Ah, this one… I don't know if I should say it. It's something I actually heard, and at first I let it go in one ear and out the other. But I don't think I can anymore.
You know Samseong-hyeol in Jeju? That forest right in the middle of the city, where the moment you step inside, all the urban noise just — cuts out. There are three holes in the ground there. The holes where the three divine founders are said to have risen up — Go-eulna, Yang-eulna, Bu-eulna. The birthplace of the founding fathers of Tamna. To people from Jeju, it's basically sacred ground.
But there's something strange people talk about. No matter how hard it rains, water never pools inside those holes. In winter, even when snow settles everywhere, the area directly above the holes stays bare. Everything around them goes white, but not there. No one can say for certain, but apparently even the people who maintain the site can't explain it.
That's not the part that scares me, though.
This is something I heard: a few years ago, a woman went there alone to take photographs. Early in the morning, right when the gates opened. Barely any visitors. The pine forest is so dense that even in daylight the inside stays dim. She got close to the holes and raised her phone to take a picture — and the soil beneath her feet was warm. What made it strange was that the morning had been quite cold. But the earth right around the holes had this heat to it. As if something beneath was breathing.
She thought it was odd, but she went ahead and tried to take the photo. Then, just as she was about to press the shutter — a sound came from the direction of the holes. Not wind. Something rising from deep below. Like the sound of breath being held. Or a low reverberation from somewhere in a throat. She couldn't quite describe it. But it happened not once — three times. Once for each hole.
She left without looking back. Running.
When she opened the photos later, there were what looked like footprints on the soil at the edge of the holes. Nothing like the shape of her shoes. No heel, no toes — just the bare outline of a sole. Three of them. Exactly three, side by side.
People there say no one has ever found the bottom of those holes. Apparently someone once tried lowering a rope down into one, and it never touched anything. That part's unconfirmed.
All I know is that after hearing that story, when I went to Jeju, I didn't go in. I couldn't bring myself to. It felt like something was still there. Not like whatever rose up had left — more like whatever went back down hadn't returned yet.
