*A big thanks to twice-celestial for the amazing banner! Okay, read on.*

“This is the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“Alright Mina, for the millionth time, we’ve heard you. If you don’t want to be here, then leave. No one is forcing you to do this.”

Mina’s cheeks flared. She crossed her arms and pouted, looking more like a five-year-old than a twenty-year-old. “You know why I can’t leave.”

“Okay then, shush. It’s gonna be fine,” Jeongyeon winked at Mina, smiling like a little kid in a candy store as they approached the rickety fence bordering the property.

“It’ll be fun,” Chaeyoung offered, taking Mina’s arm. “You’ll see.”

“I hope you’re right,” Mina muttered, still pouting but feeling slightly less nervous with Chaeyoung by her side.

Mina hated scary movies, stories, scary anything really, and the thought of spending the night in a supposedly haunted house made her queasy. Why she had agreed to join her eight friends, she really wasn’t sure. All she knew is that she didn’t want to be left out. So that’s why she was here, standing on the front porch of Bolte Manor, surrounded by eight girls each equipped with sleeping bags and video equipment.

Mostly, she blamed Yeri. She’d dared the girls to spend the night at the town’s most haunted spot, and Jeongyeon, known to never back down from a dare, accepted gladly. “What do we get after we do it?” she had asked.

Yeri thought for a moment, biting her lip. “How about...jokbal. I’ll treat you all to jokbal.”

Of course, it just had to be jokbal. It was a done deal, then and there.  

It had been Chaeyoung’s idea to make a production out of it. “It’ll be like Ghost Hunters,” she suggested to the group of friends. “We can document our night, and maybe even catch a ghost on camera!”

“We can make money off of that, right?” Nayeon asked, looking genuinely curious.

Chaeyoung shrugged. “Uh, maybe? But it’s all about the views anyway. Either way, it will make our time there much more interesting.”

Mina had held her head groaning while the prospect of ghost hunting had first been brought up. Jeongyeon looked over at her and patted her on the back. “Don’t sweat it, Minari, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

And Mina really didn’t want to, but she didn’t want to be labeled a chicken. So out of pride and spite, she agreed to accompany her friends on this adventure. She knew, standing in front of the ginormous, dark purple house that was Bolte Manor that this was a choice she’d most definitely regret.

“Well, let’s go in, shall we?” Jeongyeon remarked with a devious smile on her face. Pushing up her large, circular glasses, she turned the knob of the front door. With some force, it swung open, and revealed a large foyer. The manor was a spot for rebellious kids to hang out because it had been abandoned due to superstition, so there was no lock on the door. So many stories of vengeful spirits surrounded the grounds that even the police regularly avoided it.

Turning on their flashlights, the girls stepped into the large foyer. It felt chilly despite it being a warm summer night. “See, this isn’t so bad, is it?” Jeongyeon said, pointedly looking at Mina, whose eyes were wide as she surveyed the room. The house must have been a real sight to see years ago. Mina could imagine magnificent parties being hosted there, with women wearing ballroom dresses, gossiping away, and men dressed in dark suits, looking dashing. But now, the place was run-down, with cobwebs decorating the walls instead. It was sad, really, that the owners had let it go.

“Let’s set up base camp here,” Chaeyoung suggested, dropping her sleeping bag in the middle of the floor. She unlinked her arm from Mina’s and immediately took out her camera, surveying the room through the lens. The rest of the girls followed suit, setting their things down on the middle of the wood floor.

“Spooky,” Dahyun replied, tilting her neck all the way back and pointing to the giant, broken chandelier hanging from the ceiling above the grand staircase which forked off in two directions at the second floor.

“Let’s split up, we can cover more ground that way! Teams of three. One can take upstairs, one can take the ground floor, the other team gets the basement,” Jihyo ordered, putting her hands on her hips.

“How do you even know there’s a basement?” Tzuyu asked, looking down at the older girl suspiciously.

“A house this big has to have a basement, right?” Jihyo offered, light brown ponytail bouncing as she shifted from one foot to the other, clearly ready to start exploring.

