Dark Eyes

A country village is targeted by vampires, and the vampires themselves are targeted by a single pair of eyes. Sample: http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/haeshin/579994/

 

In the country town of Mil-Pyung-ji fields of wheat shine in rippling waves of gold. As summer comes in full, the elderly start to die of heatstroke. As the age of the dead grow lower strange occurrences in Mil-Pyung-ji grow higher, giving bits of proof that the living dead might be taking over the town. Could it be for real, or is it simply the result of a unknown illness coupled with paranoia and local superstitions?

 

A fifteen-year-old boy named Hyun-su wishes he could get rid of this paranoid feeling, but soon he and other teenagers become the only ones aware of what's really happening in Mil-Pyung-ji. At first a newcomer from the city appears to be the most likely culprit, at least until he becomes the only thing standing between Hyun-su, his friends, and those seeking to make the town their very own 'city of the dead'.

 

 

 

Seo Hyun-su- 15. A serious-minded boy who visits relatives in the country town of Mil-Pyung-ji with his family every summer. At first, like everyone else, he dismisses the first deaths as the result of old age combined with heatstroke. Then the age of the deceased start to grow lower, and soon the town suspects an unknown illness. After the deaths of his parents Hyun-su starts to notice that strange things are happening. Social services haven't come for Hyun-su and his sister, who are now orphans, and attempts by relatives to take them in or contact the city are being thwarted or at least delayed in various ways. Hyun-su believes the occasional claim of seeing a dead relative or friend is just the result of grief...until he and his sister are attacked by their revived parents.

 

 

Seo Young-mi- 9. Hyun-su's cheerful little sister. Like her brother Young-mi is eager to get out of the countryside, though only for brief periods as 'fantastical vacation trips'. Family plans to go to Lotte World are put on hold when her parents die and the living dead slowly start to take over the town. Comforted and protected by her brother, Young-mi is constantly looking for ways to make herself useful.

 

 

Choi Shion- 15. A local girl who still attends middle school, having been held back a year after becoming ill. Shion is a typical country girl with a good heart that sees no evil, but even she can't deny that strange and ominous things are happening in Mil-Pyung-ji, especially after her supposed best friend begins to stalk her after being dead for a week. Shion forms a sort of alliance with Hyun-su, Young-mi, and her brother Jin when they find opened graves, growing glimpses of dead people, and cases where people died in strange ways.

 

 

Choi Jin- 12. Shion's adventurous brother. An energetic boy who latches onto anything of mystery and interest. He's the first to take note of the weird things happening in town, but marks them off as his own imagination until he, Shion, and Hyun-su find a couple of recent graves that were dug out from the inside. Some time afterwards, their father dies and their mother increases her erratic, snappish behavior.

 

 

Sohn Na-on- 15. Hyun-su's classmate who has a crush on him, known to be 'flashy and frivolous' because of her hobby in fashion and modern city outfits. She finds country life suffocating and hates having eyes on her all the time, so she fantasizes of going to a city university, becoming an idol and having the life of her dreams. Hyun-su calls her 'monkey' because she often clings to his arm, oblivious to his disgust and contempt. Na-on holds the same feelings for her friend Shion, viewing her as the perfect country bumpkin that won't go away. Na-on is the first among the adolescent members of town to die, and a week after her death she begins to stalk the people she knew, especially Shion after she starts hanging out a lot with Hyun-su.

 

 

Moon Soo-sung- 16. A friendly local who cares deeply for others and is always willing to lend a helping hand. Soo-sung and his siblings are good friends with Hyun-su and Young-mi, though most of the other children tend to dislike Hyun-su intensely. Soo-sung is turned into the living dead and commanded to do the same to Hyun-su, but thanks to the stranger they all suspected Soo-sung is happily prevented from doing this. He is broken-hearted, however, that he can no longer be with his friends and family like before, and tells Hyun-su that they are now enemies, entrusting him to take care of his younger siblings.

 

 

Baek Jin-ho- 18. At first he is the suspicious stranger who came from another country village where similar cases of death occurred, and Hyun-su fixes upon him as the most likely cause behind the living dead. Cheerful and laidback, Jin-ho does nothing to change anyone's mind as he goes about Mil-Pyung-ji posing as a writer doing research.

 

Soon the deaths become clear murders that take place at a steady rate. Jin-ho rescues Hyun-su and Young-mi from being attacked by their own parents using his abilities as a sun-ji-ja, a seer who 'balances karma' and used to be priests in the past. Jin-ho can magnify anything in his sight like binoculars, teleport to places he remembers (limited to once or twice per day), see through solid objects and freeze movement for a short period of time.

