".....!"
As Gyeongwon looked toward the bathroom, Hyejin's head slid in, and the door slammed shut with a thud.
"Haa, haa, haa."
Gyeongwon, trembling violently, stumbled backward without even realizing it, when suddenly he stepped on something squishy.
Squelch-
"Ee, eek! Wh-what, what is it!"
Startled out of his wits, he flinched and shone the flashlight down at the floor and saw it was the corpse of a dog.
The small Maltese that had been happily playing in Hyejin's Instagram video was now gaunt and stiff, appearing dead.
Gyeongwon was so terrified that he barely managed to catch his phone just before he dropped it.
Then, without looking ahead or behind, he scrambled frantically to the front door.
I, I can't take it! I'm going to run away!"
"Huff, huff, huff."
Muttering to himself in a daze, he haphazardly unlocked the latch and pushed the door open with all his might.
Clunk. Clunk.
"Uh, uh-uh... Why won't it open....!Open....! Open up...."
The door only opened halfway before it stopped with a clunk.
For a moment, Gyeongwon was terrified by the thought that a ghost might be standing motionless on the other side, blocking the door from opening.
But when he calmed down and examined the door with the flashlight, he realized it was simply because the safety chain was caught, just like when Hyejin had opened it for him earlier.
The problem was that no matter how much he pulled and twisted that safety chain, it simply would not come undone.
"Haa, haa, damn... this is.."
Whether some screw had been tightened oddly somewhere, the safety chain simply would not come undone no matter how much strength he used.
After a moment of grabbing and shaking the front door, Gyeongwon poked his face through the narrow gap and shouted into the pitch-dark hallway.
"Excuse me! Is anyone there!"
"....."
"The door won't open! Please help!"
Please help, please help, please help...
Gyeongwon's echo resounded through the dark, cold hallway.
But there was no sign of anyone.
"Hello! Please help!!"
He shouted again and again, but there was no response, as if no one actually lived there.
While he was struggling, shaking the safety chain this way and that, suddenly a loud bang came from the dark interior of the house behind Gyeongwon.
"Huh, hick.."
Gyeongwon, terrified as if his breath had stopped, turned around, shining the flashlight, and saw that the bathroom door was wide open.
With his back pressed against the front door, Gyeongwon swallowed hard and stared intently inside.
But it seemed as if there was no one inside.
"...."
Gyeongwon, his hands trembling, clutched his phone and brought up Lee Joon's phone number on the screen.
If he called even now, Prez would come running and take care of everything.
'Prez... Prez will.."
Lee Joon.
The name of the savior.
"...."
Gyeongwon, with the number up on the screen, brought his hand almost to the call button, but then flinched again and hesitated for a moment.
And instead of pressing the button with his trembling hand, he paused all movement for a moment and took a deep breath.
A thin layer of fear peeling away.
"Right. If it's Prez, he'll come running and take care of it.'
Gyeongwon nodded.
"If it were Prez, even if he had faced it alone, he would have struggled Somehow and overcome the situation.'
If it were the Club President Lee Joon, he surely would have done so.
He wasn't a perfect person, and he had some strange aspects in certain areas, but one thing was certain.
If it were the President, even if he had scrambled about, threw things in a fluster and hid frantically this way and that, he was by no means the kind of man to run away in fear after encountering a ghost story.
Even after death, he would eventually come back and solve the case completely.
'....I came here today to try doing that too. I came to face my trauma alone.'
Gyeongwon hesitated for a moment, then steeled his resolve and turned off the phone app.
He tucked the phone's flashlight into his shirt's breast pocket like a lantern.
"Huu, huu."
Gyeongwon rubbed his palms together like a weightlifter before a lift and took a few deep breaths.
'... I'm going to give it a try. What could be worse than death?"
The bathroom door remained wide open, as if inviting him in.
Gyeongwon kept his eyes fixed on it, watching for anything that might leap out, and slowly shuffled sideways.
Then, glancing sidelong, he surveyed the living room and gathered a few items.
'.....For now, wooden chopsticks.'
Gyeongwon broke the wooden chopsticks lying on the floor into suitable lengths and crossed them into the shape of a cross.
Then, he picked up a rubber band scattered haphazardly on the sofa, presumably the one Hyejin used to tie her hai, and secured it in the same crossed shape.
And so, three makeshift crosses were made on the spot.
