Ishaan woke up before his alarm, laptop already open on the kitchen counter before he’d even made coffee.
He went through the intake form line by line, filling in everything he could from last night, double checking the sections he’d gotten wrong the first time around.
Once it was done, he opened the group chat.
Ishaan: should i come down?
are you guys picking me up
Before Junho could type anything back, another message came through.
Jihoon: Come with me.
We need to see Mr.
Cho before the site.
Junho: wait if you’re taking him, who’s protecting the rest of us if something jumps out first 😭
Somi: we volunteer as tribute I guess
Baek: speak for yourselves
Ishaan laughed, grabbed his bag, and headed down.
Jihoon was already waiting by the car when he got there, the driver holding the door open.
Ishaan climbed into the front passenger seat without really thinking about it.
It felt right, somehow, the assistant sitting up front while the boss took the back.
Jihoon paused halfway into the car, glancing at the empty seat beside him, then at Ishaan up front.
He didn’t say anything, just got in and shut the door.
Ishaan caught the look in the side mirror and wondered, briefly, if he’d gotten something wrong.
Nobody had actually told him where an assistant was supposed to sit.
The drive was quiet except for the radio playing low, some morning talk show neither of them was really listening to.
Mr.
Cho’s house sat behind a low stone wall, garden neat and clearly well tended.
A woman opened the door before they even knocked, smiling warmly.
“You must be the team my husband mentioned,” she said, stepping aside to let them in.
“Yes, ma’am.
I’m Mr.
Kang’s assistant,” Ishaan said, bowing slightly.
“Thank you for having us.”
The house smelled like fresh incense and something baking, warm in a way that felt lived-in rather than staged for guests.
Ishaan glanced around as they walked in, noting the direction of the street outside.
“This is close to the mall site, isn’t it?”
“Ten minutes, if that,” she said.
“We wanted to stay near it.
Even after everything.”
Jihoon leaned toward Ishaan while she went to get tea.
“Walk the perimeter of the property.
Tell me if anything feels off.”
“Just wander around?”
“Just wander around.”
Ishaan stepped out into the garden, walking the edges slowly, checking corners and shadows out of habit now.
The garden was peaceful, sunlight cutting through the leaves in soft patches, a small koi pond tucked near the back fence.
A wind chime hung near the porch, swaying slightly though there was no real breeze to explain it.
He crouched by the pond for a second, watching the fish circle, checking the water’s edge for anything that didn’t belong there.
Nothing did.
Nothing crawled, nothing shifted wrong, nothing waited in any of the corners.
He walked the length of the back fence too, running a hand along the wood out of habit, the way he’d seen Junho do it a dozen times by now.
He came back inside and found Jihoon and Mrs.
Cho already talking quietly at the table, a notebook open in front of him.
“Thank you for your time,” Jihoon said, closing the notebook.
“We’ll assess everything and come back with an estimate.”
“Please do,” she said, walking them to the door.
“Whatever it takes.”
Back in the car, Jihoon glanced over.
“Find anything?”
“No.
Nothing overt, at least.
I checked everywhere.” Ishaan settled into the passenger seat again.
“It’s a really nice house, though.
Reminded me of home, actually.”
“Hmm,” Jihoon said, and didn’t elaborate, though something in his expression shifted slightly before he looked back out the window.
The rest of the ride passed in silence, the city thinning out into the same quiet, half-abandoned streets Somi had described the day before.
The mall came into view eventually, massive and gray, windows shattered or boarded across every visible floor.
Weeds had broken through the parking lot in long cracks, reaching almost knee height in some places.
The team was standing well outside the fence line when the car pulled up, none of them any closer to the building than the parking lot allowed.
Jihoon stepped out first.
“What are you all doing?
Why hasn’t anyone gone in yet?”
Junho raised a hand like he was in class, entirely too casual for what he was about to say next.
“We have a severe problem.”
“What happened?”
“Yuna’s hearing voices.
Somi’s getting a curse reading off the land itself.
Baek says there’s malicious intent radiating off the building.” Junho rubbed the back of his neck.
“And my own hair’s standing straight up, which, historically, has never once been wrong.
None of us have set foot past the fence.”
Jihoon looked at the building, then back at the team.
“If we’re not going inside, we’re not doing our jobs.”
The driver leaned out the window.
“Should I head out and come back later, sir?”
Jihoon checked his watch.
“Yeah.
I’ll call when we’re ready.”
“Thank you, sir.” The car pulled away a moment later, leaving all of them standing at the edge of the lot.
“I’m still not going in,” Somi said flatly.
“None of us are going in,” Baek added.
