Rain poured down on Seoul like a waterfall that transformed the city into a deserted ghost town. The twisted maze of narrow alleyways glistened with neon lights and reflected on them. It cast an otherworldly glow amidst the shadows.
But the rain today was more like a warning. It shuddered and shrieked like cattle on its deathbed.
Ha-Eun wasn't a fan of rain. It seeped through the worn joints of her secondhand sneakers and wetted her socks.
Seeking cover for her head, she ducked under the tents of the nearby fried chicken stalls, where the smell of sizzling oil and spicy gochujang clung to her damp jacket like a comforting hug.
It was her father's birthday tomorrow, but she hadn't found a gift.
He always said he had wanted something cheap but meaningful.
But nothing in the bustling markets of Myeongdong met those standards.
While she was running to save her head from the rain, she saw it.
A shop. A little, tiny shop with a broken sign—[The Mind's Eye]. But it was a strange sight. Especially since it hadn't been there last week. And she was sure about it.
Yet there it stood, crammed between the fried chicken stall and a boarded-up karaoke bar, its sign flickering.
Just outside the shop, there's a small billboard showcasing some enticing discounts and other intriguing offers.
The posters plastered around the area are a chaotic blend of job ads and missing persons posts.
Ha-Eun reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of cash, admiring the money she had saved up. For the past few months, she had been stashing away her earnings to buy her dad a special gift.
It was all about making his day a little brighter.
"What if I find something here?" She muttered to no one
Pushing the door open, the bell echoed loudly, almost in a comical contrast to such a tiny space.
The air inside was like a piece of bread left in the rain for a month. The sight was similar to. Old pieces of artifacts, some fake keychain,s all layered with dust, and some other things she found hard to name.
"Hello? Is anyone here?" She called out, her voice strained as she struggled to clear her throat, which was coated with dust and the unpleasant scent of mold clinging to her.
But no one responded. And so silence lingered in the air.
Undeterred, she ventured deeper into the dimly lit shop.
Behind a glass counter cluttered with corroded coins and cracked porcelain dolls, an elderly man sat hunched over a journal, seemingly lost in thought.
Ha-Eun approached the old man, who looked as if he had been frozen in time, his face a blur, as though her eyes were unwilling to focus on him.
"Looking for something in particular?" he asked, his voice crackling like an old television set.
Startled, Ha Eun jumped slightly, not having expected the shop owner to speak up.
Ha-eun stiffened. "Just for a gift."
The man stood, his joints creaking from old age. He wore a suit that might have been beautiful decades ago, its seams now ragged and put buttons mismatched. "For whom?".The owner asked.
"My father," she answered instinctively, unsure why she even responded to the question.
The man flashed a grin that revealed an unsettling number of teeth. "Ah, a man of... judgement." He paused for a moment, " So, little lady, what kind of gift does your father like?"
Ha-eun felt a shiver run down her spine. "Puzzles. He likes puzzles."
The man's expression sharpened, a glint of interest in his eyes. He shuffled over to a corner shelf and picked up a small object.
"Then this."
It was a cube.
Six inches wide, its surface danced between a deep black and a faint, oily shimmer. Not a speck of dust clung to it, and it absorbed light rather than reflecting it, like something out of this world.
"What is it?" Ha-eun reached out, but her hand hovered hesitantly above the object.
"A cube," the man replied with a smirk.
She snorted, "Looks more like a fancy paperweight to me."
Still hesitant, it felt as if the cube was trying to pull her in, and she withdrew her hand. "I'm not dumb enough to touch that."
The man's grin widened, a playful challenge dancing in his eyes. "Aren't you?"
A little unnerved but undeniably intrigued, she couldn't shake off the feeling that this was more than just a simple puzzle.
Against her better judgment, Ha-eun lifted the cube. It was lighter than it looked, cold as a river stone.
As her fingers brushed against the surface of the cube, a jolt of static raced up her arm, causing her to gasp and drop it.
But instead of crashing to the ground, the cube hovered in mid-air, humming softly. The shop owner grabbed it with an eager glint in his eye.
