Ishaan didn’t mention the boy from the parking lot to anyone.
He folded it up small and let it sit heavy in his chest instead, telling himself it could wait until there was something more solid to report.
He kept catching himself glancing at empty corners anyway, the whole drive to the factory that morning, half expecting to see something waiting there.
The team gathered outside the factory gates early, the morning still cool, mist clinging low to the cracked pavement.
“We stay together,” Jihoon said, keys in hand, looking at each of them in turn, voice leaving no room for argument.
“No splitting up.
Not on a property this size.”
The factory sprawled out behind the fence, sections of it collapsed inward, other parts still standing tall and hollow, windows broken out in jagged patterns across every visible wall.
Rust streaked down from every gutter, and weeds had cracked clean through the loading dock’s concrete apron.
The gate was already open when they reached it.
“Are there people in there?” Somi asked, eyeing the gap warily.
“Should we call the police first, just to be safe?”
“Let’s just check first,” Jihoon said.
“If someone’s trespassing, we handle it directly, no need to escalate yet.”
They walked in together, footsteps echoing off concrete that hadn’t held real weight in years.
A man stood near the center of the main floor, tall, sharp-featured, one hand extended out in front of him like he was feeling for something in the air.
Dressed casually, sling bag slung across one shoulder, he looked more like someone lost on a hiking trail than anyone with actual business in an abandoned factory.
“Excuse me,” Jihoon said.
“You’re trespassing on private property.”
The man turned, unbothered.
“Relax, man.” He dug through a sling bag at his hip and pulled out a folded document.
“Chairman Oh sent me.
I’m supposed to be assessing this place.”
“Chairman Oh sent me too,” Jihoon said.
“Wait.” The man’s eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise.
“Is this a double booking?”
“Apparently so.” Jihoon pulled out his phone.
“Give me a second here.”
Chairman Oh picked up on the second ring, sounding entirely unbothered by the confusion.
“Ah, yes, I brought a shaman along too.
Figured your team could use the extra set of hands, just in case something goes wrong out there.
My son thinks I’m being superstitious.
Let him stay with you anyway, humor an old man.”
“So you’re a shaman,” Jihoon said, looking the man over again, more carefully this time.
“That’s the job description, yeah,” the man said, tucking the document back into his bag.
“I’m also a shaman.”
The man blinked.
“Wait, seriously?
That’s the double booking?”
“Our shamanism business isn’t exactly advertised out loud,” Jihoon said dryly.
“For obvious reasons.”
“Ah.
Gotcha, gotcha.” The man shrugged, entirely unbothered by nearly getting thrown off a property he was supposed to be assessing.
“So, do you want me to stay, or should I just take the payment and head out?
No hard feelings either way.”
“Can he actually kill spirits?” Ishaan asked, poking his head around Jihoon’s shoulder.
“If he’s the real thing, sure,” Yuna said.
“Double protection,” Junho said, already warming to the idea.
“Honestly, not a bad deal,” Baek added.
“Are you all trying to replace me?” Jihoon asked, deadpan.
“No, no, no,” they all said at once, entirely too fast.
“That’s all.”
Jihoon looked back at the man.
“Stay.”
“Great.
I’m Sijin, by the way.” He gave a lazy half-wave to the group.
“So what exactly are you guys, then?”
“Property developers,” Jihoon said.
“With a specialty in certain complications.”
“That’s cute,” Sijin said, grinning.
“Corporate ghost hunters.”
“We already had our dad joke quota for the week,” Somi said.
“That one’s Junho’s territory, and he’s terrible at it.”
“Excuse me,” Junho said.
“I am excellent at it.”
“You’re really not,” Yuna said.
“But he’s doing a great job, actually.
Really solid work.”
“Who’s side are you even on,” Junho muttered, though he was grinning.
“I’ve genuinely never met a whole team like this before,” Sijin said, looking around at all of them with something like curiosity.
“Usually it’s just a lone shaman wandering into some cursed apartment, doing the work solo, collecting the check, and leaving.
This is a whole operation.”
“We like to think of it as efficient,” Somi said.
