Chapter 3: Clearing the Darkness
[This station is Resentment. Resentment Station.]
[The doors on your right will open….]
In this urban legend, the subway was engulfed in silence.
Kim Soleum would be doing her part toward that silence.
I knew already that this was a common creepypasta, but I was the type of person who would see a creepypasta thumbnail in my recommended videos and immediately hit "Not Interested", without even seeing the title. And that kind of person was supposed to survive inside a creepypasta?
'Just kill me already….'
That would at least count as a good death.
She could not even summon the will to think straight. Soleum covered both her eyes with her hands, as if trying to deny the very existence of reality.
Then it happened.
Blink.
[1st Prize: Darkness Exploration Records Real Goods Box]
"…?!"
She lifted her head.
Something that looked like a memo pad was floating through her field.
She could see it, whether her eyes were open or not.
She ripped little scraps of paper from her notebook and folded them into the air.
"This is…."
Wait. No one else seemed to see it.
Soleum immediately closed her mouth. What was she supposed to do, stand out like a sore thumb?
Instead, she pressed her hand down on the memo pad in front of her as naturally as possible.
Flap.
The memo pad unfolded almost by itself and spat out a small object onto the floor.
"…!"
She snatched it up, as if to hide it.
It was... a grip tok.
It is a very simple black grip tok, with a golden "X" marking the center of the grip.
But even that symbol was enough for her to realize exactly what it was.
'It's merchandise.'
All of them were in fact the same products that Darkness Exploration Records had been selling just before she opened her eyes in this odd place.
One of the things she'd bought earlier that day.
Soleum, who trembled slightly while picking the grip tok, replied.
About the only use it had was character development.
[Memorial Grip Tok]
: A C-rank item in the Darkness Exploration Records.
When plugged into a smartphone, it materializes remembered text into easy-to-read pages.
Issued to Grade 9 employees of the Supernatural Disaster Management Bureau of the Ministry of Environment.
'Displays memories as text….'
Then… could it be?
Soleum peeled the adhesive backing and immediately stuck it to her smartphone, her hands shaking.
At that very moment,
Like the bits of Darkness Exploration Records she half-remembered, the text bloomed onto her phone screen, concrete, building pages in the rows of text.
Darkness Exploration Records / Creepypasta
[Welcome to Abyss Transportation Corporation]
: A creepypasta appearing in Darkness Exploration Records.
The code for White Daydream Co. is Qterw-D-16.
This is one of the oldest Dusk (D) grade darknesses and notoriously one of the most insane to escape from.
And the eternally suffering on-site exploration teams.
A total of 56 explorations have been recorded.
"…!"
So that meant…
'The merchandise I bought actually works?
Come to think of it, the black merchandise box that had been resting on her lap was gone.
That box... turned into that memo pad and spat out the merchandise I bought?
What kind of insane situation was this?
However, there was no denying the benefit.
She entered the creepypasta world, Darkness Exploration Records.
Did she even know how many internet veterans were pouring their creative obsession into this setting? There were literally hundreds of creepypastas.
Naturally, it wasn't possible to have all of those contents instantly available in her head like flipping another page.
True to the genre, worst of all, the stories did not explain how the reader could have solved the riddles, making it even harder to figure out the right answer.
'But if she can review what she read as full text in one go....'
So the first thing she had to look into was-
'Past escape cases!'
She immediately started scrolling down the wiki page.
And after breathlessly reading all the way through "3.2 Exploration Records"
"..."
She reached a conclusion.
'Got it.'
She had already determined where they were supposed to get off the train, however.
However, there was a problem.
"..."
Soleum glanced at the other passengers in the car.
She was one of eight young new employees.
Just as the last of the panic of seeing two people torn in half in front of them was starting to fade.
"That announcement just now… Resentment Station. Like resentment when you're angry… right?"
"Y-yeah…."
"Ha, phones and data don't work either… seriously… what even is this…."
"...."
The problem was how she was supposed to get all of these strangers, who neither knew nor trusted each other, to get off at the right station.
'She has to get as many people as possible to disembark together.'
Soleum clenched her fist.
Was it because she suddenly felt some noble sense of duty, realizing that the background characters sacrificed in this creepypasta were actually real people whose lives she needed to save?
Well... sure, there was a bit of that, humanly speaking.
But that was not the priority.
What really made her desperate to do
'She can't get off alone...!'
That's right.
Most of the stations here were completely insane.
Walking alone through a pitch-black station, a station filled with eyeballs, or a station where up and down were reversed?
Just thinking about it made her back break out in cold sweat: she would probably crawl on all fours.
'The chance of fainting halfway and failing to escape: over 90%...!
No. Please. Save her.
