NOVEL NEXT WORLD “What, what is this? What happened?”
Eleanor’s voice echoed in the room, filled with confusion.
The figure of her senior, who had been talking just a moment ago, was nowhere to be seen. After being shot in the forehead by a man, he had vanished, leaving only his clothes behind.
“What could it be? What just spoke was something other than your senior.”
“But that voice was definitely—”
“Haven’t you read the manual? Here, you can’t trust voices or appearances at all. Especially if it came from a human who was unconscious.”
The man spoke. Eleanor didn’t fully grasp his words, but she at least understood one thing: her senior, who had just been shot, was not the real deal.
Well, that was clear since the wall near her senior had only a bullet mark, without a single drop of blood.
“Technically, my best decision would have been to shoot you too…”
Eleanor felt the man’s gaze fixating on her. The atmosphere was so tense that it seemed he would aim his gun at her any second.
The man squinted one eye, suspiciously staring at her for a long while.
“For now, you look human enough.”
He leaned his gun against the wall and walked behind her, starting to untie the ropes that bound her.
“…Why are you untying me?”
Her voice contained suspicion. It was understandable; she didn’t completely grasp the situation, but she knew that according to the 4891π-31 Security Manual, she should have been executed long ago.
“Why? You prefer being tied up?”
“That’s not it… You didn’t even properly interrogate me, did you?”
“That can be figured out with just a few questions I asked at the start. For example, your attitude of refusing to reveal your affiliation despite guessing I’m with the Management Office.”
Snip went one of the ropes as it was cut.
The man had seen this kind of thing many times before. He knew how desperate some were to prove themselves.
The thing he had just shot, despite quickly spilling the name of the unit he belonged to, logically speaking, passing on information about the Management Office to a human whose identity was unknown was a big no-no.
“And anyway, no one left to complain about not following the manual, and I’m in a position where I’m going to kick the bucket soon, so I might as well grab at straws.”
Of course, he wasn’t untying her for such a simple reason. Human judgment was never accurate. Originally, she was supposed to be executed at the very moment she lost consciousness.
However, in his current state, he didn’t have the luxury to stick to the manual.
“What do you mean…?”
“Oh. I’m not the only one dying. You are included too.”
“What?”
“There’s not much time left until the nuclear launch. Probably only about 10 hours?”
When she asked, he pointed to a part of the room.
In a corner that had previously been dark, an electronic clock displayed the numbers 09:31.
“Seeing that there hasn’t been any contact on the receiver until now, it seems the facility is not just unnormalized but that we can’t even stop the launch. On top of that, the Management Office won’t just sit by while nuclear bombs drop on major cities around the world.”
Thud Another rope fell loose.
Although they were clearly discussing a serious matter, the man’s voice was oddly calm.
It was hard to tell if he showed no fear of death or if he found this situation not surprising at all due to a cynical nature, but still, his calm voice left Eleanor perplexed about whether this was a joke.
“I guess they’re planning to execute the Final Containment Protocol. If we don’t get out of here, we’ll all be blown to smithereens together. What do you think? Easy to understand, right?”
“B-but the launch isn’t supposed to happen for another week.”
“That’s right. And today is exactly the sixth day.”
“What? But I’m pretty sure I left on the second day… Wait, huh?”
Eleanor’s face twisted in confusion. When she took on the mission, things hadn’t been this urgent.
If what he was saying was true, it meant she had been unconscious for almost four days. How was that possible? No, what could possibly have caused her to lose consciousness in the first place?
Overwhelmed with jumbled thoughts in her head, she couldn’t hide her confusion.
“So, are you confused? Well, I get it. You probably just woke up from dying.”
Rustle The last rope fell away.
After picking up the gun he had leaned against the wall, he walked back toward her.
But he didn’t seem to be threatening her.
“First, introduce yourself.”
He shrugged his shoulders, probably trying to lighten the mood. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care about the way she was looking at him.
“My name is Cooper, and I’m one of the staff here. Ever since a peculiar phenomenon hit this facility, I’ve been hiding in the shelter trying to survive.”
“And the others…?”
