The bad apartment we lived in after getting married (ghost story)

So this happened over the first 3.5 years of our marriage and I genuinely don't know how to explain any of it.

When we got married, jeonse prices in Gyeonggi-do were going absolutely feral. Like they shot from 80 million won to over 100 million basically overnight. We almost called the whole wedding off because we couldn't find anywhere to live. We ended up in this new apartment just past the city boundary, kinda out in the middle of nowhere. Cheap, spacious, brand new, never been lived in. Owner bought it as an investment and never set foot inside. (speculation purchase vibes, 100%.)

We started moving stuff in before the wedding. Felt hopeful. Then we actually moved in together and the problems started.

Quick background on us: I write screenplays, my wife is a literary fiction writer. We both work from home so we're together basically all day. I'm a big guy, not easily scared. My wife is sensitive about bugs and mice and stuff. We're creative people but like... not dramatic about it.

The apartment. No natural light. And the humidity was WEIRD. Some days it was bone dry in a way that felt wrong, other days the air was just. damp and heavy. We didn't notice at first. Then about a month or two in, things started happening.

One night my wife was out and wasn't coming home till the next day. I fell asleep alone in the bedroom. It was around 9pm so not even that late, so I wasn't in a deep sleep.

Someone tapped my cheek. Fingertips. Tap tap.

Half asleep I thought oh, she's back early, what time is it. Then.

tap tap again. Same pressure. Not painful, not ticklish. Just. very clear and real.

I opened my eyes.

There was a woman leaning over my bed with her face like six inches from mine.

I froze. Completely. Couldn't move.

She wasn't a burglar. (thank god.) She was just. staring at me. Wide eyes, not blinking. Black hair to her jaw. Long white dress, floor length, not pretty or fashionable, more like stiff linen, like old bedsheet fabric. She looked maybe 20-22, could've been 17-19 if I'm being honest. Really pretty face. Big eyes, full lips, round forehead. Face was young and round but her body felt... weightless somehow.

I laid there for what felt like HOURS but was probably five seconds. Closed my eyes. Opened them again.

She'd moved. She was standing at my wife's vanity now, across the room, picking up my wife's stuff. The scarf draped over the chair. The towel. The t-shirt she wore around the house. Just touching everything slowly.

And the vibe was NOT curious. It was sulky. Pouty. Like she was annoyed.

Normally when you see something like this you open your eyes and it's gone right?? She did NOT disappear. She just kept going through my wife's things like I wasn't even there, then drifted out of the bedroom. Physically pushed the door open. Like a person.

I lay there for a while just. staring at the ceiling. Turned the lights on with the remote. Eventually speed-walked to the living room and turned every single light in the apartment on.

She was gone. No sign of anyone.

I didn't tell my wife. She was already living in a rural area she hadn't asked for, in a newlywed apartment I already felt bad about. I didn't want her up all night terrified. So I just. didn't sleep until sunrise. (Did not go back into the bedroom.)

That was the beginning.

For our wedding we had these wooden mandarin duck figures, paebaek gifts, the kind you're supposed to keep with their beaks overlapping because it means a harmonious marriage. We had them on top of a speaker in the living room.

One morning my wife goes: 'hey, those ducks.'

'what about them'

'the beaks keep separating. I put them together every night and every morning they're spread apart again'

I looked. Three fingers of space between the beaks. Not drifted apart. Wrenched apart. Like someone saw two happy little ducks and got mad about it and just. yanked.

I knew it was her.

I couldn't say that out loud. So I started watching the ducks every single morning. First thing I checked when I woke up. And every morning, without fail, they were apart again.

And then other stuff started piling on.

The apartment was technically clean. Brand new, no previous tenants, all fresh furniture. But if you stood in the corner of the living room and looked around... it looked filthy. I can't describe it properly. Just this overwhelming feeling that everything was completely disordered, chaotic, wrong. Like the mess was invisible but I could SEE it.