Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 136

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Escaping the Mystery Hotel ◈

Episode 135: Room 107, Gate Room - Final Trial (26)

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- Kim A-ri

--- Ring! Ring!

I got out of bed to the blaring alarm.

I yawned and lingered in bed for a while, but I couldn't put it off any longer, so I left my room.

As always, I ate a hearty breakfast before Mom saw me off to school!

A peaceful routine that felt like it could last forever repeated itself.

The moment I stepped outside, Da-seul appeared as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“A-ri!”

“Yeah. Yaaawn. I can't stop yawning.”

“Are you that sleepy?”

“Not that much, just a little. Ah, I don't want to go to school.”

“Has your head been hurting lately?”

“My head?”

“You kept grabbing your head several times a day these past few days, saying, ‘Something's weird, something's weird.’”

“Did I? I think I'm okay today.”

“You should take some medicine.”

Luckily, we made it to school without being late.

The moment I entered, I opened my shoe locker.

--- Clatter!

“...”

Letters spilled out the moment I opened it. Da-seul stared at me in disbelief.

“Did you open that in front of me just to show off?”

“I should put a lock on it, so people can't put weird things in there.”

“Then won't the boys just stuff things into your desk drawer whenever you're gone?”

“...”

Da-seul and I casually tossed out all the trash from my locker.

While we were clearing it out, I heard someone call to me from across the hall.

“Hi! You're A-ri, right?”

It was the second-year upperclassman I'd met last week. Her name was Yoo Song-i, wasn't it? She appeared with a Birdcage in one hand.

“Hello. You brought your parrot again today?”

It was a little strange. Could someone really bring an animal to school like that?

“Yeah! The teacher gave me permission. Isn't Pero adorable?”

The teacher gave her permission too? What kind of school was this?

Holding back my disbelief, I looked at the Birdcage in her hand.

What was that? Had I seen it wrong?

The parrot inside wore strange clothes that looked almost like a tiny straitjacket.

Its name was Pero, right? Pero came close to the side of the cage and gave a strangely mournful cry as it looked at me.

“What are those clothes for?”

“Oh, Pero kept causing trouble, so I put them on for training. It's safe now.”

When Song-i reached into the Birdcage, Pero simply lowered its head obediently.

Something about Song-i felt off when she said, “It's safe now.”

She had a different air about her than usual, something almost dictatorial.

The parrot looked as though it were afraid of its owner.

...

What a strange thought.

It wasn't like I knew her well enough to say she was different from usual.

And I definitely wasn't someone who could read a parrot's mind.

After another round of boring classes, lunchtime approached.

Yaaawn! I wish this whole school would just burn down!

I was sprawled face-down on my desk when my friends came over and started chattering.

As always, the topic was the hit drama, You Who Fell from the Sky.

Had it been about two weeks since it started airing?

The drama was such a huge hit that calling it a national sensation didn't feel like an exaggeration.

Elena, the actress at the center of all the attention, now appeared in several commercials every day.

There was no way I could know a celebrity like that, yet for some reason, I felt a strange sense of familiarity whenever I saw her.

Ah, I'm bored.

I must have wanted this kind of peaceful life, but now that peace had arrived, life was boring.

...

That was a strange thought. It wasn't as if I'd ever gone through some grand adventure.

As I sighed, a loud commotion made me look out the window.

A group of male students stood outside, noisily chatting among themselves.

The student in the middle had a cast on one leg and seemed to have just been discharged from the hospital.

They giggled among themselves and played with the cast, looking quite close.

For a moment, my eyes met those of the student in the middle.

The instant our eyes met, I felt that bizarre familiarity and closeness I'd experienced so many times before. The student seemed to feel something strange too and tilted their head.

--- Ding dong dang dong!

The bell announcing the end of lunch snapped me back to my senses, and I looked away.

* * *

When the school day was almost over, Da-seul and the others came over.

“Have you seen any movies lately?”

“Movies? I can't really remember. It feels like it's been forever.”

“Then let's go see one tonight!”

The others immediately started chattering and laughing.

“What movie?”

“The Secret of the Esper! You've heard of it, right?”

...

The instant I heard the title, an intensely ominous feeling came over me.

“The title alone feels really weird. It sounds like the ship is definitely going to sink.”

“See? You have heard of it. Everyone's making a fuss because it's on pace to reach ten million viewers.”

“No, this is my first time hearing about it. Is it famous?”

“Yeah! The female lead from Sky You was in it.”

“What's Sky You?”

“You Who Fell from the Sky!”

“Come on... Don't use weird abbreviations. I had no idea what you meant.”

“You sound like such an old fogey.”

For some reason, that instantly put me in a bad mood, so I kicked Da-seul's chair.

