How to Rewrite Ghost Stories - Chapter 37

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈

Episode 37: Subway at 11 p.m. (2)

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The train departed.

Once the hum of its motors and the sound of wind it made vanished into the tunnel, nothing but silence remained on the platform.

There should have been something. A drunk muttering, students coming back after drinking near campus, someone running down for the last train... That was what Line 4 was like. From Myeongdong to Hansung University, every station was crowded.

There was nothing. Not a sound.

‘It feels like the Backrooms...’

I slowly turned my head and looked around the platform. There was no one. Not a single person. Even the subway lights seemed dimmer, and the tiles looked hopelessly dull.

‘The platform isn't going to go on forever, is it?’

Thinking I might have fallen into another ghost story, I hurried up toward the ticket gates. There was no one there either, but thankfully, the platform had not stretched into some endless disaster.

The underground shopping area was all closed, and there were no station employees in sight. Unstaffed stations should be abolished. How was I supposed to tell where I was?

I swallowed a curse and looked up at the display board. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the subway arrival information was working perfectly.

[Next train to Danggogae (7 minutes)]

Damn Line 4. Whenever I needed it, it took its sweet time.

‘Calm down. Maybe I just saw something wrong. Maybe I was spacing out...’

I had been falling into ghost stories one after another lately, so I must have become jumpy. Maybe I'd actually had my eyes closed and been asleep.

“...”

A chill went down my spine. Something was close to me, right at my side. It felt as though all the blood in my body drained into my fingertips, then sank away.

Without moving my body, I shifted my eyes sideways.

‘Damn.’

It was the woman from earlier. A woman with long hair, comfortable clothes, and a big commuter tote bag.

She was staring at me with her eyes opened as wide as possible, her face pressed close enough that not even a finger joint could fit between us.

‘Ah, ahhh!’

Her eyelids, without a crease in them, were wrenched open as though an eye exam tool was holding them apart. Her skin was bloodless, and her lids had nearly turned inside out.

Those pitch-black eyes had no focus, no pupils, no gaze, no life. They stared at me without moving.

More than anything, there was no breathing, body heat, or human presence. The mannequin employees at Pebbles Mart had felt more real.

I barely managed not to fall over in surprise and took one step sideways. The woman... the ghost remained where it was.

‘Did I enter a ghost story? Or did my spiritual sight open up or something?’

There was an easy way to find out.

‘Hertz?’

I called inwardly, but there was no response from the radio app. That meant I was not inside a ghost story. This was reality. Summer was already over, and I was seeing a ghost on a subway platform while heading home.

The countless ghosts I had seen while refusing to go into Bloodwater Valley flashed through my mind, then vanished. Just thinking about them made my sanity feel shaky. My anger at having my commute interrupted was rising too.

‘Subway ghost stories...’

There were too many. Oksu Station, Dangsan Station, Sadang Station, Sindorim Station, Guro Station, Cheongnyangni Station... I had no idea where one of them might have come from and followed me.

But if it was a real ghost, it would be easier to shake off than a ghost story. I had survived being tormented by a bus ghost for a week.

‘I'll pretend I don't see it and wait for the next train. Act normal.’

I moved over one boarding door. The ghost remained where it was.

As expected. If you pretended not to notice them, ghosts usually stayed still. The truly vicious ones talked to you, but this one was not bleeding or smiling. It would probably be fine if I ignored it.

To force my thoughts elsewhere, I began reading the poems posted on the screen doors. It also gave me a good excuse to pace around.

A train is approaching. Please take one step back.

“...?”

I looked at the display board. The next train was due in four minutes. There was no indication of a train passing through without stopping. So what train?

Then a train roared through the station.

Rooooar!

It shot past in front of me, loud enough that I could see the screen doors shaking. Though it was not stopping, the brightly lit cars stretched out in my vision as though in slow motion, like a frozen image.

It was packed. There was not even room to set down a foot. Everyone was looking in one direction.

Toward the exit. Toward the station. Toward me.

Hundreds, no, thousands of eyes were fixed on me through the screen doors. Their eyes were stretched open as though they might tear apart, snow-white and not even bloodshot.

“...Gasp!”

I sucked in a breath and stumbled backward. Something bumped into me and kept me from falling.

“S-sorry.”

The apology rose to my lips automatically, then froze.

There was no one here. Who could have caught me?

No, there was one thing.

One thing I should not acknowledge.

Very slowly, I turned my head.

The ghost was there again. It stood pressed close behind me, near enough for its nose to touch the back of my head.

Its enormous, stretched-open eyes rolled, then fixed directly on my face.

“Ah. Damn.”

The corners of its mouth split grotesquely as it smiled.

It had caught me.

Y o u c a n s e e m e.

Crack. Crackle. Crack.

The ghost began to move. The sickening sound of bones slipping out of place and muscles tearing grew louder. It staggered and creaked forward in a horribly unnatural posture.

The ghost was twisted.

Its entire body had been turned in different directions, like a wrung-out rag left as it was, yet it looked like a wire doll forced back into its original shape and angles.

Its joints bent however they pleased. Its knees were bent outward, and its neck had turned twice around while it still looked straight at me.

C o m e h e r e.

W h e r e d o y o u t h i n k y o u ' r e g o i n g?

Every time I blinked, the ghost was closer. Even if I turned and backed away, it appeared in an instant within my line of sight and slowly walked toward me. I could not turn around and run.

I had to escape the ghost's notice. Right now.

Whoosh.

