(The story is a bit gory. If you are uncomfortable reading something like that. You can skip this story. )
She looked like as if she was on the brink of death.
'COUGH'
'COUGH'
She was looking at me while she was coughing. It looked as if something got stuck deep in her throat. Her coughing got worse.
She started to spit out a blackish-red lump. It got on my face. I touched it with my hands to check. The blood was bright red. The woman coughed up everything.
"Stay away from me."
She started to get close to me.
"Don't come close. Stay there."
I opened the door and ran out of the room to stay away from her.
"Help!"
"Help!"
But I kept feeling the gaze from the woman.
I was frantically running in the hallway... a cold hand from behind grabbed me.
"AHHH!!!"
I yelped loudly.
"Se Hoon? What's wrong?"
"Hey, are you okay?"
My friends and the ferry crew member looked at me with surprise.
"In my room, a woman..." I said while crying.
"What? Did you have a nightmare?"
"What are you talking about?" My friends began asking me.
However, the crew member's face stiffened. He asked me for my room number.
"Room 203," my friend answered for me.
When he heard the room number, the crew member was going to upgrade it to the deluxe cabin without any questions.
It was as if this wasn't the first time that had happened, and he seemed to be aware of it.
In the end, I shared the room with my friends. But I couldn't sleep at all.
The next morning, the ferry finally arrived at Shidao Port. We were getting in line to get off the ferry, the peddler lady from the night before talked to me.
"Kid, why do you look so haggard? Are you sick?"
So, I told the lady everything that I experienced the night before.
"I see. You saw her too? The blood- coughing woman?"
I was so shocked. I kept staring at the lady with my mouth open.
"You know about her?"
"Was it four years ago? The woman who used that room died."
"What?"
"You know what? That woman used to run a dark shop."
"A dark shop? What's that?"
I was trying to think what it was. I got pushed by the people getting off the ferry. So the lady and I got separated.
And I found the identity of the woman at an unexpected place.
That afternoon, my friends and I met up with a guide and started sightseeing.
I was so tired and didn't feel like sightseeing. But I couldn't ruin the mood for my friends.
Our last destination of the tour was a night market.
"Come with me."
"What's that?"
My friends excitedly walked with our guide. I just trudged behind them.
At one point, I couldn't find my friends. I was scared, so I walked quickly to find my friends.
"Why am I getting such bad luck on this trip?"
I didn't realize that I had took a wrong turn to an alley. Unlike the loud and bustling market center, it was specially dark and damp.
"Where am I?"
I didn't know if the shops were open. The signs were turned off. I didn't see anyone.
To find my way back, I looked around my surroundings. There was only one shop with the light on.
I wanted to ask for the direction. When I was going to open the door....
'AHHH!"
Someone grabbed my hand from behind and aggressively took me away.
"Run! What are you doing? I said, Run!!"
The guide's face was so red. She tightly grabbed my hand and ran out of the alley.
"HawHaw." I was out of breath.
"What are you doing?" I asked her getting annoyed.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed? You just walked into a dark shop."
"A dark shop? What's that?"
When the guide explained what it was, my face went pale. And I couldn't stop shaking.
A dark shop sells illegal products. Among these products, human flesh was one of them.
So, let's say that I walked into a dark shop. If I couldn't give them the code, I could have been killed right there. So the locals don't even go near those places.
In other words, if the guide hadn't stopped me from entering that place earlier, I wouldn't have come back alive.
"The woman I saw on the ferry also ran a dark shop too."
Then the guide told me a story the locals kept it in the hush. She told me about the incident in the ferry.
Four years ago, the Chinese police boarded the ferry and checked the rooms. The woman in the room 203 locked the door and didn't come out of the room.
The police had to break the door to get inside. And they were faced with a horrifying sight.
The woman was trying to destroy the evidence. She was hurriedly eating the human flesh in the bag. In the end, she jumped off in the ocean to not get caught.
(You can check out my original story. The title is 'The Reddest Red')