the house in busan that TRAUMATIZED me (one girl died btw)

okay so this is gonna sound insane but i'm telling you it's 100% real. happened when i was like 17-18 and one of the girls involved is literally dead now so please don't be a dick about it.

so it's winter 2004 and me and my older brother, some friends, and these two girls from daegu were basically homeless drifters living in this shitty motel in busan. we had ZERO money, barely eating ramen every other day because we couldn't afford rent. the motel lady was threatening to call the cops because we were minors and not supposed to be there long-term.

one night the daegu girls show up with alcohol and get absolutely WASTED. one of them literally smashes the wooden door to the room. motel lady loses it. kicks us all out immediately. we're scrambling.

then the girls mention they know someone's sister in busan with an empty house in yeongdo. she's got money, we need a place to crash, perfect match right? we call her up and she's like yeah sure whatever, move in.

so now we're at this HOUSE. and let me describe it. it was falling apart. like the first time i ever saw an old-school squat toilet was at this place. you know the ones? two wooden planks on the ground, that kind of ancient shit. the house had 4 rooms in a row after you came through the front gate.

first room: couple with disabilities (had like 5+ bikes in the storage closet next to the bathroom)

second room: a bar worker woman and her like 4-year-old son (this kid was SO attached to us, i'd let him play with my gameboy every night and carry him to bed when he fell asleep)

third room: this guy with ONE ARM. dude was genuinely terrifying

fourth room: us. 7 people crammed in one tiny space

the bathroom was RIGHT NEXT TO our room.

first night. the house owner (the older sister) is super chill and buys us a TON of alcohol to celebrate. we're drinking hard. at some point i gotta pee so i ask her where the bathroom is.

i stumble out, go into the bathroom. door's closed, lights are off. obviously no one's in there right? i flip the light switch and open the door and—

THERE IS A BEARDED GRANDFATHER SITTING ON THE WOODEN PLANKS STARING DIRECTLY AT ME.

left arm completely gone. just. looking. at. me.

we both FREEZE. 2 full seconds of eye contact. then we both SCREAM at the exact same time. "AAAAAAHHHHH"

i book it back to the room IMMEDIATELY and i'm like "HOLY SHIT there's an old man with his arm cut off in the bathroom sitting in the dark what the FUCK" and the sister's like yeah that's my neighbor he lives alone don't bother him he likes using the light off.

she said. CASUALLY. like i didn't just have a mutual heart attack with a ghost. anyway we kept drinking because honestly the fear wore off and it became funny in retrospect lol

so fast forward like a week. we're all packed into our tiny room at night, lights off, 7 people lying in a line touching each other. we're bullshitting about random stuff when suddenly everyone goes quiet.

then one of the girls from daegu—her name was hyeji—she whispers: "hey. how many people are supposed to be in this room right now?"

we count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. everyone accounted for.

she's like "then who the FUCK is that"

and she's pointing at a SHADOW. an eighth shadow on the wall.

no joke. EIGHT shadows. SEVEN people.

everyone sees it. we all lose our minds. start screaming, turn on every light in the house. the shadow vanishes obviously.

after that night things got... weird. really weird. that girl hyeji started acting strange. like genuinely unwell. and the rest of us couldn't shake it either.

i'm not even gonna describe everything else that happened in that house because honestly i'm running out of energy but let's just say: that's why i don't talk about it much anymore.

and hyeji? she's not around anymore. her death was connected to all of this somehow. so yeah. not trying to turn this into some deep reflection moment but that house did something to us.

those few weeks changed everything actually. but that's the story.

(sorry my writing sucks btw, i'm not good at this lol)