Courage Training
I was power walking. Park Si-hoo, dangling behind me like a cow being dragged to the slaughterhouse, was trembling so hard his teeth were chattering. The VJ walking beside us looked like he was barely holding in his laughter—the camera was shaking from the effort. A thirteen-year-old boy hiding behind an eight-year-old girl and shaking like a leaf. For a variety show, it was comedy gold. This wasn’t courage training. It was gag training.
“We’re almost there. See that red flag over there?”
“Ugh… Do we really have to go all the way there? Let’s go back! Just go back! It’s definitely there! I’m telling you, something’s definitely there!”
“We’ve come this far and you want to leave empty-handed? Wow… I’m actually speechless.”
I left the whining Park Si-hoo behind and strode forward with purpose. Surprisingly, there weren’t any jump scares. Park Si-hoo kept glancing around nervously but refused to let go of my clothes. When we reached the destination, I yanked the red flag out of the ground, held it up toward the camera, and flashed a confident grin. Then I clutched the flag and marched back triumphantly. What was there to be scared of that they had to call it courage training?
“…Yoon Seo-ah, l-look! White clothes. It’s a ghost.”
Here we go again with the scaredy-cat. I followed his pointing finger and saw a scrap of white fabric fluttering behind a tree. If it hadn’t moved in the wind, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. They must have planned to jump out and scare us as we walked past. But it was just a staff member. Probably one of the writers again.
‘I should probably pretend to be scared for real at some point.’
Because of Park Si-hoo earlier, I’d completely missed the chance to act afraid. No matter how pretty and cute I was, if I never got scared even once, it might be hard to get decent screen time. Even though I wasn’t scared at all, creating a scared reaction was the mark of a true professional. And I was a first-class professional.
Park Si-hoo, who was barely clinging to the bottom rung of third-rate cowardice, had lowered himself until he was practically lying flat on the ground, still glued to my back. It was a little hard to act in this position… Maybe I should just go with the Steel Yoon Seo-ah concept. An eight-year-old macho girl dragging around a scaredy-cat boy. Especially right after I’d shown off my toughness on the mudflat sled. The Steel Yoon Seo-ah route didn’t sound half bad. If the situation didn’t fit me, I’d make myself fit the situation. Yeah, I really was first-class.
I dragged Park Si-hoo along as I walked forward.
“W-wait a second! Hey! There’s a ghost over there!”
“What ghost? I don’t see anything. Right, uncle?”
The VJ was also part of the Kkureogi Tamheomdae production crew. The crew always stuck together. I naturally assumed he’d play along and pretend he couldn’t see it.
“Huh? What was there? I really didn’t see anything.”
Whoa. His acting was actually pretty good. If an extra or bit actor ever flaked during filming, they could probably just use this uncle instead. He was that convincing.
I kept walking toward the ghost staff member standing behind the tree. There was only one path down anyway, so we had no choice but to pass by it. Park Si-hoo had no option but to follow, even though his flashlight was shaking so badly it looked like he was doing the tectonic. From what I could make out, it was a fairly skinny woman. Her long hair hung forward in a classic virgin ghost style. It was similar to the last one but felt a bit more realistic. Since they couldn’t do heavy makeup on a children’s variety show, they’d probably gone with the hair-covering-the-face approach. She wasn’t wearing a watch or any accessories. She was even wearing rubber shoes?! This woman was seriously committed to the ghost role. She was nothing like that clumsy junior writer. The aura she gave off just screamed experience.
“Writer-nim, you’ve worked hard. But I already pulled the flag.”
“Ah, that earlier one was you, right? It was, wasn’t it? Sigh, I thought so.”
While the shameless Park Si-hoo spouted his shameless lines, I pulled a candy from my pocket. She must be one of the writers. Poor writers. Why did they always make the writers be the ghosts? I’d been giving candies to every writer I met, and now I only had one left. I just hoped there weren’t any more prepared ghosts.
But there was no response from the writer’s side. She just stood there motionless.
‘She’s really getting into character.’
I took one more step closer so I could slip the candy into the pocket of her traditional burial clothes. The flashlight beam illuminated her. Between the long, drooping black hair, I caught a glimpse of skin that was pale to the point of being bluish. And her clothes weren’t the white burial robe you’d see at a broadcasting station—they looked like a worn-out, tattered white dress. She brought her own clothes? What kind of writer was this? At this level, it almost seemed like she was trying to debut as an actress.
But then… the smell of stagnant water? It wasn’t the scent of the mudflat. It was a musty, rotten smell like it came from an old stagnant pool. Was it part of the makeup? I’d never done special effects makeup before, so I had no idea.
“Writer-nim, you must have worked really hard on the makeup.”
Even then, the writer didn’t move an inch. Something felt off.
“Writer-nim, are you okay?”
The moment I tilted my head to get a better look at her face, a breeze blew by and lifted her hair slightly.
“…Huh?”
She had no eyes. Or more precisely, where her eyes should have been was completely hollow. Two black voids seemed to be staring straight at me. It was too deep to be makeup. A chill ran down my spine. Naturally, I looked down to avoid her gaze.
There were no feet. She was floating about a handspan above the ground, suspended in midair.
“…Ah?”
