Vince was on the verge of dozing off when a swift nudge to his ribs startled him awake.
He snapped upright, vision blurring as he struggled to focus on the bespectacled professor at the front of the room.
“Thanks,” he muttered to Eun-ji, the girl beside him, who looked to be battling sleep herself. She was a Korean exchange student and fellow life sciences major he’d befriended during their first week of classes.
On the polished wooden desk they were seated at, Vince’s notebook remained empty. Only the date was haphazardly scribbled at the top of the page. Eun-ji had a few scattered notes in hers, her small, cursive handwriting as neat and dainty as she was.
“…Bear with me, folks. We’re almost done here.”
Those eight words were enough to stir the lethargic rows of students. A shuffle of papers and bag clasps soon drowned out the professor’s final instructions. Something about assigned readings, deadlines, the usual spiel. Vince was already on his feet, stretching his arms over his head with a thinly suppressed yawn.
“That was hands down the most boring two hours we’ve spent this entire semester,” he said, massaging the crick out of his neck. “It’s a miracle I managed to stay awake through the whole thing.”
“You didn’t,” Eun-ji pointed out, the decorative keychain on her bag clinking as she strapped it over her shoulder. “You were totally about to pass out there at the end.”
“You should’ve let me,” Vince stifled another yawn. “I’m so beat I think I’ll probably just skip dinner and turn in early. Hopefully, my fan doesn’t choose tonight to give out on me. It’s been on the fritz lately.”
“Fan?” Eun-ji repeated with an arched brow. The lecture hall was already clearing out around them, and they tagged onto the end of the line shuffling out the door. “Don’t you use your A/C when you sleep?”
Vince shook his head, holding the door open for her as she traipsed behind him.
“I’ve always had dry skin,” he explained. “Too much aircon makes it worse, so I usually use a fan instead. Can’t let dermatitis ruin my future prospects as a male model, you know?” He pressed his thumbs to his chin, striking an exaggerated pose.
When he didn’t get the expected laugh, he threw a glance at Eun-ji. Her lips were pursed, and there was a look of consternation in her eyes.
Vince frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she shrugged, as they walked on. “It’s just that, in Korea, it’s considered dangerous to sleep in front of an electric fan, especially in an enclosed space.”
The hallway had fully cleared now, but neither of them made a move to head back to their dorms. Vince was still processing her words, his frown deepening.
“Dangerous?” he asked incredulously. “How? Like, I-could-die dangerous?”
Eun-ji nodded. “Yes, actually. It could cause you to asphyxiate.”
Vince’s surprise rendered him speechless for a second. Then he burst out laughing.
“Say what? That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard!” He pretended to wipe away a tear. “Surely that’s just some kind of superstition? I mean, I’ve been sleeping with the fan on all my life and I’m obviously still alive. I think,” he chuckled, pinching himself.
Eun-ji gave an exasperated huff as they made their way down the empty corridor. “It’s not a joke. Seonpunggi Samangseol is what we call it—Acute Fan Death Syndrome. There’ve been several proposed explanations for the phenomenon, but the consensus is, in an unventilated room, an electric fan can suck the breath out of the lungs of a sleeping person. Personally, I think it can lower your body temperature as well and cause hypothermia.”
Vince studied Eun-ji’s face as he listened to her ramblings, trying to gauge if this was all some elaborate gag. But her expression remained somber. It was something she really believed in.
“I’ll admit,” she went on, “research into the subject has proven inconclusive, but it is an old, prevailing belief among a lot of Koreans. My parents never let me sleep with the fan on when I was little, and their parents never let them either.”
“Is that right?” Vince, unable to contain his amusement, snorted through his nose. “Just so we’re clear, you grew up in Seoul, didn’t you? Not Pyongyang?” His laughter echoed down the hallway, drawing stares from two students loitering in front of the water fountain. “I mean, I could understand North Koreans buying a myth this wacky, but for a country as developed as yours, it seems a tad absurd, no? Next, you’ll tell me that fluoride in toothpaste causes brain damage.”
Eun-ji’s expression darkened. “I was just trying to warn you about what I was brought up believing. If you’re going to be a jerk about it, then forget I said anything.”
“Look at it from my perspective, hearing all this ‘fan death’ nonsense coming from a life sciences major. It’s so hilarious, it’s actually woken me up and made me hungry!”
Eun-ji glared at Vince, before looking away and quickening her pace.
He broke into a jog to catch up with her. “Hey, hey, you’re not mad, are you? Listen, why don’t we forget we had this silly conversation and grab some dinner together? My treat. We can go to that ramyeon place you like so much.”
Eun-ji said nothing, her brows knitted together as if she was trying to stay annoyed. But after a few moments, she relented and punched Vince lightly in the arm. “Fine. But you’re paying for the drinks, too.”
Vince grinned, hands raised in mock surrender. “If that’s what it takes to get back on your good side, Fan Girl.”
“Idiot,” Eun-ji said, punching him again.
