Rain fell in sloping sheets over Seoul, turning the labyrinth of narrow alleyways into a shimmering maze of neon reflections and shadows. Ha-eun hated the rain; it seeped through the joints of her secondhand sneakers, soaked her socks, and made the city feel like a watercolor painting left out to bleed. She ducked under the awning of a fried chicken stall, where the greasy scent of oil and gochujang clung to her damp jacket.
Her father's birthday was tomorrow, and she still hadn't found a gift. He always said he wanted something cheap but meaningful, yet nothing in the bustling markets of Myeongdong met those impossible standards.
Ha-eun didn't quite understand the feeling that remained in the back of her mind, but it was there, persistent and unresolved.
As she paused in front of a strange shop, she noticed it hadn't been there last week; she was certain of it. Yet there it stood, crammed between the fried chicken stall and a boarded-up karaoke bar, its sign flickering: 「The Mind's Eye.」
"Just looking," she muttered to no one, pushing open the door. A bell jingled, too shrill for the cramped space.
The air inside was thick with the smell of mothballs and myrrh. Dust motes floated in the weak light of a single flickering bulb. Behind a glass counter piled with corroded coins and hair-thin needles, a man sat hunched over a ledger. His face was a blur, as if Ha-eun's eyes refused to focus on him.
"Looking for something particular?" he asked, his voice like old television static sound.
Ha-eun stiffened. "Just a gift."
The man stood, joints creaking. He wore a suit that might have been elegant decades ago, its seams frayed and buttons mismatched. "For whom?"
"My father." She didn't know why she answered.
He smiled, revealing too many teeth. "Ah. A man of… judgement?"
Ha-eun's skin prickled. "He likes puzzles."
The man's gaze sharpened. "Does he now?" He shuffled to a corner shelf and lifted a small object. "Then this."
It was a cube.
Six inches wide, its surface shifted between matte black and a faint, oily shimmer, like the sheen of gasoline on pavement. No dust clung to it, and no light reflected off it. It is like something out of this world.
"What is it?" Ha-eun reached out but hesitated.
"A cube," the man said.
She snorted. "Looks like a paperweight."
Ha-eun withdrawn. "I'm not dumb."
The man's grin widened. "Aren't you?"
Against her better judgment, Ha-eun lifted the cube. It was lighter than it looked, cold as a river stone. When her fingers brushed its surface, a static charge shot up her arm. She gasped, dropping it, but the cube didn't fall; it hovered and hummed. The owner of the shop grabbed it eagerly.
"When someone holds this cube," he began, speaking as if Ha Eun no longer existed, "it can bring good fortune; however, some claim it only brings chaos and disaster."
He turned to her. Like before, a mysterious force seemed to prevent her from looking him in the eye, and she instinctively avoided his gaze.
"Is that it?" she frowned, snatching the cube. Ha-eun stared at it, watching as it pulsed faintly as if it were alive. She thought of her father's hands, calloused from years of repairing watches, pausing mid-task to trace equations on napkins, cheap but meaningful.
"A warning, though," the man grinned, revealing too many teeth. "It answers questions, but you might not like what it reveals."
Ha-eun rolled her eyes. "Sure. Thanks."
But she never heeded his advice for two main reasons. First, she couldn't bring herself to believe in ghost stories, especially in the 21st century, when such beliefs seemed outdated. Second, she wanted to escape this spooky place as soon as possible.
"Um… good day, sir," she said, shoving the cube into her backpack as she hurried toward the door. Suddenly, the shop owner grabbed her hand and stopped her.
"W-what is it, sir? Do you need something?" she asked, turning to face him.
"Young lady, you…" He began. Ha-eun felt a wave of anxiety wash over her, fearing something bad had happened.
"Ten thousand won," the man said.
"What?"
"The price of the cube."
"Oh," she replied, her initial tension relaxing. "Sorry," she murmured, "I'll pay now."
With that, she tossed crumpled bills onto the counter.
"What's wrong with that old man?" Ha-eun snorted after entering her dorm. She was a broke physics student, not a superstitious ahjumma who believed in fortune tellers.
Her dorm room was a closet-sized space in Hongdae, its walls papered with astrophysics diagrams and half-finished equations. The cube sat on her desk, defying the lamplight. No shadow. No reflection. Her father would've called it gwijeong, "ghostly stillness."
She poked it with a pencil. "What kind of cube is this? No shadow, no reflection."
Her fingertips brushed against the surface of the cube; it was smooth, more like a post-transition metal, and had a perfect shape.
"Wierd," she murmured. How did that old man find this thing? She grabbed the cube and tossed it like a ball, playing with it for a while. Suddenly, she stopped when she noticed a pattern carved into one side of the cube. Leaning in closer, she examined it.
"Some kind of word?" she said to herself. Her fingers traced the edge of the carving from start to finish. As her fingertip returned to the starting point, the carved word began to glow, and a static charge shot up her arm.
The cube was ripped.
Colors inverted. The sound dissolved into a high-pitched scream. Ha-eun's lungs felt as though they were collapsing as the walls peeled away, replaced by a void stitched together with fragments of reality: her mother sobbing into a phone, saying, "Ha-eun's missing—"; a version of herself laughing in a sunlit café; and a towering creature with too many eyes skittering across a frozen sea.
Then, pain.
"No!"
Something coiled around her ankle, a swirl of liquid darkness. It yanked her into the abyss, and her scream echoed in a language she didn't understand.
When she woke up, her skin itched. She scratched her wrist and gasped, beneath her nails glittered stardust, not blood.