I was going to post when I got 5 subscribers, but writing this took longer than expected.
You all surprised me with 100+ subscribers. Thank you! Posting story... now!

« people with weak 氣 become vulnerable and attract the dead; ghosts cling to them »
* 氣 means energy or strength (chi)

Maybe it was the shrimp he had last night or one of the sashimi. Could it have been the oyster? Which ever it was, for a couple of days now, Woohyun had been feeling nauseous and rolling around on his bed to ease the disgustingly thick lump crawling up his throat.

"Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?" His next door neighbor Kibum, whom Woohyun sometimes called Key, shouted through the window from outside as he was leaving his own apartment complex to meet up with a friend for dinner.

With a grunt, Woohyun turned his head toward the window and replied while holding back a vomit. "I'll be... fine."

"I'll be fine, my ." Mumbling to himself, Kibum locked the door and left for the elevator after a word of concern coated with sarcasm. "Just don't die or anything without telling me."

The clear ring of the elevator reaching their floor and the metallic scrape as the door slid open and close could be heard, and Woohyun knew that his neighbor had left. 

Just a few more minute of painful loitering before heading for the pharmacy for some medication, Woohyun decided.

Just a few more minutes...

His eyelids felt heavy, and his body limp. 

Just a few...

He attempted to hold back an incoming wave of sleep without much success as he fell into dreamless sleep.

He would go to the pharmacy later. Taking care of this sleepiness came first.

...

dddd... ddd...

The whistle of his text message and the slow scratchy noise from the heater outside woke him up from his sleep. Without the lights on and just the moonlight streaming in from his window, Woohyun could barely make out the shape of his cell phone lying a couple of feet away on the coffee table. 

He still felt horrible, of course, as if he fell asleep with a full stomach and his stomach had shut off in the middle of the digesting process. Although he hadn't had a bite to eat for the past two days except at times when Kibum felt bored enough to drop off a bowl of soup from a convenient store nearby. How thoughtful of him...

After staring at his cell phone for a good twenty minutes, Woohyun reached over with a long groggy groan that matched perfectly with the bed springs whining at the sudden shift of his weight and struggled to spin the device in his direction with the tip of his fingers.

Got it.

3:22AM, blared the bright light from his cell phone, and several text messages from Key and one from Mir.

dddd... ddddd...

First, Woohyun decided to check Kibum's texts. 

The message at the very bottom said, 'why are you not replying?!!! I'm going to call the cops on you!'

Woohyun faintly smirked a little in amusement. 'So you were actually worried about me, hm? Food poisoning hasn't killed me yet. I just fell asleep.' Telepathically conveying the message to Key in his head, he scrolled up to read from the beginning instead of texting back right away.

'Dude dude what the fck.' Read the first message.

'What thee hell is tht girl outside ur door? I cant get to my placr!!'

Woohyun rose an eyebrow at this, the nausea at the pit of his stomach fading away ever so slightly, and the silence of the night along with the continuous creepy noise from the heater filled his ears.

dddddd... ddd...

'This s too freaky the elrvator is so dmn sliw when goinf down'

'why r u nit repulyingd?? im b ack down on the firdst floor i hhope she didnt seeme'

He was definately awake now and wondering who this 'she' that Kibum keeps referring to was. Kibum obviously was freaking out seeing the massive amount of typos and incoherencies taking up half the messages.

'if ur hom dont open he door bc that freaku girl may still b outsude'

'im goin to stayiver at mir s house u better be alive when i come bacj tomorrrow'

Followed by the more understandable: 'why are you not replying?!!! I'm going to call the cops on you!' which Woohyun previously assumed Kibum was just freaking out about his sickness. 

dddd... ddddd...

The thin hair on the back of Woohyun's neck were on their edges now as cold chill shivered down from his back to his toes. 'Was there something outside my door earlier?' No wait, these text messages were sent between 2:57AM and 3:18AM.

Not less than 20 minutes ago.

He froze as his attention directed itself towards the front door. His apartment complex was like a one room so the entrance led directly into his room, and there could possibly be some unknown being standing outside with only that rusty old front door and a doubtful lock between the two of them. A being so terrifying that sent Key, who hated sleeping over at other people's places, to Mir's for the night.

A flashing sketch of a scrawny disheveled girl wearing a white gown haunted his mind momentarily. 'Nah, there can't be anybody outside this hour, and ghosts are just memories from elementary school. This idiot's just trying to scare me to go to the hospital.'

dddddd...

However, the heater noise and the unfamiliar shadow casted by the moonlight on the window right next to the entrance where the supposed girl was to be standing, waiting for him, were making it almost painfully impossible to get himself to sound very convincing.

Forcing his eyes away from the shadow which made him debate whether it was moving or not, Woohyun turned back to his cell phone to check Mir's rather lengthy text message.

'Key's kinda slamming at my door in the cold outside and idk if I should let him in since he's mumbling about some girl scratching at your door... What's going on?'

dddddd.... dd...

The heater continued playing that strange gravelly noise, and that's when Woohyun noted something that had his sights fixed on Mir's words: '...scratching at your door...' The truth behind the noise haunting his mind and ears came to a dim light.

 dddd...

That was not from the heater. That resembled the sound he heard when someone scratched the chalkboard out of curiosity back in high school. 

dddddddd...

His illness forgotten, Woohyun stared wide eyed in the direction of the front door before squeezing up all the courage he could muster and releasing a short but loud shout, as if to chase away the quiver of fear crawling towards him in all directions.

Immediately, the sound stopped, and the heavy atmosphere thinned.

Quickly, he phoned Mir or Key. Not sure which one, but he spent almost an hour chatting about aything away from the topic on the frightening experience of that girl. He fell asleep exhausted from the sudden pressure being lifted off of him, purposefully ignoring the fact that the foreign shadow window from early had disappeared.

I'm sorry it took forever to get this chapter done. I live alone
and it gets a little freaky coming up with these stories, so
I write them bit by bit haha. Feedbacks please~

This one didn't have the "umphhh" to make it really creepy, so I'll try harder next chapter.