There Are No Humans in the Monster Company

Without a doubt, everything had gone relatively well.

Or at least, that was what I believed.

Even those endless corridors eventually had an end if one kept walking long enough.

And at the end of those corridors covered in bars, blood, and flesh, there was a door.

And when we opened it, we found a completely different space.

‘A forced labor workshop?’

Probably.

There were old lockers lined up against the walls, broken desks and cabinets, pieces of old machinery, and fragments of rusted metal larger than the palm of a hand.

And everywhere there was blood, chunks of flesh, severed knees, and twisted fingers.

Dust had settled over all that chaos.

Like someone’s memories.

Remains that had already died, yet still remained there, corroded by erosion.

Director Mok silently took out the extractor from within his clothes.

The indicator light on the device glowed a faint red.

It was approximately ten percent full.

“……”

He observed the extractor in silence for a few seconds.

Then he suddenly raised his head.

And his gaze drifted toward empty space.

I became curious about what he was looking at and followed the direction of his eyes.

But all I saw was a blood-soaked wall.

The wall was stained a dark red.

And in one corner, a piece of flesh resembling an ear slowly writhed.

‘What is he looking at?’

Director Mok answered in a low voice.

“There is someone.”

“……Excuse me?”

“Besides us. They belong to another organization. It’s strange. If possible, it would be better not to encounter them.”

His voice remained calm.

But the meaning of his words was entirely different.

The fact that there was someone else in this place.

That meant the existence of a variable impossible to control.

“I will temporarily change our route.”

“Yes.”

Director Mok put the extractor away once more.

Supervisor Shik tilted his head.

And I shrugged while pretending to maintain a calm expression.

Then the three of us opened the next door.

Creeeeak.

The heavy iron door slowly opened.

And another dark corridor appeared.

At that moment.

“Huh?”

I froze.

Director Mok and Supervisor Shik had disappeared.

“……What…? What the hell…?”

I was alone.

Completely alone.

With a certainty so absolute it was unbearable.

The door was closed.

No.

It wasn’t even closed.

It had disappeared.

The door we had just entered through had vanished without a trace.

In its place, there was only a dead-end wall.

‘Fuck.’

The smell of decay saturated the air.

The floor was covered with dried remains of flesh.

Barred cells stretched along both sides of the corridor.

And grotesque voices continued leaking from within them.

The structure was similar to that of the previous hallway.

But the lighting here was much dimmer.

“……Kill me…… kill me…… kill meee……”

“PleasesavememomanddadarewaitingformeI’mnotaprisonerItoldyouIwasjustgoingtoschoolImissyoumomhelpmedad”

“Hihihihihihihihi……”

I swallowed again.

My stomach felt unsettled.

Neither the pulse of the bone pen nor the warmth of the rosary were of much help.

My survival instinct kept hammering at my mind.

‘I’m alone.’

This was bad.

This was not a place where someone could be alone.

I could not be here without Director Mok or Supervisor Shik.

By myself, I could do nothing.

— You are trash.

That was when it happened.

Thunk.

Thunk.

I heard it.

Somewhere in the corridor.

The sound of metal boots striking the floor.

Slow, steady footsteps.

Thunk.

Thunk.

It was a prison guard.

Thunk.

Thunk.

The sound was approaching.

Slowly.

But without stopping.

It was coming directly toward me.

‘An escape route?’

The corridor was completely straight.

A kind of endless dead-end passage.

The door I had entered through no longer existed.

And from the opposite end, a prison guard was slowly advancing.

I literally had nowhere to go.

‘…Damn it.’

The moment I inhaled, the footsteps stopped.

The guard had detected my presence.

I looked around.

Cells to the left and right.

Indescribable things stirred behind the bars.

In one of them was a tongue as long as a person.

In another, an armless man repeatedly slammed his head against the wall while chanting over and over.

“Open it. Open it. Open it.”

“……Ah.”

Which of these cells could I hide in?

The answer was simple.

None of them.

The exit had disappeared.

