Minseok and Lu Han had gotten back to Clover in late September, so for once everyone was all together for Halloween. They were beyond excited when the beginning of the week before Halloween rolled around and the lady, Claire, hadn’t called anyone to come recruit, especially Junmyeon, since he usually ended up getting called for. If she hadn’t by now she wouldn’t before Halloween.

“We should do something special!” Junmyeon said.

“Something creepy!” Yixing said, grinning at Lu Han and Zitao.

Lu Han elbowed him in the ribs but didn’t say anything to the contrary.

“How about… we go on a hike?” Minseok spoke up.

“How about we go die in the woods?” Zitao pouted.

Minseok smiled and ruffled his hair, putting on an overly cute voice, “come on Tao, it won’t be that bad!”

“Okay! Okay!” Zitao whined, pushing Minseok’s hand away.

“I mean, that would be kinda fun…” Junmyeon did look excited about the prospect.

“Will it be okay, though?” Kyungsoo looked worried.

“We’ll all be together, we should be fine in a group,” Junmyeon said, and started to rub Kyungsoo’s back.

“And it’s not like we’re going to go into any caves or anything!” Sehun smiled.

“Yixing? Lu Han? What do you think?”

“Sounds fun!” Yixing smiled.

Lu Han looked a bit apprehensive, but nodded. “I mean, I haven’t had a chance to be out in the woods much, but if you all think it’s a good idea…”

“We’ll be fine, Minseok, Kyungsoo, and I have probably spent a little too much time hiking out there and we know the woods pretty well. We’ll go on an easy trail,” Junmyeon said reassuringly, shifting as Kyungsoo subtly leaned into him.

“Then I’m in!” Lu Han smiled, and Minseok smiled at him.

“It’ll be fun,” Minseok assured him quietly, “just stick close to me and you’ll be fine.”

Minseok and Junmyeon organized everything leading up to Halloween. They were taking an easy trail and if they were going during the day they wouldn’t need more than a water bottle and maybe lunch if they wanted to be out that long… but they weren’t planning on going during the day. And both boys knew better than to expect a night hike in the woods around the Clover campus to be anything less than unnerving at best. They wanted to be absolutely prepared for whatever might happen.

Kyungsoo supervised. He teased Junmyeon that it was because he was so messy that Kyungsoo didn’t think that even Minseok’s organizational skills could combat it, but all three of them knew it was to ease Kyungsoo’s anxiety about the whole venture.

“Okay, we have flashlights for everyone,” Junmyeon started down the list. They’d laid out everything on the dining room table.

“Two coils of rope,” Minseok checked off.

“Water bottles.”

“Granola bars just in case.”

“Matches.”

“Flare gun.”

“Do we have the satellite phone?” Junmyeon asked.

Kyungsoo shook his head. “Mr. Sanchez fried it the last time we went into that cave with the water entrance.”

“We’ll be okay with the flare gun, I think,” Minseok said reassuringly.

“Two blankets.”

“Tell everyone to grab extra socks,” Kyungsoo muttered.

“S’more supplies…”

“Should we bring a knife?” Junmyeon asked.

“No,” Kyungsoo said, surprisingly sharply. “Not in those woods. Not after dark.”

“You’re right, Soo.” Junmyeon smiled and crossed where he’d written ‘knife?’ off the list with an X.  

“Is that it?” Junmyeon asked.

“I think that’s it,” Minseok replied, and Kyungsoo nodded.

The morning of Halloween, the whole dorm was buzzing with anticipation of the night hike. They did their scary movie marathon in the morning, pulling the curtains closed so the sunlight wouldn’t come in too strongly but leaving a lamp or two and the string of pumpkin lights they’d hung over the stairs on when Zitao whined and Lu Han secretly high-fived him.

Junmyeon was worried about the ratings on the movies they’d picked- the teachers at Clover weren’t exactly monitoring their movie purchases, so more than a few rated R movies found their way into the dorm. The first movie of the day was Silence of the Lambs, which ended with Zitao half on Junmyeon’s lap and nearly shoving his face in Junmyeon’s armpit to hide his eyes, and Minseok fast asleep with his head on Lu Han’s shoulder while Lu Han clung onto his hand.

They worked their way through movie after movie… most of them were not suitable for children by any stretch of the imagination, but with half of the things they’d seen, they just didn’t care and had fun getting scared and nervous; screaming and then laughing about it. Although Junmyeon did cover Sehun’s and Kyungsoo’s eyes when he just couldn’t stand it… Zitao spent most of the time hiding his own eyes. Yixing started providing commentary, which Minseok joined in on, during Children of the Corn that had Lu Han laughing and even Zitao not hiding his eyes by the end.

