Chapter 36

Human Exhibition: The Reinterpretation of Parts (2)

“You nearly got yourself killed just now. Why don’t you give up on it?”

“Seriously, Hanmu. What did you hide on that phone that makes it so important?”

“I already told you. My life.”

“Hmmm…”

With a handkerchief dangling pathetically from his lips, Dohan furrowed his brow and stared intently at me.

“All right. Everyone has something more precious than their life!”

It wasn’t more precious than my life. It literally was my lifeline…

Forget it.

As long as I had convinced him, that was enough.

Now that I looked at him, Dohan had just as many strange quirks as Haebin.

I turned away from his cheerful grin and followed the trail.

“I think I have a general idea of what this exhibition is like.”

Just how many people had this ghost story devoured?

Those hands alone were horrifying enough.

The realization that all those missing-person flyers I had passed on the streets might have been connected to ghost stories like this sent a chill down my spine.

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

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

“You don’t have to like me.”

“So prickly.”

“Hyung, stop bothering Hanmu.”

Before turning the corner, I gently moved my ring finger to check the nerves in my left hand now that the bleeding had stopped.

Then I prepared myself.

I would not be surprised.

No matter what appeared.

Although I would like it noted that not being surprised and feeling instinctively repulsed were two different things.

Dohyeon spoke first, followed by Dohan.

“It’s a dead end.”

“That dead end looks pretty strange, doesn’t it?”

“…”

I was rendered speechless.

Dozens of faces with their eyes gently closed had been arranged according to a grid.

…Would they bite us if we approached?

Like Ten Thousand Left Hands, it bore a dismantling marker depicting a Rat, so this was clearly another artwork.

However, it was slightly different from the previous one.

The pink skin looked flushed with circulating blood, and the nostrils slowly expanded and contracted as if the faces were breathing. They appeared so alive that they might open their eyes and speak at any moment.

“The trail ends here.”

The black hand’s traces disappeared after leaving one final mark in front of the faces.

Without anyone asking, the docent began its explanation.

“This artwork is entitled The Wall of Faces. It was created using 144 pieces of skin meticulously separated from actual human skulls.”

“Is that all?”

“Because we preserved the living qualities of the human body, visitors can experience the final memories engraved within each face.”

Living qualities…

On the faint hope that it might answer me, I asked,

“How do we get past this wall?”

“Please proceed in this direction toward Exhibition Hall 2.”

The docent extended a hand toward the wall of apricot-colored faces.

Through this wall?

That meant the black hand had gone into Exhibition Hall 2.

Wait.

If that was the case…

“Where does the staff-only door near the ticket booth lead?”

“It leads to Exhibition Hall 3.”

So we had to pass through this wall if we wanted to catch up with the two bastards who had abandoned us.

How far ahead were they by now?

After enduring all this, there was no way I would quietly hand over the performance credit.

Fine.

I would grit my teeth and break through.

“All right. So we have to get past this thing?”

“Yes.”

The enormous twelve-by-twelve Wall of Faces was approximately four meters high.

It wasn’t too tall to climb, but the only things we could use as handholds on its smooth surface were human faces.

“We could boost each other over, but one person would have to remain behind.”

“Climbing over it probably isn’t the intended route.”

“What makes you think that?”

“If the hand climbed over, there should be traces on either the wall or the faces. It’s much too clean.”

“I see…”

Dohan grinned as he approached the Wall of Faces.

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

Squelch.

Dohan’s hand sank into the Wall of Faces.

It was as though he had thrust it not into a face but into a wall made from soft, apricot-colored liquid.

Oblivious to the nausea rising in my stomach, Dohan casually moved his submerged hand around.

“I can feel a solid wall blocking the way…”

He furrowed his brow as though trying to gauge the wall’s interior.

Then his entire body jerked violently, and he yanked his arm out as if suffering a seizure.

“Urgh… Gasp, haah…”

“What happened?”

“This thing… Damn… Ah, my head hurts. Are we really going through this wall?”

Dohan pressed hard against his temples, apparently trying to soothe his headache.

Why had he reacted like that?

We’ll have to touch it to find a way through anyway. Maybe I should test it with just my hand.

When I placed my hand against one of the faces, I felt body heat.

Thirty-six and a half degrees Celsius.

It possessed the same lukewarm warmth as another person’s skin.

The soft hairs growing from the skin, its wrinkles, and the sticky sweat all curled around my fingertips.

It seems fine so far.

Perhaps the problem was deeper inside.

The moment I pushed my arm in up to the wrist, I heard something.

Where is this? Something’s wrong.

It wasn’t my thought.

The voice was pitched higher than mine—a terrified mutter that I had somehow heard.

