I Became a Professional Horror Story Cleaner

“A moment ago, something serious almost happened. How about you give up?”

“No, Hanmu. What the hell do you have hidden on that phone to go this far?”

“I already told you. My life.”

“Hmmmm…….”

Jeong Dohan, looking rather pitiful with the handkerchief still hanging from his mouth, furrowed his brow deeply and stared intently at me.

“Fine. After all, everyone has something more important than their own life!”

It wasn’t that it was more important than my life, but that it was literally my lifeline……

No, forget it.

As long as I had managed to convince him, that was enough.

Now that I thought about it, Jeong Dohan had his own quirks, not all that different from Myeong Haebin’s.

I moved away from Jeong Dohan, who was smiling cheerfully, and began following the trail.

“I think I’m starting to get an idea of how this exhibition works.”

How many people had this Horror Story devoured?

All I had to do was think about all those hands.

Imagining that the true cause behind so many missing-person posters I had seen on the streets could be Horror Stories like this sent a chill down my spine.

“The next work will probably use human bodies too.”

“I like you, Hanmu. You’ve got character.”

“You don’t have to like me.”

“How cold~.”

“Hyung, stop bothering Hanmu.”

Before turning the corner, I lightly moved my ring finger to check the nerves in my left hand, where the bleeding had already stopped, and mentally prepared myself.

I wouldn’t be surprised.

No matter what appeared.

“…….”

I want to make it clear that not being surprised and feeling physiological revulsion are two completely different things.

Jeong Dohyeon spoke first, and Jeong Dohan continued.

“The path is blocked.”

“And the thing blocking it has quite a peculiar shape. Don’t you think?”

“…….”

I was speechless.

Dozens of faces with their eyes gently closed were arranged in a perfectly divided grid.

Like [Ten Thousand Left Hands], it had a dismantling marker with the image of a rat attached to it, so it was clearly another work.

However, this one was a little different from the previous work.

The pinkish skin had a lively color, as though blood were still circulating through it, and the nostrils slowly rose and fell as though they were breathing.

They possessed so much vitality that it seemed as though they could open their eyes and start talking at any moment.

“The trail ends here.”

The black hand’s tracks had left their final mark in front of those faces before disappearing completely.

The docent began an explanation no one had asked for.

“This work is called [Wall of Faces]. It is composed of 144 skins meticulously separated from real human skulls.”

“Is that all?”

“Because we have preserved the characteristic of life possessed by humans, it is possible to experience the final memory engraved in each face.”

Life……?

Did that mean they could bite us or something?

With a faint hope, I asked.

“How can we get through this wall?”

“You must proceed through here toward Exhibition Hall 2.”

The docent extended his hand and pointed toward the wall formed by those peach-colored faces.

‘Through this wall?’

That meant the black hand had headed toward Exhibition Hall 2.

Wait.

Then……

“Where does the staff door in front of the ticket booth lead?”

“It leads to Exhibition Hall 3.”

So if we wanted to catch up with those two bastards who had abandoned us, we would also have to get through this wall.

How far had they gotten already?

After going through all this, I had no intention of calmly handing them the credit.

Fine.

I’d grit my teeth and get through this thing.

“Okaaay. So we have to cross this. Right?”

“Yes.”

The enormous [Wall of Faces], arranged in a 12 × 12 grid, was approximately four meters tall.

It wasn’t so tall that climbing it would be impossible, but on that completely flat wall, the only things we could use as footholds were human faces.

“We could boost each other over it, but someone would have to stay behind.”

“Going over it probably isn’t the correct route.”

“Why do you think that?”

“If the hand had gone over the top, it should have left some kind of mark on the wall or the faces. It’s too clean.”

“So that’s what you think…….”

Jeong Dohan approached the [Wall of Faces] with a smile.

“Then we just have to check whether we can pass through it.”

Squelch.

Jeong Dohan’s hand sank into the [Wall of Faces].

It was as though he hadn’t inserted his hand between faces, but into a soft, liquid, peach-colored wall.

Completely oblivious to the nausea it was causing me, Jeong Dohan calmly moved his hand around inside the wall.

“I can feel a solid wall farther in…….”

Jeong Dohan frowned, apparently trying to gauge the depth of the [Wall of Faces].

Suddenly, his entire body trembled violently, and he yanked his arm back as though he had suffered a seizure.

“Urgh…… Hah, haah…….”

“What’s wrong?”

“This…… Tsk……. Ah, my head hurts. Are you really planning to go through this wall?”