“There were a few, but they all went out trying to do something. And seeing that no one has returned, it seems they probably bit the dust.”
His mouth spilled not-so-great news.
And she could tell at this point that Cooper, who introduced himself, had quite the cynical and pessimistic personality.
“I’m Eleanor. I was sent to investigate what happened with the anomaly number 4891.”
As she rubbed her now-free wrists, she carefully observed him with a still suspecting gaze.
She couldn’t fully trust him yet, but for now, she had no choice but to rely on him.
After all, if it wasn’t for him, she would have been dead a long time ago…
She distinctly remembered seeing her senior, who had been imitating her, vanish right before her eyes.
“I clearly remember going down to the basement 4 with our captain… but after that, I can’t recall anything.”
In her mind, she could see the last scene she had witnessed.
Her captain and two other members. They had gone down to the basement 4 together, and she had been walking at the back, keeping a lookout.
Then suddenly, it felt like someone had hit the pause button on her memory.
“…Honestly, I’m not sure if I should trust you, but right now, I don’t see any other way.”
“I feel the same way. Had it not been for this situation, I wouldn’t have pulled you into this shelter, breaking the manual.”
Cooper grumbled. In fact, just a little while ago, he wouldn’t have even thought of letting anyone outside in.
However, with the time passing and no contact coming through the receiver, he had realized that if he tried to check the outside situation alone, it was clear that only death awaited him.
So, with a ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ mindset, he had dragged her inside after finding her collapsed nearby.
“But now, it seems there might be no difference whether I die like this or that. If I had known it would come to this, I should have just followed the others.”
“Why didn’t you go with them? Going outside is much safer than staying alone in the shelter.”
“Are you stupid? Why do you think we came into the shelter instead of staying outside? The exit routes to the outside were already blocked. And unless something significant comes through the receiver, going outside would be like committing suicide.”
When Eleanor asked, he scolded her.
Who wouldn’t want to escape? The doors of this facility had been closed tightly since the first day the incident occurred.
But he had no way to inform anyone outside of that fact.
“Of course, they knew that too. But they were much more responsible than someone like me. So they went outside to either find a way out or try to stop the launch at basement 4…”
Although some had fled with him into this shelter, they had left days ago to resolve the situation, and he alone remained, barely managing to survive in this shelter.
“Given the current situation, it seems they’ve definitely failed.”
Click He clicked his tongue, showing discomfort over the fact that his comrades were dead.
“…What on earth is happening outside?”
“I wouldn’t know. That’s why I’m still alive.”
He shrugged. His light gesture was heavy with meaning.
“However, staying here guarantees that we’re dead anyway, so I figured it’d be better to die trying to do something.”
As he turned to look toward a corner of the room, Eleanor followed his gaze.
The numbers 09:36 on the timer screen.
Even while they talked, time was passing steadily, and they knew it would lead to certain death when it reached zero.
They had no means left but to try going outside the shelter.
“So, do you want to go out together? Or you want to chat until we get blown to bits?”
And that was precisely why he took the risk to bring her into the shelter.
The countdown was ticking down, and with the facility still a mystery, let alone whether they could escape on their own, he intended to use her as bait to draw himself out.
After a brief moment of silence in the room.
Eleanor thought deeply for a short while and finally opened her mouth to respond to him.
“…Honestly, it’s a bit hard for me to believe you. Suddenly waking up to find so much time has passed, and I have no idea what’s happening outside.”
From her perspective, the current situation was still utterly bewildering.
Waking up to find four whole days gone, watching her senior get shot and then vanish without a trace.
Hearing the explanation from a stranger in a cramped room made it hard to judge things normally.
“Yet… I’m in favor of going outside. Someone has to stop the nuclear launch, and we need to find our team members who might still be here.”
But she couldn’t just stay inside the shelter.
After all, she was a member of a special operations unit formed to face anomalies, and she had undergone various training for these situations.
Even if she had heard that unknown things were moving outside, she couldn’t simply abandon her teammates or hide in the shelter due to fear.
“Yeah, I hope we can find them.”
Cooper replied.
While his words were mundane, Eleanor felt that his face held a sarcastic tint.
And not long after they stepped outside the shelter.
