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Chapter 1
I Reincarnated Into a Horror Novel
My younger brother disappeared.
“Choyeon, Auntie will definitely find Chohae.”
She said that, but Auntie’s face was unusually dark. The corners of her mouth were forced upward, and the hand wrapped around my shoulder was trembling.
“You just focus on studying and wait. Don’t worry too much, okay?”
She was probably worried about me since I was preparing for exams.
“…Okay.”
I forced myself to nod. Auntie pulled me tightly into her arms.
“You’re such a good girl, such a good girl,” she murmured, patting my back, but I couldn’t calm down at all.
‘I might never see Chohae again at this rate, so how can I not worry?!’
After saying goodbye to Auntie, I hurried back to the dormitory. My roommate apparently hadn’t returned yet, because the room was dark.
Since childhood, our parents had often gone overseas on business trips, leaving just the two of us alone. Because of that, my brother and I depended on each other a lot.
“When Mom isn’t around, Choyeon has to protect Chohae.”
I had always been told that, as the older sister, I needed to take good care of my younger sibling.
While our parents were abroad, Auntie acted as our guardian, but because we attended boarding schools, the role of practical caretaker naturally fell to me.
Chohae, my twin brother, was the kind of cheerful younger sibling who obediently treated even a sister born only one minute earlier like a real noona.
I was supposed to protect him, yet this happened.
I was worried about my brother’s safety, and at the same time, I felt guilty for disappointing our parents.
‘What do I do…?’
I anxiously chewed my lips until I tasted blood. My trembling legs were hard to control.
Anxiety because my brother disappeared? Of course that was natural.
But I knew very well that, in a world plastered with CCTV cameras everywhere, my fear would probably seem excessive to others.
The reason I was this terrified was simple.
‘Because this world is inside a horror novel.’
This place was the setting of the horror novel I had read in my previous life:
<Introduction to Survival in Urban Ghost Stories>.
I was living in a world crawling with ghosts and urban legends. Since I had lived here since I was very young, I wasn’t even sure whether this counted as possession or reincarnation…
I realized this wasn’t just an ordinary ghost-story world, but an actual novel, when I saw the “Idol Hanging Injury Incident” on the news.
An idol named Hanging? I had wondered whether the agency had lost its mind, but the shocking twist was that it had actually been his real name. The incident had become so famous that even someone like me, who wasn’t a fan, knew about it.
At first I thought it was just a coincidence. But then, just like in the original story, he literally died according to his name, and only then did I understand the truth of this world…
Putting it like that made the original sound bizarre, but the novel had actually been very popular because it blended urban legends with fast-paced storytelling and a clever protagonist. Even people uninterested in horror, like me, had read it at least once.
It had been entertaining enough for even me to get deeply immersed in it, but that didn’t mean I wanted to become a resident of this world!
At least there was one silver lining: since I hadn’t read many novels like this before, I recognized the setting quickly.
‘There was definitely a missing-person episode in the original, right?’
More specifically, the “Human Trafficking Ghost” arc.
It was a major antagonist that stayed important until the latter half of the story, so even though I dropped the novel midway, I still vaguely remembered hearing about it.
‘Even the protagonist’s parents had been dragged away by the Human Trafficking Ghost.’
In a world of ghost stories where “disappearance ghosts” existed, my brother disappearing…
Wasn’t this obviously that?
I bit my lip.
“What should I do?”
To make matters worse, the last place Chohae had been seen was Eden-dong.
It was the neighborhood right next door, infamous for frequent ghost sightings. It was also the novel’s main setting.
‘Damn it.’
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I couldn’t just leave everything to Auntie and the police and sit still.
An instinctive warning rang through my head.
‘I have to find Chohae somehow. Quickly.’
Pacing around the room anxiously, I hurried to sit in front of my desk. I turned on my laptop and typed into the search bar.
<Urban Ghost Story Community>
It was the site the protagonist had stumbled upon after getting involved with ghost stories.
If it weren’t for this site, someone like me—who had no interest in occult stuff—might have long since died in this world.
I scrolled past lists of occult information and personal experiences before clicking on the Free Board.
The other boards were too scary to even touch by mistake.
Especially one called “Verification Sharing”, which nobody seemed to know the creator of.
There was a high chance it was full of spirit photos!!
<Has anyone here actually experienced a real ghost story?> (+3)
<Why do I keep hearing about disappearances in Eden-dong? Is this real?> (+1)
<I keep dreaming about committing suicide…> (+44)
<Share tips on how to get sleep paralysis lol> (+9)
Various posts filled the free board. I scanned through them before swallowing hard.
‘I never thought I’d actually do this.’
This ordinary-looking site actually hid a secret.
After registering through a linked KakaoX account, I made a post.
Title: How do you find someone who disappeared in Eden-dong?
Username: MachoKing
Content: Title says it all.
It was an extremely lazy one-line post, but my face watching the screen was deadly serious.
One minute later, I refreshed the page.
Two comments had appeared.
└PlagueCraftsman: Can’t find them lol gg
└ParkFamilyGravekeeper: Another Eden-dong case? Creepy;;
‘Not these two.’