Jeong Dohan pressed hard against his temples, as though trying to relieve his headache.

Why had he reacted like that?

‘Either way, if we want to get through this wall, we’ll have to touch it. Should I try with just my hand?’

I extended my hand and touched one of the faces.

I could feel its body temperature.

36.5 degrees.

The same lukewarm warmth you feel when touching another person’s skin.

The fine hairs growing on the skin, the wrinkles, and the sticky sweat enveloped my fingertips.

‘So far, it seems fine.’

Is it something deeper inside?

Just as I thought that and sank my arm in up to the wrist……

‘What is this place? Something is wrong.’

That wasn’t my thought.

I ‘heard’ a voice higher-pitched than mine, a murmur spoken while trembling with fear.

The instant I tried to pull back in shock, the warm surface of the [Wall of Faces], resembling a mass of flesh, began speaking to me.

It wasn’t so tall that climbing it would be impossible, but on that completely flat wall, the only things we could use as footholds were human faces.

“We could boost each other over it, but someone would have to stay behind.”

“Going over it probably isn’t the correct route.”

“Why do you think that?”

“If the hand had gone over the top, it should have left some kind of mark on the wall or the faces. It’s too clean.”

“So that’s what you think…….”

Jeong Dohan approached the [Wall of Faces] with a smile.

“Then we just have to check whether we can pass through it.”

Squelch.

Jeong Dohan’s hand sank into the [Wall of Faces].

It was as though he hadn’t inserted his hand between faces, but into a soft, liquid, peach-colored wall.

Completely oblivious to the nausea it was causing me, Jeong Dohan calmly moved his hand around inside the wall.

“I can feel a solid wall farther in…….”

Jeong Dohan frowned, apparently trying to gauge the depth of the [Wall of Faces].

Suddenly, his entire body trembled violently, and he yanked his arm back as though he had suffered a seizure.

“Urgh…… Hah, haah…….”

“What’s wrong?”

“This…… Tsk……. Ah, my head hurts. Are you really planning to go through this wall?”

Jeong Dohan pressed hard against his temples, as though trying to relieve his headache.

Why had he reacted like that?

‘Either way, if we want to get through this wall, we’ll have to touch it. Should I try just touching it a little?’

When I brought my hand close to one of the faces, I felt body heat.

36.5 degrees. It was the same lukewarm warmth you feel when touching another person’s skin.

The soft hairs growing on the skin, the wrinkles, and the sticky sweat enveloped my fingertips.

‘So far, it seems fine.’

Is it deeper inside?

Just as I thought that and sank my arm in up to the wrist……

‘What is this place? Something is wrong.’

That wasn’t my thought.

I ‘heard’ a voice higher-pitched than mine, a murmur spoken while trembling with fear.

The instant I tried to pull back in shock, the warm surface of the [Wall of Faces], resembling a mass of flesh, began speaking to me.

‘Excuse me, where is the exit?’

My breath caught.

‘Please let me out, save me, it hurts!’

‘Honey, where are you? You were with me just a moment ago. Is my skin melting right now?’

They weren’t sounds I heard with my ears.

Through the facial nerves connected to my fingertips, the extreme terror and raw pain that complete strangers had experienced just before dying began flooding into me.

“Urgh, haah……!”

As the pain and despair of other people devoured my brain through those horrific hallucinations and phantom pains, the docent’s grotesque explanation echoed like an auditory hallucination.

“Because memories and life are extremely precious things to humans, we have eternally preserved the final instant in which they were most intensely alive. Don’t you find it wonderful? What do you think of the memory you are currently experiencing, belonging to Yoo Hajin, a twenty-two-year-old man?”

“Hanmu! That’s enough, get out of there!”

Jeong Dohan grabbed me around the waist and pulled hard.

Only then did my arm come free with a jerk, and I ended up collapsing onto the cold floor.

“Hanmu, are you okay?”

“Haah, haah…….”

I couldn’t breathe properly.

I crawled across the floor like an animal as tears that didn’t even feel like mine fell one after another.

‘This isn’t just a headache.’

The lukewarm body heat of that face still seemed to linger on the back of my hand, but I wiped my tear-soaked chin.

“There was…… a wall. And people’s memories too.”

My entire body was trembling.

The memories of people in their death throes were a concentration of terror I never wanted to experience again.

However, if the black hand had managed to get through, that meant there had to be an opening somewhere.

“……Let’s search. There has to be somewhere we can pass through.”

“My brother and I can search. Hanmu, you look pretty bad…….”