* * *
“Take my word for it, friend—this is the real deal right here! Western-made, state-of-the-art precision engineering, super-efficient air circulation technology…”
Vince was at the electronics store near the university, shopping for a new fan. The salesman attending to him was a short, pudgy fellow with bad skin and an even worse haircut, but Vince had to admit, the guy knew how to talk up his merchandise.
“These ultra-lightweight carbon-steel blades are optimised for high performance and long operational hours,” he continued, “and the ergonomic design makes it easy to adjust the height, power and speed. It’s even got auto-oscillation features, not to mention the sleek but sturdy aesthetic. It’s our newest and most popular model. You really won’t find anything else like it on the market.” The salesman swept his hand over the display model, the shiny silver-blue blades glinting beneath the bright store lights. “In fact, you’re just in time. This is the last one we have in stock.”
Vince studied the fan thoughtfully. While the salesman’s almost theatrical pitch was a tad over-the-top, he was right about the sleek aesthetic and high-tech features. Although the shape was somewhat unusual compared to other fans, with a subtle curve to the blades, it was clearly well-designed, and not completely out of his budget either. He hadn’t intended to purchase anything that would break the bank, but there was no point getting something cheap that would give out within the year.
“Can I test it?” Vince asked.
“Of course.” The clerk extended both hands, gesturing for Vince to go ahead and turn it on.
He pushed the power button, and the blades began to rotate, generating a cool, pleasant airflow while making only a whisper of a sound. Very nice, Vince nodded to himself. His previous fan certainly hadn’t been this quiet. He spent a few minutes trying out the different settings, impressed by its various modes and functions.
The salesman gave him an expectant smile. “I guarantee it’ll be gone by the end of the day. And I can’t say when we’ll be getting new stock.”
Vince bit back a chuckle. He wasn’t sure how much he believed that this fan was really the last one they had in stock. Either way, the salesman had done his job. Vince was sold. At four hundred dollars, the price was a little steep, but he liked the product enough and was in a giving mood.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
“Wonderful! If you’ll step this way, please.”
Vince followed the salesman to the register, whistling cheerily. He had budgeted well this semester and had some extra cash, so he wasn’t too opposed to splurging some of it—especially if it was a necessary component for a good night’s rest. The university dorms could get humid even in cooler months like this.
“How would you like to pay?” the salesman asked, as he squeezed behind the counter.
The rest of the store was empty, Vince noticed. He was the only customer there. And yet, the space he was standing in felt oddly confining, as if there were another person or presence hovering over him. He shook it off, chalking it up to an effect of the store’s low ceiling.
“We offer a variety of installment plans,” the salesman added. “But if you’re able to pay cash in full, I’ll throw in a five-percent discount and free home delivery.”
That sealed the deal for Vince. “Cash in full it is, then. Is there an ATM nearby?”
The salesman pointed to the street outside with a toothy grin. “Just around the corner.”
* * *
The fan arrived at Vince’s dorm at noon the next day, right on the dot.
The deliveryman, a grizzled older encik with a salt-and-pepper moustache, informed him that due to some logistical issues, the product had to be sent dismantled, and there was an extra fee if he wanted it assembled on site. Vince politely declined the offer, not opposed to doing it himself. As a kid, he’d been an avid builder of Lego and Sembo blocks, and had always had a knack for assembling things, so he was practically looking forward to this challenge.
With the box deposited in the middle of his room, he sent the deliveryman on his way and got to work pulling out each of the fan’s components, arranging them on the floor in front of him.
There were more than a dozen assorted pieces in total, and the instruction manual was vague at best, but Vince got the hang of it fairly quickly. After borrowing a screwdriver from his roommate, he sat cross-legged on the floor and took it a piece at a time, gradually slotting and screwing everything together. In less than ten minutes, the fan was fully assembled. The old one had already been discarded, leaving an empty space at the end of his desk, facing his bed. He set it down in the same spot and plugged it into the socket on the wall.
But as he stepped back and appraised his new purchase, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something about it was different than how he remembered. Vince scratched his head. Was this really the same fan he’d seen at the electronics store? Had that smooth-talking, scruffy-haired huckster duped him by sending over an inferior model, or had he simply not put it together correctly?
Maybe it was the dim lighting in his room, but the chrome finish seemed slightly duller than the bright, shiny blades he’d seen in the store. And the shape felt a little off too, almost distorted, as if he were looking at it through a convex mirror. But maybe it was just his imagination. It was possible, he supposed, that he’d been too taken by the salesman’s slick pitch to notice the minor flaws.
In any case, the real test would begin when he switched it on. As long as everything worked like it should, Vince wasn’t too fussed about aesthetics.
As he had done in the store, he set it to the lowest setting first. The moment the blades started to rotate, he heard a faint hiss, like metal scraping. It lasted less than a second, and then the fan went quiet, the blades rotating smoothly and effortlessly. Had he not fully tightened one of the screws? It wasn’t going to do that every time he turned it on, was it? He switched the fan off, waited a few seconds, then tried again. This time, the fan started up silently, as it should.
