CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Return to Floorboards(Seungbae Walks Back In)
He didn't tell anyone. He couldn't.
Not his superior. Not the hospital therapist. Not the nurse who smiled gently and asked if he was sleeping okay.
His spirit just… left. Got in his car. Drove through dusk and into the darker end of town. To that house.
The lock was rusted, but it hadn't been boarded up yet. Still a crime scene. Still full of ghosts no one wanted to catalog.
He stepped through the threshold.
The air inside was colder than outside. Stale and Still.
Like the whole place was holding its breath.
It was almost insulting how normal it looked now.
No bodies. No blood. Just cracked tiles, an overturned chair, and silence.
But as he stepped deeper—
The air shifted.
And a sound emerged.
Not from around him, but from within him. A humming.
Mechanical. Familiar.
The heart monitor.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
He shook his head.
"No," he said aloud. "No, I'm not doing this again."
He got slightly pulled to his coma-state body.
But his legs moved anyway.
Through the narrow hallway. Into the kitchen.
The lightbulb flickered—twice—then went dead.
He stood in the dark.
And then—
the basement door creaked open.
No one touched it.
The air that came from below was humid.
Sour. It smelled like rot and mold and iron.
He told himself to leave. To call it in. To mark it and report back.
But his hand reached for the railing. And he descended.
The stairs creaked underfoot.
Each step echoed. Not once. But twice.
Like someone behind him was matching every movement.
He didn't look back. Couldn't.
At the bottom: the basement.
Stripped bare. No mattress. No tools. No rope.
Just floorboards.
But in the center, where the trapdoor used to be—
There was a stain. Old, deep, soaked-in.
Not blood. Not anymore. But memory.
As he stared at it, his vision twisted.
The stain shimmered. Then moved.
And before him—
A boy appeared. Yoonbum.
Still. Silent. Alive yet not.
Eyes focused only on Seungbae.
Seungbae staggered back, heart racing. He felt the room shrink.
Yoonbum opened his mouth.
And spoke.
"He's still here."
———————
Seungbae gasped. The basement flashed white.
And then—
He was alone again.
Or so he thought.
Until he heard the door upstairs slam shut.
Footsteps.
Not hurried. Deliberate.
Descending.
Someone else was in the house. And they didn't want him here.