"How… is that possible…?"
Ethan's heart seemed to skip a beat. He quickly reached out and felt along the wall behind him, searching frantically and widening the range of his touch. But it was useless. Within moments, he confirmed the chilling truth.
The door behind him had truly disappeared.
All that remained was a wall.
He turned around stiffly.
In the extremely faint light, Ethan saw the wall before him. It looked as if it had endured countless years of decay and weathering.
It should have been a white wall.
But now it was covered with stains that looked as though some liquid had splashed across it and seeped deep into the structure.
Even if Ethan had been slow to react, by now he should have realized that everything he was encountering could not be explained by any normal logic.
"Zzz… zzzzt…"
At that moment, a harsher burst of static came from his phone. Mixed within it was the voice of the police officer from earlier, though it was now completely impossible to tell what he was saying.
"Could that sentence actually be a warning…? Is the only way for me to survive to return home within five minutes?"
Ethan's nerves were stretched to their limit. The moment the thought appeared, he felt as if he could barely breathe.
But if that were true…
then with his only path back now gone, he was essentially doomed.
Once the door disappeared, there was no way for him to return.
Whether five minutes had already passed or not, it was already too late.
Ahead of him, behind the opposite door—
The figure standing there was unbelievably small, like a baby that had only just learned to stand.
Yet it remained there, motionless behind the open door, as if waiting for something, constantly radiating an overwhelming sense of terror.
The outline of its head tilted slightly upward, as if it were staring straight at him from within the darkness.
At that moment, the entire world seemed to fall into complete silence.
It felt as though death itself were hovering above his head.
The kind of terror that could drive a person insane.
A large drop of cold sweat slid down Ethan's temple. He thought of the madman who had broken into his apartment earlier.
But compared to the presence of the figure before him, that man had seemed almost harmless.
"Tap—"
Like a stone suddenly thrown into still water, another sound echoed through the hallway.
It was as if a foot had lightly stepped onto the stairs.
But compared with the moment before, the sound was now much clearer.
And much closer.
From where Ethan stood, he couldn't see anything in the direction of the stairwell.
But one thing was certain.
No normal person could move that fast.
In other words—
whatever was coming up the stairs was very likely not human.
"The timing… maybe five minutes haven't actually passed since I left!"
At that moment, Ethan suddenly rushed toward the elevator.
The bloody line of text flashed through his mind again.
If that truly was a warning meant for him, then perhaps the elevator carrying that message was also his only path to survival.
Before the thought had even finished forming—
"Tap—"
The footsteps from the stairwell sounded again.
This time, it felt as if whatever was down there had already stepped onto the final stair of this floor in a single instant.
The stairwell door was not fully closed.
If Ethan turned around now, he might be able to see what that thing looked like.
But all of his attention was fixed on the small figure behind the opposite door.
With every step he ran toward the elevator, he also moved one step closer to that thing.
No one knew when it might come out.
"Tap tap tap—"
Ethan's footsteps were frantic and heavy.
Amid them, he thought he could faintly hear another set of lighter footsteps behind him.
At first there was still some distance between him and those footsteps.
But in the next instant, as his arm swung backward, it brushed against something unbelievably cold.
His scalp almost exploded with terror.
Something was right behind him.
The closer he got to the elevator, the closer that thing pressed against him.
By the final few steps, he almost couldn't move his legs anymore. His body was becoming stiff. Every step forward brought an icy resistance against his heel, as though that thing had already pressed itself tightly against his back.
Ethan gritted his teeth.
His mind was in chaos.
He had no idea what was behind him, but the absolute lack of warmth in that coldness made him certain—
it definitely wasn't alive.
Every muscle in his body tensed as he gasped for breath.
Those few steps felt impossibly long.
The cold grew stronger and stronger, as if the thing had completely attached itself to him, desperately trying to stop him from entering the elevator.
And then—
"Tap—"
On the other side, the small figure behind the door finally moved.
It lifted one foot and stepped over the threshold.
A flash of light appeared inside the elevator.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan caught sight of the tiny face—its skin deathly pale, and its eyes a dull gray-white.
His heart trembled.
A single word flashed through his mind.
Ghost.
The moment it stepped out, an eerie chill spread through the hallway.
The elevator light shone onto Ethan.
Suddenly he felt the weight behind him lighten, as if some invisible force were pushing whatever was clinging to his back away.
"Is it… the light?"
Ethan's eyes hardened with determination.
His muscles relaxed for a split second before tightening to their limit, and his speed suddenly increased.
Bang!
He practically threw himself into the elevator.
In an instant, the strange sensation on his back vanished, as if everything that had just happened had been nothing more than an illusion.
Ethan steadied himself immediately.
He turned around and rapidly pressed the buttons inside the elevator.
It seemed the thing that had been clinging to his back had disappeared under the influence of the light.
But the real problem was that the other thing had already stepped out from behind the door.
Whether it was truly a ghost or not, he had to leave immediately.
"Ding!"
The elevator doors began to close at an agonizingly slow speed.
All the buttons inside lit up red.
Strangely, the footsteps of the figure outside suddenly stopped.
The silence around him was suffocating.
"…That sentence must be some kind of rule… As long as I stay outside my apartment for more than five minutes, something like this will happen…"
Cold sweat rolled down Ethan's face.
After what he had just experienced, he felt that even if he had never stepped outside, or if he had returned within five minutes, the final result would probably have been the same.
He would simply have been trapped to death in the apartment.
But this elevator…
Could it really take him out of here?
⸻
The elevator doors finally closed with a dull click.
The cabin trembled slightly.
Then it began to descend.
Only then did Ethan remember to breathe again, gasping heavily.
During those few seconds while the elevator doors were closing, his entire back had already been soaked with sweat.
The floor indicator above the door flickered.
Finally, the number stopped.
1
The screen displayed the number clearly.
But the elevator doors did not open.
Ethan reached out to press the button again, only to realize that his hands were trembling violently.
Just as he tried to steady them with his other hand, he suddenly felt a faint sensation of weightlessness.
The elevator began to move again.
And the number on the display slowly changed.
-1
-2
-3
…
…
-7
-8