Even at the lowest setting, Vince was once more impressed by its force. The airflow was smooth and powerful, yet not overwhelming. Even when he inched the settings higher, it remained remarkably quiet, barely a whisper of air travelling through the grille cover.
He smiled, fully reassured and satisfied at having bought this beauty. Even if it somehow failed to last as long as his old fan, the generous three-year warranty would more than make up for it.
Flopping down onto his bed, he heaved a contented sigh, enjoying the marvellously cool breeze circulating around him. Now was the perfect time to test the fan out for real, by taking a nap in front of it.
Closing his eyes, and listening to the soft hum of the near-noiseless motor, it didn’t take long for him to drift off.
* * *
The following Monday, Vince met up with Eun-ji and several of their coursemates at the campus track for their regular morning run. It was still early and the sun was only just peeking over the horizon; the perfect time to get in a few laps before classes started.
After some warm-up stretches and chitchat, the group broke into their first lap. Vince fell into a steady jog beside Eun-ji, the copious amounts of Gatorade he’d guzzled beforehand keeping him well-hydrated.
But barely five minutes in, his chest started to hurt. It began as a throbbing discomfort that persisted the more he ran, and gradually worsened, like a seed that was taking root around his lungs, preventing them from expanding fully. Vince was forced to slow down as his breathing grew strained.
Eun-ji, noticing he had lagged behind, gently slowed her own pace, her ponytail swishing behind her as she fixed him with a look of concern. Vince was usually the most gung-ho and athletic of the group, often encouraging the others to push themselves and run an extra lap. Being last, and so far behind, wasn’t normal for him.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Vince nodded, though it was clear his breathing was becoming heavy and ragged. Balling his hand into a fist, he thumped it against his chest a few times, trying to clear his airways.
“I must be coming down with something,” he said, panting as he stumbled into a shambling walk. “I’m feeling a little breathless…”
Eun-ji watched him closely, his chest still rising and falling rapidly even though they were no longer running. “Have you still been sleeping in front of the fan?”
Vince rolled his eyes, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Come on. Not this again, please.”
“I’m just saying,” Eun-ji pressed, slowing her pace a little more to match his, “you should at least make sure your windows are wide open when you sleep. It’ll ventilate your room better. Your new fan is a lot more powerful than your old one, isn’t it? Which might make it a lot more dangerous.”
“Will you give me a break?” Vince snapped, still thumping his chest in irritation. The pressure had started to ease, but he could still feel something there, like an obstruction in his diaphragm. Eun-ji’s superstitious blather wasn’t helping matters. “It’s just allergies, that’s all. Hay fever, in all likelihood. I get it now and then. This time of year, there’s more pollen in the air and it’s probably causing my airways to act up.”
“Or it could be oxygen displacement coupled with carbon dioxide poisoning,” Eun-ji argued. “An overpowered fan in an improperly ventilated room can cause an increase in CO2 molecules while reducing O2 molecules. That would explain why you’re struggling to breathe after only five minutes of running.”
“Right,” Vince scoffed. “And where did you hear that? Some half-baked urban legends podcast?”
“In the news. The South Korean media actually covered this theory multiple times–”
“A conspiracy theory more like,” Vince cut her off with a wave of his hand. “Concocted by crackpots.” The rest of the running group were almost gaining on them, already on their second lap. “I’d just as soon get seven years’ bad luck for breaking a mirror—or drop dead from exasperation at having to listen to your nonsense. God only knows why you’re so bent on clinging to this dumb myth.”
As Vince huffed and puffed, Eun-ji swatted him in the back of the head.
“Ow! That isn’t helping matters, either!”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I’m genuinely worried about your wellbeing? As your friend, the last thing I want is for you to end up with serious health complications that are entirely preventable.”
Vince rubbed the back of his head angrily, though his irritation at her was easing somewhat. However absurd Eun-ji’s claims were, he knew they stemmed from a place of good faith.
“At the very least,” she continued, “if you’re going to keep sleeping in front of the fan, promise me you’ll open some windows. Better ventilation would definitely lower the risks of asphyxiation.”
The rest of their coursemates caught up and raced by just as swiftly. “Slacking off, losers?” one of them yelled. “Speed it up! My grandma’s grandma could outrun you two today!”
Vince and Eun-ji ignored the jibe and held each other’s gazes.
“Fine, fine,” Vince relented with a heavy sigh. “If it’ll get you off my back, I promise I’ll sleep with the windows wide open. Satisfied?”
It would be a pain to have to get out of bed to close them if it started raining, but he supposed better ventilation couldn’t hurt. Especially if he really was coming down with something. He thumped his chest again, and stifled a cough.
* * *
The waiting room smelled strongly of antiseptic and bleach.
Vince hated hospitals, but after nearly a week of his condition not improving, he figured he should see a doctor about it. He was overdue for his annual physical anyway, and was grateful that the nurse who’d fixed his appointment had been able to find him a slot on such short notice.
