My Girlfriend Is a Shaman

12 – Shinju Complex #2

“Ugh!”

A jar the size of a human head rolled and fell down the closet.

The children nearby ran away from the closet in a hurry.

━━Click!

The jar that fell on the floor broke with a loud noise. Porcelain shards flew everywhere and the rice inside spilled out. It was something I couldn’t believe even when I saw it with my own eyes. A jar on a dresser that no one had touched fell to the floor without permission.

“Be careful! You’ll get hurt if you step on it!”

The jar was quite large and had been broken, so sharp fragments were scattered all over the floor. I quickly looked around at the children in the room. Fortunately, no children were injured by the fragments of the jar, but it was obvious that they would get hurt if they stepped on the fragments.

“W-what’s going on?”

“Did the boys cause an accident?”

After hearing the loud noise, the girls who were playing in the living room came into the master bedroom. Among them was Ayoung, who invited the children to her home. Ayoung looked at the broken jar on the floor and raised her eyes towards the boys who were playing in the master room.

“What! That’s the jar that was on the dresser! Who dropped it?”

“No! No one touched it!”

“How dare you not touch it! How can a pot that is standing still fall down?”

“It’s real! The jar started shaking and then fell!”

It was true that no one touched the jar. All the boys playing in the master room saw the jar fall. The boys spoke together to Ayoung.

“We’re not lying. We all saw the jar roll and fall by itself.”

“We all watched it together?”

“Can we touch what’s on the dresser in the first place? We can’t touch it because we can’t even reach it.”

“Someone could have hit the closet hard!”

“There was no one like that, class leader.”

Even if you think about it calmly, it made no sense. In the first place, the jar was on a large dresser and was something that children could not touch. The principle was to place the new complex on a high place so that it could not be touched.

“Ugh…What on earth happened? I’ll call my mom first.”

Eventually, Ayoung stopped arguing with her boys and called her mother, who was working in the kitchen.

“Mom!”

“What’s going on?”

“No, there’s a pretty jar in the master bedroom. No one touched it, but it suddenly rolled and fell.”

“What…?”

Ayoung’s mother arrived in the living room. Ayeong’s mother found the jar shattered on her floor and looked shocked.

“Uh, that…!”

“Ma’am. No one touched our jar. She was just looking at it and then she suddenly fell down.”

“…It’s broken.”

“Of course she fell and broke.”

Ayoung’s mother’s face, who was looking surprised, distorted. As Ayoung’s mother looked at her broken jar, she opened her mouth in a cold, subdued voice.

“Everyone get out quickly.”

“Yes?”

“Quickly get out of my house. Ayoung’s birthday party is over now. You all go home.”

It was a tone of command rather than a request.

She was the one who welcomed us kindly when we entered the house, but she suddenly saw us and told us to leave the house. The children were embarrassed by the drastic change in attitude.

“We decided to get together later and have fun?”

“Didn’t you hear me? Get out of my house right now!”

You should just clean up the broken jar.

Ayoung’s mother kicked her children out of her house. In the end, those of us who came to the birthday party had no choice but to leave the house without even saying goodbye properly. Until just before we left, Ayoung’s mother was blocking the door to her master bedroom. It was as if she didn’t want anyone to see what she was in there.

But I saw it.

I ended up seeing something black inside the broken jar. When I was in the master bedroom, I looked closely at the broken jar and couldn’t help but notice that there was something strange inside.

Rice flowing out.

The black thing mixed in with the rice grains.

When I thought about it, I think it was human hair.

‘Hair?’

This is a strange thing. I have never heard anywhere that there is a family that keeps their hair in a sinju jar. There was also quite a lot of hair.

‘Why was there hair in the Shinju complex?’

I returned home with doubts.

*

It happened around that evening.

A text message arrived from Ayoung.

「Jinwoo! I’m sorry that the birthday party ended suddenly today. Mom is also very sorry for yelling at you guys. Let’s play together again next time.”

It was a text message apologizing for kicking out my class during the day. It seemed like Ayoung was texting not only me, but also other children who came to her birthday party. I sat on the sofa in the living room and sent a text message directly to Ayoung.

「It’s okay, Ahyoung. “Your mother may have been very surprised because the spirit jar was broken.”

「Huh? Jinwoo. Did you know that it was a new liquor complex?”

「I knew it. So I told the kids not to mess with it. But it broke without anyone touching it.”

「That’s strange.」

Ayoung’s reply came back.

I continued to send text messages to Ayoung. I wanted to know the identity of the hair contained in the wine jar.

「Ayoung-ah, I have something to ask you.」

「What is it?」

「I saw the Shinju jar broken earlier and what was inside. But there was hair in there? “Why is there hair in it?”