“I call Dahyun’s team,” Sana shouted; her high-pitched voice ringing out in the eerie silence of the house. She practically ran to Dahyun’s side, smiling brightly at the younger girl. Dahyun smiled back shyly in return, and her eyes crinkled up into creasant moons.

“I’ll go with them,” Tzuyu offered. “We can take the ground floor.”

“Okay, so what will the next team be?” Jihyo asked.

“I want to go in the basement,” Chaeyoung said with a mischievous grin. “I bet we’ll get the best footage there.” Mina had wanted to go with Chaeyoung, but if she was going into the basement then that idea was out the window. Mina had enough sense to know the basement was usually the part of the house with the most history, therefore the scariest part of the house. Chaeyoung looked up at the older girl expectantly, waiting for Mina to say something, but she stayed silent.

“I’ll go with you, Chaeng,” Jeongyeon offered. “I want some of that basement action.”

“I’ll go with you too,” Nayeon declared. She was a bit terrified, although she’d never admit it to the rest of the girls. She gave Jeongyeon a smug smile, revealing her bunny teeth.

“I guess that leaves us three,” Jihyo motioned to herself, Mina and Momo. “Upstairs it is.”

Mina gulped. She hesitantly moved to join Momo’s side. The older girl was unusually quiet, and Mina could sense her fear as well. At least she wasn’t the only one who was scared. That was a reassuring thought.

“So are we just exploring all the rooms in the house?” Dahyun asked.

“Yeah, we just need to show that we were actually here so we can get our jokbal,” Jeongyeon confirmed.

“Remember to turn on your night vision apps, everyone,” Chaeyoung reminded. “You should be recording at all times, you don’t wanna miss something.” Her, Momo, and Tzuyu and were the only ones with nice cameras, which they had brought along. Chaeyoung even had a Go Pro with a chest mount. She slipped it on over her small frame and adjusted it so it would capture the room in front of her. The rest of the girls were going to light the way with flashlights or simply use their iPhones.

“Aren’t we supposed to call out to the ghosts? What do they say on those shows? Spirits, if you can hear us, give us a sign—er whatever?” Tzuyu asked.

“Yeah, you can try that,” Chaeyoung suggested. She was the group expert, on this sort of thing, anyway. “I mean, we want to try to communicate with them.”

“And not anger them,” Mina added, thoughtfully.

“Best not to anger the spirits,” Dahyun agreed.

“Okay. So once each team finishes exploring every inch of their level, we’ll meet back here,” Jihyo said. “Any problems, you all know my number.”

“Let’s hunt some ghosts, ladies,” Jeongyeon cheered. Some of the other girls wooed in response. Mina felt like she was going to be sick.

Jihyo looped her arms through Momo’s and Mina’s cheerfully and guided them both towards the grand staircase. Mina felt like her legs would buckle at any moment. Momo let out a low moan.

“I’ll protect you,” Jihyo assured her two friends, smiling at them widely. Momo made a face behind Jihyo’s back to Mina, who couldn’t help but snicker. In response to Mina’s snickering, Jihyo swatted her friends with offense. “Fine, if a ghost comes after you don’t come calling out for my help,” Jihyo upturned her nose as she marched forward, dragging her two friends behind her.

“I have every faith in you, Jihyo,” Mina assured. Jihyo was tiny, but she could be quite intimidating when she wanted to be. Mina didn’t doubt that if any of the girls were in actual danger that Jihyo’s motherly instincts would kick in, like a mama bear protecting her cubs. Even though Jihyo wasn’t the oldest among the friend group, she always made sure to look out for everyone else. She often kept the group in line.

The grand staircase was a marvelous dark wood. The steps were lined in a dark red carpet, although it was discolored now in its old age. As they ascended the steps, each one of the girls pulled out their video gear respectively. Momo hung her camera strap around her neck.

“Let’s make this quick,” Mina suggested.

“Yes, let’s make this quick,” Momo repeated.

