Chapter 3: Three Faces—Ghosts or Humans?
Inside the room, a female was cornered by someone dangerous and seeing this, Han Si-Woo couldn't sit still. He gripped the math book firmly and ran up to the man and slammed it on his head with the corner. Knowing that it wasn't enough and taking the opportunity of the man's confused state, Han Si-Woo struck him with the book once again before grabbing a fallen chair on the ground next to him and hit him with it hard on the head. Even then, he didn't feel reassured and convinced so he kicked him between the legs. Naturally, he knew how gruesome the method was but he didn't want to risk it. His life was on the line, and so was the girl.
Seeing that the man had fallen and didn't move, Han Si-Woo grabbed the awestruck girl by her wrist.
"Hurry, let's leave before he actually wakes up and chases us like a madman!" Han Si-Woo didn't look back and only ran as fast as he could, away from the room.
The girl still didn't process the things that just happened but she knew that the young man in front of her had saved her from being killed.
Both of them ran until they were out of breath. Because they mindlessly escaped from the perpetrator back in the room, they didn't pay attention to where they went and had now no idea where they came from but they were still in the building.
"Ha… As long as he can't find us, it's fine," Han Si-Woo said between his breaths.
The girl wiped her forehead with her sleeve and nodded in agreement.
Han Si-Woo smiled and offered her a tissue. "I'm Han Si-Woo. What's your name?"
The girl accepted the tissue and replied, "Na Byeol…"
She was still traumatised and couldn't stop trembling. Han Si-Woo pitied her, he took out his bottle from his bag and handed it to the girl. Na Byeol felt her eyes watered as she took a few clunks of water. This was the first person who had treated her nicely ever since she came to this place.
"I'm eighteen. You're older than me, right?" she asked.
Han Si-Woo didn't expect her to ask him that but he still answered her. "Yeah, by six years."
A faint smile could be seen on her face. Na Byeol put the cap back on the bottle and gave it back to him. "Thank you, Oppa."
Han Si-Woo lightly scratched his cheek. "No worries."
Despite the mood being a bit harmonious, they didn't forget where they were. Han Si-Woo looked at Na Byeol seriously and asked her some questions related to [Door of the Abyss].
She looked down at her phone and said, "I wasn't able to read everything on the guide. I think we were purposely not given the chance to. I didn't even get past the third title and I'm a fast reader."
Upon hearing this, Han Si-Woo's face lit up. "So you read the third title? What was it about?"
He didn't manage to read as much as her, it would be great if he gets to know more about the content of the guide which might help them with their current situation.
"It was—" Na Byeol didn't have the chance to finish her sentence when she was interrupted by a loud voice.
Both of them quickly looked at the direction where the voice came from. They scrutinized their eyes to identify the approaching figure. It looked to be a person flailing their arms while running. The person became clearer as they got closer to them. However, there seemed to be someone else behind them… holding a machete?! They were coming in their direction too!
"Ah—! Ah, ah, ah! Somebody save me, I'm going to die! I'm dying!"
Han Si-Woo wanted to curse and only uttered a word, "Run!"
Han Si-Woo and Na Byeol didn't hesitate to sprint through the hallway to find another path. However, when they changed the course, the person behind seemed to have followed them.
He gritted his teeth. "Why the hell are they chasing after us?!"
Na Byeol couldn't speak and only focused on running.
This was soon turned into a cat-and-mouse game as it felt like they were running around the building in a circle. Han Si-Woo knew that they couldn't keep running as they were on the verge of falling from exhaustion. He finally spotted a room and immediately pulled Na Byeol with him inside the room. Before closing the door, he threw one of his shoes far from the room. Hopefully, this would trick them.
They covered their mouths with their hands to minimise the sound of their breathing and waited until the coast was clear. When they didn't hear anything from the outside, they let out a relieved sigh until their gazes fell on three faces in the room staring at them.
