Chapter 1: The Carol of the Damned

Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King…

A Christmas carol buzzed in my drowsy ears. For something playing from a radio left on, it was a rather gloomy carol. I distinctly remembered the late-night DJ reading a listener’s letter. It wasn’t the time for a random carol to pop up.

Damn it, f*ck, again.

Tossing and turning, I grabbed the pillow from the headboard and roughly pressed it over my ears.

…Let all praise… Let all prai…se…

The carol, which had been playing clearly, began to crackle and fade. I clutched the pillowcase. The veins on the back of my hand stood out sharply. Instead of the radio, a piercing high-pitched sound stabbed into my ears like an awl, nearly splitting my eardrums.

[You killed her.]

[It was you who killed.]

[Kyahaha—Stop pretending to sleep. You can hear our voices. You killed her.]

[The knife was in your hand.]

[You killed your own mother.]

[How pitiful… How sad….]

“…!”

Struggling, I couldn’t take it anymore and sat up abruptly, hurling the pillow that had been blocking my ears. I glared at the pillow that hit the wall and fell, gasping for breath. Then I wiped away the sweat that was so thick it couldn’t even soak into my T-shirt. These days, I hadn’t been eating or sleeping properly, so my thin wrist gave way weakly and fell onto the blanket.

Hiss Hiss

My head turned toward the floor. A huge snake, thicker than my arm, was crawling slowly, sticking out its crimson tongue. A trail like a waterway was left wherever the snake passed. Common sense said a snake that big wouldn’t appear in this city. Besides, this building was a newly built apartment.

I quickly opened the bedside drawer and took out an iron container, picking up a black bead like a go stone. Meanwhile, the snake crawled very slowly toward the bed, as if gradually entangling its drool-inducing prey.

As I met its yellow eyes head-on, I gripped the go stone firmly in my palm. A little closer. Just a bit more. When the distance was less than a meter, the snake opened its jaws wide and charged at the bed with terrifying speed. At that moment, I threw the go stone I had been holding with all my might.

Kyaaak—!

The go stone, smaller than its eye, hit the snake and, contrary to its hard appearance, shattered instantly, spraying a colorless, odorless liquid. That amount, about a mouthful of water, was holy water I had personally received from a Catholic exorcist priest.

Struck directly by the holy water, the snake writhed in agony even from that small amount and dropped its heavy body with a thud. The illusion vanished immediately. For something that torments people, it disappeared quickly. Thinking about how I would have been eaten headfirst into that maw made sweat pour down like rain again.

The voice that had been harassing my ears disappeared when the snake appeared. But it would be hiding somewhere and return without fail tomorrow night. Because it had been doing so for over a week.

I straightened the bent antenna of the old radio and barely got my damp body up. Sleep had long fled. For the past ten days, my average daily sleep time was about two hours. Even that wasn’t deep sleep, so the bags under my eyes were hollow.

Professor Jeong Eun-gyu, who had been a perfect surgeon until ten days ago, hadn’t even entered the operating room in the last four days. Not only was his concentration shot from excessive sleep deprivation, but his hand holding the scalpel trembled because of the ghosts crouching in the corners of the OR, constantly chattering.

If they just talked nonsense, I could ignore it and finish the surgery, but they shouted things like “She’s dead,” “You’ll kill her?”—it felt like they were gnawing at my nerves.

It had been ten days since all this started. Ten days.

The things I hadn’t seen or heard since I was six had been assaulting me with the force to kill Jeong Eun-gyu for ten days now. That was 27 years by the calendar.

Thirsty, I emptied a bottle of water and slumped onto the living room sofa. The phone on the table vibrated. I roughly tossed aside the crushed water bottle and picked up the phone. Actually, I wanted to ignore everything.

The caller was ‘Father Peter.’ The exorcist priest who gave me the holy water beads. I cleared my raspy throat and pressed the call button.

“…Yes.”

-Did I wake you?

“…I couldn’t sleep.”

-Hmm… Same situation today?

“Yes.”

-If you can drive, why not come over here?

“What would be different there?”

-At least you’ll be able to sleep.

If it’s a place guarded by the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus, it’s certainly much better than this house with nothing. But I didn’t have the energy to drive two hours right now.

“I heard a carol.”

-A carol, huh…

“Father. Do you know any shamans? Or exorcists? I need to set up a barrier or something in the house…”

I stopped mid-sentence and clicked my tongue at the absurdity. Was that something a doctor should be saying?

-Haha, you rascal. Did you forget what I am?

