The lights above flickered.
No one spoke for a long time.
Only the sound of muffled breathing that was ragged and uneven filled the studio.
Seo Junki's body was still there.
The microphone he held lay bent beside his hand.
Someone had tried to scream earlier, but the voice never came out.
Now only Park Mina's shallow breaths broke the silence.
Yura sat on the floor beside Hyerim's body.
Her hands trembled and her lips quivered, silently mouthing something.
Mina crouched beside her.
"Yura…"
No response.
She tried again, louder this time.
"Yura! Listen, you have to get up."
Yura's eyes stared past her, glassy and unfocused.
Her entire body looked hollow, like the life inside her had already been siphoned away.
Mina placed her hands on her shoulders and shook her, the soft rustling of Yura's uniform sounding almost too loud in the dead air.
"Please, Yura...If we don't sing..."
She stopped mid-sentence, remembering what had happened to Junki.
Mina's stomach twisted.
She took a deep breath and looked back toward the empty stage.
"Please..."
She whispered.
"...we'll die if we don't sing."
"..."
But Yura didn't move.
Her breathing was shallow, like she was underwater.
"Damn it..."
Mina muttered.
She stood, calling out to the ceiling, to the air or anywhere the invisible voice might be hiding.
"Hey! Host!
Are you even listening?"
Mina's voice wavered.
"Can I...can I sing solo this time?
My partner's not… she's not okay.
You at least care about the contestants' health before singing, right?"
The silence stretched.
["That's enough for duets."]
The voice was calm and syrupy sweet.
["Harmony has enough dissapointmenys...and Harmony doesn't like disappointment."]
The lights shifted, one by one, humming back to life in dim pink hues.
["Next performance… single round."]
A sharp click followed, and then the timer appeared.
[03:00]
It began counting down.
A glassy chime rang from nowhere as a rectangular blue screen flickered into the air before Mina's face.
___________________________
[Song Selection]
→ Fever Dream – by LILITH
→ Lullaby for a Dying Star – by O.NI
____________________________
Mina stared at the options.
Her hand hesitated mid-air before tapping Fever Dream.
The moment she did, the lights around her dimmed to crimson.
The floor began to thrum under her feet...bass vibrations without music yet.
A thin microphone floated down from above, stopping right before her lips.
She grabbed the microphone.
Mina took a deep breath.
Her throat was dry but she began to sing.
Her voice cracked on the first word.
She winced but pushed on.
The tune was slow, haunting, echoing back at her like a lullaby sung by someone already dead.
"In this fever dream, I see your eyes…"
"Drifting under broken skies…"
Each word came out trembling, but the melody held together.
The air felt heavier with every note...and she startes to see things.
Her reflection appeared faintly on the floor tiles below her feet, shimmering like water—except her reflection wasn't singing.
It only stared back, lips closed.
She blinked, thinking it was the lights.
But then the air rippled.
The walls began to bend.
It was subtle at first...the corners of the stage curving, the LED panels warping like heat distortion.
The mic stand seemed to stretch.
The couches in the room looked like swirling liquid.
Her heartbeat quickened.
Sweat rolled down her neck.
Her knees wobbled.
"Tell me if I'm real… or just a lie you made to feel…"
The world began to blur.
It felt as though she was submerged underwater, sound muffled and distant.
The edges of her vision darkened.
The air thickened with humidity and a faint metallic taste, like blood diluted with salt.
Her eyes darted everywhere...from the stage, the ceiling, the ghostly reflections flickering across the walls.
Then she felt a touch.
Something cold brushed against her shoulder.
Then another, on her waist.
She froze mid-verse, the microphone trembling in her hand.
"Don't stop....
...don't stop singing."
She forced herself to keep going, though her voice cracked like shattering glass.
"E-Even if I fade away… promise me you'll—"
The rest caught in her throat.
She felt pressure against her chest, her arms, her legs...like invisible fingers dragging across her skin.
Then they pressed down becoming tight and possessive.
Her breath hitched.
Black smoke began to curl behind her, coiling upward like ink bleeding through water.
Within the smoke were arms which were long and thin, stretching around her.
They slithered over her shoulders, brushing her neck, tangling around her wrists.
Mina's entire body screamed to run, to flinch, to do anything that would triggee her fight or flight....but she couldn't.
She knew what would happen if she stopped.
She'd die like Junki.
She wasn't even sure if the others were seeing what she was seeing.
Mina looked at her coworkers...but they were all still looking at her.
'Was this a hallucination?'
Inside, her thoughts spun in panic.
"If I stop, I'm dead.
If I scream, I'm dead."
"Just keep singing Mina..."
"It's just like following company rules.."
She thought, deliriously.
"Keep smiling...keep performing.
Don't question anything Mina..."
She sang the next line.
"...dream of me… until I'm gone…"
The words dissolved into static as the surroundings twisted.
The smoke thickened.
The LED panels flickered in rhythm with her heartbeat.
Then another window appeared beside the viewer count.
[ ※Channel that watches people about Die is watching! ※]
Mina's voice faltered.
"What… what is that?"
She whispered, breaking from the song.
