The apartment under the coffee shop had something in the second room

okay so this happened 9 years ago when I was in 4th grade and I genuinely still think about it constantly.

so my family used to be loaded. my grandpa owned a ton of land in the countryside, my dad was a famous painter doing big business shit. very comfortable life in Seoul. but then my dad's business imploded right when I started elementary school and within like a year we went from comfortable to actual financial ruin. my parents divorced, and we went from a nice house in Seoul to a tiny apartment in Incheon.

after 3 years in Mansu-dong we somehow ended up with EVEN MORE debt (which sounds impossible but okay) and moved to this small villa in Yonghyeon 1-dong. the place was insanely cramped. the living room was basically a hallway, like 2 meters wide and super long. two bedrooms. first one you could see immediately when you opened the door. the second one was further back if you went up a bit.

the weird thing? EVERYTHING strange happened in that second room.

first incident was literally one week after we moved in, the day we had a housewarming thing with my mom's side of the family coming over. the night before, the neighbor lady comes over and tells my mom this absolutely unhinged dream she had. she says there's this weird woman who came to her asking for a baby carrier, and she was about to give it to her when suddenly my mom appears (in the dream) and is like "why are you giving her that?" and yanks it away and it tears. the weird woman takes half the torn carrier and leaves, my mom takes the other half and walks into my mom's house and then the neighbor wakes up. she's like "i just have a bad feeling about it" and my mom's like lmao okay sure whatever.

next day. all the family shows up. my baby sister (1 year old at the time) FALLS OUT OF A SECOND STORY WINDOW and cracks her skull.

but here's the thing. 20 family members crammed in this tiny apartment. NOT ONE PERSON saw her fall. and the window was like 1.2 meters off the ground with absolutely nothing underneath it for a 1-year-old to climb up on. how did she even GET to that window??? but yeah. first incident in that second room.

less than 2 months later, second incident.

so we had a bunk bed we'd separated. bottom half in the first room, top half with a king size in the SECOND ROOM. my mom was on the separated bunk bed in the first room, me and my siblings were in the king size. we all fell asleep early and my mom was watching some mystery show (Saturday Mystery Theater, you probably know it) in the dark.

after the show ends she turns off the TV to sleep. then she smells something weird. she turns around a little and SEES that the family photo hanging above the bed now shows ME in the picture with long hair like a woman, staring at her.

she literally blacked out. next day she tells us and keeps warning me to be careful, that something was targeting me.

but the one who actually got hurt was my younger brother. he fell out of the SECOND ROOM bed. didn't even fall far, less than 30cm. his arm didn't just break. it SHATTERED. like the bone was completely pulverized. doctors said even a car accident wouldn't break an arm like that 90% of the time. my brother was in the hospital for a month.

after that we decided that room had something in it and just... stopped going in there as much as possible.

while he was hospitalized, my cousin came over one Sunday and my mom was home too. early morning, freezing cold, boiler's broken. my mom tells me to go check the boiler. i'm walking toward it half asleep when I hear this sound coming from the SECOND ROOM.

"ji... ji... jik... ji... jik"

i go in and the TV is on with the screen adjustment menu making that noise. i don't know where i got the courage but i literally just turned it off calm as anything and walked back to my mom like "um... mom... the TV was... on..."

my mom's like that makes no sense and goes back to check it. TV turns on fine, regular Sunday morning news is playing. so what the HELL did i just see??? she yells at me for being dramatic and that's that.

few days later my cousin leaves, mom goes back to the hospital. that night my older uncle was supposed to come over so i wasn't too worried until like 10pm and he hasn't called.

scared, i go into the SECOND ROOM where the TV is and turn it on and pull my blanket over my head. i fall asleep.

then.

"ji... ji... jik... ji... jik"

i wake up to that sound and look forward.

i froze.

you know in movies and TV shows and ghost stories how people scream when they see ghosts? i'm telling you. that's not real. you can't do that. your entire body goes ice cold and if you move you think it's going to kill you. right in front of me lying on its side was this thing with long hair spread out, facing away from me. it was NOT a dream. it was NOT sleep paralysis. my mind was completely clear. but i couldn't move. i couldn't make a sound. i was terrified it would turn around.

so yeah. we moved out 4 months later to a tiny rental house nearby.

after we left apparently weird shit kept happening in that villa. i know there was a fire and people died. people like us just... left because they kept seeing things.

i'm 9 years older now and i still remember every single detail perfectly. and i still live near there which is its own kind of hell.

(oh and before anyone asks: yes i know how this sounds. no i don't care. this happened.)