Escaping the Mystery Hotel - Chapter 395
Only Krnovel
EP.395 Episode 395 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (11)
Episode 395 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (11)
– 7 days ago, Kim Sang-hyun
“Let’s see… Is this the place that Gain-kun was talking about?”
There was a red button at the bottom of the hotel elevator dashboard.
“It would have been difficult to suspect it if it was so obvious?”
When I pressed the button, part of the elevator wall flipped over and a keypad appeared.
And the small writing engraved next to it.
“Is this something the hotel wrote down for internal use?”
If so, it is a very meticulous interior in a negative sense.
I pressed the password 87439124.
— Wheein! Wheein!
“Emergency evacuation activated! Emergency evacuation activated!”
Soon, the inside of the elevator became dark and a loud noise filled the interior – and then out of nowhere, the elevator started rotating!
“Eww! It’s not a spaceship. What the heck is this?”
I couldn’t come to my senses.
It was like I was inside a high-speed spinning washing machine, transformed into a small animal.
The elevator doors, unable to withstand the impact, rattled and then opened wide.
There was no way to describe the outside except with the word hell.
In a world filled with lava and flames, countless people screamed endlessly.
At least now I know one thing, why protective clothing is required for elevator escapes.
Because lava and flames poured into the elevator.
If it had been a flimsy flame retardant suit, I would have died by now, let alone lasted.
The elevator flew endlessly through the blazing inferno.
*
“Hey, are you okay?”
“…”
“How about going to the hospital?”
“… ah.”
“hey?”
“It’s okay. I was just thinking about it for a moment, so don’t worry too much about it.”
I found myself standing blankly in the warm sunlight.
Judging from the fact that a student passing by asked if he was okay, he seemed to have been quiet for quite some time.
Looking around at the scenery, I realized two things.
First, I woke up outside Austin, the capital of Texas, one of the most bustling cities in the United States.
I know it well because I went to high school in Austin.
Second, this world doesn’t seem like my home.
— Bang!
“Hey! Don’t you have eyes? What are you doing standing there?”
“… sorry.”
A moment ago, the eyes of the deer that had been staring at me suddenly turned red.
A police officer patrolling the area repeatedly fired his rifle as if it were nothing, turning the deer into a piece of meat.
This is the world.
*
In my experience, some Koreans have strange prejudices about American security.
It refers to the perception that both police and criminals engage in frequent shootouts.
To be clear, this is a problem in some slums where the standard of living, including income, is at the lowest level.
This is especially true in states like Texas, the heart of the American South and a driving force behind economic development.
At least that’s the America I know.
This doesn’t seem to be the place.
After walking a little, we saw soldiers armed with bulletproof vests with added plates.
They were all openly displaying not only shotguns but also assault rifles, but the surrounding citizens accepted it naturally.
It wouldn’t be strange if we lived in a world where deer and ‘predatory’ pigeons flew around out of nowhere trying to hypnotize us.
“… This isn’t my hometown after all.”
I wasn’t surprised because this could have easily happened.
Haven’t you felt this way many times while talking with your colleagues?
The reality we remember was so different.
The Gain Army regarded the Administration as a secret organization that rarely made an appearance, and said that the monsters were only occasionally seen in world news articles.
Songi Yang was the complete opposite, taking it for granted that every house would be equipped with laser turrets and tactical drones.
I guess I was between those two.
How often do you see news about monsters in the ‘Domestic News’ section?
At least it wasn’t such a scary environment that I had to turn my head once.
At that moment, I realized that I was holding a hard piece of paper in my hand.
“admission ticket.”
As is often the case with hotel items, I figured out what it was and how to use it.
The ticket is made out of a modified version of a protective suit, and tearing it will allow you to return to the hotel.
However, I had one concern.
Am I going to lose my protective suit forever like this?
Well then, I guess I made a pretty big mistake… .
My colleagues will not blame me for this, as I did it while I was not in my right mind.
But regardless of who was responsible, the loss of the protective clothing was quite painful.
“Johnny! James was complaining about some idiot losing his mind on the street, and I can’t believe it was you!”
“…”
“What are you doing here? If you were back in Austin, you wouldn’t have contacted me!”
“… mama.”
*
“What, New York? Didn’t you say you got into medical school?”
“…”
“But why – no.”
“…”
“As you live, all sorts of things happen. Have you eaten?”
“no.”
“Good. Just relax on the sofa.”
Mama Sherry.
She is black, lost her husband and children in an accident a long time ago, and has quite a bit of wealth.
I have been doing charity work for a long time to overcome the loss of my family.
During this process, she took in poor children of color from the neighborhood, fed them, and helped with their tuition. Thanks to this, she was considered a godmother to them and was quite popular in the neighborhood.
By the way, I am one of the people who received that help.
Yeah, so far so good.
