They had him standing dead center in the hallway, facing straight ahead.
Kang Jihoon stood right behind him, close enough that Ishaan could feel him there without turning around.
The headphones were off Yuna’s ears now, hanging around her neck.
The tablet in the other woman’s hands was already recording.
“There’s something here,” Yuna said, eyes closed, head tilted like she was listening to a radio station only she could tune into.
“It’s talking in dual tone.
That means there’s more than one.”
“Exactly,” Ishaan said.
“There was this tall dark shadow following me for like a day.
Maybe two.
It just went into the other thing.
Merged, I guess.”
The woman with the tablet looked up sharply.
“So it’s a Class E and a Class B.
Combined.”
“What?” Ishaan said.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, already typing.
The older man’s eyes stayed fixed on a spot down the hallway.
“I feel the presence over there.”
“You’re right, it’s right there,” Ishaan said, pointing.
“It’s got a big butcher’s knife.
Half its face is drooping like it melted.
It’s just standing there, staring.”
Everyone went quiet for a second, absorbing that.
Kang Jihoon reached into his coat and pulled out a knife of his own, short and ceremonial, the blade covered in engraved script Ishaan couldn’t read from where he stood.
“Guide me,” Kang Jihoon said.
Ishaan pointed him forward, step by step, correcting his angle twice.
Kang Jihoon crossed half the hallway before the thing simply wasn’t there anymore.
“It’s gone,” Ishaan said.
“It just left.”
“Shit,” the older man muttered.
“We need to move on this now.”
Kang Jihoon turned to face Ishaan fully for the first time since the fight.
“Could you help us?”
“Help how?” Ishaan asked.
“Nothing complicated.
Just stay with us.
Point when you see it.”
They moved as a group after that, floor by floor, and somewhere along the way everyone finally introduced themselves properly, like the fight had erased whatever formality was left between strangers.
“Baek,” the older man said.
“Intent-sensing.
I read what things want before they act on it.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Ishaan said, before he could stop himself.
“It is,” Baek said, without a trace of humor.
“Somi,” the woman with the tablet said.
“I catalog and research.
Old land records, past incidents, that kind of thing.”
“Junho,” the calm one said, already pulling folded talismans out of his pouch.
“Talismans, wards, anything that needs to be sealed shut.”
“Ishaan,” Ishaan said, because it seemed rude not to, even though he was fairly sure they already knew his name from the folder.
Somi laughed, short and surprised, like she hadn’t expected him to say anything at all.
They worked the floors from both ends at once.
Junho pasted a talisman on the third-floor stairwell door, then on the fifth-floor exit, sealing them shut with a soft hiss that Ishaan felt more than heard.
Somi moved between floors with a small handheld device, checking readings against something on her tablet.
Baek walked the perimeter of each level slowly, eyes half closed, one hand trailing along the walls, muttering something under his breath that Ishaan couldn’t quite catch.
“Top to bottom or bottom to top?” Kang Jihoon asked, glancing between floors.
“Both directions,” Junho said.
“It’s got nowhere left to run once we close it in.”
By the time they finished, the fourth floor sat sealed off completely, every stairwell and exit marked with fresh paper and ink.
Kang Jihoon put a hand on Ishaan’s shoulder.
“Guide me to it.
I can only see the outline.
I want to know how clear it is for you.”
Ishaan’s hand found Kang Jihoon’s shoulder in return, turning him slowly by inches until they were both facing the same direction.
“Left,” Ishaan said.
Kang Jihoon adjusted, the knife lowering slightly.
“A little more.”
Another small adjustment, careful, like he was trusting Ishaan’s hand more than his own eyes.
“Stop.
There.” Ishaan’s grip tightened.
“It’s about to move.
I think it’s going to lash out.”
The thing lunged first, faster than Ishaan expected, and Kang Jihoon’s swing cut through nothing but air where it had been a second ago.
“It moved,” Ishaan said, already twisting to find it again.
“Behind you, no, wait—”
The thing flickered, half-gone, folding into itself like it was trying to disappear the same way the shadow always had.
“It’s trying to run,” Ishaan said.
“It’s going for the wall, I think, I don’t—”
Kang Jihoon was already moving before Ishaan finished the sentence, cutting off the angle toward the sealed stairwell instead of chasing where the thing had just been.
It reappeared exactly where he’d aimed, mid-flicker, knife already swinging through the space it hadn’t fully solidified in yet.
