How to Rewrite Ghost Stories - Chapter 36

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈

Episode 36: Subway at 11 p.m. (1)

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It took another two hours before I could leave the hospital room. The medical staff who had come in with Mok Inha put me through the wringer with equipment I had never seen before.

I got so exhausted during the tests that I had to beg them to let me stop halfway through and eat something first...

“There are limits to being a disaster magnet. Who gets dragged in without even meeting the conditions for entering a Distortion?”

Mok Inha, who had been watching the results, scolded me.

“It’s not like I wanted to go in. Still, you did put something over my face.”

“Oh, that. It’s one of our tools. It’s not as if we go charging headfirst into Distortions with no protection.”

“It seemed to be gone when I came out...”

It had actually turned into a hedgehog. I discreetly hid the keychain under the blanket.

“It wasn’t proper equipment. We usually wear gear made specifically for this, but what could we put on someone who got dragged in without warning? Nothing went wrong inside, did it?”

“Well, I came back alive, so I guess it worked.”

Mok Inha gave a brief smile.

“Of course. It reduces the chance of going crazy from eleven times out of ten to eight times out of ten.”

Wouldn’t that count as having no effect? More importantly, the thought that they had tried to recruit me into a horrible workplace where people went insane eleven times out of ten made me shudder.

I should never make a job out of something I liked again. Whether it was reality or ghost stories, I would never work for a company that ground people down.

“The tests are finished, and there are no abnormalities. If anything, you’re so clean it’s strange.”

The medic tilted their head while holding my examination chart.

“People stranded in Distortions are exposed to reality warping, so they usually undergo physical or mental changes. But Mr. Seon Jaehyeon’s readings haven’t changed at all since the contamination was removed during the first examination.”

The radio app on my phone sent a vibrating notification. It seemed smug, as if demanding recognition for its hard work.

“Could it be because the gorosoe sap Section Chief Mok gave me worked incredibly well?”

“It’s just a low-grade standard-issue item.”

“Then perhaps Mr. Seon Jaehyeon has the constitution of a spirit vessel! Do you have any shamans or clergy in your family?”

“Uh... I don’t think so?”

My parents definitely did not seem to be. And my younger sibling... I didn’t think they had ever said anything like that.

It had been a while since I had visited my parents, too.

Maybe I should ask next time I went home for the holidays. Although plane tickets were expensive during holidays, so it would be better to go when I got special paid leave.

“If anything happens, contact me. And contact me even if you think something might happen.”

“Ah, okay. I get it.”

Mok Inha even called me a taxi, drilling the same words into my ears over and over, somewhere between emphasis, coercion, and a threat. My ears still hurt after I got in the cab.

‘I’m taking a break from ghost stories for a while.’

First of all, I was tired. Too much had happened in too short a time. I had seen far too many things I should never have seen, and I needed to recover the mental energy I had spent thinking my way through ghost stories.

The moment I got home, I entered full self-care mode.

All weekend, I didn’t so much as mention ghost stories. I tore into chicken and watched nothing but cheesy romantic comedies and popcorn movies on Netflix, day and night.

Even variety shows like You’re Single Too, which I normally wouldn’t have glanced at, were unbelievably entertaining.

It wasn’t as though I had abandoned my blog. I wrote a fact-check post that removed only the parts I had actually experienced inside ghost stories.

The response was explosive, naturally. Comment notifications poured in, and I think I even got an email saying it was one of the blog’s weekly popular posts, but I didn’t look.

— My partner does not appear to intend to look through the desperate requests for some time.

Hertz meant the NEW icons appearing on the Guestbook every day. There were surely real, bizarre reports and calls for help mixed in among them, but...

“This week is strictly for healing. No ghost stories for a while.”

I firmly closed the browser window.

❖ ❖ ❖

[Assistant Manager, Assistant Manager, Assistant Manager, did you see that?]

[Huh?]

[Whoa, there’s marketing the Assistant Manager hasn’t seen yet. Emergency, emergency.]

