The oppressive silence in that basement after those crimson eyes vanished still lingered, chilling Jeong Hae-jun to the bone.
It wasn't mere quiet, but a silence with an ominous echo—as if something were still lurking there.
Only a few hours earlier, in the interrogation room, Shin Dong-hyuk had been cackling madly when he suddenly began convulsing. Then, foaming at the mouth, he dropped dead on the spot. His final expression was impossible to read: was it mockery, fear, or perhaps relief?
Now they could get nothing more out of him. The only things left were his cold corpse and the ritual tools and old documents confiscated when he was arrested. Wax-encrusted candle stubs, a pendant carved with strange symbols, and crumbling pages of records—all hinted at the world he'd delved into.
Hae-jun was sifting through the scattered evidence on the desk when one chilling line scrawled on a sheet of paper caught his eye. Written in crude, heavy strokes, it sent a chill down his spine:
"When the door of the square opens, the Specter comes."
He repeated the phrase under his breath and closed his eyes. Immediately, the scene of Shin Dong-hyuk writhing in the chair and then slumping to the floor—his face already cold in death—flooded Hae-jun's mind. The man's crazed laughter and final spasms overlapped in his head, leaving an afterimage he couldn't shake.
Now the investigation had to rely on fragmentary clues left by the dead, not the living. They were faint, broken leads at best, but even so Hae-jun's instincts told him one thing: the shadow behind all this was beyond human.
*
A few hours later in the station conference room, Jeong Hae-jun sat at a table with Detectives Yun Tae-sik, Park Jae-min, and Choi Do-yoon. The whiteboard was cluttered with case-related keywords and diagrams, and Professor Jang Min-seok of Seoul National University's psychiatry department was explaining his profiling results.
According to Professor Jang, all the witness testimonies shared a common point: in every hallucination, a red mist and a whispering voice appeared. No evidence of drugs or gas was found, suggesting that someone had induced a mass hallucination through some powerful suggestion. And most importantly, every incident had occurred centered around Gwanghwamun Square.
The team looked at the board, faces tense. On the map, Gwanghwamun Square was circled in bright red. Hae-jun stood and said firmly, "Tonight at midnight at Gwanghwamun Square, we lay a trap and wait. Make it show itself again—same time, same conditions—and catch it."
The detectives all nodded. Yun Tae-sik clenched his fist. "We'll definitely catch it this time."
Professor Jang couldn't join them on-site, but he promised to keep advising them to the end.
Soon after, the special investigation team began preparing for the night's stakeout. Police HQ provided night vision goggles, high-powered flashlights, and a portable sound emitter. The detectives donned bulletproof vests, synced their radio frequencies, and set up surveillance cameras at key points around the square. An emergency medical team and a tactical unit were also on standby nearby.
*
Late that night, just before the operation, Hae-jun sat in his car in the station parking lot, going over the suspect's note and evidence. Just then, a rustle in the passenger seat made him whip around, eyes wide. Fog, in his usual shabby clothes, sat in the passenger seat as if he'd been there all along.
Hae-jun was startled by the sudden appearance, but quickly regained his composure and said calmly, "I figured you'd show up."
Fog raised both hands in a mock-innocent gesture and grinned. "Well now, Detective. Here we are meetin' again. This case of yours—I hear it's stirrin' up more fuss than a neighborhood shindig, ain't it?"
Hae-jun sighed wearily. "It's not a festival. What's your take? Smells strongly of the Specter again, doesn't it?"
Fog chuckled slyly and shrugged. "Hard to say. What would I know, hah. But word is, when the mist turns red, there's always some uninvited guests crashin' the party."
Hae-jun had already suspected as much. He nodded grimly. "...So it really is the Specter. That thing's on the move, huh."
Fog pulled out a cigarette and rolled down the window, taking a long drag of the night air. "Well, I ain't seen nothin' firsthand, but folks say this time's a mite different. Word is that bastard's fixin' to show his face himself."
As soon as Fog finished speaking, the car radio sputtered with static. At the same time, the streetlights outside flickered wildly. Hae-jun glanced around in alarm—and in that split second, Fog's seat was empty. He had vanished without a trace, like mist.
All that remained was the eerie warning hidden in his casual words. Hae-jun gritted his teeth and stared out at the dark street. "Specter... looks like this time you're coming out yourself," he muttered.
*
By 11:50 p.m., Gwanghwamun Square was under lockdown and completely empty. Normally the area would be bright and busy with traffic, but now it lay in darkness, filled only with an eerie silence. Hae-jun and the others hid in the shadows at the plaza's edge, eyes fixed on the center of the square. Time crawled by in tense silence as midnight approached.
Under his sleeve, Yun Tae-sik had a talisman tied around his wrist. He clenched his clammy fist and prayed desperately, Please let this work...
Across the way, Choi Do-yoon quietly muttered to himself as he checked his magazine of special flash rounds. "This time, we end it...."
