I nearly jumped out of my skin. At some point, a hazy silhouette of a middle-aged man had appeared in our back seat. As I whipped around in shock, the red mist that had blanketed the area slowly receded, and the figure came into sharp focus. It was Fog, lounging there with a familiar mischievous grin tugging at his lips.
Fog chuckled and spoke in a low drawl. "Detective fella, time's sure tickin' fast for ya, ain't it?"
My heart lurched. I stared at him, thunderstruck. "What… how do you know about—" I began, my voice caught between surprise and alarm.
Fog merely shrugged, cutting me off. "What'd that doc say earlier… said ya got two days left, wasn't it?" he said lightly. There was an infuriating glint in his eye.
"Two days… that's awful short, ain't it? To catch that bastard, I mean." Fog smirked as if he already knew exactly what was going on, his tone oozing with mock innocence.
I gaped at him, a dozen questions tangled on my tongue. How could he possibly know about the doctor's warning? Fog just flashed me a sly smile, as though the answer were obvious.
"Mind my advice now, Detective," he continued, drawing out each word. "If ya don't hunt him down in two days… somethin' downright horrific's gonna happen." He leaned forward, fixing me with a stare that made my blood run cold.
His eyes locked onto mine as he delivered one last, cryptic warning: "That pendant's door ain't gonna stay open for long, y'hear."
In the next instant, Fog's form began to fade, dissolving into the crimson mist. In the blink of an eye, he vanished completely, as if he'd never been there at all. The back seat was empty once more, silence closing in around me. From somewhere in the darkness outside, his disembodied voice drifted to us in a sing-song whisper, "Time sure flies by, don't it—" The unsettling lilt of it lingered, a mocking echo hanging in the air long after he disappeared.
Yun Tae-sik let out the breath he'd been holding. With a trembling hand, he wiped the cold sweat from his brow, his eyes darting about nervously. "I-is… is he gone…?" he stammered, face pale and voice shaking. Realizing Fog had truly left, Yun inhaled deeply, trying to steady himself. I could see his hands quivering on the steering wheel. He was terrified—anyone would be after witnessing that—but there was a new hardness in the set of his jaw now. There was no backing down anymore. In Yun's eyes, I saw the resolve to see this through alongside me, no matter what.
Jaw clenched, I turned back to face the front. My heart was pounding, adrenaline and fury coursing through my veins, but above all, a fierce determination blazed within me. Enough.
"Alright. Let's see this through to the end," I muttered under my breath, the words low and firm. My hands were steady as I gripped the star pendant in my palm once more. No more victims… I'll find that bastard. I swear I will.
With that vow, I exhaled hard and jammed the key into the ignition. The engine roared to life, its growl shattering the silence of the night. In the darkness of that parking lot, our hearts blazed with resolve to end the crimson fog's reign of terror once and for all. Time was running out. But in our eyes burned the fire of determination—we would fight with everything we had in the next 48 hours, and we would win. Beyond the darkness ahead, the final battle with the Specter awaited, and we were ready to charge forward at full throttle.
* * *
Late that night, a narrow alley near an abandoned building in Seoul's Gangbuk District 13 lay in eerie silence. The weak glow of a lone streetlamp flickered fitfully, half-swallowed by the lingering red mist. Each time the light trembled, shadows danced at the edges of the alley, as if something unseen were lurking just beyond sight.
I held my breath as I pressed myself into the darkness, hiding in the mouth of a shadowy alcove. My heart thudded against my ribs. At any moment, that something could appear—the thing we'd been waiting for. My palms were clammy with cold sweat as I tightened my grip on my flashlight, every muscle in my body tensed in anticipation.
Beside me were Detective Yun Tae-sik and Detective Choi Do-yoon, the latter having been assigned to our team as backup earlier that day. Both men scanned the alley with tense, grim expressions. Yun swallowed hard and clenched his pistol in a white-knuckled grip. Choi, his face slightly pale under the reddish hue of the fog, cast a razor-sharp gaze over our surroundings. Despite being younger than me, Choi was known for his cool-headed, taciturn demeanor, and I caught a glimpse of the faint scar that cut across his left jaw beneath his short-cropped black hair.