Jihyo pulled them left once they made it to the top of the stairs. There was a long corridor that seemed to stretch down endlessly. Jihyo and Mina shined their flashlights ahead, revealing many doors on both sides of the hallway. The walls were a dark, regal blue, with dark brown moldings along the bottom. There were a few portraits upon the walls, hung crookedly. Faces peered out from the frames as they walked by. Momo pointed her camera at each one, stopping to capture each one before moving on to catch up with Jihyo and Mina. Momo figured the house was much less scary if she looked at it from behind her camera lens. It became like a scary movie, it wasn’t real when she was looking at everything through a filter.

“What’s the story behind this place, anyway?” Mina had asked Chaeyoung two days ago. She was sitting on Tzuyu’s bed in Chaeyoung’s room—the two younger girls shared a room at their boarding school.

Tzuyu, who was typing furiously away at her laptop, stopped immediately to listen. Tzuyu, Mina, Sana and Momo had all just moved to the town within the last two years. They hadn’t yet been introduced to all of the town’s folklore and ghost stories.

“Are you sure you want to hear it?” Chaeyoung teased, setting down her sketchbook on her bed and turning towards Mina.

“Yes, I’d like to know what I’m getting myself into,” Mina mused, and at this Tzuyu smirked.

“Okay, well there’s a few different versions of the story, but the one I know goes like this…” Chaeyoung’s voice grew louder and more menacing. She was very theatrical when she told stories. “There was a very wealthy family living in the house. A husband and wife and their three daughters. Everything was fine until one day the father snapped. No one really knows why, but he ended up killing his entire family. First, he killed his wife in their bedroom. Their oldest daughter heard her mother’s scream, and came rushing into the room to see what had happened. She saw her mother lying on the bed with her father over her body, holding a kitchen knife. There was blood everywhere.”

Mina let out the breath she’d been holding. She found herself moving to lean against Tzuyu’s knees. If it had been any other girl, Tzuyu probably would’ve been slightly annoyed, but she didn’t mind being close to Mina. The older girl was nothing but kind, and the most calm out of their circle of friends. Tzuyu appreciated that Mina was so quiet in a group of loud talkers that usually battled for attention. She looked up to Mina, in that regard.

“Well? What happened to the daughter?” Tzuyu asked, rather impatiently. Chaeyoung had paused for dramatic effect. Chaeyoung narrowed her eyes at Tzuyu before resuming.

“Well, the father grabbed a hold of his daughter, who was too shocked to run, and stabbed her as well.” To demonstrate the stabbing, Chaeyoung moved her hands as if she was sticking an imaginary person on her bed next to her with a knife. “Killed her right there. By this time, the two younger daughters were awake and knew something was really wrong. The second oldest got her younger sister and tried to get her out of the house. They were gonna run away to town and get help.”

“But, let me guess, the father stopped them first.” Tzuyu interrupted, looking rather bored.

“Well, duh, I told you they all died, didn’t I? Just let me finish the story, will you?” Chaeyoung whined. Tzuyu sighed, but stayed silent to let the older girl finish. “The father managed to find his two daughters first. They’d almost made it to the border of the property but he out ran them. Like a madman. He had wild eyes.” Chaeyoung’s eyes widened as she spoke. “He finished them off quickly. By then, the neighbors had heard the screams. The police were called, but by the time they got there, they found the father had hung himself in his bedroom, with his tie.”

“Well that’s....depressing,” Mina stated. The story was rather grim, but she’d heard of similar things before, so she wasn’t as scared as she thought she’d be. “I don’t understand how a father could do that to his own wife and children.” Mina hugged herself and shivered.

“Well that’s the thing. You see, apparently that wasn’t the first string of deaths that happened in the house.” Chaeyoung added, wagging her eyebrows. “Apparently, decades before, there was another suicide in the house. A young woman. And before that, a fire, the house almost burned down entirely, killing the entire family that lived there at the time.”

“Great,” Mina sighed. “Just what we need.”

“It’s probably all not true. Just scary stories made up to scare kids, that’s all,” Tzuyu suggested. Sitting up and tapping reassuringly on Mina’s shoulder. Mina hoped Tzuyu was right.