The Child in the Walls
Pork belly charred black on the grill.
"Senior! The meat is burning!"
I couldn't hear a thing.
Heritage Palace. Unidentified sound. Corridor.
The words from the TV news buzzed in my head like the drone of cicadas.
Something feels off...
As I was lost in thought, something clicked.
Yes, that's it.
I quietly set down the tongs I was using to flip the meat.
Minhye was the first to notice the shift in my expression.
"Senior?"
Deokhu and Seyeon turned their eyes toward me as well.
Meeting their worried gazes, I spoke in a low, quiet voice.
"I think there's something similar in my scenario list. I need to check it. I have a bad feeling about this."
Without a word, we all stood up at once. We left the restaurant so quickly I couldn't even remember how we paid or how we got out.
We walked in silence toward our hideout, Minhye's apartment.
Perhaps shaken by the succession of shocking events we'd faced, Deokhu flinched at the slightest noise, constantly scanning our surroundings. He looked terrified that something might leap out and grab him at any second.
Seyeon kept her eyes glued to her smartphone with a grim expression, searching for related news.
Minhye was the one to break the silence again.
She smacked each of us hard on the back, one by one.
"Oh, come on! Why is everyone so depressed?!"
"Ow!"
"I meant for it to hurt! Are we going to a funeral or something? We're heading to a strategy meeting! Times like this are exactly when we need to pull ourselves together and get pumped!"
Minhye forcefully linked her arms with ours and dragged us along.
As soon as we arrived at the hideout, we headed straight for the wall as if by unspoken agreement.
Our Situation Board, covered in dozens of scenario titles.
Deokhu was the first to spot something and pointed his finger.
"Hyung. Isn't it this one?"
Where he was pointing, a title I had typed out in a dry, plain font was pinned.
"That's it... It's starting to come back to me in detail now."
I nodded and immediately booted up my laptop.
The team gathered around me as I found and opened the corresponding scenario file.
"Let's start the briefing."
I swallowed hard and began explaining the original urban legend I had gathered.
"The stage for this ghost story is a newly built apartment complex called Heritage Palace. You all know that area used to be a redevelopment zone filled with old, dilapidated townhouses, right? Decades-old buildings were demolished there."
"Yes."
"The rumor is that a child went missing during that process. The kid, who was playing near the construction site, crawled into a gap in the wall of an old building that hadn't been fully demolished yet. And then, during the demolition..."
At my explanation, Minhye let out a soft gasp and covered her mouth.
"The child died in that dark, narrow gap—right on the boundary between the new building and the old. That's how the child's vengeful spirit became embedded in the apartment building itself. The legend goes that every night, you can hear a child whispering from the corridors, the walls, or the ceilings. This was the 'Child in the Walls of Heritage Palace' urban legend."
When the briefing ended, Minhye asked, looking puzzled.
"But senior, isn't that a bit strange? People only started moving into that apartment complex recently. How could such a detailed urban legend spring up so quickly? Aren't ghost stories usually decades old?"
I shook my head.
"That's the old-fashioned way. Modern urban legends aren't made like that anymore."
I pointed at the screen.
"Modern urban legends are like viruses. They spread in an instant through online communities and ViewTube. Think about it. At first, it probably started as a simple complaint about hearing 'strange noises.' But once that got posted on mom cafes or apartment resident forums, comments like 'My place is like that too' started piling up."
"Ah..."
"The next step is the arrival of the storytellers. People looking for clout or just curious onlookers find this raw material and start adding meat to the bones. They say things like, 'Actually, I heard a kid died when they were building that place.' The sensationalized, bloated story gets packaged as if it were a real historical event in no time, forever preserved on the internet as the 'Heritage Palace Urban Legend.' These days, it takes less than a month for a ghost story to be born and take root."
My explanation left everyone with goosebumps.
"Now, let's get to the main point."
I scrolled down to show them how I had adapted this rather plain ghost story.
"I thought a vengeful spirit that just made noises was too boring. So, I added a much more malicious setting: inter-floor noise."
I pointed to the core setting of the scenario.
"This curse feeds and grows on the conflict and hatred between neighbors caused by inter-floor noise."
"Well, inter-floor noise definitely breeds conflict and hatred, that's for sure."
"At first, it mimics the sounds of footsteps and thumping from the ceiling, accompanied by the child's whispers. The neighbor downstairs suspects the neighbor upstairs, while the neighbor upstairs feels falsely accused. That's how the conflict begins. Their anger and stress become the nourishment for the child in the walls."
"As the conflict escalates, the vengeful spirit gains strength and finally enters the final stage: hide-and-seek."
"Hide-and-seek?"
I nodded slowly.
"Someone knocks on the front door of the household where the conflict has reached its peak. When they open it, no one is there, but a child's voice echoes from the darkness at the end of the corridor."
"A child's voice?"
"Do you want to play hide-and-seek with me?"
My voice, suddenly mimicking a child's, made Minhye shiver and rub her arms in goosebumps.
"The person possessed by the voice walks toward the end of the corridor and never returns. They become the child's new playmate, trapped forever in the gaps of the ceiling."
"That is seriously insane," Deokhu muttered.
"So what's the solution?" Seyeon asked.
