DNLYHS Chapter 1 (Part 1)
by Brie- First Day
[Ending D, [Broadcast Too Early] terminated. Moving on to the next attempt.]
[May you reach the end this time.]
With his eyes closed, the young man counted numbers. As if he were revisiting scenes from a revolving lantern at the final moment of his life.
[Ten, nine, eight.]
As he counted, he recalled an old dream. It felt as though it had been a single dream, yet also like several dreams overlapping.
It felt like he had dreamed the same dream over and over, or perhaps they were entirely different dreams that he had mistaken for the same one.
Some dreams were so short they ended in the blink of an eye. Some seemed to last quite a while, but the details were hazy.
He felt he wouldn’t be able to trust anyone. At the same time, he felt he could only endure if he trusted someone.
The only thing he was sure of was that the end of the dream had never been good.
All that remained clear in his mind was the memory of sobbing as he counted meaningless numbers.
[Seven, six.]
Sometimes he woke from the dream thinking that he should do better next time, but it never meant much.
Sometimes he prayed that luck might follow him next time, but hope always faded away.
[Five, four.]
Dreams leave nothing behind. What you build in a dream dissolves like bubbles, and the blood that stained your hands or the irreversible regrets are washed away in a muddled blur.
He couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Some things he wished would accumulate, and some things he wished had never happened at all.
[Three, two.]
No, there was actually one thing that did remain. And that was the record.
The young man had wanted to leave something important behind, and he remembered that he had recorded it somewhere.
He couldn’t recall exactly what he had clung to or why he wrote it down, but he sensed that the record would remain in some form and change his reality.
[One.]
And then, the young man opened his eyes.
Remembering nothing but a faint awareness lingering in his unconscious.
[Your assigned role is Librarian.]
[Time remaining until escape: 14 days (2 weeks).]
All the fluorescent lights were turned off. The library at midnight was swallowed in deep darkness.
The long-abandoned school library looked like something that belonged in a faded photograph. The bookshelves that rose high enough to reach the ceiling, the wooden desks placed for students to read at, even the surfaces that felt sticky to the touch, everything showed clear signs of age. The wooden floorboards were scraped white as though countless feet had worn them down over the years. The shelves were sparsely lined with old books with aged covers, a sight common in any old school.
But one thing felt out of place: every window was painted pitch-black. As if someone had coated them several times over with thick layers of black paint.
Because of that, the library was so dark he couldn’t even make out what was right in front of him. Not even a single shaft of moonlight could slip into this strange, sealed room.
[Trust the Code of Conduct. These are absolute rules you must follow.]
[Your current chance of escaping is 8%. Record the school. Accumulate clues.]
The space itself seemed to breathe slowly, accompanied by faint creaks coming from between the shelves and floorboards. It was the kind of sound one might hear in any old building. Occasionally, a faint thud or a knocking sound came from somewhere, but they were small enough to dismiss as imagination.
But in the middle of that white noise, a distinctly foreign sound rang out.
Click, the sound of a light switch being flipped.
“Mm…?”
The young man stirred awake at the sound.
He was in the seat inside the wooden counter where a librarian would usually sit.
A worn desk lamp placed inside the counter illuminated his face. His eyes were gentle, and his soft, delicate features made him look far too young and mild to ever harm anyone, much too youthful and beautiful for someone called a teacher. He looked barely older than twenty. One cheek, pressed against his arm as he slept, had turned slightly red, but under the lamplight his skin appeared almost pale enough to seem translucent.
Still half-asleep, the young man glanced around. He tried to gather scraps of thought, where he was, why he was here, and then a troubling question surfaced.
What is my name? How old am I? What was I doing right before coming here?
Not a single answer came to him, answers any normal person should recall instantly. A chilling awareness crawled down his spine that something was very wrong.
He hurried to search his pockets. Maybe he could find some personal information in a wallet or a phone, but he had no belongings at all.