She soon discovered why he wore such an expression.
“Looks like we ended up here after all. I knew this would happen.”
“….”
The two figures, backs against each other, were seen walking through the hallway.
Eleanor and Cooper.
They were currently making their way to the Launch Control Room located in the Basement 4.
“Answer me quickly. That’s how I’ll check whether you’re alive or dead.”
“I-I’m listening.”
At his insistence, she stammered, her earlier confidence replaced with fear.
While it was natural to feel fear in a dark corridor, the primary reason for her fear wasn’t just that.
After all, she was a member of an organization formed to confront anomalies, and her job often demanded direct encounters with them.
If she were scared just by a dimly lit hallway, she wouldn’t have even started this job in the first place.
‘…Really, no one is here.’
What she truly feared was the utter absence of her team members in this place.
There was ample possibility that they had already managed to escape the facility.
However, when she first checked the 1st floor to find an exit, as he said, it had been firmly blocked by something.
She could only see traces of someone having used explosives or tools, with only a small amount of soot left on the wall.
The exit remained tightly closed, not permitting them to leave.
So it suggested that her team members had also been trapped inside here.
Yet, as they approached the Launch Control Room, she couldn’t find any sign of her teammates or even a single corpse, and she was starting to realize that her situation was rather serious.
“Cooper.”
“What?”
“About that thing you shot earlier, my senior… no, ‘that thing’—what was it really?”
Eleanor inquired about the entity that had assumed the appearance of a team member earlier.
She had heard of the facility’s details and was well-versed in the manual.
But she had never heard anything about an unidentified entity that mimicked others.
“I don’t know either. It always disappears without leaving a trace after I shoot it.”
“It disappears?”
“Yeah. You saw it too, right? It just vanished out of thin air, leaving no trace behind. Because of that, I haven’t been able to analyze them or even obtain any samples to send to the Management Office.”
Her eyes widened at his words.
It vanishes without leaving a single trace—how could that be possible?
As far as she knew, she had never seen or heard of such an anomaly.
In fact, this seemed more like a phenomenon unlike a monster at all.
So it was as if it were—as if it were a—
“Is it a ghost…?”
Like, a ghost, perhaps?
She cautiously asked, her expression tense.
But the response she got was not a proper answer.
Only the sound of Cooper’s laughter, as if he couldn’t contain himself, came from his lips.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I just find it amusing that every person who hears this ends up saying the same thing. Honestly, it’s pretty funny to see grown adults trembling and talking about ghosts.”
“Is this really the time for jokes?!”
As he teased her, she shouted, her face slightly flushed.
While it wasn’t an appropriate moment for jokes or to tease someone, her fear had somewhat dissolved in that instant.
“Well, your words might not be entirely wrong. There are indeed some entities here that can easily look ghostly.”
After the laughter subsided a bit, he shared a thought that seemed to agree with what she had said earlier.
“H-have you seen them directly?”
“No, but it’s not just mere rumors. Sometimes, you can even hear the sound of a child laughing from below.”
He forced out a high-pitched imitation of a child’s voice.
It sounded horrifically out of tune, but Eleanor could roughly understand what he was trying to convey.
“And they say a little girl roams around deep underground, and if you happen to see her—”
In the middle of what felt like an urban legend talk, Eleanor realized he was trying to tease her again, and she wanted to shut him up.
Clack
But suddenly, a sound coming from behind them forced her to swallow her words back down.
“…!”
As if they had agreed, both of them simultaneously pointed their guns in the direction of the sound.
From the opposite end of the hallway, a rhythmic sound echoed, unmistakably signaling someone approaching.
ClackClack
The sound continued to resonate.
They shined their flashlights down the corridor, but the darkness clung to the light like tar, preventing them from seeing what lay beyond, only stirring their growing sense of dread.
ClackClack
The footsteps grew louder.
Finally, the sound drew near, and as illumination reached it, a figure emerged from the shadows.
ClackClack
From the darkness, a pair of small feet hopped into the light.
Next, what came into their view was—
“…?”
A small girl with brown hair, looking as if she had spotted something strange, tilted her head while staring at them.