The Voice on the Radio
My words instantly cast a chilling pall over the table. Beneath the ice-cold atmosphere, Minhae and Seyeon's giggles died down, and Deokhu looked at me with a bewildered expression.
"Huh? Hyung, what do you mean by that?"
My expression remained grim as I continued.
"It's a short script I wrote a while back called Jayuro Navigation. Yes, it's an adaptation of the famous Jayuro ghost story. The premise is that if you drive down the Jayuro Expressway on a rainy night, a strange woman's voice comes through the navigation system and possesses the driver. And that curse..."
I paused. Since it was a script I had written years ago, the details didn't return to me all at once. But as I racked my brain, the core settings of the story flashed through my mind.
"It rides the radio frequencies, spreading across the entire city..."
A brief silence fell over us.
Deokhu looked utterly goosebump-ridden as my words perfectly aligned with his own experience.
But as expected, Minhae and Seyeon reacted differently.
"Oh, come on, sunbae! Seriously!"
Minhae groaned, looking thoroughly exasperated.
"Just because Deokhu-oppa saw things, you're spinning another one of your stories to match? It's not funny anymore."
"She's right. Honestly, it's getting a bit creepy now, so please stop. Aren't you getting way too immersed in this?"
Seyeon chimed in to support her.
In their eyes, I was probably just some weird guy making up stories on the fly to fit the situation.
"Ah, this is driving me crazy... I'm frustrated too, you know."
I thumped my chest in frustration.
Seyeon spoke up, offering a suggestion.
"Fine. Then we can just go check it out."
"Check what?"
"Jayuro. I didn't drink tonight, so let's take my car and go there right now. If what you're saying is true, the curse should start affecting us too. We'll know once we experience it firsthand."
Seyeon's bold proposal caught me completely off guard.
"What? No way. It could be dangerous!"
"What's dangerous about it? Are you saying the world really changed into your script? If that's true, that's even more exciting!"
Minhae's eyes sparkled as she squealed.
"Yeah! Let's go experience it ourselves! It'll be like exploring a haunted house! So thrilling! Let's go, let's go!"
"I-I don't know about this..."
Deokhu hesitated, but the atmosphere had already been completely swept away by the two girls' curiosity.
Ah, this is a total disaster.
I was also quite confused myself.
Was Deokhu's experience truly just a coincidence? Or had the world already slipped into a new scenario during the hours I was forced to sleep?
I wanted to verify it, but at the same time, a deep sense of dread held me back.
If my suspicions were correct, I would be sending them straight into a death trap.
"Ugh, whatever. Do what you want."
"Okay! We'll handle it! Jayuro, here we come!"
In the end, we got up from our seats.
After settling the bill,
I faced the three of them outside the pub and said,
"But listen. You have to promise me one thing."
"What is it?"
"The moment you enter Jayuro, call me. Keep me on speakerphone the entire time. Got it? You have to promise me this."
"You're not coming with us?"
"I have something to check at home. I need to look over the script I wrote on my laptop again."
Seeing my solemn expression, Minhae nodded vigorously.
"Promise kept! We'll definitely do that! Hehe... but this is going to be so much fun."
"Though it'll be a total letdown if nothing happens..."
Excited as if they were going on a late-night picnic, they piled into Seyeon's small compact car.
Watching them wave at me through the window, I prayed that absolutely nothing would happen. As the car vanished into the distant darkness, I immediately sprinted back to my studio apartment.
The moment I burst through the door, I whipped open my laptop.
Just as I was about to dig through my folders to find the Jayuro Navigation script file,
My eyes caught the web browser open on one side of the screen.
And a breaking news alert flashing on top of it.
"Gasp..."
The blood in my veins felt like it was rushing backward, surging up to explode like a volcano.
At that exact moment.
"Whoa, there really was an accident. Crazy."
Inside the car, Minhae muttered while looking at her smartphone.
An emergency broadcast was playing on the radio as well, reporting on the massive pileup on the Jayuro Expressway.
"Was... was Minjun-oppa actually right...? This is too much of a coincidence... My gut is..."
Seyeon muttered, her voice laced with tension.
"Does this mean we can't even get on the highway?"
She had no choice but to pull over near the entrance to the Jayuro Expressway. The road was already blocked off by police cars.
"Man, even I'm getting goosebumps now. But I still can't believe his script actually came to life. Maybe he got possessed by a shaman or something?"
"What should we do?"
"What can we do? We can't even get on."
As Deokhu muttered while staring out the window,
Hearing the announcer's voice on the radio, the three of them locked eyes. Was Minjun's warning not a joke or a story, but the actual reality?
Just then,
Bzzz, bzzz.
Minhae's phone vibrated.
It was Kim Minjun. Minhae quickly answered on speakerphone.
"Hey! Did you see the news? This is bad. Turn back right now! It's dangerous to stay there!"
"Sunbae! How did you actually know? This is insane! But yeah, we just heard the news and were about to turn back anyway—!"
Minhae was speaking excitedly when—
Screeech... static...
Harsh static suddenly erupted from the radio, cutting off the broadcast entirely.
