Chapter 65
“Are you up?”
“Uh, uh…?”
Kim Hak-ju rubbed his sleepy eyes as he woke up in bed and looked at me with a puzzled expression as I sat in front of the vanity.
Almost simultaneously, the rest of Kim Hak-ju’s family woke up one by one from their deep sleep and greeted the rising sun. It must have been the first sweet sleep these people had tasted in a long time.
“It’s already 8:30 AM. It’s time everyone would have had breakfast and been at work for a while. We’re hungry too, so why don’t we go out and eat, and then we need to unravel the karma that has accumulated on your daughter, don’t we?”
“……”
Kim Hak-ju rubbed his face with his hands for a while, his expression blank, as if he couldn’t believe he had actually fallen asleep and woken up comfortably.
People who have seen a small and faint but hopeful light in the midst of despair are generally overjoyed. They become enthusiastic and even praise.
It was enough of an opportunity for a man who had to support a family to get back on his feet.
“…Let’s do that. Honey, Hak-seon, get up, wash up, and get ready to go out. This benefactor will help us today.”
Perhaps it was because they were free from chronic fatigue and nervous breakdown, but Kim Hak-ju’s family moved so quickly that it was hard to believe they were the same family that had looked so weak and lifeless yesterday.
I waited for them outside in the hallway for a while so they could finish getting ready.
The hallway floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in dark red stains, as if a performance artist had splattered paint all over the place to use it up.
The fact that sticky liquid was still dripping down at this moment showed just how much of a rampage the Pig Demon had been on last night.
I rummaged through my pockets, sprinkled some salt, closed my eyes, and made the sign of the cross.
You might ask what kind of baseless counter-curse this is, but faith is the most important thing in these matters.
Isn’t there a saying that it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you get there?
When I opened my eyes after making the sign of the cross, the dark red stains that had been defiling the hallway had disappeared without a trace.
The Pig Demon’s link to Kim Hak-ju’s family, which had been spiritually connected, had been severely damaged.
But the thing was so obsessed and gluttonous that it had been following this family for five years.
It was a greedy pig itself, believing it was entitled to tributes and that once a tribute was offered, it had to be put in its mouth to be satisfied.
In a way, it may have been heavily influenced by the ferocious gluttony of the ancient inhabitants of that region, who could eat even their fellow humans without a second thought.
Gluttony is also a human emotion and desire. If it accumulates, it can become a spirit, and if countless tributes and faith are offered to that spirit, it can eventually become a god.
After all, gods were born from formlessness by the first intelligent humans.
From gods who caused natural disasters to gods who brought good harvests, gods who helped achieve great feats in hunting and war, gods who granted childbirth and health, and so on.
The faith that began with ancient shamanism was reborn as a religion that took its present form and framework through totemism.
Yes, I’m saying that as long as humans have strong will, desire, resentment, and faith, they can make even something that doesn’t exist into a god.
━Like the Israelites, who were rooted in the desert, worshipped the formless God as their one and only god?
“That’s enough.”
As soon as I spat out the drowsiness gum I had been chewing into the shared trash can, the door to room 1004 opened.
Kim Hak-ju’s family, who had finished getting ready and were newly refreshed, came out with lively eyes, a rekindled fighting spirit, and a yearning for life.
Like soldiers claiming to be ready to go out and fight on the battlefield at any moment.
“Are you ready? Then let’s go.”
I didn’t bother calling the elevator on the first floor to the 10th floor.
These people have to overcome their fear on their own and get through their hardships.
“We’re going to go down the stairs from now on. It’s just going down 10 flights of stairs, so don’t think of it as too difficult. When everything is over and you come back here, you can use the elevator freely. But for now, let’s go down the stairs with me.”
“…All right.”
Kim Hak-ju nodded, and his wife and son followed cautiously, stepping onto the stairs.
Stairs are such a f*cking awful space, and the higher the target floor, the more they have the uncanny power to instantly break the will of the person climbing them.
The same space no matter how much you climb. It’s f*cking hard even if you rest for a while and climb again, and it’s f*cking hard even if you skip two steps at a time.
You can get to any floor within a minute by comfortably taking the elevator, but stairs cause tremendous physical and mental pain, as if you have to use all your strength.
Of course, depending on the situation, it can feel like a completely different space for some people.
A terrible cycle, labyrinth, trap that never changes or ends.
There’s even a joke that the reason small windows are installed on every landing of the stairs is to prevent people from getting claustrophobic.
Naturally, as a space that makes people psychologically uneasy, there are quite a few scary ghost stories or urban legends associated with it.
For example, you might encounter a strange person on a certain floor, or see someone crouching in the corner of a landing, or hear footsteps following you from above or below at the same pace as you.