In a low, measured voice, Choi murmured to Yun, "Stay calm. At this point, we shouldn't be surprised if anything happens." His warning was quiet but carried a certain weight. Though Choi spoke softly, the gravity in his tone only deepened the oppressive stillness of the alley.
Yun gave a tight nod and adjusted his grip on his gun, forcing down his nerves. I stayed silent, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. In my mind, Fog's warning from earlier kept echoing over and over: Only two days left… The door that pendant opens won't stay open for long. A chill prickled down my spine. If we were going to prevent any more bloodshed, we had to find a lead tonight.
The red mist clung to the alley like a living veil, thick and unforgiving, as if devouring time itself. I stole a quick glance at my wristwatch. Just past midnight. This was the hour when it always happened.
All the disappearance cases we'd investigated so far shared the same pattern. It was always late at night, in some fog-choked alley or beside an old abandoned building, that someone would vanish. No one — not even those right next to the victims — ever saw exactly how it happened. All they could say was that "something" snatched the person away in the blink of an eye. It had occurred right in front of their faces, yet not one witness could clearly recall what the Specter looked like.
This alley was no exception; a few people had gone missing here in recent weeks. There was no doubt now that this red mist… it was no natural fog. This fog… it's not just some weather phenomenon. I grit my teeth, gripping my flashlight a little tighter.
"...It's coming," came a hushed voice from directly behind me.
I stiffened at the sound of that uncanny whisper. Turning my head, I realized Fog had appeared once again, as soundless as a ghost. He now stood just off to my side in the darkness, in the familiar shape of that scruffy middle-aged man with one hand tucked in his pocket. His eyes glimmered with faint amusement, as if he were privy to some secret.
Yun flinched at Fog's sudden reappearance, but he quickly bit down his reaction and kept his eyes trained forward, pretending not to notice. Choi, on the other hand, reacted instinctively. In one swift motion, he drew his gun and leveled it at Fog, his posture rigid and eyes narrowed in deadly focus.
"Who—?!" Choi hissed under his breath, starting to demand an ID. I immediately reached over and pressed down on Choi's arm, urging him to lower his weapon.
"It's okay, Detective Choi," I whispered quickly. "He's… one of ours." My voice was calm but strained with tension.
Choi shot me a startled look, but Yun hurried to back me up with a quiet explanation. "Don't worry. He's not an enemy. That… that's Fog," Yun murmured. "We're not exactly sure what he is, but so far he's been helping us out."
Choi's eyes flicked back to Fog, still filled with distrust. Fog simply gave Choi a crooked, easygoing grin. After a long moment, Choi grudgingly lowered his gun, though his stance remained defensive. "Understood… For now," he muttered, as if to say he'd accept Fog's presence but wasn't thrilled about it. Given the circumstances, we didn't have the luxury to be choosy with allies.
I turned my attention back to Fog, keeping my voice low. "You can tell it's coming?" I asked in a tense whisper. "You see something we don't?"
Fog lifted an eyebrow and let a smirk curl his lips. "What ya see right in front of ya ain't everything, Detective," he murmured cryptically.
Before I could ask what he meant, a sudden Fzzzt! split the silence. The streetlamp above us gave a harsh electrical crackle and abruptly died, plunging the alley into complete darkness. At the very same moment, the red mist around us surged, beginning to roil and twist as if caught in an invisible vortex.
I felt my breath catch in my throat as I watched the crimson fog seethe and churn. Beyond the dim outline of the alley, somewhere past that wall of mist, something was stirring. At first, I thought it might be just another shifting shadow. But then it moved.
A tall, black shape swayed on the far end of the alley, barely discernible through the haze. At first glance, it could have been mistaken for a person's shadow, but as it inched closer, it became clear that it was anything but human. As the shape grew more distinct, an involuntary shudder ran up my spine.
From within the swirling fog emerged a figure impossibly tall and impossibly thin, its limbs elongated and spidery. Its outline jerked in unnatural angles, as if some thing were clumsily imitating a human's shape and posture. The body was indistinct, half fused with the crimson haze that wrapped around it, making the creature's edges ripple and blur as it moved.
