When he opened his eyes in the morning, the corners of his eyes felt crusty. He raised his hand to touch them and found dried tears clinging thickly to his eyelids.
“Cough.”
A dry cough burst from his hoarse throat. Yugeon covered his mouth and coughed a few more times before gasping for breath. His stomach felt cold inside. It felt like something cold and thick was still inside him, and his backside still felt open too.
“Urgh, ugh…”
Nausea came along with tears. Through his tear-blurred vision, he fumbled for his phone. He tried calling the person he wanted to reach, but only an automated message saying the number couldn’t be connected played.
“Hic, ugh… sniff, hic…”
Yugeon collapsed face-down and clawed at the cold floor as he burst into tears.
After that day, the cold presence came every night. He tried staying awake to avoid it, but when he came to his senses, he was already being violated while paralyzed by sleep paralysis. He tried sleeping in different places to escape, but the cold presence found him regardless of location.
He was at his limit both mentally and physically. Unable to sleep properly at night, he couldn’t wake up on time, and he repeatedly collapsed for no reason while working. His occasional coughs increased, and he became short of breath with even slight movement. He started losing weight rapidly day by day, and that’s when he could notice it—at some point, his lower abdomen had started swelling little by little.
Feeling that something was seriously wrong with his body, Yugeon had no choice but to quit the mart. Not just because of the changes in his body, but because he couldn’t do his work properly and was causing trouble for his colleagues, it was an unavoidable choice.
His coworkers, who had witnessed all the changes that happened to him right after drinking the snake liquor, poured out their concern and worry, suggesting he take extended leave instead of quitting, but Yugeon felt this situation would last a very long time. Besides, if he ended up going to the island, there was no telling when he’d be able to return.
It was Choi Jacheol who stopped Yugeon as he turned to leave after thanking everyone. Choi Jacheol looked worriedly at Yugeon, who had become half his former self in just a few days.
“Yugeon, let’s go to a temple together tomorrow.”
“A temple…?”
“Yeah, if a shaman can’t solve it, we have to cling to religion. Let’s try going to a temple and a church too.”
“……”
“And if that doesn’t work, let’s find another powerful shaman.”
Choi Jacheol’s face was stained with guilt and responsibility. But Yugeon didn’t even have the energy left to go around trying to solve this situation. He just wanted to cling to his father and return to the island.
“I’ll think about it…”
When Yugeon mumbled his answer reluctantly, Choi Jacheol handed him a small cross necklace.
“I got this from Seongju. You know, right? That Seongju is a devout Christian with a lifelong faith?”
Yugeon stared blankly at the necklace in his hand before nodding. It might be able to replace the burned talisman.
That night, he had a dream. Dark fog filled a dim room, and the shaman was there.
Standing on tiptoe in the corner of the room, the shaman hung her head low and swayed her body as if staggering while pointing somewhere. And she said, “Return to the place surrounded by water.” She kept saying it—all night long, until he woke up. Whether because of that dream or thanks to Park Seongju’s cross necklace, that night the cold presence didn’t come.
As soon as he opened his eyes, the phone rang as if it had been waiting. It was Choi Jacheol.
[You up?]
“…Yes.”
[If you’re awake, come out. Let’s have breakfast and go to the temple.]
“…Ahjussi, I want to rest today. Can we go next time?”
[…Are you doing okay?]
“I slept well all night, maybe thanks to the cross you gave me yesterday.”
[Really? That’s a relief.]
“Yes… maybe because the tension released, I’m even more tired…”
[Tsk, alright then, rest well today, and tomorrow let’s go to a temple or church together.]
“Yes, I will. Get some rest.”
[Okay.]
After hanging up, Yugeon immediately tried calling his father. This time a message saying the phone was turned off played. Yugeon stared at the screen incredulously.
“He’s got his phone turned off, and the talisman he said he’d send—complete radio silence…”
He wondered if perhaps his father hated him. That he’d gotten tired of caring for a son plagued by chronic illness and sent him off the island, and now that an opportunity had arisen where he might die, he was trying to turn away.
Immersed in these depressing thoughts that spiraled one after another, Yugeon let out a hollow laugh. Even to himself, it seemed like excessive speculation. Yugeon shook his head pathetically and shuffled toward the bathroom. He needed to wash his face to clear his thoughts.