Da-seul immediately kicked my chair too. After we both toppled to the floor once, we went back to talking.

“But when did the female lead from that drama even film a movie?”

Da-seul only tilted her head and didn't answer.

She filmed a hit drama and a ten-million-viewer movie at the same time? Did she film the movie first?

But she was an actress who became famous through the drama. How could she have been the female lead of a blockbuster filmed before the drama? Logically, something was strange...

I stopped thinking about it.

What did I know about celebrities' lives? Since she was a foreigner, maybe she'd already been famous overseas before becoming popular in Korea.

Another school day ended without anything happening, and it was boring as always. I hoped the movie would at least be fun!

* * *

The Secret of the Esper was disappointingly just an ordinary romance movie.

Honestly, the story was predictable and nothing special. Had it only succeeded because the leads were handsome and beautiful?

Its overall story was far too similar to Titanic, which I'd watched before.

The only difference was that it added a Captain who commanded zombies.

Come to think of it, that was a pretty huge difference.

I dozed through nearly half the movie before it reached its final climax.

...

“Wow, that was fun!”

“She was seriously so beautiful! Elena was a total goddess.”

“Maybe A-ri will be in a movie like that someday too?”

“What do you think, A-ri?”

The others teased me and poked at me.

“...”

“A-ri?”

“A-ri's crying.”

“Was it sad enough to cry? The ending was cool, though.”

“I almost cried too when the female lead's mother drowned after letting only her daughter escape.”

“A-ri?”

I came to my senses.

I was beginning to wake from a long dream.

For so long, I had forgotten memories I must never forget.

When I stood and looked around, my friends stared at me with puzzled expressions.

They wore school uniforms that had become familiar by now, with jackets that looked like gakuran uniforms and student caps that resembled baker's hats.

It was abnormal.

Uniforms like those had disappeared more than forty years ago.

I ran out of the theater. Voices called after me from behind, but I didn't care.

I had no desire to speak with my friends any longer. There was no point.

Looking around, I saw the streets filled with people gathered in small groups, chatting away.

It was abnormal.

The Red Plague outbreak, which failed to be contained early on, had caused thirty million casualties worldwide.

After that, it became rare for random citizens to gather without masks and gloves.

As I slowly walked down the street, I found more and more abnormalities.

Every block of the dining district was packed with beer halls and izakayas.

Fungal Parasites that reproduced through alcohol had caused more than four hundred thousand casualties in South Korea alone.

After that, seventy percent of bars across the country vanished. Alcohol was now distributed only under strict control throughout its production and distribution.

When I turned my gaze, I saw religious people everywhere, shouting that anyone who didn't believe in Jesus would go to hell.

On the peninsula alone, seven self-proclaimed returned Jesuses had summoned the One Who Pleads to Heaven in Gwanak District.

After that, street evangelism, especially the kind that gathered people by offering money or goods, was strictly controlled by the police.

I looked at the building that housed the theater. Its exterior was clean, and there wasn't a single robot in sight.

After Predatory Pigeons that originated in China spread throughout Korea, every place where pigeons could build nests became an area of concern.

After that, most buildings above a certain size used autonomous surveillance drones outside to prevent Predatory Pigeon nests from forming.

The abnormalities of this bizarre world had one thing in common.

They were scenes that had been natural long ago.

Yet they reflected none of the social changes of the present day, brought about by Chaos Disasters that had escaped control!

As I walked home, I looked up at the night sky one last time.

A full moon shone pure white in the sky, illuminating the night and turning my suspicion into certainty.

There was no longer a moon in the real world.

* * *

After walking dazedly for so long, I found myself standing in front of my house.

...

All I had to do was go inside.

If I just opened the door and went home, if I met Mom and talked with her, I'd probably forget all the strange memories from today.

I grasped the doorknob.

If I opened this door, if I just opened it and went inside, that would be enough.

Why had I been thinking such strange things all day?

At home, there was a “good mother” I had always dreamed of, and at school, there were friends who made me smile whenever I saw them.

It was embarrassing to say it myself, but I was pretty! Maybe I could become a celebrity. Maybe one day, I could meet someone handsome and wonderful and live a happy life.

If I stayed here, I could surely achieve all of it.

This was my perfect life, the ideal form of my life.

Confused, I sank to the ground. From beyond the door, I heard a voice I missed more than anything.

“What are you doing out there instead of coming in?”

“Mom...”

“Is something bothering you?”

“I don't know what I should do.”

“You don't know what to do? Do you have several choices? When that happens, always go back to the basics.”

“The basics?”

“The one thing you absolutely have to achieve. Keep only that one goal, and forget everything else.”

The one thing I absolutely had to achieve.

Vague fragments of information began boiling up inside me.