The doctor attending to him was a middle-aged Eurasian woman with pale blue eyes that Vince found slightly unsettling. But as he explained what was wrong, her warm tone and matronly demeanour quickly relaxed him.
“Have you been sick recently, with a cold or flu perhaps?” she asked.
“No, nothing like that. Just whatever this is,” Vince replied. His immune system had always been strong. He exercised regularly and tried to eat as healthy as he could most of the time. “I rarely get sick at all, in fact.”
“Do you smoke?”
Vince scratched his cheek. “Not really. I mean…I tried vaping a couple of times before the ban kicked in, but that’s it. I’ve never touched a cigarette.”
The doctor nodded and stood up, untangling the stethoscope from her neck. “Sit straight and take a deep breath for me, will you?” She lifted his shirt and placed the cold metal disc against his chest. Vince took a deep breath, counted to five at her instruction, then released it, doing this several times as she shifted the position of the stethoscope from his chest to his back.
“Your lungs sound fine and your heart’s rhythm is normal,” she finally said, returning the instrument around her neck. “Nothing seems out of the ordinary.”
Vince pondered her assessment. He couldn’t just be imagining the congestion, could he? But if there was something wrong with his lungs, surely the doctor would have picked up on it.
“Any history of asthma or chest infections?”
“I did have bronchitis when I was a kid, but that was over ten years ago now. I’ve never had any lingering issues since I recovered.”
The doctor nodded, leaning back in her chair. “It’s probably hay fever then, like you mentioned. My son gets it too, this time of year. I’ll prescribe you a fluticasone spray, which should help clear your airways and bring down any pulmonary inflammation.”
“Sure…thanks,” Vince mumbled as she jotted down his prescription. Was it really just hay fever, after all? He’d suffered from seasonal allergies over the years, but they’d mostly aggravated his sinuses and never had this pronounced an effect on his breathing.
As the doctor tore off the prescription and handed it to him, Vince spoke hesitantly. “I’m sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but…what’s your take on sleeping in front of an electric fan? Have you…ever heard that it can be hazardous to your health?”
“That it can cause asphyxiation, you mean? And even hypothermia?”
Vince stared at her in surprise, and nodded.
The doctor broke into a slow smile. “Did a Korean person tell you this, by any chance?”
Vince chuckled sheepishly. “As a matter of fact, yeah. A friend of mine, whose opinions are normally pretty grounded in reality.”
“Not at all surprising. ‘Fan death’ was a prevalent misconception over there for decades, and it still persists amongst certain segments of the population, even though it’s been widely debunked by empirical research. Trust me, there’s no possibility that such a simple home appliance could be having any effect on your respiratory system.”
“That’s what I figured,” Vince said casually, though inwardly he felt relieved. Hearing a medical professional agree that it was all rubbish took a load off his mind. Maybe this would finally get Eun-ji off his back about the subject, too.
“If I had to guess,” the doctor continued, her expression ruminative, “Korea’s widespread use of charcoal briquettes since the 1920s—and the accidental fatalities that occurred as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning—likely gave rise to the myth of electric fans being the culprit.”
“Right, right,” Vince said. “That makes perfect sense.” A silly myth, that’s all it was.
And yet, when he left the hospital shortly after, a pall of discomfort continued to loom over him. Swallowing against the dryness in his throat, he uncapped the fluticasone he’d been prescribed and sprayed some of it down his throat, hoping it would start working sooner than later.
* * *
That evening, Vince did indeed feel slightly better when he went to bed.
He got undressed, turned out the lights, and immediately fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, the fan blowing a pleasant gust of air across his bare torso. Through his open windows, the sounds from campus dwindled into peaceful silence.
But against the blackness of his slumbering mind, he heard a familiar voice. Eun-ji’s. Her warnings echoed from the recesses of his subconscious as he slept. Softly at first, then louder and more urgent.
It’s not a joke…Seonpunggi Samangseol is what we call it…Acute Fan Death Syndrome…It can suck the breath out of the lungs of a sleeping person…the breath out of the lungs…
The sheets tangled around Vince as he tossed and turned fitfully. Eun-ji’s voice grew into a sharp rasp, like the slicing of the fan’s blades through the air.
…The breathhhhhh out of the lunggggsssss…
Vince jerked awake, almost tumbling straight out of bed if not for the sheets trapping him in place. He gasped in a harsh breath, then scrambled to sit up, clutching at his throat. Every breath felt like tar down his oesophagus, thick and burning.
Outside, a clap of thunder and lightning illuminated the room in streaks. A storm was brewing, and sheets of rain poured in through the open windows, soaking the carpet beneath.
Vince continued to hold his throat, coughing and spluttering as he gasped for breath.
Another rumble of thunder echoed in his ears, blinding white light flashing across his room, scattering strange silhouettes across the walls. Despite the extreme weather, Vince’s attention was elsewhere.
At the foot of his bed, louring over him like a predator draped in shadow, was the fan itself. In the gloom, its black chrome body rattled softly as it inhaled and excreted a continuous stream of rarefied air. The atmosphere in the room felt thinner, colder, like he was on top of a mountain.