After tucking them between his shirt buttons so they'd be clearly visible, this time he approached the kitchen refrigerator and opened the door.
'Ugh, the smell.'
It seemed the refrigerator had been without power for a long time, as the food inside was all rotten.
Gyeongwon grabbed a pair of tongs from among the few cooking utensils still hanging in the dark kitchen and, holding his nose, began rummaging through the unidentified food remains.
And finally, he found a few shapes that looked like garlic.
Gyeongwon rummaged through the
kitchen, found a clear plastic bag, put the collected garlic inside, zipped it shut, and gently shook it with one hand.
'Crosses and garlic. These alone are effective against most of the ghosts in Korea.'
Gyeongwon kept his eyes on the bathroom, still standing wide open with no sign of anyone inside, and this time entered Hyejin's room.
It was a bleak space filled only with a broken window pane, shattered by a mannequin, and a lonely desk.
Gyeongwon approached the desk where she used to study, roughly tore up a notebook page, and picked up a ballpoint pen.
Then, he searched for exorcism talismans used by shamans on his phone, displayed the image on the screen, and drevw it exactly on the paper to create several makeshift talismans.
In addition to that, Gyeongwon tied paper into a long strip and placed it on his head like a ceremonial crown worn during ancestral rites, and even went so far as to set his phone to play hymns on infinite loop.
The final result was a chaotic sight; carrying crosses and a garlic pouch in his clothes, eXorcism talismans plastered all over his body, wearing a ceremonial paper crown on his head, and reciting hymns while shining his phone flashlight.
Jingle- jingle-
[God is the one~ who watches over you~ He who delivers you~ from yourbtroubles~]
[He will watch over you... He will watch over your comings and goings...]
Gyeongwon, dressed in flashy attire, slowly advanced toward the bathroom, singing in a trembling voice with the hymn playing on his phone.
[Lift your eyes~ behold the mountains~]
[Your help... where does it come from....]
[He who made the heavens and the earth~ He who created you]
[It comes... fromn the Lord... in heaven and on earth! I alone am supreme! The three realms are full of suffering! You shall not be at peace! You unclean thing, begone! Begone!]
Jingle- jingle!
Gyeongwon, standing there in front of the bathroom like that, shook the garlic pouch a few times.
Unlike Club Prez Lee Joon, Gyeongwon lacked the wisdom to figure out exactly what kind of ghost story this was and to pinpoint its weak point in order to counter it.
Instead, Gyeongwon drew on the extensive knowledge he possessed to thoroughly deck himself out with tools that were guaranteed to work against any kind of ghost story that might appear.
"Devil, begone! Ghost, begone! Evil spirit, begone! Goblin, begone! Grim reaper, begone! Go back to where you came from! Hmm, hmm!"
Jingle-jingle!
The experience of chanting spells haphazardly in the middle of a dark house.
There was still no response from the bathroom, which had been open as if
Inviting him in all along, but somehow, as Gyeongwon shouted like that, courage seemed to well up inside him.
I' can do it, I can do it.'
He didn't know what kind of ghost story it was, but since he was armed with a method that would ensnare anyone in the world, it would be fine.
After steeling his resolve like that, Gyeongwon began to move forward, step by step, toward the troublesome bathroom, shining the flashlight as he went.
Tingle. Jingle.
"..Hye, Hyejin."
Stepping over the threshold, he softly called out the name of his crush.
Just in case, he peeked his head in and shone the light inside the bathtub, but there was no one in there either.
"...She was here just now.'
She had been hanging upside down, and then her head slipped in.
Upside down.....
Gyeongwon slowly raised his head and shone the light on the ceiling.
Sure enough, the access panel in the ceiling was open.
That small square hatch, found in every home, also known as the bathroom ceiling lid.
It was twisted open at a 45-degree angle.
'In there.."
Gyeongwon swallowed hard and slowly reached his hand up, shining the light inside.
Then, among the various pipes and fixtures, he spotted a few strands of long hair dangling down slightly.
Gyeongwon swallowed hard and called her name again.
"...Lee Hyejin."
Then, in an instant, her hair rustled and vanished above the ceiling, and Gyeongwon flinched and reflexively waved the garlic pouch and the cross.
"..Oh~ was it truly for me that the Lord died..."
"...."
"For a worm like me, did You suffer such great pain.....
Trembling, Gyeongwon shook both hands like that, as if to soothe his own heart.
