Ghost Writer

Reckless Raid and Grateful Guest

WHERE WAS IT? Chung-Cha couldn't sleep that night, so she tossed her whole house to search for her notebook, but she still couldn't find it. By the time she reorganised everything, it was almost 9am.

The group was supposed to leave soon. Would they really go through with it? Chung-Cha sat in the silence; she could have gone down to make one last ditch effort to dissuade them, but she didn't. Sighing, she went to the balcony to check on their progress from afar, in the safety of her home. In the end, she was still a coward.

The group walked towards the tall, black wall. From the uniforms, Chung-Cha identified Andrew and the cleaners. There was still three more people; the bleached-hair must be Dong-Hyun (Chung-Cha watched his stream once, she wasn't impressed), the one holding the bat was probably Yi-Hyun, and that meant that the last person was Sae-Bom. It looked like Chung-Cha didn't need to worry about them, since her feisty neighbors from Unit 501 were there.

Chung-Cha went back inside. She checked the connection, but it was still not working, so she couldn't work. At first, she was glad to have an excuse to relax, but as the minutes passed, she realised there was nothing she wanted to do.

"Huh, was I always this boring?" Chung-Cha mumbled to herself. If only she had someone to talk to, but most of her neighbors were assholes and she didn't want to disturb Hyun-Kyung—

"Min-Ji!" Chung-Cha jolted upright. She could talk to Min-Ji! Of course, that meant she had to go near Joo-Hyung, but as long as she stayed hidden and out of earshot, she probably wouldn't get caught. Chung-Cha went to the sixth floor and sneaked to Joo-Hyung's door, but it was quiet. He must be elsewhere.

Chung-Cha went downstairs, her footsteps echoing in the stairwell, but nobody came. She stopped the moment she heard wailing, and sat down. Taking a deep breath, Chung-Cha spoke, reciting the words like a spell. "Min-Ji, I hear you."

The crying stopped, and Min-Ji's voice rang out in her head. "Chung-Cha?"

Chung-Cha almost cried when she first heard Min-Ji speak; she didn't realise how much she had missed her. After she composed herself, she explained the situation. "You're a ghost. Most ghosts are vengeful spirits, and I'm assuming you're still here because of Joo-Hyung. In that case, you'll only be released when karma hits him. Also, he locked me in the toilet and tried to kill me. He even bribed people to go outside, that asshole."

The duo didn't speak about Joo-Hyung again. Instead, they talked about trivial things like they used to. The time they spent at the gym seemed like ages ago. Suddenly, there was a loud screech in the stairwell. Chung-Cha froze, sitting in plain view; luckily Yeon-Ok didn't see her as she stomped up to the first floor. She carelessly slammed the door behind her.

Chung-Cha scooted closer to the wall. She tried to listen in, but couldn't hear anything. (That's a good thing, right? That meant nobody could hear her too.) But moments later, there was shouting, then screaming. Chung-Cha scrambled up. That was her cue to leave. She bowed, although Min-Ji couldn't see her. "Sorry, Min-Ji, but I need to go first. Don't worry, I'll take care of Joo-Hyung." With that, she escaped.

━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

It was a slow afternoon; Chung-Cha had found a spare sketchbook and some stubs of oil pastel, and was trying to replicate the galaxy sky on paper (basic, yes, but you have to admit it was cool). So far, there was smears of colour on her hand, and her artwork was looking like a child's crayon drawing. Still, trust the process.

The doorbell rang, and Chung-Cha quickly went to open the door. "Bo-Ram?"

"Hello, can I stay here for a while? You're the only person I know, and the others are, well..."

Chung-Cha was surprised, but she immediately agreed. While Bo-Ram settled in, Chung-Cha cooked some food (canned food, gross) for her. It occurred to Chung-Cha that Bo-Ram had been hiding outside for a few days; how was she not infected?

The doorbell rang again. Outside the door was Hyun-Kyung. "There's a residents' meeting."

Chung-Cha glanced at Bo-Ram, who was lying on the sofa. She shouldn't be left alone for the time being. "Yeah, I'll just stay at home." (And if the previous meetings taught her anything, it was that nothing much would come out of them.) Hyun-Kyung nodded and said she'll come by again if there was anything important.

Bo-Ram ate the corn soup that Chung-Cha cooked, and Chung-Cha sat opposite her, continuing her artwork.

"Ah, by the way, what happened this morning? I heard a lot of commotion downstairs."

Bo-Ram paused and put down her spoon. "There was a woman, she didn't want to let us inside. Then, there was this awful screaming, and everyone panicked. After the door was opened, someone attacked the woman."

"Who?"

"A man in bright orange uniform. He was so angry, he tried to kill her."

Chung-Cha hummed absentmindedly. So far, all the evidence seemed to point to the violent and short-tempered male cleaner being the serial killer. Now, what should she do?

:

At night, for the third time that day, the doorbell rang. Chung-Cha was shocked that she had so many visitors. This time, it was the lawyers from Unit 602.

"Uh, good evening?"

"Unit 501 has been keeping an infected in the gym, were you aware of this?"

Bo-Ram heard the conversation and joined them. Chung-Cha shook her head. Hae-Sung took out his phone and played a video of infected Trainer Kim. It was disturbing; his discolored skin and jerky movements. Chung-Cha remembered when she was trapped with an infected Min-Ji, and she averted her eyes elsewhere. At the corner of the screen, there were objects strewn around. She thought it was weird, but didn't comment.

Seemingly satisfied at their reactions, Hae-Sung turned off his phone. "There will be a vote tomorrow to decide whether we will kick him out. I know both of you vote will wisely."

"What do you think?" Bo-Ram asked after they left.

"I think someone provoked him," Chung-Cha started. "Did you see all the objects on the floor? I've been to the gym before, and the different equipment are usually placed far away from each other for safety reasons. The handcuff restricted his movement a lot, so he shouldn't have been able to knock over the equipment. Somebody must have thrown things at him, which caused him to turn. Anyway, Trainer Kim is nice, and I think he's innocent. I'll vote for him to stay."

Bo-Ram nodded, following Chung-Cha's thought process. "I can't believe you picked that up. I'll vote for him to stay too. The infected... many of them were infected because of other people. Even then, I'm sure none of them meant to hurt anyone. They don't deserve to be treated as less human because of something out of their control."