The Shrine in the Rain

The flyer sat in Jungkook’s jacket pocket like a magnet. Even hours later, after he’d changed out of the hanbok and into a hoodie and joggers, he kept reaching for it. Crumpled, ink slightly smeared, it still pulsed with something he couldn’t quite name. Not just curiosity. Something older.

The message: YOU ARE NOT WHERE YOU CAME FROM.

He looked it up, of course. He wasn’t reckless. (Okay, he was. But only sometimes.) A quick image search led to a rabbit hole of folklore forums and buried blog posts, mostly written by history majors with too much time. One post in particular caught his eye: a blurry photo of a moss-covered altar in the woods of Gangwon-do, with the exact same star-knot symbol. The caption just read: “The Star Shrine. Not on maps. Not on GPS. You find it when it finds you.”

Obviously, Jungkook packed a bag.

He drove two hours east.

Rain turned from drizzle to downpour just past Yangyang. His phone lost signal halfway up the mountain, and the wipers were squeaking against the glass like some old horror movie. Still, he followed the vague directions posted by a Reddit user named “historian-420”: turn past the deer statue, count five telephone poles, stop when the road ends.

There was no signage.

Just an overgrown trail leading into the woods, half-blocked by a fallen log and a very judgmental raven.

“Great,” Jungkook muttered, slipping on his waterproof boots. “If I get murdered, I'm haunting the Dispatch offices.”

He left his phone in airplane mode and tucked it deep into his bag. No GPS, no distractions. Just intuition. And maybe mild delusion.

The path narrowed quickly, curving uphill under dense pine. The air smelled like moss and wet bark. His hoodie soaked through almost immediately. Raindrops clung to his eyelashes.

He slipped twice. Cursed both times. Then apologized to a passing squirrel.

He was starting to think this was a mistake when the trees suddenly parted.

And there it was.

The Star Shrine.

Ancient stone. Overgrown but not forgotten. Four pillars, one collapsed, the others leaning like tired sentinels around a central platform. Ivy wrapped the walls. Moss softened every edge. The rain shimmered as it fell through the clearing like it, too, recognized something sacred.

At the heart of the shrine stood a weathered slab carved with two interlocking stars. One pointed outward. One curved inward. A balance.

Jungkook stepped closer.

Something in his chest tugged. Like a string being pulled.

He reached out—again, not gently. (What was it with him and touching mysterious objects?)

The stone was warm.

Rain pattered around him, but none landed on the altar. It was dry. Humming faintly. Almost vibrating.

He blinked. The air blurred.

A whisper? No. Wind. Maybe. He couldn’t tell.

He turned, scanning the trees. No one. Just him. And the shrine. And the sudden, unnatural stillness that made every hair on his arms stand up.

He looked back at the stone. Hesitated.

Then, slowly, he pressed both palms flat against the twin stars.

It hit like thunder.

Not around him, through him.

A low, bone-deep tremor. The kind that vibrated in his teeth.

The sky cracked open with a flash of lightning so bright he staggered back, blinded. A roar of thunder swallowed the forest whole.

Then silence.

The altar glowed.

Jungkook stared, breath caught.

Light poured from the star symbol, lines of it snaking like veins across the stone, across the ground, into the roots. The trees pulsed. The rain froze in midair.

He couldn’t move.

Couldn’t breathe.

Something shifted beneath his feet.

Like the earth had exhaled.

He opened his mouth to call out, to who, he didn’t know, but before sound could form, the world tilted.

Not forward.

Not backward.

Inward.

Colors smeared. Sound twisted. His vision narrowed to a single white thread, pulsing like a heartbeat.

He fell.

Not down.

Not through.