A bizarre supermarket, just moments before closing.
The lights go out, and the store goes dark.
Na-na-na-na, na-na-nan-na-na-na, na-na-nan~
Amidst the lively signature jingle, I could feel the panicked breathing of the high schooler whose mouth I’ve covered, transmitted as vibrations.
My entire body was being taut with tension
And beyond the noise of music and those vibrations, in the distance, a faint scraping sound sets my nerves on edge…
Scre-e-e-e-k.
A metal door opening.
If there’s a metal door somewhere in this supermarket and not glass…
That’s the sound of employees coming out.
‘Ha.’
Swallowing a rising groan, I turned my head and peeked out from behind the display…
Waddle, waddle.
Figures in store uniforms start appearing in the dark interior, one by one…
Like balloons shaped to mimic human forms, these bizarre ‘employees’ waddled along.
[ LOOKY MART ]
The logo of Looky Mart, imitating Lucky Mart.
A clumsy mock-up pinned to their caps and chests flickered briefly under the light, then faded back into the darkness.
In that moment.
“Hurry, let’s go. They said they’re closing.”
“Got it.”
Someone passed by the liquor section right beside our hiding spot, heading to the checkout.
“…!”
It’s two or three of those past-era shoppers still in the store.
Then… one of the ‘employees’ who entered the liquor corner bumped into them, lightly.
Tap.
“Oh, sorry.”
The employee’s head turned.
“Welcome to Looky Mart!”
“Let’s hurry.”
“Thank you for shopping with us!”
The shoppers felt nothing amiss.
They just walked past the employee and went on to the checkout…
The high schooler whose mouth I was covering kept breathing raggedly.
“Goodbye, dear customer!”
The employee figure, head still turned, creaked out of the liquor corner.
Then, in that strange, shuffling gait, it headed down the aisle again…
Past the snack corner.
Right beside the display we were crouching behind.
Screek, screek.
“……”
“……”
The eerie noise sounded like balloons rubbing against each other.
We practically flattened ourselves to the floor, holding our breath.
Screek… screek.
The sound grew distant…
“……”
‘Ha.’
Tap-tap!
One of the high schoolers tapped the hand covering their mouth.
He was a tearful mess but he continued to keep quiet.
“You won’t scream anymore, right?”
He nodded silently.
When I let go, the student gasped as if he’d been suffocating.
“Th-those weird employees… We can’t let them see us, right? Right? The leaflet said…”
That’s right.
To survive in Looky Mart after closing, you have to move around like you’re in a survival horror game.
But… is it really safe dragging these two clueless teenagers around?
‘No matter how I look at it, the gear I was given doesn’t seem prepared for that scenario.’
They must have assumed we’d get out during operating hours.
Surely the Disaster Management Bureau has some contingency plan in place, but it still felt like there were too many variables.
‘Damn it.’
Cold sweat trickled down my chin.
Should we just hide out? What’s Agent Bronze planning? It looks like maybe we should stay hidden for now?
Wait!
‘He seems like he’s about to take out that employee…’
Agent Bronze, pistol in hand, was eyeing the departing employee quietly.
It looked like he was plotting an escape route but that employee might be in the way.
…Should I help him?
If Braun were here, I’d have asked him to activate his ‘Lights Out’ ability… No. The fact that this method, which I couldn’t even use right now, was the first thing that popped into my head as my top priority… I had to cut that train of thought right there.
‘Think, just think…’
I racked my brain desperately, trying to sift through my memories of the <Dark Exploration Records> as fast as I could.
So, after closing time, Looky Mart…
……
No, wait.
[ 20 : 25 ]
“Agent…!”
I crawled over to Agent Bronze and whispered urgently.
“There are still five minutes left until closing. Business hours aren’t fully over yet!”
“…!”
“The doors should still be open.”
We can leave right now!
Agent Bronze quickly glanced past the escalator by the checkout. Seeing that the escalator out of the basement floor was still running, he made a quick decision.
“Let’s move out. Now.”
Then, seizing the high schooler who’d latched onto him, he started moving swiftly.
“…!”
Right. Each of us needed to take one.
I turned back to the high schooler whose mouth I’d just been covering.
He shook his head in panic.
“I’ll run on my own, I’m faster than them…!”
“……”
Maybe I should’ve tried to look a bit more trustworthy? No, this isn’t the time to think about that!
I started running along with the high schooler, pushing from behind so he wouldn’t fall behind.
We dashed past the empty checkout counters, barreling through the escalator where shoppers were still riding up, making a mad dash toward the exit before closing time.
“Ah!”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I think I missed a step.”
Unaware of the crowd, we jostled our way between the shoppers, heading for the exit just before the store closed.
And at the first-floor entrance…
“……”
Something was standing in front of the doors.
It looked like it used to be a cardboard cutout advertisement.
The classic, trustworthy grin of a blonde, middle-aged caucasian man, presumably the famous entrepreneur who founded Lucky Mart, giving a thumbs-up.
But…
It was alive.
– Mmph!! Uuuurgh! Mmph, mmph! Uurgh!
Whoever it was had been forcibly flattened into a shape like a standee, as if a human corpse had been pressed into a two-dimensional form and then reanimated.
Though it was smiling, its eyes were still rolling around, tears and saliva dripping.
It was looking at us.
…It recognized us.
Its eyes roamed desperately, as if begging for help—or perhaps trying to pass on its torment to someone else—and the standee shook…… Fuck!
“Hiiek.”
“Quiet.”
Up ahead, I could see Agent Bronze calming the high schooler he was guiding.
‘Ghost’ was such an all-encompassing word. It lets you encapsulate that kind of monstrosity in one term.