It Was Real

The automatic sliding doors of the local police substation parted with a soft electronic chime, and Lee Do stepped inside, followed closely by the young woman in the oversized hoodie. It was already well past midnight. Under the sterile hum of fluorescent lights, the patrol officer on night duty glanced up from behind the intake counter.

"How can I help you?"

Standing before the counter, Lee Do hesitated, mentally sifting through his words. Where on earth was he supposed to begin? Should he say a man had vanished into thin air? That the vanished man had been turned into a snack? Or that a fully stocked, brightly lit convenience store that had existed twenty minutes ago had ceased to exist entirely?

After a frantic moment of deliberation, he decided to lead with the only detail that sounded remotely sane.

"We'd like to file a missing persons report."

"A missing person?"

"Yes."

The officer pulled out a blank report form and uncapped a ballpoint pen. "What is your relationship to the missing individual?"

"I don't know him."

The pen hovered over the paper. The officer frowned. "You don't know him?"

"I saw him for the first time tonight."

"Where?"

"In a convenience store."

The officer's gaze flicked back and forth between Lee Do and the young woman beside him. "Are the two of you together?"

"No," they answered in unison.

The officer's brow furrowed, his expression turning distinctly guarded. Lee Do couldn't blame him. Two complete strangers walking into a police station past midnight to report a third stranger missing—it sounded completely unhinged from the outset.

"Let's have you both take a seat first."

"Let me get this straight," the officer said, lightly tapping the tip of his pen against the clipboard. "The two of you entered a convenience store."

"Yes."

"While inside, you encountered an unfamiliar middle-aged man."

"Yes."

"And then that man suddenly vanished."

"Yes."

Up to this point, things were holding together. The officer nodded along without much skepticism, jotting down notes in concise handwriting. The real problem was what came next.

"How exactly did he vanish?"

"Well, that's..."

Lee Do glanced to his side. The young woman stared right back at him, her dark eyes practically screaming: Go on, tell him.

Why does it always have to be me? Suppressing a grimace, Lee Do let out a quiet sigh. "He turned into a bag of chips."

The scratching of the pen stopped dead. The officer slowly raised his head. "...Excuse me?"

"I can't say for sure whether he literally became the snack," Lee Do said, his voice flat with forced composure, "but the moment he vanished, a snack bag printed with his exact face appeared on the shelf."

The officer neither put his pen down nor wrote another word. He simply stared, his gaze chilling into profound doubt. Lee Do cut in before the silence could solidify into a psych evaluation.

"I'm not crazy."

"I didn't say you were."

"Your face is screaming it."

"I am merely listening to your statement."

The girl beside him spoke up, her voice steady and clear. "It's true."

The officer shifted his attention toward her. "You saw this as well?"

"I saw it with my own eyes."

"So you are claiming you both witnessed the exact same phenomenon?"

"Yes."

The officer gave a slow, measured nod, his gaze shifting back and forth between them. His demeanor did not suggest he felt he had gained a corroborating witness; if anything, he looked like a man realizing he was dealing with two synchronized lunatics.

Lee Do pulled his smartphone from his coat pocket. "I have video footage."

"Footage?"

"I was streaming."

"Streaming?"

"A live internet broadcast."

The officer leaned forward, squinting intently at Lee Do's face. His eyes narrowed in sudden realization. "Wait... by any chance..."

"Yes?"

"Are you Great Demon King Sejong?"

Lee Do blinked, momentarily stunned into silence. "You know me?"

The officer looked away with an embarrassed clearing of his throat. "A few of the officers on duty were watching a clip of your stream in the back room just a little while ago."

"It's already reached a police station?"

"It's circulating everywhere on social media right now."

Beside him, the girl chimed in with a miserable sigh. "It's already all over my university department group chat, too."

Lee Do glanced at her. "You mentioned that earlier."

"Doesn't make it any better hearing it a second time, does it?"

"I suppose not."

The officer coughed into his fist to reassert authority. "Can we see the footage first?"

"Sure."

Lee Do opened his channel management dashboard. Although he had switched the full broadcast archive to private, the raw recorded file remained intact on his phone. He dragged the scrub bar directly to the scene in question.

On the small screen, the middle-aged man stood in front of the counter. He grew furious after inspecting the price tags. He demanded answers from the smiling part-timer. Then—he vanished.

The officer's brow twitched violently. "Could you play that back again?"

