The smell of formalin in the morgue known as "The Basement" was not merely a chemical odor; it was a living, viscous entity that clung to the skin, slipped beneath fingernails, and settled deep in the lungs until one felt their very breath had turned cold and poisoned. In this basement, time did not move by the hands of a clock, but by the screech of metal refrigerators opening to receive a new guest—or closing over a secret doomed to die forever.
Park Do-jin sat in his dark corner, watching the steam rise from a cup of cheap tea in the damp air. His skin was so pale it seemed almost translucent, his eyes carrying the gaze of someone living between two worlds. To his colleagues upstairs, Do-jin was "the graveyard crow," the eccentric who preferred the silence of the dead to the false clamor of the living. But the truth ran deeper: Do-jin was not fleeing the living—he was drowning in the echoes of the departed.
Beside him rested an antique radio, its wooden frame weathered as if it had grown from the soil of an ancient cemetery. It did not broadcast music or news; instead, it emitted a constant white hum, a static like the sound of bones cracking beneath ice. This radio was the "parasite" that shared his life—a device that did not pick up radio waves, but the final vibrations of souls that had left their bodies yet not this world.
Suddenly, the basement's stillness shattered as the wheels of a gurney rattled across the wet floor. Paramedics entered with expressionless faces, carrying a body wrapped in a black plastic bag, rainwater mixed with deep red blood dripping from its seams. They tossed the paperwork onto the desk with a casualness that induced nausea, then hurried away as if fleeing a curse pursuing them.
The name on the paper: Kim So-ah.Official cause: a routine suicide—jumped from the bridge.
The moment the iron door slammed shut, the radio convulsed violently, more than Do-jin had ever seen. The dial shifted on its own to the far right, and the small screen glowed with a dim, unsettling green light. The static began to take shape, transforming into distorted sounds—muffled screams, as though rising from the bottom of a bottomless well.
Do-jin approached the body, his hands trembling with an unnatural cold. He slowly unzipped the bag, revealing the face of a young woman in the prime of her life. One side of her face was shattered, but her eyes were wide open, holding a frozen terror—astonishment locked in the final instant before death.
From the radio's battered speaker came broken sobbing, fused with sharp electrical pulses:
"It wasn't the bridge… it wasn't me… it was his hand… his hand was cold like death… he pushed me while he smiled…"
Do-jin's breath froze. The official report was a lie, and the corruption devouring the city had not been satisfied with killing her—it wanted to bury the truth as well. As the radio shook violently, nearly tearing itself apart, Do-jin felt a crushing pressure inside his head. His left eye burned, color draining from his vision little by little—the price he paid each time he listened to a truth no one wished to hear.
He slammed the radio off, and the pain ceased. A silence heavier than before settled over the room. He looked at So-ah and no longer saw a corpse; he saw the thread of a filthy crime that would drag him straight into hell. He pulled out a small, battered notebook and wrote in a trembling hand:
"Body No. 402. Not a suicide. The killer smiles."
Before the ink could dry, heavy footsteps echoed behind the door—confident, measured steps, unlike those of morgue workers. Do-jin's body stiffened. He understood then that tuning into the forbidden frequency had drawn the attention of the void.
The door creaked open slowly, a long shadow stretching to cover the entire room. A man in a long black coat stood there, his eyes empty of life. In a voice like fabric brushing against a shroud, he asked:
"Has the body of the girl who committed suicide arrived?"
In that moment, Do-jin realized the radio was no longer merely a tool for uncovering the truth—it had become the noose tightening around his neck.