From where it stood, the fan seemed more like a force of nature than anything mechanical. A towering, sentient construct that was stealing the breath from his lungs.
Vince coughed past the lump in his throat, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he watched the fan’s blades spin and churn like some great cyclopean vortex. Its rhythm was disconcertingly hypnotic, punctuated every few seconds with a crash of thunder. More streaks of lightning lit the room, making the fan appear as if it were moving, creeping closer to him, its shadow stretching longer across the wall.
Fear trickled down Vince’s spine, an icy chill gripping his whole body, yet he found himself unable to look away. Unable to move. Trapped in the hypnotism of those spinning blades, like he was being pulled towards them, into them. A swirling cyclone of doom.
The tightness in his chest continued to intensify all the while, until he felt like there was a fist in his throat, squeezing and robbing him of air. A fist made of black chrome and living steel.
* * *
“It was…so surreal. Scary, even…”
Vince cradled the glass of soju in his trembling hands as he recounted the events of the previous night to Eun-ji.
“At first, I thought that maybe I imagined the whole thing. That all your talk about asphyxiation and oxygen displacement was starting to mess with my head. But this was something else entirely. Something that…I don’t think can be explained by science. I swear, it was like the fan was alive and actually trying to drain the life from my body!”
Vince lifted his glass in his shaky grasp and downed its contents in one swallow.
Eun-ji eyed him warily. They were at the ramyeon spot near their university, the tables around them steadily filling up with students and couples from campus. The two of them had already finished eating and moved on to drinking. Vince had been knocking back shots pretty heavily. While Eun-ji had no problem keeping up, she was growing concerned about his increasingly erratic mood. He hadn’t exactly been his normal cheery self lately, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him so out of sorts. Not to mention, this rambling story he was telling her about his fan. It was wild even by her standards.
“You know, there’s a good chance you could have dreamt it all up,” she said carefully. “Waking hallucinations are a rare side effect of fluticasone, after all.”
“I guess,” Vince muttered, staring at the bottom of his empty glass before filling it again to the brim. “But even if it was just a hallucination, it was still freaky as hell. I’m just glad I managed to unplug the thing before anything else happened.” He suppressed a shudder, recalling the hypnotic cyclone of the blades, the feeling of suffocation they had imposed on him…
“What did you do with it after that?” Eun-ji asked, refilling her own glass. “The fan, I mean. You’re not still using it, are you?”
“Fuck, no. I locked it away in my storeroom.” Vince rubbed his temples, and then his eyes. In the subdued glow of the restaurant’s lamps, they looked dark and hooded, like he hadn’t slept a wink yesterday. “I’ve been trying to get the shop I bought it from to take it back, but I doubt they will. Can’t say I blame them. ‘Your product may be trying to kill me’ isn’t exactly reasonable grounds for a refund.”
“Maybe you could list it on Carousell?”
Vince shook his head. “Pawn a potentially murderous home appliance off on some other poor bastard? I don’t know if I’d feel good about that.” He slumped his shoulders in resignation. “I’ll probably just toss it in the dumpster tomorrow.”
“Man. Four hundred bucks down the drain, just like that,” Eun-ji lamented. “I guess you really are spooked.”
Vince cracked an ironic smile. “Yeah, who would’ve thought I’d end up more paranoid about electric fans than you?”
Eun-ji laughed, and they both downed their soju before refilling each other’s glasses and clinking them together.
“To killer electric fans!”
“Ha-ha, geonbae!”
* * *
A low rumble of thunder filled the sky outside, causing Eun-ji to wince and stir.
She blinked groggily, white spots dancing at the edges of her vision as she tried to sit up. But her head felt like it’d been hit by a sledgehammer, and she just as quickly sank back down into her pillow.
Groaning softly, she peered at her surroundings through slitted eyes and tried to work out where she was. This wasn’t her room. The dimensions of it, the placement of furniture…none of it seemed familiar. Was it still the middle of the night? Her sense of time felt distorted, displaced. Judging by the blanketed darkness of the sky, it was probably still a few hours until dawn at least, but she couldn’t be sure. There seemed to be another storm brewing out there.
Eun-ji’s mind felt like a mire as she tried to remember what happened last night, her thoughts and memories too jumbled to make sense of. She hadn’t gone back to her dorm, she was certain of that.
Squeezing her eyes shut, and ignoring the pressure building at the base of her skull, she tried again to jog her memory. It came back in fragments. Hazy recollections that gradually solidified into a coherent whole as she pieced them together.
She and Vince had stumbled out of the ramyeon place sometime around eleven, after finishing their fourth bottle of soju, and taken a taxi back to campus. Being markedly intoxicated—Vince more so than her—she had insisted on seeing him safely back to his dorm, afraid he might get lost or wander off on his own. The night air had sobered them up, somewhat. After she’d walked Vince upstairs, he’d casually mentioned that his roommate was out of town for the weekend, and invited her inside for coffee.
