A Cry to Shatter the Curse
The moment I kicked open the cafe door and burst outside, a barrage of screams and sirens battered my eardrums.
My target was singular: the campus broadcasting station, located in the Media and Communications building.
Cutting straight across the central plaza was the fastest route.
Without a moment's hesitation, I sprinted.
"Huff, huff..."
As I ran, the sight unfolding before my eyes made the word "hell" feel like an understatement.
The very scenes I had imagined, the horrors I had once sought to capture on screen, were now manifesting in brutal reality.
Dark, crimson blood splattered across the white-painted benches beneath the campus's prized, sprawling sycamore trees. Some lay face down, their limbs twisted at grotesque, unnatural angles; others stared blankly up at the sky with lifeless, unblinking eyes.
Streams of blood slithered like snakes through the cracks in the asphalt. Atop the shattered screens of abandoned smartphones, missed call notifications blinked in vain.
Swallowing down the metallic taste of bile rising in my throat, I kept running.
Students stumbled past me, weeping, screaming, or wandering aimlessly like hollow shells.
The whispers of the curse were likely already seeping into their ears.
I have to move faster.
How long did I run? Finally, the Media and Communications building came into view.
Huff... huff...
I rested my hands on my knees for a fleeting second to catch my breath, looking up at the building. The situation here was just as dire.
People stood precariously in the windows across all five floors. Like runners poised at a starting line, or people waiting blankly for their turn, they stared down with vacant expressions.
"No! Please, snap out of it!"
"What are you doing?!"
"Get down from there!"
Someone stood in front of the building, screaming and pleading, but the figures in the windows didn't budge.
Biting my lip hard, I charged into the building.
I shouldered past panicked students rushing out, taking the stairs multiple steps at a time. Reaching the end of the third-floor hallway, I spotted the sign: Geondong University Broadcasting Station, KKBS.
I had reached my destination. I lunged forward and grabbed the handle, but—
"Damn it!"
It was locked tight.
I pounded on the door like a madman.
"Is anyone in there? Please, open up! Anyone!"
The only response was my own ragged breathing and the heavy, dull thuds of bodies hitting the ground in the distance.
Is it locked? Or has everyone inside already...?
Just as despair began to crush me,
"Sunbae?"
The trembling voice came from behind the water cooler in the corner of the hallway. I turned my head and saw a familiar face curled up, shivering. Yoo Minhae. My sole ally, and my junior majoring in photography.
"Minhae!"
I rushed over to her.
Her face was completely drained of color, and she looked up at me with eyes wide with terror. She was shaking like a leaf.
"Sunbae... out, outside, the people..."
"I know. I saw."
I grabbed her by the shoulders. Her slender, fragile frame was stiff and ice-cold. She was already suffocating under the weight of her fear.
But now was not the time for comfort.
"Minhae! Snap out of it! Pull yourself together!"
My shout made her flinch. Tears welled up in her eyes.
"Get a grip, Yoo Minhae! This is no time to cry! If we stay like this, we're going to end up just like them!"
"But... but what do we do? I'm scared, Sunbae..."
"I can fix this."
The sheer certainty in my voice was as much a spell cast on myself as it was reassurance for her.
"I know it sounds crazy, but this is playing out exactly like my script. I'm the only one who knows how this curse spreads and how to stop it. We have to broadcast! We need to blast a sound that counters the curse through this entire building—no, the entire campus!"
At my heated words, Minhae's trembling pupils flickered. The sheer terror in her eyes seemed to give way to a silent, bewildered Why?
"That's why we need to broadcast right now, but the station door is locked. Is there any way to open it?"
"...Key... cardkey."
"What?"
"You need a keycard. Only members of the broadcasting station can get in."
Minhae managed to squeeze the words out, then added as if remembering something:
"Seyeon! My friend, Kim Seyeon. She's the head of the announcer department! She has a keycard! We just need to bring her here!"
"Where is she?"
"I'll call her! She's a Culture Contents major, so she should be somewhere in this building..."
Right then—
"Aaaaah!"
"Seyeon, no!!!"
An ear-splitting shriek erupted from the floor directly above us.
Don't tell me...?
Hmmmm, hmmmm...
A bizarre humming sound began to echo from somewhere. It wasn't just one person. Multiple voices overlapped in a discordant harmony, reverberating unpleasantly through the entire hallway. From the fourth floor, and the fifth.
Minhae's face turned white as a sheet.
"No, Seyeon... Seyeon's department room is on the fourth floor..."
As if on cue, we both turned our heads at the same time. The center of the building was an atrium, hollow all the way down to the first floor. And there, on the fourth-floor railing, just past the glass safety barrier, stood the precarious silhouette of a female student.
It was Seyeon, Minhae's friend.
Staring down with hollow eyes, she was chanting that eerie hum. She looked ready to throw herself over at any second.
"Seyeon! No!"
Minhae screamed. But Seyeon didn't seem to hear.
I bit my lip. There was no time to hesitate.
"Minhae! Do you have noise-canceling earphones on you?"
"Y-yes!"
"Give them to me, and turn on your own noise-canceling right now."
"H-here!"
Snatching the earphones, I left Minhae behind and bolted for the stairs. I shoved past the frozen, panicked students, leaping up three steps at a time.
"Kim Seyeon! Snap out of it!"
At my shout, she seemed to turn her gaze toward me for a split second, but that was it. Her body slowly began to tilt forward into the empty air.
Launching myself off the final step, I slid onto the fourth-floor hallway. I desperately reached out for her, screaming her name like a battle cry as I squeezed out every last drop of strength to lunging forward.