Lee Do rewound it five seconds and hit play. The man vanished. He replayed it a third time, but the outcome remained identical. The officer pulled the phone closer to his face.

"This hasn't been digitally edited?"

"It was a live stream."

"I know that."

"You just said you saw the clip."

"Standard procedure requires me to ask."

"Fair enough."

The officer scrolled back slowly, frame by frame. "Do you have any clearer shots of this man's face?"

"There should be some earlier in the recording."

Lee Do scrubbed back to the beginning. The man's face, wandering agitatedly through the aisles of the convenience store, was captured with reasonable clarity. The officer paused the playback.

"You don't know his name?"

"No."

"Estimated age?"

"Looked to be somewhere in his fifties."

The girl nodded in agreement. "That was my impression as well."

"Did you speak with him?"

"Hardly at all."

The officer jotted down several lines on his pad. "I'll run a check against recently filed missing persons reports. If a family member reported him missing, we should have a photograph and physical description on file. We'll start by seeing if anyone matches."

Rising from his chair, the officer paused. "Do you know the exact location of this convenience store?"

"Yes." Lee Do pulled up his map application and pointed to the blue pin marking the spot they had fled from. "Right here."

"And you said the business name was '24-Hour Woori Convenience Store'?"

"Yes."

The officer typed the name into the precinct terminal. No search results found.

"There is no registered business under that name at that address."

"We realized that on our way here."

"I'll dispatch a patrol car to check the site regardless."

"If they go right now, they'll just find an empty commercial space."

The officer nodded grimly, as if he had already anticipated that answer. "Even so, protocol dictates we verify on foot."

"Understood."

"Please fill out these official witness statements while I look into the database. Leave them on the desk when you're finished."

The officer stepped into the inner office, leaving the two of them alone in the waiting area. For several minutes, the only sound was the scratch of ballpoint pens across official stationery. Once they finished writing, they set the forms neatly on the desk. Lee Do sank back into his plastic chair, and the moment the adrenaline bled from his veins, a crushing wave of exhaustion settled over his shoulders.

"Aigoo..." he groaned, letting his head tilt back.

The girl turned her head, giving him a flat look. "You really sound like a total ahjussi."

Lee Do's head swiveled slowly toward her. "Again?"

"Ah." She clamped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

"That's the second time tonight."

"Habit, I guess."

"You're awfully fearless for a twenty-three-year-old."

"You're thirty-two."

"Thirty-two is still a prime young man."

"Did I say it wasn't?"

"Your tone said everything."

A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. A helpless, deflated chuckle slipped from Lee Do's mouth. Come to think of it...

"By the way."

"Yes?"

"Your name is Han Seoyun, right?"

She blinked. "Did you peek while I was writing my statement?"

"Yeah. And you saw mine, didn't you?"

"Lee Do-ssi."

"That's me."

"Then let's introduce ourselves properly," she said, dipping her head in a polite nod. "I'm Han Seoyun."

"I'm Lee Do." He leaned back slightly. "At least I don't have to keep referring to you as 'Hoodie' in my head anymore."

Han Seoyun narrowed her eyes. "You were calling me Hoodie in your head?"

"I didn't know your name."

"Don't normal people just say 'Excuse me'?"

"I did say excuse me out loud."

"...Fair point."

Spinning his phone between his fingers, Lee Do shifted the subject. "You said you're a college student. What year?"

"Junior. Third year."

"I won't ask which school."

"Why not?"

"You're already stressed out from your face being plastered all over the internet. Prying into your private life on top of that would just make me look like a creep."

Han Seoyun studied his face for a quiet second. "You're surprisingly normal."

"...What did you think I was?"

"Great Demon King Sejong."

"That's just a streaming handle."

"The handle itself isn't particularly normal."

"Get out of my chat."

"You aren't broadcasting right now."

"...Right."

Realizing that bantering with her would only drag him into a losing battle, Lee Do shut his mouth. A faint, victorious smile curved her lips.

Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

The smartphone clamped in Lee Do's hand vibrated violently. He checked the display. It was his younger sister, Lee Ha-eun. A cascade of more than ten unread messages filled the screen.

Seeing that last line, Lee Do couldn't help letting out a brief chuckle. He typed back a swift reply.

A response shot back within three seconds.

Shaking his head, Lee Do switched to his camera app, held the phone up, and snapped a quick selfie sitting in the police precinct waiting chair. Click. Sent.

"This little brat..." Lee Do muttered under his breath.

Han Seoyun looked over. "What is it?"