They were all excited, though, by the time they sat down for dinner. Even Zitao was more excited than apprehensive, the anticipation of a night hike, which they’d never done, getting to all of them. After dinner, they all changed into jeans and sweaters and hiking boots, packing their supplies in their backpacks. Kyungsoo brought a camera and kept it in his pocket so he could get to it without a fuss when he wanted it.

By the time they were locking the dormitory door behind them (Junmyeon kept the key in his pocket even though they usually just left it under the doormat; he knew better than to leave them vulnerable on Halloween) the sun was almost gone. The night air was cooling rapidly, all the faster up in the mountains, and Minseok was very glad they’d all worn sweaters.

There wasn’t even a question about whether to head up or down. Up, the only way to go. Mr. Sanchez had told them time and time again that they must never, under any circumstance, travel down the mountain on foot. They didn’t question it. If Mr. Sanchez was telling them, he was telling them for a reason.

They walked through their recreation area and to the edge of the campus. There was a small clearing, a field of grass beyond the edge of the concrete and asphalt but before the line of trees. Nothing was there, no cars, no buildings… not even any benches or soccer goals. Just nothing.

Like no-man’s land. A barrier.

They took the path closest to their side of campus. It was a pretty easy hike in the day, and led up to an overlook with a fire pit. It wasn’t the top of the mountain, that would mean an overnight hike and no one wanted to do that in these woods, but it was high enough that even in low light it had a nice view of the surrounding woods and other mountains. Junmyeon and Minseok had both hiked up to the overlook on their own to meditate at least once or twice once they’d gotten familiar enough with the path. As a group it was a nice picnic hike when the weather was nice on their days off.

The path was too narrow for more than two of them to walk side-by-side, so they started out in a little line. Junmyeon and Kyungsoo in the front, Sehun and Zitao just behind them, then Yixing, ready to walk and be clung to at the same time in case the younger boys got nervous, and Minseok and Lu Han brought up the rear.

Seven flashlights gave them plenty of light to see by, and the slope upward wasn’t that steep. They could have done it in their regular shoes, but they never knew what they might come across. Still, though, they didn’t make much noise. Minseok could hear Junmyeon up at the front if he listened hard enough, but he almost seemed to be muffled.

They weren’t too far out of sight of the Clover campus when Minseok felt it. Something was watching them, he could just tell. Next to him, he felt Lu Han tense- he’d knew, too, and he started to turn around, but Minseok grabbed his hand and Lu Han stopped the motion to turn and face Minseok.

“Don’t,” Minseok said softly, quickly. “Remember?”

Lu Han tensed in realization, and nodded quickly, letting out a shaky breath.

The “rule” was born out of a terrifying mistake that Minseok had made not too long after he’d gotten to Clover. He’d been coming back from the overlook on his own, a little late for dinner, when the sun was more than starting to set. He’d felt the same prickling feeling like he was being watched, and had turned around.

There’d been nothing, but once he’d turned around once, the feeling didn’t go away, and he hadn’t been able to stop turning to look behind him. When he’d gotten back to the dorm for dinner, he hadn’t locked the door behind him, and for whatever reason, they’d all forgotten to check before they went to sleep.

They’d been thrown into horrible nightmares and night terrors for over two weeks. Kyungsoo had had trouble with sleep paralysis hallucinations, the most frequent being that a dark figure with antlers like an old buck was climbing in through the window, from under the beds, from a crack in the ceiling. Minseok had nightmares that he could still all too vividly remember, and had panicked multiple times because in the dream he’d been wounded, only to wake up and find that he’d bitten his hand or some other part of his body hard enough for it to bleed, and the carry-over of pain from dream to reality had left quite an impression. He’d started sleepwalking, some, too. Junmyeon, however, had gotten the worst of the sleepwalking, waking up in other bedrooms, downstairs, and the final time, outside. He’d been at the beginning of the path to the overlook and had woken up to Mr. Sanchez shaking him.

After that, one of the agents had cleansed the dorm, and they hadn’t had any trouble. But it was a mistake none of them would be making ever again.

They stopped and crowded together at a wide point in the trail, where the path forked. One side was a short cut, and it meant they’d get to the overlook faster by a good ten minutes, but it was a harder, steeper, trail. The other, longer, path was a much steadier slope.

They decided to go down the longer path, since they were all carrying a lot more than they usually did, and they were in no real hurry. Besides, the longer path was a bit wider, too, so they could clump up a bit more.

But when they turned to go down the longer path, Kyungsoo stopped.

“I don’t think we should go this way,” he said softly.

“What?” Junmyeon asked him.

He looked up, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Junmyeon, and everyone else, froze, and then Jumyeon relaxed and nodded.

“Okay, okay, we’ll take the short path. It’ll give us more time for s’mores anyway!”

His voice was forcefully cheery and light in a fake way where everyone knew he wasn’t feeling it, but no one said anything.

