The pounding of Glen's footsteps shattered the silence of Sewon's narrow alleys. The damp night air pierced his skin all the way to the bone, but the cold was completely powerless to drive away the heat of fear creeping through his chest.
The distance from his boarding house to the women's boarding house where Melissa lived was actually only about five hundred meters. But to Glen, whose head throbbed under the assault of extreme exhaustion, that short distance felt like a hallway with no end. Every time his eyes blinked for more than half a second, the black shadows at the edges of his path seemed to sway, stretching into sharp fingers ready to grab him.
When he reached the iron gate of Melissa's boarding house, Glen immediately pressed the downstairs doorbell impatiently.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
It didn't take long for the glass-paneled door behind the gate to open. Melissa hurried outside. The girl wore cotton pajamas patterned with cartoon characters and an oversized knitted cardigan. Her pretty face looked pale, and her round eyes radiated genuine fear.
"Glen!" Melissa whispered as she half-ran to unlock the gate. "You really came?"
As soon as the gate opened, Melissa rushed forward and hugged Glen's arm tightly. The chill of the night made her body tremble.
"Are you okay?" Glen asked anxiously, scanning his girlfriend's face. "That sound... is it still there?"
Melissa quickly shook her head. "When I turned on the bedroom light, the sound suddenly disappeared. But I was really scared to get out of bed, Glen. That's why I asked you to come..."
Melissa looked up into Glen's eyes behind his glasses. At that moment, the shy girl's expression turned worried when she noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. "You... haven't slept since yesterday, have you? You look so pale."
"I'm fine, Mel," Glen cut in softly. He rubbed Melissa's shoulder to calm her. "Let's talk on the porch. I want to make sure you're safe."
They sat on the wooden bench on the boarding-house porch, illuminated by a bright white fluorescent light. In a place this well-lit, Glen felt a little calmer. But his mind still couldn't let go of the two-second microsleep he had just experienced on the stairs.
"Mel," Glen called hesitantly. "You've been reading the latest chapter of my comic, right?"
Melissa nodded slowly. "Yeah, always. You know I'm your number-one fan. Yesterday's chapter was amazing, Glen. Especially the character design for the Dreamer... It's kind of creepy, but it makes me curious."
Glen's heart thudded stiffly. (The truth was becoming clearer.)
The creature no longer lived only inside his head. Its depiction in the comic was a bridge. Anyone who saw the details of the creature's form and thought about it before going to sleep would open a door for it to leak its terror into the real world.
"Mel, for now... don't read my comic, okay?" Glen whispered seriously.
Melissa stared at Glen, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Why? Is something wrong?"
"Not yet... I just want to rework a few parts," Glen lied, unable to tell her about the madness that was really happening. "Just don't read it until I say it's okay."
Melissa fell silent for a moment, then slowly nodded without arguing. Her gentle, obedient nature always made her trust Glen. "Okay, if that's what you want. But you have to promise you'll go home and sleep after this, Glen. You look like you're about to pass out."
Glen gave her a faint smile and gently stroked her head. "Yeah, I promise."
An hour later, Glen returned to his own boarding room on the second floor.
The corridor was utterly silent. Glen crept toward his door. But just as he was about to turn the lock, his gaze accidentally fell on the door to Room Number 6—the vacant room directly beside his.
The old wooden door... was slightly open.
A gap two fingers wide yawned between the doorframe and the door itself. Glen clearly remembered that Room Number 6 had always been secured with a rusty old padlock ever since he first moved here.
The familiar, fishy smell of wet earth drifted out through the gap.
Glen froze in place. His fearful logic screamed at him to get into his own room immediately and lock the door tight. But his ambition and desperate curiosity forced him to do the opposite.
With his hands trembling violently, Glen approached Room Number 6.
He slowly pushed open the old door.
Creeeeak...
The sound of rusty hinges echoed sharply through the deserted hallway. Stale, frigid air and a rotten stench rushed into Glen's face. The room inside was pitch-black, lit only by the dim glow of the hallway light outside.
The room was empty of furniture. Yet on the peeling white-painted brick wall, there was something that made all the blood in Glen's body run dry.
A rough line drawing had been scrawled across the wall in thick black liquid that was still dripping. The image formed the enormous silhouette of a long-haired woman's face... with a mouth split wide and filled with a jagged row of razor-sharp fangs.
And beneath the drawing was a series of words carved over and over in crooked, trembling letters:
[{("SLEEP, GLEN. SLEEP")}]