The Party That Killed || Hyunlix

69 🕸️

Seungmin pov.
We slowly descended the stairs, leading into the darkness of the basement. The air grew heavier, more humid, as if the entire space had been sealed for years and no one had dared disturb it. I barely had time to take in the surroundings before my gaze was drawn to the wall I had seen in my dream. Without thinking much, I approached it and began to touch every detail, every protruding part.

"What are you doing?" Jeongin asked, clearly surprised by my behavior.

"What do you mean? I'm trying to open this wall somehow. There must be a button or something that opens it," I replied, focused on my search.

"You've watched too many movies," he muttered, but then added, "How else do you think it'll open?"

"How would you do it?" I shot back challengingly, not taking my hands off the wall.

Jeongin sighed and started looking around the basement. He was scanning the shelves, lifting various objects, searching for any hint. Meanwhile, I continued to inspect the wall. My fingers brushed against a colder section, almost invisible to the naked eye, when something suddenly caught my attention.

A sound. Barely audible, like a soft whisper behind the wall.

"Jeongin, do you hear that?" I asked, turning my head towards him.

He stopped, a book in his hand, and looked at me skeptically. "What do you mean?"

"Come here. Listen closely," I said, my gaze still fixed on the wall.

Jeongin approached slowly, hesitating. After a moment, he pressed his ear to the wall and froze.

"Do you think that's why Chan didn’t want us to go in?" he whispered.

"He said this place is alive," I reminded him. "Maybe for a reason. If he was telling the truth..."

"I don’t know if I want to go in there," he admitted, his voice clearly tinged with unease.

The whisper behind the wall seemed to grow louder, as if something behind it was watching us, waiting for our next move. I had the feeling that this place was inviting us, but at the same time warning us.

We stood frozen, staring at the strange wall. Jeongin, trying to distract himself from his nerves, started searching the shelves again. I couldn’t stop myself, though, and kept running my fingers over every detail on the wall. I felt that there had to be something, something that would help us open this passage. My heart was pounding faster, and the sounds coming from inside began to fill the air.

At one point, I felt the wall start to move. I froze, and Jeongin, noticing my shock, turned towards me. We both watched as the wall slowly revealed a dark corridor.

"What the...?" Jeongin started, but stopped as he saw the wall opening wider. I decided not to wait until the wall fully transformed, so I stepped back a bit, trying to stay calm, though I could feel anxiety rising inside me.

"This doesn’t look good..." Jeongin said, clearly disturbed.

Even though we both sensed that something wasn’t right, we couldn’t take our eyes off the corridor that now stretched before us. Dark, narrow, full of mysteries, almost as if it was inviting us in.

"What if... this isn’t safe?" Jeongin murmured, looking at me as if waiting for me to decide. "Should we really go in?"

"I don’t know... but we need to find out what’s going on here," I replied, feeling the adrenaline rush through me. My hands were shaking, but I knew I couldn’t back out now. "Wait, we need to be careful."

We paused for a moment, still staring at the dark corridor, feeling the heavy atmosphere surrounding us.

≈🎃≈

We moved forward in silence, the kind of silence that was unbearable. My legs took each step cautiously, as if I didn’t want to make a sound in this strange place. The corridor in front of me seemed endless, and the walls, covered in mysterious symbols, pulsed with warmth, as if something was alive within them.

I felt my heart racing. Finally, Jeongin broke the silence, his voice full of anxiety, or maybe exhaustion.

"Why are we even going further? We could be walking into some cult or something."

His question hung in the air, like an arrow that with each word was sinking deeper into my consciousness. The answer didn’t come immediately, though deep down, I knew we couldn’t turn back. What we started, we had to finish.

"We need to find out what’s happening here," I said, my words sounding more like an order than an answer. "If it’s a cult, it means someone is hiding something. And if it’s something else... we need to check it out."

Jeongin was silent for a moment, then sighed heavily. He definitely wasn’t sure if he wanted to be here, but he also knew we couldn’t just walk away. This place, these symbols... everything was starting to come together in one image. We just didn’t know what that image was yet.

"Okay," he replied finally, though his voice lacked conviction. "But if anything happens, don’t say I didn’t warn you."

We moved on. Something in the air began to change. I felt like we were approaching something we didn’t want to find. But it was stronger than us. A coincidence? Or maybe we just couldn’t turn back?

We continued down the corridor, which seemed endless. Every step echoed, and the symbols on the walls began to disturb me more and more. I noticed that Jeongin, despite his calm demeanor, was starting to look more worried.

"Shit, how long is this corridor?" he asked, looking around with growing unease.

I looked ahead and couldn’t believe we were still walking. I couldn’t see the end.

"It should end soon," I replied, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

Soon, we reached the end. Except there... was just a wall. Nothing more. I froze for a moment, unable to believe what I was seeing.

"What the..." I began, feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins. "Don’t tell me there’s nothing here."

Jeongin stopped next to me, staring at the wall as if expecting it to vanish, and an exit would appear behind it. His face was full of disbelief.

"This is impossible," he muttered, stepping closer to the wall and beginning to touch its surface, piece by piece, as if searching for something that would reveal itself only through touch. His fingers ran over the cold wall, and I watched in silence, wondering what the hell we were doing here.

I had always done this. Touching walls, checking if something was hidden. I used to hope that this way I would find the solution. Now, I only felt fear.

"If there’s something here, it has to show itself," I said quietly, watching as Jeongin stubbornly searched, as if the wall would answer him.

But nothing happened. This whole situation was starting to get even stranger than we expected.