"My sister."

"You have a younger sister?"

"Yeah."

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-one."

"Only two years younger than me, then."

"Guess so."

Another vibration buzzed against his palm.

Lee Do's face twitched.

"...Crazy bitch."

"Pardon?" Han Seoyun asked, startled.

"Nothing. Never mind."

Beside him, Han Seoyun pinched her lips together, fighting an audible snicker. Lee Do's thumbs flew across his screen.

Lee Do closed his messaging app and opened his streaming platform. He checked his channel overview.

Followers: 12,841.

He swiped down to refresh the feed.

Followers: 12,903.

"This is out of control..."

"What is?"

Lee Do tilted his screen so she could see the number. "My followers broke past ten thousand."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"It is, but..."

A complicated knot of emotion tightened in his chest. Of course he wanted his channel to succeed. He relied on streaming to put food on his table and keep a roof over his head. For two straight years, all he had dreamed of was breaking out of the fifty-viewer gutter. He wanted more followers. He wanted more income. He wanted a career.

He just hadn't expected it to happen like this. A living, breathing human being had vanished right before his eyes. He had nearly died himself. And the compensation for that brush with the abyss was ten thousand strangers clicking follow.

As if reading his mind, Han Seoyun murmured quietly, "It's not like you went in there planning for this to happen, Lee Do-ssi."

"I know, but still."

"And besides... if you hadn't been streaming, neither of us might have made it out."

Lee Do looked at his screen, his thoughts drifting back to the relentless barrage of chat messages racing past his display inside that suffocating shop. The live chat. In the sheer panic of the moment, his mind had been spinning. But looking back in the cold light of reality, it was the viewers who had continually warned him. They had noticed the rules shifting on the welcome board. They had caught the horrifying price tags. They had spotted the clerk's unnatural, twisted grin.

If he had stepped through those doors alone without a stream, he would have missed half of those warnings.

"...You're right."

"So you're allowed to be happy about the good parts, aren't you?"

Lee Do turned to look at her. "Seoyun-ssi."

"Yes?"

"Are you really twenty-three?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you seem more mature than me half the time."

"That's just because you're such an ahjussi."

"I take it back."

Her face showed zero remorse.

A little over an hour drifted by before the officer returned from the back office. The skepticism from before was entirely gone, replaced by a dark, heavy cast over his features.

"Lee Do-ssi."

"Yes."

"The patrol car checked the location you provided."

"It was an empty lot, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

It was the exact answer Lee Do had anticipated.

"They inspected the interior of the commercial space as well. Nothing out of the ordinary was found."

"No traces left behind at all?"

"None at this time."

Han Seoyun leaned forward. "What about the convenience store itself?"

"We'll need to contact the building management in the morning, but as of right now, there is no record of a convenience store operating at that address." The officer paused, his lips pressed into a thin, grim line. Lee Do didn't miss the hesitation.

"There's something else, isn't there?"

The officer gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Regarding the man you described."

Lee Do straightened in his chair. "Did you find him?"

"His identity has not been officially confirmed yet."

"Then what?"

"A missing persons report was filed just moments ago at another precinct. A man in his fifties."

Han Seoyun clasped her hands tightly in her lap, her knuckles whitening. "When did he go missing?"

"His family stated that all contact was lost after he clocked out from work earlier this evening." The officer pulled up an image file on his departmental tablet. "His family provided this photograph."

He turned the screen toward them.

The moment Lee Do recognized the face in the picture, all breath stalled in his throat. Rectangular wire-frame glasses. Receding, cropped black hair. An unmistakably worn, tired face. It was the exact man who had slammed his fist on the checkout counter and roared in fury. The identical face that had been printed on the front of that glossy black snack bag.

Han Seoyun spoke first, her voice barely a whisper. "That's him."

The officer locked eyes with her. "Are you absolutely certain?"

"Yes."

Lee Do swallowed dryly and nodded. "That's him. No question."

"Both of you are positive?"

"Yes."

The officer solemnly scribbled a note across the margin of their statements. "We will contact the family and request that they review the raw broadcast archive to verify identification."

Lee Do could not tear his eyes away from the photograph. In the darkest corners of his mind, a faint, cowardly ember of hope had lingered. He had wondered if this was all some elaborate hidden-camera prank. A viral marketing stunt engineered by some deranged production team. An insane optical illusion meant to bait his channel. Surely there had to be some rational, scientific explanation for what had occurred.

