Chapter 1: bad hands

I walked and walked down the hallway.

At first, there was definitely an old, red carpet.

But now, no matter how far I walked, the carpet was nowhere to be seen.

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At some point, the floor had turned into a hard, cold surface.

A cold chill seeped in every time my toes touched it, but I couldn’t tell when this change had occurred.

The fact that I hadn’t noticed it was even more frightening.

“The carpet… it’s gone.”

A quiet voice escaped my lips.

I looked around again, but this hallway looked exactly the same as the first one I saw.

Maybe that carpet was like a welcome red carpet for me.

Only meaningless speculations kept swirling around.

It was a conscious act to suppress anxiety, but even that was becoming increasingly difficult.

I shook my head and slowly started walking again.

I turned left, then right.

I thought the path would end if I kept walking, but everything just became more and more the same, let alone the end.

I didn’t even know where I was going.

The wallpaper was still yellowish.

At first, it just felt old, but now the color looked even more drab.

Occasionally, I saw stains or cracks on the wall.

Maybe this whole space is aging as time goes by.

The flickering sound of the fluorescent lights was also getting louder.

The buzzing vibration seemed to resonate inside my head.

I tried to inhale, but the sound was so loud that I couldn’t even hear my own breathing.

The air felt heavy.

“It’s all the same…”

My words echoed in the hallway.

The sound of the echo fading away gave me chills for some reason.

I felt like I couldn’t be alone here.

No, I had to be.

I couldn’t even remember how many times I had turned.

I had definitely walked for a long time, but when I looked back, the same hallway continued.

I was out of breath.

I leaned against one wall of the hallway and rested for a moment.

I told myself that I needed to rest even for a little while to find another way.

But my two legs wanted to keep moving forward.

The fear that I would be trapped here forever if I stopped did not go away.

Then something tripped me.

“Huh…?”

I looked down and saw a faint crack.

A shallow crack in the floor stretched out in an irregular shape.

I carefully knelt down and touched it with my finger.

The crack was not smooth.

I felt a rough, sharp gap.

What does this mean?

I tried to stop and think for a moment, but my mind became more and more complicated.

I got up and started walking down the hallway again.

As I walked and walked along the hallway, this time I saw a faint light in the distance.

It was different from the fluorescent light.

It felt soft and warm.

I walked towards the light.

One step, two steps.

But the light did not get closer.

It seemed to get farther away.

I stopped.

The light slowly faded away, and the hallway became quiet again.

That was when it happened.

I felt something squirming behind me.

A cold, sharp sensation that I had been deceived ran up my spine.

I felt like I had fallen for a bait, like a moth drawn to a flame.

The constant feeling of anxiety made me freeze.

Looking back seemed like something I should never do.

My heart was pounding.

It was as if this space could feel my heartbeat.

Sweat beaded on my palms.

I couldn’t move.

I could only feel the presence of that something getting closer and closer.

My heart felt like it was going to burst.

The sense of something getting closer and closer from behind.

The thought that I shouldn’t stay still lingered in my head.

‘Calm down, calm down and… I have to move.’

I exhaled a shaky breath and clasped my hands tightly in front of my chest.

My hands were slippery with sweat, but I held them tightly and braced myself.

‘Don’t look back.

Just get out to the side.’

Following the repeated warning in my head, I started to turn my body slightly.

My whole body was stiff with tension, but I closed my eyes tightly and moved to the side as if throwing myself.

“Ha…!”

As I took a deep breath and got out of there, the cold energy I felt behind me faded.

Feeling a sense of relief, I unconsciously opened my eyes.

And at that moment, I faced it.

Something floating in the air.

It was a hand.

It looked like a human hand, but something was off.

The skin was pale, and the fingers were strangely long.

The hand was groping the air as if searching for something.

Slowly, very slowly, it squirmed and moved forward.

“…”

I swallowed my breath and watched the hand’s movement.

There was no wrist or arm.

Only the hand was floating in the air.

The way the palm slowly turned over and stretched out looked like a living creature.

I realized.

It can’t see anything.

The hand was carefully feeling the space as if trying to explore the world instead of eyes.

It seemed to sense its surroundings through movement instead of sight.

‘Is that… trying to find me?’

My breathing became even more rapid.

I covered my mouth with my hands.

I felt like if I made even the slightest sound, that hand would touch me.

The small hand squirmed a few more times before moving away from me.

Even at that moment, I couldn’t move.

My whole body was frozen from the tip of my toes.

For a long time, until the hand completely disappeared, I stood there.

“What… was that?”

I muttered to myself in a low voice, but for some reason, I couldn’t hear my own voice well.

It felt as if my ears wanted to erase my own sound.

The space was still strangely quiet.

That silence felt like eyes watching me.

I took a step back.

And another step.

The sound of my footsteps on the ground echoed too loudly.

Every time I stepped, it felt like this space was absorbing the sound and transmitting it to something, which gave me chills.

‘I need to reduce the sound.’

I caught my breath and moved carefully.

I lifted my foot, slowly lowered it, and walked distributing the weight of my body so that there was almost no sound on the floor.

All of this was unfamiliar, but it felt like the only way to survive here.

I slowly, very slowly, took a step.

The cold sensation of the floor felt from the tips of my toes brought me back to reality.

The hand was gone, but it still felt like it was somewhere around.

The stillness felt more like pressure.

I took a deep breath and walked down the hallway.

“…Phew.”

Even while trying to reassure myself, the small whispers that I inadvertently let out echoed back, making me anxious.

The hallway was still endless.

Yellow wallpaper, fluorescent lights, cold floor.

No matter how far I walked, the same scenery repeated.

Even after the hand disappeared, the afterimage of the hand kept lingering in my mind.

Only after taking a few steps did I feel that the cool energy had completely disappeared.

I stopped and took a deep breath.

But the tension still did not ease.

I didn’t know if that hand floating in the air would appear again, or if something even stranger was waiting for me.

“What… is in here?”

I mumbled to myself.

But as expected, this space did not answer.

Instead, the strange pressure felt at the end of the hallway was getting stronger.

The hallway in the distance still looked the same.

Yellow wallpaper, buzzing fluorescent lights, and a cold, hard floor.

The infinite Backrooms.

The repetition of an endless place that makes you feel like you’re going crazy.

And an unidentified monster.

That was all.

February 1, 2025.

Day 1 in an unidentified space.

This place really has no end.

Everywhere I go, the same hallway repeats.

At first, there was a carpet, but now even that is gone.

This space seems to be slowly eating away at me.

And… another problem arose.

I saw a strange hand floating in the air.

It looked like a human hand, but it moved so strangely that I couldn’t look at it properly.

The fingers were long, and it slowly moved, groping the air.

It seemed like it couldn’t see anything.

I haven’t been caught so far, but it looks really dangerous.

I hope it doesn’t show up again.

Ha, really, it hasn’t even been that long since I got trapped in this space, and my head already hurts.

I wish there was a person.

The manager I hated seeing so much, the drunkard in front of the convenience store, I miss anyone now.

I need to find a way out of this space as soon as possible.

Ah, right.

From today, let’s keep a record of the information about the monsters I see for the first time.

It might help me escape.

Monster File: [Bad Hands]

Form: A hand floating in the air. There is no wrist or arm, only the hand is moving alone.

Characteristics: Pale skin and long, slender fingers. It seems to be groping and exploring its surroundings as if instead of eyes.

Danger: I don’t know what will happen if I get caught. But it’s definitely dangerous. Let’s never go near it.

Weakness?: It seems to have no sight or hearing. But I’m not sure.

Caution: Never get caught. It looks creepy. Ugh!