Chapter 16
When I opened my eyes, fog was thick everywhere.
Was there fog in reality too?
The location was the same as before, but the feeling was quite different.
“Ms. Medium?”
She was gone.
She said she’d wait in the urban legend.
Why can’t I see her?
An unknown anxiety surged.
It felt as if the fog everywhere was soaking my whole body with tension.
“…….”
I took a step into the thick fog.
I held my arms slightly and moved forward carefully, but the anxiety wouldn’t go away at all.
‘Where on earth is she?’
I couldn't tell if she hadn't entered the legend yet.
Or if she had gone into the haunted house alone first.
Waiting indefinitely probably wasn't the answer either.
It was then.
“Kim Yu-chan.”
I heard the Medium calling.
Where is that sound coming from?
It was as I was thinking that and listening to the surrounding sounds.
“Where are you? Come quickly.”
It was from the haunted house.
“What, so she did go inside first?”
Is she impatient?
Despite agreeing to go in together, it seemed she went in first.
“Yes, I’m coming now.”
It was as I lightly gripped the doorknob of the haunted house.
Suddenly, a chilly, ominous feeling hit me.
It was some unknown sense of incongruity.
“Ms. Medium?”
“What.”
“You said we’d go in together.”
“You were coming late. I was checking if it was safe first.”
I was lost in thought.
The Medium definitely said let's go in together.
She even warned that this legend was by no means simple.
But.
She's checking inside first?
“…….”
I didn't answer.
I sensed a bit of the identity of the incongruity I felt earlier.
[The ghost's domain is shifting.]
It was the message from the Medium I heard earlier.
The meaning was clear.
The legend didn't start only upon entering the house.
Now.
I was already inside the legend.
“…….”
It was the ghost's scheme.
What if I had been fooled by that voice and opened the door?
A horrific and disastrous result would have occurred.
Goosebumps broke out all over my body and a shiver ran through me.
‘In an urban legend, a mistake is death.’
It was a fact I had felt to a shuddering degree from the legends I'd experienced so far.
Hostility stemming from malice.
I finally understood what the Medium had told me.
‘This ghost is malicious and wicked.’
The moment the fog settled.
Because this was inside the legend, I'd die if I let my guard down.
“…….”
I tried to carefully let go of the doorknob.
A tension that made it hard even to breathe was felt.
It was then.
“You’re not coming in.”
A spine-chilling way of speaking.
A cold and dispassionate atmosphere.
It was definitely not the Medium's composed voice.
“So you’ve realized?”
I felt a blood-curdling terror.
With only a door between us, the ghost of the haunted house was targeting me.
It had held its breath and tried to deceive me, as if to lure me in and devour me.
My entire body was covered in tension at that malice.
“…….”
The ghost of the haunted house. Just as the Medium said, it was no ordinary ghost.
“Kim Yu-chan.”
At that moment, a voice was heard from behind.
Someone was slowly approaching through the hazy fog.
A person approaching calmly from afar, with the car's headlights as a backdrop.
“Ms. Medium?”
Lee Yeon-hwa. It was her, wearing a white hanbok.
“Why did you enter so late?”
“I shouldn't have been that late?”
“Someone just called me from inside there.”
“Is that so?”
The Medium's gaze turned fierce.
The opponent was a ghost that aimed for an opportunity even in that brief moment.
“I’ll have to be careful. This opponent is different from the ones so far.”
Both realized the situation.
That we were now inside an urban legend, and from here on, a mistake meant death.
“You said they called from that door, right?”
“Yes.”
The Medium carefully walked up to that door.
“Watch the back.”
There was no telling when.
Or at what moment.
It might aim for the back and come in.
The more wicked a ghost is, the more it exploits human fear and terror.
‘If it finds a weakness, it stabs until death.’
That was the ghost's instinct.
Slide.
The Medium carefully grabbed the doorknob.
“Who is it?”
No answer came to the Medium's question.
