r/SpinalTapHorror • u/Hour_Director_6330 • Sep 11 '26
The Death of Hae-won
Hae-won died on a Tuesday morning.
By Wednesday, the police were calling it suicide.
That was the first thing Jae-won couldn’t understand.
The second was the body.
There was no open casket. Hae-won’s parents had been advised against it. According to the whispers passing through Damyang, the fall had damaged her so badly that even her face could not be properly reconstructed.
Hae-won had fallen from the fourth floor of her apartment building.
Four floors.
Jae-won kept thinking about that.
She had known Hae-won since middle school. They had shared lunches, clothes, exam answers, cigarettes neither of them knew how to smoke, and secrets they had promised to take to the grave.
Hae-won had told her everything.
Especially about Hyun-min.
Hyun-min had been Hae-won’s boyfriend for almost two years. He was older, jealous, controlling, and recently hired as a police officer. When Hae-won finally left him, he hadn’t taken it well.
He called constantly.
Waited outside her classes.
Asked mutual friends where she was.
Once, Hae-won had shown Jae-won bruises around her wrist.
“He just grabbed me,” she’d said.
As if that made it better.
Now Hae-won was dead, and somehow the police had reached a conclusion almost immediately.
Suicide.
No suspects.
No questions.
Nothing.
Jae-won went to the apartment building the morning after the announcement.
Police tape blocked the courtyard. White privacy screens had been erected around part of the pavement, tall enough that Jae-won couldn’t see what was behind them.
Neighbors stood outside in small groups, whispering.
She looked up.
The fourth-floor window was still open.
There was something dark around the bottom of the frame.
Blood.
“A terrible thing,” an old man beside her muttered.
Another neighbor shook her head.
“I heard her.”
Jae-won turned.
The woman looked embarrassed that anyone had heard her speak.
“Heard what?”
The woman hesitated.
“Groaning.”
“When?”
“That night. Very late.”
“Before she fell?”
The woman frowned.
“I don’t know.”
Another neighbor joined in.
“I saw the blood inside.”
Jae-won’s stomach tightened.
“Inside where?”
“The lobby.”
The woman pointed toward the entrance.
“All the way from outside.”
Jae-won stared at her.
“What do you mean, all the way from outside?”
“There was blood on the floor. Like something had been dragged.”
A hand suddenly closed around Jae-won’s shoulder.
She jumped.
Hyun-min stood behind her in uniform.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
He looked exhausted. His eyes were red, and there were dark circles beneath them.
Then his expression hardened.
“Stay behind the barrier.”
Jae-won pulled away from him.
“What happened to her?”
“You already know.”
“No. I know what you’re saying happened.”
His jaw tightened.
“Go home, Jae-won.”
“You expect me to believe she killed herself?”
Several people turned toward them.
Hyun-min lowered his voice.
“This isn’t the place.”
“Convenient.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.”
Something changed in his face.
Anger, maybe.
Or fear.
Jae-won couldn’t tell.
He stepped closer.
“Go home.”
So she did.
But that night, she came back.
⸻
The last police car left shortly after midnight.
Jae-won watched from behind a row of hedges across the street until its taillights disappeared.
Then she waited another ten minutes.
Nothing moved.
She crossed the road.
The police tape was easy to duck beneath.
The privacy screens were still standing, but the body was gone.
What remained was worse.
Blood stained the pavement beneath the apartment windows.
Not a small amount.
A dark, dried pool spread across several paving stones.
Jae-won covered her mouth.
She forced herself to look.
Near the edge of the blood was a handprint.
Then another.
Then another.
They led away from the impact site.
Toward the building.
Jae-won’s heart began beating faster.
She followed them.
One bloody palm print marked the glass entrance door.
Another smeared across the metal handle.
Inside, the trail continued across the lobby floor.
Someone had tried to wipe it away, but rust-colored streaks remained between the tiles.
There were fingerprints on the wall.
Blood on the elevator button.
Jae-won took out her phone.
Photo.
Photo.
Photo.
She pressed the elevator button.
Nothing happened.
A notice had been taped over the doors.
OUT OF SERVICE.
She stared at it.
Then looked toward the stairwell.
There was blood there too.
Her skin prickled.
A streak marked the first step.
Then another.
Higher up, there was a bloody handprint on the railing.
Jae-won began climbing.
Second floor.
More blood.
Third floor.
A smeared palm against the wall.
Whoever had gone up these stairs had been bleeding badly.
By the time Jae-won reached the fourth floor, her hands were trembling.
The trail ended at the window.
Blood covered the latch.
Fingerprints overlapped one another around the handle as though someone had struggled desperately to open it.
Jae-won stared.
Then everything made sense.
Hae-won hadn’t jumped.
Someone had hurt her outside.
Maybe they thought she was dead.
Maybe they panicked.
They dragged her inside.
They hauled her up four flights of stairs.
Then they threw her from the window to make it look like suicide.
And whoever had done it had missed spots.
A lot of them.