[Really? Doesn’t that prove it’s failed marketing if the Assistant Manager hasn’t seen it?]

[No way. Our Assistant Manager must be pretending not to know.]

[Assistant Manager, please look at thiiis.]

I had spent the entire morning dealing with plans and proposals Director Lee had dumped on me, so I didn’t see the chat window desperately pinging me with @ mentions like a meerkat until after lunch.

[I was busy. What is it?]

[Oh, yay! I thought you might already know about it, Assistant Manager, but I’ll send you the link again!]

[Hm. It’s not some weird virus, right?]

[Nooo! But it might be a little gross. It’s a horror video!]

Across from me, Associate Im Seonghui from Team Two gave me a thumbs-up.

Associate Im was the most trend-sensitive person in Strategic Planning, so maybe they had found an interesting overseas marketing article.

[Thanks. I’ll watch it right away.]

I clicked the URL sent through the messenger. Soon, a short video played against a black background.

It was filmed from a first-person perspective. Someone was running, the camera shaking wildly. Their ragged breathing mixed with microphone static.

Everything around them was dark. At first, all I could hear were occasional splashes and pebbles scattering beneath their feet, making me think they were outside. But then the camera caught the ceiling and walls, showing that they were indoors.

「Hah, hah, hah... Ah, aaaah!!」

The camera showed a dead person sprawled on the floor. Their face was deathly pale, and their body lay twisted at impossible angles.

Then it showed someone hanging from the wall, and revealed that the water the camera holder had been stepping in was a pool of blood.

Human faces and body parts flashed across the screen a few more times. The running slowed. A dragging sound joined the footsteps. But they didn’t stop.

The camera shook more violently. What looked like fabric or branches, too indistinct to make out the color of, hung in the spaces that flashed by on either side. The camera holder seemed to trip, and the view slammed into the floor.

「It’s alive... That fucking thing is alive!!!」

The black screen shook with the scream, then the video ended.

“...It looks like found footage?”

Pop.

A new image appeared on the black screen.

This video was found at Jangsalgot, Jecheon, on March 21, three years ago. If you recognize any of the people shown in this video, or are related to them, please contact the email below. We await your earnest tip. [email protected]

[What is this? A movie promotion site?]

“The real mystery is that no one knows. Oh, and this is your Dubai Matcha Espresso Chocolate Latte Frappuccino, Assistant Manager.”

Instead of replying through messenger, Associate Im themself popped up over the partition.

“Ah, thanks. What’s with the coffee?”

“Manager Seong’s company-card perk? But we had to use a buy-one-get-one coupon, so everyone got the same thing.”

So that was why they had given this Dubai swamp-water-looking drink to someone whose entire coffee experience consisted of iced Americanos from the office machine. It was free, so I would drink it gratefully. ...It was too sweet.

“So what is this? Did a competitor put out some movie marketing?”

“No. It’s a video page that has been randomly appearing online for about a week. No one knows who made it, and there are no related sites at all.”

It was interesting, but there were already too many AI and fake videos around these days.

“But did you see the tip request at the end?”

“Did people get some new response after emailing them?”

I searched for Jangsalgot on the green search portal as Associate Im spoke. A few fishing videos and a couple of daily vlogs came up.

There were a few mentions of the video in the real-time and latest search sections, but no articles or blogs had covered it in detail yet.

“Apparently, the reply asks whether you know anyone in the video.”

That still didn’t seem very special. Most people probably couldn’t find anything more to say after that.

“But someone recognized a person in there.”

At Associate Im’s next words, my hand paused over a video of someone landing a trophy fish. A washed-out face smiled from the screen.

“You know the missing-person flyers that get circulated every month... Apparently, one of those missing people was in that video.”

Associate Im lowered their voice to a whisper, but it sounded very far away.

That washed-out face looked at the fish, looked at the camera, and looked at me as it smiled. It overlapped with the face that had rolled across the floor, eyes turned up and wide open.

