Ghost Story Club

“…Uh, Teacher?”

Teacher Jang Hwaeun was still as unresponsive as ever, with her eyes wide open like a gargoyle.

If someone who didn’t know her saw this, showing only her face through the window, they would have thought it was just a portrait of a creepy woman who had a habit of ogling at younger boys hanging.

“…No way.”

I opened the door carefully.

However, the teacher was still standing still without moving an inch or even blinking her eyes.

Is the teacher possessed by a ghost story again?

Suddenly, the ghost story that Sunah told me during the first Club Activity session came to mind.

“Some hiker was climbing a mountain when he got lost in his way. Soon, it was nighttime and he barely managed to find a cabin where he could rest. Within the cabin, there were many portraits of scary looking faces… Still he managed to go to sleep. But when he woke up, he discovered that there were no portraits,… Just a lot of windows.”

That was the only ghost story I could remember where it was mentioned someone seeing portraits at the window.

Was Teacher pretending to be a portrait?

“I can’t believe it.”

I opened my bag, took out one of my textbooks, and tapped Teacher’s shoulder with it. However, Teacher Hwaeun was standing still even then with her eyes wide open.

“Teacher?”

“Teacher was just possessed by a ghost and pretending to be a portrait, right?”

Do I need to slap her like Hayoon did in the past to make her come back to her senses?

Giving it a thought, I realised that it was the best solution to resolve the situation. So I rolled up the textbook and smacked the teacher on the head with it.

Smack!

“Go away.”

“Yes.”

Ping~

 

[You have come across and survived a D-rank ghost story – Portrait on the Window.]

[You have earned 5 Ghost Story Points.]

[You’ve used your wits and skill to repel the ghost pretending to be a portrait!]

[You have earned 20 Ghost Story Points.]

 

Teacher Hwaeun finally moved and turned her body with a blank look. Then she trudged to the other side of the corridor on the fifth floor and entered the Study Room.

“Was she appointed as a director of the self-study session to observe the students studying till late night?”

The fifth floor was the place where there were various club rooms and multipurpose rooms located.

Among them was a classroom called the Study Room, which was made to help the top students study late at night for better results without any distractions.

Students who rank in top 30 in the whole school would be selected as Elite Students. They were the privileged ones who would be able to study in the Study Room during the self-study session instead of in the classroom.

‘I guess I’ll just have a look.’

Thinking that it would be better to make sure if the teacher was fine, I walked along the corridor where the teacher went and peered into the Study Room.

Inside the room, there were separate desks with partitions in between two desks where many seniors were studying, their heads buried in the books.

Standing in front of a desk in the middle of the Study Room, I could see Teacher Jang Hwaeun supervising the students. When her eyes landed on me, she waved her hands with a welcoming smile and approached the door before opening it.

“It’s Joon! You haven’t gone home yet?”

“Yes, I had something to do in the clubroom for a while.”

As if nothing had happened, the teacher talked as fine as usual in a high-pitched voice.

As expected, she didn’t remember that she had been possessed by a ghost just now.

“Good for you! I wanted to go find you to give something, but I forgot. So I thought I should leave it in the clubroom.”

“You wanted to leave something in the clubroom?”

“Yes. Here, take this.”

Then Teacher Hwaeun handed me a file that had been pinned down with a stapler.

[Psychological riddles that only a psychopath can solve]

The first line caught my eyes with its bizarre content.

“This…”

“I confiscated it from some of the third year students who had been reading it and giggling among themselves rather than studying. But the content was interesting so I thought it would be better for your club.”

Oh, so the teacher went to the clubroom to give me this. But when she looked inside, she was possessed by the portrait ghost?

For a moment, I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic towards Teacher Hwaeun. With her being possessed more frequently than I could count, I wondered how she was leading her everyday life.

“Thank you, Teacher. I also think these psychological riddles are interesting.”

“Huhu, solving them is fun, right? I only skimmed through it and I’m already hooked.”

“But, it seems the file only contains riddles, no solution for the riddles.”

“Really? Hmm.”

Teacher Hwaeun frowned her fine brows.

“Well, I warned the students earlier to hand them over. When they didn’t I had to forcefully confiscate it. Perhaps they hid the file containing the solution of the riddles.”

“Haha, both the Teacher and the seniors are so eccentric.”

“How about you try solving it first? I’ll see if I can confiscate the file containing the solution.”

“Hahaha…”

Teacher Hwaeun laughed out loud as if she had heard some bad jokes.

She was twice as old as we were, but she was still unmarried. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t lost her humour and could get along well with students. Teacher Hwaeun gave off an aura more like an older sister rather than a teacher.

“You don’t have to, I’ll try to solve them. But still thank you!”

“Okay, okay~”

Teacher answered coolly, like an older sister promising to bring snacks for her younger siblings and headed inside the Study Room.

I also walked slowly back to my clubroom on the other side of the hallway.

‘Hmm, this file seems like a collection of scary riddles that I just gained as the level of the club went up. Could it be the C-rank ghost story that had just been triggered?’

As I looked through the first page, I saw that the file contained some riddles that could be used to test someone’s psychology by letting them solve the questions written on it.

However, if the riddles were actually the C-rank ghost story, then it would definitely lead me to another ghostly phenomenon.

“Should I solve this by myself?”

The existence of the ghost stories was certainly too much for me to deal with alone. But even so, just as the system declares before announcing I’ve earned points, I had indeed used my wits and skill to survive and resolve the ghost stories so far. I even survived an A-rank ghost story, although I had to go through quite a lot of trouble for that.

How dangerous could a C-rank ghost story be?

As I searched through my memory, I found that the C-rank ghost stories that I had encountered so far were Red Tissue, Blue Tissue in the restroom and Elevator Asphyxiation.