No reply came back right away.

She wasn’t like Ayoung, who usually responded quickly to text messages or KakaoTalk messages.

After a whopping 15 minutes, Ayoung finally sent a reply.

「I don’t know either.」

You don’t know?

「Really?」

「Yes.」

It was understandable that Ayoung didn’t know much about her family’s liquor jar. That’s something that only adults would be interested in. But if she doesn’t know, she can just reply right away that she doesn’t know. Why did she wait 15 minutes before replying?

“Hmm.”

That was the end of sending and receiving text messages between Ayoung and her.

I spent time at home as usual. You can use your computer to read blogs that post mysterious cases or watch YouTube channels that deal with mysteries.

“Son! Mom is here.”

“Good-bye.”

In addition to me, there was also my mother at home who came back from work. However, even though she used the computer for a long time, there was no need to worry about her mother. Her mother raised me in a free-spirited way.

“What are you doing in your room?”

“A computer.”

“Have you eaten dinner?”

“I ate a lot at my friend’s house earlier. It was our class president’s birthday today.”

“Oh, that’s right. My son will never starve anywhere. She eats well even when mom isn’t looking.”

It was when I was spending time in my room.

━━Jijijik!

The fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling flickered. The light blinked and turned on and off repeatedly, as if it was malfunctioning.

“Mom! I think the fluorescent light in my room is broken?”

“So? Just wait a moment. Mom will change the fluorescent light.”

It kept getting dark and bright, so I couldn’t stay in the room because it was uncomfortable. I went out into the living room. But when I went outside, the same thing started happening in the living room.

━━Jijijik!

The fluorescent lights in the living room also flickered. Mom, who was bringing her new fluorescent light, looked around her living room and looked puzzled.

“Huh? Are the fluorescent lights in the living room broken?”

“Mom, I don’t think this is a problem with the fluorescent lights.”

“Why?”

“The TV is blinking too.”

When I looked around, I realized that the fluorescent lights weren’t the only ones blinking. The TV that was on in the living room would go to a crackling gray screen and then return to its normal screen. My mom and I stood in the living room for a while, confused.

“Is the electricity not working properly at home? Let me call the manager for a moment.”

Mom took out her cell phone and called the manager of her apartment.

At that time, I was looking around the living room and happened to notice the window.

A person with long hair passed by near the window.

‘What is it?’

Again, I saw a person’s head passing by.

My house is on the 5th floor.

“Heo-eok.”

As soon as I took a deep breath in surprise, I quickly ran to the window. I opened the window and looked outside, but all I could see was the dark night sky. The head of the person I saw earlier was nowhere to be seen.

“Son! What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”

After finishing the call, my mother approached me. But I couldn’t properly tell her mother that I had seen a human head. Because I might have seen something wrong.

“It’s nothing. Did you have a good conversation with the manager?”

“Yes. It’s not just us, other houses are also having trouble getting electricity. The manager said he’s looking into what’s going on.”

“I hope it is fixed quickly.”

Approximately 20 minutes.

It was a time when my mother and I were waiting in the house with the lights flickering. My eyes hurt, so I tried to turn off the light, but even when I pressed the switch, it still flickered.

━━Tap!

The light went out completely.

The house was dark and all the home appliances were out of power.

“Is there a power outage now? It’s all different.”

A power outage occurred.

Unfortunately, there was a power outage at night, so I couldn’t see the house properly. My mom and I turned on the flashlight at home so we could see at least a little bit. There was a lot of commotion around the apartment as the same power outage occurred in other houses. The voices of residents were heard from all over.

It was right then.

An announcement rang out from the broadcasting speakers installed inside the house.

━━Jijijik!

[An announcement will be made from the management office. There was a power outage in apartment building 101. Accidents may occur, so residents should wait and do not leave their homes. I will forward it again. Residents, please do not go out of your house and wait inside.]

The electricity was cut off, but the broadcast was running normally.

Of course, there was nothing strange because our apartment had a device that supplied emergency power.

What really bothered me was the strange warning message heard in the announcement.

“Mom, they told us not to leave the house?”

“What on earth does that mean? Don’t go outside?”

This is the first time I have heard an announcement telling people not to leave the house during a power outage.

I guess this is a warning to unplug from the outlet.

“I’m going to go check out the management office for a moment.”

“Let’s go with mom.”

Me and my mom went out of the house.

I carefully opened the tightly closed door and went out into the hallway. When I went out into the hallway, took the stairs and went out of the building, I could clearly see the apartment management office in the parking lot.

It was a dimly lit management office.

There was no one inside.

[An announcement will be made from the management office. Residents, please do not go out of your house and wait….]

The broadcast rang again.

In a place where there are no people.