WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

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◈ How to Rewrite Ghost Stories ◈

Episode 6: Mangnyang 2 Tunnel (1)

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I had become friends with an uncanny, mysterious phenomenon, which meant I could experience ghost stories, the darkness of the world.

It sounded grand, but that did not mean my life had suddenly become dramatic like a novel or comic.

More than anything, I had no idea how to find a real ghost story that could fill the Depth Gauge. Since that day, the radio had only played a slow melody with the lyrics, "Undergoing maintenance! See you soon!"

I did not see any ghosts, and wondering whether what I had experienced had been a dream, I even tried formatting and factory-resetting my phone. The radio app and Depth Gauge remained.

Depth Gauge Collection Status: 1 of ■■■ complete

001. Bloodwater Valley

The ghost-story completion status on the Depth Gauge was unchanged.

After obtaining the Depth Gauge, I thoroughly organized both my home and blog. It was an indexing project I did every quarter, but this time I was also checking whether any ghost stories would register on the Depth Gauge.

I had collected over twenty-five thousand blog posts across more than ten years. That was excluding my collection records, fact checks, and occasional daily-life posts.

With so many stories, why did the Depth Gauge not react to anything? No matter what post I read or what suspicious occult book I held my phone up to, the Depth Gauge did not budge.

'Do I really have to try them myself?'

So I started trying nearby ghost stories one by one. Traveling to another world by elevator, playing hide-and-seek alone, looking into a mirror and doing XXX to summon a ghost, selling bad luck to a ghost, taking a taxi to a cemetery at midnight...

There was still no result. Not a single ghost story was real. Were ghost stories all fake after all?

Or did only the ones ThreeAM PM chose count as ghost stories? Was I supposed to just live my life until I received some revelation, like a shamanic calling?

Could a friend who called themself a good friend but never contacted me really be a friend? ThreeAM PM's post on the Guestbook had long since been deleted, and I got no response even when I posted an announcement looking for ThreeAM PM.

Still, I had learned one thing by wrestling with my past posts, our brief conversation, the Depth Gauge, and the radio app.

When I selected Bloodwater Valley on the Depth Gauge, it presented, all at once, other ghost stories, folktales, and legends with structures similar to the various versions I had found. It was organized neatly enough to use on my blog immediately, complete with hashtags. And then:

"Water is understood as a boundary of liminality, where this world and the afterlife, life and death, coexist. In particular, the mechanism of substitution, in which one draws in another person to free oneself, appears in various forms, from fairy enchantment to drowned ghosts. Like the ninety-nine passes, ravines, and nine waterways that divide this world, the village, from the unknown world beyond it, or like the Styx and the river of the dead, water can be understood as a rite-of-passage space that must be crossed to pass from the land of the living to the land of the dead."

"Fear of beings in the water is heightened by the ways they draw humans in. East Asian beliefs in seeking eternal rest by finding a new victim to take one's place, as well as Sirens, Lorelei, and Rusalkas that lure people into the water with beautiful voices or appearances, symbolize deadly traps that exploit human desire and carelessness..."

The explanation of the ghost story's archetypal qualities was interesting. It gave examples of ghost stories I did not know, as well as enough possible solutions for similar situations to keep me reading for hours.

The conclusion I reached was that the Depth Gauge could only be filled with real ghost stories, and that filling it collected the ghost story's most archetypal qualities.

'I still don't know why it collects those qualities, or what happens once it does...'

It was probably related to the certain story ThreeAM PM was searching for, or to my own ghost stories. Thinking about something with no immediate answer would only give me a headache, so I left it there.

"?!"

The Depth Gauge flashed. Black letters began appearing in the second gauge, which had not moved at all until now. ■■■■.

'A new ghost story...!'

Please, let at least one thing I could recognize appear. I stared hard at the squares as they shrank and expanded.

The black squares became three, then five, then fragmented into a mess... until they finally formed words I could read.

Grudge, tunnel, ritual offering

"That's way too broad."

Several ghost stories came to mind, but none made me think, This is definitely it. I tapped the screen, hoping a location might appear, and waited, but that was all.

'If ThreeAM PM doesn't show up, will I not know until it actually happens...?'

Otherwise, I would have no choice but to visit tunnels one by one and check them.

'But I don't have any business trips coming up.'

I had already used several vacation days recently, and with major project deadlines coming up, I would be going back and forth between home and work for a while. There were hundreds of tunnels in South Korea. It was not like something would happen in a place like Gwanaksan Tunnel.

'Whatever. I don't know.'

If I did not react, ThreeAM PM would show up on their own and tell me where to go.

It was an incredibly naive thought.

After my golden weekend, the office I returned to was beyond a battlefield. It was an apocalypse, in other words, ruins. My coworker beside me was crawling across their keyboard, making zombie-like noises.

"What time did you get in?"

"Friday..."

"Didn't our pop-up end on Thursday?"

Before I had even finished asking, my coworker's eyes rolled back. Ah, that was a very bad sign. If I ran now, my week would be easier. I quietly turned on my computer and prepared to slip away.

"I'm going to get coffee. Want me to bring you one..."

"Assistant Manager Seon, Director Lee wants to see you. They say there's a project you need to handle."

Failed escape. I tucked my laptop under my arm and trudged toward the meeting room with a miserable expression. Director Lee, Manager Chae from the design team, and I sat together in the semi-transparent conference room.

"Assistant Manager Seon, the report on the last pop-up was excellent."

"Th-thank you. Did sales go up a lot?"

"Like they say, young people know these things. That interactive pop-up you planned? Apparently the customers loved it."

What was this? What was the department head trying to make me do that they were praising me like this? Unease brushed the back of my head before flying straight at me and digging in. I quickly calculated the deadlines for my current projects. What could I put forward if I wanted to refuse?