“And apparently, quite a few people say someone they know is in the video too...”

Pretending to listen to Associate Im, I carefully connected my phone to the computer. Then I pasted the video address into the radio app’s message form and pressed send.

Click.

[A new ghost story has been detected!]

[There is a new change in the Depth Gauge!]

006. Jangsalgot (Insufficient Data)

The Depth Gauge caused a brief glitch across the computer screen. Highlighted underlines began flashing everywhere, as though every word had been marked in yellow.

Words floated over the page like hashtags.

Hide-and-seek. Water. Ritual. Chase. Death. Murder. Demise. Eternal rest. Fate. The end of life. Drowning. Tragedy. Freezing to death. Burning to death. Sudden death.

Every kind of death surfaced in dozens of languages and scripts, then sank away. Even though the screen had turned into such a mess, Associate Im didn’t seem to notice at all.

“So people are saying Jangsalgot might be some kind of haunted spot, and that it could be a real video.”

“I, I see. Thanks. Horror must really be popular these days.”

“Well, Assistant Manager, your last pop-up event was such a huge success that Halloween events have been popping up everywhere...”

Associate Im seemed to want to chat more, but I quickly sent them back to their desk on the pretext of having a proposal to finish.

I looked at the fishing video on my blog again. The washed-out smiling face from before had disappeared. Still, the face of the man enjoying his fishing left me with an uneasy feeling.

I clicked Latest Posts.

The last post. Jangsalgot fishing video.

Upload date: March 18.

“...”

I should contact Section Chief Mok after I got home. She would probably appreciate the information.

But handling a ghost story was not my immediate problem. I still had a mountain of forty proposal pages to finish before tonight.

“Ugh... This damned work-life-balance company.”

By the time I finally straightened up from my desk, the world outside the window was pitch-black. The clock said 10:40 p.m. If I went home now, I would barely get to greet my bed before having to come back to work.

‘Should I sleep at the sauna near the office?’

I considered it for a moment, but sleeping on a sauna floor starting Monday was too miserable.

Should I take a taxi, then? I opened the taxi app.

Estimated wait time before a taxi could be found: 75 minutes.

Forget it.

I hurriedly packed up and left work. Maybe it was thanks to all the running I had done in ghost stories lately, but it took me less than half the usual time to reach the subway.

Ding-ding-ding-ding!

“This train is bound for Jinjeop. Jinjeop-bound train arriving. Passengers, please...”

‘Nice timing.’

The train glided in just as I ran onto the platform.

‘Why is it so empty?’

I had expected to stand for an hour, twisted into some painful shape among the crowd, but the subway was nearly empty. There were vacant seats everywhere. Had it skipped some stops today? What was this?

Still, it was a blessing for someone as exhausted as me. I quickly took an empty seat and put in my earphones. I should finish the drama I had been watching yesterday.

Clatter-clatter.

“This station is Sookmyung Women’s University, Sookmyung Women’s University Station. The doors will open on the...”

Something felt off.

It was a familiar yet unfamiliar sensation, something tickling somewhere while cold trickled down my spine.

Come to think of it, someone should have gotten off and boarded whenever we passed a station. Had anyone actually gotten on this train?

“...?”

When I lifted my head, a woman was sitting opposite me. She had not been there when I boarded. Was she looking this way... at me? Ah, was there an advertisement behind me? I turned around, but the window showed nothing except the dark tunnel passing by.

‘...She is looking at me, right?’

The subway doors closed.

Clatter-clatter.

The doors opened again. Then closed.

Clatter-clatter.

I closed my eyes and opened them again. I buried my face in my phone, then stared blankly at the station display.

The woman was still there. Looking at me. Our eyes met exactly.

‘...I, I should get off. There should still be one more last train.’

Thinking that she might follow me, I stepped off the subway just as the doors were about to close.

“The train is departing. Please take one step back.”

“Geez, is she sleeping with her eyes open? She’s seriously making me nerv...”

She was gone.