SHC Chapter 1

1. The Circus of Hell

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It’s hot.

Late June, I leaned on the crate of alcohol I’d set down on the blazing asphalt and asked,

“Senior, where should I put this?”

“There’s a room on the left as soon as you enter. Put it in there.”

Even the extreme heat couldn’t stop people from drinking, apparently. Following my seniors’ instructions, I carried the entire crate inside the lodging and stacked it in one of the rooms.

After placing the last of the beer, I let out a rough exhale.

“Hey, Choi Yeonho. Do you think we can finish all this?”

One of my classmates snickered as he pointed to the bottles lined up in the corner.

“If forty people drink for three days and two nights, maybe.”

While answering, I pictured a few people who could down alcohol like whales. Monsters disguised as humans.

“What about the OBs?”

“No clue. They’ll probably come in the evening.”

My classmate shrugged as he answered half-heartedly.

“They said they’d come straight after work.”

Friday, 2 p.m. We were at the MT. All the finals had ended on Thursday, we held the end-of-semester party afterward, and starting Friday, the big department MT had begun.

Because I was friends with someone in the student council, I’d been dragged here along with my hangover.

I whispered secretly to him,

“Give me a hangover cure.”

I was sure he’d packed some, but he said he was too lazy to look for it and told me to endure.

I really picked the wrong friend.

“We drank till the third round because of you yesterday. Hand it over.”

“Fine, fine. Stop whining.”

He eventually dug one out from somewhere and handed it to me.

“I should take one too. I almost threw up on the way here.”

“You’re the one whining more than me.”

Thinking about it, it wasn’t like he would be in good shape either. After zoning out for a bit, the two of us moved to the living room where the air conditioner was blasting.

“Why is it so hot? Was June always like this?”

“I don’t remember. No idea.”

We were having a pointless conversation when the girls dragged us away to work again. We’d only been resting for a moment after carrying everyone’s luggage, but now we were being accused of slacking off.

“I think I’m going to pass out.”

Even though I’d taken the hangover medicine, my stomach churned even more. I admitted it honestly in front of everyone, standing under this scorching sun any longer felt like I might actually die.

“Don’t joke around.”

At first, they laughed it off, but soon their expressions grew worried.

“Hey, what’s with his face?”

“Yeonho, are you okay?”

What about my face? Before I could ask, the same classmate who told me to stop whining grabbed my arm and pulled me up.

“Get up.”

When did I sit down?

“He partied until five in the morning today.”

“End-of-semester party? Until five a.m.?”

“Yeah.”

“We all met at ten this morning. Did he sleep in the department lounge?”

“No. He went home… It’s a two-hour round trip, so he probably barely slept.”

Their voices drifted farther and farther away.

“Just take him to sleep.”

As soon as they got the okay, my classmate practically carried me and shoved me into a room.

“Idiot… If you’re struggling, just say so.”

I did, though.

But before I could argue back, I fell asleep instantly. It was a perfect, dreamless sleep.

When I eventually woke up with a clearer head, I heard loud chatter outside the room, with random shrieks mixed in, they were definitely deep into the festivities by now.

I reached for my phone to check the time, then squeezed my eyes shut. I must have seen it wrong.

But when I opened my eyes and checked again, it was the same.

“Crazy.”

It was one in the morning.

“How many hours did I sleep?”

Sleep vanished from my body in an instant.

I got up quickly and cracked the door open. A wild party was in full swing. Some people were holding makeup and smearing it all over the faces of those who had fallen asleep early. From what I saw, clowns had nothing on them.

“Ugh…”

If I were drunk too, I might have laughed, but seeing them like that while completely sober made me shut the door right away.

I lay back down on the blanket, enjoying the cool air from the AC while scrolling on my phone. It felt like paradise.

How long had I been doing that?

While charging my phone and playing games, I slowly stood up again and opened the door. I needed to use the bathroom.

“…”

The survivors of the half-dead living room paid no attention to me. When I came out of the bathroom, even more people had collapsed.

‘Come to think of it, my roommates never came back to the room.’

Each of us had assigned rooms, so I did have roommates, but they must have left it for me alone because I had looked sick earlier.

Feeling a bit grateful, I picked out whichever seniors or classmates were my roommates, who were dozing around the living room, and carried them to the room to lie down.

Since I was completely awake by now, I figured I might as well go get some fresh air outside.

Once the drunk corpses were shoved into the room, the entire place reeked of alcohol, so I desperately needed real air.

“Who are you? Where’re you going?”

I was putting on my shoes when someone with a bright red face questioned me. It was a senior I was close with. He was so drunk he didn’t even recognize me.

“I’m just stepping out for a moment.”

“Yeonho?”

“Yes.”

He muttered that I should only stay near the front and not go far, so I said okay and stepped outside. The hot, sticky air wrapped around me, but since it was nighttime in the mountains, the temperature was low enough that I felt fine quickly.

“Ha…”

So the whole day just disappeared.

Yesterday… no, the day before, I had probably never drunk that much in my life. I was likely still drunk right up until we boarded the bus to come here. If anything like a hangover did hit me, it must’ve been in the afternoon, after we arrived.

