SORRY ABOUT THE LATE CHAPTER, I HAD AN ERRAND TO RUN AND WASN'T BACK ON TIME TO POST.

“Yoolhee, have you seen Mingyu?” I called out to her from the other side of the cafeteria.

She walked over to me with her lunch on a tray. “No, why?”

“Mingyu was kidnapped by a black cloud and a man with a creepy voice.” I looked around to make sure nobody would hear my insanity.

“What are you talking about?” She laughed hysterically. “You’re insane. Too much carbon dioxide getting to your head, plant brain.” You’re a genius and that’s the best name you can come up with? She walked away from me, sat with her friends and enjoyed her lunch.

I sat with the group at our usual spot. Everybody seemed to be acting completely normal and doing what they’d normally be doing during lunch. Minghao and Jun were being boyfriends, Hoshi was eating a horse, Seungkwan was wearing a ridiculously tight suit and Dino was making his hair stand up. I glanced over to the empty chair next to me and felt a knot in my throat.

The bell rang and I walked to Aubrey’s class alone. In her class, I was forced to sit with Yoolhee with the accompaniment of Mingyu.

“Hey, plant brain. Where’s Mingyu?” she whispered to me while Aubrey scribbled on the board.

“That’s what I asked you, smart one!” I said a little too loud. Really, Wonwoo? ‘Smart one’ was the best you could come up with?

“Silence, or enter my keyboard.” Aubrey glanced over to us and then continued scribbling on the board.

“Sorry!” we said in unison.

“What did I just say, you brats? You are on punishment.” Aubrey sat down and began typing on her keyboard with a stern look on her face. Did we get teleported back to grade school? “The two of you will sit in detention for twenty minutes!” DETENTION? TWENTY MINUTES?

The world started spinning as the school around us was destroyed by a massive twister. As the walls blew apart, new walls fell from the sky, encasing us in a dark room. This time, I didn’t pass out and I heard the sound of everything being constructed. It’s too bad that we couldn’t see what was being built.

“Where are we?” Yoolhee asked.

“I don’t know, Yoolhee. It’s dark.” I said sarcastically. The ground felt cold and metallic, almost like a ventilation system.

“Did Aubrey seem a little off to you?” Yoolhee seemed to forget about the situation we’ve become trapped in.

“What are you going on about?” I asked, not caring for an answer. With my hand, I felt around the floor for signs of where we could be.

“Think about it, she is usually so ‘hippy’. All of a sudden, she is so stern and detention-giving.” Yoolhee obviously had other things on her mind versus escaping.

“Great observation, let’s escape now?” My hand found a metal object. Picking it up and feeling it, I discovered that it was a crowbar. Why would we need a crowbar? “I found a crowbar.”

“Great, that’s how we escape this room, but where is the door? Isn’t there some plant that can light up or something?” She patted my body until she found the crowbar and took it away.

“Plants don’t emit light unless they’re genetically altered. However, there are a few animals that do.” I focused on conjuring a firefly.

Bzzzzz

“Bees don’t emit light, stupid!” she punched my chest.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a fly,” I clenched my stomach in an aching manner. “And I was aiming for a firefly.” I attempted to summon a firefly. A small orb of light flickered as it flew across the room. One firefly wasn’t going to do the trick. My throat became dry and my skin began to shrivel as the room lit up from the newly summoned group of fireflies. The room had a light ambience, allowing us to see that we were in a science lab. The walls were spray painted with things like “we’re all infected” and “don’t let them bite you”.

A kart was in front of the door, but that pops the question: is the kart keeping us in or keeping something out?

“Great, zombies. Thank Aubrey!” Yoolhee held her crossbow like a bat. We searched the room for anything of use, but found nothing but chemicals and let’s face the facts: we didn’t have enough time to cure the world of zombies. However, we did find an open air vent and climbed up it. “Can you summon more fireflies?” Yoolhee tugged at the back of my shoe.

“Not unless you remove my restriction.” I kicked her gently in the face.

After crawling in the air duct for a while, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I kicked the vent open and landed on my face. Too bad Aubrey didn’t provide cushion flooring like before. The outside world was definitely the apocalypse. Buildings were abandoned; trees were half burnt, half fallen. On the bright side, there were no zombies.

“Kill zombies by killing their brain.” Yoolhee did a fancy trick with her crowbar.

“What’s my weapon?”

“Plants? Flies? Up to you.” She started making her way down the creepy abandoned city streets.

From the looks of it, there were no ‘escape’ routes. My guess is that detention doesn’t require an escape because there is no escape. That explains her wording ‘sit in detention for twenty minutes’. Don’t her scenarios go bad after ten minutes though?

“Why don’t we just hide for twenty minutes?” I pointed to the lovely abandoned warehouse.

“Where is the fun in that?” she grabbed me by the collar and we continued looking for danger.

“I need water if I am going to protect myself.” I stopped her from walking any further. Instead of following danger, we went to the local park and I sipped from the green pond. Tastes much better than it sounds, don’t worry. After regaining my energy by drinking and absorbing the sunlight, we went back to danger.