Just as the fear began to subside again, Gyeongwon stood on his tiptoes and looked up at the ceiling.
"Hyejin is up there..."
Hyejin had crawled up into the bathroom ceiling.
However, being small in stature, Gyeongwon could barely touch the ceiling with only the very top of his head, even standing on tiptoe and stepping onto the bathtub.
'..... I need a chair.'
Gyeongwon directed the light at the pipes faintly visible above the bathroom ceiling, but gave up and climbed down from the bathtub. And then, carefully looking around the dark house once more, this time he opened the door to the large room and
stepped inside.
Creak-
Screech.
"...Ugh. The stench."
The moment Gyeongwon opened the door to the main room, he reflexively covered his nose at the stench that burst forth.
He shone the light around to find the source of the smell, and discovered piles of plastic bottles and plastic bags stacked up in the corner.
"What the, what is this!"
Withstanding the stench so foul that his legs began to wobble, Gyeongwon made his way over there.
The plastic bottles were filled with a yellow liquid, and the plastic bags were packed full of something like clay.
'No way.'
Feces and urine?
Whose were they?
Gyeongwon felt his legs trembling as he slowly examined them.
And instinctively, he felt it.
"..Lee Hyejin."
There was no sign that her parents had lived here together.
A sane parent would not have neglected the house where they lived with their beautiful daughter to this extent.
The mountain of filth piled up in the corner of the room belonged to Hyejin, the crush Gyeongwon had adored so desperately.
"W-why on earth...?"
'Because the water supply was cut, and so the toilet won't flush?'
"Ah, even so, this... Ugh, ugh.."
Gyeongwon felt his mind reel and his senses grow hazy from the stench of the filth left by the girl he had secretly adored.
As he trembled like that, the smell seeped deep into his lungs and even into his brain, making him feel as if it were toying with his mind, at that moment, the strength in his legs suddenly gave way, and just as his
body was about to topple into Hyejin's
filth.
He barely managed to steady himself and avoid falling.
This was not something caused by today's ghost story.
From a very long time ago, an incredibly long time ago, this house had been in this very state all along.
Scenes of what had happened with her flashed through Gyeongwon's mind like a panorama.
Hyejin, who had lied about her family and pretended to be from a wealthy family from their very first meeting with Gyeongwon.
The claims that her parents were the president of a trading company and that they released artworks in a gallery.
Hyejin, who was already dating the class president, but lied to Gyeongwon, pretending to actually have feelings for him.
The image of the desk she had posted on Instagram as if showing off, and the empty space behind it that could hardly be called normal, along with a mannequin.
The Maltese dog she had posted a video
of happily playing with, but which was now miseralbly starved to death, looking as if it had been raised solely for Instagram updates.
Hyejin, who was always the center of the group, cool, shining, sophisticated, and big-hearted; and the filth she had piled up in one corner of her house.
Gyeongwon barely managed to tear his gaze away from Hyejin's filth, which he had been staring at so intently that his head was trembling.
Then, the piles of medicine bottles stacked high on the dressing table caught his eye.
[Benzodiazepine]
[Zolpidem Tartrate]
[Clozapine]
[Olanzapine]
[Aripiprazole]
[Risperidone]
[Quetiapine]
[Asenapine]
All of these were medications taken exclusively by patients with severe mental illness.
Next to them lay a jumble of hospital
documents, ranging from prescriptions to various other items.
With trembling hands, Gyeongwon rummaged through the papers and picked up a sheet labeled 'Doctor's Opinion'.
[Patient Lee Hyejin (born 2003)]
Blood Type O, 167cm, 54kg
• An 'Alpha Girl' who demonstrates
exceptional abilities compared to male students in academics, interpersonal relationships, sports, and leadership; she has a strong desire to flaunt her status as an elite female student.
• Has an extremely strong drive for
achievement and is adept at habitually and spontaneously fabricating lies to make a good impression on others.
• Unlike the lies of normal people, hers are impulsive and instinctive, and therefore not meticulous.
• However, like the majority of patients
suffering from this syndrome, in terms of appearance and personality, she comes across as an extremely attractive person, so even when those around her notice the lies, it is not easy for them to point it out to her or to dislike her.
• She feels no guilt whatsoever about being caught in a lie; on the contrary, with a confident and self-assured attitude, she intimidates the other person.
• She will do anything to become the center of the group and receive the world's spotlight.
