Clap, clap-!
My hands moved on their own.
I had lost complete control of them.
In the center of the open space, drummers beat their instruments in rhythm, their
performance captivating the crowd as confetti filled the air.
Women adorned in flowing veils and delicate, long white strings gracefully moved around them.
Thu Thump!
It was a beautiful scene.
But the scene came to an abrupt halt as the drummers stepped aside, and the dancers froze in place.
I too stopped clapping, and two figures in veils stepped in the middle.
Though their appearance was hidden beneath their veils, I could tell they were the stars of the shows.
They were…
‘Groom and bride.’
Yes, this was without a doubt a grand wedding.
Even though I couldn’t move my hands, I found I could still move most other parts of my body. My expression changed at the sight that greeted me.
‘A wedding… Could this be the reason why they’ve suddenly gone completely silent?’
No, there was no way.
I observed the scene intently, noticing how everyone moved with such precise rhythm and synchrony that it felt almost unnatural. From their fixed smiles to the fluidity of their movements, something about it was disturbingly flawless.
None of it felt real.
Turning my head, I looked at my arms and drew a cold breath.
I already had an idea beforehand, but it was clear to me now. Everyone present… they were being controlled by the same strings that were controlling my arms.
It was just that, unlike them, I wasn’t being controlled fully.
Why was that?
‘Could it be that it needs time?’
If so…
I hastily looked around to see if Kaelion and Caius were present. The place was large, with people appearing on all sides, staring at the groom and bride in the middle of the opening of the courtyard. Everyone was dressed in red, and everyone wore the same unnerving and creepy smile.
Finding them wasn’t exactly easy, but…
“There!’
I found them after a few seconds of looking.
Kaelion stood amidst a row of people positioned toward the southern side of the enormous courtyard, while Caius was stationed on the eastern side, each occupying their respective places.
As if they had the same idea as me, they also looked around before inevitably noticing me. Their expression changed subtly.
‘Good, it looks like they aren’t fully controlled. Partially just like me.’
I sighed in relief and slightly shifted my foot forward.
Flick, flick, flick-!
That proved to be a terrible idea.
Almost instantly after I made a move, the heads of the people around me snapped in my direction. Their unnerving stares rooted me in place, leaving me holding my breath as an eerie silence settled over the scene.
Flick!
In the distance, I noticed the same thing happening for Caius and Kaelion and my legs trembled faintly.
……This is messed up.’
I didn’t have much time to dwell on the situation.
Seeing things turn like this, I clenched my teeth and checked my skill window. My expression fell when I saw that ‘Eyes of the Seer’ was still gray.
‘Damn it!’
With no other choice, I visualized a green orb.
Swoosh!
In seconds, I forced my way out of the spot.
Flick, flick!
Heads continued to turn sharply in my direction, their stares tightening my chest with a suffocating sense of dread.
An invisible pressure seemed to weigh down on me, prompting me to take deep and uneven breaths. Forcing myself to focus, I ignored the atmosphere and fixed my gaze on the strings attached to my arms.
Taking another deep breath, I visualized the red orb with all my concentration and pulled down.
Snap-!
The treads snapped, and I was finally free from the restraints.
…That also marked the start of the puppet’s movements.
Cre Creak! Creak-!
A creaking sound filled the air as the people stiffly started to move, their hands and feet pulling up in weird doll-like movements.
There were too many for me to count and I hastily looked in the other’s direction.
They appeared to be in a similar situation. Looking at the two sides, they both looked at me and with a look of understanding, Caius suddenly took a step forward and his eyes turned
murky white.
“Cease your movement at once.”
In the time it took for one to blink, the surroundings faded, turning completely white.
All the people stopped moving and Caius’s face turned pale. Holding onto his mouth, he looked in Kaelion and my direction.
“L-let’s go.”
I nodded and tensed my calves, appearing right where he was in a second.
“Are you okay?”
“…Ukh.”
Caius held his mouth and dashed out of the white world that was his domain.
“T-they’re weaker than the one we faced before. Be… careful. It-it’s not over.”
“I know.”
