Baek Saheon opened his eyes.
To be precise, it would be more accurate to say he hadn’t slept at all.
‘Damn it.’
Since entering the “Horizon Mountain Lodge,” he had been on edge, trying to find a way to get out alive and in one piece.
Half of that effort was spent tiptoeing around Kim Sol-eum and trying to stay on his good side.
‘That bastard.’
He felt no shame about it. He did what he had to do to survive.
…And now, even considering whether to go to Kim Sol-eum’s room was for a similar reason.
‘I need information, any small detail I can get.’
That lunatic definitely knew something.
Baek Saheon had to pry it out of him and use it as his ace in the hole to stay alive.
But…
“……”
Was Kim Sol-eum really insane?
More precisely, why did he… save him?
And Baek Saheon already knew the truth. During the exhibition, there had been countless opportunities for Kim Sol-eum to kill him or use him as a bait, yet he hadn’t.
Sure, he had played a few tricks on him, but in the end…
‘No!’
He probably did it for fun. Keeping me alive meant more variables to toy with, more entertainment!
Baek Saheon quickly came to a conclusion. He had never met anyone like that lunatic in his life.
‘…Still, he probably won’t lie about important information.’
With a strange sense of trust, he opened his door—
Something was in front of it.
“…!!”
The lodge, already engulfed in darkness after sunset, made it hard to immediately make out the silhouette right in front of him.
A man of similar height to himself.
…Kim Sol-eum.
‘Shit!’
He was startled but, honestly, also somewhat relieved.
Better him than some stranger, right?
At the very least, Kim Sol-eum wasn’t going to kill him.
“Hey…”
Then, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw it.
Kim Sol-eum stood quietly, holding an axe in his hand.
“……”
‘What?’
An axe?
For a moment, Baek Saheon almost rubbed his one remaining eye, but then a plausible explanation crossed his mind.
“By any chance… Is that for self-defense purposes…?”
Suddenly, another thought flashed through his mind.
The messages Kim Sol-eum had been sending repeatedly.
[Watch out for the serial killer.]
What if that was actually…
A prediction of the future?
“Goodbye.”
The axe came crashing down on his head.
* * *
The next morning.
The couple stepped out of their room, listening to the sound of heavy rain. As they walked, they noticed a faintly familiar melody blending with the rain.
Hmm, hmm-hmm~ hmmm, hmm-hmm-hmm~
A hum.
“Isn’t that the song that played when our car’s navigation broke down?”
“Oh my, I think it is. Do they play that on the local radio here?”
As they savored the crisp morning air lingering in the atmosphere, they carried the cassette tape like a treasured possession and headed to the kitchen.
And there—
“AAAGHHH!!”
They saw something in the kitchen fireplace.
The fireplace, burned as though someone had stuffed it with fireworks and toys before setting it off, was packed unnaturally tight.
Charred remains of coal.
And sticking out from the blackened mess were two bent, stick-like objects, protruding to either side.
At the ends of those sticks—
Sneakers.
Still clinging to the feet of a half-burned person.
“AAAAAAHHHH!!”
“Dear Lord! Is that… a person!?”
“Oh my, oh my! What on earth… what… happened here!?”
Their screams of horror echoed through the lodge, drawing others downstairs one by one.
And soon, the chorus of shrieks grew.
“What happened—AAAAHH!!”
“Oh my god…!!”
The college students, the middle-aged driver, everyone was thrown into a panic.
One person even collapsed, his face pale as a sheet.
It was the young man who had identified himself as a company employee and had been communicating via written notes because of a sore throat.
But… weren’t there supposed to be two company employees?
“There’s no way!!”
The couple pointed shakily at the feet in the fireplace.
“The person who came with you… Is that him? The one with the eyepatch…?”
The young man stared at the burned sneakers, then covered his mouth and gave a small nod.
“AAAHHH!!”
Someone was dead.
A person they had talked to just the day before!
As the reality of the situation sank in, cries of horror and despair erupted anew.
“Call 119 right now!”
“What the hell is this!? HOLY SHIT!”
“This is why you should be careful around these old kitchen fireplaces! One wrong move, and this happens!”