Yet the man on the screen was undeniable. He had a family anxiously waiting for him at home, and he had simply vanished into thin air on his commute back from work.

"...It really was real," Lee Do murmured, his voice trembling beneath the weight of reality.

It was past one in the morning by the time they stepped out of the police substation. Standing at the top of the concrete stairs, Lee Do raised both arms and stretched his spine with an agonizing crack.

"Aigoo..." Every muscle in his body felt stiff as dried leather.

Beside him, Han Seoyun bit down on a laugh. "Would you stop that already?"

"I didn't even say anything this time!"

"Your face said it all."

"Now you can read facial expressions too?"

"After everything I saw tonight, reading faces feels pretty tame." She chuckled softly, tucking her hands into her hoodie pocket. "How are you getting home?"

"Gotta hail a cab."

"Is it far?"

"About twenty minutes." Lee Do glanced at his lock screen. 1:27 AM. "Once you catch a taxi, text me the license plate."

"Text who?"

"Me."

She turned her head to look at him, one eyebrow arching. "Why?"

"Just in case. You never know." He caught her skeptical look and waved a hand dismissively. "Or don't, if you don't want to."

"I don't even have your number."

"Which is why I'm asking you for it."

Han Seoyun retrieved her phone with an amused smirk. "Is this your idea of hitting on me?"

Lee Do stared at her like she had grown a second head. "Do I look like a man who is in any mental state to hit on someone right now?"

She took a theatrical second to scan him from head to toe. "No."

"Why did you answer that so fast?"

"Give me your number, then."

They exchanged contact details on the pavement. Typing in the contact name, she looked up. "Can I save you as Great Demon King Sejong?"

"If you do, you're going into my phone as Hoodie."

"Han Seoyun, please."

"Much better."

Her phone screen chimed with a taxi confirmation. Estimated arrival: three minutes. She slipped the phone back into her pocket.

"Lee Do-ssi."

"Yeah?"

"You still have that lighter, don't you?"

Lee Do reached into his coat pocket. His fingertips brushed against smooth, cold plastic. The transparent disposable lighter he had purchased inside that nightmare for a ten-won coin. He pulled it out and held it up in the lamplight.

"Right here."

Han Seoyun peered at his lighter, then subconsciously checked her own bag where the identical lighter was stashed. "You didn't have to hand it over to the police?"

"I showed it to them."

"Shouldn't they have confiscated it?"

"They just took photos of it. The officer told me to hold onto it in case they need to log it into evidence later."

"So what are you going to do with it?"

"Just keep it, I guess."

"Why?"

"Physical proof that I didn't hallucinate the whole thing?"

"A second ago, you looked at it like it was a prized souvenir."

"...I did not."

Headlights swept across the curb as a silver sedan pulled up to the sidewalk. Han Seoyun opened the rear door. Lee Do gave her a brief nod.

"Text me the moment you get inside your house."

"Okay."

"And don't go wandering around alone at night for a while."

Before sliding into the backseat, she paused and looked back over her shoulder. "That goes for you too, Lee Do-ssi."

"I have to do my job. I broadcast."

"You stream from your bedroom."

"That's true."

"Just... don't go walking into strange convenience stores ever again."

Lee Do let out a hollow, incredulous laugh. "You really think there's another place like that out there?"

Han Seoyun didn't answer. She merely held his gaze for a lingering second before ducking into the car. The taxi door clicked shut, and the red taillights bled into the distant avenue. Lee Do stood alone on the pavement under the streetlamp, the chill night air biting at his neck. Slowly, he pulled his phone out.

Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.

A relentless barrage of notifications covered the lock screen like an avalanche.

Platform Direct Messages: 999+

"...What the hell?"

Channel Inquiries Email: 327 unread.

He didn't even dare check his social media alerts. Bracing himself, Lee Do tapped into his streaming platform's message inbox.

"Who said anything about going back?" Lee Do scoffed under his breath. He flicked his thumb downward to scroll through the feed, but the incoming messages only multiplied. As he dragged further down, however, the tone of the submissions began to morph into something chillingly specific.

His thumb froze on the glass. He dragged the scrollbar further down. Dozens. Hundreds. Perhaps even more. Urban legends and horror testimonies were flooding in from every corner of the peninsula.

Apartments. Schools. Abandoned buildings. Highway tunnels. Subway stations. Mountain paths. Motels. Public saunas.