I squinted, trying to make out a face, but there was none — at least nothing I could call a human face. Where a face should have been, I saw only a darkness in which two points of dim, hellish red light glowed and pulsed. As the creature slithered another step forward, I caught sight of its mouth: a gash-like slash that stretched nearly from one side of its head to the other, curled into a chilling, distorted grin.
It was an abomination, a living nightmare given form. It was the Specter.
The instant the Specter's presence fully manifested, the temperature around us plummeted. I could see Yun's breath plume out in a white puff beside me, and I realized mine was the same — each exhale escaping as a wisp of white vapor. A frigid chill, like the deepest winter cold, gnawed through my coat and sank into my skin.
At almost that exact moment, from the far end of the alley, we heard the scuff of footsteps approaching. Slow, heavy footsteps echoed against the alley walls — the weary gait of someone completely unaware of the horror awaiting him.
A middle-aged man came into view at the mouth of the alley. He looked like an office worker heading home after a late shift, shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He was alone. As he turned into our alley, he was focused on the glow of the phone in his hand, his attention absorbed in the screen. He didn't seem to notice the eerie red mist coiling around the street, nor did he notice us hidden in the shadows.
My eyes widened in alarm. The poor guy was walking straight into the Specter's path without the slightest clue. That man…!
I tensed, starting to rise from my cover instinctively, intent on warning him — or grabbing him, anything to pull him back. But before I could move, Fog's hand clamped down on my elbow.
"Wait," Fog breathed, barely audible.
I froze, teeth grinding in frustration. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to leap out and snatch the man to safety, but Fog's grip held me in place. He gave a slight shake of his head. Through the darkness, I saw his eyes fixed ahead, as if to say: Watch.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I realized with dread what we were about to witness.
The Specter's shadowy form was gliding closer to the oblivious man, closing the distance with agonizing slowness. It moved without a sound, as if it floated just above the ground. The man remained completely unaware; only a few more steps, and the Specter would be upon him.
I couldn't breathe. I watched, stomach twisted in knots, as the man took another casual step forward, phone in hand. The red mist thickened around him, concealing the monster that loomed just an arm's length away. He still hadn't noticed a thing.
"Uwaaah—!" A sudden shriek tore through the silence. It was short, cut off almost as soon as it began, but it rang out sharp and clear.
A brief, heart-stopping moment of chaos exploded before my eyes.
In a single, lightning-fast motion, the Specter lunged out from the haze and fell upon the man. An unnaturally long arm lashed forward, its spindly fingers clamping over the man's mouth to stifle any further scream. With a hideous strength, the Specter's other limb coiled around the man's waist like a constricting snake.
Thud! The man's phone hit the pavement with a dull smack, torn from his grasp. It spun wildly on the concrete, the screen casting dizzying flashes of light against the alley walls. In one of those fleeting flashes, I caught a glimpse of the creature's visage up close as it grappled with its prey.
It was… grotesque. Horrifying. In that sliver of light, the Specter's face — if it could be called a face — appeared for an instant. Its features were a ghastly parody of a human's. That slit of a mouth was stretched into a wide, gruesome grin, and where its eyes should have been, twin pits of smoldering crimson glared with alien malice. Its body flickered in and out of view, part flesh and part mist, as if the fog itself was alive and devouring the man.
Then both the creature and the man were swallowed by the red mist. The Specter yanked its victim backward with a jolting force, dragging him into the swirling crimson veil. The man's legs kicked desperately in midair for just a moment — and then they, too, vanished into the fog.
The alley fell silent once more. Apart from that single, muffled scream, the man hadn't even had time to make a sound. In the span of a heartbeat, he was gone. All that remained was the churning red mist where his body had been and the faint glow of his fallen phone on the ground.
"Stop!" Yun Tae-sik shouted, his voice ripping out of his throat in a mix of panic and fury. As if on cue, the three of us burst from our hiding spot at once, rushing toward the spot where the Specter had disappeared with its victim.