“Why not?” Jihoon asked.
“You’re acting like children.”
“Because it’s malicious intent,” Baek said.
“Something in there doesn’t want to be disturbed.
Those kinds of presences are always harder to shift than the ones that just want attention.”
“I know that,” Jihoon said.
“But we made a promise to Mr.
Cho.
If it’s this bad, we can give him the property back, give him his money back.
I’m not sending anyone in if it’s genuinely not survivable.”
“That’s surprisingly reasonable of you,” Somi said, sounding genuinely surprised.
“I do have limits,” Jihoon said, sounding almost offended by the implication that he didn’t.
“Wait.” Yuna’s hand shot up, eyes going distant.
“Wait, wait, wait.
Someone’s talking.
Oh my god.
Okay.
This is bigger than I thought.”
Everyone turned toward her at once, the joking energy from a second ago gone completely.
“What is it?” Jihoon asked.
“Before, when I used to tell you guys I heard a bell ring twice, right before I’d see a humanoid figure.
Remember that?” Yuna’s eyes were still unfocused, listening to something none of the rest of them could hear.
“I hear the bell.
Right now.
That means whatever this is, it’s here.”
“That’s exactly what we needed,” Somi said, not sounding thrilled about it at all.
“What does that mean?” Ishaan asked.
“Oh, poor thing,” Junho said, shaking his head.
“You really don’t know, do you. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Bless your heart.”
“Might be an A-grade,” Jihoon said.
“We need to be fully prepared before anyone goes near it.”
“We’re never going to be fully prepared,” Baek said.
“No matter how long we wait.”
“That’s comforting,” Ishaan muttered.
“It’s not meant to be comforting,” Baek said.
“It’s meant to be true.”
“If we’re trying to contain it to this zone specifically,” Junho said, already thinking out loud, “that’s three, maybe four days of ritual work.
Minimum.”
“Then what are we waiting for,” Jihoon said.
“Let’s start.”
Ishaan looked past all of them, toward the shattered front doors of the mall.
A little girl stood just inside, past the broken glass, watching them.
Her head tilted, slow and wrong, past the point where any neck should still bend, the same twisted angle he’d seen once before on a train that already felt like a lifetime ago.
Ishaan’s stomach dropped.
He didn’t say that part out loud, not yet, not with everyone already on edge.
“Guys,” Ishaan said slowly.
“I’m seeing a little girl.”
Nobody said anything at first.
The silence stretched out long enough that Ishaan almost repeated himself, almost filled the gap with more words just to make it stop.
“Wait, what?” Somi finally said, voice quieter than usual.
“You’re seeing what?”
“A little girl.
She’s waving at us.” Ishaan pointed toward the doors.
“Right there.”
Nobody else could see anything, their eyes scanning the same empty doorway over and over, squinting like that might help.
The girl smiled at him, small and knowing, like she remembered him too.
Then she was simply gone, no fading, no walking away, just gone.
“Oh my god,” Junho said, voice dropping low.
“This is an A-grade that can manipulate perception.
It’s not just hiding from us.
It’s choosing what he gets to see.”
Baek had gone very still.
“That’s not a passive presence anymore.
That’s active.
That’s it deciding to show itself to him specifically.”
“So it knows he’s different,” Somi said.
“It already picked him out.”
Jihoon didn’t say anything for a moment, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the same empty doorway everyone else was staring at.
“Did I say something wrong?” Ishaan asked, glancing between all of them.
“No,” everyone said at once, a little too quickly.
“Okay,” Somi said, already turning back toward the car that wasn’t there anymore.
“We need a lot more salt.
A lot more talisman paper.
We might need pig’s blood too, depending on what this actually is.”
“Pig’s blood,” Ishaan repeated, unsure if that was a joke or not.
“Not a joke at all,” Somi said, already dialing someone.
“Let’s get moving,” Junho said, already pulling out his phone.
“Ishaan, you and Jihoon stay here, check the perimeter while we run to the market.
It’s maybe half an hour out.
You two are the strongest ones out here right now anyway.”
“Lucky us,” Ishaan muttered.
“Guess we should go say hi properly, then,” Jihoon said, and started walking toward the fence line without waiting for anyone to agree.
“Wait,” Ishaan called after him, jogging to catch up.
“Let me come with you.”
Jihoon glanced back at him, slowing his pace just slightly, just enough for Ishaan to actually catch up before the two of them reached the fence together.
Past the fence, in the far corner of a boarded-up second-floor window, something small pressed its palm flat against the inside of the glass, leaving no mark, no fog, no sign it had ever been solid enough to touch anything at all.