What on earth…?
As he looked around in confusion, his eyes soon fell on a notebook lying on top of the counter. Thinking it might contain some sort of clue, he reached for it.
But the moment he flipped past the faded, tattered cover, he murmured the words on the first page in a bewildered voice.
“Your assigned role is… Librarian…?”
[The rules you are reading now apply to Day 1. The rules for the next day will be revealed immediately after the end-of-day broadcast.]
[Universal rules that apply in all situations: Reveal your role to others. Do not reveal the records you write. Do not trust it. Do not doubt him.]
They were sentences he couldn’t make sense of. Not simply because of his memory loss, but because there just wasn’t enough information.
What does any of this mean? He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and quietly continued reading, deciding he needed more context.
[Day 1 Code of Conduct]
[1. First, secure a stable light source other than the lamp currently on the desk. It must be something you can freely carry. In a place this dark, moving around without light will be impossible.]
[If you can clearly see the interior of the library even without an additional light source, leave the library immediately.]
He fiddled with the lamp on the counter, then nodded. It was powered through a cord and couldn’t be carried around. The library was far too dark to take even a single step without light.
[1–1. If the inside of the library is safe]
[Check the drawers. There is a low chance a flashlight will be inside.]
[Do not take the writing utensils kept in these drawers. They will mostly be mechanical pencils or regular pencils, something someone could erase maliciously. Such writing tools are unsuitable for recording.]
[Whether you find a flashlight or not, once you have thoroughly checked the drawers, stop any further searching and leave the library immediately. Stop reading this Code of Conduct as well. You will be coming back anyway.]
Following the instructions, the young man opened the drawers. Like the counter, the wooden drawers felt sticky to the touch. After opening several, he found a flashlight in the bottom drawer.
He flipped the switch. A dim beam flickered on, slightly weaker than he hoped.
Is this flashlight even reliable? What if it dies right away?
But it was better than nothing. Thinking simply that he should take it and head outside, he rose to his feet.
The notebook said “14 days until escape,” but he didn’t really understand what that meant. Couldn’t he just walk across the hallway with the flashlight and go straight to the school entrance? It looked like a school, after all.
He wasn’t entirely sure the notebook was even real. Since he had no memories, he was just following the Code of Conduct for now. But who wrote it? For what purpose? None of it made sense.
Maybe someone wrote it as a joke. Maybe parts of the so-called rules just happened to match reality. Most of it could still be nonsense. He had no solid reason to believe any of it.
But the moment he staggered forward and pushed open the library door…
The young man froze, gripping the notebook tightly in his hand.
Unlike the library, which had been completely pitch-black, the hallway was at least somewhat bright.
Of course, it wasn’t as bright as daytime. It must have been midnight, because moonlight was pouring in through the long row of windows along the hallway. It looked bright enough that he could walk around without the flashlight if he had to.
It was different from what the Code of Conduct had described. But the young man sensed immediately that this was nothing to feel relieved about.
The… the shadow.
Where there is light, there should be shadow, right? The hallway was empty, and yet on the faded wooden floor lay a shadow so clear that it was impossible to ignore.
It was definitely not a human shadow. At a glance, it looked like a four-legged creature, something like a dog. Or like a tree with dense branches and tentacle-like legs attached, walking on those. Or maybe it wasn’t anything real at all, maybe it was mimicking the shape of something else, like a shadow puppet.
But one thing was certain.
That was an extremely dangerous presence. If he approached it wrong, something horrible might happen.
What is that? Maybe it’s written somewhere in this notebook?
Peeking at the shadow through the crack of the open library door, the young man opened the notebook again. It was hard to call the notebook’s contents nonsense now, after all, the situation in front of him was already wildly unrealistic.
[1–2. If you have exited the library for any reason]
[Avoid the moonlight. It is a dangerous area. Do not try to learn what is casting that shadow.]
