Editor’s Survival Guide - Chapter 203
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
A Survival Guide for Editors, Episode 203
ep28. Blooming School (5)
The long corridor was bathed entirely in red light.
This was the Blooming School.
I found a large poster on the bulletin board.
Let’s move quickly before the red flowers grow any further.
I pressed my back against the wall and peered into the next corridor.
A human-sized cocoon hung from the ceiling of the corridor.
Unable to pass, I pulled my body back.
Was it just my imagination, or had I felt something like this before?
After counting thirty seconds, I poked my head out again.
There was a column right in front of me.
No, that wasn’t a column, that was…….
* * *
The long corridor was bathed entirely in red light.
I found a large poster on the bulletin board.
Let’s move quickly before the red flowers grow any further.
I pressed my back against the wall and peered into the next corridor.
Instead of flowers, barbed wire-like thorns covered the corridor.
Unable to pass, I pulled my body back.
Was it just my imagination, or had I felt something like this before?
After counting thirty seconds, I poked my head out again.
There was a column right in front of me.
No, that wasn’t a column, that was…….
* * *
The long corridor was bathed entirely in red light.
A large poster on the bulletin board.
The next corridor.
Black shadows drifting in midair.
The sense of repetition.
Thirty seconds, then a column.
No, that wasn’t a column, that was…….
* * *
A red corridor.
A poster on the bulletin board.
The next corridor.
Acrid gray smoke.
The sense of repetition.
Thirty seconds, a column.
No, that wasn’t a column, that was…….
* * *
Red corridor, poster, next corridor.
A dancing ballerina.
Déjà vu, thirty seconds, a column.
* * *
Corridor, poster, corridor.
A long cloth with words written in red.
Déjà vu, thirty seconds, something staring down at me.
Crack—
* * *
“Ugh…….”
What’s happening?
Did they drag me into the Blooming School?
So abruptly, with my communication devices confiscated?
Damn it, how is this even possible?
……But somehow I’m so exhausted.
My head was spinning.
I wiped the itchy tip of my nose with the back of my hand, and blood came away on it.
A nosebleed?
I watched the blood drip and pressed a handkerchief to my nose.
I tried to survey my surroundings in that state, but I felt too dizzy.
Why is this happening?
I need to eat a glucose candy or something…….
I rummaged through my vest pocket and pulled out a candy case.
But…….
Rustle—
When I opened the case, there were no candies, only empty wrappers.
As if someone had already eaten them all and put back nothing but garbage.
“……?”
I could’ve sworn there were at least ten candies in here when I checked my belongings this morning. Who would pull a stunt like this…….
A stunt?
There’s no one around me who would do something like that.
Besides, I would’ve noticed someone taking the candy case out of my vest.
So how am I supposed to explain this…….
“Huh……?”
I looked down at the empty case and flinched.
……Could it be that I ate the candies?
A scene flickered through my mind like a fluorescent light stuttering on.
A scene of me tearing open this wrapper and taking out a candy in a place where red flowers bloomed profusely.
What is this? When did I do that…….
I couldn’t tell if this was a real memory or a dream or my imagination.
So I pressed my forehead and thought, and newly grown red flowers swayed at my waist.
I can’t let myself get buried in these flowers. I need to move.
I pushed through the thinly scattered flowers and crossed the corridor.
Then I stopped at the end of the corridor and looked into the bend ahead.
What is that…….
A kaleidoscopic mobile of some kind was moving in the air.
Colorful shapes spread and converged like looking through a kaleidoscope.
My dizziness was already bad, but looking at that made my eyes feel like they’d pop out.
I stepped back and leaned my back against the wall.
Then I breathed slowly and thought again.
About what that scene in my head was—the one of me tearing open the glucose candy.
It was too vivid to be a dream or imagination.
But the before-and-after don’t come to me, so I can’t call it my memory.
What on earth is it…….
“Ugh…….”
My head ached too much to focus my thoughts.
The nosebleed won’t stop either.
And red flowers touching my face now.
I need to get out of this corridor first.
I poked my head into the opposite corridor again.
But there was a column standing in front of me.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, I was lying beneath a field of overgrown flowers.
Around me, leaves and stems had grown densely.
And at their ends, red flowers hung.
I stared blankly at the underside of the blooming red flowers.
Is this a dream?
Paradise seemed to surround me in all directions with flowers, but beyond them was not an open sky—it was a shut ceiling.
I was so tired.
So I couldn’t tell well if this was a dream or reality.
I bit my lip.
I felt pain. Damn, is this reality?
Have I been dragged back into the Special Zone?
“Situation Room…….”
I pulled my left wrist up and forced my voice out.
But my Smartwatch was gone.
I steadied my hazy mind and checked my belongings.
Gone with the Smartwatch were my earpiece, communication tablet, and searchlight.
And my handkerchief.
Ah, I need to get my head together, but everything’s spinning.
I couldn’t stay awake any longer, so I finally lost consciousness.
* * *
What is this? Where am I?
A corridor with red flowers blooming everywhere.
And somehow it felt like I’d slept well and woken up.
Let me assess the situation first.
* * *
Assess the situation first.
Assess the situation first.
Assess the situation.
Assess the situation.
Situation.
Situation.
Situation.
Situations are given things.
Like a bonsai planted in a small pot.
Even a tree that grows straight bends sideways if you bind it with wire.
