chapter 5 whispers in the rain

Chapter 5 whispers in the rain

chapter 1continues ...

The city had a way of swallowing sound. Even when traffic howled and neon buzzed, there was always an undertone of silence—like a breath held too long. Ji felt that silence clinging to him as he left work that night, shoulders hunched against the drizzle.

He couldn’t afford to lose this job. The manager’s words still rang in his head: “One more mistake and you’re done.” The kind of warning that wasn’t a warning at all. His hands were raw from scrubbing, his clothes reeked of bleach and sweat, but all he cared about was keeping the paycheck steady. Rent didn’t care about excuses.

Still, he couldn’t shake the weight pressing at his chest. That same pressure from the other night. The same prickling sensation that told him he wasn’t alone.

The rain thickened, pattering against the pavement. Ji quickened his steps. Streetlamps flickered in uneven intervals, leaving long shadows between the pools of light. His reflection in a shop window startled him—his eyes looked darker than usual, rimmed with exhaustion, or something else.

Something moved.

He froze. At the far end of the street, just past the guttering neon sign of a closed bakery, a figure stood. Too still. Too pale.

Ji swallowed hard. “Not again…” he whispered, barely hearing his own voice.

The figure shifted, its head twitching like a puppet on the wrong strings. Its limbs bent at angles that made his stomach twist. When it stepped forward, there was no sound of feet on wet pavement.

Ji’s breath hitched. He turned sharply down another street, muttering to himself, It’s nothing, just tired, just shadows.

But the silence followed.

From the corner of his eye, he saw another figure. Then another. Flickering into being where light was weakest, their outlines trembling like smoke. Faces that weren’t faces—blurred, stretched, teeth where eyes should be.

“Run.” The word slipped out of his mouth before he thought. His legs obeyed before his mind did.

Ji sprinted, water splashing under his feet, lungs burning. The figures didn’t chase like humans would; they appeared ahead of him, vanishing and reappearing, always just a little closer. The sound of whispers rose—words layered over each other, sharp and wet, as though the rain itself was speaking.

He ducked into an alley, heart pounding. His hand gripped his chest instinctively, where the necklace rested under his shirt. The little trinket he’d carried for years, never knowing why he refused to part with it. It felt warm now, hotter than his skin.

The whispers sharpened into something else.

Ji.

He staggered back, eyes wide. “No… no, no, no.”

One of the ghosts peeled away from the shadows, dragging itself into clarity. Its body was wrong—arms too long, mouth stretching ear to ear, but the voice that came from it was unmistakable. A woman’s voice.

Ji…

He couldn’t breathe. He knew that voice. Faint, broken, but familiar in a way that clawed at his chest. He hadn’t heard it since he was a boy.

“...Mom?”

The figure twitched violently, head snapping back at an impossible angle. Then it lunged.

Ji stumbled, nearly slipping on the wet pavement. He grabbed a loose pipe from the ground and swung with everything he had. The pipe connected, but it was like hitting fog. The ghost twisted, its mouth yawning wider, the whisper growing into a shriek that drilled into his skull.

Ji dropped to his knees, clutching his ears. Blood trickled between his fingers.

And then—

The air split.

The shriek stopped. The rain slowed, almost pausing midair. Ji looked up through blurred vision and saw another figure.

Not like the others.

Tall. Dark coat heavy against the rain. Eyes that burned with something sharp and knowing.

Seok.

The ghosts recoiled from him, though they did not vanish. They lingered, circling, whispering angrily like children denied a toy. Ji blinked, confused, terrified, half convinced he was hallucinating.

Seok didn’t look at him at first. His gaze swept the alley, cold and measured, as if cataloguing every restless spirit. His hand lifted lazily, and the rosary at his wrist rattled once. The sound was quiet—but the ghosts shuddered like they’d been struck.

“Pathetic,” Seok murmured. His voice was smooth, almost bored. “Chasing scraps in the rain. You’ll get nothing from him.”

Ji staggered to his feet, pipe still trembling in his grip. “W–Who… who the hell are you?”

Seok’s eyes slid to him, and for a heartbeat Ji forgot to breathe.

There was no warmth in that gaze, but there was familiarity. Like being stared at by someone who knew your secrets before you did.

“You should go home,” Seok said simply, as though dismissing a child.

“I asked who you are!” Ji snapped, anger pushing through his fear. “And what the hell are those things?!” He gestured wildly, though the ghosts seemed to shrink back under Seok’s presence.

Seok tilted his head, lips curling into the faintest smirk. “You don’t want the answer.”

The rosary clinked again, and the whispers faded. The ghosts dissolved into the rain, vanishing as if they’d never been there. The silence that followed was suffocating.

Ji lowered the pipe slowly, his arms trembling. His ears still rang with the shriek, his chest tight with confusion and dread. He wanted answers. He wanted to scream. But all he managed was a hoarse: “Why me?”

Seok studied him for a long moment, unreadable. Then he turned, stepping back into the rain-slick street without another word.

Ji stared after him, heart hammering. Something deep inside told him this wasn’t over—that this was only the beginning.

And though every instinct screamed to run, he knew he was already caught in something he couldn’t escape.

🔥 Word count: ~1,420

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