[If you are unlucky enough to be noticed by the shadow, move to an area without moonlight. However, it will not be easy.]
[If you cannot escape, close your eyes and count to ten. You will return to the library.]
Fortunately, the Code of Conduct did include information about the shadow. But whether it was actually helpful was another issue entirely, because most of the listed countermeasures didn’t apply well to the current situation.
The hallway in front of the library is nothing but moonlight! Even stepping outside is already the biggest problem! And it says moving to a place without moonlight won’t be easy…!
But if he wanted to escape this place at all, he had no choice but to somehow get through that hallway.
Still unwilling to give up, the young man kept flipping through the notebook until the pages nearly wore down. Then his eyes caught a tiny note written in a corner.
[If you absolutely must pass through the moonlight, a mirror will help to some extent. But do not look at that thing reflected in the mirror.]
A mirror? If he had a mirror, he could get through this place? He widened his eyes.
Was there a mirror in the drawer earlier? I was searching so fast…
He had only checked for writing tools and a flashlight, so he hadn’t carefully looked for a mirror. From what he remembered, there probably hadn’t been one. If a mirror could have been taken from the drawer, the Code of Conduct would have mentioned it along with the flashlight. Most likely, it wasn’t there.
But it was still too early to give up. If he searched the rest of the library, he might find one somewhere. Maybe there were more drawers or cabinets, and if he searched…
But just as he was about to lift his head from the notebook…
Time’s up.
With a bright, ringing, mocking laugh, someone shoved his back, hard. His unprepared body tumbled helplessly out of the library.
There had been no one in the library but him, hadn’t there?
Panicking, he turned around, but the library door slammed shut as if it had been waiting for him to leave. The sharp click of a bolt locking from the other side was so vivid it sent chills down his spine.
N-no…
He couldn’t understand who had done this, or why that voice had felt oddly familiar. But he didn’t have the luxury to think about that now. It might have been safe inside the library, but out in the hallway…
[…]!
The shadows had recognized him. Until now, they had drifted meaninglessly like leaves swaying in the wind, but suddenly they all froze as if staring at him.
Clenching his teeth, the young man started running. Holding the notebook and the flashlight tightly in both hands as if they were treasures.
“Anywhere… anywhere as long as there’s no moonlight…!”
The young man sprinted down the hallway with all his strength. In the empty corridor, only the sound of a person running echoed like a hollow reverberation.
At a glance, it looked like he was running alone, but beneath his feet, shadows of unknown origin were writhing as they swarmed in from every direction.
Shadows tore into shadows. Shadows pierced and sliced and shredded other shadows. Each time the young man’s shadow was wounded, blood shaped like shadow sprayed out in every direction like a fountain.
There were only two reasons he was still able to keep running like this. First, the shadows were too busy fighting among themselves over the only prey available. Second, the damage caused no pain to his actual body.
What is happening to me right now? If my shadow gets hurt or killed, how does that affect me…?
If there had been pain, he would have collapsed on the spot, unable to run at all, so he couldn’t even call it entirely bad luck. But the fact that something was consuming a part of him while he couldn’t properly resist terrified him beyond reason.
He was certain it was dangerous, but he didn’t even know what the exact problem was, fear of the unknown clamped around his throat.
I’m dizzy. I can’t breathe right. Something… something is going wrong…
At this point, it might be better to just close his eyes and count to ten.
But he didn’t even want to imagine what might be lurking inside the library now. At the very least, these “shadows” came with instructions on how to deal with them, but whatever was inside the library hadn’t been described at all. Maybe that was why the rules insisted he leave the library immediately… that was all he could vaguely guess.
Still, it was doubtful whether running like this would solve anything. No matter how far he ran, no moonless space appeared. He tried opening a few doors in desperation, but the first door was locked, and the second revealed nothing but a room full of moonlight. And even if he did find a safe room, without a mirror he would be trapped anyway.
He did, however, have one last hope. The only gamble that might flip the situation.
