I got trapped in a karaoke that didn't actually exist

Okay so this is a genuine story from summer two years ago when I was a high school junior. My friends and I (four of us total) got out of school after finals ended and decided to hit up a noraebang instead of just heading home.

We're walking down this main street looking for one when we spot a basement karaoke sign in some alley. The bigger places nearby had switched to time-based pricing but this older spot still did song counts, so we figured why not. We go down the stairs and it's actually a semi-basement (반지하) but like, that's normal for those places so whatever.

We pay this ajumma at the counter and go into our room. Nothing weird happens at first, but here's the thing - normally when you're at a noraebang you'll go out at LEAST once for a drink or bathroom trip. We literally didn't leave the room for almost an hour. Not once.

So we finish up and head out to pay. The ajumma who was sitting at the counter when we came in? Gone. Like completely gone. Not even like she stepped away for a sec - the space just looked... empty. Like no one had ever been there.

My friend's like "this place is so creepy let's just leave" so we all go to the door and try to pull it open. It's locked. We're pulling and pulling and nothing. It's a glass door with the lock mechanism at the top so I'm like okay I'll stretch and hit it, I'm standing on my tiptoes reaching up as far as I can and then suddenly my friend behind me SCREAMS "AHHHHH" and the lights cut out.

Completely black. Like when you close your eyes in your own dark bedroom and can't see your hand in front of your face - that kind of black. In a basement.

One friend is crying, we're all freaking out. We figure out there's a small window in the bathroom (those little street-level ones) so we crawl - like actually crawling on the ground - toward the bathroom. The last friend is sobbing so I'm holding her, the others are feeling along the walls, it's a MESS.

We get to the bathroom and there IS light coming through the window but it's way too high. My bravest friend's like "someone get on the ground I'll step on them and climb out" so that's what we do. First person gets out, opens the window, looks out and it's just... a brick wall. No street. No people. She's screaming though and finally someone walking by hears her and helps pull everyone up.

When the last friend pulls me out I'm finally seeing daylight again and my brain is like wait. What the hell just happened.

I'm more confused than scared at this point. The other two friends are DONE, they're not going back. But me and one other friend who doesn't scare easily? We're like okay we HAVE to check this out.

Turns out we climbed out on the OPPOSITE side of the building. So we walk around the front of the building and head back down.

I cannot describe the feeling when we got down there.

The entrance where we went in? Has this old yellowed "STORE FOR RENT" sign taped to the glass door. Like REALLY old. The tape is basically falling off. The door is chained shut with actual metal chains.

I could never have opened that from the inside. There's no way.

And here's the thing - I don't scare easy. I'm a devoted Christian and honestly if a ghost showed up to me I'd just... talk to it? I'd want to know what it wants. So I wasn't scared scared, I was just... absolutely baffled. Like my brain couldn't process it.

We never went back into that alley after. But I heard from one of my friends later that a pojangmacha (tent bar) opened up there instead.

I'm telling you right now - this actually happened. To four of us. In broad daylight basically (it was daytime when we went in). And somehow when I told my close friends about it the story got around so much that my English teacher literally made me stand up in class and explain the whole thing. IN ENGLISH CLASS.

I still think about it all the time and honestly I just... I have so many questions.