“We like to think of it as chaos with good branding,” Baek corrected.
They kept walking, Sijin trailing a step behind, still scanning the space with that same searching hand.
Then, all at once, his whole posture changed.
“There’s something over there,” he said, voice dropping serious.
“Where?” Somi asked immediately.
Ishaan looked hard in the direction Sijin was facing.
Nothing.
“I don’t see anything.”
“I’m getting something too,” Baek said, jaw tight.
“Not welcoming.
Not exactly aggressive either.
Just…
malicious.
Heavy.”
Somi crouched, pressing her palm flat against the concrete floor.
Her face changed almost instantly, all the earlier humor draining out of it at once.
She pulled out her tablet instead, fingers moving fast over the screen to calculate a proper reading before she said anything else out loud.
“I don’t think we should take this property,” she said, no hint of her usual dry humor left in her voice at all.
“Why?
What’s wrong exactly?” Jihoon asked, already crouching down beside her.
“It feels like something’s buried here.
Something trying to break out.
We’re not welcome.
I mean that literally, not figuratively, before you ask.”
Baek nodded slowly.
“Same read from me.
It’s not hunting anything.
It’s just angry.
Old, and angry, and stuck.”
That was when Ishaan’s vision swam.
The factory floor blurred, then sharpened into something else entirely, people in old work clothes moving between machines that didn’t exist anymore, the building whole and humming with noise that shouldn’t have been there at all. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
He watched it get built, brick by brick, the same walls rising fresh and new around him.
Watched it running, full of workers, decades compressing into seconds.
Watched someone being dragged out of a back room, struggling, before the image blurred again.
Ishaan couldn’t move.
He’d never had this happen before, not once, not like this.
His feet felt rooted to the concrete, the present moment slipping further away with every second the vision held on.
He watched a name get painted onto a sign out front, fresh and bright, letters still wet with paint.
Watched the same sign fade and peel over what felt like decades compressed into a single held breath.
Watched machines running at full capacity, workers shouting over the noise, all of it blurring faster and faster until individual moments stopped being separate at all.
Then, sharper than anything before it, he watched someone dragged out of a back room, struggling against hands that weren’t gentle about it, before the whole image blurred and dissolved into static.
“Guys.” Junho’s voice, sharp with alarm.
“Something’s wrong with him.”
Ishaan’s whole body had started shaking.
Blood dripped warm from his nose, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from something none of the rest of them could see.
“Get him out,” Sijin said immediately, all the earlier joking gone from his voice entirely.
“Now.
Don’t wait.”
Jihoon scooped him up without hesitation, carrying him straight out through the gate, the others scrambling behind, nobody stopping to grab anything they’d brought in with them.
Everything went dark before they even made it to the car.
Ishaan woke up in the evening, the light outside gone soft and orange through unfamiliar curtains, his head pounding in slow, heavy pulses.
The whole team sat crowded into the room, waiting.
Somi had pulled a chair right up beside the bed.
Junho stood by the window, arms crossed, uncharacteristically quiet.
“What happened to you?” Somi asked, the second his eyes focused.
“I don’t know exactly,” Ishaan said slowly, still piecing it together.
“I saw people.
Building the factory.
Working there, for years, it felt like.
And then someone got taken out of a back room.
Dragged out.” He rubbed his temple.
“I think I saw its whole history.
Like it was playing out in front of me, way too fast to actually follow.”
“All of it?
Just handed to you, all at once?” Sijin asked from the doorway, arms crossed, something almost impressed in his expression despite the circumstances.
“I guess.
I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“That’s not a normal ability,” Sijin said.
“Not even for someone who can already see.
That’s something else layered on top.”
Nobody said anything for a moment.
“That’s never happened before,” Jihoon said quietly.
“Not once.
Not with him, not with anyone I’ve worked with.”
“This doesn’t feel normal,” Baek said.
“None of it does.”
“None of what does?” Ishaan asked, throat still dry.
“Any of it,” Baek said.
“The factory.
What Somi felt.
What you just saw.
It’s all connected somehow, and I don’t like not knowing how yet.”