Her tone trembled and she looked around wildly.
Something had slid across her back.
A hand pushed its way inside her mouth.
Her eyes went wide.
She gagged, trying to scream, but the sound was swallowed.
Her voice muffled, garbled, breaking through tears and saliva.
She clawed at her neck, at her lips, but nothing came out except choking sounds.
Her reflection on the floor began to shimmer again...only this time, it smiled.
Then it rose.
The shape of her...another Mina stepped out of the reflection, dripping black sludge.
Its head was tilted too far to the side, almost horizontal, and its mouth stretched from ear to ear.
The eyes were nothing but hollow holes.
"Sing~"
It whispered.
Mina fell backward, her mic clattering against the floor.
The thing that looked like her crawled closer, limbs bending backward, joints cracking like broken glass.
It smiled wider.
"Sing for them Mina~"
It said, voice layered with static.
The smell of rot hit her nose.
The air itself seemed alive.
The reflection-Mina tilted its head further, bones crunching audibly.
"Don't stop, Mina.
Harmony hates silence."
That broke her.
She scrambled up and bolted toward the silenc
The studio door stood slightly ajar.
For the first time since entering this nightmare, it was open.
She sprinted toward it, bare feet slapping the tiles.
Her lungs burned.
The walls warped as she ran, stretching and shrinking, whispering faint words that made no sense.
Behind her, the host voice said softly, almost like a lullaby:
["No stage frights."]
Her hand touched the door knob.
The moment she did, every screen lit up at once.
[Voting in Progress]
A graph appeared midair.
[Upvotes: 9,867]
███████████████████████████
[Downvotes:2]
█
The upvotes pulsed larger, flashing brighProgress
The audience...had chosen.
Mina turned around just as the red timer hit [00:00].
Everything in the karaoke room went back to normal.
For one single, frozen heartbeat, everything went silent.
Then her head exploded.
A wet pop echoed through the hall.
Her body dropped to its knees before collapsing entirely.
The door slammed shut on its own with a metallic clang.
Blood sprayed across the floor, forming dark, messy streaks that glimmered under the crimson lights.
The host's voice returned, smooth and unfazed.
["No leaving until your performance is done."]
["Let's wow the viewers!"]
The lights pulsed cheerfully, bathing the room in pink again as if nothing had happened.
The timer reset.
[Next Performance Begins In: 03:00]
Then the sound of people laughing filled thenplace.
They clapped.
And clapped.
And clapped.
---
[※ Kim Namgyeong's POV ※]
It all happened too fast.
Junki… then Mina.
Two of my coworkers were gone, just like that.
Everything that had happened so far looked liked something I had seen...it was moreso like an imagination buy strangely familiar.
Then a thought resurfaced of something I had read from a somewhay comment section.
__________________________________
["If you head for the door, it's pointless and you'll die...common sense really..."]
__________________________________
It was exactly as Mina had done.
"This is a...ghost story..."
How could I have not seen it...it was literally infront of my eyes...
But I guess my nature of being ignorant never really saw the possibility of such a thing happening.
Was any of this real?
I wanted to press my palms into my eyes and wake up, to find the smell of sangchu and soju and the garish instead of this hung-over nightmare.
I wished I was still asleep, that this was a fever dream stitched together from all the late nights I'd spent on those sites.
But the blood on the carpet, the wet print where Junki had fthose.
This all too real.
Oh, how I hoped it was just a dream.
The story's name kept trying to surface in my head.
'The Girl Who Sang Alone.'
I'd read it on that urban legend forum...CWiki years ago... fingers scrolling at three in the morning when insomnia was my only companion.
I could almost see the page layout.
User posts, anonymous warnings, bad formatting, one too-many typos...comments and the community forum .
I'd read it and laughed then told myself I'd outgrown it...until sleepless nights would drag me back, until I had a job and late hours and the same restless clicking.
When I got the job here, I told myself I would stop.
I was a working man now... there was no place for midnight story scrolling.
But insomnia didn't care about rational decisions.
It pulled me back to the same threads and same comments.
I read them like others read news.
I read them until the office lights came on and I'd drag myself to work on autopilot.
I thought I could quit the habit.
I thought once I had a paycheck I'd sleep better.
But I was wrong.
I tried to pull the old story into focus.
The number...did it have one?
I wanted to remember the story number, the exact title.
I knew I'd read it long ago, long before I ever sat in this office's fluorescent light.
I should have known the details.
I looked at the interface on my phone showing the rules and saw the ghost story number and name...but still nothing.
Was this really the story's title?
Ghost stories were like games.
They always had hidden mechanics and ways to survive them.
Sometimes it was simple.
Follow the rules, and you live.
Even if we followed the rules and played along, we might all still die here.
The host said only five people could leave.
Two were already gone.
That left three of us.
I rubbed my temples, trying to remember the details.
I remembered scrolling through the comments back then.
There were a few that stuck with me.
["Bro I read this at 3AM and my karaoke app started glitching out...
Never again!"]
["Creepy but fake everyone knows ghosts don't kill you for singing badly lmao :D"]
["The rules are so weird though… like why mention duets? There must be a trick"]
["If you see the timer, just pray pfftt!"]
