Two girls were sitting tiredly, full of aches in their body beside a round table covered with their textbooks, notebooks and other belongings. They heaved a sigh in union, looked each other in the eyes and made grumpy faces.

One’s face was bloated, even though the rest of her body was skinny, and her heavy eye bags and the yawns she let out every now and then were an indication that she hadn’t slept properly for a couple of days.  She tapped her pen to her lips frustrated, her hands were aching because she had written pages after pages of revising, and she sighed thinking of what her life had become.

The other has her nose in the thick book, and is trying to force her brain into memorizing what seems like important.  She is sick of writing notes, and is relaying on her most unused study technique. From time to time, she massages her temple in an attempt to shove away the pain there,  and at other times she’ll just put the book down and rest her head on the table. That’s exactly what she did now.

“I’m tired” The girl complained and chewed on her lip in frustration. The only thought that is running through her mind is how she’ll manage to get a good grade on the test coming up and what will happen if she doesn’t. She’s a perfectionist since high school and is used to getting the highest of grades, but finds it extremely hard to keep up the perfectionist inside her ever since the new semester started.

“And I am hungry” Her friend complained and her stomach growled in agreement. It wanted something. It wanted food and had been waiting since evening already.

“Ottokae!” Sandara pulled her hair in defeat; all of her plans are going to waste. Even though she is coming to library almost every day to study, nothing is getting to her brain. If she keeps up this way, she’ll end up failing and having to repeat the year.

The clock ticked past midnight and most people had left already, so she stood up, having had enough. “I give up, let’s just go.”

“I told you we should just go, but no, you wouldn’t listen!” Her friend and roommate, Haera, argued. She had advised for the two of them to go back to their dorm and have a nap hours ago, but Sandara wouldn’t listen. She had believed they’d make a few hours of reading without sleep and food.

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Dara gathered her books and threw them inside of her bag. “Hurry up, I want to sleep!”

Haera sighed tiredly thinking of the 10 minutes walk they’ll have to do in order to get home. Her legs, or actually every muscle in her body was already aching and not comprehending to the brain’s orders. She can’t wait to get home and slump on her bed.

Both students flung the bags over their shoulders after cleaning the table from any mess they’d created the past four hours and exited soundlessly, trying hard not to disturb the librarian and the fellow students. They can’t seem to like the student life, it’s all about going to university, struggling through their part-time work-shifts, wasting hours in the library and finally heading for the dorms to gain a couple hours of sleep. It was tiresome and distasteful. Sometimes they all wonder how bad it could be to work at McDonalds for the rest of their lives, it must not be worse than this right? Teachers always told their students; a life without education is not worth living, but now it was difficult to understand why. Education was a pain in the for most of them anyways. 

The fresh breeze outside was soothing, it felt good for the two to be out, since they’ve been stuck in the library since evening.

“Ahh, this is so good!” Haera mumbled and flung her hair back and forth- acting like she was in a movie, and making her friend laugh slightly with the tiny bit of energy she had left. Once they passed the dark alley road, both turned different ways.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Haera gripped Dara's bag and yanked her back.

“Huh? Aren’t we going this way?” She adjusted her heavy bag on the shoulder and looked at her friend’s confused face.

“No we are not, are you stupid?”

“Why not?!” She wanted to get home as soon as possible and the course she wanted to take would get them there in no time.

“You want to go through the forest right now?” Haera faked anger “Are you stupid?! It’s so dark and on top of that there are no lights in the forest.” She was right though, no sane person would willingly go through a forest at this time of the night. God knows what animals and other creepy creatures abide there.

“Please Haera!” Dara started whining, there was no way she’ll take the road. “This takes like 5 minutes, the other takes more than 10, and I am tired!”

“No, we are not going there.” Her roommate would have no of it, her decision was made, and it was unchangeable, at least that’s what she thought.

“Come on! Do you really want to walk 10 minutes on the road right now?” Dara argued, she was coming up with many good reasons very soon. “Do you really want to bump into drunkies and let your ear get destroyed by car-horns?!” The city was busy, even at night, so there was no way it would be peaceful to walk in it, both knew.

“Yes, I’d rather do that, than go through a forest!”

“Come on, what can be the worst thing happening? Nothing, we’ll just get to the dorms in no time!” She answered her own question and brushed her hair through her fingertips, waiting for the friend to agree.

“Nothing?!” Haera burst out “Dangerous animals are in there! And- and what if there are…….. ghosts?!”

Sandara giggled, yes she believed in ghosts, but not that they’d attack her right now. “Come on, we’ve been here many times and never seen a dangerous animal!”

“But that was in the daylight! And what about ghosts huh?!”

Dara folded her hands in a pyramid “I’ll pray to God to keep them away.”

“Aissht!” Haera slapped her arm in irritation; she likes to turn everything into a joke! “We are not going there.”

“Please”

“No”

“Pretty please” She made a puppy-dog-eyes look and formed a pout with her lips, but her friend couldn’t afford to fall for it.

“No”

“Okay,” She turned around and walked through the bushes, not caring what kind of insects must be abiding in there. “I am going alone then.”

“NO! Come back here!”

“Bye”

“Park Sandara!”

This time she didn’t answer, so her roommate heaved a frustrated sigh before running after her. She didn’t want to let her stubborn friend walk alone through that dark and dangerous place, and therefore followed her silently from behind.

They switched on the flashlights from their phones and walked over tree roots and dead grass and rotten flowers. The sound of leaves twirling filled their ears and it smelled of damp earth, since it had rained just recently. They could just imagine it being nut-brown filled with trees like towers. 

“Aissht!” Haera complained behind her friend when her foot was caught in mud. Dara helped her out and giggled silently afterwards. They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, but stopped abruptly when a light peeked at them from the front. Their first reaction was to bend their knees slightly, and prepare themselves for a run, but what they saw next, made their breath stick like a huge cotton ball in their throats.

There were shadows.

Three of them.

All were men, though two were more huge and towering than the third.

The two sneaky girls looked each other in the eyes and only one thought crossed their minds. , they were going to be today. They knew the only way to save themselves from this, was turn around and silently tiptoe away, so that’s exactly what they tried doing, and they would have succeed, only if a strangled cry hadn’t been heard.

Dara spun around to look at the scene; A man was crying, one was pressing him to the tree and the third was hovering above him. She felt a sadness in her stomach, and pitied the victim. He needed help, she knew, but what could she do to help?

“Come on!” Haera whispered afraid and tried dragging Dara, but Dara wouldn’t budge. She was sick in her stomach and if she walked away right now, guilt would eat her alive. What if the man gets killed? She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if they turned around and heard him getting murdered behind. And if they walked away from a crime scene, it would make them guilty in the crime right? She had read somewhere in a law book that one who does nothing to prevent a crime, when he is in the position to, will be punished as much as the perpetrator himself.

“Dara! We need to go!”

“Haera” Sandara gulped nervously “I- I think they are going to kill him”

“And we’ll be killed too if we don’t get away from here Dara!”

Evil chuckles were heard from the shadows and they raised in sound when the victim cried out because of the pain they were inflicting onto his stomach by punching him repeatedly.

“We can’t leave him like that”

“But we can’t do anything to save him either!”

Sandara seemed to think thoroughly for a moment, before an idea popped up in her mind. “I have an idea” she exclaimed to her friend.

“What?!”

“What if I go distract them and you can call the police in the meanwhile?”

“There’s no signal in here!”

“Get out of here and call then!”

“I am not letting you out of my sight!”

Both knew they needed to work fast when another heart-wrenching