And escape was impossible.

‘Then there’s only one option left.’

I lowered my gaze to the corridor floor.

Countless corpses were piled on top of one another.

Flesh.

Blood.

Entrails.

Skin.

Bones.

Rotting remains stuck to the floor.

I bit my lip and stretched out my hand.

I no longer had time to think.

I gathered handfuls of flesh and human remains and threw them over my body.

Then I buried myself within that pile.

An unimaginable stench pierced my lungs.

It was not simply the smell of flesh and blood.

It was like being swallowed by a solidified mass of suffering and terror.

I buried my face in the blood.

Twisted my body until it matched the posture of a corpse.

Bent my arms as though they were broken.

And forced one leg into a crooked angle.

‘It has to believe I’m dead.’

I even eliminated the sound of my breathing.

The effort of keeping my chest from moving sent cold sweat running down my back.

Thunk.

The guard’s footsteps echoed at the end of the corridor.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

“……”

I held my breath.

It felt like my brain was about to explode.

Thunk.

Thunk.

The footsteps stopped.

‘It’s right in front of me.’

I felt a damp breath.

The guard stood motionless beside me for several seconds.

Then it slowly turned around.

And then.

Thunk.

Thunk.

It started walking again.

My lips moved almost imperceptibly.

I opened my eyes and slightly turned my head.

I could see the guard’s back.

The monster continued walking calmly down the corridor.

And when it seemed like it was about to collide with the wall, the wall simply absorbed it.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

The sound gradually faded away.

Even then, I did not move.

My entire body was covered in blood and chunks of flesh.

And it was not pain that was suffocating me.

It was disgust.

‘Did it leave…?’

I slowly sat up from the bloody mass.

Rotten blood dripped from my body.

I was so covered in blood and human remains that I looked like a living corpse.

The metallic stench of blood had adhered to me like a nauseating layer, and within it, I carefully tried to catch my breath.

‘Good. If I stay still a little longer and then move…’

From somewhere in the hallway came the creak of a door opening.

Someone.

Or something.

Had appeared again.

Just as I was about to throw myself back onto the floor and pretend to be dead, I heard a voice.

“Uh… excuse me… is someone there?”

My heart jumped.

And at the same time, I thought only one thing.

Could prison guards talk?

And with such a young voice, at that?

Instinctively, I lowered myself and hid among the corpses again.

As I did, I replayed that youthful voice still echoing in my ears.

“Is… is someone there…?”

It was obvious.

The voice of a teenage boy, probably between fifteen and eighteen years old.

I slowly raised my head.

And then, at the end of the corridor, around a bent corner, a boy appeared.

A short school uniform jacket.

The tattered remains of a torn shirt.

Bloodstained pants and sneakers.

And in his left hand, he tightly gripped a small metal pipe he had probably picked up somewhere.

He was too young.

‘…A student. Middle school or high school?’

More specifically, he looked like a dying high school student.

His bloodied face was covered in bruises.

His left eye was so swollen he could barely open it.

And one of his knees appeared twisted.

Then our eyes met.

“Ah… I…”

“……”

“I… I was just on my way to school and… when I woke up… I was here…”

His voice cracked.

It was the voice of a terrified child struggling not to cry.

I had risen from among the corpses covered in blood.

And upon seeing me, the boy stumbled backward in shock.

“Ah-ah! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Sorry for talking to you for no reason!”

“……”

I slowly opened my mouth.

“What’s your name?”

The boy pressed his lips together.

After hesitating for several seconds, he answered in a low voice.

“…Lee Seong-hoon.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Huh?”

“I’m asking how you got here.”

At my words, Lee Seong-hoon flinched and began stammering.

“I just… uh… I was in the library. I was going to the bathroom and then I saw a strange hallway…”

“And then?”

“I think I passed out for a moment. When I woke up… I was here…”

My mind began to work.

‘He’s a completely normal civilian.’

If the Anomalous Disaster Management Department existed to rescue civilians in disasters like this, they probably had protocols for situations like these.

