hitchhiked across Korea with no money and ended up somewhere i never should've gone

okay I wasn't gonna post this but. I need someone to know this actually happened.

still get nightmares about it sometimes. like i'll wake up at 3am and it's just. there.

this was my freshman year of college, winter break. so like 10 years ago now. everyone around me was doing the whole europe backpacking thing, eurail pass, instagram-worthy cathedrals, whatever. but i wanted to actually KNOW my own country first. all of it. so me and two friends from my department just. left. no plan. three dudes with 50,000 won each (~$37) and the idea that we'd just "pick up odd jobs" along the way if we ran out.

(spoiler: we ran out)

the first few days were honestly fun. we were riding intercity buses everywhere, had a whole schedule mapped out using a physical bus timetable book, hitching rides when we needed to. living that old-school wanderer fantasy. but after about a week and a half we were completely broke and genuinely looked like homeless people.

turns out nobody wants to hire three random college kids who'll only work one or two days and then disappear. especially in winter when there's zero farm work anyway. idk what we were thinking.

the ONE job we managed to get was preparing a corpse for burial. embalming-adjacent stuff. paid surprisingly well for a day's work! and then we spent every single won of it on soju that night trying to forget what we'd just done.

that was basically the whole trip lol.

so after going along the west coast for about ten days, completely broke, cold, hungry, no real place to sleep, we finally hit Jirisan area and just said okay. we're done. let's go home to Seoul.

we were in this tiny mountain village basically in the middle of nowhere. scraped together just enough bus fare from doing odd jobs around town. climbed onto the bus, so relieved, and passed out immediately from exhaustion.

woke up to people murmuring around us.

looked out the window.

it was NOT the town we were supposed to be in. it was deeper in the mountains. darker. maybe 4:30pm but the sun was already going down because. mountains.

asked the driver where we were. some tiny village in North Jeolla province I'd never heard of in my life. we had slept through our stop. the bus continued on to some even more remote village, apparently, and this was the last run of the day. it was staying overnight in the next village and coming back out in the morning.

we got off.

we had no choice right? we needed to find somewhere to sleep and earn enough for bus fare back out by morning.

except the moment we stepped off the bus.

oh.

oh no.

the mountain wind was CUTTING. like physically painful. and there was just. nothing. mountains in every direction, bare trees, weird shaped rocks, getting darker by the second. the other people who got off the bus? gone. vanished like they teleported. and the bus drove away so fast it was almost insulting.

we actually yelled at it. "take us with you!!" into the dust.

we stood there for a while just. not speaking. there was nothing to say.

then we spotted a narrow path going up into the mountain. no other options so we just started walking up it, telling ourselves that a path means people, people means houses.

it was so dark in there. bare branches, weird rock formations, couldn't see more than a few feet ahead. we walked for what felt like forever and saw nothing. i started genuinely worrying that this wasn't a path to a village. this was just. a hiking trail. going further into the mountain. in winter. at night.

nobody was talking. not because we were calm, we were just too tired and too scared and honestly didn't have the energy to make words anymore.

and then. light.

a flicker of light through the trees.

we literally SPRINTED toward it. forgot we were exhausted. just ran.

got closer and it was this tiny traditional thatched-roof house. ancient. like the kind you see in historical dramas. i remember thinking who actually lives like this still.

but we did not care. we walked right into the yard calling for the owner.

looking back, i think i felt something wrong the moment we stepped in. some smell. some vibe. but i was hungry and cold so i ignored it completely.

called out a few times. lights were clearly on inside. no answer.

then the door opened.

creeeeak.

a guy our age stepped out. big. built. and his face was just... off. eyes completely unfocused, expression totally blank, staring at us like we weren't quite real. we said something to him. he stared. we tried again. he just kept staring with those empty eyes.

i was starting to regret coming up here.

then from behind him, a woman's voice: "oh, guests are here."

she looked around 40, and—