4:20 a.m., Eunpyeong District, Seoul.
The doorbell rang twice, and when the door creaked open, the stench of mold and melted red candle wax wafted out. Inside, on a small desk, lay a battered ritual tome, a well-worn pendant, and a scrap of cloth soaked in dark red stains. Shin Dong-hyeok froze for a split second in the doorway, then lifted both hands in the air without resistance.
Jeong Hae-jun identified himself as police and, citing the risk of evidence destruction and flight, placed Shin under emergency arrest, snapping handcuffs around his wrists. A cell phone, a notebook, and a few stubs of red candles were seized and sealed into evidence bags at the scene.
As the door of the transport van slammed shut, it briefly cleaved the silence of the predawn darkness.
*
Two hours later, beneath the harsh glare of an interrogation room's fluorescent lights, Shin Dong-hyeok sat handcuffed to a chair. As the door closed, Jeong Hae-jun took a seat across from him, fixing the young man with a hard stare. Shin Dong-hyeok, twenty-eight years old – leader of an occult enthusiasts' club and now a prime suspect deeply entangled in the recent mass-hallucination case. He had been arrested at dawn based on evidence linking him to the victims and the crime scene, and was now being questioned as a suspect.
Yet even when asked basic questions – his name, the organization behind him – Shin kept his lips firmly sealed. He only smiled faintly, as if he were detached from reality. In the cold fluorescent light, his face looked bloodless, his pupils unfocused and blank.
The two detectives tried alternating between gentle coaxing and stern demands, repeating their questions over and over, but interrogating Shin felt like talking to a brick wall. He remained silent and unresponsive. At last, frustration boiled over in Detective Park Jae-min. He slammed his palms on the table and shouted, "Hey! A lot of people almost died because of this. Tell us what happened, right now!"
For the first time, a slight smirk flickered at the corner of Shin's mouth. Moving slowly, he turned his head to look back and forth between the two officers. In a low murmur, he said, "Soon… you'll all know."
A prickling sense of dread stabbed through Jeong Hae-jun's chest. "What's that supposed to mean? What are we going to find out?" he demanded.
At that, Shin's unfocused eyes suddenly glinted with a strange light. His lips curved into a blissful, almost worshipful smile. "The mist is only the beginning… When she arrives, Seoul will greet the Night of Judgment."
She.
Jeong felt his blood run cold. Who is "she"? One name leapt to mind, chilling him. "Who is she? Are you talking about Lee Seo-ha?" he pressed urgently.
Instead of answering, Shin Dong-hyeok leaned back and burst into laughter. The sound was high and unhinged, filled with manic glee. That deranged cackling sent a crawl of goosebumps up the detectives' spines. Park Jae-min lunged up in anger, grabbing for the suspect's collar, but Jeong threw out an arm to hold him back. Shin, however, only continued to stare at them with wild, feverish eyes.
"You'll all pay for your sins in the mist… in the end," he hissed, as if casting a curse.
No sooner had those words left his lips than the fluorescent light overhead flickered violently, and the CCTV monitor in the corner crackled with static. At the same instant, Shin's body began to tremble. A violent shudder rippled through him, and suddenly he was convulsing in his chair.
His eyes rolled back, showing only the whites. He thrashed against the chair as if some invisible force were binding him. In that petrifying moment, Jeong Hae-jun's mind flashed back to Fog's warning a few days ago: This Specter can control people's minds. Was this nightmare unfolding before them the very proof of that?
"Shin Dong-hyeok!" Jeong shouted, and both he and Park leapt forward, each grabbing one of Shin's arms to restrain him. But Shin only clawed at his own head and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
"No… don't come! Stay away! There's someone… inside me!" he howled. Foam frothed at the corners of his mouth as strangled sobs and shrieks tore out of him.
Shin suddenly toppled over, crashing to the floor with the chair still bound to him, his entire body jerking uncontrollably. The detectives hurriedly laid him flat and felt for a pulse.
"Medical team, now!" Jeong bellowed, kicking the door open.
Seconds later, a pair of medics burst into the room with a gurney and rushed to Shin's side, initiating emergency treatment. They worked frantically, but within moments one of the medics looked up and shook his head. Shin Dong-hyeok's pulse had vanished, and he wasn't breathing.
On the interrogation room floor, Shin's face stiffened in a mask of utter terror—eyes open, fixed on some horror only he could see.
