Chapter 37
Human Exhibition: The Reinterpretation of Parts (3)
“Has anyone seen the docent?”
“Did you call for me?”
The moment I called, the docent answered from directly behind me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them and remembered why I had summoned it.
“Give us the premium guide. What is that?”
“This artwork is entitled Life and Death. It exhibits the process of extracting, separating, and weaving together the blood vessels, nerves, muscles, ligaments, and other components of the human body.”
Apparently, the grinder behind the loom did exactly what I had imagined.
“Life and Death operates once every twenty-four hours, remaining active for six hours.”
“Is it safe when it isn’t operating?”
“What does ‘safe’ mean?”
A chill instantly ran through me.
Right.
There was no way this bastard even possessed the concept of safety.
Dohan abruptly wrapped an arm around my neck and pulled me away from the docent before answering in my place.
“Haha! He misspoke. Just forget about it!”
“…”
Instead of speaking, the docent merely raised its cheekbones.
Was that supposed to be a smile?
“It said the artwork operates once every twenty-four hours. That means it won’t move while it’s inactive.”
“And entering the exhibition area itself probably isn’t a trigger.”
Having entered countless ghost stories, the twins were technically my seniors. They quickly extracted the key information from the docent’s words.
“We don’t have time to hesitate anyway. Let’s go.”
We had to catch the black hand before it entered Exhibition Hall 2 and got even farther away.
“…The floor is extremely slippery. Be careful.”
“Yes.”
I had wondered what the yellowish, mushy clumps scattered across the floor among the blood were.
They appeared to be human fat.
The foul-smelling lumps of grease had made the floor excessively slippery.
“You know that fabric behind the loom? It must be made from people, right?”
“Most likely.”
“If it weren’t made from people, I’d want to buy it. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?”
“Hyung, stop saying pointless things.”
“I agree with him—”
What was that?
Something snagged around my ankle, and before I could check it, I felt it snap.
Following behind me, Dohyeon asked,
“Why did you stop?”
“It’s nothing. I think I imagined it.”
Clunk.
It was a heavy sound, like a wooden mechanism being pulled into place and locked.
“Was I the only one who heard that?”
“No. I heard it too. It sounded as though something had activated…”
The docent’s explanation cut through the frozen silence from outside the exhibition area.
“Life and Death activates immediately whenever one of the threads being processed is severed.”
A thread?
My gaze slowly dropped toward my feet.
A nearly invisible, translucent strand of tissue lay there.
It appeared to be an extremely thin blood vessel.
You should have said that beforehand, you damned bastard.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Life and Death began to operate.
The ivory-colored beam that had rested silently began moving up and down, and the stationary textile advanced as the loom wove it one line at a time.
“…Hanmu.”
Dohan called my name in a subdued voice.
Was it because I had screwed everything up?
Damn it.
“I’m sorry. I should have been more care—”
“I’m the one who snapped it. Honestly, I didn’t think it was important, so I just walked over it.”
He tried to give me an embarrassed smile, but his voice trembled faintly.
A similar strand lay near Dohan’s foot.
I never would have known if he hadn’t told me.
“…Let’s call it even.”
“I didn’t make any mistakes.”
Dohyeon protested from behind me.
Perhaps I should have been apologizing to him rather than Dohan.
But when I turned around, Dohyeon was gone.
“I’m the one who didn’t make a mistake, so why am I—?!”
A bundle of threads woven from blood vessels, nerves, and tendons had coiled around Dohyeon’s ankle and was dragging him away.
Dohyeon was practically thrown to the floor. As he was pulled across the blood-soaked tiles, his fingers left trails behind him.
“Jeong Dohyeon! Hanmu, give me a knife, scissors—anything!”
“I’m a cleaner, not a traveling merchant!”
Did I have anything capable of cutting those threads?
Anything at all—
Swoosh!
Life and Death was greedy.
Threads shot from the numerous tall spools above the loom and wrapped themselves around not only Dohyeon’s legs, but also Dohan’s and mine.
My head struck the floor as I fell and was mercilessly scraped across it.
Half-congealed blood and human fat coated my face, leaving a revolting taste in my mouth.
Clunk! Clunk! Clunk!
To make matters even worse, our destination wasn’t merely the spools.
“First, the human is disassembled. This is the process of separating unnecessary skin, flesh, and blood.”
In stark contrast to the docent’s calm explanation, the gears of the grinder connected to the spools were spinning madly.