I am happy and glad to meet you, because you were a kind person to me when I was young.
But, I really don’t know what the situation is.
I’m sure I’m not a low IQ person.
In the first place, this place is not the world I lived in.
It’s weird that I know someone, and it’s weird that she recognizes me.
Could it be that this is some kind of parallel universe, and that Mama Sherry has recognized her ‘parallel universe self’?
“Looking at you on the couch brings back old memories! When you were a second year student at Westwood -”
“Is Westwood High School here?”
“Hmm? Of course, at Austin Anderson Mill -”
Mama, who had been talking up to this point, frowned for a moment.
“… The school in Anderson Mill was Astor Lake, right?”
“Yes. I saw it earlier.”
“Uh… . Huh?”
“Mom, I’m out of Astor Lake.”
“Is that so? I guess I was confused. Understand, you’ll understand when you get older like me. My memory is fuzzy.”
“That could be possible.”
no.
Mama Sherry’s memory is correct, I graduated from Westwood High School.
And there is no such school in this world.
At the location of my alma mater, there was a school I had never heard of called Aster Lake.
Just a moment ago, Mama Sherry thought of a high school that didn’t even exist in this world, and of a person named ‘me’.
I couldn’t understand the situation more and more.
There was one more bizarre fact: the age difference between me and my mom.
When I was in my mid-teens, my mother was already in her late 40s.
I’m well over 40 now, even if you don’t count the time I spent in hotels.
In that case, Mama’s age should be over 70, close to 80, but no matter how many times I looked at her, she looked like she was in her 60s.
There was so much information I couldn’t understand that it actually made me feel calm.
Because my experience working at a hotel taught me.
If you don’t understand it, just accept it and don’t think about it anymore.
*
Fortunately, Mama did not notice any contradictions in her memories.
For example, things like non-existent schools were dismissed as mere illusions.
The age issue was also accepted simply.
“Johnny, how long have you been struggling in New York?”
“That’s right.”
Mom seems to think that my face is pale because I’ve suffered a lot.
“What on earth… what could have happened to a smart kid like you!”
“That’s right.”
I don’t know what happened to me either.
“Why don’t you just rest here for a few days? Are your parents doing well?”
“He must have passed away.”
In fact, it is questionable whether it even existed in this world.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! I’m sorry.”
“no.”
After that question, she never asked me about ‘Johnny’s unfortunate past’ again.
Of course, it seemed like a tragic weekend drama was playing out in her head.
A smart and talented Asian boy, Johnny Kim.
After wasting his life among selfish and narrow-minded New Yorkers, he returns home feeling empty.
Is this roughly what it’s about?
Looking at Mama’s rich facial expressions, it seemed like the cute Johnny Kim in her heart was going through a huge twist in life.
Let’s just accept this kind of thing.
There is no way to explain the truth anyway.
“Is it edible?”
“Yes. Mama’s gumbo-making skills have improved. The chicken looks like it was pre-cooked before adding it to the soup, and the shrimp are very springy.”
“…”
“Also, the sweetness of the onions in the gumbo is wonderful, but it doesn’t seem like they were boiled in the soup. Did you caramelize them separately and add them?”
“Johnny, have you ever opened a restaurant in New York?”
“That’s not it.”
I felt more and more at ease.
It was quite special to meet and be treated so kindly by someone who was no less than my parents.
I decided to put complicated thoughts aside in a corner of my head.
“Where do you want to go?”
“…”
“I told you earlier, right? It’s okay if I stay for a few days. It’s a big house for me to live in alone anyway.”
*
Late at night.
— Squeak!
I woke up with a start at the sound coming from the window.
…
Beyond the window, in the dark space, a faintly glowing, unidentifiable shape was visible.
I had no intention of just sitting still, so I sat up and grabbed a golf club that was rolling around next to the bed.
At that moment, a muffled voice was heard.
“Johnny, Johnny!”
“… mama?”
“Just stay still. It will pass soon.”
It was a scene straight out of a horror movie, but the old man’s extremely calm attitude suggested a lot.
It means that this kind of thing is familiar to me.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know either.”
“Did you report it to the management office?”
“I reported it, but… You know what? Those guys are kind of busy!”
“…”
— Squeak!
Once again the eerie sound was heard.
“Do you have a gun?”
“Johnny, just wait -”
“I’m sorry, but I know more about these matters than you, Mom.”
“…”
She doesn’t want to wait around because she knows something about that monster.
Since I don’t have the power to fight back anyway, and since they won’t take action even if I report it to the management, I’m just trembling.
This helplessness was the response of the ‘protected’, not the response of the ‘protector’.
“Do you have a gun?”
“… I have a shotgun, a double-barreled one.”
“Please give it to me.”
“I, I didn’t manage it well -”
“it’s okay.”
It looks like it’s going to be a long night.
Strangely enough, I didn’t feel bad.