Flames of the Damned Village
"Oppa, we're trending on real-time search too!"
"...I saw that. But that's not the important thing right now."
In stark contrast to Lee Ji-ah's fussing, Choi Yeon-jun sat in front of the tent with a face black as death and replied.
"That hospital... it feels like there's something we don't know about. I thought I'd gotten used to ghost stories and horror experiences, but that was on another level."
"Why are you acting so uncharacteristically? You're the one who said it'd be great if our club YouTube channel blew up. And it'd promote my channel too!"
"Ji-ah, you said you have spiritual senses, right?"
"Yeah. Why bring that up all of a sudden?"
"How can someone with spiritual senses see that scene and stay so calm? Or do you think we faked it somehow?"
"That's... not it. I was just too caught up in filming and got a bit excited."
Choi Yeon-jun let out a deep sigh at Lee Ji-ah's lame excuse.
"Let's drop it for today. Everyone worked hard and must be tired, so let's sleep and talk tomorrow."
"...Okay."
At Choi Yeon-jun's words, Park Seol-ha and Lee Chan-young, who had been sitting silently, headed into their tents first. Lee Ji-ah and Choi Yeon-jun followed suit, and I decided to unfold the van seats like a bed for some car camping.
But camping in a place like this was perfect for attracting spirits, so even after everyone was in their tents, I kept adding firewood to ensure the bonfire didn't die out. As long as the bonfire's heat and light persisted late into the night, the black threads stretching from the forest couldn't approach.
Fire is the first 'light' humanity harnessed. The sun, the primordial light that illuminates all things equally; lightning, the light of natural disasters that makes all things tremble in equal terror. Ironically, fire—born naturally from those very two—was the first thing humans artificially controlled out of curiosity.
It sparked human civilization's advancement in an instant, allowing people who lived in tribes to form 'societies.' In Greco-Roman mythology, Prometheus gifted fire to humans and spurred great progress, but the details of myths or history don't matter. What matters is that humans advanced civilization and built societies through fire.
It's no exaggeration to say fire symbolizes humanity itself.
Around 2 a.m., when the ghost story club members in their tents were fast asleep, I whittled a stick into a sharp skewer with my knife and pulled out the marshmallows I'd hidden away.
Ah, I can't resist roasting marshmallows while camping.
"Plenty of space here—come sit."
I threaded a marshmallow onto the skewer and roasted it slowly over the bonfire's heat. But my counterpart, wary of the flames, stopped at a distance and wouldn't come closer.
"Sorry, but I'd appreciate it if you'd leave the village."
"You don't sound sorry at all."
I blew on the perfectly golden-brown marshmallow and popped it in my mouth. Marshmallows are basically sugar fluff like cotton candy—delicious raw—but grilling them makes them even better. Chewy like rice cakes.
As I munched on the delightfully glutinous treat, the figure standing far from the bonfire spoke up again.
"This village and the surrounding land are all private property. When the landowners tell you to leave, outsiders like you should go."
"Then bring the actual landowner. With the deed and all the proof. Oh, and while you're at it, bring the owner of that 'hospital' building twenty minutes away. We trespassed there, so before we leave the village, I'd like to apologize properly to the owner. If they want punishment, we can turn ourselves in at the local station and pay the fine, no problem."
"......"
Just marshmallows felt boring, so I skewered a long sausage I'd planned for tomorrow night. As it sizzled over the fire, spitting oil and filling the air with that salty, greasy processed-meat aroma.
Korean ramen doesn't have MSG, but most other instant foods are loaded with it—frozen dumplings, fried chicken, sausages, even fish cakes. They focus public suspicion on ramen, then pack MSG into everything else and sell it alongside. Thanks to these brilliant corporate schemes, we get to enjoy tasty junk food guilt-free.
"So... you're not leaving?"
"If there's a reason to go, I will. And even after we're done, we'll leave on our own. As you know, we couldn't rent the village hall, so we're camping out here on the edge."
Places thick with brush or trees don't allow open fires, so we were roughing it on bare dirt by an unpaved road—the worst spot for camping. Cold rises straight up, the ground's rock-hard. Tomorrow, everyone's bodies would ache everywhere; worst case, someone catches a cold overnight. Or the various low-level spirits targeting reckless campers like us could swarm.
That's why I guarded the bonfire, keeping it alive. Since ancient times, fire has been an efficient security measure against beasts, wild things, or intruders.
"You can't stay in this village."
"Because we're not crazy?"
"......"
I bit into the perfectly cooked sausage.
"Mental patients. Mentally ill. People with sickness of the mind—lots of terms, but society's view of them isn't kind. Especially back in the 1900s, decades ago, it was worse. Rural backwaters, slow to modernize, gossiped that even sane people were possessed, called in shamans for gut rituals, or made you pray to heaven and earth over bowls of water. Back then, prejudices checked your status first, before your situation or pain."
Wealthy or powerful elders getting sickly or babbling? 'Must've had a shock' or 'senility.' But for ordinary folk, the poor, or lowborn? Harsh judgments and cold stares. 'Must be possessed,' 'punished by mountain spirits,' 'toying with evil things.'
They dismissed mental anguish as supernatural, bullied in groups, or drove them out.
"In such an era, in a rural backwater where those attitudes peaked, someone builds a mental hospital and buys up the village, mountains, and land. You really think people don't know why?"
"...N-no."
"Give credit where it's due. Back then, tossing someone into a psych ward was easier than pie—no procedures needed."
Especially in a pre-digital data era, a remote hospital outsiders couldn't easily find.
"No real local specialties around here. Folks aren't logging like old times, fields just enough for the village population. Yet no one seems 'poor.'"
Places like this, ignored by government unless tourist spots, are dirt-poor or barely scraping by. Their wariness of outsiders, outright refusing the hall rental and pushing us out—it comes from something solid.
"Big: government officials. Medium: corporate execs. Small: thugs. How many did they shove into that hospital as 'mental patients' for kickbacks?"
"...Grk, pughhh!"
"You know I know. I already burned through my three strikes of patience on first sight."
The village chief thrashed his head back and forth, foaming at the mouth.
"Until the 2000s, vanishing 'mental patients' without records was no big deal—just mark 'em missing. Stuff people into that magic jar of a hospital, and poof—gone next day. You, chief, and the villagers, in your prime, got paid handsomely for warehousing 'crazies' in the corner psych ward. My cheap ginseng tonic gift? Wouldn't even register."
"Gek, kirik, grrrlk!"
"You know this? The closer the living get to grudge spirits, it's not the living tainting them—it's the grudge energy pickling the living, pulling them from the realm of the alive."
I scanned the villagers encircling us, unable to enter the fire's heat. They gripped clubs, knives, axes—like pros subduing rampaging 'lunatics.'
Self-defense established.
I stood quietly, slipping on my golden knuckle duster.
Face your sins.
Face the evil born of your sins.
Your sins and evil have merged—living blasphemy.
You violated the solemn law against birthing evil from sin and adultery; the Lord Jesus takes offense.
Those who layer sin upon sin shall not be saved.
Only those who wash sin in atonement qualify for salvation.
Escape sin's temptation, flee evil's pit.
Then you too may be forgiven.
Repent. Have faith.
"Jesus Heaven Nonbelievers Hell."