Summer horror story: the shaman's prophecy hit different

I wasn't going to post this but here's a creepy one from the archives.

Deep in the mountains, tucked into the edge of some old village, there was this beat-up house that everyone was scared of. And I mean SCARED. Like, collectively, the whole village just. Feared it. Because that's where Kim Yeong-ja lived. The mudang. The shaman.

She'd had the gift since she was little. People came to her with their pain, she helped them carry it, and in exchange she got to know every secret they had. Classic deal.

Then one day this guy shows up. Park Jun-seok, some young dude from Seoul. Came for the peaceful mountain vibes, stayed because he got too curious about the creepy old lady on the hill. As you do.

He walks into her house and instantly regrets every choice that led him there. Candles everywhere. Talismans and ritual tools hanging off every surface. Cold air that had no business being that cold. And Yeong-ja? Already sitting there. Waiting. Like she knew.

"What brings you here?" Low voice. Heavy.

He gives her the whole "just curious about the village" speech. She looks at him like he said something hilarious. "It's more than curiosity," she says. "The things you've seen and heard led you here."

He sits down and the air gets heavier. She stares into him and goes, "You're hiding something. You didn't come here just to chat."

And here's the thing. He HAD been having a rough time in Seoul. Bad luck, back to back. Weird dreams where someone was always watching him from the dark. He thought coming out here would fix it. Spoiler: it did not fix it.

"You've been cursed," she tells him, flat out. "This village carries an old curse. And now you're part of it."

"I don't believe in that stuff," he says.

She ignores him completely and keeps going. Of course she does.

She closes her eyes and starts chanting. The candles flicker. The room gets darker somehow. Then she stops, opens her eyes, and says: "Your fate is decided. If you want to break the curse, go into the deep forest. There's an old shrine there. You can purify your soul. But be careful. Something is waiting for you."

And he just. Goes. Into the forest. At night. Because what else are you gonna do.

The deeper he gets the more lost he gets. Then the sounds start. Behind him. Getting closer. He runs toward the shrine and somehow finds it, and yeah it's old and falling apart but weirdly the cold feeling is gone. He starts the ritual Yeong-ja described.

Before he can finish, a black shadow slides into the shrine.

It moves toward him. He can't move. It gets closer and closer and then Yeong-ja's voice comes from inside his head.

"You wanted to break the curse. But the curse will not let you go. Your soul will be trapped here forever."

The last thing he saw was that shadow standing right in front of his face.

After that, nobody in the village ever saw him again.

Back at her house, Yeong-ja quietly closed her eyes.

"Another soul gone," she murmured to herself. "The curse goes on."

And she sank back into the dark.