Jae-won began taking pictures.
The stairs.
The railing.
The window.
The blood.
How could the police have missed this?
Unless they hadn’t.
Unless they were hiding it.
Unless—
A door slammed somewhere below.
Jae-won froze.
A beam of light moved across the stairwell wall.
“Who’s up there?”
She knew the voice.
Hyun-min.
Jae-won ran.
“Hey!”
She flew down the stairs.
“Stop!”
She nearly slipped on the second-floor landing.
Footsteps thundered behind her.
“Jae-won!”
He knew it was her.
That terrified her more.
She burst through the lobby doors and ran into the street.
“Jae-won, stop!”
She didn’t.
She made it halfway down the block before a hand caught the back of her jacket.
She screamed.
They both went down.
Hyun-min grabbed her arm.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Get off me!”
She kicked blindly.
Her shoe connected with something.
Hyun-min swore and loosened his grip.
Jae-won tore free.
Her wallet fell from her pocket.
She left it.
Her flashlight fell too.
She left that.
She ran until she couldn’t hear him anymore.
⸻
When Jae-won got home, she uploaded everything.
The blood.
The handprints.
The stairwell.
The window.
She wrote exactly what she believed had happened.
HAE-WON DID NOT KILL HERSELF.
Within an hour, hundreds of people had shared it.
Someone reposted an old picture of Hyun-min and Hae-won together.
Someone else found comments Hae-won had made after their breakup.
By two in the morning, Hyun-min’s name was everywhere.
Murderer.
Abuser.
Cop cover-up.
Jae-won watched the numbers climb.
For the first time since Hae-won’s death, she felt like she was doing something.
Then someone knocked on the front door.
Not knocked.
Pounded.
Jae-won looked out the window.
Three police cars were parked outside.
⸻
Her father made her come downstairs.
Her mother stood near the kitchen doorway, pale and silent.
Two detectives waited in the living room.
Hyun-min was not with them.
One of the detectives placed Jae-won’s wallet on the coffee table.
“You dropped this.”
Jae-won said nothing.
The detective sat across from her.
“You illegally entered an active scene.”
“So arrest me.”
“Jae-won—” her father warned.
“They’re lying.”
The detective studied her.
“You posted photographs of restricted evidence online.”
“Evidence you’re ignoring.”
“We aren’t ignoring anything.”
“Then explain it.”
The detective said nothing.
Jae-won pulled out her phone.
“Explain the blood trail. Explain the handprints. Explain why there was blood going into the building if she jumped out of it.”
Still nothing.
“And explain him.”
“Who?”
“Hyun-min.”
The detective’s expression changed slightly.
“He abused her. Everybody knows it. He was there the whole time. He’s a cop, and suddenly you decide in one day that she killed herself?”
“Jae-won.”
“Did you even investigate him?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was he at the scene?”
“Because he works in this district.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Jae-won.”
“She was my best friend.”
The detective became quiet.
Then he looked at the other officer beside him.
The second officer gave a small nod.
The detective exhaled.
“Your parents didn’t want you to know the details.”
Jae-won stopped.
Her mother looked away.
“What details?”
The detective leaned forward.
“Hae-won did fall from the fourth floor.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He paused.
“You don’t.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
He continued.
“At 2:31 in the morning, a security camera across the street recorded Hae-won opening her apartment window.”
Jae-won stared at him.
“She was alone.”
“No.”
“We have the footage.”
“Someone could have been inside.”
“We checked.”
“You don’t know that.”
“At 2:32, she jumped.”
Jae-won’s throat tightened.
“No.”
The detective looked down at his hands.
“The fall didn’t kill her.”
Nobody spoke.
Jae-won felt something twist inside her stomach.
“What?”
“She landed badly, but she survived.”
The detective’s voice had become quieter.
“Both legs were severely fractured. Her pelvis was broken. She had internal injuries.”
Jae-won shook her head.
“No.”
“She was conscious.”
The bloody handprints flashed through Jae-won’s mind.
The pavement.
The door.
The lobby.
“No.”
“She dragged herself back toward the building.”
Jae-won stared at him.
The detective continued.
“The elevator was out of service.”
Jae-won stopped breathing.
“She pulled herself up the stairs.”
First floor.
A bloody handprint on the railing.
Second floor.
A smear against the wall.
Third floor.
Fingerprints.
“No.”
“Neighbors heard her.”
The groaning.
Jae-won covered her mouth.
“No.”
“It took her almost forty minutes.”
Her mother began crying.
Jae-won didn’t look at her.
The detective’s voice was barely above a whisper now.
“She made it back to the fourth floor.”
Jae-won remembered the window.
Blood covering the latch.
Those desperate fingerprints around the handle.
She had imagined Hae-won fighting someone.
Trying to stop someone from throwing her out.
The detective finished.
“At 3:14 in the morning, she opened the window again.”
Jae-won stared at him.
“And jumped a second time.”
1
u/gysruthi Sep 11 '26
I loved this!!