"No way… is he dead?" Park Jae-min whispered, his voice hollow with shock.
Jeong Hae-jun stood frozen, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Just minutes ago, Shin Dong-hyeok had been perfectly fine—now, as if some unseen hand had silenced him for good, he was dead.
A heavy, icy silence blanketed the interrogation room. Park Jae-min remained rooted in place, as if turned to stone. Jeong stared at Shin's lifeless form, jaw clenched and fists tight at his sides. The suspect who might have given them a decisive testimony had just slipped through their fingers, and with him went any easy answers. The investigation had just slammed into a massive wall.
Hot anger flared in Jeong's chest, accompanied by a crushing sense of defeat. But he forced it down, grinding his teeth until he regained a razor focus. There had to be some clue, something in the material they'd gathered so far that could lead them forward. There was no choice but to dig back into the evidence.
"Did he… hide poison on himself or something?" Park muttered despairingly.
"No," Jeong answered at once, shaking his head. His voice was quiet but firm, almost a growl. "Some force we don't understand must have been at work here."
Without wasting another second, he grabbed the evidence bag containing Shin's personal items and started rifling through them again. Shin's pocket notebook, the tattered ritual documents… each item was scrawled with obsessive, cult-like ramblings about worshipping the red mist. Certain words and phrases jumped out from the pages—words like "awakening," "sealing," and "her vessel."
Jeong's eyes narrowed on that last phrase: "her vessel." The context suggested it referred to a person. In a flash, one name blazed across his mind.
Lee Seo-ha.
It was the same name Jeong had heard a traumatized victim mumble during the red mist incident a few days ago.
*
That night, Jeong Hae-jun and Detective Choi Do-yoon stood in a far corner of an underground parking garage near Gwanghwamun. Through CCTV analysis and Shin Dong-hyeok's notes, this spot had been pinpointed as the epicenter of the mysterious incident. In the dimly lit lot, tucked against a concrete wall, was a heavy iron door. According to the building's manager, it led down to a basement storage room that had been sealed off and unused for years.
After getting the padlock open with the manager's help, Jeong and Choi drew their pistols, clicked on their flashlights, and cautiously pushed the iron door. It swung open with a long, piercing creeaaak from its rusted hinges. A gust of putrid air burst out from the darkness beyond, reeking of rot and damp and causing both men to grimace. The moment they stepped inside, an icy chill crawled over their skin.
The basement beyond the door was pitch-black, the silence so heavy it felt oppressive. Side by side, the two detectives advanced slowly into the gloom, flashlight beams cutting pale arcs through the thick darkness. Dust and cobwebs clung to squat concrete pillars, and the shapes of discarded furniture and crates loomed faintly in every corner. The floor was carpeted in decades of dust – yet here and there across that dust, they could see a chaotic tangle of footprints, disturbingly fresh.
The beam of Jeong's flashlight swept over the walls, revealing sections covered in bizarre graffiti and indecipherable symbols. Dark red stains splashed across the concrete – looking alarmingly like dried blood – caught their eyes and sent a prickling chill across their skin. All over the floor lay fragments of small animal bones, crushed and scattered amid the grime, along with patches of blackish, congealed substance that could only be old blood.
Choi Do-yoon lifted a video camera and quietly began recording the scene, while Jeong Hae-jun slipped on a pair of gloves. He knelt and picked up one of the bone fragments, sealing it into an evidence pouch. Everything they saw pointed to one conclusion: someone had conducted a ghastly ritual in this place.
In the very center of the floor, a complex circular pattern had been drawn. Though faded, it was still visible, intertwined with strange sigils that neither man could read. Jeong stepped closer, angling his flashlight to study the markings.
Suddenly, a shrill metallic shriek rang out from somewhere deep in the basement.
Both men jumped, spinning toward the source of the noise. In unison, they trained their guns and flashlight beams into the darkness ahead. "Who's there?!" Jeong shouted sharply. "Police!" His voice echoed back from the void, but no other response came. Not a hint of movement disturbed the darkness.
The silence that followed felt even heavier than before, pressing in on their ears. Jeong could hear his own heart thudding as he strained to listen. Beside him, Choi swallowed hard. "Maybe… maybe it was just rats," Choi whispered, his voice thin.
