It was the summer of my second year in college. I went to the sea with a senior from my university. We went out to a chilly night sea, completely detached from the blazing sun or women in swimsuits. Shivering at the bow of the small boat steered by my senior, I wondered how on earth I had ended up in this situation. Below us lay only the swaying surface of the sea, its depth completely unfathomable. Every now and then, my own reflection distorted strangely, and I felt as though I could catch glimpses of unknown human profiles in the waves. The distant outlines of the mainland stretched out like an eerie silhouette, and the faint light of a lighthouse occasionally made layers of clouds stand out against the floor of the sky. My senior's invitation—"Let's go record the sounds of the sea"—had held an irresistible power. Among the collection of that man, who was also my master in the occult, was a suspicious cassette tape. When he had let me listen to it, it endlessly recorded eerie groans, sobbing sounds, and whispers in unrecognizable languages. After listening, when he told me, "Listen to that too much and it'll shorten your life," I was terrified and thought I would never listen to it again, yet after a while, for some reason, I would want to hear it once more. I would chase after those indistinct whispers with a negative sense of expectation, wondering, "What on earth are they saying?" Amused by my reaction, my senior had said, "These are the sounds of the sea," and lured me out to the ocean at night.
By the time my master, who had borrowed a boat from an acquaintance, steered us out to sea with practiced ease, the sun had already fully set. Not to mention ferries, I had never been out on the ocean in such a tiny boat before, and my knees were shaking from the very beginning. To my question, "Do you have a license to pilot this?" he scoffed, "For a registered length under three meters, a small craft license isn't necessary," as he glided the boat across the dark, choppy surface. Once we had gone quite far offshore, my senior suddenly cut the engine and pressed the record button on a tape recorder he had brought with him. The wind had died down. When the whirring of the motor stopped, the surroundings fell silent. No, after a moment, a rustling sound—which could only be described as the sound of the sea—drifted from nowhere. Left to the current, the boat rocked among the waves. Peering over the bow into the water, I saw something white, likely the belly of a fish, occasionally flash and vanish within the fathomless black water. My senior remained silent, staring fixedly toward the horizon. Even when I stole a glance at his profile, I had no idea what he was thinking. The faint sound of the wind brushed against my ears, and the deep, hollow roar of the ocean echoing from beneath the hull filled me with an unbearable sense of helplessness and loneliness. When I said, "Do you think it's picking anything up?", he put a finger to his lips and replied with a "shh" motion. I felt as though I could hear something, but I couldn't make it out clearly. Above all, what on earth out on the ocean could be making whispers like those on the tape? I strained my ears and sat crouched in the darkness.
After some time had passed, as I sat blankly with my face thrust out into the warm, damp sea breeze, suddenly a human-like shadow crossed right in front of me. When I instinctively followed it with my eyes, it certainly looked like a human shadow. I didn't think it was mere drifting debris. Because it was rising as high as a child's height above the surface of the sea. I froze and couldn't move. I simply couldn't take my eyes off the dark shadow as it swayed and drifted away into the distance. We were in the middle of the ocean; the water depth should have been far too deep for trees, let alone a human, to stand. My field of vision was narrow, and the shadow slowly vanished into the darkness. With a trembling voice, I asked, "What was that?" My senior shook his head and merely muttered, "The sea is full of things we don't understand." I felt a strong impulse to turn on a flashlight, but couldn't bring myself to do it, sensing I might see something I shouldn't. With a metallic click, the record button of the retro tape recorder popped back up. It automatically began to rewind, and the rushing static sound echoed loudly. There was a movement as my senior shifted toward the tape deck, and the boat rocked slightly. "Want to listen?" came his voice. Here? That was impossible. It would be fine in my room or my master's room. Or, dare I say, an ordinary haunted spot would be manageable. But here, floating among the waves far from land, I had a visceral feeling that neither above nor below the surface of the sea belonged to the human realm. For some reason, the phrase "No home in the three realms" popped into my head, and a fierce wave of helpless isolation struck me. I felt an incomprehensible chill, as if this world would readily forgive some whim that happened to flip this tiny boat over. Thinking such thoughts, I gripped the gunwale of the boat with all my might. Ignoring my terror, my senior clicked the button down.
I instinctively covered my ears. Spreading my stance to keep my balance, sound vanished from my world, and my senior, crouched before the tape recorder, froze as if the stop button had been pressed on him. I couldn't take my eyes off his figure. The suffocating, raw stench of the tide. Hell is only a single board away. Ah, I thought, for a fisherman, the afterlife is the ocean. Near my senior's shoulder, swaying with the waves, I saw something like a shadow. The shadow, standing once again upon the sea, was about to cross right beside the boat. I couldn't see a face. Even the outlines of hands and feet were entirely unclear. I only knew one thing: it was a human shadow. Just as my senior turned toward it, he suddenly roared something and lunged half his body out of the boat. It was a terrifying display of rage. The boat tilted for a moment, and I instinctively threw my weight in the opposite direction. The shadow was attempting to fade back into the darkness, still standing. My senior pulled back his leaning body and lunged at the motor on the stern. I lost my balance and instinctively slammed both hands—which had been covering my ears—against the edge of the boat. What was that? What the hell was that? My senior ranted with a flushed voice and tried to start the engine. He was going to turn around and go back. Realizing this, I clung to his arm and screamed, "No, let's go back!" My senior shook me off and said, "Obviously. Hold on tight." Immediately, the roar of the engine echoed, and the boat accelerated rapidly. Amidst the salty spray hitting my face, I frantically wiped my glasses and chased the faint light of the lighthouse ahead. I didn't have the courage to look back.
Days later, my senior said, "I'll let you listen to the recording from that time." After all, I still hadn't heard it. Being the kind of person who forgets all danger once the crisis has passed, I foolishly went over to my senior's room. "We caught something impossible," he told me. Hearing that, I had no choice but to listen. When he placed the cassette player on the table and pressed play, muffled sounds of waves and wind echoed from afar. As I leaned in close to listen, I felt as though there was some other sound mixed in among them. When I turned up the volume, I could hear it clearly. It was neither the rushing of waves nor the roaring of wind, but a sequence of rhythmic sounds. It repeated endlessly. When I turned the volume up further, the audio began to distort and became impossible to hear. As I strained my ears while carefully adjusting the dial, I realized it was made of just two words. An indescribable sound that could be interpreted as either a human voice or a natural sound. The moment I recognized those words, I instinctively lifted myself from my seat and gasped. Without a doubt, they were my name and my senior's name.
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