After washing his face with cold water to rinse away his depressing thoughts, Yugeon gripped the sink and looked in the mirror. He saw a gaunt man in the reflection. Yugeon raised his hand and touched his face here and there. He had indeed lost a noticeable amount of weight in just a few days.
“……”
Yugeon, who had been staring at himself in the mirror as if glaring, slowly lowered his gaze to look at his stomach. Then he sneakily lifted his shirt. His belly, which had been flat from having no fat, was now forming a subtle curve. Yugeon twisted his body this way and that to check his reflection in the mirror. His belly had definitely protruded a little.
“I’m losing weight, so why is my belly sticking out…?”
Wondering if the protruding belly was also related to this incident, Yugeon sighed as if he didn’t know and left the bathroom to try calling his father again.
[This call cannot be connected, so after the beep….]
After the dial tone, a voicemail guidance message played. It seemed he hadn’t turned off his phone. But he still wasn’t answering either way. Yugeon texted his father once more saying he wanted to return to the island and waited for a reply. But no matter how long he waited, no response came.
Since he wasn’t going to the mart, the day was far too long. With no appetite and no energy, Yugeon didn’t eat anything all day and just sat leaning against the wall, staring mindlessly at the TV screen. Before he knew it, thick twilight was falling outside the window.
Not knowing what the content was about, he was just blankly focusing on the noisy sounds chattering from the screen when suddenly an unfamiliar voice was heard.
—Is it fun?
“…Huh?”
Yugeon slowly questioned back while raising his head following the source of the sound. The sound had come from beyond the window. Bright red shoes were visible outside the window.
Blinking his eyes as he grasped the situation, Yugeon’s face soon turned deathly pale. That was definitely not human. Yugeon swallowed his breath and pulled back his body, but the wall was already behind him. At the same time, tap-tap-tap, the sound of shoes began. It was walking in place in front of the window. As if trying to come inside.
What if it comes inside while doing that? What if it suddenly lowers its head and our eyes meet? He felt anxious and afraid. Yugeon desperately clutched the cross necklace around his neck and lay down with his back to the window, pulling the blanket over himself.
Though he couldn’t see with the blanket pulled over him and his eyes tightly shut, the continuous sound of shoes ringing from behind him couldn’t be hidden. Even though the TV sound was that loud. Then at some point, the TV sound stopped abruptly. Startled, Yugeon almost sat up to check the TV. But thanks to his body being frozen stiff with fear and not following nimbly, he didn’t make the mistake of sitting up, and in the meantime, the sound of shoes also stopped.
Yugeon wondered as he focused his attention behind him.
‘Did it leave?’
He waited for a long time, but neither the TV sound nor the shoe sounds could be heard. Yugeon opened his tightly shut eyes and slowly turned his head inside the blanket, and at the same time, the blanket that had been pulled over his head began sliding down. Yugeon was horrified and grabbed the blanket, pulling it back over himself.
A sound like nails on a chalkboard came from above his head. At the creepy noise that also sounded like laughter, Yugeon screamed and covered his ears.
The chalkboard-scraping sound gradually subsided, then from just beyond the thin layer of blanket, a voice tinged with laughter whispered.
—Are you scared?
With the question, the blanket was swept away, and regardless of his will, his body was turned over and his eyes opened.
The first thing he saw was the bright red shoes in front of the door. Then he saw the legs wearing the shoes. He raised his gaze along the legs. He kept raising his gaze along the legs until it reached the end of the ceiling.
The legs wearing the bright red shoes extended all the way to the end of the ceiling. It was as if only two legs had grown from the ceiling. As if noticing Yugeon’s gaze, with another chalkboard-scraping sound, the bright red shoes began tap-tap-tapping, walking in place again.
“!”
He wanted to run away but his body wouldn’t budge at all. No voice came out either. He was paralyzed again. As Yugeon desperately struggled with his immobile body, the bright red shoes that had been walking in place in front of him for a while suddenly stopped dead. Then they slowly began to remove the shoes.
“……!”
What emerged from the shoes wasn’t feet. They were hands with long, sharp nails. The hands began approaching Yugeon while scratching the floor with their nails.
—Where is it? Where did you hide it?
An unidentifiable voice rang out from the removed shoes. The two hands that approached tapping the floor climbed onto Yugeon’s body. He felt no weight at all.
—Where is it?
The hands began extending their nails on top of Yugeon’s body.
That night, all night long until dawn, Yugeon’s chest was torn open by blade-like nails.