But a small voice inside each of them whispered.
‘Was it really an accident?’
Could a fire burn just one person like that without spreading?
And leave them in such a gruesome state?
‘Could it be…?’
Panicked, the group scrambled for their phones.
But moments later—
A chill ran down their spines.
“The phones… they’re not working. I can’t hear a dial tone!”
“Where’s the caretaker? Someone’s dead here!”
But the caretaker, who had promised to take good care of them, was nowhere to be found.
In the dark, rain-soaked mountains, the lodge felt isolated, with only the guests and that eerie humming.
“……”
“……”
Hmm, hmm-hmm~ hmmm, hmm-hmm-hmm~
Outside, the rain poured relentlessly, and a landslide seemed to have occurred overnight, burying the bus stop under mud and debris.
“The road… it’s completely buried.”
“My car!!”
And then, they began to realize.
Hmm, hmm-hmm~ hmmm, hmm-hmm-hmm~
Something was terribly wrong.
“Th-This… sound is coming from there.”
“……”
Next to the burned corpse in the fireplace, a small, old analog cassette player was playing the humming sound.
Hmm, hmm-hmm~ hmmm…
Click.
One of the college students turned off the cassette player and pulled out the tape inside.
An old, ivory-colored tape.
“…!”
The pale-faced company employee pulled out his notebook and scribbled with trembling hands.
[It looks like the cassette Baek Saheon had…]
“O-Oh my god.”
And that’s when the nightmare began.
* * *
At lunchtime.
Though the lodge had a neat spread of soup and rice seemingly prepared in advance, no one dared touch it.
Instead, they nibbled on energy bars and snacks they had brought with them, wandering around the lodge in search of a signal for their dead smartphones.
Of course, there was no luck.
In the midst of the torrential rain, the gloomy mountain lodge was cut off from the outside world, steeped in an oppressive, eerie atmosphere.
‘This is driving me crazy!’
One college student, fiddling with his unresponsive phone, sat in the living room, clicking through apps that wouldn’t load.
“Damn it!”
“Man, you’re such a coward, it’s funny to watch.”
Nearby, his hiking club friends laughed nervously, occasionally joking about the charred remains in the fireplace.
Though they snapped a few pictures and teased each other, none of them had much appetite to eat their calorie bars or chocolates.
Still, they seemed more relaxed than the others.
But it was their numbers that gave them their confidence.
‘There’s three of us, after all.’
Even if someone wanted to kill them, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to target a group instead of someone alone.
‘They’ll go for the loners first.’
That thought eased their nerves somewhat.
“Hey…”
Just as a student was about to start a casual chat with his friend—
A peanut-filled chocolate bar was thrust in front of him.
He turned to see the pale-faced company employee holding out the snack with one hand and his notebook with the other.
[Would you like it? I don’t think I can eat.]
“What? No thanks.”
He responded curtly, but one of his friends snickered beside him.
“He can’t eat peanuts, dude.”
[Ah… I’m sorry.]
The company employee quietly retreated to the sofa, looking dejected.
Didn’t the other guy say he was a supervisor or something? Though he seemed quite intimidating at first, after witnessing his colleague’s death, he looked liek a deflated balloon.
‘Scaredy-cat.’
He seemed like the type who would immediately cower under the slightest pressure.
“Hey, wanna try it?”
“Yeah, I’ll fucking die.”
Meanwhile, the other two students briefly left to smoke outside.
The company employee, holding his useless smartphone, glanced at the fireplace with a dark expression before heading upstairs.
Silence descended.
“……”
The college student found himself alone.
An eerie feeling crept in.
‘In movies, this is always when someone gets attacked.’
Fidgeting nervously, he glanced around, his hand gripping the jackknife in his pocket. It calmed him for a moment, but only briefly.
‘Damn it, why did they go off on their own?’
Unable to shake the unease, he finally decided to go find his friends.
With his jackknife clutched tightly, he felt a chill down his back, and his pace quickened.
He reached the kitchen’s back door leading to the yard and opened it.
Click.
A dam smell hit him suddenly.
‘They must be somewhere with a roof.’
