it was too late to pretend that he was entirely unaffected by this Darkness.
“Ahh, let our youngest save some face, Agent Bronze. It’s normal for rookies to be scared of the unknown! Although, what would you normally do in situations like this, Agent Grape?”
Agent Choi elbowed him lightly with a wide smile.
“This Darkness is safe with us around, of course! Think of this as an oral test to gauge your reaction—”
“I’d run down the stairs,” Soleum interrupted, not wanting to hear more about tests that might add to his already building anxiety. “Get it over with.”
Agent Choi was quiet for a moment. “...That’s dangerous, junior. If you didn’t know about this Darkness…”
“Then I wouldn’t be caught up in it, right? So if I knew this Disaster, I’d already know how to solve it, or at least how to stay safe. If it produces illusions based on fears, there’s a high chance the longer you stay, the worse it gets. Since we’re heading down instead of trying to break out, it means it might be a Disaster where the only way out is through. And if there are civilians who get trapped here, then it either indicates that there is a special set of circumstances needed to leave, or that time is a factor in trapping people. Stay too long, and you can’t leave by yourself.”
At this point, the other two Bureau agents had stopped mid-step, staring as Soleum nervously pushed up his glasses again.
All of those statements, of course, were taken from his pre-existing knowledge of Q-terw-C-5444 with just a sprinkle of misinformation to throw off the suspicion that he might have seen the documents.
An awkward moment, and then Agent Choi laughed and threw an arm around Soleum’s shoulders again, causing him to stumble half a step.
“You sure do know how to win someone over,” Agent Choi drawled, and chuckled. “As expected of our disaster king rookie!”
Soleum winced. It really was too much that he kept getting those titles no matter where he went.
Choi shoved a hand within Soleum’s view, holding up a finger to draw his attention and waiting with a smile until Soleum slowly raised his gaze to meet his teammates.
“But,” Agent Choi said, softer this time, “rushing through unknown Disasters is really too dangerous. Fear makes people do things they shouldn’t, and we’re here to make sure our youngest gets the experience necessary to not do anything drastic. Would our Agent Grape like a hint as to how to solve this Disaster without fear?”
A way to get through without fear?
Soleum swallowed. That wasn’t possible, not for him. The very thought of Darknesses and Disasters made him break out in a cold sweat, and while experience had dulled the initial terror, there was no escaping the breathless weight of fear that spread with each elevated heartbeat, curling through his veins within his body as a constant shooting reminder that he was out of his depth. That the ghosts would soon drown him completely.
The stories were so fascinating on paper! But there was a difference between fiction and reality, and Soleum would rather study these stories from behind a screen, allowed to admire safely with soft wonder and curious anticipation.
He didn’t want to think about how that was what Braun tried to offer him.
Braun wasn’t even here right now to distract him from the horrors.
“...How?” He finally asked, and Agent Choi’s smile widened into a grin.
“I should tell you all about this Disaster,” the scarred agent backtracked, but then they continued their downward trek with Agent Choi pulling Soleum along closely, “since it has to do with observation and matching unusual activity and there’s plenty of backtracking back up the stairs— but I feel you’ll excel at that.”
Choi winked, and wagged a finger as they made their way to their first landing.
“In fact, I’m sure our Agent Bronze can take care of the the observation details, he’s needs the practice anyway—”
“Hey,” Agent Bronze protested flatly, although his posture was relaxed.
“—but since we’re part of the Dispatch and Rescue Unit, our most pressing priority is finding missing civilians!” Choi paused, and then amended, “Safely, of course. Without endangering our own lives. But the best way to do something like that… is to let them come to us!”
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Soleum asked dubiously. Agent Bronze straightened from where he was examining the stairwell, and gave an approving nod, herding the three of them to start back down the stairs again.
For Soleum, the atmosphere was already starting to grow darker, shadows in places where shadows weren’t supposed to be.
“By announcing our presence. Of course, this doesn’t work for all Disasters, but for this one…” He cleared his throat rather dramatically, and then vocalized, “Ah… ahhh?? Ahh!”
Soleum caught Agent Bronze’s gaze, trying to convey his confusion with just his wide eyes. Agent Bronze, on the other hand, looked rather aggrieved before he turned his head away.
He actually looked away as if trying to distance himself from them!