Blue fire rippled and flared across the platform. The ghost, which had raised a hand to grab my throat as it came right up to me, stopped dead as though someone had pressed pause.

‘Gasp, hah... It works on ghosts too.’

Even as my knees buckled and I half collapsed, I raised the Blue-and-Red Lantern over my head.

The ghost twisted its body this way and that as it tried to look around, but it literally could not perceive me beneath the lantern.

Holding the lit Blue-and-Red Lantern before me like a shield, I slipped sideways, nearly crawling.

Only after I reached the platform wall, far enough away to watch the ghost while keeping my distance, did I sit with my back against it and let out a long breath.

The goblin-fire Blue-and-Red Lantern. I had thought I would use it spectacularly in a ghost story, but its debut was against a subway ghost. Still, since they were both ghosts, it worked across the board. Right now, it was the tool I needed most.

‘Now I just need to wait until I can go home, right?’

I looked at the display board.

And discovered one more feature of the Blue-and-Red Lantern.

The words [Next train to Danggogae (7 minutes)] had disappeared without a trace. In their place, red guidance text appeared endlessly.

[A train will pass through without stopping]

As though it had never learned the concept of train intervals, the arrival notices said that trains were entering one after another, packed close together.

‘If I got on even one wrong train, I would have gone to the afterlife instead of home.’

I could not keep wasting the Blue-and-Red Lantern here, but I could not wait for a normal train either. If I ended up spending the whole night in the subway, how could I guarantee I would be in any condition tomorrow?

‘Wait. If the lantern works, doesn't that mean ghost stories work too?’

Seeing ghosts might be reality, but ghost trains occupying subway tracks was obviously in the ghost-story category.

I opened my phone and activated the Depth Gauge. Sure enough, a new name had appeared.

07. Train Beyond the Terminus (Insufficient Data)

Just like with the Helical Cult, there was not much to see in the entry. That was not a major problem. It had been identified as a ghost story, so I just needed to escape it the ghost-story way.

‘What would work best?’

I searched my blog's hashtags for #subway and scrolled through them. Horror stories from every country competed for priority.

I picked out the easiest ones and discarded those that ended badly... After scrolling for a long time, a safe and quick way out took shape in my mind.

‘Good. Let's do this.’

❖ ❖ ❖

“How does it feel to be outside?”

“I still don't really know.”

“And your leg?”

Choi Seongun tapped his legs against the ground. His one-dimensional, fluttering leg briefly gained volume, then quickly vanished again.

“Yes, it's much better. I don't think I'll have any trouble running now.”

“Exercise really is the best thing for healing. Still, don't go running around recklessly. Be careful.”

“I will. Will there be any need to run today?”

Seo Taegyeom laughed quietly at Choi Seongun's question. It was not mocking laughter. The question from a newcomer they had not had in a long time was simply amusing and fresh.

“No, there won't. We probably won't need to use the horizontal coordinate system, either. By the time we reach the site, the Distortion itself will have resolved.”

“Do Distortions usually occur naturally and then resolve themselves?”

“Of course not. Usually, Haetae handles shutting them down. Then Ansi cleans up afterward. You toured Ansi last week, right?”

After coming under the Corporation's protection, Choi Seongun had not picked a particular division. Seon-u In kept following him around for days, telling him to settle into Cheonrok Division while he had the chance, so he spent a few days with each department and learned the work broadly.

Whenever he rested for even a moment, Seon-u In would come over and pester him about running tests or checking something he was curious about. The section chiefs from other departments had to keep him at bay.

Among them, Seo Taegyeom, the Section Chief of Haetae Section 1, was one of the few people who could make Seon-u In retreat with a smile. Naturally, Choi Seongun had latched onto Haetae Section 1 like a new recruit for his own safety.

“But this one is an extremely common urban legend, so it disappears after a certain amount of time. It almost never harms anyone, either.”

“May I ask what it is?”

“It's a ghost story about seeing a train late at night, somewhere with no one around, that has its lights on but does not stop. Usually, it's an unmanned train with nobody on board, just the lights on. Sometimes, though, you see ghosts inside.”

“Ugh.”

Choi Seongun made a face.

“Even if it's a ghost, all it does is keep eye contact with whoever meets its eyes while its neck is broken. Since the train doesn't stop in the first place, it can't hurt anyone.”

“It never stops... right?”

“There was one report where someone came to their senses after being dragged into a moving train. But that stopped happening after screen doors were installed...”

“...Screen doors do a lot.”

They saved the living and the dead.

The more people experienced a ghost story and failed, the weaker the ghost story became instead. Ghosts that could not appear before people lost their substance.

Modern society had physical barriers that protected your sanity too.

Before their small talk had even ended, the train arrived.

“Good, the train is here. Get everyone off, check that there is nothing wrong with it, then send it on. We'll process the phenomenon as a Closure.”

“Yes!”

When the doors opened, Haetae Section 1 officials in subway inspection vests scattered into separate cars.

“Passengers, please disembark at this station due to a train inspection.”

“The next train will arrive in five minutes. Please use the next train.”

The officials who boarded swept blue flashlights around the cars.

[Car 1 is empty.]

[Car 3 is empty as well.]

Reports followed that nothing was wrong from Cars 4 through 11. Seo Taegyeom's brow furrowed tighter as he listened. Only Car 12, assigned to Seo Taegyeom and Choi Seongun, remained.

“Huh?”

Choi Seongun made a foolish sound. Before he could even board, someone stepped out of Car 12.

“Oh. It's Mr. Seongun. What brings you out here?”

“S-Seon Jaehyeon?”

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