Horror story: the pansori singer who vanished at Hoeryongsa Valley

I wasn't going to post this but it's been stuck in my head and I need people to know about it.

Hoeryongsa Valley, Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi province. Summer 2021. A college kid named Minsu, traditional Korean music major, goes to a summer music camp near Hoeryongsa temple. The temple itself is fine, pretty actually, the kind of quiet mountain spot that feels peaceful. But the valley nearby? People had been avoiding it for years. Nobody really knew why. Just rumors that you'd hear... things. At night.

Minsu stays out late by the valley to practice his daegeum (it's a traditional Korean flute, long and bamboo). Water sounds, insects, the usual. Except sometimes he swears he can hear someone humming. Super faint. He tells himself it's the wind.

Spoiler: it was not the wind.

The night before the big performance, he's practicing at this little pavilion by the valley when he hears jangdan coming from the forest across from him. Like, actual janggu drum rhythms. He figures someone else from camp is practicing late, goes over to check.

Nobody there.

Just a wet janggu drum sitting on a damp rock. And on the surface of it, handprints. Multiple handprints pressed into the drum head.

That night Minsu has a dream. He's sitting on a rock at the end of the valley singing Heungboga (a classic pansori piece). Except it's not his voice. It's this deep, bending, haunting voice that somehow feels familiar. And at the end of the dream he sees someone walking toward him.

Old man. White funeral clothes. He reaches out toward Minsu without saying a word. Written on the back of his hand in red ink:

"You have to keep going... it's not finished yet..."

Minsu woke up that morning with a full body fever. Performance day arrives. He doesn't show up on stage. Not in his room, not answering his phone. GONE. No trace anywhere.

The camp staff filed a missing persons report. Police searched the valley. They found his stuff. The janggu. His bag. His daegeum.

No signs of a fall. No signs of a crime. Nothing.

A month later one of the other camp participants goes BACK to Hoeryongsa Valley. Because every night she keeps hearing something. Minsu's voice. Singing Heungboga.

"Someone's singing it. It's his voice. I know it's him."

Police called it superstition and moved on. But people who camp near Hoeryongsa still report it. Around 11pm. Janggu drums and pansori drifting out of the trees.

He just. Disappeared. Into the music or whatever was waiting there in the dark.