Lost Children

Chapter 4

Kim was heading home really late after a school club activity.  He belonged to the Mystery Research club.  They collected and studied all kinds of rumors, myths, and urban legends.  The collection was not only from their own school, but from every city around.  Lately he was working on sorting through contents for their sporadically published club magazine.  At a busy time like this, the club's president was nowhere to be seen.  Due to his absence, Kim was vice president and had to do everything himself.  That was the reason why he was heading home so late.

Still preoccupied with his work, he was thinking about the magazine even while he was crossing the bridge.  Just then, somebody spoke to him.

"Hello dearie, I'd like to ask you something...."

It was a kind and warm-looking grandma who approached.  Her chignon hairstyle and her bent back reminded Kim of his grandma out in the countryside.  Right before he was going to answer her, he suddenly paused and wondered. "Why was this old lady at school at this late hour?"  In that moment he recalled a ghost story that he had investigated a while back.

The building of  was built in the occupation era and was used as a refugee camp during the Korean war.  In the camp there were lots of orphans who had lost their parents in the midst of war.  Since the situation was so grim, no one really had the luxury of worrying about these kids.  Then, some grandma took these orphans under her wing and took care of them.  The kids depended on her and got along with her well. The people didn't suspect anything of her.

Then one day the grandma and the orphans suddenly disappeared.  The refugees thought it was strange, but as if they had previously agreed they kept silent about it.  It was a time where such things happened.  A short while after that, a woman came to the camp.  She was a mother of one of the orphans.  The woman went through so much to find the whereabouts of her child, and was finally here to reunite with them.  When she heard of the disappearance of her child, she wailed in despair.

The refugees, who felt a little guilty about not having done anything about the disappearance of the orphans, were finally moved to action by the woman's heart-wrenching cries.  Lead by a former hunter, a few refugees decided to help the woman who search for the missing orphans.  They followed the trail of the children up into the mountain.  When they got halfway up, they found an old, run down hut.  They were greeted with the rotting stench of corpses inside the hut, and found the hut was full of small,white bones, which seemed relatively fresh.  It was said they never found the old grandma.

Kim couldn't figure out why he had suddenly remembered that ghost story.  Feeling spooked, he kept his mouth shut.  Maybe it was the old, traditional dress that the grandma was wearing.  The old grandma who was pressing on Jung-jae with her question revealed herself and her face twisted and turned into the face of a demon's.  From her dark and empty eye sockets, red light gleamed.  She mumbled as she smacked her lips.

"So close. What a pity..."

The next thing he knew, he was waking up at this desk.  He must have fallen asleep while sorting out the materials.  Still, it seemed all too real to be just a dream.  On the paper in front of him there was a warning from a material he was reading right before he fell asleep:

'Never answer her question' .........