People who truly love philosophy are usually not sane.
I know that’s something philosophy majors all over the world would throw stones at me for saying, but I couldn’t help thinking that every time I attended a lecture. Rhizome? Deterritorialization? Something about Ideas reflected inside a cave… There’s no way people who understand concepts like that and even write reports about them are normal.
Choosing philosophy just because of the university’s name was my mistake.
I shouldn’t have assumed university lectures would be on the same level as high school social studies. I walked straight into hell without even properly knowing what philosophy was, thinking I’d just transfer departments after getting in.
There’s usually a convenient system called “department transfer” in universities. My homeroom teacher back in senior year told me it was the best strategy—get into a good university first, then move to another major.
What I didn’t know at the time was that to use that system, you had to spend at least a year taking philosophy courses and maintain a certain GPA.
Since I hadn’t originally aimed for philosophy, I hadn’t taken any related subjects in high school. Memorization wasn’t my strong suit anyway, so those classes didn’t suit me.
But no matter how well you think you understand things, you never know your own future.
My exam results felt great by my own standards, but objectively, they were mediocre at best. So I ended up gambling on applying to schools above my level.
If you’re going to take that gamble, you have to choose majors with low competition. In Korea, that usually means the humanities. I filled all my applications with those departments. I didn’t have any particular major I wanted, so it was the only gamble I could take.
Looking back, putting all six applications into that gamble was insane. I should’ve put at least one into a safe option. But at the time, I was ready to repeat a year if I failed, so I bet everything on schools beyond my level.
And somehow, at the end of that insane gamble, I got into Korea University’s philosophy department through the second round of additional admissions. I was fourth on the waiting list, and since they didn’t contact me until the very last moment, I almost signed up for a cram school first.
That was my college entrance story—more terrifying than any ghost story, if you’ve ever gone through the system here.
After all that stress, I started living recklessly the moment I became a college student. While other freshmen managed their grades and extracurriculars, I joined a drinking club and spent my time getting drunk.
No one tells you to study in college. I got a small apartment near campus and found a part-time job through a classmate, earning just enough to support myself. My parents basically gave up early, telling me to just graduate somehow.
I kept drinking, skipping classes, and taking unofficial days off like a runaway horse. Naturally, my first semester grades were a disaster. I had more than five courses that needed to be retaken, and I even got academic warnings in two of them.
With grades like that, transferring departments became nearly impossible. And it wasn’t just that—I wasn’t even sure I could graduate on time.
I told myself things would be different after military service, but if I couldn’t transfer, my college life was going to be miserable. It had already been a year, and I still didn’t understand concepts like rhizome or deterritorialization. Even Gilles Deleuze probably never imagined someone like me would end up in philosophy.
As if the concepts weren’t bad enough, the department was full of hardcore philosophy nerds. People who genuinely loved philosophy, regardless of their future. Real ones. Not like me, who just ended up here because of grades.
That was terrifying in its own way.
There were people who had read A Thousand Plateaus three times or more. I could barely get through historical comics.
I had gotten a bit more serious compared to my first year, but competing with those people for good grades was harder than reaching the stars. Getting above a B+ without past exam materials was impossible.
That’s why Kim Jihoon’s idea—becoming a YouTuber and the biggest success story of the philosophy department—sounded ridiculous, but also strangely appealing. Honestly, even I thought I’d have a better shot using my looks than my degree.
If Kim Jihoon ran the channel and I just helped, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. The timing was perfect too. Ever since Riya’s channel stirred things up, paranormal content was booming. If it didn’t work out, I could always just enlist in the military.
With that lazy mindset, I agreed to join Kim Jihoon for a paranormal shoot.
All I had to do was go with him to the long-abandoned Dowon High School, and he’d give me past exam materials—and 200,000 won on top of that. There was no reason to refuse.
And it wasn’t just the two of us.
Kim Jihoon brought two more classmates. One was Park Ji-hye, who had some kind of thing going on with him, and the other was Lim Jin-sung, who had just finished his military service.
“What if an anomaly actually happens?”
“Come on. That stuff’s fake.”
“But she really did go missing.”
“I think she just sold the channel and used the money to disappear.”
“Let’s fake one ourselves. One video and we’ll hit tens of thousands of subscribers.”
On the way to Dowon High School, Park Ji-hye brought up the anomaly.
Except for her, who looked uneasy, Kim Jihoon and Lim Jin-sung didn’t seem to care. If anything, Kim Jihoon was already planning how to fake it.
“Don’t lose the body cams I gave you.”
“Aren’t these expensive?”