I’m not sure why Yoolhee wanted to find a horde of zombies; I’d be okay with a single zombie. Hordes are a little too difficult.

In a matter of minutes, we spotted our first undead. Before the zombie could even turn around, Yoolhee had attacked the life out of it. Literally, she killed it. With her crowbar. Is she this bored?  Sadly, the zombie had a few more zombie friends, and by a few: I mean a lot. It was like a school rally.

“Yoolhee, we can’t fight them. There are too many of them!” I began backing up into the zombie horde that somehow managed to come from behind us as well. “LOOK AT WHAT YOUR ‘INTELLEGENCE’ CAUSED!”

Yoolhee looked at me and winked. She turned to the front zombies and her eyes began to glow a light yellow color. The entire army of zombies in front of us stopped and, with their glowing yellow eyes, ignored us and began fighting the zombies behind us. Are they on our side? I’m so confused. The army of the undead fighting against us had blue glowing eyes. Strange, isn’t it supposed to be red?

“Something strange is happening.” Yoolhee backed up and we retreated to a safe spot. “Why are their eyes blue?”

“My thoughts exactly” We peeked out the window to see our army being devoured by the undead. The blue-eyed ones had grown bigger and somehow found armor, leaving the yellow-eyed zombies at a disadvantage.

“I think I know what’s going on. It’s Professor—” she vanished into thin air.

“Yoolhee? Where’d you go?” I looked back out the window to see both armies stop fighting each other and focus their attention onto me, their eyes gleaming blue. Why did Yoolhee disappear? Is it because she figured something out? What’s there to figure out..?

I couldn’t let myself be trapped in an abandoned building, so I fled into the nearby park. More and more undead found me as I ran past them. Before I knew it, I was completely surrounded. Their glowing blue eyes stared deep into my soul. What can I do? My eyes locked onto the nearest trees. Duh!

“WAKE UP AND HELP ME!” I called out to the nearby trees. Suddenly, every tree in the park grew a pair of eyes and lifted their roots out of the ground; their branches acted as their hands. I couldn’t let the trees fight my battle for me, they were incredibly slow and I didn’t have enough time for them to get to the center of the horde. Instead of waiting, I looked at the grass and willed it to become a literal blade of grass.

The grass all around obeyed and stood straight up. Every time a zombie would step, their feet would get stuck on the grass and they’d fall. Soon enough, the undead were tripping over each other, allowing my trees plenty of time to destroy them. After all the undead were.. dead, the trees walked back into their respected places and planted themselves. Instantly, my throat lost all hydration and my skin felt withered. I tried crawling to the pond but my eyes were too heavy and my limbs felt too weak.

It went dark.

I opened my eyes to see Mingyu standing in front of me. Am I dead? Is this heaven?

“Wonwoo, we need to get out of here. Someone’s coming.” Mingyu’s face became pale as he watched the handle of the door turn. He pushed me onto the ground and kicked me underneath one of the tables.

Wait, what? The pain was all too familiar.

“You needn’t hide, Wonwoo. Come out.” Professor Suarez’s voice called out. “You’re test is over.”

“What’s going on?” Mingyu asked the professor as I stood up and gasped for air.

“When did you look me into the eyes?” I asked him while Mingyu looked around as confused as ever.

“You’re in a greenhouse; the walls are literally made of glass.” The witty professor commented.

“Why? Test for what?”

“I needed you and Yoolhee to learn a new technique. I was going to allow her to stay with you, even after she figured out how to control an army with her mind, but she was starting to put the pieces together. So, I set her free.” He laughed and took a seat on the nearest stump.

I couldn’t sit or even look at him. He took me away from Mingyu and Yoolhee; he left me alone in a dangerous situation that I could’ve died in. This man is crazy.

“Don’t be mad, it’s my job to do this.” He snickered.

“Why didn’t you bring Mingyu with us? He is a part of the team.”

“Then you would want to defend him and your powers would have spiked out of luck. Plus, he didn’t need to learn anything new. Not yet, that is.” Mingyu looked at him curiously. “Aren’t you glad that you were able to create life and control it? See you both in class tomorrow, and Mingyu: you’re next.” The professor stood up and left the greenhouse. “I’m such a great teacher!” his voice faded.

“What’s going on?” Mingyu was still as confused as ever.

“Professor Suarez used his illusionary powers on me. He put me and Yoolhee into a false world where you no longer existed and then made alternate Aubrey put us into one of her scenarios which happened to be a zombie apocalypse.” I said as quickly as possible.

“Did you miss me?” he smiled.

“Yes, I did.” I went up and hugged him.

QUESTIONS:

Do you like Yoolhee's new power?

Is Wonwoo finally learning how to adapt his power?

Are Professor Suarez's methods a little cruel?

Professor Suarez hinted that Mingyu will eventually learn how to adapt his copy-cat powers, in what ways do you think he can do so?