How to Survive the Horror Novel I Wrote
Chapter 8
I reflexively picked up my phone. I had to call Ugeum back. I’d rather end up in the emergency room myself than let someone else be sent to the morgue.
Yet when I went to dial, I realized I didn’t know Ugeum’s number.
Ugeum knew my number. That bastard even knew the passcode to my front door. Just what did I know about Ugeum? Anything at all?
Amid the overwhelming wave of self-loathing, I suddenly remembered talking to him on the phone. Hadn’t I answered his call at Jung-an’s place?
I immediately searched through my call history and found Ugeum’s number. But.
- The subscriber’s phone is turned off…
My breath caught in my throat. A dark wave of frustration swept over me, blinding me for a moment.
No. I have this.
Biting my lower lip, I tapped on the Cursed Keyboard.
[Ugeum turned on his phone.]
Yet no sooner had I typed it than it was erased.
This time, I knew why it disappeared. Because Ugeum always turned off his phone when he was on the hunt. Because of the setting I had created. Wouldn’t it ruin everything if his phone rang while he was on his way to kill someone?
Calling was out of the question. I had to find another way.
[Ugeum turned the car around and headed back to Ji-an’s house.]
Come back, Ju Ugeum. Come back.
The cursor moved backward, deleting the sentence I had written.
[As he drove, his restlessness subsided. Ugeum turned the car around and headed home.]
The cursor moved back again.
No matter what I wrote, it was useless. Every time, the cursor backstepped, swallowing every sentence I wrote like Pac-Man. The plot where Ugeum went to kill his prey had already been set in stone.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the Cursed Keyboard and my laptop. I couldn’t just stand by and let someone die because of me.
As I headed out and tried to hail a taxi, my hand froze over the destination box.
How the hell was I supposed to know where that bastard was going?
Irritated, I slumped down in the entryway, turned on my laptop, and plugged in the keyboard.
[Ugeum habitually recalled his destination.]
Spill it right now, Ju Ugeum. Where are you going?
[‘-dong *-2.’]
I immediately entered the destination.
The moment I got out of the taxi and stepped into the alley, a cold drop of water hit my cheek. Rain. As if things weren’t bad enough, it just had to pour now of all times.
My mood instantly plummeted. I hated rainy days, and they frightened me.
Ugeum’s destination was a building scheduled for demolition, locked up tight without a gap. There was no one around.
Clutching my phone, I wandered the dark back alleys searching for Ugeum.
Where on earth are you, Ju Ugeum? You haven’t killed him already, have you…?
Just then, through the sound of the rain, I heard a suffocating gasp. A sudden chill swept through my arms, raising goosebumps all over my skin.
I was scared to death. But the thought that someone would die if I didn’t go was even more terrifying.
I ran madly toward the sound.
As soon as I rounded the corner, I saw two men tangled together under a dim streetlight.
An assailant, face concealed by a black cap and a black mask, was strangling a man from behind with a thin cord.
The sound I had heard was the breath leaking from the mouth of the man whose eyes had rolled back.
White plastic bags, seemingly filled with drugs, lay scattered in disarray at their feet.
It was Ugeum.
I knew intuitively. Because Ugeum’s prey this time was a drug dealer.
I had no idea when he had changed, but wearing a black leather jacket instead of the suit jacket he had on earlier, Ugeum turned his head and looked at me.
Our eyes locked.
“Guhk!”
In the next instant, the man gasped for air, shook Ugeum off forcefully, and turned around to strike him across the face.
Smack!
It happened in the blink of an eye. Leaving Ugeum collapsed on the ground, the man charged straight at me. A face distorted like a demon’s lunged right before my eyes. A scream tore from my throat.
“Aah!”
Without realizing it, I raised both arms to shield my face. A savage force snatched the phone from my hands. I turned back toward the man on reflex.
“Call the cops and you’re dead.”
Spitting the vicious warning, the man fled back down the path I had come from.
The strength drained from my legs. I collapsed onto the wet ground.
“My phone…”
As I stared dazedly down the alley where the man had vanished and muttered, Ugeum, arriving a step too late, hesitated before me. Yet I wasn’t afraid.
It was ridiculous. This bastard was the serial killer, the one who had just tried to strangle someone to death, and yet even after witnessing it, I wasn’t afraid of him.