'She has to persuade them-somehow!'
Soleum opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again.
'Blurting out stuff about supernatural phenomena and darkness would be stupid.'
Who would want to accept that they were stuck in something like a RPG horror game? Either they wouldn't believe it, and would just laugh at her, or they would believe it and panic.
'Slowly… trust first.'
Just one person.
She needed to get one or two of them, and the herd mentality would take over.
'Let's see. Someone who needs help, or shows a chance to build rapport….'
"Ha… this isn't even like some video creepypasta."
Found one.
"Did you say… creepypasta?"
"Huh?"
A woman, calm and bob-haired, slightly embarrassed by the event, nodded in response.
"Yes. Um, I watch creepypastas on video platforms sometimes, and this reminded me of them."
"Would you mind explaining a bit more? This doesn't seem like a normal situation, so I think sharing whatever information we have would be best."
"It's not really information… it's just that everything feels like a creepypasta. A lecture hall suddenly turning into a subway, people… dying like that."
The woman's face would blanch at the memory of the insane dismemberment show that had happened.
Soleum understood. She wanted to retch too.
Let's both just try and forget that just as quickly.
"Ah, sorry. I suddenly went there while talking…."
No. I feel the same way. This is so farcical I can't even comprehend it.
The woman gave a faint laugh.
"Honestly, you seem like the calmest one here."
That was only because she had not yet seen Soleum go down in action.
"Huh?"
Around that time, however, someone else approached Soleum.
And there was a very good reason for it.
"Uh, you were sitting next to me earlier, right?"
It was a man with curly hair and a rather gentle-looking face.
'Now I come to think about it, he was sitting next to her in the hall.'
The new employee, who had not been able to join any of the other groups in conversation, rubbed the back of his neck and glanced between Soleum and the woman she had been speaking with, extending his arm in a hand shake.
"My name is Baek Saheon."
"…!"
Soleum almost forgot to shake his hand during the applause.
Baek Saheon?
'A named character.'
Darkness Exploration Records / White Daydream Co.
/ Characters
Baek Saheon
: An employee of White Daydream Co. who appears in Darkness Exploration Records.
Final rank: Assistant Manager
Total exploration records: 106
The wiki lists 17 documented special cases.
Alias: Viper
He worked as an employee and had been involved with Darkness Exploration Records multiple times.
Soleum looked up at the curly-haired man who had a gentle look about him.
'This guy... is Baek Saheon?'
The picture didn't quite match.
Still, it felt odd meeting online and being able to see another human being who wasn't just a voice from the creepypasta universe.
So did the bob-haired woman who had first handed her the creepypastas.
"Well, given the situation, we might as well introduce ourselves. I'm Go Yeongeun."
That was a name Soleum did not recognize, for two reasons.
Perhaps she managed creepypastas well, but left early.
Or,
She died quickly.
'Damn it….'
In some instances, the named employees were almost solely represented by nicknames or codenames that were so distinct they were readily recognizable.
This left a bad taste for Soleum, but he soon shook it off.
"I'm Kim Soleum."
The handshakes soon subsided, and they naturally sat back down and continued.
In the meantime, the crowd seemed to have been discretely split into groups.
"Ah… those people over there seem to be trying to talk to the front car."
"Looks like it."
I ignored this creepypasta, moved the cars, and sure enough, they stopped gesturing and came back.
"What do we do? We can't communicate with the front car at all. And it looks like there was a fight up there…."
As panic arose, another arrival announcement was made.
This time, the keyword carried a very different connotation.
[This station is Ecstasy. Ecstasy Station.]
"Huh?"
The murmuring stopped.
"Ecstasy?"
"Um… ecstasy sounds kind of good, doesn't it? Maybe, "
No.
'She can't judge it that simply...!'
With gritted teeth, Soleum recalled the records of what she had just read.
This creepypasta often used a different name for the station.
That meant there was no escaping by identifying the one, and only one, "correct station name".
'But patterns can still be analyzed.'
Like this.
Darkness Exploration Records / Creepypasta
/ Welcome to Abyss Transportation Corporation
3.2 Exploration Records (up to Case 56)
Station names were assigned corresponding colors: red, yellow, blue.
: 2-person escape success (Attempt: Blue Station)
Station names are based on body parts, like left arm, cornea, heart.
: Escape failure (Attempt: Cochlea Station)
Stations named after serial killers include ■■, ■■■■, and ■■■.
: 12-person escape success (Attempt: ■■■■ Station)
Station signs say 2008, 2012, and 2016 respectively
: Escape failure (Attempt: 2024 Station)
Station names refer to diseases. E.g. asthma, stroke, and glaucoma.
: 3-person escape success (Attempt: Common Cold Station)
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