Chapter 45
“Actually, last time too, I was waiting because you said you were coming alone, but then you showed up with some weird boy, you know?”
Hup!
The woman lifted me up as if I weighed nothing.
W–What the… Is that really human strength?
Even for an adult man, lifting someone like a doll should be impossible.
I still couldn’t open my mouth, so all I could do was stare at her anxiously.
Her face… it wasn’t like that last time. Is this because of the keyring ghost?
Maybe that was why she had covered herself so much. If her entire body was covered in those pure black letters… like the ghost.
Creepy.
“Oh—sorry, sorry. I forgot I tied your mouth. Would be trouble if you screamed.”
My butt felt the rough ground. She had set me down.
While she untied the ropes binding me, I rolled my eyes as much as I could to check my surroundings.
A forest?
Did she get this far from the city while I was unconscious?
Something was wrong.
“There.”
As soon as she spoke, she pulled the rope from my mouth. My lips stung from friction as I gently brushed them and opened my mouth.
“Why… did you bring me here?”
“I was asked to.”
Her hands moved quickly as she gathered the ropes, like she couldn’t wait to get away from this place.
What? Didn’t she bring me here to hurt me?
Her behavior after that made things even more unsettling.
“What do you mean ‘asked’? By who? Why?”
“Mm. They said they’d hide the letters on my face if I did.”
She grinned and pointed to her face.
“Creepy, right?”
“That…”
“Haha, you really can’t lie, huh? Honestly, I get creeped out looking in the mirror myself. Can’t blame anyone else.”
“……”
“The letters are spreading all over my body. Just like the ghost in the keyring. Do you know why?”
“Why… why is that happening?”
“The ghost you killed is trying to latch onto me to come back to life.”
For a split second, the woman’s face overlapped perfectly with the keyring ghost’s face. I gasped and scrambled backward, and she laughed hysterically.
She seemed insane.
“Why did you do something so useless? It’s caused me so much trouble. I didn’t want this either.”
“Do you… do you not know why all this is happening to you?”
“Maybe because I was with it the longest? Or because I kept supplying sacrifices it could use?”
“Sacrifices?”
“Like your friend who was hospitalized.”
She meant Jang Hyunwoo.
“Shame. If he had relied on it a little more, made more wishes… then he would’ve ended up looking like this instead of me.”
“You call that talking?! Because of you, my friend almost fell off the roof and died!”
“And you still don’t get how lucky he was to die cleanly?”
She hummed a tune as she shoved the ropes into her trunk.
A chill crawled up my spine as she walked toward the driver’s seat.
“Where are you going? What about me? You brought me here!”
“I told you, I was only doing what I was asked.”
“Asked by who?!”
“Oh, for god’s sake.”
Still speaking carelessly, she paused with one foot inside the car and turned back. Her blank expression stared down at me coldly.
“Stop whining. Do I owe you answers? Just die quietly or end up like me.”
Ridiculous.
She was the one who dragged me here, yet she said it so shamelessly.
“Well, since I brought you, I’ll give you a little hint as a service.”
She got into the car and lowered the window. A crooked smile peeked out.
“Remember the place where we first met.”
…She means the alley next to Café Fio-reum?
The window closed. The car sped away in a blink, leaving me hopelessly staring after it.
“What is this…”
I muttered under my breath and looked around nervously.
Would some other strange people be waiting? But I sensed no one.
Still, I stood and began walking carefully.
Luckily, the dirt ground held faint tire tracks.
If I follow these, I should reach a road.
Then I could call a taxi or find someone to help.
I took out my phone as I walked.
I had service. Of course—this is the modern world!
With relief, I quickly dialed.
— The call cannot be connected. Transferring to voicemail.
Huh?
— The line is busy. Please leave a message after the beep.
Why?
Emergency numbers should never fail.
I tried calling my family, Dan Seohyuk, other friends—same result.
What’s the point of having a phone then?
Maybe texting?
With faint hope, I sent messages to my friends.
Nothing. Just “Sending…” endlessly.
“Damn it!”
I glared at the phone and looked back at the ground—
Huh?
The tire tracks were gone.
I spun around. I only looked away for a moment—how could they vanish?
The forest was too dense; a car couldn’t even turn around.
It could only have gone straight.
Why…?
I rushed back the way I came.
Something was wrong.
Where were the tracks?
“Why… why…?”
Panting hard, I reached the spot where the woman had dropped me off. My footprints were still there, and the marks from when I fell backward.
But the tire marks beside them were gone.
Then—
The traces I left began disappearing in real time.
Impossible!
The escape room had been unrealistic from the start, so I accepted anything strange there.
But this?
This is the real world. How could this happen?
Did I faint again without knowing?
I pinched my cheek hard. Pain shot through.
Real. Definitely real.
“What the hell is happening?”
I didn’t know the way out. Without the tire tracks, I couldn’t find the road.
I tried walking the direction we came from but froze.
“Heh… haha.”
The dirt road that looked wide enough for a car moments ago was gone. Dense trees had grown in its place.
Is a ghost messing with me?
That might actually be it.
I checked my phone. Still daytime. I had to find a way out before nightfall.
Then—military boots walked beside me. Did it appear because it noticed my panic?
I immediately asked,
“Milli, what do I do? Can you see any direction out of the forest?”
[No.]
“Don’t just cut me off like that—help me think! I can’t stay here!”
[Fine.]
[But you should look over there first.]
There?
I turned. In the distance, a woman was walking weakly, dragging her feet.
I flinched, thinking she might be a ghost, but her skin tone and faint footsteps seemed normal.
“A person?”
I whispered.
[Yes.]
“Then maybe we can ask her for help—!”
[She’s just like you.]
[Bound to this place.]
[For much longer than you.]
What did that mean?
Just then, the woman walked toward a tree. A rope hung from a branch.
Wait—the rope’s shape—
“Ah!”
I covered my mouth just in time to stop the scream.
A noose. A perfectly looped hanging noose.
The woman hesitated for only a moment before slipping her head inside.
She kicked wildly. No scream. Just violent thrashing.
After some time—
She went still. Her limbs slackened.
…She really died…?
Shock rooted me in place. I should run to check if she was okay, but it felt like invisible hands held my ankles.
Suddenly, a memory flashed through my mind—like someone had thrown me a hint.
The first time I visited the <Urban Ghost Story Community> to search for my missing sister, I saw a post title:
<I keep dreaming about committing suicide…>(+44)
And the woman earlier said this too.
Remember the first place we met.
I assumed she meant the physical place.
But what if she meant the site itself?
Then could this woman be the author of that suicide dream post?
My legs trembled as I instinctively backed away.
“A.”
A faint tickle brushed my cheek.
[Don’t look.]
But my body was already moving. Before Milli could stop me, my head turned on reflex.
A pair of feet hung in midair.
Do not look up.
Do not.
Because above those feet would be—
—the corpse of the woman who had just died.