My blood was boiling with equal parts rage and horror at what I'd just seen, but I fought to keep my head clear. We couldn't afford to lose our cool now. Gun drawn and held ready, I plunged into the thick fog after the creature, scanning frantically in every direction. The crimson haze was already beginning to thin and drift apart, as if mocking us with the emptiness it left behind.
"Where did it go…?" I muttered under my breath, squinting into the darkness. My heart was still hammering, shock threatening to override my training.
Choi Do-yoon was beside me, breathing hard as his eyes swept the area. Yun caught up on my other side, and together we converged on the last spot we'd seen the man.
Nothing. The man was gone without a trace.
All we found was his phone, lying screen-up on the pavement where it had fallen. Its screen was still lit, eerily bright in the dark alley. The three of us gathered around it, and I bent down to pick it up. The device felt warm in my hand.
On the phone's illuminated screen was an open messaging app. A half-typed text message was still visible, the conversation window indicating the man had been in the middle of chatting with someone. I stared at the cheerful avatar of the unknown recipient and the snippet of the last message received, my hands beginning to tremble.
A sudden, painful thought struck me: Was he on his way to reach out to his family? Perhaps he'd been messaging a loved one—maybe someone waiting for him at home, or a friend, or a sibling. If so, that person would be expecting a reply right about now… a reply that would never come.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. My teeth ground together. A hot mix of fury and helplessness welled up inside, rising to choke the back of my throat. Another innocent life, snuffed out in an instant—and there wasn't a damned thing I could do in that moment to stop it.
Bang! A sudden metallic crash rang out from somewhere deep in the alley, snapping us all out of our daze. We whipped toward the source of the noise. It sounded like a heavy door slamming shut, the sound echoing off the alley walls.
My pulse spiked. The noise had come from further down, in the direction the Specter had fled.
"Over there!" Choi shouted, already sprinting toward a narrow side passage at the end of the alley. Yun and I bolted after him without hesitation.
We tore through the darkness, racing down a short, slick passage that branched off the alley. At the very end stood an old, rusted metal door set into the ground. We skidded to a halt in front of it, gasping for breath. The door was heavily corroded, stained red with years of rust, and a battered NO ENTRY sign was bolted crookedly at eye level.
Choi immediately grabbed the handle and heaved. The door rattled but didn't budge an inch—it was locked tight from the inside. "Damn it… open up!" he snarled, throwing his shoulder against it in frustration. Bang! Bang! He slammed the door repeatedly with his shoulder, each impact echoing into the darkness. Still, the iron door refused to give.
Yun lunged forward and seized Choi by the arm. "Stop! Take it easy," he urged, pulling the younger detective back before he hurt himself. "If we rush in blindly… that thing could take us out, too." Yun's voice was rough and breathless, and I could see the perspiration on his brow. He was as shaken and angry as any of us, but he was right—we had to be smart. Charging in headlong could get us killed.
Choi cursed under his breath, but he relented, stepping back from the stubborn door. My heart was still in my throat as I pulled a small flashlight from my pocket. Stepping forward, I pressed my face close to the door's edge and shone the beam through a narrow gap between the door and the frame.
Beyond the threshold, only darkness greeted me. A set of concrete stairs led down into what looked like a deep underground space beneath the abandoned building. The air that seeped out was foul and stagnant, thick with the stench of rot and mold. As I inhaled, a cold, damp breath of air wafted over my skin, raising goosebumps on my arms.
All of a sudden, a thin wisp of red mist drifted out through the crack around the door, curling in the air like a beckoning finger. My eyes narrowed. My gut was screaming what I already knew: It's in there.
Somewhere beyond this door—in that darkness below—was the middle-aged man who had just been snatched. And if my hunch was correct…
Could the other missing victims be in there as well?
The possibility struck me like a bucket of ice water. The thought that every person who had vanished in the red mist—every soul we hadn't been able to save—might be lying beyond that door sent a frigid chill drilling through my chest. In that moment, faced with the darkness hiding beneath the city, I felt a cold weight of dread settle over me like never before. And I knew our night was far from over.