Inside the mobile command van, Park Jae-min watched multiple camera feeds of the square. Nothing unusual showed up yet, but cold sweat trickled down his back.
Hiding behind the King Sejong statue, Hae-jun steadied his breathing and whispered into his radio, "Almost midnight. Stay sharp."
The silence was suffocating. Then, just before the clock struck twelve, Hae-jun spotted something. In the center of the plaza, at the base of the Admiral Yi Sun-sin statue, a thin wisp of smoke began to rise. At first he thought it was just normal fog, but it quickly took on a red hue and thickened rapidly. A red mist, tinged with the reek of blood, crept around the statue. Hae-jun's breath caught in his throat.
He whispered into his radio, "Mist… focus on the center."
In the blink of an eye, the crimson fog engulfed the square. At the same time, the CCTV screens in Park's van were swallowed by red static. "Monitors are down—every camera!" Park's panicked voice crackled over the radio.
Hae-jun gritted his teeth. No more waiting. "All units, move to the center!" he ordered.
At his command, the detectives emerged from all sides like shadows converging on the statue. The mist grew denser, staining the air red, and even their flashlight beams wavered and grew faint. Circling the statue, they scanned the area carefully.
They soon spotted a strange circular pattern on the ground—and at its center, an open manhole. Red mist was curling up from the black hole below, like a cold breath from the depths.
Hae-jun shone his light down the manhole. "It's flowing in here. We're going down," he said.
He grabbed the ladder and climbed down without hesitation. Choi Do-yoon and Yun Tae-sik followed close behind.
Below, the old sewer tunnel was deathly silent, like a passage long out of use. The air was damp and thick with a moldy odor, making it even more eerie.
A low, blurry whisper echoed from somewhere in the darkness: "...it's... heeere..."
Startled by the disembodied voice, Hae-jun spun around. But the red fog was so dense he couldn't even see his teammates beside him. His earpiece hissed with static—communications were completely dead.
Eerie laughter echoed from all around in the haze. Yun Tae-sik froze as he felt something behind him. He swung his flashlight around, but saw only shadows flitting beyond the crimson veil.
The next instant, a long arm of red mist lunged out and slammed into his chest. "Ugh!" Yun cried as he was knocked to the ground. A burst of pain—like a cracked rib—sent his vision spinning.
"What the—?!" shouted Choi, and he opened fire in that direction. But his bullets passed through the mist, hitting nothing. "It's not working...!" he yelled, his voice edged with panic.
A piercing scream rang out from deeper in the fog—it was Park Jae-min. He had locked eyes with something, and in the next moment a horrific hallucination overwhelmed him, dropping him to his knees. In a flash, the floor and walls around him were lined with rows of blood-red eyes. "Aaaah!"
The ear-splitting scream told Hae-jun that things had taken a dire turn. He immediately snatched the disk-shaped sonic device from his belt and flipped it on. A split second later, an eardrum-piercing high-frequency noise flooded the underground.
EEEEEEEEE—!
Amid the shrill screech, an inhuman howl erupted from within the red mist—a furious, otherworldly wail that clearly didn't come from a human throat. In the roiling crimson haze, Hae-jun saw a shadowy red form recoil.
"Now! Flash rounds—fire!" he shouted.
On cue, he and Choi Do-yoon pulled their triggers. Gunshots cracked, and with each shot a blinding white flash lit up the darkness. The special rounds, trailing white sparks, punched into the faint silhouette writhing in the mist.
A hideous shriek resounded as the mist churned violently. In that chaos, a huge crimson humanoid shape briefly came into view. Its limbs were stretched to unnatural lengths, and where the shots hit, pieces of its body tore off and scattered like vapor. It was clearly wounded.
But the Specter wasn't finished. With a shrill howl of rage, it scuttled up the tunnel wall and in the blink of an eye shot up to the ceiling. Its form twisted like a black shadow, flinging red mist outward like giant wings.
At the same moment, all the flashlights went out, leaving the space in pitch-black chaos and red fog. Hae-jun panted, turning in circles, but he couldn't see a thing in the darkness.
"Yun! Choi!" he shouted into the void. No answer—everyone had been scattered.
All he could hear was his own ragged breathing and the pounding of his heart. Hae-jun gritted his teeth. I can't let it get away...
He gripped his gun in both hands and took a step forward.
An icy red force swept over his back. A massive misty hand materialized out of the darkness and slammed him to the ground. He managed a strangled grunt as he hit the concrete, his pistol skittering away. A white flash exploded before his eyes, and his consciousness began to fade.
Moments later, Hae-jun's body went limp in the swirling red fog. Through the static in his earpiece, he could hear the faint, frantic voices of his teammates.
"Detective Jeong! Please respond! ...Detective Jeong—!"
But that plea, too, dissolved into static. In the darkness beneath Gwanghwamun Square, nothing remained but the pulsating red mist and a suffocating silence.