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Translator/Editor: Natty

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◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈

Episode 13: Hana Galleria Mall Pop-Up (3)

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I slid down to the floor the moment I shut the door. I was gasping for breath.

"Seriously, I'm dying. I need to get in better shape."

Every muscle in my body screamed. Only after I had caught my breath did I realize where I was.

It looked nothing like the sleek interior of Hana Galleria Mall. It was a staff room in some American warehouse-style mart. An old cot that doubled as a sofa sagged in one corner.

Rough cement walls, clunky metal lockers, a work inspection checklist scrawled in marker, and a huge poster on the wall. Beneath the otter mascot in sunglasses giving a thumbs-up was the Pebbles Mart logo.

There was no doubt about it. This was exactly like the Pebbles Mart Night-Shift Rules ghost story. They had fused. The Mirror of the Otherworld story had become real through the pop-up, and Pebbles Mart had gotten tangled up in it.

'Then this is definitely a safe zone, at least until I get out.'

Once my breathing settled, I noticed a donut box sitting alone on the table, grease soaking through it. I lifted the lid a little. Inside was a slightly squashed glazed donut dusted white with powdered sugar.

'It's common sense not to eat anything in a haunted place, but...'

This place was safe. The staff room was a safe zone. Besides, I was about to die from low blood sugar. I boldly bit into a donut. The overwhelming sweetness hit my tongue, and only then did my mind start working again.

I searched through the cooler and found a cola, then started flipping through the Pebbles Mart night-shift rules with food in my mouth.

[Pebbles Mart Night-Shift Rules]

If the store aisles feel longer than usual, never run or look behind you. Instead, close your eyes, remain where you are, and count to 100. Then politely call out, "The store is now closed," and enter the nearest emergency exit.

The number of mannequins in the clothing store is not fixed. Do not count whether all the mannequins are in their places. If there seems to be an empty spot among them, or if there appear to be more than before, leave the area.

Escalators always move in one direction. If one moves in the opposite direction, leave the area immediately.

If you hear the sound of a child in the store, go to the announcement room immediately and make a child-safety announcement. Never speak to or guide the child directly.

Do not use any means of communication other than the issued walkie-talkie. If the walkie-talkie breaks, proceed to your assigned safe zone. You may request radio contact there.

Pebbles Mart was designed around the concept of being enormous, so it had a deli, arcade, convenience store, clothing store, souvenir shop, and even a food factory all in one place.

It had also freely allowed fan creations, which meant the rules numbered well over a hundred. It took quite a while just to read them all.

"Let's assume getting caught means you end up as a mannequin."

Skimming through the rules, I could understand the part where the ghost story swallowed people. The problem was whether I could run to a safe zone while carrying mannequins. And I wasn't even sure carrying them was actually the solution.

'I need help.'

Advice from someone. Something I would need if all of us were going to make it out alive, rather than just me. I started searching the maintenance room again for clues within the ghost story.

"What's this? A radio?"

There was a machine in the corner of a shelf, hidden beneath a tarp. It was old-fashioned, with an antenna and microphone.

"It doesn't seem broken..."

I shook the tarp clean, and an old binder fell out along with some cables and components. Amateur Radio Equipment Operating Guidelines.

It was ham radio equipment.

"Do not use any means of communication other than the issued walkie-talkie. If the walkie-talkie breaks, proceed to your assigned safe zone. You may request radio contact there."

This must be the emergency radio mentioned in the rules. I could ask for help. I quickly turned the pages.

[Amateur Radio Equipment (HAM) Operating Guidelines]

On the hour, unplug all cables from the equipment. We recommend not using the ham radio for ten minutes before and after that time.

Always keep an object that can stand in for your call sign on the transmitter. It must not belong to you or identify you.

If the static between frequencies sounds like Morse code, do not write it down.

If you receive a message saying, "Help me," on a frequency of 144.00 MHz or higher, never respond. That frequency has been repeating endlessly since 1994.

After radio contact is established, if the other person's voice is exactly like yours or repeats what you say, turn off the power and remove the antenna immediately.

Broadcast an SOS only when you are in real danger. Whether the being that comes after hearing your signal is your rescuer depends entirely on your luck.

"Whew."

It was a gamble. Would anyone who heard the SOS actually come to rescue me? Even the ghost-story rules couldn't promise that.

If I was lucky, I could end this ghost story easily and get more advice on saving everyone. If I wasn't...

Still, if it could give me an answer inside this anomaly, it was worth trying.

I set the offering stone on the transmitter as an object to stand in for my call sign. Fifteen minutes had passed since the hour. I connected every cable and checked that the power was on.

Kreeeak.

The dial turned with a rusty groan.

Crackle.

Crackle.

The sound bored into my eardrums. I heard shrill laughter. Nausea surged up inside me.

Crackle.

Screeech.

The frequency cycled endlessly between high and low tones. Something pounded inside my skull. It felt as though someone kept grabbing my head and shaking it.

I was going to throw up.

Bzzzzz.

"Oh, dear."

The ringing in my ears slowly faded.

"There are far too many things interfering with you."

My shaking vision gradually steadied.

A green light blinked on the radio equipment, showing that a frequency had connected.

"...It connected?"

"Are you all right, partner?"

A warm, gentle, pleasant voice flowed from the receiver. I'd never heard it before, but it brought on a familiar feeling...

"...ThreeAM?"

"Jaehyeon. My friend. My partner."