• At first glance, she appears to be an
extremely attractive and confident person, but due to severe pathological lying and a desperate need for attention, everyday life is impossible for her.
• She displays abnormally outstanding
abilities in specific fields (in the patient's case, academics). This is similar to the genius-level concentration sometimes seen in autistic children.
Based on the above symptoms, I
conclude that 'Ripley Syndrome' has
firmly taken root within believer Lee
Hyejin.
- ♠Director of Dogma of Void Mental
Hospital -
"D... Dogma of Void Mental Hospital...?."
Startled by the name, Gyeongwon flipped the medical report over front and back.
And there, as expected was the spade mark.
-[♠Dogma of Void Mental Hospital] -
Gyeongwon stared at that name,shuddering for a moment, then quickly put it down and frantically rummaged through the dressing table.
Then, sure enough, a pile of Void cult
magazines, newspapers, and bound
scripture books came tumbling out.
"Lee, Lee Hyejin.. was she a member of
the Void cult.....?"
With his mind growing clearer,Gyeongwon rifled through those items, turning them over this way and that, and then examined the medical report Once more.
...Based on the above symptoms, I conclude that 'Ripley Syndrome' has firmly taken root within believer Lee Hyejin..
..Ripley Syndrome.'
It was a disease Gyeongwon had heard of before, too.
As stated in the medical report, it refers to a syndrome in which the person appears to be a highly attractive and capable individual, but behind that façade, habitually tells lies.
Without even the awareness that they are doing something wrong at every moment.
A disease characterized by habitually telling lies merely to match the mood or to make themselves stand out.
Ripley Syndrome.
The patient believes their own thoughts
without even realizing they are lying, and is fully convinced they are truly that kind of person.
It is one of the syndromes that sparks much debate, to the point where dramas with the same title were even produced by KBS and MBC.
The problem is that it's not an actual mental illness, but an urban legend made up by people.
It means that it is not a real illness like pathological lying or delusions of grandeur, but merely exists as a campfire story told for amusement.
'...But Lee Hyejin has it. A fictional disease that doesn't even exist.'
Gyeongwon stood holding the medical
report, feeling bewildered for a moment, then shook his head again.
Regardless of what kind of person his crush Hyejin originally was or what she might have been suffering from, it has nothing to do with today's events.
Gyeongwon came here to resolve the B-rank ghost story that his crush had brought up this morning, and now he must concentrate fully on that alone.
The Ripley Syndrome that Hyejin had been suffering from for a long time and the B-rank ghost story that occurred this morning after she took the ghost story card home were entirely separate matters.
'F-first, let's focus on what I need to do right now. What I need to do... right, the chair. I came into this room to get a chair."
Just then, right in front of him, a dressing table chair that was taller than an ordinary chair came into view.
"With this, I could step on it and climb onto the bathroom ceiling. Hmm!"'
The moment he picked up the chair and began to move it with wobbly legs, Gyeongwon suddenly felt his head become dizzy.
"Uh, uh, what's happening... why is this
happening.."
It was because he had inhaled the air in the room for an extended period of time, air that was coated with human waste, which had been concentrated over that long stretch of time.
Feeling severely nauseous, Gyeongwon
staggered while holding the chair, but
then he slipped, lost his balance, and
fell with a heavy thud.
Falling straight into the piles of filth of his crush.
Squelch-
"Ugh, ugh.."
At the same time, from the ceiling,
thump-thump-thumnp, the sound of an attractive female student roaring with laughter while striking the wall was heard.
"Kahahaha... Gyeongwon, you little b*stard. You're buried in my sh*t."
"Gasp, gasp, gasp-"
"You're just going to keep admiring a pretty, smart, and confident girl like me, while I date a handsome guy, and you'll be left floundering because you're jealous. It's your bad luck to spend your whole life chasing after the girl you liked so much back in the
day, lose your mind, and die. Stay there buried in my sh*t and die. I'm going on a date with the class president from the next class. Bye-bye."
"Hoo000- Hoooo..."
Gveongwon floundered a few times in the slippery filth, then hastily came to his senses and got up from where he lay.
Even while dizzy, he shook his head and turned his body, picked up the chair again, and headed to the bathroom.
'Ah, no matter how much model material I'm given, it can't be helped... I have to get this done tonight.'
He could no longer afford to lose himself, sinking into the filth of the trauma that his first love had left him with, wasting his life away.
Gyeongwon decided to resolve everything tonight and entered the bathroom.