No one would smoke in the rain, right? With that in mind, the college student decided to follow the roofed path to a connected storage shed where his friends might be.
However, the further he walked, the stranger the atmosphere became.
Something sharp and metallic hit his nose.
‘Iron?’
It smelled like rusted iron.
The shed was full of old items, so perhaps the rain had leaked through and caused the rusting smell.
With that assumption, the college student turned the corner.
“Hey, Park Kyungsoo—”
And then, an overpowering metallic stench hit him like a wave.
“Wh-What the…?!”
Inside the backyard shed was an old industrial crusher used for construction.
And it seemed like it functioned just fine, even when something other than wood was fed into it.
Crrrrunch.
Instead of spitting out sawdust, the machine was now spewing shredded meat.
Tattered clothes, blood, flesh, and bone fragments were spewed everywhere, making a filthy mess of the floor.
“……”
What… is this?
What the hell… is this?
For a moment, his brain refused to process the scene, unable to comprehend the situation. Then, a beat later, he finally understood.
He had found his friends.
Grounded into meat.
“Ughh—Uwaaaaagh!!”
As his brain spiraled into a panic, vomiting, and screaming, another sound emerged, mixing with his cries.
From an old audio player.
Hmm, hmm-hmm~ hmmm, hmm-hmm-hmm~
A cassette tape.
“Eek!”
The college student turned around and ran as if possessed, sprinting madly into the lodge.
Fear crawled up his spine and overtook his entire body.
“Hey, you there! Why are you—”
“AAAAH!!”
He swatted away the hand that grabbed his shoulder, screaming in terror.
“Don’t come near me, dammit!”
“Woah, what the hell?!”
He looked up.
The other people staying at the lodge stared back, puzzled.
Then, the college student noticed the one thing they all had in common.
‘The tapes!!’
That’s it!
If the psycho who did this was after the tapes—
The student frantically searched his pockets and pulled out the cassette tape.
“Look! Here! Take this!”
His eyes darted wildly as saliva flew from his mouth.
“I’m throwing it away! If you want it, take it! I-I give up, okay?! I give up!!”
Thud!
He hurled the tape onto the floor, then bolted upstairs, slamming the door of his room shut behind him.
Only after locking the door did he dare exhale.
“Haaah…”
Anxiety made his eyes dart nervously.
Images of ground meat and shattered bones swirled in his head, accompanied by loud, thudding noises.
Thud.
Thud.
Should he barricade the door with furniture?
Thud.
No, that might block his escape route instead.
Thud.
The student hesitated, staring at an old lacquered wardrobe, before finally leaning against the wall next to it, gripping a pocketknife tightly.
He stared at the door as if trying to burn a hole through it with their gaze.
Thud…
Leaning his back against the wall, he caught his breath.
‘Try it, j-just try opening the door, I dare you…!’
If anyone dared, he would scream his lungs out and swing the knife like a madman. Once people came running, what could the intruder possibly do?
As long as he stayed vigilant, he would be fine.
‘I won’t let you, I won’t let you…’
Muttering like a lunatic, the student sat by the wardrobe.
Click.
Quietly,
The wardrobe creaked open.
The next morning, the student ‘greeted’ the others through an open door.
His entire body was swollen, grotesquely bloated like a sausage.
Death by anaphylactic shock.
And so, the entire hiking club disappeared.
“AAAAAAH!!”
In the span of a single day, when the corpses of a seemingly normal office worker and three students were discovered, terror consumed everyone.
“It’s the inheritance! Someone’s trying to kill us all for the inheritance! They’re trying to silence us and take the tape for themselves!”
“Honey, it’s the lodge caretaker! That creep seemed like a psycho! Here, this—”
“It’s a ghost! We’re all cursed! Hahaha!!”
The middle-aged man who screamed about ghosts shoved the others aside and bolted out the door.
“AAAAH!”
Rumble.
Thunder rumbled at the perfect time.
Or maybe the thunder was accompanied by another sound.
Boom!
“…!”
“Wh-What was that?!”
Startled by the deafening noise, the group turned to look out the window.