"There are two. In the short term, we have to cut off the curse's nourishment. In other words, we need to reconcile the neighbors upstairs and downstairs. If our team intervenes directly to clear up their misunderstandings and get them to sincerely make up, the curse's power will temporarily weaken."
"And the other?"
"The ultimate solution is to resolve the child's unresolved grudge. We have to find the exact spot where the child is trapped, break the wall, and let the light in. At the same time, we must bring the child's mother to call out their name. When the mother's voice and the light reach the child, the curse will be completely dispelled."
Finishing the briefing, I looked at everyone with resolve.
"This time, it's an Incomplete Synchronization. I think that's why I dozed off for a second earlier."
Deokhu said in surprise, "Oh... but wouldn't it be better to try a Full Synchronization?"
"There's no time."
I pointed to the TV news screen.
"The fact that it's on the news means the curse has already passed Phase 1 and entered Phase 2. Even if I fall asleep now and enter a Full Synchronization, there's nothing I can do in the dream world. The conflict between real people has already begun."
"Ah... I see. This isn't a situation where we can shoot a prequel. It's like the movie has already started playing in theaters, right?"
I stood up from my seat.
"While we wait for me to fall asleep, someone might fall victim to that... hide-and-seek game I wrote. I can't let that happen."
"Because there could be casualties."
"Exactly. So, this time, I think it's right for me to stay awake and resolve this together with you guys. We're going straight to the scene."
An Incomplete Synchronization was far more dangerous than a Full Synchronization.
However, it was also the only way to prevent more victims.
I tore the scenario sheet off the wall.
Then, looking at my team, I said:
"From here on out, it's the real deal. Seyeon, secure the architectural blueprints and resident information for Heritage Palace as fast as you can. Deokhu, find the child's mother and prepare to contact her, and pack the noise-measuring equipment we'll need on-site. Minhye, you're coming with me."
I walked toward the front door.
"Operation start. From this moment on, we are heading straight into the cursed apartment."
As if on cue, we began moving in perfect unison.
Even at this very moment, someone's life was being threatened in reality. There was no time to waste.
Seyeon had already begun gathering information on her laptop, her speed bordering on hacking.
"Senior, Heritage Palace is a mixed-use residential-commercial building. The lower floors are commercial shops, and the upper floors are residential spaces."
"In places like that, they often adopt an interior corridor layout to save costs or due to design constraints."
"I'm not sure how to get the architectural blueprints yet, but I can probably dig them up by reaching out to my contacts—seniors, juniors, or acquaintances. As for the resident information, I'll have to breach the management office's system, which should be similar. Give me a bit of time."
"Deokhu, what about you?"
Deokhu spoke up.
"Hyung, I'm looking up missing children reports first. There was exactly one child who went missing during the apartment's construction period three years ago. Name is Kim Haneul. Seven years old at the time. The child was probably found later. But... this thing we're resolving is a scenario based on an urban legend, right? Not the actual accident..."
"Right, it's just a name I referenced when I wrote the scenario. So to resolve it, we need to perform a corresponding action."
"An action... like casting an actor?"
"Exactly. Like I said, we need a voice to soothe the child's grudge. The mother's voice."
Deokhu showed me his monitor screen.
"I think I can find an actor quickly. For the mother's role... someone comes to mind."
"Cast her as fast as possible and ask her to come over immediately. Then, standby. Move only when I give the signal."
I left the hideout with Minhye. The cold night air hit us, as it was already past 11 PM.
Getting into the car Minhye was driving, she asked in a tense voice, "Senior, are we going straight to the apartment?"
"No. There's somewhere we need to stop first."
I entered an address into the navigation system. It was a hardware store.
"I need a few tools."
After a quick stop at the hardware store to grab what we needed, we arrived at Building 104 of Heritage Palace.
A heavy atmosphere hung over the place, completely at odds with the sleek, modern exterior of the newly built apartment complex.
Parking the car on the outskirts of the complex, we looked up at the building.
Countless windows.
Most of the lights were out, save for a few.
Right now, some household must be going through a living hell of a conflict...
I handed Minhye a device that looked like a small walkie-talkie. It was Deokhu's high-performance noise-measuring device.
"Minhye, you wait outside. Keep checking the noise frequencies of each household with this meter, and relay the situation to Seyeon and Deokhu. Let me know immediately if you pick up any anomalous signals, especially in a frequency range similar to a child's voice."
"What about you, senior?"
"I'm going inside."
I adjusted the straps of my backpack.
Inside were a few tools from the hardware store and a high-sensitivity recording device Deokhu had packed for me.
"By yourself? That's dangerous!"
"I have to check this myself. I need to see how much of my scenario has manifested in reality. And I have to find the household where the conflict is at its worst."
Reassuring Minhye, I pulled my cap down low and headed toward the apartment.
The main entrance required a resident key card to enter, but I managed to slip inside easily by tailing a resident who was entering right after a delivery motorcycle.
As I walked up the emergency stairs, the cold, dry smell of concrete stung my nose.
7th floor. 8th floor. 9th floor. As I drew closer to the area where the complaints were concentrated, as mentioned in the news, my heart began to pound like crazy.
It was only when I reached the 12th-floor corridor that I was forced to stop in my tracks.