13 – Shinju Complex #3
━━Jijijik!
[Please wait. Please wait. Please wait.]
An announcement rang continuously from the apartment building. However, the management office where the broadcasting equipment was located was dead quiet. The moment I saw the inside of the management office through the window, a cold sweat broke out on my back.
“I’ll go first!”
“Jinwoo!”
I quickly ran towards the management office. I crossed the large parking lot and arrived at the door of the management office, but I still couldn’t hear any sound inside. I opened the door to the management office, very nervous. The handle turned smoothly and the door opened.
━━Quick!
Inside the dark management room.
It was a room equipped with CCTV screens and broadcasting equipment. The broadcast microphone had a green light on, as if the emergency power had been turned on. The moment I entered the room, the faint sound of an announcement coming from the apartment suddenly stopped.
“Who are you!”
Someone was broadcasting here just a moment ago. I looked around to find him. I was looking inside the management office when I suddenly looked up at the ceiling.
“…!”
There was something black hanging from the ceiling.
It was the head of a man with his hair hanging down in long strands. There was no body below his head. Like a decapitated body, only his head was left hanging from the ceiling.
The man’s eyes met mine. He had red, bloodshot eyes. The man opened his mouth and let out a laugh that took his breath away.
━━Ihihihi!! hehehe!!
My heart was pounding. There was a moment when I was looking at the man hanging from the ceiling and blinked for a moment. The moment he closed his eyes and opened them, the man’s head disappeared from nowhere. There was only fluorescent light visible on the ceiling.
‘…… ‘It’s gone?’
The man’s head was gone, but now I was sure. What was broadcasting from inside the management office just moments ago was not a person but a ghost. The ghost tried to keep us from leaving the house.
“Jinwoo! Was there anyone in there?”
My mother, who arrived at the management office late, looked at me and asked.
I asked her mom for her role.
“Didn’t you hear something just now? Something like laughter.”
“No? It was quiet.”
Mom couldn’t hear the man’s laughter. I recalled the events that had occurred in the management office just moments ago. I found a man’s head hanging from the ceiling in a dark room.
“Anyway, who was broadcasting here? No matter how much I listened, it didn’t sound like the manager’s voice.”
Should I tell my mom the truth?
She said she saw a ghost inside the management office.
“Mom…”
But as I was about to bring up the ghost story to her mother, I remembered something her father once told me.
━━Jinwoo, if possible, don’t tell your mom about ghosts.
My father was an exorcist, but he didn’t often tell my mother about ghosts. She often told me ghost stories, but when she was with her mom, we had normal conversations.
━━Why?
━━ Your mother is weak compared to others. When she tells ghost stories often, she sees ghosts, and her ear gates open. When the ear gates open, people with weak spirits are especially at risk. Your mom might get hurt.
My mother heard that she was a weak person. I also tend not to bring up the topic of mysteries when I talk to my mom in her house. For her mother’s sake, it was better for her not to tell me about what I had just seen.
“There was no one.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s true. Could it be that someone ran away while broadcasting as a prank? They played a prank to scare people by taking advantage of the power outage.”
I scoffed at my mom appropriately.
At that time, the manager came into the management office from outside, very angry.
“What kind of guy is this? Who is playing pranks on broadcasts?”
The manager looked at me and my mom and made a puzzled expression.
“No, aren’t you Mi-jeong Han? I thought there was a prankster inside… What were you doing here with your son?”
“I heard someone was making a strange broadcast, so I went to the management office myself. Where has the manager been all this time?”
“I went to check the electrical room of the apartment! Did you hear the broadcast earlier? A strange broadcast telling you not to leave the house because the power is out. I came back to catch the guy who was broadcasting.”
The manager asked her mother a question.
“Did you see anyone in the management office?”
“No. I didn’t see anyone. I think the person who was playing around with us before we got there ran away.”
“Haaah… Just wait and see what kind of guy he is.”
“We’ll just go back now.”
“Yes, it’s dark, so please return carefully.”
From noble mtl dot com
My mom and I parted ways with the manager and went back to the apartment building. The elevator was also out of power, so we had to go up via the stairs. Residents on each floor could be seen coming out into the apartment hallways and chatting.
“Did you listen to the broadcast earlier?”
“The broadcast I told you not to go to? I heard it.”
“Now that I think about it, that doesn’t sound like the manager’s voice. By the way, I wonder when the electricity will come on…”
The apartment residents were talking about a strange broadcast.
Other people also seemed to sense that the broadcast was strange and came out of the house late.
I was going up the stairs and was passing the third floor.
This was the floor where Ayoung’s house was located. I saw the door to Ayoung’s house closed tightly near the stairs. Even though the entire apartment was noisy, no one in Ayoung’s family came out of the house.