On any other day, Lee Do wouldn't have given these messages a second glance. The internet was a cesspool of recycled creepypastas, manufactured ghost stories, and attention-seeking fabrications concocted by bored teenagers hoping to get featured on a live stream. But tonight, he could no longer dismiss them as absolute nonsense. Because just hours ago, he had stepped into one himself.

Lee Do moved to lock his screen, but paused. An image flickered back into his memory—the forum post he had seen earlier while waiting outside the store. Last winter. Gangwon-do. 24-Hour Woori Convenience Store. There had been a photograph attached. Unlike the bizarre ghost stories flooding his inbox, that one felt sickeningly familiar.

He opened his browser and navigated back to the community board. The post was pinned at the absolute top of the trending page.

The post had been heavily updated. The original author had uploaded the uncompressed image file, verifying its EXIF metadata.

The comment section was spiraling out of control.

Lee Do scrolled back to the top of the comment feed. A freshly posted reply caught his eye.

Lee Do stared fixedly at the photograph attached to the post. The storefront was unquestionably there in the image. Yet the locals who had lived in that village for decades swore it had never existed. Just like tonight. Lee Do had walked down that Seoul alleyway countless times, and he had never once seen a 24-Hour Woori Convenience Store until tonight, when it was suddenly sitting wide open under the dark sky.

What if... it moves? What if it's wandering from place to place?

"No way," Lee Do murmured, shaking his head violently as if trying to physically dislodge the absurd hypothesis from his skull. "Stop thinking. Just stop."

He had endured enough madness for one lifetime. He tapped his screen to summon a taxi. His apartment wasn't overwhelmingly far, but his legs felt like wet lead; walking was entirely out of the question. Estimated wait time: four minutes. Sinking onto a cold wooden bench near the curb, Lee Do pulled the lighter from his pocket and set it flat on his open palm.

Clear, cheap plastic. A standard flint-wheel disposable lighter that could be bought anywhere for a few hundred won.

Flick.

A steady, warm yellow flame bloomed from the nozzle with an ordinary hiss of butane.

"Works just fine."

He released the thumb lever, and the flame vanished. No matter how closely he examined it, there was nothing supernatural about the object—aside from the fact that it had been purchased from a cursed storefront that didn't exist. He slid it back into his pocket.

Bzzz. A text message popped up on his display.

"I swear, this girl..." Lee Do muttered with a faint, weary grin.

He didn't bother replying. Up the dark avenue, the headlights of his taxi pulled into the curb.

It was nearly two in the morning when Lee Do unlocked the front door of his family's apartment. He kicked off his shoes in the entryway. The living room lights were blazing bright. His father was sitting stiffly on the sofa. His mother was seated at the dining table, her hands wringing a dish towel. Stretched out on the living room rug, his younger sister, Ha-eun, was resting her chin on her hands, staring intently at her phone.

The moment the door latched, all three pairs of eyes snapped toward him simultaneously.

"You're back?" his father asked gruffly.

"Yeah."

His mother shot up from her chair before he could even take a step inside. "Are you alright?!"

"I told you, I'm completely fine."

She rushed over, grabbing both his forearms, frantically inspecting his face and shoulders for hidden wounds. "Are you hurt anywhere? Did something happen to you?"

"I'm fine, Mom. Not a scratch."

"Really? Truly?"

"Yes."

"Should we go to the emergency room? What if you're in shock?"

"Mom, there's no reason to go to the hospital."

"They said a man disappeared into thin air!"

A heavy, stifling quiet descended over the living room. Lee Do took a slow breath, stepping out of his coat. "Let's all just sit down first."

He sank onto the sofa. Ha-eun rolled over onto her side, looking up at him with wide, appraising eyes.

"What?" he asked.

"Oppa."

"What is it?"

"You really are Great Demon King Sejong."

"...Who else would I be?"

Ha-eun turned her phone around, thrusting the glowing screen into his face. An oversized community banner occupied the screen.

"It's just wild seeing you on the internet and then looking at your stupid face in real life," Ha-eun deadpanned.

"Turn it off."

"The comments are hilarious."

"I said turn it off."

Ha-eun dramatically read one off the display in a booming voice: "'All hail His Royal Highness on his triumphant return from the netherworld, lololol.'"

"Lee Ha-eun."

"Yes, Your Royal Majesty!"

Lee Do grabbed a sofa cushion and hurled it straight at her face. Ha-eun ducked with a squeal of laughter. Over on the recliner, his father suddenly turned his head away, his shoulders visibly shaking as he fought to swallow a roar of laughter.