 

Normally a seer works with a gam-shi-ja, a guardian, whose physical abilities against supernatural creatures have more effect than that of a normal weapon or human being, with the additional ability to free a soul to heaven, provided that soul belonged to an innocent victim. Without a partner, however, Jin-ho is left to investigate living dead cases with little effect, compensating for it with his mischief-ridden strategies. When he saves Hyun-su and Young-mi from their revived parents, a mystical reaction shows that Hyun-su may be a potential guardian, as well as one most compatible with Jin-ho, despite both parties disliking the other's type of personality.

 

Still, they force themselves to work with one another to protect Young-mi and spirit any survivors out of the village. A breakthrough is eventually reached when Hyun-su and Jin-ho are separated by the undead. Each realizes that they must rely on one another not only for survival but because human beings are unable to live alone. Achieving a remote connection, Hyun-su awakens to his full strength and clears a way to Jin-ho. They simultaneously spirit away survivors while working their way to the source of the undead.

 

In the aftermath of the events, Mil-Pyung-ji is more or less a ghost town, its few remaining inhabitants vanished or scattered away. Jin-ho takes the Seo siblings to the city.

 

Three years later Jin-ho and Hyun-su return to the abandoned village as official, full-fledged partners. Their task is to exorcise the ghosts of the humans who died three years before, and are yearning to live the lives they lost.

 

 

Min Yon- 12. The daughter of a rich couple that moved to Mil-Pyung-ji from the city. She becomes popular with the locals due to her friendly and eager-to-please nature, but Yon occasionally enjoys speaking of things that are both personal and disturbing to the person she's talking to. She is the only person in her family to be a living dead, and since the adults around her gives out the orders it's unsure as to what Yon's position is among them.

 

Jin-ho, however, focuses on Yon among the living dead and those conspiring with them, causing Yon to show her ugly side as a self-spoiled little girl that likes to play the role of martyr. Through her 'fairytales' Yon implies that she herself might be much older than she appears to be.

 

Once Yon was a live human being, the daughter of wealthy, high-class people who were kind and generous. Classmates at her all-female school envied her to the point of going further than bullying. They kidnapped Yon and hid her in a old mansion out in the woods, forcing Yon to become their servant and trapping her there. Yon filled her head with the fairytales her mother read to her as a child to cope with the physical and mental torture. She was convinced that someone would save her on her sixteenth birthday, but no one came. Instead Yon finally died and came back as the living dead, reverting to the form of a young girl to comfort herself. The women in Yon's current household are actually the girls that tormented her when she was alive.

 

Due to the psychological damage she suffered, Yon can't bear to leave the countryside. She takes advantage of the isolated villages to turn them into her realm of the undead, a growth that comes to a halt with the appearance of Baek Jin-ho. The undead expansion takes a complete reverse as Jin-ho and Hyun-su become a guardian-seer pair. The two consolidate and aims for Yon, eventually coming to a stand-off.

 

Yon uses her former tormentors to attack Hyun-su and almost overcomes Jin-ho with her sheer rage, fear, and sorrow. Unfortunately for Yon this also gives Jin-ho an opening into her very soul, or what is left of it. The two talk and Jin-ho manages to convince Yon that it's 'time to rest'. The girl allows Hyun-su to destroy her body and release her soul, but due to the deaths Yon committed she simply fades away rather than going to heaven or hell.

 

 

Kwon Iseul- 30. One of the doctors at the local clinic, he's preparing to move away when the strange deaths occur. A smarter and more observant man than his lazy habits make him appear to be, Iseul keeps his beliefs that the recent string of deaths is unlikely to be an epidemic, knowing that the town might go into denial. He is the first person to experience a positively supernatural event in the unofficial morgue, when black-winged butterflies emerge from inside a corpse. Though he is not a seer, Iseul also zeroes in on Min Yon as being the most responsible for the living dead in some way.

 

 

Jang In-je- 26. A no-nonsense, nap-loving photographer from Jeju who appears to be working with Jin-ho. He's only heard through the telephone when he gives Jin-ho support and tips as another seer, being more experienced and advanced in his abilities, giving him the added power of foresight.

 

 

Shannon Valentine- The mysterious Caucasian that Jin-ho glimpses as he and Hyun-su are leaving Yon's former mansion. Hidden behind a tree, Shannon reveals himself as a vampire and an agent of some organization. He reports to someone via cell phone that more and more humans are gaining stronger abilities. There is actually nothing supernatural about any of the events or people, but the undead, guardians, and seers are merely signs of physical evolution in mankind. The evolution itself is a reaction to the spread of a equally powerful disease.

Author's Note

An attempt at a bone-chilling horror story set in countryside Korea.

Reviews

[James Watts]

Sounds interesting.