As the noise completely cleared, a soft old jazz melody filled the staff room. It stayed at a comfortable volume until I calmed down, then slowly faded away. My mind gradually eased, as though I were sitting on a couch in a counselor's office.

"Are you calmer now, partner? Your breathing is much gentler than before."

I scooted closer to the radio.

"...You're ThreeAM PM, right?"

"Did your radio have one or two others besides me? I'm honestly hurt. You had a frequency always waiting for you, yet you tried such pointless signals."

That stung a little. No, what had I even done?

"My phone lost service. Ghosts were chasing me. When would I have had time to check your frequency? And how was I supposed to find it from here...?"

"Oh, did you think I wouldn't be able to find you for such a trivial reason? I've always kept my frequency open. A number you could recognize at any time."

ThreeAM's tone was gentle, like a lover letting their hurt feelings show.

"Look. See where I've been waiting."

Following the sound, I opened the radio app on my phone. Frequency 0300 showed new activity, its scale glitching far below even the lowest frequency band.

"...This is?"

"That's where I am with you. A broadcast prepared for you alone, always."

A frequency between the infinite intervals of time, beyond what human limits could reach, observe, or broadcast. A radio broadcast transmitted from somewhere inhuman.

"...All right, ThreeAM PM. How can you speak now?"

"You may call me Hertz. Between us, the names Gii Yadam and ThreeAM PM are too... anonymous."

"O-okay. ...Hertz."

Of course the anomaly that tapped out Morse code through frequencies and sent spectrograms would call itself Hertz, as in Hz...

Anyway, introductions were not important. I got straight to the point through the radio.

"I think there are around ten other people trapped in this ghost story with me. I don't know what to do."

"Have you gotten lost?"

"No. We're trapped."

I quickly laid out everything that had happened at the pop-up, the general layout of the experience space, and the incident itself.

The depth gauge hadn't displayed any ghost story. Some of the missing people were being exhibited as mannequins. The rest were probably somewhere even more dangerous.

Hertz listened quietly while I rattled it all off.

"Then why didn't the depth gauge work?"

"First, there is one fact I should correct for my partner."

"The depth gauge isn't a notification device that detects stories approaching you and warns you in advance. More precisely, it is closer to an archive that holds the stories you have collected."

"It updated before, and it even told me the names or clues for the first two. Can't it do that from now on?"

"I'll try. I promise there won't be another bolt from the blue like this. This was a small accident that could happen during a brief update."

My ghost-story adviser partner clearly had about as much ability as an electronic goldfish. I let out a short sigh.

"So what do I do now?"

My biggest question had been answered. Now it was time to solve the problem in front of me.

"By the count, there seem to be around twelve missing people. I saw maybe eight or nine mannequins earlier."

"If you're lucky, the rest may be alive somewhere else, partner. But you should keep your mind open."

"?"

"Those poor people's various final destinations may all be mannequins."

It was a vague hint, but enough. Their human remains might have been dismembered and finished off somewhere else, like the tasting corner, then arranged as mannequins.

"Then it would be easier for me to move them all at once after everyone becomes mannequins. ...But can people who became mannequins come back to life? Just by taking the mannequins out?"

"At times like this, look closely at the essence. This is a story laid over a space you created. That means you already know which part to peel away and look inside."

"A shell laid over the essence..."

I recalled and compared the Pebbles Mart Night-Shift Rules ghost story, The Mirror of the Otherworld, and the actual Hana Galleria Mall one by one.

The similar things. The identical things. The different things. What had changed. What had felt strange.

In the rules-story, people who vanished basically all disappeared, died, or became something worse than death.

But none of the many rules attached to the Pebbles Mart story included grotesque descriptions like, "The previous employee was found in the XX section." Then becoming a mannequin must be the final ending at Pebbles Mart.

In The Mirror of the Otherworld episode, vanished people were trapped asleep in the so-called "inverted world" inside the mirror.

Someone vanished. There was an identical mannequin.

The corridor went on forever. The mall looped endlessly.

"...Ah."

A short gasp escaped me.

"This place has to have an inverted space too, one of the Mirror of the Otherworld's properties. The people will be inside it. The mannequins came into being to match the number of people trapped there. So if I can open a passage to get out of that inverted space, the people who became mannequins can be inverted back into their original forms and come alive again."

"As expected of my partner. You reached an excellent answer in no time."

"Right before the pop-up opened, there was a space that wasn't on the floor plan. That has to be the place people are, as well as the place we can get out."

"Do you remember where it was?"

"Basement level one. I saw it while sorting the free-gift inventory."

"Then it's simple. Go to basement level one and escape. Wouldn't that end this story?"

"...That's true, but I need to know whether everyone will definitely be safe."

"Why?"

"Because there was no point in coming in here if I was only going to leave by myself."

I opened the blog and began searching every hashtag I could think of. Hundreds, thousands of ghost stories surfaced through related searches, revealing their names and contents.

"I need to find a way out through the inverted world."

I found what I needed and prepared to make real a new hypothesis to fit into the reasoning I'd worked out.

Every time a story was passed along, its shape changed. Its appearance changed. New foundations were layered over it, changing its colors.

It was a story I could build piece by piece, each addition beginning, "A story I hadn't known, but as it turns out..."

The department store had become a mart, then an endless passageway, then an inverted mirrored maze. So why couldn't it become something else as well?

"...So from now on, I'm going to rewrite this ghost story."

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