Eun-ji recalled being hesitant to accept at first. She hadn’t wanted Vince to get the wrong idea about their friendship and overstep its boundaries. But in the end, she’d found it pointless fooling herself any longer. They’d never really been just friends, and they both knew it. Since the day they’d first met, there’d always been a spark of attraction between them. She liked him, and she knew he liked her too. They’d both simply been too afraid to take the first step.
But last night, there’d been no need to hide that anymore. They’d both taken the first step together, confessing their mutual feelings amongst soft kisses and bashful smiles.
As she recalled the events that followed, she lifted her gaze to the figure fast asleep beside her, his bare skin pressed against hers beneath the sheets.
But neither the return of her memories nor the comfort of Vince’s presence was enough to shake the heaviness in Eun-ji’s mind—or the feeling that something was strangely wrong…
She shifted beneath the sheets, trying to pull herself free from them, but it felt like there was an invisible weight on her chest, preventing her from rising. Her nose was growing stuffy, her throat unbearably dry. It was getting harder to breathe.
Hidden in the corner of the room, Eun-ji felt something lurking. An ominous shape in the shadows, radiating a sense of foreboding. Of imminent danger.
Her chest tightened further, as if unseen fingers were slowly clenching around her throat. She choked out a breath, raising her gaze towards the corner of the room, where she felt the source of her unease.
As her eyes adjusted, a sliver of fear crawled down her spine.
It was the electric fan. The one that Vince said he had locked away in his storeroom. What was it doing here?
As she struggled to draw breath, a chilling realisation crept over her. The fan. It was so quiet she hadn’t even realized it was turned on. But she could hear it, the unmistakable whirring of its blades, and feel them creating a vortex—a vacuum—that was slowly but surely sucking the air from her lungs.
Eun-ji let out a strangled gasp. Too weak to cry out, she reached across the bed and shook Vince by the shoulder, trying to rouse him. But he didn’t stir. Didn’t flinch. Beneath the covers, he was deathly still.
Moaning, Eun-ji forced her body to move. She couldn’t find the strength to stand, so instead she rolled herself out of the bed, hitting the ground on her side with a hard thump. For a second, she lay unmoving, vision clouding over. Her head was starting to spin like she’d just been on a fairground ride, making the room tilt around her. She barely managed to pull herself onto her hands and knees. Still choking on her own breath, she dragged herself forward, crawling sluggishly towards the tall, hulking shadow before her.
The head of the fan seemed to move with her, blades still rotating in silence, blowing an intense, icy chill against her face that was systematically sapping the warmth and life from her body. Every effort she made to fight it was a Sisyphean task, like trying to climb a mountain with hurricane winds bombarding her head-on. The room continued to tilt and sway around her. Eun-ji’s very sense of balance was being warped, her body rocking from side to side as she tried to inch forward without losing her way in the dark.
Trying to breathe was proving impossible. The fan’s raw air was scraping down her oesophagus, building a suffocating pressure in the base of her throat that felt like she was being strangled from within. She had to turn it off, but for all her efforts, it felt like she’d barely moved at all. Her lungs were on the verge of bursting, the veins in her face and neck bulging and turning blue. But if she passed out now, she knew she would die.
Covering her mouth with one hand, she used the other to drag herself forward an inch at a time. But the strain was too much, and her body finally buckled less than a metre from her objective. Eun-ji reached out desperately, but could no longer tell where anything was. The world was reeling on its axis. Her sense of direction was shot.
She felt her consciousness slipping as she wheezed and clawed at her throat, her legs thrashing out in the fervour of her desperation. For a brief moment, she felt the tips of her toes brush against cold metal. Eun-ji’s eyes widened with renewed resolve.
Summoning what remained of her strength, she jerked her foot forward, putting everything she had into the kick. This time, her heel connected more solidly with the bottom of the fan’s control panel, knocking it violently back.
It seemed to teeter on edge for a split second, as if refusing to fall. And then, there was a merciful crash, along with the sputter of a dying motor, as its plug ripped free from the wall socket.
Eun-ji lay motionless on the floor, listening to the rain drumming against the windowpanes and the sounds of her own stilted breathing. She waited until she was strong enough to stand, then stumbled back over to Vince. He hadn’t stirred once during the ordeal. In the gloom, it didn’t look like he was breathing at all.
Hands trembling, Eun-ji pulled the sheets away from his pallid-looking skin and checked his pulse.
Nothing.
She stifled a cry, the room once again tilting around her as the realisation sunk in. Was he dead? No, no. He couldn’t be. She had to be mistaken. She brought his wrist to her cheek, trying to feel the faint, distant beat of his heart, but there was only stillness.
Fighting back panic, her whole body shook as she put her hands against his chest and began to perform CPR. Thirty compressions, two breaths and repeat, just like she’d learnt during her time as a Red Cross volunteer in Seoul.