The thing came apart mid-swing, unraveling into nothing like smoke pulled through a window.
It was over before Ishaan even finished flinching.
The hallway went quiet, just the faint hum of the emergency lighting somewhere above them.
“Wow,” Ishaan said, blinking.
“I did not need to see that happen that fast.”
“Sorry,” Kang Jihoon said, though his face didn’t move much when he said it, like the apology had gotten stuck somewhere on the way out.
“That was insane,” Somi said, jogging over.
“That would’ve taken us the whole evening normally.
Tracking it floor to floor, guessing where it went.”
“He’s precise,” Baek said, nodding at Ishaan like he was reevaluating something.
“No hesitation either,” Junho added.
“Most people flinch before they point.
He didn’t.”
“Silence,” Kang Jihoon said.
“He’s not in our group.”
“Why isn’t he?” Junho said, grinning now.
“Feels like he’s the missing piece.”
“Yeah, seriously, join us,” Somi said, and the others started talking over each other at once, some agreeing loudly, some already listing reasons why it made sense.
“I don’t want to do this,” Ishaan said, cutting through the noise.
“Understandable,” Kang Jihoon said.
“That’s a very normal thing to think.”
“Our group,” Junho added, like that settled something.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, your group is the biggest one in the country, whatever,” Ishaan said, waving a hand.
“Biggest, and best benefits package in the industry,” Baek added, deadpan.
“Whatever they’re paying you now, we’ll pay you four times that,” Baek said.
The team lit up again, talking over each other about the work, the pay, the resources they had that nobody else did.
“Company car,” Somi said.
“Health insurance that actually covers something.
A break room that isn’t just a table with a coffee machine.”
“We have a coffee machine that makes actual coffee,” Junho added.
“Not the instant kind.”
“And a very big fact that I might die if I’m with you,” Ishaan said flatly.
Everyone quieted down for a second.
“No, thank you,” Ishaan said.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’m not doing this.”
Kang Jihoon studied him for a moment.
“Either way, you’re going to get killed.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Ishaan said, already turning to head for the stairs.
His phone was ringing before he’d even taken his shoes off at the apartment door.
He answered it standing in the hallway, still in his socks.
Amma’s face filled the screen, tilted slightly the way it always was when she held the phone too close.
“You look so thin,” she said, before he’d even said hello properly.
“Are they working you to the bones over there?”
“No, Amma, I’m fine.” He set his bag down and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall.
“I got a new offer, actually.”
“A new job?”
“Kind of.
I don’t know if I should take it.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Ishaan looked at the ceiling for a second, at the perfectly ordinary ceiling with nothing crawling on it.
“It’s complicated.”
“Well, it’s your life,” Amma said, waving one hand off-screen like she did when she wanted to sound casual and didn’t quite manage it.
“You do whatever you think is right.
We trust you.”
He talked with her a while longer, about nothing in particular, about Meera’s tutoring and the weather back home, until she said goodnight and the screen went dark.
He sat there a moment longer, phone dark in his lap, the apartment quiet around him in a way that felt different than it used to.
He opened the other group chat next.
cursed but broke 💀
Ishaan: okay weird question.
i got a job offer from a company.
should i take it
Minho: depends.
which company
Ishaan: haneul group
Yoon: wait WHAT
Jisoo: are you serious right now
Daehyun: how do you even get an offer from them
Minho: dude that’s like top 5 in the country.
why are you even thinking about this
Yoon: take it.
take it right now.
what is there to think about
Jisoo: seriously why are you hesitating
Minho: bro this is literally a dream offer for most people
Daehyun: unless there’s like a catch.
is there a catch
Ishaan stared at the messages, thumb hovering over the keyboard without typing anything back.
He set the phone down on his chest and looked at the ceiling again.
He needed the money.
That part wasn’t complicated at all.
Rent didn’t care whether he was scared.
Meera’s tutoring fees didn’t care either.
He didn’t have any powers.
He couldn’t fight anything, couldn’t seal anything, couldn’t do a single thing to protect himself from what he saw every single day now.
He thought about the shadow that had followed him for two days straight before anyone else even noticed it existed.
Nobody at his old office would have caught that.
Nobody would have known to look.
If Kang Jihoon was right, if this was going to get him killed no matter what he chose, it seemed better to be standing next to someone who actually knew how to kill the thing first.