Whenever someone new came to Clover, Mr. Sanchez always went over the “rules” of hiking;

1. Always take water with you.
2. If you get lost stay in one place so an adult can find you.
3. Don’t take anything from an animal’s resting place.
4. If you go out by yourself, come back before dark.
5. Don’t go into any caves without an adult.
6. If you have a bad feeling about going down a certain path, don’t. You’ll avoid whatever is waiting for you at the end of it.

They took the short cut without saying another word about it.

The short cut was hard for the younger boys. Zitao could mostly get through it, he was ridiculously athletic, but it involved a little bit of boulder navigating and Minseok was glad that they’d brought rope, for safety’s sake. By the time they made it to the overlook, Junmyeon was carrying Kyungsoo piggy-back, and Minseok was doing the same with Sehun. Lu Han was carrying Zitao, although Minseok thought that was less out of Zitao being tired and more out of solidarity. Yixing was helpfully pushing the two of them along from behind, saying something in Mandarin that sounded like he was teasing Zitao, who was whining at him in a way which told Minseok that was exactly what was going on.

The fire pit at the overlook wasn’t exactly hardcore camping. Some of the Clover agents kept a cheap, but water-tight plastic bin full of fire wood and kindling nearby, so they didn’t have to go hunting for wood. There were wooden benches made out of fallen logs, but they were sanded and sealed cause no one wanted to do that again if they rotted. So once they reached the site it didn’t take long at all to get the fire going.

They stayed out probably a little too long, but they had fun. Between the seven of them they went through a bag and a half of marshmallows and more chocolate than any of them wanted to think about. And of course they told scary stories. It was Halloween, what else were they going to do?

Of course, they were all Clover kids, so each of their stories were true, or at least, true in the way that mattered. Details might have been ironed out, theories drawn, but each of them were speaking from their own experiences. And they all knew it. Which only made it worse.

Yixing started off by talking about where he liked to play in his home town. It was an old abandoned factory by the sea, right on the beach. There was a man who worked inside, the only one, even though the factory still smelled like hundreds of sweaty workers, cigarettes, and a faint smell of burning hair, and he aged a lifetime every day. He was never aware of time passing, of the fact that he came back every single day. He just went on with his daily routine: a teenager by the time Yixing got there in the morning, and would help Yixing with his homework if he needed it, and casually talk to Yixing about his school projects if he didn’t; a man about his father’s age by the time they ate lunch, delighted that Yixing called him “uncle” and so shared his sweet roll with him; and, by the time Yixing left, saying his mom was expecting him for dinner, the man was an old grandpa, hunched over with a stiff back and smiling with missing teeth and a face full of wrinkles indicating a life well-lived. And the next time Yixing saw him, he was a young teenager in the morning again.

After hearing that, Minseok could easily see why Yixing had been so open to the idea of Clover.

Minseok talked about the wildflowers, going so far as to sing the song that he had always hoped to avoid hearing but had unfortunately been burned into his brain.

On and on. Stalkers in the forest. Scratching sounds along every wall at night. A town half populated by people who were just… wrong.

Slowly but surely the night sounds crept into their stories. The crickets grew in volume until Zitao was jumping every few seconds, sure that one was right beneath his feet. Rustling in the underbrush grew more and more frequent, until they were all holding hands as Lu Han finished talking about the hotel.

It was when they heard a branch snap that they knew they needed to leave.

The fire was quickly put out, the rest of their supplies crammed into their backpacks. They felt okay about taking the longer, easier, path down, which was good since none of them thought they could navigate the boulders in the dark.

But they weren’t alone. They knew it. They didn’t dare move their flashlights around, unsure if they would want to know or if they would even see anything. Minseok could feel eyes staring at them again and squeezed Lu Han’s hand as they walked quickly. Behind them there was the unmistakable sound of branches snapping under the weight of something following.

Do not look. Do not look.

They forced themselves to walk even when they could see the clearing up ahead. They walked briskly, but it was still a walking pace. The only indication that something was wrong was the stiff way they held their flashlights, and the silence between all of them.

They kept walking when they made it out into the clearing. They walked straight through campus, past all of the jack-o-lantern’s glowing brightly in the windows of all the apartments and offices. They didn’t remember anyone putting those up.

They walked straight back to their dorm, shuffled inside quickly, and locked the door behind them.

All they could do was laugh, then. They all laughed, first nervously, and then, somehow, genuinely, still clinging onto each other. They were smiling when they unpacked all their gear and put it away, showering and getting changed into sleep clothes.

When they turned out all the lights and tucked themselves into bed, they ignored the wind suddenly picking up outside; whipping through the campus in a way that sounded a bit too much like voices. 

Author's Note: This was just a fun little bonus chapter in honor of Halloween! Yes, Yixing's story was -heavily- inspired by Alice Isn't Dead ^^; I hope you enjoyed! Happy Halloween!