Is everything okay with Ayoung?
I was a little worried and wanted to meet Ayoung.
“Mom, I’m going to take a look at Ayoung for a moment.”
I walked up to Ayoung’s house and rang her doorbell.
After ringing her doorbell about three times, the door opened and Ayoung and her parents appeared.
“…You’re Jinwoo? What’s going on?”
“I came here because I was worried. The power was out and I was wondering if anything was going on at home.”
Ayoung’s parents were both at home.
Ayoung’s father, whom she had not seen during the day, was also standing at the front door.
“Ayeong, are you okay?”
“It’s okay! Nothing happened at my house.”
I could see Ayoung in the living room between her parents. Just looking at her, it didn’t seem like Ahyoung was okay at all. She was curled up in her living room, her body shaking.
“But why does Ayoung look scared?”
“Well…? I guess she saw a bug in her room. She’s a girl, so she’s probably scared of bugs.”
Ayoung is scared because she saw bugs?
It was a lie.
“Lie.”
“What?”
“Ayoung is not afraid of bugs. She’s seen them all at school.”
“…!”
The lie was caught. Ayoung’s parents were speechless for a moment, probably because they didn’t know they would be caught. I was embarrassed and Ayoung opened her mouth to her parents.
“What happened at home? When I heard a strange broadcast earlier.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Then can I go inside? Talk to Ayoung.”
“No.”
Ayoung’s parents repeated the same thing like a parrot.
Even if I questioned him, I couldn’t get any information.
In the end, Ayoung’s parents left me in the hallway and closed the door.
Even if I rang the doorbell again, the door did not open.
I had no choice but to return home.
After a while, the power was restored and the lights came back on in the house.
*
It was the next day.
I went to school early in the morning.
The moment I entered the classroom, I saw a familiar face.
Sera was sitting in the back of the classroom, reading a thick book.
“Hello.”
As I approached, Sarah opened her mouth with a strangely sober expression.
“Did you have a good time at Ayoung’s house yesterday? Without me?”
“Honestly, I didn’t play well.”
“Why? What happened? You couldn’t have missed me, right?”
Did you miss me?
That’s why I wanted to see Sarah.
But to be honest, I was embarrassed.
“I missed you. Is that okay?”
“Hmm.”
It was only then that Sarah’s gloomy expression cleared up.
I sat down next to her and talked to Sarah.
Sarah closed her book and looked at me.
“Because there was an accident at Ayoung’s house yesterday.”
“What accident?”
“The liquor jar in her house broke without anyone touching it. And then strange things started happening in our apartment.”
I told Sarah what happened yesterday. In our class, Sarah was the only girl who could talk about mysteries freely.
The wine jar was broken and I saw the hair inside.
I saw her head floating in an apartment where there was a power outage.
Ayoung was scared.
“…I think the problem was the Shinju Complex. After it broke, strange things started happening in our apartment. But is it possible to put hair in the Shinju Complex?”
“No.”
“So what happens when the Shinju complex breaks?”
“If the ancestral tablet is kept well, it is normal for nothing to happen. If what is inside is the ancestral spirit, the ancestral spirit will not harm or scare the descendants just because they made a mistake.”
That was correct.
There was no way she would harm her descendants for making a mistake.
“You said what was inside was hair, right?”
“Yes.”
“If that’s the case, then what was inside the jar was not an ancestral spirit. It seems like a completely different spirit was placed in the jar and then got angry.”
Sera’s guess was this. It turns out that what Ayeong’s family was keeping in the jar was not an ancestral spirit, but a different spirit. It was the floating head I saw in the apartment management office.
“It might not be an ancestral god?”
Sera explained in more detail.
“A spirit jar is a jar that holds the soul. In other words, it can be used to seal the soul. Do you know what happens if you put a part of the body of a dead person in a spirit jar and tie it tightly with silk thread?”
“What happens?”
“The soul of the dead person will be trapped in the jar. It will be trapped in the jar and will continue to resent the people who imprisoned it.”
Do you mean that the Shinju complex can also be used to trap souls? It was quite an interesting story. In that case, it was understandable that the entire apartment was in chaos overnight.
Because the soul that had been sealed in the Shinju complex was liberated.
Now that he was released after being locked up for a long time, he must have wanted to run wild.
He would want to take revenge on the people who imprisoned him.
I urgently asked Sarah.
“Hey! Then isn’t Ayoung’s family in danger now?”
“It’s dangerous. If you leave them alone, they will all be killed by the severed-headed ghost you saw yesterday.”
Severed head ghost.
That was when we finished talking about it.
━━Drur!
The door opened and children entered the classroom one by one.
However, Ayoung was not seen among the children who entered the classroom.
Ayoung was absent from school that day.