Chapter 10 – Hungry Brother
The corridor stretched on, impossibly long, as if the building itself was bending reality to trap him. Each step Lumian took echoed like a hammer strike, rebounding through the silence until it felt like the sound was no longer his own, but something chasing behind him.
Above, the single bulb flickered erratically—once, twice—before finally surrendering to darkness. The world drowned in black.
Lumian halted, his chest tightening. A thought gnawed at the back of his mind: Carl is behind me… I know it. But then he remembered Simon's sudden appearance in this very corridor earlier. If Carl was truly lurking, he would not make his move here. Not now. Not while ghosts prowled these halls.
Somehow, that was a comfort. Somehow, it was worse.
Lumian licked his cracked lips, realizing he had chosen to face ghosts rather than the man. Perhaps he really was insane. Or perhaps something deeper—an ugly familiarity—kept him tethered to these phantoms.
He already suspected the truth: these specters weren't random. They were victims. Innocent lives Carl had crushed. The only thing left in them now was resentment, sorrow, and blood.
For a fleeting moment, pity stirred inside him. Strange, absurd pity. Even when their forms twisted in ways that no human mind should endure, he couldn't help but feel it. And yet, he couldn't explain why this apartment, with its choking air and endless shadows, felt… familiar.
Then—he froze.
His breath fogged white, frosting in the air. Cold, biting, unnatural, like winter's grave had opened its jaws. The silence pressed so hard against his eardrums that he swore he could hear the faint rhythm of his own blood dripping from his wounded arm.
Tap… tap… tap.
Something was crawling. A wet, gurgling scrape against the tiles, low to the ground, sluggish but steady.
Lumian swallowed hard. He moved along the corridor, testing doors as he went. Locked. All of them. One after another, the handles rattled but refused to budge. Behind each door could be a person—or something far worse. He didn't dare force any. Not now.
Going back meant facing that psycho again. Going forward meant… the mother ghost. His chest clenched. No good choices.
Then the cold deepened. The kind that seeps into bone.
The system's metallic voice sliced into his skull:
> [Warning: Host detected abnormal entity.]
[Tier 2 Specter – Class: Wraith.]
[Danger Level: Medium to High.]
[Warning: If you make a sound… you will die.]
Lumian's pulse stopped.
A wraith. Again.
The air grew heavier, rotten with the smell of iron and pus. Before he could even react, something slid into existence behind him.
A hand. Long. Too long. Skin flayed and dripping, stretching unnaturally until its jagged fingers hovered just above his shoulder.
Then—the head came. Bending forward from the lengthening arm, a face dangled above Lumian's crown. Blood leaked from its scalp and nose, pattering onto the floor—thick, dark drops. A few splattered onto his own hair, trailing down his forehead.
He didn't breathe. He didn't dare.
He knew what the system meant: one sound, even the tiniest gasp, and his throat would be opened.
The head turned, and the ruined features whispered, voice hollow:
"Hungry… brother… hungry…"
Lumian's eyes widened. Recognition stabbed through him. Simon.
The mutilated body lumbered past, grotesque in its shape. His massive torso leaked black pus, wounds spilling rot with every step. His limbs bent in impossible angles, scraping against the walls as if they didn't belong to bone anymore.
Carl's words came back to him. Before killing Simon, he had blinded him. Tortured him for half a month. Starved him. Broken him.
Now Simon had returned, twisted into a Wraith that would never stop hungering.
Don't move. Don't speak.
The figure dragged itself down the corridor. For a breathless second, Lumian thought he might be spared. Then the thing stopped. Slowly, it turned, the blind, black sockets tilting toward him. As though it could smell.
Lumian glanced down. His blood. His arm was still dripping onto the tiles, each drop an invitation, a beacon.
The wraith sniffed the air.
"Hungry… brother… hungry…"
Panic clawed at Lumian's chest. He knew this was the end if he stayed. But one door—one last door—remained unchecked. His only chance.
It was madness. If it was locked, he was finished. If he ran too slow, Simon would devour him.
But he ran anyway.
His legs thundered against the floor. The figure shrieked behind him, limbs contorting, accelerating. The corridor howled with the sound of pursuit.
Lumian threw himself at the door, rattled the knob—
It opened.
He fell inside, slamming the wood shut with every ounce of strength. His breath came ragged, shaking, but the wraith did not enter.
The scratching stopped.
Silence.
He pressed his back against the door, listening. The air inside was stale, the kind of silence that pressed like a weight. Ghost restrictions—some could not pass certain thresholds. He prayed this was one of them.
The bulb above him flickered faintly, casting the room into jerky snapshots of light and shadow. Each time it blinked, he thought he saw something moving at the edge of his vision, but the room remained empty.
Still trembling, he began to explore. The rooms were bare, unnervingly normal—too normal. A kitchen with rusted cutlery. A living room with no furniture but a single chair. A bedroom with sheets too neatly folded.
Then—he saw it.
On a small table sat a toy phone. Red plastic, faded by age.
He reached out, hesitant. Just before his fingers touched, the phone rang.
The shrill, childish tone cut through the silence like a knife.
Lumian's heart hammered. He lifted the receiver.
A child's voice came through, thin and trembling:
"Hello… uncle God… can you hear me?"
Lumian froze. His throat worked. "I'm not… uncle God. You can call me Lumian."
Silence followed. For so long that he thought the connection had died.
Then, soft as a sigh:
"…Can you help me, uncle Lumian?"
He blinked. The voice wasn't coming from the toy anymore.
It was behind him.
Lumian turned, muscles tight, every nerve screaming.
There, in the flickering light, stood a boy no older than six. His small frame was pale, his eyes wide with innocent expectation. Unlike the other ghosts, there was no blood, no twisted agony. He was… normal. Too normal.
Relief washed over Lumian. His mission. The boy.
The child tilted his head, lips parting in a hopeful smile.
"Are you here to help me and Mama? Did God send you, uncle Lumian?"
The words froze Lumian's blood. His hand shook on the knife, unsure if he should raise it or drop it.
For the first time since entering this cursed place, he didn't know if he was staring at salvation… or the beginning of a far worse nightmare.