I stared at the comments for a moment before taking a deep breath.
The hidden secret of this board was that, sometimes, ghosts would reply to posts related to them.
‘The odds are low, but…’
It was surprisingly easy to recognize ghost comments.
They either provided knowledge no normal person should know, suggested bizarre solutions, or…
Offered to solve the problem in exchange for some incomprehensible price.
‘This isn’t the time to be picky. The longer someone stays missing, the more dangerous it gets.’
So I had no choice but to use my knowledge of the original novel.
‘The protagonist got disappointed after only weird comments appeared and tried to forcibly shut down the computer, right?’
And then, at that moment, the novel described a smiling woman’s face appearing on the monitor.
‘Ah, fuck.’
I really didn’t want to do this. I knew I shouldn’t hesitate when it came to my brother, but still…
I carefully placed my foot above the power strip connected to the computer adapter.
‘Still… seeing a ghost once is better than Chohae disappearing forever.’
My heart wouldn’t literally stop, right?
I pressed down with my big toe and cut the power.
At that moment—
“Holy shit.”
A haggard woman’s face appeared on the black screen.
It was my own face, ruined by anxiety and fear.
“So it’s not something you can copy that easily from the original.”
I let out a disappointed sigh and turned the computer back on. As I habitually reached for the mouse—
Something felt strange.
Instead of the smooth shape of a mouse, it felt flatter, uneven.
‘Like… a person’s fingers?’
A chill ran down my spine. Just as I turned to look at my right hand—
Flash!
The monitor lit up brightly.
“……!”
The screen displayed the same site as before—my post, the one I had been obsessively refreshing.
‘N-no way.’
Amazingly, another comment had appeared.
└tkffuwntpdy: Chat.
A concise message.
With trembling hands, I refreshed the page.
└This comment has been deleted.
‘It’s real!!’
It was exactly the same phenomenon the protagonist experienced!
Suppressing my wildly pounding heart, I hurried into the chat window.
<You have entered a chatroom with ‘tkffuwntpdy’.>
<tkffuwntpdy: How to find a missing person in Eden-dong.>
-
Slightly burn one strand of your own hair and tie it around your wrist. If the hair burns completely, give up on finding the missing person.
-
Go to the place pointed out by the first “person” you encounter in Eden-dong. Pay attention to both the “person’s” voice and gestures.
-
Do not answer the first being that speaks to you.
-
You must never share any of this with another person.
-
If you violate the above instructions, ■■■ may appear.
‘T-this is terrifying.’
Why were there so many things I wasn’t allowed to do?
Still, if the original story was correct, this was the only way to find my brother.
There was no time to waste.
I rushed out of the dorm room.
After Choyeon left, a new message appeared on the still-lit monitor.
<You have left the chatroom with ‘PleaseSaveMe’.>
It was a message nobody would ever see.
I glanced down at the strand of hair tied around my wrist.
I didn’t have a lighter, so I had to borrow one from a passerby. When I carefully held the strand beneath the flame, the owner stared at me strangely, so I awkwardly explained it away as a superstition popular among exam students these days.
Thankfully, only the tip of the hair singed slightly instead of burning completely.
‘Once I find Chohae, I need to head straight to a crowded main road.’
Ghosts usually got involved with people when they were alone.
Walking quickly, I soon spotted an old playground.
Eden-dong was close now.
I nervously scanned my surroundings while walking when suddenly something bumped into me.
“S-sorryyy—.”
Looking down, I saw a child in red suspenders bowing repeatedly.
“I-it’s oka— guh.”
The childish voice made me answer reflexively.
Wait… this still wasn’t Eden-dong yet, right?
I nodded at the child to show it was okay and kept moving.
Since it was only the border of Eden-dong, let’s call that safe for now…
‘But how am I supposed to hear the location?’
Just then, a passerby talking on the phone brushed past me and spoke aloud.
“I told you, I’ll wait at the café you see after going straight past Eden Villa and coming out of the alley. Yeah, Eden Villa.”
Was this it?!
The chat had clearly warned me to pay attention to the “person’s” voice and gestures. That probably included conversations not directed at me.
‘Eden Villa.’
Thinking my brother might be there, I hurriedly opened a map app.
It wasn’t far from here.
I ran as fast as I could. Even though I wore a hoodie over my school uniform, the cold air against my legs made me regret dressing so lightly.
Then—
I arrived at Eden Villa.
An old apartment building standing at the very end of a narrow alleyway where no pedestrians passed.
Catching my breath, I looked toward the front entrance.
Someone was already there.
“What the hell.”
A male student wearing the same school uniform turned around, seemingly having sensed my presence.
He was ridiculously tall and broad, giving off an intimidating aura.
Dark circles hung beneath his tired eyes, his pale skin looked bloodless, and his lips were vividly red.
His gloomy expression barely looked human for someone our age.
“How did you know to come here?”
I didn’t answer.
<Do not answer the first being that speaks to you.>
This was the first being to speak to me.
Which meant there was an extremely high chance he wasn’t human!
‘I-I’m going insane. I want to collapse right here!’
And why did that thing have to stand right in front of the place I needed to enter?!