How could I not know?
Had it been the same people from before, we wouldn’t have been able to get this far. They were all more compact, and they completely suppressed us with their numbers. The people
here were much weaker than them.
Even so, their collective pressure was no joke.
We didn’t have much time. We had to get out of this place as fast as possible.
“Where should we go?”
Catching up from behind, Kaelion looked around and eventually fixed his gaze on one side of
the building.
“…There?”
We were currently inside an enormous courtyard, surrounded by buildings from all sides with
no way out. The only plausible option seemed to be entering one of the buildings, but none of
us knew the layout of the place.
How exactly could we get out from there?
‘Brute our way out?’
I quickly shook my head as soon as the thought entered my mind. Judging from the material
of the building, that appeared unlikely.
Then…?
“I… don’t think we have enough time to think about what we should be doing.”
Looking back, Kaelion’s face tightened.
“Let’s hurry up in and find our way out from there.”
“Okay.”
Though I didn’t look back, seeing Caius’s face turn pale, I could sense that his domain was on
the verge of collapsing.
Moving down a little, I placed his hand over my shoulder and helped him forward.
“Let’s go.”
“…Kh!”
Clank!
Arriving at the nearest door, Kaelion smashed it open with his foot as he scanned the dimly lit
hall. His expression froze as his gaze fell upon the long wooden stairs leading to the second
floor.
The air grew heavy.
Especially at the sight that greeted us above.
At the top of the stairs, countless heads turned toward us, their eyes eerily hollow,
expressionless, and still-like lifeless mannequins.
Cre Creak-
The unsettling silence was broken only by the creaking of the wooden floorboards beneath
our feet, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Something in the air felt wrong-
wrong in a way that sent a chill crawling up my spine.
“This way!”
Kaelion pointed towards a large wooden door and rushed ahead.
His eyes grew a deep shade of red as his entire body popped and cracked.
Boom-!
The door split apart under his force, and he hastily looked around.
“Damn it…!”
His expression fell quickly upon seeing that the room was a dead end. A heavy silence fell over
us shortly
after.
Thump!
“!!”
One that was shattered by a loud thumping sound.
Flicking our heads, our eyes fell on the nearby windows where several people appeared, their
eyes widening to the point where I felt my hand shiver.
“What now?”
I looked around, my eyes scanning my surroundings.
There were only two doors. The one that led to the outside, and the one that led to this room.
Besides the stairs, there was no other way out.
“S-stairs…”
As my mind raced, Caius managed to force out a word.
“Hm?”
Looking down at him, Caius flatly replied.
“W-we can’t be surrounded if we go up. It’s.., too narrow. Huu. If we fight them there, we
have a higher chance of making it out.”
“Oh!”
Caius was right.
The stairs couldn’t hold that many people. While the dolls were strong individually, they
weren’t actually stronger than either of us. The only reason we had so much trouble with them was because of the sheer number of them.
If we didn’t have to fight so many of them, then…
“Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
Neither three of us hesitated.
Keeping Caius close to me, the three of us rushed toward the stairs.
Cre Creak-
As expected, the stairs were filled with people, but…
Bang!
“Ahh!”
They posed no real trouble for Kaelion who managed to push them back with brute force
alone. I wasn’t idle either.
Lifting my hand, I summoned hands from beneath the ground, rising with a violent force and
clutching onto several of the surrounding figures.
Bang, Bang-!
At the same time, I tried cutting the threads connected to them, but right as I cut them, they
sharply reattached to the dolls in a matter of seconds. ‘Damn it!’
Things would’ve been easier had it worked.
“Kh…!”
“Ueh!”
Together with Kaelion’s sharp strikes and my own efforts, we just barely managed to carve a
narrow path through the swarm, forcing our way forward inch by inch.
The sounds of feet scraping against the floor, the sudden thud of bodies hitting the ground,
and the eerie quiet of the unmoving gaze filled the space around us.
We were close to breaking through.
“Quick!”
Bang-!
And soon enough, an opening appeared.
We didn’t waste a single second. The moment the opening appeared, I grabbed both Kaelion
and Caius while a bright green orb appeared in my mind.