But the sound they'd heard did not resemble any noise a small animal could make. It had been a harsh, scraping screech of metal—a far more foreboding sound than scurrying rats. Jeong kept his weapon raised, his eyes scanning the layers of darkness. And then—at the very edge of his flashlight's reach—something moved.
A shape on the floor, tucked in a shadowy corner… Slowly, Jeong crept forward, keeping his light fixed on it. He could make out a small object lying there amid the dust and debris. As he drew near, he muttered under his breath, "…Is that a doll?"
He crouched and brushed away some of the dust, revealing a plush toy in the shape of a pig. It was old and filthy, one of its button eyes missing. Completely out of place in this nightmare of a basement. Frowning, Jeong lifted the ragged stuffed pig in his gloved hand. For a reason he couldn't name, the doll sent a strange jolt of familiarity through him. It was as if he'd seen it before—an uncanny déjà vu that set his teeth on edge. A cold unease bloomed in his chest.
Right then, a faint scuffing sound came from somewhere beyond his flashlight's beam. Jeong's head snapped up. In the impenetrable darkness ahead, two pinpoints of red light glimmered to life.
In that split second, Jeong Hae-jun found himself staring back at a pair of glowing red eyes. A wave of sheer terror washed over him, rooting him to the spot. "Who's there!" he shouted, swinging his flashlight up toward the eyes.
But in the heartbeat it took to blink, the crimson eyes vanished, dissolving into the darkness as if they had never been. Jeong rushed forward to where he'd seen them, sweeping his light frantically over the area. Nothing. He found nothing but a cluster of old, rusted pipes and impenetrable shadow.
Chest heaving, Jeong realized he was holding his breath. The only sounds now were his own ragged breaths and Choi's quick panting somewhere behind him. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his temple. Did I imagine it? he wondered. Was it just another hallucination? But no—his gut told him what he saw was real. Horribly real. Something had been watching them from the darkness. Something not human.
"D-Detective Jeong…" Choi Do-yoon's shaky voice came from behind, barely above a whisper. "Wh-what was that? Did you… see something?"
Jeong steadied himself, drawing in a long breath. "Red eyes," he said quietly. "Something was here, watching us. There's a Specter in this place."
Choi felt a chill stab through him. He swept his flashlight anxiously over the empty corners of the room. "A S-Specter? So… you're saying a ghost is really here…?" His voice quavered with disbelief and fear.
Jeong gave a firm nod, forcing calm into his voice. Right now, both men understood there was no room for skepticism. Not after everything they'd witnessed. The string of bizarre incidents leading up to tonight, and the terrifying encounter just now… all of it defied any rational explanation. They could no longer deny the evidence of their senses—something unearthly was lurking in the darkness.
Gritting his teeth, Jeong ripped his gaze away from the shadows and reached into his coat. He pulled out Shin Dong-hyeok's confiscated notebook, the pages still open to the scrawled phrases he'd seen earlier. Once again his eyes fell on the words: "her vessel." And immediately, that same name flooded his mind. Lee Seo-ha.
"We have to find Lee Seo-ha," Jeong said, his tone resolved and urgent.
Choi Do-yoon's eyes widened at the name. "Lee Seo-ha… That woman who went missing a few days ago? You think she's connected to all this?"
"Yes," Jeong replied tersely. His jaw clenched as he recalled Shin Dong-hyeok's crazed prophecy. "Whoever 'she' is—whatever thing Shin was talking about—it's trying to come into our world through Lee Seo-ha. If we find Seo-ha first, we might be able to stop it."
No sooner had those words left him than the two detectives spun on their heels and bolted back the way they'd come. They hurried out of the accursed basement, leaving its horrors behind. As they emerged, the frigid night air rushed in, purging the foul, stagnant odor from their lungs with each gasp. Jeong Hae-jun paused for a split second, recalling the eerie gleam of those red eyes staring at him from within the darkness. He tightened his fist so hard his knuckles cracked. There was no time to waste—an even greater catastrophe was looming, and it was closing in fast. They had to find Lee Seo-ha.
It was the only way to prevent the Night of Judgment that Shin Dong-hyeok had foreseen.
Meanwhile, back in the lightless depths of the basement, a subtle movement disturbed the shadows. The very same red-eyed presence that had vanished moments before silently emerged again, only to melt away into the darkness once more. It lingered there, unseen but palpable—a hidden enemy, still watching, from just beyond the edge of the light.