As we drew closer, the grinder’s construction became clear.
Its frame was made from shinbones.
Its crushing gears were made from teeth.
The belts driving those gears were tendons.
Even the remains of its previous victims had not been completely removed. Hair, scraps torn from clothing, fatty tissue, and blood were still caught inside the grinder’s maw.
“Isn’t that destruction rather than separation? It doesn’t look like it’ll leave even the bones behind.”
“Urgh! That must be the whole point of this damned machine!”
Dohyeon was being dragged far ahead of us.
At any moment, he would be pulled into the grinder.
“Ugh…!”
Grab.
With both hands still free of the threads, Dohyeon somehow caught hold of the corner of an exhibition stand.
Creak.
The obstructed spool strained to pull his ankle toward it.
“Jeong Dohyeon! Hold on a little longer!”
“You’re the last person who should be saying that! I can’t hold on for long!”
“Hanmu, give me that thing! The one you used to cut the back of your hand!”
“The scraper?”
I could give it to him, but it wasn’t designed for cutting.
I somehow searched through my bag and threw Dohan the scraper from its front pocket.
“We can’t give up without trying!”
After catching the scraper, Dohan forced himself upright despite being dragged across the floor.
He managed to keep his balance on this slippery surface.
His athletic ability was insane.
What is he trying to do?
He leaped toward the center where the grinder and loom stood.
Ah, was he planning to deal with the spool itself?
It was a decent idea. Whether he cut the skein tied to the pillar or destroyed the spool itself, it would lose the force pulling us in.
.....
But the spool worked far better than expected.
Ping!
The instant the cord around Jeong Dohan’s ankle went slack, the spool spun rapidly and dragged him toward the grinder.
“Hyung!”
“Shit...!”
Damn it. I couldn’t watch.
Just as I was about to squeeze my eyes shut, Jeong Dohan’s foot caught against the lower frame of the grinder with a thud.
“See? I’m alive.”
“If you’re going to die, please do it somewhere I can’t see you. Seriously!”
“What kind of thing is that to say?”
Jeong Dohan clung precariously to the very mouth of the grinder as it spun at a terrifying speed, managing to keep himself from being sucked inside with all that momentum.
“How can you say, ‘See? I’m alive’ right now?”
Contrary to his confident words, cold sweat poured down Jeong Dohan’s deathly pale face like rain. Even so, he adjusted his grip on the scraper.
“It was all part of the plan. Just trust your hyung!”
Jeong Dohan began cutting through the thread wound around the spool above his head. He was rubbing the scraper against it as quickly as possible, using it like a saw.
Will he be all right?
Clinging to the ledge between the display platform and the floor, bracing myself in a posture similar to Jeong Dohyeon’s, I gasped for breath.
“Dohyeon. You’re worried about your brother, aren’t you?”
“I’m a little more worried about my arm than I am about him....”
Jeong Dohyeon’s left arm was visibly trembling. Considering it barely had any muscle, it was impressive that he was still holding on.
Could he last until Dohan managed to cut through the entire spool with a tool that wasn’t even meant for the job?
“I’m worried too. I’ll go over there.”
The instant I released my grip and kicked off the floor, the spool spun rapidly and pulled my leg toward it.
I knew this would happen!
Gritting my teeth, I reached out and grabbed one of the loom’s beams.
The beam, which had been weaving fabric without pause, ground to a halt. I immediately wedged my bound foot into the gap, locking it firmly in place.
This way, the harder the spool pulled, the greater the beam’s pressure would become, making it impossible for my foot to slip free.
Although it’ll be a different story if my ankle breaks in the meantime.
The beam, seemingly carved from human bone, crushed down on my ankle.
Beside me, Jeong Dohan turned to look at me from where he hung against the grinder.
“Why did you come all the way over here?!”
“Urgh... Because I couldn’t trust you.”
“What?!”
“That thread isn’t getting cut, is it?”
Seeing it up close confirmed my suspicions.
The thread used in [Life and Death] was made from human tissue with roughly half its bodily fluids removed. Although the fat had been separated and the blood drained, it was still slick and damp.
Even if the scraper was new, it had never been sharpened. Naturally, there was no way it could cut through this.
“Cutting it would be impossible.”
Reaching for the bag hanging from my waist, I shouted to Jeong Dohan.
“Dohan, cover your eyes and get as far away as you can.”
“My eyes?!”
“And hold your breath.”