‘Both of them were dangerous.’

The difficulty of solving the ghost stories wasn’t hard. However, I almost died both times.

Wasn’t that enough reason for me to not solve the riddles by myself?

As I thought so, it suddenly occurred to me that the more members there would be to help me fight the ghost stories, the more bonus points I would receive.

Of course, I could be assured that since Teacher Jang Hwaeun handed me the file just now from the Study Room, where she had already skimmed through it, I wouldn’t face any problems if I try to solve them now. Even if she was completely ignorant about the existence of ghost stories, in case of an emergency, she could help me.

However, she was someone who got possessed by ghosts more frequently than I could count, so relying on her would be a bad decision.

I needed someone who could not only help me solve the riddles but also help me in case we encounter any ghost stories.

“Gyeongwon must have gone to cram school by now. I don’t have Hayoon’s number. I wonder what is Sunah doing?”

Sunah didn’t have any friends with whom she could spend her time, and she didn’t have a computer at home either. I remembered her saying she would always pass her time spacing out after school.

Therefore, when she returned to her home, she would either watch news on the TV or take a short walk around. Because she had nothing else to do, she would go to bed early and had to wake up early too, which disrupted her sleeping schedule, making her late to school more than once a week.

Fortunately, the Jugong Apartment Complex, where Sunah lived, was right next to the school.

Sunah was the best candidate who not only had free time, lived by close, knew about ghost stories and was someone ready to help me anytime.

After contemplating and nodding to myself, I called Sunah, looking out the window of the clubroom.

Ddu-ddu-ddu-ddu-ddu-ddu

Click.

[Hello… Hum.]

It seemed like she was sleeping. Her voice sounded cracked and her pronunciation was vague.

“Hello, Sunah. I’m Joon.”

[Joon…?]

“Yes. Were you sleeping?”

[Yes]

“Sorry for waking you up. Can I talk to you?”

[It’s okay…]

“I’m in school right now. I was doing something in the clubroom but I think I’m about to encounter a ghost story again.”

[Huh?]

“Can you come and help me?”

[I’ll be right away!]

Sunah, whom I was imagining rubbing her sleepy eyes like a hamster, seemed energetic on the phone in an instant.

‘Okay. As long as Sunah comes, I’ll be fine with whatever happens. Let’s see.’

While I was waiting, I sat in the clubroom and began to read the file.

[Psychological riddles that only a psychopath can solve]

*This psychological test was conducted by Robert Bundy, a famous American psychological counsellor, in 1971.

The test was designed to distinguish between psychopaths and ordinary people. While reading, it’s better if you could imagine yourself in that situation as if you were one of the characters of the riddles. Your answers must be quick, without thinking too much on the answer. The answers must be from your intuition and instincts rather than your thoughts. Below are the riddles that would help you find out psychopaths.

1. There were two sisters who were twins. One day, they went to a funeral together where they met a wonderful man and immediately, both the sisters fell in love at first sight. But not soon after, one of the sisters killed the other sister.

Why did one sister kill her sister?

2. You stumbled upon an empty room all alone. There, you found a mirror. When you looked into the mirror, you realized that you didn’t like how your reflection looks in the mirror.

Why don’t you like your reflection?

3. On Christmas Eve, Santa gave a soccer ball and a bicycle to a little boy. However, even after getting such wonderful gifts, the boy looked rather unhappy and sad.

Why was the boy sad?

4. In the middle of the night, you went up the rooftop to get some fresh air. As you were looking at the scenery, you suddenly felt the presence of something passing behind you.

What was it that passed by?

5. You woke up in the middle of the night hearing some weird noises and went to the balcony to check. When you looked down, you saw a man holding a knife with another man lying in a pool of blood at his feet. Suddenly, the man holding a knife looked up and stared straight at you. Then with a creepy smile, he raised his index finger and began to move his finger up and down.

Why was he moving his finger?

6. At five in the morning, you suddenly feel the need to go to your kitchen.

Why?

7. All of a sudden, you hear the sound of your doorbell ringing. Someone was outside. When you asked through the intercom who it was, the person replied that he was a passerby and he’s in urgent need of using the toilet. So he requested you to open the door.

What would you do?

8. Inside a dark house, a killer is roaming with a sharp knife, filled with murderous intentions towards you.

What is the best place for you to hide?

 

* * *

 

I finished reading the spooky riddles one by one and couldn’t help but shiver.

What the hell was with those questions?

As I was thinking about the answers of the riddles, thinking what could be the best solutions for the situations described in the questions, Teacher Hwaeun opened the door of the clubroom and entered swiftly.

“What do you think? Have you tried answering the questions?”

“Oh, yes. I tried solving the riddles but my answers seemed lacking. I’m curious about the answer. What about Teacher Hwaeun? Weren’t you supposed to observe the seniors studying?”

“Well, the students are taking a break. Besides, I have been assigned to supervise the freshmen so they won’t be holding me for long. However, I can’t help but notice your clubroom seems to have gotten more spacious than before.”

Teacher Hwaeun looked around curiously, holding a file which I thought could be containing the answers of the riddles.

The first time when the clubroom got wider she didn’t notice. However, I had expanded the clubroom twice now, it would be impossible for her not to notice.

The size of the room had become thrice the size of the previous tiny clubroom.

Now, even I couldn’t pretend not to know.

“I know. I was surprised, too. It suddenly got wider, right?”

“Yeah, how weird.”

Fortunately, the teacher shrugged it off quickly, only muttering how cold it was inside and took the seat opposite me before handing me the file.

“Okay. You must have read the questions well, right? Let’s start solving them now.”