A Korean market ghost story: footsteps inside a locked shop

I wasn't going to post this but it's been living in my head rent-free.

Late summer 2023. I was doing delivery gigs around Sinjeong Market in Ulsan, Nam-gu. Part-time stuff, nights mostly. When I'd finish my last run I'd cut through the market alleys to get home faster, and every single time I passed through late at night there was this feeling. Like something was just. Off.

There was this one shop right in the middle of everything. Old rice cake place, tteok-jip. The sign had fallen off ages ago. The shutter was rusted halfway down, stuck there, like it gave up closing years ago.

One night I'm heading home after a delivery and I stop. Because I can HEAR something inside that shop.

또각또각. Click. Click. Click.

Slow. Even. Like heels on a hard floor.

I thought okay, cat. Maybe a rat. But it wasn't that kind of sound. It was too clear, too deliberate. It sounded exactly like someone in dress shoes walking slowly toward the front of the store.

And then I looked down at the gap under the shutter.

Black shoes. White skirt down to the ankles.

I didn't look back. I just ran.

Next day I asked one of the market vendors about it. Tried to keep it casual.

He went quiet for a second and then said "yeah... something happened there. The grandma who ran the tteok shop, she didn't know the shutter had come down while she was still inside and... she died in there. Hot summer day. Alone. Couldn't get out."

After that nobody ever rented the space. The shutter stayed permanently half-open, like it physically couldn't close all the way. And people started talking. 'Someone's walking around in there.' Everyone in the market had heard it at some point.

A few days later I'm passing through again and I stop in front of that shutter without even meaning to.

The footsteps start again. Closer this time. Slower.

And then a voice. Low, raspy, like someone who hasn't had water in days.

"열어줘... 더워..."

"Open it... it's so hot..."

I never took that route again.

After all this, apparently the CCTV footage started catching stuff. 2am. A hand reaching out from under the shutter.

But every morning the shutter was still closed. Exactly like always.