A sharp pain invaded my mind, but I ignored it and just focused on my continuously
expanding calves.
Half a second later…
Swoosh!
The air twisted and my legs felt like they suddenly exploded.
“Ukh!”
Thump! Holding onto my mouth to stifle the ragged breaths, I stumbled down a few steps
before finally collapsing to a stop. The pain in my calves hit me like a wave-sudden, searing
as if they had just exploded from the effort.
‘Ah, this is bad…’
I could hardly move.
Each time I took a step, one of my muscles would start to squirm.
….I would’ve been fine if it was just myself, but two people?’
I clenched my teeth and silently endured the pain. Looking up, I paused when I saw Kaelion
and Caius staring in the same direction.
Looking back, my heart sank as I caught sight of the swarm-countless figures or more like puppets, clawing and scrambling over one another in a frenzy as their limbs moved
awkwardly.
My breath paused, and just as I turned to shout a warning, the words froze in my throat.
Catching sight of what they were seeing, I also stopped for a second.
“This…”
Kaelion and Caius both looked at me.
“We have to go there.”
“…We have no choice.”
“But…”
Caius and Kaelion looked behind and stopped whatever I was about to say.
Then…
Without waiting for a word from me, the two bent over and gripped the edges of the trapdoor,
yanking it open. Creak-! A faint creak echoed, revealing a dark, narrow stairway of aged wooden planks spiraling down into the darkness below.
The faint smell of damp wood and stale air wafted up, filling my nostrils as Kaelion and Caius
hurried down.
“Hurry!”
“Ah, yes…”
Stumbling forward, I rushed down the stairs as Caius and Kaelion closed the trapdoor behind
me.
Bang!
“Go, quick! We don’t know how long we have!”
Kaelion grabbed me by the shoulder and helped me down the stairs.
Considering the state I was in, this was a big help.
“Haa.. Haa… Haa..”
As we descended the stairs, our hurried breaths reverberated through the narrow space, filling
the surrounding air.
In the silence, it felt stifling.
But the silence didn’t last long. With a muffled ‘bang’, we knew that the trapdoor above
shattered, and the puppets were coming.
We hurried down faster.
“H-how long left?”
“There, look!”
With Kaelion pointing forward, we all took notice of a small opening that flashed with a dim
orange glow. Our eyes lit up and we moved towards the point.
But just as we crossed the opening, it all came crashing down.
“No…”
11
“Ah.”
A dead end.
What greeted us was a dead end.
Thump! Thump-!
The muffled thuds of footsteps behind us grew steadily louder, each echo carving through the
narrow space like the tick of a clock.
My heart sank as I looked back. “This…”
We were screwed.
Scr-
Tik, tik-
A soft ticking sound pulled my attention, and my head whipped toward the source.
In the distance stood an aged figure, his presence was clear despite the dim lighting. His long
white beard flowed down his chest, and his hair, tied neatly in a ponytail nicely framed his
face.
Holding onto a pocket watch, he looked in our direction. “Time’s almost up,” he mumbled, shifting his attention toward the entrance which was soon
swarmed by puppets.
Tik.
Staring at the clock, he once again looked at us.
“Come find me again after the reset.”
“Eh?”
Reset?
What was he…!?
My expression froze, a chill creeping over me as Kaelion’s and Caius’s faces similarly changed.
Around us, the puppets stopped in unison, their movements stopped as though someone had
hit pause on the entire scene. For a moment, silence hung heavy in the air, broken only by our
shallow breaths.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it a thin, glinting string descending from above.
Before I could react, it wrapped around my arms and legs.
“This…”
By the time I realized what it was, I was already moving on my own.
The other puppets also started moving, going all the way back up the stairs as I turned my
head to look at the old man.
“Wait! What do-”
“Like I said, find me after the reset.”
With those words, the old man turned around and faded into the darkness.
I tried to reach out to him but I was too exhausted and before I knew it, I was back in the
courtyard. Back in the same position as before.
Back to the start.
Thu Thump!
The drums started playing.