The VJ uncle next to me must have been tense too—his camera was shaking violently. His face had gone deathly pale. It wasn’t just my imagination, right? It was scary enough to frighten an adult, right? What the hell had these people done? I could confidently say this was higher quality than the Thrill Maze or Horror Maze. Doing something like this on a children’s variety show? I was definitely going to give PD Kim Chul-min a piece of my mind.
That was when I remembered Park Si-hoo clinging to my back. If he got scared and ran off in a place like this and got into an accident, it would be a disaster.
“Don’t be scared. It’s just a staff member, so if we just turn around and walk away slowly…”
I naturally reached back to grab Park Si-hoo’s hand.
“Y-Yoon Seo-ah, who are you talking to right now?”
Park Si-hoo’s trembling voice reached me.
“…What?”
“There’s no one there… There’s no one, so why are you talking to a tree…”
Was he messing with me? After all the times I’d teased him, was this his revenge?
I naturally looked at the VJ.
“Uncle…?”
“Yeah? I don’t see anything either.”
At that moment, the thing in front of me turned its head. Crack. That wasn’t the sound of a human head turning. It was a grotesque noise like joints being crushed. Black water poured from the empty eye sockets.
This wasn’t a staff member. This wasn’t makeup. This was real.
“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
The highest-pitched scream of my entire life burst out of me. I grabbed Park Si-hoo’s hand with one of mine and the VJ uncle’s with the other. Was I embarrassed about letting out a girly scream? Had the super-macho man from my previous life really just screamed like an actual eight-year-old girl? There was no time to think about such luxuries. The only thing in my mind was survival.
“MOMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY!”
“S-Seo-ah! Wait! Calm down!”
“KYAAAAAAAAH! Ghost! It’s a real ghost!”
I practically dragged Park Si-hoo and the VJ uncle as I sprinted down the mountain path.
“Hey! Hey! Yoon Seo-ah! Slow down! I’m gonna fall!”
“S-Seo-ah, the camera! The camera’s gonna drop!”
They tried to stop me from both sides, but if I stopped now, I would die. If I looked back, I felt like I’d meet those hollow eyes again. The fishy smell of stagnant water seemed to be chasing right behind us.
We tumbled into the courtyard where base camp was set up. My hair was a mess and one of my shoes was missing.
“Seo-ah!”
“Moooom!”
Mom scooped me up into her arms. I buried myself in her embrace. In my eight years of this life—or thirty-nine years including my previous one—this was the most scared I had ever been. It was scarier than standing in front of an IS militant wearing a suicide vest.
“Ghost! A real ghost! No feet and no eyes! It was a real ghost!”
My words caused a stir among the people around us. PD Kim Chul-min approached with a serious expression.
“Seo-ah, calm down. A ghost? Wasn’t it a writer?”
“No! The fishy water smell! The body floating! The neck cracking! It was a ghoooost!”
I flailed and screamed. Why wouldn’t they believe me?
“Check the camera. Didn’t it catch anything?”
“Of course it did.”
“Right? It did, didn’t it? Of course! Ta-da~ This was a hidden camera for the captain and vice-captain!”
“…Huh?”
A hidden camera? With that makeup? That levitation?
“Originally we told them to make it obvious it was a person because we were worried it would be too scary, but we figured you wouldn’t get scared by something like that, Seo-ah. So we told them to do the ghost acting properly. We also asked the VJ to pretend he couldn’t see the ghost.”
The sound of the neck cracking, that rotten water smell—were they all staged?
“You’re lying… There were no feet? Black water came out of the empty eyes?”
“Whoa, was our makeup team that good?”
“But PD-nim, honestly, I wasn’t pretending—I really couldn’t see it. I couldn’t tell where it was hiding. I was mostly just watching Seo-ah because she was so cute. Haha.”
“They really went all out, huh? Writer Soo-jung, you can come out now. Hurry up and come out before Seo-ah faints.”
PD Kim shouted toward the forest. So it really was staged. How ridiculous. If a writer jumped out of the forest yelling “Surprise! Got you!” I was going to burst into tears. These crazy people pulled a prank like this? This was basically child abuse. There’s a limit to how detailed you can get. This was like saying you were doing counter-terrorism training but actually scattering real terrorists everywhere.
But then.
“Did you call for me?”
A familiar voice came from behind us. It was Kim Soo-jung, one of the writers.
“…Huh?”
All the laughter vanished from Kim Chul-min’s face. Every person on set turned to stare at the writer.
“You… why are you coming from there? Weren’t you supposed to be hiding in the forest?”
“What? I told you earlier that my stomach hurt and I was going to the bathroom…”
A chilling silence fell over the set. Everyone shut their mouths at the same time as if they’d planned it.
“T-then what did Seo-ah see?”
Kim Chul-min urgently called for the VJ.
“Hey! Roll the tape! Quickly!”
There was nothing on the screen. I had clearly seen a white dress. I had definitely taken out a candy to give to the writer at that moment… But there was no one in the camera.
When I looked at Park Si-hoo, his face had gone deathly pale.
“You mean you’ve been seeing the ghost since then? I thought you were talking about the thing behind the tree when we pulled the flag…”
What the fuck?