“Don’t we all feel the same thing anyway?”

All the [Wall of Faces] did to me was force me to experience the sensations and memories recorded in those faces, along with phantom pain.

It wasn’t actually causing any physical damage to my body.

Besides, I wasn’t the type of person who could leave all my work to others while I calmly watched from the sidelines.

“Dohan will take the left, Dohyeon the center, and I’ll take the right. Four columns each.”

I still felt as though the screams of those ‘faces’ were echoing inside my head.

But the more time we wasted, the farther away my phone and the Rats would get.

Jeong Dohan looked at my face, still covered in tears I hadn’t finished wiping away, and clapped his hands.

“Good! I really like that attitude. Man, it would’ve been great if Hanmu were one of our Dogs.”

“Fine. But we’ll leave the upper sections for last. We can check them after we finish all the lower rows.”

“Yeah.”

Shit.

I had to put my hand back into that wall.

After getting my breathing under control, I repeated over and over inside my head.

‘I’m only feeling memories. My real body isn’t being attacked. Don’t get too immersed in other people’s memories.’

Exactly.

This isn’t happening to me.

“Hup!”

With that determination, I plunged my hand into the [Wall of Faces].

As expected, I immediately heard the voice of a dead person.

‘That’s makeup, right? How did they do it?’

Ignore it.

It’s not my memory.

But how far……?

‘At this rate they’ll cut off my wrist no please stop did I do something wrong I’ll give you whatever you want so please let me live it’s dark I can’t breathe it hurts they’re tearing the skin off my face my skin no please don’t do something so horrible it hurts it hurts it hurts AAAAAAH!’

The gut-wrenching screams and the sensation of having my skin torn off while still alive poured into my head like a waterfall.

I felt as though I were suffocating, contaminated by sensations and emotions that didn’t belong to me.

“Urgh, hah, haah…….”

There’s no space behind here.

Walk.

Don’t pay attention to the memories, feel along the wall.

Find an opening.

Don’t stop!

Lift your leg.

Lean your body forward.

Step back onto the floor.

Lift your leg.

Amid that torrent of emotions and sensations that felt as though it were about to make my head explode, I forced myself forward, step by step.

Even as my entire body experienced that avalanche of irrationality and despair, I relentlessly continued pursuing the one task I had to accomplish.

‘What the hell is this place I just never imagined it would be something like this save me save me save me.’

‘…….’

‘It’s a dream it has to be a dream all of this is a hallucination it hurts please what is this tell me it’s a nightmare Mom where are you I want to see you AAAAAAH my face my face!!’

Wait.

What was that?

My steps stopped abruptly.

With my eyes closed, I had been examining the faces one by one using only the sensations in my arm.

‘…….’

I couldn’t hear anything at all.

It was slightly cold, like a person whose body had begun to cool after death.

“I found it!”

The voice that sounded right in front of me startled me.

I opened my eyes and found Jeong Dohyeon directly in front of my face, completely covered in cold sweat.

“……I can’t hear anything. Did I find the right place?”

My head was so dizzy that I didn’t trust my reasoning to work properly, so I asked Jeong Dohyeon to check.

“Yes. Can’t you feel the air behind the wall?”

Only then did I notice the empty space behind that cooling face.

It wasn’t very large.

The dead face was in the center, and the open space around it was shaped like a cross.

That meant we would have to twist our bodies to get through.

“Just in case, I’ll go through first.”

Before I could stop him, Jeong Dohyeon began sinking into the wall.

First his elbow.

Then his shoulder, his chest, and finally his waist.

Thud.

I heard a small impact on the other side.

It seemed he had made it.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Can you come through first?”

‘First’?

That gave me a slightly bad feeling.

Jeong Dohan, who had finished checking his section of the wall, ran over to us.

“What? Did you find it? Dohyeon already went through?”

“Yes.”

“No wonder I couldn’t see him over there! This bastard left without saying anything to his older brother, huh?”

Without showing the slightest hesitation, Jeong Dohan shoved his arm and face directly into the [Wall of Faces] and passed through to the other side.

……This guy wasn’t afraid of anything.

How could he just stick his arm in like that after what we had just experienced?

I had to follow them too, but something was bothering me.

“Docent?”

“Would you like me to provide the explanation again?”

“No.”

There was something that didn’t quite add up.

“Is it correct that this work is meant to represent human life?”

“Yes, that is correct. This work preserves the characteristic of life possessed by humans and…….”

Exactly.

That.