Silence descended upon the car. The three of them stared at each other once more.
Suddenly,
"Seyeon, you're a really good driver, aren't you?"
It was an incredibly alluring, languid woman's voice.
"W-what is that?"
"Why... why is it doing this?"
"I'm scared!"
Seyeon's voice cracked, on the verge of tears.
The woman's voice continued to flow from the radio.
"The traffic is terrible, isn't it? If you make a right turn just up ahead, there's a much faster shortcut."
"W-what the hell is this! Stop messing around!"
Deokhu shouted, slamming his hand onto the power button to turn off the radio, but it was completely unresponsive.
Even the volume dial wouldn't budge.
The voice went on.
"It's okay. Just trust me, Seyeon. Is the steering wheel broken? If not, step on it. Straight ahead. Just keep going. Step on it. I said, step on the gas."
"N-no!"
"Uh... Seyeon... Seyeon?"
"..."
The focus in Seyeon's eyes, still gripping the steering wheel, began to dissolve. Her hand drifted toward the gear shift. It looked as though she was about to plow through the barricaded road, heading straight or turning right toward the path the voice commanded.
Right then, Minjun's frantic voice erupted from the speakerphone.
"Minhae! Pull yourself together! You're hearing a strange voice right now, aren't you? Tell me what it's saying!"
"Sunbae! There's a creepy woman's voice coming from the radio! And Seyeon—Seyeon is acting weird!"
Minhae shrieked, sobbing.
Suddenly, the screeching of tires and heavy thuds echoed from all around them.
The other cars that had been stopped like them were starting to move one by one, slamming into the vehicles ahead of them.
The curse was already spreading.
"Minhae! Calm down and listen to me!"
Minjun seemed to be trying his absolute hardest to remain calm.
"That curse infects frequencies that are similar to the human voice! You have to drown it out with another sound!"
"Another sound? What kind of sound?!"
"Anything! Any sound that isn't a human voice! Minhae, get out of the car right now, record the engine noise, and play it at max volume!"
"What does that even mean?!"
Just as Minhae was about to frantically fling the car door open and step out, Deokhu ripped open his laptop bag.
"Wait! I might have something on my laptop!"
"Your laptop? Yes! Deokhu, you! Do you have any mechanical noise or white noise files among your ambient sound effects? Play anything, fast!"
"Y-yes, hyung! My... my sound major is actually useful for once!"
Deokhu booted up his laptop like a madman and searched through his files.
And then he played a file labeled 'Construction_Site_Ambience_Drill_Noise'.
He pressed the laptop speakers right up against the smartphone.
"Do I just play it for you, sunbae-nim?!"
"Why the hell would you play it for me?! Play it out loud! You guys need to hear it, and you need to broadcast it to your surroundings! Loudly!"
"S-should I just turn the speaker volume to max?!"
"That's not enough! A Bluetooth speaker! Isn't there one in the car? The one you always carry around with you?!"
"Ah! Seyeon's! It's in the trunk! The Bluetooth speaker!!"
Minhae screamed and bolted out of the car.
She popped the trunk, grabbed the speaker, and scrambled back inside. Deokhu instantly paired his laptop with the speaker.
With that, Kang Deokhu slammed the play button.
SCREEEEEEEEECH!!! SCREEEEEEEEECH!!! SCREEEEEEEEECH!!! SCREEEEEEEEECH!!!
An ear-splitting, screeching drill noise blasted through the air.
Immediately,
The alluring woman's voice that had filled the car was completely drowned out by the deafening, sharp mechanical screech.
At the same time,
KYAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! KYAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! KYAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!
A horrific shriek tore out of the radio speakers. Then, as if it had all been a lie, every sound cut out completely. The surrounding cars that had been swerving and colliding with one another also ground to a halt.
"...Pant, pant..."
Seyeon, still holding the steering wheel, gasped heavily as she snapped back to her senses.
The focus had returned to her eyes.
"Are you okay, Seyeon?"
"...Y-yes."
The three of them sat in the car, unable to utter a single word, only drawing ragged breaths.
They were still utterly paralyzed by the horrific experience they had just survived.
Just then,
Minjun's voice crackled through the speakerphone.
"...Guys!! Are you okay?"
It was the voice of their sole savior, the one who had put an end to this living hell.
"We're alive!"
"Sunbae-nim!"
"Waaah!"
The three of them burst into tears at the exact same time.
The next day.
The news was completely dominated by reports of the multi-car pileup on the Jayuro Expressway.
Dozens were injured, and several had died. The cause remained completely shrouded in mystery.
Meanwhile, Minhae, Seyeon, and Deokhu were gathered in Minhae's studio apartment, staring blankly at the TV screen with hollow, exhausted expressions. The terror of the previous night still clung heavily to their faces.
Sitting right in front of them was Kim Minjun, who had brought his laptop along.
Minjun spoke in a quiet, low voice.
"Do you believe me now?"
At his quiet question, the three of them slowly nodded.
Then, Kang Deokhu asked in a trembling voice,
"...What should we do now, hyung-nim?"