But after several minutes of chest compressions and rescue breaths, Vince still showed no signs of life. Eun-ji’s lips were quivering. She felt a harrowing emptiness.
This couldn’t be happening. Please god, this couldn’t be real…
Sobbing in the dark, she fumbled for her phone, dialling 119 before remembering that the number for emergency medical services in Singapore was 995. An operator picked up after two rings, but it felt like an eternity had passed.
“P-please,” Eun-ji stammered, through ragged breaths and hot tears. “It’s my f-friend. He’s not breathing. I… I think he’s…” Her voice trailed off as she heard movement behind her.
“Please stay calm, miss.” The operator’s voice grew distant as she lowered the phone from her ear. “Hello? Can you tell me your name and location?”
Eun-ji’s breath caught. Behind her, something scraped along the ground. She craned her neck to peer slowly over her shoulder, just as a large, hulking shape emerged from the shadows, its size and proportions all too familiar.
Jaw dropping, Eun-ji stood paralysed, her chest seizing with terror.
“Are you still there? Please state your name and location.” The operator was still trying to reach her, but she could hardly bring herself to speak, to even think.
The fan switched itself on, blades spinning in a menacing silence, the plug trailing loosely behind it. With a loud clang, its protective cover popped off, hitting the ground between them, exposing the violently gyrating blades. Eun-ji flinched backwards, the phone dropping out of her hands, screen shutting off as it smashed against the floor.
Across the room, the fan’s black chrome base scraped like nails across a chalkboard as it inched towards her by itself.
Was she dreaming? It had to be a dream. There was no way any of this was real–
A raw chill at the back of Eun-ji’s throat snapped her back to her senses. This wasn’t a dream. The fan was once again trying to suck the breath out of her lungs. It was trying to kill her, just like it had already killed Vince.
Gasping sharply, Eun-ji clamped her hands over her mouth and stumbled sideways towards the door. But the fan pounced at her in that same moment—an impossible, nightmarish leap—and sliced its exposed blades into her shoulder. She cried out in pain as she sprawled onto her back, blood pouring down her arm from the open gash. The fan lunged again, motor growling now, billowing out smoke.
Eun-ji scrambled frantically to her feet, barely dodging another slash from those murderous blades.
Screaming for Vince to wake up, to please help her, she tripped and stumbled around the room, the fan hopping after her like a vampire from one of those old Hong Kong horror movies made of steel and chrome. Was it possessed? Cursed? It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, it wanted her dead—and it would succeed if she didn’t get the hell out of there!
Blood gushing from her shoulder, Eun-ji made a mad dash for the door. But the space was tight and the floor was still cluttered with their discarded clothes from last night; she tripped before she ever reached the exit.
Landing flat on her face dazed her, and by the time she managed to regain her balance, the fan was already bearing down on her from behind, its blades chuffing and chopping now like the propellers of a helicopter.
Eun-ji screamed as they slashed her ankle, cutting through tendon and bone, and she tumbled forward once again, her head striking the edge of Vince’s writing desk hard enough to make her see stars.
Get up, her body cried. Get up now or you’ll die!
But the pain in her shoulder and ankle, the asphyxiating pressure building in her chest, it was all too much. All she could bring herself to do was lie there on the ground, bloodied and disoriented, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for the end.
The fan loomed apocalyptically, a force of nature just as Vince had described. Eun-ji stared helplessly at it, its own gaze drinking her in. In the darkness of the room, the two screws securing its blades in place glowered like the eyes of a monster, leering straight into her soul.
Unable to look away, Eun-ji whimpered out a weak sob, awaiting her doom. Her only thought was whether she would suffocate or bleed out first.
But just before it reached her, the fan stopped. Eun-ji watched in bewilderment as the puffs of smoke trailing out of its motor began to pour out like the hellish breath of some infernal beast. A sulfuric stench filled the room, invading her nostrils and twisting her stomach with nausea. Even if she wanted to vomit, she wasn’t sure she had the strength. The haziness at the edges of her vision was starting to spread. Every breath felt like she was underwater, drowning in dread.
Just when she thought she might pass out, amid the growling motor and hissing blades, the metallic monstrosity bearing down on her began to speak.
Its voice was harsh and strident, echoing not only around the room but in the very corners of her mind. It spoke not in any language she knew, yet she somehow understood its words.
A Chōsen woman, are you? A descendant of those my kind once ruled over. Much time has passed since those glorious days! Yet while many of my compatriots have fallen to the afterlife, I remain, still clinging onto the decadent pleasures of this mortal coil. Ahhh…the blood I once spilled, so much of it! I would have my fill of yours now, along with the ripe offerings of your flesh. Alas, this form poses limitations. No matter! I shall acquire another—one with the capacity to facilitate my current desires…
Eun-ji could only watch, feeling as if she were trapped in some insanity-induced nightmare, as the fan began to levitate from the ground in front of her. It floated effortlessly across the room towards the bed, where Vince’s corpse remained in lifeless repose.
The fan hovered over him for a few moments, before swooping down, blades hissing.