I placed a finger beneath the cold face’s nose.

Unlike the others, it wasn’t breathing.

Looking at it more carefully, I also noticed that its skin was considerably paler.

This work preserved life in a horribly effective way.

Then why had only this face lost its life?

‘Simply because it serves as a passage to the next hall?’

Even if that were the case, there was no reason it had to be dead.

That contradicted the very intent of the work.

I grabbed the pale face’s lip and pulled it downward to open its mouth.

‘Excuse me.’

Feeling sticky fluids similar to those inside the mouth of someone who had been alive only moments ago, I inserted my hand into where its throat should have been.

Something was lodged there, as though it had accidentally swallowed a foreign object.

“Visitor, if you damage the work…….”

I ignored the docent and pulled out what I had found.

“Cough, cough, cough!”

The face, whose color had returned, began coughing violently.

The object I had extracted from its throat was a fist-sized stone covered in blood and bodily fluids.

It looked like marble.

Or perhaps some broken fragment.

“Why was something like this in there?”

“The face of Min Siyoung, age twenty-four, was a spare piece we brought from storage to repair the work. It seems it was defective after all.”

Had he just referred to a human body part as a ‘spare piece’ they had brought from storage?

While I tried to process that, the docent kindly extended his hand toward me.

“Thank you. Could you hand it to me? I will dispose of it.”

“Can I do it myself?”

“You may do so as well.”

The docent didn’t seem to have the slightest interest in that strange object.

“What is this?”

“…….”

Perhaps precisely because of that, I received no answer.

I didn’t know what it was, but should I take it with me?

I wrapped the mysterious stone in a tissue and tossed it into a corner of my bag.

Since I was taking too long, Jeong Dohan called out to me from the other side of the wall.

“Hanmu, are you okay? Did something happen?”

“No. It’s nothing. I’m coming.”

Although the face had regained its color, it was still possible to pass through the [Wall of Faces].

The sensation was like being trapped inside a warm, noisy, liquid slime.

‘Don’t lie this isn’t a work save me save me Team Leader it looks like exactly one piece of the work is missing can I check it please it hurts so much I want to go home…….’

I thought I heard a strange memory among all the others, but before I could focus on it, Jeong Dohan grabbed my arm when it appeared on the other side and pulled me all the way through.

“……Kugh!”

Well.

It was probably just one of the company employees who had fallen victim to this Horror Story.

“Why did you take so long? It looked like you were talking to the docent.”

“I couldn’t help falling back on my professional habits.”

“Did you go clean its face or something?”

“Something like that. Is there any trace of the black hand?”

“Ah, over there.”

The black hand had definitely passed through the wall.

Its finger marks continued across the floor of the hall.

‘What the hell happened to the floor?’

The floor on the other side of the [Wall of Faces] was a complete mess.

The tiles, which had surely originally been white, had been turned into a swamp of blood, an unknown transparent liquid, and yellowish masses.

And that wasn’t all.

“What? Why is that thing still here?”

In the distance, I could see a sign pointing toward Exhibition Hall 2.

However, the hand was still there…….

Was it because the floor was slippery?

The hand circled around the hall and leaped from side to side as though performing acrobatics while escaping from us.

On top of that, every time the phone’s center of gravity shifted, it wobbled dangerously.

“It looks like it’s mocking us. Let’s catch it already.”

“Wait, Hanmu.”

Jeong Dohan’s hand suddenly appeared in front of me and blocked my path.

If he made me lose another perfect opportunity, I wasn’t going to let it slide.

But this time, he had a good reason to stop me.

“Look under your feet.”

[Life and Death]

Audio Guide

Less than ten steps from the [Wall of Faces] was a small fence that seemed to mark off an area.

“Life and Death? This entire huge area is part of a single work?”

“To be exact, I think it refers to the loom in the center.”

In the middle of that completely ruined floor stood an enormous loom.

It was built in a gleaming ivory color that contrasted dramatically with everything around it, interweaving the weft and warp to weave fabric one line at a time.

Surely that was its function.

After all, an enormous and elaborate piece of woven fabric hung behind the loom.

‘Could that loom alone have caused this entire mess?’

The answer was behind the loom.

There was a machine resembling a shredder.

Since it was also part of the work, it gleamed as though it had just come out of the factory.

‘If I want to recover my phone…… I have no choice but to enter the exhibition area of [Life and Death].’

I made up my mind.

Once I got my phone back, I’d have to put a case on it and tie it to my body or do whatever else it took to make sure something like this never happened again.