“Exactly. So be careful. I’ll be holding the main camera, but these are backups.”
“This guy’s really trying to become the top success story of the department.”
“Doesn’t matter if Riya’s video was real or not. We’re staging ours anyway. After some time passes, someone dressed as a guard will show up. Then we just scream and run, like in her video.”
He had already hired an actor.
Honestly, I wondered if he was more suited to being a scammer than a content creator, but it didn’t seem difficult, so I just nodded.
“And after we finish filming, keep it a secret that it was staged.”
“Obviously. If your channel blows up, buy us a meal.”
“If it works out, I’ll make you regulars.”
“Look at him getting ahead of himself already.”
Up until we arrived at Dowon High School, the mood was light.
Except for Park Ji-hye, no one was really scared.
Even after we got there, everything went smoothly. We set up the equipment and looked around, but thankfully, no other creators had arrived before us.
“Coming at 3 a.m. paid off. No one’s here.”
“Yeah. I heard places like this are basically meetup spots now.”
“It’s definitely creepy. Maybe because it’s abandoned. What’s with the barbed wire out front?”
“There was some kind of notice posted next to it. Wasn’t this a private school? Why would a government document be here?”
“It had some nonsense written on it. Probably someone pretending to be a government agency.”
Lim Jin-sung pulled out a piece of paper he said he found near the fence.
It listed things you weren’t supposed to do at Dowon High School, numbered one by one.
Park Ji-hye and Lim Jin-sung read it seriously, but Kim Jihoon and I didn’t bother. Each page had an official-looking stamp labeled “Anomaly Control Department,” but it just looked fake to me. Why would a government agency write something like, If you fail to follow these rules, you will be enrolled in this school?
“I’m sleepy.”
“You can sleep in a place like this?”
“What does an old building have to do with sleep?”
“Then get some rest. The guy playing the guard shows up at exactly 4:44.”
4:44 a.m.
That was way too obvious.
It felt a bit childish, but even if I tried to sleep, I wouldn’t get more than thirty minutes. So I followed Kim Jihoon and decided to explore the building instead. The others came along too, probably thinking it was safer in a group.
“How long’s this place been abandoned?”
“About fifteen years.”
“Do you know why?”
“Not exactly… It was private, right? The foundation supporting it probably went bankrupt.”
It was surprising that a place abandoned for fifteen years hadn’t been demolished. The land was bigger than expected. In a country obsessed with real estate, it was strange that it had been left untouched.
There was a separate gymnasium, a main building, and even an annex.
And no one reused it?
That felt more like a ghost story than anything else.
“This place is huge. We won’t be able to see everything. Let’s head back.”
“Second floor is first-year classrooms?”
“Fourth floor is seniors. Staff room on the first.”
“What’s in the annex?”
“No idea. The notice said not to go there. Something about the chairman’s office.”
“You actually read that thing?”
“It was interesting.”
At 4:38 a.m., we returned to the first floor of the main building.
In six minutes, the “guard” was supposed to appear, and we had to scream and run.
I was a little worried about acting, but all I had to do was run and scream. If it looked bad, Kim Jihoon would edit it anyway.
{Where did that notice come from?}
“Didn’t you hear? Jin-sung said it was by the fence.”
{Really?}
4:43 a.m.
Someone suddenly asked about the notice.
4:44 a.m.
And I realized something strange.
The voice that asked the question was female.
But Park Ji-hye had already seen the notice with Jin-sung. There was no reason for her to ask.
I turned around.
At that moment, Park Ji-hye screamed.
{What grade and class are you in?}
“……”
{Why are you at school without your uniforms?}
Something with human legs was speaking to us.
Its upper body was a mass of writhing tentacles—enough to make Park Ji-hye scream without hesitation.
{I asked you a question.}
What grade and class are you in?
From one of the tentacles, a man dressed as a guard was hanging. Looking closer, it seemed like the tentacle had pierced through his chest.
My body froze. My throat went dry.
I glanced at Kim Jihoon. He looked just as shocked.
So this wasn’t part of his plan.
Park Ji-hye turned and ran, screaming. The “teacher” shouted after her, telling her not to run in the hallway.
Lim Jin-sung covered his ears and collapsed. Kim Jihoon stood there, dazed, blood streaming from his nose.
I realized it instinctively.
This was an anomaly.
I grabbed Kim Jihoon’s shoulder and pulled him back. If he had stayed there, the tentacles would have pierced his chest.
{You’re not students of this school, are you?}
As I pulled him away, the faceless “teacher” turned its attention toward me.