"Dad, don't you start laughing too."

"I'm not laughing," his father said, his voice suspiciously strained.

"The corners of your mouth are touching your ears."

"It's a trick of the light."

Only his mother remained completely unamused. "Are you going to keep doing this broadcasting?"

Lee Do turned to look at her anxious face. "I have to, Mom. It's my livelihood."

"Are you going to go back to places like that?"

"No."

"Do you swear?"

"Do you think I've completely lost my mind?"

A fraction of the tension finally melted from his mother's shoulders. "Then just stay in your room and stream from there."

"That's the plan for tomorrow."

Ha-eun immediately popped her head back up over the edge of the coffee table. "What time?"

"Why do you care?"

"So I can watch."

"Do not watch my stream."

"Already followed your channel."

"Unfollow it right now."

"Nope!" Ha-eun flashed a wicked, triumphant grin. "I even made a brand-new chat handle."

A terrible premonition crept down Lee Do's spine. He glared at her. "What handle?"

"Grand Prince Chungnyeong."

A second of stunned silence gripped the living room. Then, his father completely lost the battle.

"PWAHAHAHA!"

"Dad!"

"I'm sorry, son! I'm sorry!"

Ha-eun clutched her stomach, howling with laughter on the carpet. "Your Majesty! This loyal royal sibling shall attend your morning court tomorrow without fail!"

"Get out!"

"Your grace is truly boundless, Your Majesty!"

Lee Do snatched a second cushion and whipped it across the room. This time, it struck her dead-center in the forehead with a satisfying thwack.

"Ack!"

"That's what you get for running your mouth."

"Mom! Oppa's using domestic violence on me!"

"Both of you, stop acting like children and go to bed!"

It was the exact, mundane domestic squabbling that played out in their apartment every single week. Yet precisely because it was so utterly ordinary, a profound, sweeping relief settled into Lee Do's chest. The horrors he had witnessed just a few hours ago began to feel like a distant, disjointed nightmare.

By the time he finished showering and collapsed onto his mattress, the digital clock on his desk read 2:30 AM. Lee Do melted into the bedsheets with a long, drawn-out groan.

"Ahhh..."

He was exhausted down to his very marrow. Every joint ached with dull fatigue. Yet despite the crushing physical exhaustion, sleep felt miles away. He picked up his phone from the nightstand.

Followers: 14,203.

"Still going up..."

The unread direct messages continued to pour in like rain, but he no longer possessed the mental energy to read them. Tomorrow—no, today, later this afternoon—how many people would show up when he hit the 'Go Live' button? A thousand? Two thousand? Maybe even more?

He couldn't deny his own curiosity. For two agonizing years, he had averaged fifty viewers. He had tried everything. He had played every trending game. He had pulled all-nighters grinding newly launched titles. He had done mukbangs, outdoor strolls, late-night Q&As. Gaining even ten loyal viewers had felt like dragging boulders up an icy mountain. Yet one accidental detour into a nightmarish convenience store had gifted him over ten thousand followers overnight.

"Life is an absolute joke," ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he muttered, staring at the ceiling.

As he moved to set the phone down, the badge on his message inbox caught his eye again. 999+. He stared at the glowing red bubble, a dry, self-deprecating chuckle escaping his lips.

"Everyone's having a field day."

Obviously, he had zero intention of chasing down any of those viewer tips. He had nearly lost his life tonight. Any sane, rational human being would consider one brush with cosmic horror more than enough for a lifetime. He plugged his phone into the charging cable, then reached into his jeans and set the lighter on his wooden desk.

A plain, ordinary, transparent lighter.

Flick.

He struck the flint one final time. In the dark bedroom, a tiny flame trembled gently in the air.

"It really is just a normal lighter."

Lee Do released the lever, letting the darkness reclaim the room. He pulled the thick comforter up to his chin and settled his head deep into the pillow.

"Tomorrow, I'm just going to sit here and play video games."

He closed his eyes. On the desk beside him, the cheap lighter retrieved from that impossible shop rested in silence. And on the screen of his charging smartphone, the counter of unread messages continued to tick upward into the void.

1,127.

1,128.

1,129.

Almost all of them carried the same desperate refrain. I saw something strange ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠here. Someone disappeared over there. We keep hearing bizarre noises in this building. Please come check ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it out. Please investigate it. Please broadcast it.

And out of that endless torrent of urban horrors, no one yet knew which ones were actually real.