I flinched and tried to pull away, but the surface of the Wall of Faces, like a lump of lukewarm meat, spoke to me.

Excuse me where is the exit?

My breath caught.

Please let me out save me it hurts!

Honey where did you go you were right beside me just a moment ago is my skin melting right now?

The voices did not enter through my ears.

Through the facial nerves touching my fingertips, the raw pain and overwhelming terror that complete strangers had experienced immediately before death flooded into me.

“Urgh! Gasp…!”

As other people’s pain and despair gnawed at my brain through hideous hallucinations and phantom agony, the docent’s grotesque explanation echoed like an auditory hallucination.

“Because memories and life are considered so precious to human beings, we have preserved forever the final moments in which they were most intensely alive. Does that not delight you? How does it feel to experience the memories of Yoo Hajin, a twenty-two-year-old man?”

“Hanmu! Stop and get out of there!”

Dohan grabbed me around the waist and pulled with all his strength.

My arm finally slid free, and I collapsed onto the freezing floor.

“Hanmu, are you all right?”

“Gasp… Haah…”

Unable to breathe properly, I crawled across the floor like an animal while tears that did not feel like mine dripped from my eyes.

That wasn’t just a headache.

The lukewarm body heat seemed to linger on the back of my hand.

I wiped my tear-soaked chin.

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

My body was trembling violently.

The memories of the dying were terror compressed into its purest form—something I never wanted to experience again.

But if the black hand had passed through, there had to be an opening somewhere.

“…Let’s search. There must be a point we can pass through.”

“My brother and I will look. Hanmu, you seem exhausted…”

“Won’t all three of us experience the same thing anyway?”

The Wall of Faces only subjected me to the sensations, memories, and phantom pain engraved into the faces.

It did not inflict any real physical harm on my body.

Besides, I wasn’t the kind of person who could comfortably watch from the sidelines after dumping all my work on someone else.

“Mr. Dohan, take the left side. Mr. Dohyeon, take the middle. I’ll take the right. We’ll search four columns each.”

The screams of those “faces” still seemed to echo through my mind.

But the longer we delayed, the farther away my phone—and the Rats—would get.

Dohan stared at my tear-streaked face, then clapped once.

“Good! I really like that attitude. Man, I wish you were one of us Dogs.”

“Fine. But we’ll search the higher sections last. We can check them after finishing the lower rows.”

“Understood.”

Damn it.

I had to put my hand into this wall again.

After calming my breathing, I repeatedly reminded myself,

I’m only experiencing a memory.

My body isn’t actually being attacked.

Don’t immerse yourself too deeply in someone else’s memories.

Right.

This had nothing to do with me.

“Hup!”

With that resolve, I thrust my hand into the Wall of Faces.

I immediately heard the voice of the dead.

That’s makeup right how did you do it?

Ignore it.

This isn’t my memory.

But how far did I need to go?

At this rate my wrist will be cut off no please stop I’m sorry I’ll give you anything so please spare me it’s dark I can’t breathe it hurts they’re peeling the skin off my face my face no please don’t do something so horrible it hurts it hurts it hurts aaaaaah!

A piercing scream and the sensation of being flayed alive poured into my mind like a waterfall.

I felt as though I were suffocating, contaminated by sensations and emotions that did not belong to me.

“Urgh… Gasp, haah…”

There’s no opening behind this one.

Walk.

Feel for the wall, not the memories.

Find an opening.

Don’t stop.

Raise your leg.

Lean forward.

Place your foot down again.

Raise your leg…

Amid the torrent of emotions and sensations threatening to burst my skull, I forced myself to advance one step at a time.

Even as the irrationality and despair poured through my entire body, I relentlessly pursued the one thing I had to do.

What is this place I never imagined I would be brought somewhere like this please save me save me save me—

“Ugh…”

This is a dream it has to be a dream it’s all a hallucination it hurts please what is this tell me it’s a nightmare Mom where are you I miss you aaaaaagh my face my face!

Wait.

What was that just now?

My steps abruptly stopped.

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

Now I couldn’t hear anything.

The face was faintly cool, like a body losing its warmth after death.

“I found it!”

Startled by a voice directly in front of me, I opened my eyes.

Dohyeon stood right before me, drenched in cold sweat.

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

My head was spinning so badly that rational thought didn’t seem to function, so I asked Dohyeon to verify it.

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

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

The opening wasn’t large.

With the dead face at its center, it formed a cross-shaped gap. We would have to contort our bodies to fit through it.

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

Before I could stop him, Dohyeon pushed his body into the wall.

His elbows, shoulders, chest, and then waist disappeared inside.

A quiet thud came from the other side, so it seemed he had succeeded.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Could you come through for now?”

