the abandoned house told us not to come in. we didn't listen.

I wasn't going to post this but it's been years and I still think about it.

High school. Summer break. Four of us idiots decided to go find this abandoned house we'd seen posted about online, supposedly haunted, out on the edge of some tiny ghost town on the outskirts of Seoul. Two stories. Completely empty.

We got there around dusk and it was already giving. Dust everywhere, walls covered in writing. Red, like someone used blood (or really wanted you to think they did). "Someone died here." "Don't come in." "The ghost is watching you."

We went in anyway. OBVIOUSLY.

Made it all the way up to the second floor. Old blankets piled up, a bunch of tangled-up dolls just... sitting there. Cold. Damp. Way colder than it should've been.

Then the window SLAMMED shut on its own.

And we heard it. Far away at first. Crying. Like a little girl sobbing.

We told ourselves it was wind. A cat. Whatever. But the sound kept getting closer and closer and then.

"...don't... go..."

Right behind us. Barely a whisper.

We lost it. Screaming, sprinting down the stairs. One of my friends was running so fast he missed a step and just ROLLED down the whole staircase. We dragged him out, got to the car, sat there shaking for like ten minutes before anyone could speak.

And then the weird stuff started.

The friend who fell started waking up in the middle of the night, sitting straight up, crying and mumbling "don't go... I told you not to go..." Over and over.

The rest of us had the same dream. All three of us. We were back on that second floor and there was a little girl standing outside the window. No eyes. Just. No eyes.

She was crying.

And she was looking at us.

And she was smiling.

We never went back. Not to the house, not to that town, not even close to that part of the city. Some places you go once and you spend years trying to forget them.

Looking back now, I think we woke something up that really didn't want to be woken.