"Kim Seyeon!"
Just before she went over the railing, my hand managed to clamp onto her arm.
Success, for now.
But perhaps because her body was consumed by the curse, she was as limp as a doll, dragging downward. I slid behind her back, desperately shoving the earphones into both of her ears.
"Please, please, please!"
"Ugh! Gasp!"
Instantly, Seyeon's body went rigid, and she began to convulse violently. She writhed as if being electrocuted.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, holding on for dear life to keep us from falling. The railing groaned precariously.
If I let go now, we're both dead.
In that moment, the seizure stopped, and Seyeon's body went completely limp.
She collapsed into my arms.
I slumped onto the floor, holding her tight.
Then—
"Huh?"
The emptiness in Seyeon's eyes vanished like a curtain being pulled back. Gasping for air, she looked around.
"Why... am I here?"
She was back.
It worked!
I had succeeded. This was the second time.
I was undoubtedly the only person who understood the rules—no, the solution—to this living hell.
"Seyeon!"
Minhae ran up, throwing her arms around Seyeon and bursting into tears. I pulled Minhae away.
"Wait! We don't have time for this!"
This was no time for sentimentality. I stood up, catching my ragged breath.
"Kim Seyeon, focus. Can you open the broadcasting station?"
At my urgent question, Seyeon looked up at me, still dazed.
"What? Why the broadcasting station...?"
"There's no time to explain! We have to broadcast right now to stop this madness! You have the keycard, right?"
Sensing the gravity of the situation from my bloodshot eyes and desperate voice, she didn't ask any more questions. With a trembling hand, she lifted the student ID hanging around her neck.
"Let's go inside. I'll follow you."
We supported Seyeon and hurried to the heavy steel door of the broadcasting station.
With a dry electronic beep, the firmly shut door swung open.
We quickly slipped inside. The moment the heavy soundproof door clicked shut, the chaos of the outside world vanished into a dead silence. A temporary peace.
Yet, a suffocating tension filled the studio.
"To the main control room. Now!"
Guided by Seyeon, we entered the main control room, which was packed with monitors, complex mixers, and all sorts of broadcasting equipment. This was the heart of the campus, the place that controlled every single speaker. I dashed straight to the main console.
"Do you have an audio file of a rooster crowing at dawn? Or a baby's first cry! Even the sound of a flowing stream! Anything, as long as it sounds pure and full of life!"
Seyeon shook her head, looking utterly bewildered. "I'm an announcer, so the engineering department handles those kinds of audio files. But right now, there's no one..."
"Damn it!"
A curse slipped out. The situation was that desperate. I felt utterly paralyzed at the most critical moment.
Okay, think.
I frantically scanned the room. That was when a computer sitting on one side of the console caught my eye. Judging by the neatly organized cables, it seemed to be the main system.
I kicked the chair aside and sat down in front of the computer. On the desktop was a familiar, colorful icon: YouTube. There was no time to hesitate. I opened the browser and placed my fingers on the search bar.
I'll just find it myself. I can play it directly from here.
My hands were shaking so violently that I kept making typos. Backspace, retype, backspace, retype.
Rooster crowing at dawn high quality, baby's first cry ASMR, sounds of life.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, but the screen was flooded with useless vlogs and mukbang thumbnails.
"Why is it only this garbage..."
My heart felt like it was burning up. Even now, beyond this soundproof door, people were likely walking toward the windows. Every single second was a human life.
"Minhae," I said, my eyes glued to the screen. My voice was incredibly raspy, but I didn't care as I practically shouted at her. "I need to ask you a favor."
"Y-yes, Sunbae. Anything."
"...I know it's hard, but I need you to go back outside and check. See what's happening."
"R-right now?"
Minhae's face went pale. Of course it did. Asking her to leave this safe room and step back into that living hell was an incredibly cruel request. But there was no other way.
"I'm going to play a sound soon. Once it broadcasts, the people should stop. At least, if my theory is correct. I need you to confirm that and call me immediately. Tell me if they've stopped falling, if they're snapping out of it."
Minhae bit her lip.
"Okay."
After a brief silence, she answered with resolve. She gave Seyeon's shoulder a firm squeeze, and with a grim expression, she opened the control room door and stepped back outside.
Thud.
As the door shut, the only things left in the studio were me, a dazed Seyeon, and the frantic, racing beat of my own heart.
Just then.
Found it!
I clicked the mouse like a madman to play the video. The five seconds it took to skip the ad felt like an eternity.
"Waaah! Waaah!"
A sharp, pure cry of life erupted from the speakers, tearing through the darkness and hell of the world.
I quickly reached for the campus-wide broadcast switch on the main console.
This has to be it.
A large, red button labeled ON AIR.
Swallowing hard, I slammed the button down.
The baby's cry blasted from the monitor speakers inside the studio.
This meant that across the campus, the sound was now echoing through every speaker, piercing through the hellish screams and the dull thuds of falling bodies.
Please. Please work.
I pulled my smartphone from my pocket and gripped it tightly.
One second, two seconds, five seconds.
Time seemed to stand still. What if my hypothesis was wrong? What would happen to Minhae? What if I had just put even more people in danger? All sorts of horrific thoughts clawed at my mind.
Suddenly—
*Bzzz, bzzz.*
The phone in my hand vibrated furiously. The name on the screen: Yoo Minhae.
With trembling hands, I swiped to answer.
"H-hello?"
Through the receiver, Minhae's tearful, ecstatic cheers rang out.