For now?

That sounded slightly ominous.

Having completed the search of his section, Dohan came running over.

“What? You found it? Dohyeon already went through too?”

“No wonder I couldn’t see him! That bastard went ahead without telling his big brother, didn’t he?”

Without a hint of hesitation, Dohan thrust his arm and face into the Wall of Faces and crossed to the other side.

…He had nerves of steel.

How could he shove his arm straight back into that thing after what we had just experienced?

I needed to follow them, but something bothered me.

“Mr. Docent?”

“Would you like me to repeat the explanation?”

“No.”

Something didn’t feel right.

“Was this artwork intended to represent human life?”

“Yes. This artwork preserves the living qualities possessed by human beings, and—”

There.

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

Unlike the others, it wasn’t breathing.

On closer inspection, its pallor was noticeably different as well.

This artwork preserved life with horrifying accuracy, so why was this the only face that had lost its life?

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

Even so, there was no reason for it to be dead.

That contradicted the artwork’s purpose.

I gripped the pale face’s lower lip and pulled its mouth open.

Excuse me.

Feeling the sticky bodily fluids of a mouth that had been alive only moments ago coat my hand, I pushed my fingers into the place where its throat should have been.

Something was lodged inside, as though the face had swallowed a foreign object.

“Guest, if you damage the artwork…”

Ignoring the docent, I grasped the object and pulled it out.

“Cough! Cough! Cough!”

Color returned to the face as it erupted into a violent coughing fit.

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

It looked like marble—or perhaps a broken fragment of something larger.

“Why was this inside it?”

“The face of Min Siyeong, age twenty-four, was taken from surplus material in storage to repair the artwork. It appears the part was defective after all.”

It described a human body as surplus material that had been taken from storage?

Amid my confusion, the docent politely held out its hand.

“Thank you. Would you give that to me? I will dispose of it.”

“May I dispose of it myself?”

“You may.”

The docent appeared entirely uninterested in the foreign object.

“What is this?”

“…”

Perhaps that was why no answer came.

I didn’t know what it was, but maybe I should keep it.

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

As more time passed, Dohan called to me from beyond the wall.

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

“No. Nothing important. I’m coming.”

Color had returned to the face, but I could still pass through the Wall of Faces.

It felt like being trapped inside a warm, noisy mass of liquid slime.

Artwork don’t lie please save me save me Team Leader it looks like the artwork is missing exactly one piece may I examine it please it hurts so much I want to go home…

One of the memories seemed strange.

Before I could hold on to it, Dohan grabbed my arm as it emerged on the other side and pulled me all the way through.

“…Puha!”

It was probably just a memory belonging to one of the company employees who had died in this ghost story.

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

“I couldn’t resist an occupational habit.”

“Did you clean one of the faces or something?”

“Something like that. Can you see any traces left by the black hand?”

“Ah, over there.”

The black hand had definitely passed through the wall.

Its finger marks continued across the exhibition hall floor.

What happened to the floor in here?

The floor beyond the Wall of Faces was a mess.

The tiles had clearly once been white, but blood, an unidentified transparent fluid, and yellow lumps had turned them into a swampy mire.

And that wasn’t all.

“What the hell? Why is that thing still here?”

At the far end of my vision was a sign pointing toward Exhibition Hall 2.

And yet the hand was still in this area.

Was the floor too slippery?

Performing what looked like acrobatics, the hand bounded and spun around the exhibition hall as it fled. Every time the phone’s center of gravity shifted, it teetered precariously.

“Is that thing mocking us? Let’s catch it right now.”

“Wait, Hanmu.”

Dohan’s hand shot out and blocked my path.

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

This time, however, stopping me proved worthwhile.

“Look beneath your feet.”

[Life and Death]

Audio Guide

Less than ten paces from the Wall of Faces stood a low barrier marking off a section of the floor.

“‘Life and Death’? Does that mean this entire area is part of the artwork?”

It looks like we have no choice but to enter the exhibition area for Life and Death.

“More precisely, I think the artwork is that loom in the center.”

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

Its gleaming ivory color contrasted so sharply with the surrounding filth that it looked almost radiant. Its warp and weft threads crossed as it wove the fabric one strand at a time.

It was undoubtedly meant for weaving.

An enormous and intricate tapestry hung behind the loom.

Could that loom alone have created this entire mess?

The answer stood behind it.

A machine resembling an industrial grinder was attached to the back of the loom.

It, too, was part of the artwork and gleamed as though it were brand-new.

If I want to get my phone back…

I made a decision.

Once I recovered it, I would put it in a case and strap it to my body or do whatever else it took to ensure this never happened again.