NOVEL WEB Chapter 23 – Familiar Face
I got up from the carpet.
Man… Just when I told myself to not touch the carpet…
Whatever, I still need to visit the bathroom anyway. I’ll wash my hands at the sink when I pass by. But before that…
Step. Step. Step. Step.
In front of me was the last door near the end of the dark hallway.
Rather than a modern metal door, this one was made out of wood. It was green and had a brown knob. The door didn’t have a glass window like the door for the main office. Instead, it had carvings with rose vines shaped into a large oval. In the middle of the oval was a peculiar rose bud carving.
Looking closer at the rose carving… One of the folds was slightly open. I could see something inside the rose… Is that an eye embedded within the pre-bloomed rose? What a strange design…
Well, let’s see if I’m allowed into this room…
Grab.
I turned the knob clockwise.
Click!
Ooh! It opened.
As I swung the door to the side, I peered inside the room…
Unexpectedly, it seemed organized like one of those military operation rooms. At the middle was a large glass round-table with eight seats surrounding it. And on top of the table was a fancy chandelier that illuminated the entire room. The walls were dyed with a warm red, and the floor was made out of white marble.
As I took a step into the room, I was greeted with a soft breeze.
Woah, it’s warm in here…
…
For some reason, I felt safe inside this room. It felt like I was at home. How strange…
I walked over the table and began observing the furniture.
The glass table was engraved with square markings that indicated the space allocated per seat. The square was about the size of a typical individual student table.
As for the seats, they were black wooden chairs with numbers engraved on the back. From the left to the right, it was numbered from one to eight. But… One of the chairs in particular was different from the rest.
I walked over to the weird chair and turned it towards me.
The wooden chair, numbered 7, had an abstract sculpture of human body parts that formed the shape of the chair. The chair’s color was divided in half at the front: the left side being white and the other side being black. Inside of the chair, the backrest had a painting of a broken mask that bore a wide smile. I could make out a face that was weeping behind the cracking mask.
What an interesting chair… There was clearly some sort of symbolism behind the chair’s design. I wonder why this chair is the only one different from the rest.
Other than that, there wasn’t much else in the room. I couldn’t directly observe the details of the chandelier due to the bright light it was emitting. If I had to describe this room, it seemed to take inspiration from a mixture of modern and medieval aesthetic.
After finishing the room tour, I went back outside into the hallway.
Then walked to the end of the hallway to check out the bathrooms.
Well, so far it looks normal. Not a lot has changed… So I guess all I needed to do now was just walk right in. To the left was the women’s restroom, and the men’s restroom was on the right.
Well, since I’m a man… I obviously entered the men’s restroom first.
There wasn’t much, it was exactly like a high school bathroom, excluding the graffiti and inappropriate white marker comments. Next to the left of the entrance were obviously the sinks, with 2 faucets in total. To the right of the sinks were 3 urinals on the wall, which were across from 4 closed stalls.
Shake-
Weirdly, 3 of the 4 stalls were locked while the stall at the very end wasn’t.
Perhaps… I wasn’t alone and there were people using the bathroom..?
I knock on the glass-tile walls.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
”Hello, anyone there?”
… Nothing.
Perhaps someone locked them from the inside after using the stalls… Tch, I wonder what insane bastard would do that.
I walked over to the only open stall, and saw a drawing of an eye on the door. From the way it was drawn, it seems like the artist used yellow chalk. Within the pupil of the drawn eye, was a stick figure pointing at me.
Tingle.
For some reason… I felt drawn to this stall.
As if this stall was a part of me…
…
What the fuck am I saying?
‘A part of me’? It’s literally just a bathroom stall.
I walked away from the stall and over to the sink.
Well, I guess no one was inside the bathroom.
Before leaving the men’s restroom, I thoroughly washed my hands to wipe off any remnant of bacteria that could’ve come from the carpet.
Step. Step. Step.
I stopped at the entrance, then stared to my right…
The women’s restroom.
…
I glanced around.
Well… I can’t help it since I’m in a strange situation… And it seems like nobody else but me was around.
…
I hope.
I stood in front of the women’s bathroom, and knocked on the glass-tile wall.
Knock, knock.
“Anyone inside..?”
…
No response, I guess that means it’s empty..?
I cautiously went inside.
”Woah… Clean.”
It was my first time here, but it seemed familiar to the men’s restroom. It almost had the same layout as the men’s bathroom, except there were no urinals. There was also an additional trash bin right under the sinks… I wonder what women used the extra trash bin for..?
However, just like the stalls in the men’s bathroom, only the stall at the very end was open.
Turn…
I turned the door towards me… Yep, there’s another symbol on it.
Interestingly… It was the same painting of the broken mask from that weird chair in the guidance room.
Hmmmm… Does this mean that there was a correlation between the guidance room and bathroom? That doesn’t really make much sense to me. Since there wasn’t a eye drawing on the other chairs in that room, just like the one from the men’s restroom.
…
I felt like I was staying too long inside the women’s restroom… I was uncomfortable.
Well, that’s all I guess… I checked the bathrooms, looked around in the strange guidance room, and I couldn’t even enter the main office. Seems like I’m done exploring this area.
I walked out of the dark hallway, and back into the main room with the empty aisles and cashier counter. Now all that’s left is the hallway at the back of the store leading into the Employees Lounge and Storage Room.
“Mmmmnnn…”
Rustle.
!!!
I quickly turned around.
That definitely came from the counter, was someone there?
...
What the… Was someone hiding under the counter this whole time? Wait... So back then, when I was leaning on the counter while reading the newspapers… That’s pretty scary to think about. Crap, why didn’t I bother to check if there was anything behind the counter?
I took a step towards the counter and called out, “Hello? Is someone there?”
…
Silence.
Did I mishear it? No… There was definitely someone behind there.
About 4 feet away, I stepped closer to the counter.
“There’s no point in hiding… I already heard you.”
Step.
“It’s okay, I’m unarmed and I won’t hurt you.”
Step.
…
They’re still not answering.
Wait… What if they’re not friendly. Are they planning on ambushing me? Let’s play it safe and peer into the inside of the counter from the side.
As I walked around to the open side of the counter…
…
What entered my sight was someone lying on the floor.
Huh..? Are they asleep?
I took a step closer… Hold up.
It’s a familiar face.
An excessively white-colored face… Black hair that was dip-dyed pink and stylized as a hime cut with twin tails… And an outfit that had an unusually creepy sense of cute fashion.
Fuck…
It was the employee landmine girl from earlier.