“…….”
As if the fog would swallow the night.
The deepening anxiety was pushing the air to its limit.
“It’s you.”
The Medium slowly opened her mouth.
“The ghost of the haunted house, right?”
Only silence flowed.
From the Medium's entire body as she held the doorknob, white light was rising like waves.
With this door between them.
It felt as if a tug-of-war of power was occurring between the Medium and the ghost.
Softly.
The flowing energy surged.
However, it couldn't enter through the gaps in the door.
The door of the haunted house was like a barrier.
“It seems we won't be able to enter through here.”
I thought the same.
“Will there be another door?”
“We’ll have to see.”
The Medium and I began to wander around the perimeter of the haunted house.
There must be a hidden secret in this house.
If we uncover it and exorcise it, we survive. If we fail, the ghost wins.
It was the law of urban legends.
“Here.”
Going to the side, there was a living room window.
“Let’s go through.”
“Through here?”
“There’s no choice. Because the ghost is inside that haunted house.”
There was no choice but to enter.
Luckily, the window slid open smoothly, and it wasn’t too difficult to climb through.
“I’ll go first,” the Medium stepped forward.
She stepped onto the window frame while holding the fluttering hem of her hanbok.
Swish.
Like a butterfly flapping its wings, her clothes and skirt fluttered as she leaped over gracefully.
It was a natural and elegant posture, a movement as fluid as a gymnast’s.
“You come too.”
I hesitated for a moment. I gripped the frame and awkwardly, cautiously climbed over.
I barely made it through with a passive, bumbling posture—it was a truly undignified sight.
And so, the two of them entered the haunted house within the urban legend.
“This place is...?!”
The scenery inside was different from what I had expected.
In the original haunted house, the floor was covered in wood debris and cement dust, but it was different inside the legend.
There was neat wallpaper and a floor cleaned so thoroughly there wasn't a speck of dust.
It was a normal house.
“It’s different from what I expected. To think it’s a clean house in an urban legend.”
“I agree.”
The Medium also showed her vigilance as she scanned the surroundings.
“It’s not a good sign.”
“Pardon?”
“There’s a reason why the setting of an urban legend changes. Especially when it takes the form of the past.”
I tilted my head. The Medium stared calmly, as if comparing the past’s wonderful home with the current ruin.
“Urban legends are created from a ghost’s memories or imagination. In the case of imagination, the legend might manifest in a completely new setting, but right now, the interior of the house has changed.”
“Is it relying on memory?”
“This ghost has memories of this house's past. It was likely someone who lived here. And they turned that into an urban legend...”
The Medium’s voice trailed off slightly before she eventually muttered.
“It’s an earthbound spirit of this house.”
It wasn't a ghost just passing through.
If it was a house ghost—if it was close to an earthbound spirit—it meant it was a ghost that had hidden away in this house for a long time, accumulating both affection and hatred.
“If they stayed in the house and their love-hate relationship built up year after year... If that accumulated malice filled the house.”
“Then what happens?”
“The urban legend becomes as strong as that malice.”
That was what the Medium meant when she said earlier that this was no ordinary ghost.
A ghost that has stayed in one place for a long time like an earthbound spirit is as strong as its deepened grudge.
Because strong obsession and grudges turn into malice.
Hostility that harms people.
Right now, this house was essentially the ghost’s house.
“Be careful.”
The Medium took out Naksha’s Dagger from her shirt. She intended to stake her life on this ritual tool, much like a defensive dagger.
Slide.
As soon as we stepped into the living room, tension entered with us.
The house that had been a ruin in reality was pristine in the urban legend.
The ceiling lights were bright, the walls were clean as if they had just been papered, and the chest of drawers—which had been nothing but broken fragments in the haunted house—was intact.
“Don’t open anything.”
I intended to do exactly that, even if she hadn't told me.
Who would go around opening drawers in a ghost’s house, knowing something might pop out?