But I was nothing more than a rookie employee at an absurd company infested with monsters.

“Tell me how long you’ve been here.”

“I DON’T KNOW! I really don’t know! I think I saw the sun rise several times, but… maybe that was a dream too…”

That was when something caught my attention.

Something visible beneath the collar of his clothes.

An obvious wound on the back of his neck.

Perhaps he had been attacked by a prison guard.

The blood was still fresh and had not yet dried.

When I saw it, I closed my mouth.

The boy was still trembling.

He could barely remain standing and leaned against the wall.

His eyes constantly shifted between distrust and hope as he looked at me.

Depending on what I did now, he might live or die.

‘I can barely take care of myself…’

But I still had not fully adapted to this company’s madness to the point where I could ignore such a desperate look.

Maybe it was also because I was afraid of being alone myself.

I sighed silently and cautiously extended a hand.

“…My name is Jeong Haeil. There are people I know in here. If we can find them, we can get out together.”

At that moment, his pupils widened.

He said nothing.

But I could read it clearly.

The emotion of having survived.

As I looked at that mixture of terror and relief in his eyes, I realized something.

It was the first time I had seen a genuinely human emotion inside this hellish prison.

“A-are you… a real person?”

“Yes. Probably.”

“Huh…?”

The boy was acting exactly the way I had when I first entered the company.

Without saying anything, I placed a hand on his shoulder.

He was trembling so badly that he seemed unable to control his knees.

At first, he had looked at me as though he had found salvation.

And now he was looking at me as though begging for help.

‘I can’t even protect myself, and now I have to carry a kid along.’

The sticky blood and entrails were still covering me.

Prison guards could appear at any moment.

And above all, we were still inside a distorted zone.

A place where even standing still to survive could become a crime.

Even so, I tried to wear the calmest expression possible to reassure him.

“It’s alright. We’re still okay. If you just stick close to me, you might not die.”

“…Really?”

“I said you can survive. I don’t know under what conditions, but you can.”

I tried to soften my words.

And apparently, it worked.

Trembling, Lee Seong-hoon nodded beside me.

I could hear him suppressing a sob.

We began walking down the corridor again.

The flesh still covered the floor.

The screams still clung to the walls like stains.

Whispers and cries continued leaking from the cells.

But I ignored them.

And Lee Seong-hoon, terrified, did not speak again either.

I turned my gaze toward the cells.

Closed iron doors.

Darkness from which grotesque sounds emerged.

And a concentrated smell of blood.

Without saying anything, I looked at Lee Seong-hoon again.

“Hyung…”

I slightly turned my head.

“Takemewithyoutakemewithyoutakemewithyouyoucomeintooyoucomeintooyoucomeintoo”

“Thatdaytheteachersaidwewereallsinnersandhesaidwehadtobepunishedandhesaidwewouldallcontinuetobesinnersuntilthesaviorwhodevourstheworldarrived”

“LetusreceivesalvationandgotoheavenwewillgototheheavenofthesavedtheGreatBeingwilldevourusall”

The grotesque voices continued flowing endlessly.

I let out a sigh and spoke in a low voice.

“Ignore them.”

“…Huh?”

“They’re probably beings being eroded by Gangsol Prison. We’re not. I can’t do anything for them.”

It was ironic.

The very same words Director Mok had told me a short while ago were now the words I was repeating.

Lee Seong-hoon hesitated for several seconds as he looked at the countless cells stretching out on both sides.

Then he looked back at me.

“It doesn’t matter who’s in there. It’s not our concern.”

My tone was firm.

Lee Seong-hoon chewed on his lips for several seconds and then lowered his head.

Finally, he spoke cautiously.

“…Understood, hyung. Thank you.”

I did not respond.

But for some reason, the sticky sensation beneath my feet became a little more bearable.

We continued moving down the corridor.

And after who knows how long…

At the end of that hallway covered in viscous darkness, a fork in the path appeared.

It looked like the enormous open mouth of some gigantic creature.