The restroom. If I can get to the restroom, there has to be a mirror!
He didn’t know which floor this was, but if it was a school, every floor had to have a restroom. When he left earlier, he had noticed the library was located at the very end of the hallway. If he kept running straight, he would eventually reach a restroom.
The restroom mirror wouldn’t be portable, but it was certainly better than nothing. If he broke it and took a shard, it might be dangerous, but it would be something he could carry. Among the strategies he could come up with, it was one of the best.
Is this really the best plan? …No. I don’t have the time to think that far!
Unlike the young man, who was still managing to run, his shadow looked on the verge of collapsing. There was no time left to hesitate.
Just when he began to worry that his shadow might die before he even reached the restroom, he finally saw it ahead. Next to the restroom were a staircase and a dead-end wall, proof he had almost reached the opposite end of the hallway.
Once he got inside, all he needed was to find a way to use the mirror…
He had that thought as he rushed forward to push open the restroom door.
Broken. Under repair. Whatever. Do not open. Please use a different floor. Not this one.
Wh, wait…? The moment he saw the writing on the door, the young man froze.
He hadn’t noticed the letters immediately. Because they were written backwards, reversed left to right. As if someone inside had desperately written a message meant to be read from outside.
Do not open. By the time he managed to make out the words, the door was already half-open. He was practically being carried forward by momentum, about to step inside the restroom.
A strange sense of déjà vu seized him. The situation was different, but the feeling was exactly the same as when someone had shoved him out of the library earlier. A sense that something was going terribly wrong.
This isn’t right. He was just beginning to think that…
“Where do you think you’re going? Are you out of your mind? Do you have a death wish?!”
With a sharp, irritable male voice, his body was yanked backward.
In the middle of the hallway where only strange shadows had been crawling moments ago, a pale young man stood in the moonlight, clutching his arm.
A dull pop rang out, like something had burst.
If an extremely tough balloon were blown up to its absolute limit and suddenly burst, it would probably make exactly that kind of sound.
The noises came in a chain. The sound of something soft collapsing, the wet slosh of flesh spilling everywhere, the sound of someone crushing that flesh underfoot, the strained, choking breaths of something trying desperately to imitate a groan even though it couldn’t actually groan…
With those strange noises, the shadows collapsed all at once. Freed from the attack at last, the young man’s shadow sank to the ground, bleeding heavily, but it didn’t seem to be dead. A wave of relief washed over him, making his head spin.
But he couldn’t allow himself to collapse as well. Catching his breath, he looked at the man.
…Ah.
He was tall. Much taller than expected, so tall the young man had to lift his head quite a bit to see his face properly.
The man, nearly 190 centimeters with a striking build, stood calmly, yet something about his presence pressed down on the surroundings. And yet, the crisp white dress shirt and black slacks somehow gave him a student-like air.
Mid- to late-twenties, perhaps? The young man’s features were sharp and beautiful, like a carefully carved statue. Under the moonlight, his pale skin and clean jawline looked so refined they almost seemed cold. If the situation weren’t like this, he might have admired the man’s looks without meaning to.
But from that perfectly sculpted face came a faint sense of gloom and sensitivity. His gaze, fixed on the young man, was far from calm, uneasy and bewildered.
The young man sensed it instantly. This man was in the same situation as he was, and just as frightened of this bizarre school.
Before he could say anything, the sharp voice rang out again.
“What are you staring at like that?”
“Huh?”
“Pull yourself together and hide behind me. If you stay like that, you’re going to die!”
When the man released his arm, the young man flinched and hurried behind his back.
Only then did he notice the man held a small desk mirror in his hand. Each time he angled the mirror toward the moonlit hallway, the shadows collapsed. So the mirror definitely had the ability to drive them back.
“Don’t look at the mirror. The notebook said it’s bad if you see the reflected image.”
“Ah…”
At that moment, the young man realized entering the restroom would have been a terrible choice.
