I wasn't going to post this but... the red lighthouse story actually happened to me

I wasn't going to post this but it's been sitting in my chest for years so here we go.

Summer 2019. I was doing an albah¹ at a tiny fishing village on the east coast, Gangwon-do. Beautiful place. Quiet. The kind of quiet that starts feeling wrong after a while.

The villagers had this story. A red lighthouse at the end of the village. At night it glows red, and the rule was: NEVER go to the shore the red light touches. Specifically, if you see someone getting dragged under by the waves down there? You're next. You get pulled in with them.

I'm from the city. I thought it was cute little fisherman folklore. The red light honestly made the ocean look kinda magical at night so I'd walk down there all the time to feel the sea breeze.

Then came that night.

Typhoon was rolling in. Wind howling, waves the size of houses. Everyone else locked themselves inside. And me? For some reason I *had* to go to the lighthouse. I can't explain it. My feet just took me.

Got there and the wind was wrapping around me like hands. The waves hitting the rocks below sounded like a giant animal screaming. Red light sweeping the dark in that slow rhythm.

That's when I saw her.

The second the red beam swept the shore, something was in the water. A person. A woman in a white dress getting pulled deeper and deeper. I grabbed my phone to call 119 and then.

she looked up.

She looked RIGHT at me. Face white as paper. Eyes full of this... I don't even know. Pure despair. And she was waving at me from inside the waves. Like "save me, save me."

But something was off. The waving wasn't "help me." It was "come here. follow me."

My heart stopped. I remembered the story. I couldn't move. My feet were GLUED.

Then the lighthouse started flickering. The steady beam went shaky, shaky, then OFF. Pitch black. I'm panicking, thrashing around in the dark, and when the light came back on.

she wasn't in the water anymore.

She was on the rocks. Right below the lighthouse. Same white dress but now soaking wet, face dripping, eyes completely empty. And she was walking toward me. Slowly. That salt smell, and underneath it something rotten and fishy.

I'm stepping backwards and that's when I hear it. Over the waves. *chabak. chabak.* Wet cloth dragging on rock. Footsteps on stones.

And my brain finally caught up: the waves NEVER stop crashing down there. No human could stand on those rocks. No human could walk toward me.

That was not a person.

I screamed and RAN. The footsteps behind me got faster. I ran like a crazy person, full speed toward the village. The second I hit the village entrance, the footsteps just... stopped.

I quit the job a few days later. Before leaving, I asked one of the village elders about the lighthouse and the woman. His face went bitter.

Long time ago, the lighthouse keeper's daughter drowned there. She screamed "Appa, save me" to her father and he couldn't reach her in time. He hung himself in the lighthouse after. And every night since, she shows up and lures people into the water.

And here's what's been eating me. Maybe she wasn't trying to hurt me. Maybe she was just... stuck. Replaying her last second over and over, screaming "save me" to anyone who'd listen. And I ran.

Should I have helped her?

I still don't know if she wanted to be saved or if she wanted to take me down with her. Maybe if I'd tried, I wouldn't be here writing this.

The red lighthouse is still there. The waves still hit those rocks every night like they're trying to swallow something.

¹ albah (알바) = part-time job in Korean. Super common for students/young people.