I just looked around while staying by the Medium’s side.
Beneath the area filled with bright lighting sat a sofa, and something was hanging on the wall.
“Huh?”
It was a family photo. A photo of a family taken harmoniously at a studio was framed and hanging there.
It was then.
[This is my house.]
It was the ghost.
A grating voice, like a distorted recording, delivered itself as if stabbing into my ears.
[I did not invite anyone. This is a place you must not enter.]
[Therefore, you must not leave here alive.]
What?
The ghost of the haunted house was throwing out cryptic words.
[Find the exit tonight. If you find the exit, you will leave here alive, but if you fail, you will die here.]
This house was a stage for a grand scheme and a showdown. It would have been better if the ghost had attacked head-on, but the ghost of the haunted house was different.
It was hiding somewhere, watching us and waiting for an opportunity. It was just like a ghost that schemes.
I couldn't get the answer right, nor could I catch the ghost.
‘Like the elevator urban legend.’
The nightmare from that time was resurfacing.
“Kim Yu-chan.”
“Yes.”
“The ghost will be watching us.”
Then, she spoke as if making a vow.
“Surviving an urban legend. Are you confident?”
Medium Lee Yeon-hwa’s eyes flashed. She pulled Naksha’s Dagger from her shirt, revealing her will not to back down.
As if harboring an intense resolve within her calm, she displayed a sharp mental strength even inside the urban legend.
I felt like I understood then why she lived as a medium.
‘A calling.’
Inside the urban legend, she was even colder and more dispassionate.
I felt that I would only survive if I stayed by her side. However, my eyes kept being drawn to the photo on the living room wall.
“This is a family photo, right?”
There were four family members in the photo.
It was a picture of a father and mother sitting on chairs with their children on their laps.
The father held a boy who looked about ten years old with both hands.
The mother held a girl who looked about eight with one hand and placed her other hand on her stomach.
A photo of a harmonious and affectionate family.
If the memories of this house remained strongly with the ghost, then perhaps the ghost was among those in this photo.
If the ghost of the haunted house was in here...
I unconsciously reached out my hand. I reached out to take a closer look at this photo containing the father, mother, boy, and girl.
Snap.
No sooner had I reached out than a flame suddenly erupted, and the family photo burned up.
“Huh?”
I backed away from the unexpected flames.
“Get back.”
The Medium rushed over urgently and stared at the flying sparks.
The family photo being consumed by fire flew through the air in fragments along with the scattering embers before vanishing.
There was no sense of crisis in her eyes. She was simply searching for the ghost’s momentum within the blazing flames. It was as if she were engraving the fluttering soot and embers into her pupils.
“…….”
The fire soon disappeared. Embers might remain, but the urban legend had already begun. Time was now our lifeline.
“Yu-chan.”
Medium Lee Yeon-hwa looked at me.
“You said you’re good at remembering, right?”
“Yes, because of the narcolepsy. I practiced to retain short-term memories for as long as possible.”
Short-term memory ability.
The power to remember a scene itself like a photograph. That was my only strength as someone with the weakness of narcolepsy.
“Then, did you remember it?”
Medium Lee Yeon-hwa pointed with her finger. Where the family photo had hung on the living room wall, only a lonely burnt mark remained.
“That photo...”
I lowered my head for a moment and then looked up.
“I remembered it.”
“That's a relief.”
The flames that had burned the family photo did not disappear.
As if writhing in pain, the family photo that had burned just a moment ago still remained on the wall.
And.
The four family members in the photo were suffering as they burned in the flames.
Like living people, they rolled about and let out deathly screams as they were intensely consumed by the fire.
“Aaaaack!”
“Uaaaaa!”
It was a horrific and unbelievable sight.
The Medium and I were watching the carnage on the wall, where the entire family was being burned whole.
We had to uncover the identity of this ghost.
Skritch, skritch.
Scritch, scritch.
Within this urban legend burning with flames.