The civil servant among them muttered darkly.
“…A landslide.”
It had occurred “just in time.”
The middle-aged man, who had run out like a lunatic, was swept away by the rushing soil, disappearing down the mountain.
AAAAHHH—
His scream faded as he was buried beneath the dirt, swallowed by the mountainside.
Death by certain asphyxiation.
Rumble… BOOM!
The thunder replaced the eerie humming sound outside the lodge. Lightning flickered, illuminating the grim scene.
“……”
“……”
An oppressive silence fell over the remaining people, freezing them in place.
Only four were left.
* * *
The second night.
After scouring the lodge for any means of contacting the outside world, the couple returned to their room, panting heavily.
Though they had found no help, they had discovered something else.
“Gasp… Huff… Huff…”
“Shut up, you idiot! Keep it down!”
“Ahh!”
The man, who had introduced himself as the woman’s husband, shoved her head roughly, his eyes trembling as he left the living room and dashed up to the second-floor hallway.
Just then, someone cautiously exiting their room met the man’s bloodshot eyes and flinched in surprise.
“You there!!”
It was the office worker who had a sore throat, communicating through written notes.
Startled, he fumbled for his notepad, but the man moved first, brandishing something he had brought with him.
“This, this golden frame…!”
It was a frame he had taken from the living room wall.
He jabbed a finger at the text written inside it, eyes wild with terror.
The rabbit roasts in the kitchen
The deer is hunted in the backyard
The dove fattens in the bedroom
The lamb is carved in the living room
“This is how people are dying!”
“…!”
People had been roasted alive in the kitchen, grounded in the backyard, and bloated in the bedroom!
“It’s the caretaker or whoever’s behind this! They’re toying with us! Maybe they’re even broadcasting this! No, they’re definitely messing with us, that’s for sure!”
The office worker’s eyes widened in shock.
Seeing his reaction, the man’s conviction grew stronger, and he yelled again.
“This time, it’s the living room! Someone’s going to get carved up in the living room! I’m certain! We need to find a way out before—”
“Hmm.”
…
Huh?
Just now, someone… spoke?
“You’re surprisingly observant, Braun.”
“Braun?”
Those were the man’s last words.
* * *
“Awake?”
When the man regained consciousness, his head throbbed painfully.
“Mmph! Mmmph!”
His mouth was gagged, silencing him completely.
Still, he screamed with all his might.
“MMMMMMMPH!!”
The damp, moldy smell of the basement, combined with the suffocating darkness, wasn’t even the worst part.
It was the severed head lying next to his own.
A dismembered head.
“Mmgh! Mmmgh!”
The pale face of a dead man stared back at him from a platter, mere inches away.
He felt like he was losing his mind.
Tears, snot, and sweat poured down his face, leaving him a wreck as he screamed for his life.
But the gag swallowed every sound.
“Hngh, hnnngh, mmmph!”
“Scared? Try to hold on. I’m holding on, too.”
A calm, composed voice replied.
The man rolled his eyes, straining to look upward, away from the severed head.
Then he realized.
‘It’s that office worker…!’
The young man in a black tracksuit frowned down at him. He stared at his bloodied work gloves with disdain before sighing and slipping them back on.
Then, he picked up an axe.
“MMMMMMPH!!!”
“Why do people scream first, even when they know it’s futile? It just makes things more exhausting for everyone.”
“MMPH! MMM!”
“Let’s not waste energy.”
This guy is insane.
This bastard… is the killer…!
Desperate to negotiate, beg, or even fight back, the man wanted to try anything, but his tightly bound body and gagged mouth made it impossible.
Tears streamed down his face.
“Ah, does screaming help reduce emotional or physical pain? Hmm, maybe it does, but I don’t really care.”
The office worker’s voice was dry and indifferent as he checked the axe’s edge.
The blade gleamed as it slid across his glove.
“Well, it’s efficient. But I still don’t like it.”
The axe swung through the air.
Thud.
Clang…
“……”
“……”
In the now-silent basement, Kim Sol-eum lowered the axe.
Then, in a slightly brighter tone, he spoke.
“Almost done.”
Three people left.
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