["I tried following the rules in my dream and still died.... 1/10 story writing"]
["This is fake someone in my dorm tried it and nothing happened stop being dramatic"]
Those were all I could get myself to remember...being one of the first stories I ever read I'd mostly forgotten about it.
But there was no thought of a single one of them mentioned how to clear it well.
I rubbed my forehead until the skin stung.
I needed to line up what I knew and force a picture to appear
"I really need to gather my thoughts all in one…"
I muttered under my breath.
'Wait...
...Mina asked for her to sing alone… and the host complied.'
That was when it changed from duet to solo.
"Should I do it too?"
'Should I call out to the voice and beg for some mercy or for the one small advantage we needed?'
I felt ridiculous even thinking it.
I could probably maybe find a way out by bending the rules and not breaking them.
Instead, I said something else...something small and practical that my rational mind clung to like a life preserver.
"Host..."
I called, trying to keep my voice steady.
"I really need to visit the bathroom..."
I said the words while looking at it.
'..if we were allowed to go to the bathroom, it meant there was still some human decency left in whatever governed this place.'
"If you want me to perform well..."
I said, trying to sound calm.
"...you should at least let me relieve myself, right?"
The room held its breath.
Everyone's eyes turned to me.
I felt absurd under their stares.
They probably thought I had lost it.
I must have looked like I was bargaining, like I was treating my life as a trivial errand.
---
For a moment, there was only silence.
The voice came back, all tinsel and syrup and teeth.
["You shall be granted access for four minutes~" ]
["If the interval ends and you are not out, you shall be escorted off stage~]
[Remember ...Stage fright will not be tolerated~"]
I didn't wait for anyone to say anything.
I walked to the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind me.
The lock clicked.
---
I leaned against the sink, breathing heavily.
My reflection in the small mirror above it looked sickly pale.
My hair was a mess and sweat dripped down my temple.
I pushed my hair back and started pacing in the small enclosure.
"Think, Namgyeong… think."
My hands were shaking as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
The screen turned on.
It was still working.
The same interface still there with the same story header.
The ghost story was active on my screen.
I pressed the home button.
The screen shifted back to the main page, but all my apps were greyed out.
I tapped on one...nothing.
Messages...nothing.
Gallery...empty.
Music...empty.
I opened internal storage.
"I-its...blank."
Like a freshly wiped device.
I laughed under my breath.
"Of course...Why would anything work here?"
Still, I couldn't stop checking.
I went to Contacts.
My stomach dropped.
Only names listed were those of my coworkers.
There were no family contacts, no friends and no one else
My breathing grew shallow.
"If only I had access to the old ghost stories I saved…"
I whispered.
I knew I had them.
Back in the day, I downloaded every creepy story I could find.
I even saved the first few I ever read.
If I could just open them and find the current one were are in.
But there was no internet nor data.
I pressed my hands against the sink, trying to steady my thoughts.
"The Girl Who Sings Alone…"
That title kept ringing in my ears.
What was it about?
I tried to reconstruct the story piece by piece.
It was about a ghost idol, right?
An idol who died mid-performance after being forced to sing alone on stage.
The rules were simple.
1. Don't refuse to sing.
2. Don't stop before the timer ends.
3. Sing well all together
"But the ending… there was something more..."
Somewhere in the comments, I remembered reading...
["If the ghost is an idol, maybe she wants to be heard again?"]
Wait…
That was my own comment.
Back then, I'd written...
["sure you can follow the rules...but if the ghost is an idol then she has to have her own songs, right? shouldn't you sing her songs to get out?"]
Why had I typed that? Because that was my logic then.
What if the secret wasn't just obeying the visible rules?
What if the secret was obedience with specificity...
...singing songs that belonged to the ghost?
If Harmony was an idol, if she had a repertoire, then offering her voice the right songs might be the ransom to get out.
That was it.
That was the clear condition.
The way to survive this ghost story.
"Sing her songs..."
I muttered it under my breath, the words tasting bitter in my mouth.
"
But… what were her songs?
I turned to the small mirror above the sink, trying to steady my eyes on my own face.
For a moment I saw only dark circles and a face worn thin.
Then, behind me in the mirror I caught sight of the corner of paper, a poster's sliver, the curl of ink.
I spun, breath catching, and the bathroom's small light caught the poster on the back wall through the frosted door.
It was a promotional image of a girl with an earpiece, hand extended forward and her mouth open.
The poster was damp around the edges and the ink looked like it had run slightly.
And beside her, written vertically in fading letters there were words forming sentences.
That was it.
The wired-up thought I had flung into the old forum and forgotten had looped back around into the only clue I had now.
Give her the songs she'd written into the air when she was still able to perform and maybe she'd let us go.
I pressed my palm flat against the poster like some kind of bargain, letting the damp paper cool my skin.
The letters blurred under my touch, but the sentence kept its shape.
My throat moved around a laugh that felt like a cough.
The moment I did, the lights flickered, and the voice of the host returned, cutting through the silence.
["Contestant Kim Namgyeong, your four minutes are over~"]