This is the story of all of us, including me, slowly going mad.
* * *
I pressed my back against the wall and peered into the next corridor.
The same space I’d already passed through.
An ordinary hallway inside a university building, with red flowers grown to calf height.
Fortunately, there seemed to be nothing unusual.
I slowly turned the corner and entered the next corridor.
Phew…… that was a decent start.
I walked down the corridor while staying on guard on all sides, then reached into my vest pocket.
I need to keep a record as I go.
How many corners I turn before I get out of here—I need to write that down…….
With that thought, I pulled out a pen and notebook.
But when I opened my notebook, half of its pages had been torn out.
What is this? A defective product?
No, it was a clean new one when I checked my belongings this morning.
“Huh……?”
Could it be that I tore this notebook?
I remember. I ripped the notebook.
But when?
Troubled by this strange discord, I flipped through the notebook.
The front of the palm-sized notebook had pages completely torn away, and the back was still clean.
But the moment I turned to the middle-to-back section, pages appeared that had turned completely black.
Other pages had a normal pale color, but this single page was blackened.
Looking at the paper covered in soot-like stains, I suddenly remembered.
Before, when I came out of the Circulating Library.
Some of the paper Cha Si-eon had written on inside the Library was also scorched like this.
Information from inside the Library was prohibited from being removed, and he’d said that if you write down its contents, the record is erased this way.
Why is there a trace of record erasure in my notebook?
Could it be that my memories have been cut out too?
A certain scene flickered past through the haze of doubt.
A scene of me pressing hard onto this notebook writing something.
“Hah…….”
I sat there numb for a moment, then tore out one page from the notebook.
Rip—
Then I pulled out a lighter and burned it.
The single page turned to ash, and I spread that ash with my fingertips.
Then I gently rubbed the next page after the blackened one with the ash.
Scrub— scrub—
The ash from my hand spread thinly across the paper.
And faint pen marks appeared.
The writing I’d pressed hard onto the previous page had left an indentation on the back.
But damn it.
That trace was all smudged too. I couldn’t read it.
Right, this is a space where if you write down information that’s not allowed to be removed, it will burn it away even if it’s a note in someone else’s pocket.
There’s no way such a crude trick would work.
“Damn…….”
I muttered my frustration.
But even my sighs couldn’t be free.
Rustle—
Flowers that had grown somewhere shook near my thighs.
Hell, I don’t even have time for a sigh.
I crossed the corridor for now.
Let me think this through.
Half of my notebook is torn, and one page is blackened.
If this is similar to the information censorship that happens in the Circulating Library, then I’m wandering around here with gaps in my memory.
And the fact that I tore the notebook means I knew I’d lose my memory and left a note somewhere.
So instead of finding the Management Bureau’s CCTV, should I be looking for that note first?
And what about my Smartwatch, earpiece, tablet, searchlight, and handkerchief going missing?
Couldn’t it be that the Crow didn’t take them, but I lost them while wandering around here?
……Wait, so how long have I been here?
Now that I think about it, I’m hungry.
By my memory, I hadn’t eaten lunch that long ago.
Gwak Jae-gyeom, Yeon Ga-ram, and I ate near our house and entered the Small House.
And Gwak Jae-gyeom, using the excuse that he’d be expelled from the Small House if he got hungry, bought a heap of snacks and made both of us eat them too.
So I thought I wouldn’t need dinner—my stomach was completely full—but now I’m hungry again.
The hunger made me feel a chill run down my spine.
This means the gap between my last memory and now is at least half a day.
Wouldn’t that be enough time for the Management Bureau to come rescue me?
If I’ve wandered around this much, I should’ve been caught on the CCTV at least once.
But why? What is happening to me right now?
My mind is a mess.
The loss of memory made every situation seem suspicious.
But I swallowed my breath and settled the creeping confusion.
My mind soon calmed.
At the same time, I thought of Cha Si-eon, who had found this strange.
He’d said that few people become calm just by deciding to be calm.
I don’t know. I’ve lived like this my whole life.
I exhaled and moved forward again.
Then I examined the ash-covered page carefully again.
Hoping that even a single letter I’d written would remain readable among those scratchy traces.
Vain hope.
The information censorship of this space was not that sloppy.
But it seemed it couldn’t completely control my memory.
As I kept staring at the notebook, my own handwriting faintly came back to me through the scribbled traces.
The writing I’d made in the corner of the notebook.
Graduate Student…… was it?
Graduate Student?
Does that mean I should be careful of the “Graduate Student” entity in this place?
As I crossed the corridor, the red flowers had grown to shoulder height.
I need to get to the next corridor quickly.
I pressed my back against the wall and peered into the next corridor.
But the corridor was pitch-black.
And from that darkness came a suspicious hissing sound.
Unable to pass, I pulled my body back.
Was it just my imagination, or had I felt something like this before?
It wasn’t just a feeling—it was a strong, vivid déjà vu…….
The memory felt like it was about to surface but didn’t.
Something was there, I was certain something was there, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
I felt like I needed to confirm this before moving, but I had no time for that.
More flowers that had grown in the meantime touched my cheek.
I poked my head into the far corridor again.
A column stood right in front of me.
“…….”
That was when I finally remembered.
That this column was the “Graduate Student.”
That I was being chased by this thing.
Remembering that, I instinctively rolled my body.
Crack—!
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Lulabyyy
So sadd 🥺