한국어

After Twenty Years, I Returned to My Hometown, But Nothing Had Changed. Not Even the People.

A man returns to his hometown after twenty years to find everything frozen in time, and discovers a disturbing truth from a fortune teller.

This is an English translation of a story originally written in Korean by the Hwasee.bang community, one sentence at a time.
Each sentence was submitted separately and chosen by community vote before the next one could be written. Nobody knew how it would end.
Read the Korean original →

This is not mere nostalgia speaking: my childhood friend, who once stood at eye level with me, now reached only to my chest.

During the time it takes mountains and rivers to change twice over, they had not aged a day.

And they did not remember me—I knew plenty of people, yet no one knew me.

I sought out the fortune teller's shop that had been famous back then, and even the scraps of flyers stuffing the holes in the latticed door remained exactly as they were.

The shaman in the shop was the only one who noticed my changes and spoke to me.

"It's been twenty years since we last met. I am able to perceive your transformation."

I asked the shaman, "How on earth did this happen?"

The shaman smiled slowly and said, "You are already dead."

8 sentences Translated from Korean
This is a finished translation and can't be continued here.
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