"So, I would like Assistant Manager Seon to take charge of this pop-up from beginning to end."

"Me? I think I already have a pop-up next month..."

"You handle this one, build up your record, then get promoted to manager in the second half of the year. It would look good."

"!"

How cheap, pulling out the promotion card here. I glanced at the name on the contract proposal beneath Director Lee's hand.

Hana Galleria

Interactive Pop-Up for the Drama The Mirror of the Otherworld: Hana Galleria Mall Space-Use Proposal

"Wow."

The sound slipped out of my mouth before I realized it. Like an idiot. I closed my eyes, scolded myself, and opened them again. Director Lee's broad smile filled my view.

"I knew this would be perfect for Assistant Manager Seon. Then Assistant Manager Seon will take this project, along with two junior team members and someone from the design team."

"No, wait, when is the deadline? Has the contract been finalized?"

"You just need to go to the meeting tomorrow! Submit your business-trip request, and read the proposal by the end of today!"

"What? Tomorrow? To-morrow?"

Had Director Lee finally lost his mind?

"I'm counting on you, Assistant Manager Seon. Let's do just as well as last time. Hahaha!"

Director Lee left with that infuriating laugh. It was not like they were the one doing the actual work...! Another deadline that would make me curse out the installation team while coordinating schedules!

I could not even scream. When I buried my head in the proposal, Manager Chae looked at me sympathetically and offered words that were neither encouragement nor consolation.

"Still, Assistant Manager Seon knows the latest trends better than anyone on the planning team. I'll assign you a designer with five years' experience. Hang in there."

"Okay... Please assign Assistant Manager Kang to me. If it's not Assistant Manager Kang, I can't plan the pop-up layout..."

"Of course. I'll make sure Assistant Manager Kang and Senior Associate Seo are assigned to you."

A lie. Assistant Manager Kang would definitely make about three drafts, then get dragged into another project just as the design was finalized. I would be left with a first-year intern designer. Please, just let me avoid fighting with the print shop before opening.

This was the real workplace ghost story. Who needed another one?

'Let's look at the details.'

The Mirror of the Otherworld. It was the most popular recent horror short-story series, about a protagonist who used a mirror that reflected paranormal phenomena to exorcise the ghosts haunting various places.

It was a fairly niche premise, but it had grown popular by balancing horror and melodrama well enough to receive a webtoon adaptation and a confirmed drama. It seemed they planned a major pop-up timed with the drama's release, selling merchandise while offering an immersive drama experience.

'Let's see. Hana Galleria Mall in Yeosan City...'

It was the setting city of The Mirror of the Otherworld. Yeosan City was a new city two hours from Seoul, and its biggest episode took place at Hana Galleria Mall. The series had fictionalized it as One Gallery Mall, but the drama had also been filmed there, making it an ideal space for fans making pilgrimages to the setting.

'The production team for The Mirror of the Otherworld contacted my blog before, asking if they could use its materials...'

Blogger Gii Yadam and planner Seon Jaehyeon were completely different people, so the drama team probably did not know I was in charge. Still, this was a chance to show them that my expertise was on another level, and I found myself a little more motivated.

'The pop-up will have paranormal-phenomenon experiences from the episodes, exhibits of props used in the actual production... and a photo zone and stamp rally. Maybe visitors can receive a stamp after each paranormal experience.'

After reviewing the pop-up venue floor plan and every included episode of The Mirror of the Otherworld, I had a rough concept that fit the budget. All that remained was seeing the site, taking measurements, arranging a schedule with the installation team, and discussing the pop-up designs with Assistant Manager Kang...

Only minutes after whining about how I was going to die, I was completely absorbed in The Mirror of the Otherworld series and my pop-up concept.

❖ ❖ ❖

'I'm dying of sleepiness.'

That damned Director Lee. If it was only two hours away, couldn't he have scheduled the meeting in the morning? Who scheduled a meeting outside Seoul for five in the afternoon? Where was I supposed to go to work the next day?

This seemed to be the last direct bus to Yeosan. The bus driver glanced over the passengers, then announced that they would skip the rest area and step on the gas. Fine by me.

The moment I took a rear single seat, I put in my earphones, reclined as far as I could, and closed my eyes. Time to sleep. The music was soothing, the ride was comfortable, and the air conditioning was blasting. What could possibly happen on a day like this?

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.-- .- -.- . ..- .--.

.-- .- -.- . ..- .--.

.-- .- -.- . ..- .--.

.-. ..- - .... . .-. . ..--..

"Mmm..."

Static kept cutting into the music. Through my hazy mind, I compared the intermittent noise to information I knew. A short signal, a long signal, a long signal, then another short signal...

'...Morse code?'

Still half asleep, I started transcribing the Morse code.

W... A... K... E... U... P...

WAKE UP, ARE YOU THERE?

Wake up.

I jolted awake. Sitting upright, I looked around. The bus was speeding through a tunnel with its lights off. Emergency lights passed at a steady speed. Emergency lights, emergency lights, emergency lights...

'I can't see any emergency phones.'

Emergency lights and emergency phones were supposed to be installed at regular intervals throughout a tunnel, alternating with each other. There was no way the phones could be missing. Something was wrong. I pressed my face to the window and stared outside.

Between the endlessly passing emergency lights, painted words in an old-fashioned typeface came clearly into view, as though frozen on a single frame.

Mangnyang 2 Tunnel (忘梁)

'Wait, those characters...'

I did not have time to think about where I had seen that familiar name before.

Screeeech!!

"Aah!!"

"Ah, what the hell?!"

The bus came to a sudden stop with a wild grinding noise.

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