I opened the cap of a white plastic container resembling a PET bottle.
The label on it read: [Drainpipe Cleaner].
I’ve never used it undiluted at such a high concentration before!
I covered my eyes with the arm holding the bottle cap and splashed the cleaner over the spool.
HISSSSSSS!!
The instant the undiluted cleaner poured out, murky yellow clouds of scorching-hot vapor erupted with a violent sizzling noise, as though meat had been dropped onto a hot griddle.
“Aaargh! What the hell is this?!”
Although Jeong Dohan had covered his eyes, he twisted his body in alarm as the sudden blast of heat struck him.
A chemical reaction had begun wherever the cleaner touched.
White foam bubbled and boiled over the spool woven from human blood vessels, tendons, and fatty tissue.
Plop. Snap.
The tough skeins of muscle that had been like steel cables lost their elasticity, turned into something resembling thick yellow snot, and broke apart one after another.
And it wasn’t only the spool. Even the tendon belt driving the grinder’s teeth lost its shape beneath the seething foam.
The maw of the grinder, which had been rotating with a deafening roar, gradually slowed before coming to a complete stop.
Clunk. Creeeak....
Having lost the connections holding its body together, the entire [Life and Death] installation collapsed with a sickening series of ruptures.
Only then did the bindings that had been mercilessly pulling on our ankles lose their strength.
“Ah, that’s hot!”
“...Maybe I should’ve covered my hands too.”
As though he could no longer endure the heat, Jeong Dohan leapt down from the grinder. His face was bright red from having the noxious fumes billow directly into it. He probably hadn’t escaped without some burns.
I don’t think it’s broken... but it hurts a little.
I pulled my ankle free from the powerless loom and climbed down. Jeong Dohan was still coughing, probably because of the acrid smoke.
“Cough! What the hell did you use?”
“Drain cleaner... More precisely, sodium hydroxide. It’s also known as lye.”
“Lye? The stuff people used for laundry back in the old days?”
“Yes. All you need to know is that it works instantly on fats and proteins.”
What I had used was sodium hydroxide at a staggering concentration of fifty percent. It was sold strictly for industrial use, and even at my former workplace, we had been instructed to dilute it and always wear protective equipment.
It certainly works.
My forehead, cheeks, and hands stung where the scalding vapor had touched them. I wiped the slick backs of my swollen, bright-red hands against the hem of my clothes and stared at the motionless loom and grinder.
They probably never imagined that constructing the installation’s vital components from the fats and proteins that made up the human body would become its fatal weakness.
Then again, who would expect anyone to bring drain cleaner to an art exhibition?
“Wow.... Hanmu, you really are a cleaner.”
“Thanks for the compliment?”
Freed from his restraints, Jeong Dohyeon staggered over to us.
He seemed unharmed as well, but there was an uneasy expression on his face.
“Hyung, Hanmu... Have either of you seen the docent?”
“Wasn’t it outside?”
As far as I remembered, it had been standing beyond the boundary of [Life and Death], near the point where we had emerged from [Facing the Wall], while explaining the artwork.
But the docent was nowhere to be seen.
Had it simply left?
“....The artwork.”
“Huh?”
Our heads turned toward the ruined [Life and Death].
A slender, wrinkleless hand was stroking the collapsed spool and the idly spinning grinder, creaking as though it had malfunctioned.
We didn’t need to search very hard to understand why it had broken down like this.
“The artwork, please, cherish, the artwork, art, cherish, cherish, please, the artwork, art.”
“...I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Ah.”
Like the second hand of a clock ticking forward, the docent’s neck turned little by little at grotesque angles. Its joints, previously confined within the orderly lines of its suit, began bending in every direction imaginable.
With a series of creaks, the docent folded its spine backward and planted its hands on the floor.
“I assure you, it wasn’t intentional, but it appears we’ve destroyed one of the exhibition’s artworks.”
“Objects, without, artistic, value, disposal, dispose.”
“Whoa! Run!”
Clatterclatterclatter!
Flipped upside down, the docent began scuttling madly toward us using nothing but its fingers and toes.
“Exhibition Hall Two! This way!”
“How the hell is it so fast on all fours?!”
“Dispose! Dispose! Dispose! Dispose!”
My mind was filled with the thought that if it caught us, we would end up wishing we had been turned into artworks instead.
“Faster! It’s gaining on us!”
Without needing to say a word, we all sprinted into the corridor leading to Exhibition Hall Two.