“Arirang~ Arirang~” Agent Choi sang out the old folk song, his voice echoing dramatically through the stairwell. “Arirang alone~”
Is he serious? Kim Soleum trembled more as he imagined the monsters that would be attracted by the sound, feeling invisible eyes converge on them. He tried to squirm out of Agent Choi’s grasp, but the other man proved stronger than he thought.
“C’mon now,” Agent Choi chided, pausing his song to jostle Soleum gently even as he craned his neck to direct his intent to Agent Bronze as well, “join in!”
“N-no, I’d rather not—”
But to his surprise, Agent Bronze did indeed join in, his voice steady and deep, giving a warmth to the traditional song even as Agent Choi enthusiastically butchered some of the pitches and phrases, sometimes yelling out words directly even as Soleum cringed.
Before he knew it, they already descended six levels before they had to backtrack, and Soleum found that while frightening, the levels hadn’t really… grown much worse.
“What are the young kids singing these days?” Agent Choi asked as the song drew to a close, still holding onto Soleum. “K-pop? TeSTAR, maybe? Hey, Bronze, know any TeSTAR songs to start us off? What about you, Grape?”
Soleum shook his head when their attention turned toward him.
“This level’s clear,” Agent Bronze said, and Agent Choi finally released his grip on Soleum to lean over the railing once again and stare down into the darkness.
“Helloooo!” Agent Choi called out, letting the word echo all around them. “If there’s anyone trapped in this Disaster, we’re here to rescue you! We know the way out!”
Soleum thought it was a bit silly. Where would people even hide in this Darkness? There were only the stairs up and down, and it was never explained where the missing people ended up in the stories.
…The shadows along the walls seemed to agree.
“Well, we’ll find them if we find them,” Agent Choi said as he leaned back, and then they continued their downward journey again. “Any requests? Or should I start with children’s songs?”
While not narrow, the stairs were just wide enough for two people to cross paths if they were walking in opposite directions, yet somehow Soleum found himself squeezed in between Agent Bronze and Agent Choi from time to time, although most of the time Agent Bronze led the group closely and Agent Choi brought up the rear only centimetres behind Soleum.
…It wouldn’t help if one of them disappeared, but it certainly gave the illusion that no supernatural force could nab someone without the other two noticing.
Soon enough, Agent Choi started belting out Magical Boy, nodding along so enthusiastically that Soleum could feel him do it.
“Cast a spell,” Agent Choi sang loudly, “Make a wish come true!”
Soleum couldn’t help it, the singing was so terrible and off-key, it startled him into a brief laugh.
His eyes widened, and he brought his hands up to cover his mouth.
Rather than taking offense, Agent Choi jostled him from behind and only sang louder, prompting Agent Bronze to sigh ahead of them.
Like that, they exited the Disaster before going down even thirty stories, and Soleum blinked rapidly as the door opened to bright sunlight.
“Now, junior,” Agent Choi coaxed as they were all outside, straightening up from his earlier disappointment at not encountering or saving anyone in the instance. “How scary was it? You can be honest.”
“It…”
The first time, he spent all his energy trying to hide his fear and after exiting the Darkness, he barely managed to make it home and collapse onto bed, both physically and mentally exhausted from trying to keep it together. He slept more than 12 hours that night, and woke shaking from lingering nightmares.
This time, it was merely stairs. Scary, yes. Dark and suspicious, for sure. Perhaps grimey and unpleasant, and with a sense that something evil was lurking in the shadows.
But other than that…
Soleum’s surprise must have shown through, because Agent Choi laughed. Agent Bronze hung up the call he made to the Bureau regarding their safe exit, and pocketed his phone.
Soleum found himself reaching upward for a non-existent pocket, flat against his chest due to a non-existent plush bunny as his fingers found only cloth.
“Stay with us, junior,” Agent Choi said warmly underneath the bright sunlight and bustling city traffic a mere street away, sights and sounds filled with people just living their lives sweetly and obliviously. “And I’ll teach you tricks of the trade to keep yourself safe.”
Soleum nodded numbly, letting himself be manhandled by the other two.
He thought about his colleagues back in Daydream when they traversed a Darkness.
He thought about a home that didn’t have any ghosts or monsters at all.
Then Kim Soleum looked up, squinting against the bright sunlight, and marveled.