It wasn’t just because of the writing on the door. Since the mirror would be attached to the wall, he would inevitably see his reflection the moment he stepped inside. The notebook had clearly warned him not to look at reflected images. Even without the scribbles, the restroom itself must have been dangerous. Why had he only realized this now?
In more ways than one, this man had saved him. Even though he must be just as scared and anxious being trapped in this strange place himself.
“Thank you. But… wh-who are you…?”
“I don’t remember my name. Just call me a Disciplinary Committee Member for now.”
“Disci… what?”
What was that supposed to mean? No, he knew the term, but was that really an appropriate title for this man? Was he even a student? He looked at least five years past graduation… The young man grew flustered trying to make sense of it, but the man only sighed deeply while hurrying down the stairs.
“You must’ve been assigned some kind of role too. My job is to protect you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
As he spoke, the man slowly backed up. The young man followed him while stepping backward, until his heel caught on a stair and he nearly fell. Only then did he realize the man was heading up the staircase.
“Where are we going? Sh-shouldn’t we go down? If we want to get out of here…!”
“Down where? This is the first floor. There aren’t any stairs leading below us.”
“Huh? But…”
“Have you not looked at the school map? This damn school has no exits. There is no such thing as a way out!”
That couldn’t be. He wanted to argue, but when he glanced up the staircase, the words died in his throat. There really was a sign indicating it connected the first and second floors.
He had already confirmed there were no doors leading outside while sprinting from the library to here. And considering the warning about moonlight, the windows wouldn’t be a viable exit either. That meant…
“The notebook… it was telling the truth…”
The bizarre line that said he could escape after 14 days finally sank into him. Was he truly trapped here for the next two weeks? Why? How?
Suppressing his fear, he climbed the stairs. The man cast him a brief, exasperated glance, but silently continued walking, protecting him all the while.
The second-floor hallway was completely dark. Unlike the first floor, where bright moonlight had poured in, every window lined up along the corridor here was painted pitch-black. It looked as though someone had coated them thickly with black paint to make sure not a single point of light could enter.
Come to think of it, the inside of the library had been in almost the same state. Maybe in this school, windows that blocked out all light were normal, and the moonlit first floor was the abnormal one.
“You don’t have a flashlight, do you? Were you really wandering around this pitch-black school without any light until now?”
“I went down to the first floor specifically to get one. Even without a light, I could still see a little.”
The man replied with a slight grimace.
He was right. With the only source of outside light blocked, it should have been impossible to see anything, but thankfully it wasn’t that bad. There were artificial lights present.
One was the red emergency light on the fire hose cabinet, and the other was the green emergency exit signs glowing at both ends of the hallway. They weren’t bright, but they were enough to make out the shapes of things.
A fire hose cabinet is normal, but… did schools always have those huge exit lights?
It felt a little odd, but the two decided to talk for now beside the glowing green sign. After a moment of consideration, the young man briefly switched off his flashlight. If he had to survive in this school for fourteen days, it was better not to waste the flashlight when other light sources were around.
“That’s a wise decision. These emergency lights and the fire hose light are bright enough to read the Code of Conduct. And we don’t know what else might be lurking in this school.”
The man spoke in a more relieved tone than before. It seemed he had also been reading and following the Code of Conduct. The young man decided he should do the same. He didn’t understand the situation at all, but this notebook seemed to be his only reliable anchor…
“There were definitely strange things. That shadow under the moonlight earlier, and something in the library pushed me out even though I couldn’t see it… Ah, right. I should’ve introduced myself sooner. My role is Librarian.”
“Librarian? What kind of petty, useless job is that.”
So he’d hoped the young man could’ve been someone more helpful… From the man’s displeased expression, he clearly doubted the young man’s usefulness. Honestly, the young man had nothing to say in return. He didn’t think he had any great abilities either, and the role written in the rules didn’t seem very helpful for survival.