With a spurt of dark blood, Vince’s head flew clean off his body, rolling to a stop near Eun-ji’s feet. She barely had time to finish screaming before she passed out.
* * *
Somewhere on the other side of the city, in the centre of a moonlit cemetery, an aging Taoist priest and his young disciple stood gazing down at an unmarked grave.
“It is as I feared,” the old priest said grimly. “We have arrived too late. The binding sigil etched upon this headstone has failed, eroded by time and the vagaries of nature.”
The priest’s pupil peered at the ruined seal, barely visible beneath clumps of moss and dirt. “But who was imprisoned here?”
“The spirit of a most terrible man—the Japanese war criminal, Lieutenant Akinobu Nishi.” The old priest seemed to recoil with distaste at the very mention of that name. “During the Second World War, Nishi was part of the invading force that occupied this country. In the years that followed, he presided over numerous atrocities, including the rape, torture and slaughter of hundreds of Allied prisoners, and the mass killings of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Yet, Nishi was a special kind of evil. A sadist who perpetrated these heinous acts not simply out of misplaced loyalty or deference to his superiors, but for his personal pleasure. When he was finally tried and executed at the end of the war, his spirit refused to leave this earthly plane. It continued, for many years, to terrorise the living. Only through the combined efforts of my predecessor and three other senior exorcists was the fiend at last captured and sealed away.”
The disciple shifted uncomfortably back from the headstone. “How long do you think he has been loose, Master?”
“Several days, at least. Enough time for him to have gathered his strength and regained some measure of his former power.”
“But he must still be weak, after so many decades in confinement.”
The Taoist master shook his head solemnly. “I would not underestimate our quarry, my son. As I have said, Nishi was a special kind of evil. His malignant nature and sadistic inclinations granted him unthinkable power in death. As a spirit, he was able to influence his victims psychically, driving them to murder each other for his own twisted amusement. His demonic abilities also extended to lifeforce absorption, temperature manipulation and psychokinesis. Rumour has it that he was even able to take possession of inanimate objects, transforming them into vile instruments of his malevolent will. I shudder to imagine the havoc he would be capable of wreaking were he to regain his full strength. We must locate him, quickly, before he has the chance to indulge in his unholy depredations once more…”
* * *
Eun-ji awoke to the crowing of the campus rooster.
She groaned, rolled onto her back and sat up, a feeling of déjà vu haunting her as she rubbed her gritty eyes. Upon realising she was naked, she stiffened and pulled the covers back over herself. Outside, dawn had broken, but the room remained dark, save for the few slats of grey light slipping between the blinds.
She looked around, her head pounding as she tried to work out where she was. There was a laptop sitting on the desk, a pile of textbooks beside it. They belonged to Vince. She was in his dorm.
But where was he?
She rubbed her temples, trying to remember exactly how much she had to drink last night. A lot, that much was evident. As her thoughts settled, she recalled briefly what had happened between them. She’d been fighting her feelings for Vince for some time, and she didn’t regret finally acting on them.
But everything that had happened after…her heart began to race as images of gyrating shadows and blood-splattered walls flashed in front of her. God, what a horrible dream! Vince’s stories must have stayed in her head and, coupled with the alcohol, taken on a life of their own once she’d fallen asleep. She hadn’t had such a vivid nightmare in a long time.
A light gust of air caressed the back of Eun-ji’s shoulders, eliciting a shiver from her, but it was just the morning wind drifting in through the partially open windows.
She steadied her nerves, coaching herself through a few calming breaths.
“Vince?” she called out, wrapping the sheets around her body like a towel and sliding her feet off the side of the bed. “Vince, where are you?”
Maybe he was out in the kitchen, making them breakfast. She did vaguely remember him bragging last night about being a culinary genius and how ‘Nanyang-style’ eggs Benedict were his specialty, though that could just have been the soju talking.
Eun-ji rubbed her temples again. There was still a pressure building at the back of her head, no doubt a hangover from last night. She wondered if Vince was faring any better, given how much more he’d ended up drinking than her.
“Vince!” she called out again as she stood up. Something cold and wet made her toes curl against the floor.
Glancing down, her heart stopped in her chest. The air suddenly felt much too thick.
Glinting in the hazy dawn light, the floor was covered in blood. And in the centre of the puddle, eyes glassy and lifeless, was Vince’s severed head.
Eun-ji’s pulse began to race, hammering against her ribs as the air in the room turned ice-cold. As cold as the blood beneath her feet.
On the other side of the room, something began to stir in the shadows.
She watched, frozen and trembling, as a figure stepped out. It was Vince, or what was left of his body. He walked unsteadily—arms jerking side-to-side, feet bent at impossible angles—like a marionette being dangled on strings. He staggered fully out of the shadows, and Eun-ji felt her knees go weak.
On the gory stump where Vince’s head should have been, the fan’s metallic blades protruded from his flesh, spinning with the promise of deranged violence, a horrific portent of doom.
As the abomination shambled towards her, all Eun-ji could think to do was scream.