The neon lights of Seoul usually hummed with life, but tonight, a thick, unnatural fog swallowed the Han River. Min-jun and his best friend Hoon had just moved into a suspiciously cheap studio on the 13th floor of an old, crumbling building in the Mapo district.
The elders in the neighborhood avoided the building. They whispered about the "Silent Resident," but Min-jun, a cynical medical student, just laughed it off. That was his first mistake.
The Scratching in the Wall:
At 3:33 AM, the power flickered and died. The humid Seoul air turned ice-cold instantly.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
The sound wasn't coming from the hallway. It was coming from inside the concrete wall behind Hoon's bed. Hoon sat up, his face pale in the moonlight. "Min-jun... do you hear that? It sounds like fingernails on stone."
Before Min-jun could answer, a wet, thumping sound echoed from the ceiling. Thump. Drag. Thump. Something heavy was being pulled across the floor above them—but the 14th floor was supposed to be empty and sealed off.
The Tall Woman:
Suddenly, the bathroom door creaked open. A foul stench of stagnant water and rotting hair filled the small room. Min-jun turned his flashlight toward the door.
Standing there was a woman. But she was wrong—horribly wrong. She was nearly seven feet tall, her neck twisted at a 90-degree angle, resting on her shoulder. Her skin was the color of a drowned corpse, and her long, matted black hair reached her knees.
She wasn't walking; she was gliding, her joints snapping with the sound of breaking dry wood. Crack. Pop.
The Final Breath:
Hoon tried to scream, but no sound came out. The woman reached him in a heartbeat. Her fingers were unnaturally long, with no skin on the tips—just jagged, bloody bone.
Min-jun watched in paralyzed horror as the creature placed its hand over Hoon's mouth. Her jaw suddenly unhinged, stretching wider than any human mouth possibly could. She didn't bite him. She began to inhale.
Min-jun saw a faint, glowing mist—Hoon's very essence—being sucked out of his nose and mouth. Hoon's skin began to wrinkle and grey. His eyes rolled back, turning into milky white glass. In seconds, the vibrant young man was nothing but a shriveled husk of bone and parchment-like skin.
The Cold Realization:
The creature turned its mangled neck toward Min-jun. It smiled, revealing rows of needle-like teeth coated in black bile. It whispered in a voice that sounded like a thousand dying screams: "You are next... on the last night."
The flashlight died. In the darkness, the only sound was the snapping of joints getting closer.
The next morning, the police found the apartment empty. There was no sign of Hoon. The only thing left was a single, bloody handprint on the wall, and Min-jun, found wandering the streets of Hongdae, clawing at his own throat, unable to speak a single word ever again.
Skepticism is a shield, but it cannot protect you from the truths that lie beyond the veil of the material world.
We often rely on logic and science to explain away the things that scare us. We mock old superstitions and ignore the warnings of those who came before us. But this story reminds us that the universe is far older and darker than our "modern" understanding.
The lesson: Respect the unknown. Just because you don't believe in the darkness doesn't mean the darkness doesn't believe in you. Sometimes, a "good deal" or a "cheap apartment" comes with a price that your soul can't afford to pay.
The End
Akifa,
The Author.