CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Residual (Seungbae Feels the Pull)
The beeping came first.
Always that damned heart monitor. Beep. Beep. Beep. Soft. Mechanical. Non-stop.
Detective Seungbae sat on the edge of the hospital bed, newly discharged, fingers pressed to his temples. His body had healed—at least, that's what the doctors said. But his thoughts were fogged. Detached. Like he was walking through someone else's dream.
He hadn't mentioned the visions. Not yet.
Not the house. Not the basement. Not the rope.
Not the mirror.
The nightmares started two nights ago. At first, just noise: footsteps. Whispers. Then he began seeing Sangwoo.
Not the living version. Not the cold-eyed killer he had hunted down. This Sangwoo was pale. Sweating. Trapped. Screaming things no one should know.
And Yoonbum.
God.
His face in the dark. Staring. Not angry. Not sad. Just… empty.
Now, Seungbae walked the streets again. A clean badge clipped to his coat. Everyone welcomed him back—quietly. Carefully. As if he might break.
He found himself back outside the precinct more than inside it. Standing under gray skies, smoking, staring at nothing.
That's when it started happening while he was awake.
The flash.
A smell of blood in his nostrils. A flicker of lightbulbs buzzing over his head.
Drip.
He looked down. The pavement was dry. But his shoe— A single drop of something red.
He blinked. It vanished.
That night, he stood in front of the mirror in his apartment.
Hair wet. Towel over his shoulder.
He looked at himself. And for a moment—
His reflection didn't move.
He turned away. The reflection watched him go.
Next day at the precinct, he requested Sangwoo's file again. The clerk raised an eyebrow.
"I thought that case was closed," she said.
"It is," Seungbae replied, monotone. "Just tying up threads."
But when he opened the file in the evidence room, papers fluttered out. A photo spilled onto the table—
Sangwoo's crime scene. Basement. Yoonbum. The rope.
He touched the image.
And suddenly—
the lights flickered.
His chest tightened.
He saw a hallway. A kitchen. A woman with an eery vibe smiling across the table.
And then—Yoonbum. Again. Staring at him. Not begging. Not pleading.
Just looking. Like he recognized something in Seungbae's eyes.
Like he knew they were connected.
Like a tether had been tied.
From the living— To the damned.
Seungbae gasped and stumbled back. His vision cleared.
The lights were steady. The room was silent. The photo was just a photo again.
But something inside him had shifted.
He was being pulled.
Not by logic. Not by duty.
But by something old. Something terrible. Something beneath it all.
And part of him— A small, desperate part—
wanted to follow.