"When someone holds this cube," he began, completely overlooking Ha-Eun as if she were invisible, "it can bring good fortune; though, some folks insist it only leads to misfortune and disaster."
He turned to her, and once again, there was this strange force that made it hard for her to meet his gaze.
She instinctively looked away, feeling like a deer caught in headlights.
"Is that all?" She frowned, snatching the cube right out of the air. As she held it, she noticed it pulse faintly, almost as if it held inside it a beating heart.
Her mind drifted to her father's hands, rough and calloused from years of fixing watches, a man who loved to solve puzzles.
Simple yet meaningful.
"A little warning, though," the man grinned, revealing far too many teeth for comfort. "It can answer your questions, but be careful, what it reveals might not be to your liking."
Ha-Eun rolled her eyes, unimpressed. "Sure, thanks for the heads-up." She felt a mix of doubt and curiosity bubbling inside her.
But she never really listened to his advice for a couple of reasons. First off, she just couldn't wrap her head around ghost stories, especially in the 21st century when such beliefs felt totally out of place.
Secondly, she was itching to get out of that creepy shop as quickly as possible.
"Um… good day, sir," she stammered, shoving the cube into her backpack while making a beeline for the door. Just then, the shop owner unexpectedly grabbed her wrist, halting her in her tracks.
"W-what is it, sir? Do you need something?" she asked, turning back to face him, a little freaked out.
"Young lady, you…" He started, and Ha-eun felt a rush of anxiety hit her like a ton of bricks, worried he was about to drop some bad news.
"Ten thousand won," the man said simply.
"What?" Ha-eun blinked in confusion.
"The price of the cube," he clarified.
"Oh," she said, relief flooding her. "Sorry," she mumbled, "I'll pay now." With that, she tossed some crumpled bills onto the counter, eager to put the whole experience behind her.
"What was up with that old dude?" Ha-eun scoffed once she stepped into her dorm room. She was just a broke physics student, not some superstitious ahjumma who believed in fortune tellers or anything like that.
Her dorm room was basically the size of a closet in Hongdae, with walls plastered in astrophysics diagrams and half-finished equations.
The cube sat on her desk, almost like it was trying to hide from the light.
It didn't cast a shadow or reflect anything at all.
Her dad would've called it gwijeong, "ghostly stillness." Just another weird day in her life, she thought, trying to shake off the strange vibes.
She poked it with a pencil. "What kind of cube is this? No shadow, no reflection."
Her fingertips brushed against the surface of the cube; it was smooth, more like a post-transition metal, and had a perfect shape.
"Weird," she murmured. "How did that old man find this thing?".
She grabbed the cube and tossed it like a ball, playing with it for a while.
Suddenly, she stopped when she noticed a pattern carved into one side of the cube. Leaning in closer, she examined it.
"Some kind of word?" she said to herself.
Her fingertips traced the edge of the carving from start to finish. As her fingertip returned to the starting point, the carved word began to glow, and a static charge shot up her arm.
The cube tore open, revealing a passage that felt more like a portal ripping through the very fabric of space.
Colors flipped upside down, and the sound around her morphed into a piercing scream.
Ha-eun's lungs felt like they were caving in as the walls around her peeled away, crumbling into nothingness.
Desperately, she clutched at her bed corner that seemed to anchor her to reality, hoping to hold on as the portal threatened to pull her in.
But the force was relentless, and one by one, her fingers slipped free, unable to withstand the overwhelming suction.
"No!" she shouted, panic flooding her voice. "No... no... I don't want to go into that!"
But before she could finish her thought, she was already being sucked into the portal.
Then came the darkness. It enveloped her, and in that void, she felt every sensation heighten, her body feeling like it was being torn apart a thousand times over.
Suddenly, something wrapped around her ankle, a swirling mass of liquid darkness. It sucked her deeper into the abyss, and her scream echoed in a language that was foreign to her.
When she finally woke up, her skin was itching like crazy. She scratched her wrist and gasped, her vision still hazy as she tried to make sense of what had just happened.
There was a long silence.
"Where the hell am I?"