The Weeping Horror
Yongha swallowed hard, his throat clicking dryly as he stared into the room that was little more than a garbage dump. Thankfully no ghosts appeared before his eyes, yet just as Jinsoo had warned, he could not shake the creeping certainty that something was watching him. Whether it was the cold draft or that peculiar dread, his body shuddered on its own. Yeonji wore the same uneasy expression, her face tight with discomfort.
“God, this smell is awful… what the hell is it?” Jinsoo muttered, sweeping his flashlight in every direction. It was more than mold or damp rot. A sharp, stinging stench drifted from deeper inside, something he couldn’t name. It reminded him of a high-school science lab, the metallic bite of chemicals left too long on a burner.
“Ah! Is that why my head hurts?” Yeonji shuddered and turned away. Yongha did the same, grimacing at the pungent odor. Only Jinsoo remained wired with excitement, filming every inch of the filthy room. Not content with the camera, he pulled out his phone and snapped several extra shots. Yeonji and Yongha could only shake their heads at him.
That was when it happened.
Clunk!
The sudden noise made Jinsoo and Yongha suck in sharp breaths. Behind them Sumin screamed. Yeonji whirled, shouting, “What is it? What’s wrong?” In the same instant something small shot between Jinsoo’s and Yongha’s feet. Everyone jumped, stomping and gasping in panic.
They quickly chased the movement with their flashlight beams.
“Son of a—”
The embarrassment hit them all at once. Awkward laughter bubbled up.
“It was just a rat…” Jinsoo let out a hollow chuckle, looking almost disappointed. Yongha and Yeonji, shame catching up to them, smiled stiffly. Only Sumin stayed glued to Yeonji’s arm, trembling violently.
“Sumin, it’s okay. It was just a rat.”
“Ugh! You scared the hell out of me! And you all call me the coward!” Yeonji soothed her while Jinsoo, trying to cover his own awkwardness, shouted louder than necessary.
Eventually they moved on down the corridor. The floor was sticky; every step made their shoes peel away with a wet, sucking sound.
The first floor held no real surprises. The atmosphere was bleak, but that was all. Aside from the occasional rat or insect that made them flinch, nothing stood out. After checking every hallway branching left and right, they reached the staircase leading to the second floor.
“Are we really going up to the second floor? It looks… isn’t it too dangerous?” Sumin stared at the crumbling steps, her face on the verge of tears. The least cluttered staircase stood at the far end of the right corridor, yet it still looked treacherous. The wall beside it was webbed with cracks, rusted rebar jutting out like broken bones. Cold outside air whistled through the gaps. The steps themselves were fractured, whole chunks of concrete missing. One wrong footfall and the whole thing might collapse.
Even so, Jinsoo seemed unbothered.
“It’s fine. Looks worse than it is. The guy in the video said it’s pretty solid.” Another quote from the YouTube explorer he’d watched, no doubt. Without waiting for the others, Jinsoo strode forward and began climbing.
The rest watched in tense silence.
“Whoa!”
Jinsoo suddenly yelled.
“Kyaa!”
Yeonji and Sumin screamed in unison and clutched each other. Yongha flinched hard, eyes wide on Jinsoo.
Then Jinsoo burst out laughing, clutching his stomach.
“Hahaha! Oh my god, you should see your faces! I got all of it on camera! Hahaha!”
He stood on the landing, doubled over, shoving the lens toward them. Realizing it had been a prank, Yeonji’s face flushed crimson then pale with fury as she demanded he delete the footage. Yongha let out a long, shaky breath of relief. Sumin alone kept fidgeting in place, still stomping her feet anxiously.
That was when Sumin’s gaze drifted back to the far end of the corridor they had just left. Pitch darkness pooled there, the hallway choked with trash. For the briefest instant she thought she saw movement, something peeking from the wall only to duck away the moment she turned. Heart hammering, she swung her flashlight toward it. Nothing. The beam lit only broken plaster and rubbish.
It had definitely been watching them. The certainty tightened like a hand around her throat.
I must have imagined it. Right?
Yes. It had to be her mind playing tricks. In this darkness every shadow looked like a ghost. She told herself it was only fear and kept walking.
“Sumin! What are you doing?” Yeonji called.
Sumin startled, then shook her head and hurried after the others. Even so, she kept glancing back at the empty corridor. Nothing moved. It really had been her imagination.
The second floor felt entirely different. More desolate. Darker. Long windows ran along the left wall while the right side was lined with rooms that resembled cheap motel units. The hallway itself seemed narrower, pressing in. The moment they stepped fully onto the floor, every instinct screamed at them to leave.
“This area was the ward where the nursing-home patients stayed. People say you can see shapes here… and hear voices.”
“Voices?” Yeonji’s tension returned; she eyed Jinsoo with open suspicion, half-expecting another joke. But his face was serious this time. He kept the camera rolling, sweeping the entire corridor.
“They hear things like ‘Hey… hey…’ or ‘Please help me…’ The YouTuber I watched said he even caught a voice saying ‘I’m hungry.’ The theory is that the souls still think they’re patients here, calling for nurses or staff who will never come.”
“That’s… sad,” Yongha murmured, genuine pity in his voice. Jinsoo nodded.
They moved forward slowly, each step careful. The first door they reached had a faded plate on it.
Room 201
The door stood half-open. A thick, foul stench rolled out like a physical wave. The sliding ward doors were stubborn; something inside seemed to be blocking them. Jinsoo grunted, straining to push it wider, but it refused to move. In the end he slid the camera through the narrow gap and studied the room on the small monitor.
It looked exactly like the footage he had watched online. Sparse. A battered wardrobe. A metal-frame bed, its mattress long gone, the frame rusted the color of dried blood. A wooden chair lay on the floor in the video, but here—
“Huh?”
The chair was standing upright, perfectly positioned to face the door. Jinsoo tilted his head. In the YouTube clip it had been toppled on its side. It was an old, cheap wooden chair, the kind once common in classrooms. Who had set it upright? The YouTuber? He didn’t remember any such scene.
Maybe they edited it out?
A colder thought followed. The door was barely cracked open; not even a quarter of the way. No one could have slipped inside, not even small-framed Sumin. The realization crawled down his spine like ice water.
He started to pull the camera back.
In that split second, he saw it.
Someone sitting in the chair.
Only a flicker. A silhouette. But he had seen it. When he looked again the chair was empty, exactly as before.
His imagination? Or had the camera caught something? His heart slammed against his ribs so hard he could barely breathe. Thick drops of sweat slid down his forehead, one after another, as the darkness around them seemed to press closer.