So Min

The corridor looked as deserted as how the other colleagues had briefly described when I approached them for directions to the storage room in the basement. I should have heeded their advices to bring a companion with me. But I was too obstinate to admit that there would be anything that I could not overcome.  Now, I started to regret my stubbornness. The echoes from the trolley I was wheeling made a squeaky, irritating sound like someone scratching across a glass surface with her nails. Only this was actually worse with the much unwanted amplification through the hallway. The flickering lights not only did not help to lighten up the place, it had even managed to deceive my judgment of my surroundings. I kept imagining that there were footsteps pursuing from behind and shadows were lurking somewhere in the dark, watching my every move. I felt the bitter cold biting into my bones as I continuously looked back to ensure that there was no one following me. The water dripping from one of the pipes seemed to magnify the thumping of my heart as I steered on, determined to complete my tasks even though I was so darn scared.  

Finally, I reached my destination. I unlocked the door where the sign ‘Archive Room’ was visible and hardly pushed the heavy door to reveal the pitch dark room and a pungent stench. As I fumbled for the light switch, that I assumed should be on the wall near the entrance, my fingers brushed through sticky, threadlike things that felt like cobwebs. I hoped I would not accidentally touch a gecko in the darkness as I freaked out even at the sight of one of them.

The black room turned dimly orange after I flicked on the light switch. I scanned the room to find rows of metal shelves with labeled boxes lined up across the room. Not bad housekeeping for a forgotten place like this, I thought. I pushed the trolley with the files that sunbae had retrieved from this place into the room and then tried to hold the door open with a stool that I found nearby. Unfortunately, the door was heavily damped and I had to close it and endure the stale air within. Parking the trolley at a corner of the room, I went forward to search for the box that will contain the twenty over files that I had painstakingly read and memorized through over the week.

I started with patience at first. But after rows and rows of boxes, I was unable to locate the box and it was getting hotter and stuffier by the second. Climbing up and down the shelves only added on to my vexation and the perspiration on my body. By now, my throat was dry from thirst and I was getting giddy from lack of air ventilation in the room.  I glanced at my watch to realize that it was already 6.30pm. It meant that I had been searching for 45 minutes to no avail. Maybe I should come back next Monday and might as well get Jerk sunbae to come with me, since he should know where he last seen the box.

Just as I was making my way down from a shelf, I thought I heard a sound. I froze in my position, wondering what or who could have caused it. It was not possible that anyone could be still in the office at this hour for the whole office would look like ghost town after 5.30pm on Fridays. Not to mention that anyone in the right frame of mind would be down here out of his own volition at anytime of the day.

“Who’s there?” I called out.

Echoes of my voice responded to my own question.

I remained still in my position, careful not to move a single hair while my hearing and sight sharpened. I covered my heavily pounding heart with my palm, fearing that someone or something could hear its loud beating. I thought I was lucky that I was crouching on top of one of the shelves so that I could have a bird’s eye view of the room below me. But it was not comforting that even though I was perched at such a high position, I saw no living things below me.

Remembering one of my colleagues had narrated that this was the room where an office girl frequented to rendezvous with her married lover every evening. One day, her lover broke up with her at this very place, claiming that he had enough of her and he left her here crying till her eyes bled. Dejected, the girl finally cut her wrist and her blood spread out, staining the floor that could not be removed even with the strongest bleach. Her spirit had thereafter guarded this room, in hope that her lover would return for her one day. There were claims that her weeping could be heard in the basement at 7pm, every evening.    

7pm?

I raised my watch to eye level to check on the time.

It was exactly 7pm now…

As if on cue with my worst fear, a howling sound that rang out like weeping of a woman began to reverberate through the basement. My blood curdled and an icy sensation gripped my heart so tight that I could not breathe. The spirit of the office girl seemed to be able to feel my rising fear as the sound of boxes toppling over somewhere startled me. I could not keep my cool composure anymore. Ghost or no ghost, I decided that I needed to get out of this place…FAST!

My feet frantically searched for any steppable surface as I clumsily climbed down the shelf. In my haste, I missed a step and rammed my cheek against the panels causing a pain that hurt like a thousand needles pricking through my skin. But there was no time to waste! Quickly regaining my footing, I searched anxiously for the door. I realized that in my quest for my box, I had walked aimlessly into a labyrinth and it proved challenging now to retrace my path back to where I came from. I started to run in an erratic direction. I did not know where I was heading to, I just wished that I could hit jackpot somehow.

Just as I was about to give up, I saw the door. My heart started to race faster, beating more than a hundred times in a minute. With superhuman strength that I did not know  I possessed, I sprinted towards the door faster than Usan Bolt could reach the finishing line. As my hand touched the door knob, I squealed in delight.

To my horror, I could not turn the knob! My hand was clammy with perspiration by now. I could hear heavy breathing from behind me. The hairs at the back of my neck tingled, as if warning me of approaching danger. I continued my desperate attempt to open the door but the stupid knob just would not budge.    

The breathing became more audible now. I dared not look back for fear of seeing the dreaded spirit.

It was getting nearer and nearer. I could feel her approaching.

Though it seemed hopeless, I was not willing to yield into the fate that befell me. I tried to turn the knob again and again, but it kept slipping through my slippery hands.

Click!

It turned!Every muscle in my body was prepared to make a dash at that moment.

All of a sudden, a pair of cold, trembling hands caught me by my shoulders to jerk me back from my escape.

I screamed! I screamed with all my might, though I knew no one could hear me…