Ugeum brushed past me and vanished down the path the man had taken. He went to kill him after all.
Stumbling to my feet, I chased after Ugeum.
I was bewildered. Chasing right after prey that had escaped wasn’t like Ugeum.
Prey fleeing was hardly an uncommon occurrence. Stories featuring Ugeum were horror novels written from the perspective of the prey—the narrator.
There were plenty of developments where Ugeum would reappear the moment they felt relieved thinking they had escaped, or where they’d be caught by him again. Because that was far more terrifying.
At the very least, I had never made Ugeum chase like a dog after prey that had slipped right through his fingers.
I had made him a schemer who watched leisurely, saying try and run if you can, before laying a new trap.
I couldn’t make any sense of it. Wasn’t this out of character? After being so obsessed with plausibility, it causes an OOC break for the main character?
Cursing the keyboard inwardly as I ran down the alley, the sound of a car engine starting followed by tires screeching against the asphalt tore through the rain and grated on my ears.
I hurriedly burst out of the alley.
I saw a car tearing down the empty avenue at breakneck speed. And Ugeum, clinging to the half-open driver’s door.
The driver was desperately trying to shake Ugeum off. Swerving wildly as it entered a bridge, the car screeched its brakes and smashed right through the guardrail, plummeting downward.
Crash!
I jumped, startled out of my skin. For a moment, it sounded as if my own heart had exploded. But soon, rapid, fierce beats thudded against my eardrums, signaling that my heart was still beating.
Rushing over to the bridge and peering down over the railing, I saw the car overturned in the thicket. Smoke billowed ominously from the hood.
Neither the man in the driver’s seat nor Ugeum, who had been clinging to the door, was in sight. It seemed impossible that either of them was alive.
Emergency services—I had to call 119, but I didn’t have my phone. It was because that man had stolen it. I couldn’t see any path leading down beneath the bridge, either.
What do I do? Should I check if they’re dead or alive? What if both of them are dead? What happens to me then?
While I was paralyzed with indecision, the wail of a police siren echoed from the distance.
A sudden panic gripped me. If I stayed here, I’d definitely be summoned as a witness. How on earth would I explain this to the police?
How could I excuse wandering around without an umbrella in the dead of night, in the pouring rain, nowhere near my home? And where would I even begin my witness testimony?
From when I saw Ugeum strangling his prey? What if they ask why I went there? Show them the novel typed by the keyboard? So they can treat me like a lunatic?
I turned around and fled the scene of the accident.
Returning home, I dried off my soaking-wet body and sat in front of the computer. I was exhausted to the bone, but I had to know whether the two men were alive or dead.
I should have read it right away. I even brought the laptop with me. But back then, I was too shocked and flustered.
I opened the cursed document.
[The person who burst out of the alley was Ji-an. Ugeum was stunned. Why was Ji-an, who should have been resting at home, here?
The moment the strength left the flustered Ugeum’s hands, the prey shook off the neck cord and swung a fist at him.
When Ugeum picked himself up from the ground, the prey was already disappearing around the corner.
He had lost his prey, and his hunt had been witnessed. He should leave for tonight.
Yet before doing so, he wanted to ask Ji-an.
Why she came here. How she came here. What she knew when she came.
However, he couldn’t even acknowledge her. He couldn’t let her discover his true identity.
Just as Ugeum was about to walk past Ji-an, sitting in the rain, she muttered with a dazed expression.
“My phone…”
Ugeum’s gaze fixed on her empty hands. The phone that had been clutched in her hand just moments ago was nowhere to be seen.
Ugeum realized immediately. That the prey had stolen Ji-an’s phone as he fled.
The reason was obvious. Because Ji-an had seen the bags of drugs he spilled.
He must intend to track down Ji-an’s identity after losing Ugeum and eliminate the witness. Who was going to let that happen?
A cold, blue flame flared in Ugeum’s eyes.
‘I will kill him tonight, without fail.’
Ugeum sprinted through the rainy darkness in pursuit of the bastard.
The moment he broke out of the alley, he saw the man getting into a car parked along the main road.
“Eek!”
Spotting Ugeum, the prey shuddered in terror and started the engine. When Ugeum lunged forward and yanked open the driver’s door, the car surged forward, throwing the door wide.