“I didn’t forget. But still, you know, interfaith cooperation or something.”

-Stop watching dramas.

“They don’t even make dramas like that these days—too old-fashioned.”

Father Peter chuckled heartily. I was so anxious I’d grab at any straw, but the voice on the other end was irritatingly calm. A severe headache hit me, and I walked weakly to the kitchen to find some painkillers. My steps were parched, as if all moisture had been sucked out.

-Come to think of it, Christmas is soon.

I glanced at the wall calendar hanging beside the refrigerator. Today was the 15th of December, with 25 days left. I answered indifferently.

“I guess so.”

From the receiver came the sound of a fist tapping the desk twice. Father Peter must be deep in thought too.

-I think you need to get out of that house before Christmas.

That again. It was a new house I’d moved into less than a year ago.

“Can’t I stay?”

-If you want to have the worst birthday ever. But if your dream is to die on your birthday, go ahead and stay.

Jeong Eun-gyu chewed two headache pills dry, crunching them down, and kept a blank expression like someone who couldn’t taste bitterness.

Did every person in the world born on December 25th suffer like I did?

Ever since I turned twenty, I had nightmares every birthday until I was thirty-two. Just like the earlier illusion, a snake would open its jaws wide and charge to devour me. Sometimes from one snake to countless ones. But back then, it ended as a nightmare. Not like now, where I see it clearly.

I had never had a happy birthday. When I was young, I would wake up crying and call him. Every time, Father Peter would calmly soothe me and read the Bible until I fell asleep again.

After the birthday passed, those things wouldn’t appear in dreams again. But this time is different. Even Father Peter used the word ‘die young’ and told me to leave the house.

Jeong Eun-gyu opened a new bottle of water belatedly and answered.

“I’ll visit soon.”

Father Peter also replied. Eun-gyu, pack your things well and come.

“Leave of absence?”

Professor Kang of Orthopedics asked back, his voice clearly surprised. Jeong Eun-gyu sipped his coffee, which had been loaded with five shots. It was practically poison.

“Yes. But as soon as I submitted it, Professor Min shot it down. I’ll just take a few days off and only see outpatients for now.”

“Well, if you leave your post, it’ll be hard to handle. But you’ve really lost weight. What’s going on? Is it… money problems?”

It was a very cautious question, but Jeong Eun-gyu laughed it off. I wish it were money problems.

“No… It’s not that. It’s a personal matter, so it’s hard to explain.”

“Ah, I see. Looking at you, I can’t even tell you to stop. How did you rearrange the surgery schedule?”

“I had Senior Hyunsoo give up his next week’s days off to fill in for me.”

“Professor Kim just okayed that? Even though he’s your closest friend here, it couldn’t have been easy.”

“There was no way he just okayed it…”

He told me to give up a month’s worth of days off and be his errand boy. Just thinking about it made me sigh.

When Professor Kang said he had to go because of a call, Jeong Eun-gyu bowed his head slightly in greeting and stood still in the middle of the hospital lobby. Because the things he had been trying to ignore while talking to Professor Kang now flooded his vision.

So… teeming with them. Those damn ghosts.

A hospital is practically a holy ground for ghosts. As Father Peter once said, ‘a tin can composed of half ghosts, a quarter patients, and a quarter medical staff.’

The ghost sitting by the guardian waiting for payment, licking its tongue, was one of the gentler ones. A patient who passed by Jeong Eun-gyu gave a metallic gasp and coughed. Because a ghost with half its head blown off and blood all over was dangling from the patient’s neck, shouting “Die, die!” repeatedly. That kind must be resentment.

Haa…

I’m dying of exhaustion. I want to sleep.

Shaking his head, Jeong Eun-gyu took a sip of the pitch-black coffee and walked, then stopped as if jolted. By the time he registered the object, a chest in a suit and a firm shoulder were right in front of him. Oh. I must have bumped into him.

“I’m sorry.”

The man, a head taller than Jeong Eun-gyu, looked him up and down with an expression of utter displeasure. Despite his delicate face, his blatant scrutiny suggested that talking to him would be pointless.

Jeong Eun-gyu took a step back and moved aside. Go ahead, then. I apologized, so it’s fine. As he shuffled past, he patted his own shoulder. Every part of his body ached.

“Hey.”

Hey? At the sudden informal remark, he turned back to see the man who had bumped into him approach in four steps. It would have taken Jeong Eun-gyu more than ten steps. The shiny dress shoes stopped in front of his rubber slippers. The toes were polished, a sign of meticulous care.