The reason why stairs are scary is because the process of reaching the end（future） is so difficult and lonely.
If you go up and down narrow, dark stairs alone, you’re bound to have strange thoughts, and you might even hallucinate or hear things because it’s so hard.
It wouldn’t be strange at all if those things got distorted and exaggerated and became urban legends or ghost stories.
But we must remind ourselves once again that human words, actions, and beliefs have tremendous power.
Just as the very simple logic that if you believe in Jesus, you can go to heaven applies to our lives, if you believe that there might be ghosts there, ghosts will really appear.
“Are you afraid?”
“””……”””
I asked quietly as I went down the stairs ahead of them. Kim Hak-ju’s family seemed a little tired, probably because it was the first time in a long time they had used the stairs.
But I don’t sense any fear from them.
“Fear is ultimately born from the mindset that you believe yourself to be weak. Or it can arise from feeling resistance to unknown beings or knowledge that you don’t understand. Either way, the common denominator is that you lack confidence and are consumed by fear. Why are you afraid? Why do you think you’re lacking? Harboring such negative thoughts doesn’t help you live your life at all. Accept yourself as you are, and show it to others.”
Are you afraid of women? Then confidently say that you want to have s*x. You won’t be afraid of women anymore.
“I’m not trying to blame you, but you lacked the collective consciousness to stick together as a family and fight against external forces. Yes, everyone had their own circumstances and went through difficult times, so it couldn’t be helped. No one is blaming you for that. But I just hope you will realize it now.”
If you value yourself, you should also value your family, lover, and friends, who are no different from yourself.
You should comfort and encourage them when they are struggling, be a strong breakwater that protects them, and be a sharp spear and sword that fights alongside them.
Ancient humans, who were at the bottom of the food chain, formed a collective society and eventually conquered the Earth.
We must not forget the essence of what it means to be human.
When they finally walked down from the 10th floor to the first floor, they rejoiced, sweating a mixture of tension and physical exhaustion.
Leaving behind the motel owner who was looking at them strangely, we went to the nearest loach soup restaurant.
What people who are greatly weakened need is food with a warm human touch, and if you’re going to eat food anyway, it’s good to have food that’s good for your health.
So we ate our fill of hot, spicy, and savory loach soup at the loach soup restaurant, which is synonymous with autumn health food.
“How does it feel to be back in the world of the living?”
I asked as I picked my teeth with a toothpick and walked out of the loach soup restaurant, and Kim Hak-ju said it felt great, albeit shyly.
Until now, he must have been working himself to the b*ne to support his family, unable to even eat a proper meal.
The rest of the family probably couldn’t even eat a proper warm meal, and probably just filled their stomachs with instant food they bought outside.
For them, the past five years had not been a human life, and the world had not been a human world.
Kim Hak-ju’s family had been like terminally ill patients waiting for death, simply weakening day by day and clinging to their tough lives, like dried chewing gum on the asphalt road.
But not anymore.
Honk, honk!
“Sir! Over here!”
“Okay.”
I had called S Man early in the morning and had him rent a car that could be used”once”. This large eight-seater van, similar to a Starex, was big enough to carry Kim Hak-ju’s family, me, S Man, and the crazy woman.
The crazy woman, who had been sitting in the passenger seat, suddenly started shaking her bell and pinching her nose, saying that Kim Hak-ju’s family smelled bad.
“It’s awful, awful. How on earth did such a nasty thing attach itself to them…? Tsk, tsk.”
“Stop complaining and move. The passenger seat is mine.”
After chasing the crazy woman to the back seat, I told S Man to go back to Seoul.
Just a moment ago, the sky was clear and the sun was warm, but suddenly dark clouds began to gather and the sky turned gloomy.
I seated Kim Hak-ju’s family inside the vehicle with its dark tinted windows, and then had the crazy woman sit behind them to protect them.
“We’re going back to Seoul now. It’ll take about two hours, and during that time…there will be some noise. You can sleep, pray, or even hold hands with your family, close your eyes, and wait. But whatever you do, don’t react to the sounds you hear outside, and don’t look out the window.”
I put a little salt in the water bottle S Man gave me, shook it, and handed it back to him.
“If you don’t want to die, put it in your mouth and spit it out the window. Think of it this way: if you get f*cked, everyone in this car gets f*cked too.”
“…I’ll be careful.”
After a light gargle, S Man gripped the steering wheel tightly, his face tense.
The crazy woman, who had been sitting in the back seat, had been muttering something in a mosquito-like voice and shaking her bell.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
As soon as the car started, the autumn rain started to drizzle again, just like last night.