Clinging to the half-open door, Ugeum reached toward the bastard.
“Aaargh! Get off! Get off, you crazy bastard!”
The bastard screamed, wildly jerking the steering wheel.
As the car swerved across the road, the door Ugeum clung to swung violently open and shut, but Ugeum’s eyes remained unshakeably fixed on Ji-an’s phone jutting out of the man’s jacket pocket.
Her phone brushed Ugeum’s fingertips, teasingly out of reach. Then, the moment he finally snatched the phone, the screech of brakes tore through his eardrums.
Suddenly, the world turned upside down. The night sky beneath his feet dragged Ugeum down at terrifying speed before hurling him into the earth.
Darkness engulfed him.]
That was the end. The rest was blank, and the keyboard moved no more.
And I…
I didn’t even know what I was feeling.
To think Ugeum had chased that man because of me. To protect me.
For some reason, it didn’t feel real. That he went to kill someone because of me, that he died because of it. That it was all because of me. Who was I to matter that much?
I wasn’t even his real girlfriend. You weren’t even a real human. Why was I feeling this way?
A man I had known for barely three days. At the same time, the man who had ruled over me twenty-four hours a day for the past three years.
Even as tears threatened to spill, I felt relieved. You died. I survived. Guilt and relief intertwined.
I bit my lower lip and pulled myself together. This was normal. Novel characters should only live and breathe inside novels.
I shut down the computer and went to bed. Lying down for the first time in two days, the bed felt softer and cozier than I remembered.
Crash!
The sound of something shattering woke me from my sleep. I bolted upright with a start. What was that? What was that noise?
I opened my eyes, but could see nothing. An abyss-like darkness engulfed my vision.
While my startled heart hammered against my eardrums like an emergency alarm, an irregular rhythm echoed over the darkness and silence.
Click. Clack-clack. Tap.
It was the sound of typing. Following the slow, rhythmic clatter of keys, it felt as though an invisible keyboard were crawling toward me.
I quickly slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the scream threatening to burst out. No way…
No. There’s no way. Slowly, I slipped out of bed, careful not to make the slightest sound.
Then I tiptoed to the bedroom door and pressed my ear against it. I listened intently, but heard nothing from outside.
Yet the typing sounds tapping at the back of my head pushed me forward. Clenching my fists tight, I stepped out into the living room.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, a shattered vase on the floor came into view. A thorny anxiety sprouted, pricking at my stomach.
Lie. No way. I saw it with my own eyes. I clearly read it. Swallowing dryly, I glanced around. There’s… nobody here, right?
Why did this damn vase have to fall all on its own and scare the living daylights out of me?
A sigh slipped out on its own. What an absurd bolt from the blue.
The moment I bent down and reached out to clear the shattered shards of the vase—
“Don’t touch it.”
A man’s voice cut in abruptly.
I flinched in shock. A sharp pain tore across my fingertip.
“Ouch.”
“I told you not to touch it…”
The voice chided in a sighing tone.
I straightened my back, trembling all over.
“W-W-Who are you?”
“It’s me.”
From the darkness, a gentleman in a black suit seeped smoothly into view. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
It was none other than Ugeum.
Ugeum, who had plunged off the bridge along with the car, was alive and completely unharmed.
I couldn’t believe it.
You died. The novel ended, and the keyboard stopped.
Yet how are you here? How…?
Am I dreaming right now?
Yet the typing sound drifting from the room jolted me back to reality.
It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t something so fragile.
It was an unbreakable reality.
“I’m sorry. It was dark in the house, so I didn’t see the vase. I’ll clean it up.”
Apologizing nonchalantly, Ugeum strode right up to me.
I froze on the spot. I wanted to run anywhere, yet there was nowhere to run.
Lifting my hand, Ugeum put my bleeding finger into his mouth and sucked on it. He looked just like a vampire.
A strange, thrilling pain dug into my fingertip and rippled down my spine.
“Ah…”
A gasp slipped from my lips unbidden.
The killer, who had been bowing his head to suck my index finger, glanced up at me with his eyes upturned and curved the corners of his lips.
The moment I saw that smile, a dizzying realization made my legs go weak.
One single fact I had overlooked.
The main character never dies.