The sudden sight almost shocked them silly. Na Byeol placed her hand on her chest while Han Si-Woo backed away slightly. Realising that they were fellow humans, Han Si-Woo's body relaxed.
"You guys scared the hell out of us..."
The three people consisted of teenagers that looked a little younger than them, two boys and a girl. They were hiding under the big table. The three exchanged looks and one of them spoke.
"A-are you also from Earth?"
Based on the tone of the voice, Han Si-Woo knew that they were terrified.
He looked at them before he said, "That's right. Have you seen other people yet?"
The girl timidly responded, "No. We...we did see a scary man with a huge knife but before he could spot us, we hid here…"
The man the girl described should be the same as the one who had chased them in the hallways just a moment ago. At least there wasn't another one in the area.
Han Si-Woo went up to the door and opened it slightly to peek through the tiny gap. There wasn't any sign of people, the hallway was free of danger for now. Closing the door completely, he walked up to the table before crouching down to look at the three people.
He smiled and said, "Alright, time to get out of here."
They widened their eyes at his words as if they thought he was crazy. The girl shook her head, refusing, and one of the boys looked away.
The other one asked angrily, "Why should we leave? If we leave, we will only get killed by those psychopaths. Something must be wrong with your brain." Even though he wanted to shout he didn't, scared that he would alert them.
"Th-that's right… I don't want to die. We will just get killed if we step outside…" The girl mumbled.
Na Byeol lowered her gaze, she understood how they felt. It was horrifying. They were only normal citizens who were forced to participate in this cruel game that no one believed to exist back on Earth.
Han Si-Woo stood up and the next words of his poured cold water over them, waking them up to face the reality. "You will be killed anyway if you stay here. You can hide all you want, but can you escape and return to Earth where your families are? If you are going to die anyway, why don't you try to grasp the tiny hope and survive this scene?"
Han Si-Woo made sense and they couldn't refute him, knowing what he said was the truth. Slowly, but eventually, they got out under the table and introduced themselves, deciding to follow Han Si-Woo and Na Byeol.
"My name is Park Hae," the girl with a ponytail said.
Next to her was a rather short boy, he quietly spoke, "Chun Dong-Min."
And beside him was the other boy who was the complete opposite. "Chun Dong-Sun. Dong-Min is my younger brother, just know that if you bully him and I'll beat you up."
Na Byeol chuckled at his little remark and smiled at them. "Nice to meet you all. I'm Na Byeol, and this is…" She shifted her gaze to the older boy and noticing her gaze, Han Si-Woo smiled too.
"Han Si-Woo," he said.
Once they introduced themselves, they didn't waste more time and looked around the room to see if they could find anything practical to take with them. Park Hae was able to find a few old broken pipes among the messy things, unfortunately, it wasn't sufficient for everyone. Han Si-Woo was the oldest one so he volunteered to not take one. It was safer for them to have something to defend.
He looked at the timer, it was currently: [08:30:04].
Grabbing his math book, Han Si-Woo led the others out of the room and didn't forget to fetch the shoe he threw away earlier. The only regret in his action was that it led him to walk on the dirty floor with just his sock; the feeling of contacting the floor with his shoeless foot was revolting.
Chun Dong-Sun was in charge of looking out from behind, while Han Si-Woo was looking out from the front. They couldn't be careless as the perpetrators that the message warned them for wielded weapons, and who knew how many were out there.
Han Si-Woo quietly said, "I think the White Gateway is outside of the building. But since there aren't any windows showing outside, we don't know where we are exactly…"
It was as if they were isolated in a big box without any room for escape. The windows that did exist were only connected to a room.
"We should find stairs leading down and we will eventually find the exit of the building," Na Byeol said.
Han Si-Woo already thought about it but so far they haven't come across one. Swiftly, he felt someone tapping on his shoulder. He looked back to see Park Hae who pointed a finger in a direction.
"Is that a staircase?" she asked as she looked through the window.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Xivo
Xivo Myths are so confusing. My brain isn't big enough.
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