With that private conclusion, I slowly scanned my surroundings.

There were multiple cottages, but they were spaced out. Since only ours had lights on, it seemed like only our department was here.

Saaaah.

The wind blew, rustling the trees. Between the dark leaves, I noticed an unfamiliar path that I hadn’t seen during the day.

‘A walking trail?’

I must’ve been too out of it to notice earlier.

I walked toward it slowly. Since it was only ten steps from the cottage entrance, it wasn’t scary. Grass and trees grew thick on both sides, blocking the light, so I turned on my phone’s flashlight and looked around.

‘Where does this lead?’

Until my first step, I wasn’t thinking at all. I just assumed it was a normal trail. Behind me, faint laughter from the others seeped through the cottage walls.

Step, step, step.

But after walking a bit, a chill ran down my spine. Instinctively, I stopped and turned off the flashlight. For some reason, a vague fear hit me, that someone might see the light and realize I was here.

Slowly, I turned around.

It hadn’t felt like I’d walked very far, yet the path stretched on endlessly.

‘Did I zone out?’

I definitely hadn’t walked this much. That much I was sure of. Was the hangover still messing with me?

One minute. Two minutes. Four minutes. Ten minutes.

“Huff… huff…”

I was running now.

This didn’t make sense.

“W-where…?”

Why wasn’t the path ending?

“Right, my phone.”

I unlocked the phone in my hand, dimmed the screen, and called the others. The call went through, but no one picked up. Growing anxious, I changed recipients and called multiple times, sent messages, everything. I even tried calling my mom and dad. In the end, I pressed 119, but of course, nothing. No one answered.

Nearly panicking, I tried to retrace my steps, spinning around, and that’s when it hit me. I had lost track of which way I had come from and which way I was supposed to go.

“…”

Standing alone in the darkness, I felt the whole world tilting and swirling.

‘Calm down.’

First, I turned on GPS to check my location. It did show something. I was behind the pension. But in front of my eyes, there was nothing. No lights, no end of the road.

Rustle.

Then, from the grassy bushes beside the path, I heard something pressing through the vegetation. After that came more sounds… rustle, scrape, rustle… continuously.

‘A person?’

I wanted to call out for help, but since the sound wasn’t coming from the road but from the bushes, there was a big chance it could be a wild animal.

‘They said there were boars.’

I remembered the pension owner telling us to be careful of them. If it really was one, what was I supposed to do? I glanced around. I was ready to climb a tree if I had to.

The sounds grew nearer, and I backed away until a silhouette emerged from the bushes. Thankfully, it was human-shaped, so I stopped. The shadow approaching also came to a halt.

We stood there in silence. It seemed like he was tense, too. Without a flashlight, the bushes, and even this path, were nearly pitch-black, so it made sense.

So I raised my hand slightly and spoke first.

“Hel… hello?”

“Are you human?”

A voice came from the other side. My knees almost gave out with relief. He was indeed a person.

“Yes.”

“Ha…”

Just as expected, he also let out a sigh of relief and stepped closer toward the path.

“I couldn’t see well. How did you end up here?”

I answered the man whose outline I could barely make out.

“I don’t know. But isn’t it dark? Should I turn on a light?”

The moment I switched on my phone’s flashlight, the man jolted in shock and shouted for me to turn it off immediately. I hurriedly turned it off, but even in that instant, the image of his distorted face, twisted like something in a ghost story, lingered in my mind. Unsettled, I instinctively stepped farther away.

‘He’s not… a criminal, right?’

A dozen thoughts raced through my head before the man asked,

“Are you human?”

“Huh?”

“Answer.”

What was with him? Was he mentally unstable?

“Yes, I’m human.”

But he just stared at me silently. I couldn’t see his eyes, yet it felt like he was looking right at me. Then he slowly stepped backward.

“Wh-why are you doing that?”

“That wasn’t a human face.”

“…”

He was insane.

I stepped back too.

“Pretending to be human!”

“Isn’t that way too harsh?!”

Without even looking back, the man bolted into the bushes.

Annoyance rose in me. Forget finally meeting a person; how dare he say something like that? Still, after fuming for a moment, I started thinking again.

‘Should I chase him and ask the way out?’

No matter where I looked, the road was just one straight line with no slope or curves. Gritting my teeth, I pushed through the bushes in the direction he’d gone.

“Excuse me!”

But there was no response. The forest path was silent. Feeling like I shouldn’t go any deeper, I turned back.

But the dirt path I had been on earlier… was now a neatly paved road.

“…”

The moment my foot stepped on that path, I felt something was wrong again.

And then, from my right ear, loud, thumping music burst forth, so strong it made my body tremble to the beat. Slowly turning my head, my eyes were struck by a burst of dazzling colors, now that they had adjusted to the dark.

Flashy colored bulbs. A comical clown doll. A mechanical monkey clashing cymbals. A small carousel. And a huge tent with red, white, and yellow vertical stripes.

‘That’s…’

It looked exactly like a circus scene from a movie.

‘I didn’t know they had one in Korea.’

The moment I found a single empty seat in the very back row and sat down, a large man with an eyepatch on one side shouted,

“The next show is the Liquid Woman!”

With naturally swept-back black hair and slightly tan skin, he almost looked mixed-race. His intimidating features combined with a black eyepatch made him look frightening, and he stepped aside with his black cape billowing.

“Wooooo!”

With the audience’s cheers, a flamboyantly dressed foreign woman appeared. She was decorated so extravagantly that I couldn’t even guess her nationality, though she seemed Southeast Asian at first glance.

‘If she’s called liquid, she must be extremely flexible.’

Expecting joints bending like an octopus, my mouth slowly fell open.

A black cauldron was brought in. Inside it, water boiled violently, steam rising in thick clouds.

‘What are they planning… No way.’

Whether it was a circus or a strongman act, I hoped it wouldn’t be as bad as I was imagining, but before I even finished the thought, the woman dove straight into the cauldron.

“Kyaaaaah!”

A scream rang out. Not from the audience, from the woman submerged in the water.

I covered my mouth and glanced around. The audience was laughing as if nothing was wrong. A few people were grimacing, but most looked entertained.

‘It’s some kind of trick… ah!’

I barely stopped myself from screaming. The woman’s skin began to melt in the boiling water. Her swollen red face blistered in every direction. When even her scalp slid off and her flesh peeled away, I nearly blacked out.

The bubbling of boiling water, the rising heat inside the tent, the audience’s laughter, and the woman’s piercing screams cut through it all. Now even the gums inside her screaming mouth were boiling, her teeth dropping out one by one.

The visual and auditory shock alone was devastating, but the worst part of all was the smell as her human body cooked. The scent of boiling meat made me retch. Even when I tried to run, the entrance I’d come through was nowhere to be found.

“Mmph…”

Barely holding back vomit, drooling through clenched fingers, I lifted the tent flap. I thought even if it wasn’t the entrance, I could slip out since it was just fabric. But behind it was a solid black wall. Trying to hold my breath, I started searching again for the exit.

During all this, the show ended.

Crack!

The sound of the whip snapped again, just like when I first entered.

Tears of pure physical strain dripped down my face as a loud voice boomed through my ears.

“Up next is the Snake Man you’ve all been waiting for!”

Hearing the simple name “Snake Man” right after “Liquid Woman” instantly filled my mind with horrible images.

‘But it’s just a show… it has to be…’

I tried to soothe myself and took deep breaths. Right. People were laughing and cheering, there’s no way they actually boiled a real person.

I straightened my hunched body, carefully adjusted my posture, and lifted my head that had been hanging low, only to immediately duck it back down.

I pressed my forehead to the floor and squeezed my eyes shut.

‘What did I just see?’

It was only a split second, but I’d seen a man flattened against the ground, his body twitching and writhing.

‘Did I see wrong? I must have. That can’t be possible.’

Boiling a human could maybe be explained as some kind of trick, but the mashed pile of flesh, squirming like finely chopped worms, was something no CG had ever shown me.

His flesh, muscles, even bones were crushed into mush. Except for the face, the rest of his body no longer resembled anything human. Even in an instant, the sight was horrifying.

‘Damn it.’

I’d definitely been tricked by that teddy bear.

No, the teddy bear wasn’t at fault.

I misunderstood and walked in on my own.

This must be a circus meant for people who enjoy gore.

Squelch, crack! More sounds of flesh being beaten into pulp echoed throughout the tent. Occasionally, I heard someone trying to hold back a scream, whether from the Snake Man or the audience, I couldn’t tell.

I crawled nearly half a circle around the perimeter, but still no exit was in sight.

Crack!

The whip snapped again. I froze mid-crawl without even realizing it.

“With the Burning Clown as our final act, we will conclude Part One!”

Oh, please.

I knew exactly what was coming next, so I clamped my hand over my nose and crawled desperately.

“Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke!”

A bright, spine-chilling laugh stabbed straight into my ears. I lifted my head without thinking, then nearly fainted.

“…”

When a shock is too great, not even a sound comes out. That was exactly what happened.

“Ke-ke-ke-ke!”

Right in front of me, a clown bent its back, pointing and laughing at me. It was the clown with the pink eyes I had seen at the entrance.

“Ke-ke-ke!”

Still laughing, the clown reached out toward me. I flinched and hunched my shoulders, but it grabbed the white metal container next to me instead. Then it lifted the container over its head and poured the liquid inside all over itself.

‘What…’

A few drops splashed onto me.

Oil.

“!”

The moment I realized what it was, I scrambled backward like a lunatic. I remembered the announcer introducing this act, the Burning Clown.

As the clown watched me scuttle away like some kind of startled spider, it flicked a lighter open with a metallic clack.

Fwoosh!

Instantly, red flames burst into blue-tinted fire as they raced across the oil.

I threw myself back, kicking at the ground in a desperate attempt to get away. The clown, no longer paying attention to my terrified state, ran around the audience seating with its entire body engulfed in flames, laughing hysterically. All around, people gasped, laughed, and soon broke into applause. Then a strong, cheerful male voice boomed through the tent.

“Part One has come to an end! We’ll see you shortly for Part Two!”