“That’s strange, Lizzy didn’t show up to any of her classes this morning,” E-young said as she sat down at their lunch table.

“Really? She’s obviously not with the headmaster still, is she?” Kaeun asked surprised.

“No she isn’t. I went to the headmaster’s office to drop off something and the headmaster said that they only had a short conversation,” Seohyun informed as she wiped with a napkin.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Nana said confidently even though on the inside she was worried.

“Has anyone contacted her?” Seohyun asked.

“I texted her several times but no response,” E-young replied.

~

Lizzy slowly opened her eyes. Where am I? she wondered as she observed her surroundings. It was cold. She was lying on the ground. It was concrete. She felt pain in her arms and legs. She turned her head to look at her right arm. It was tied to a pole, so was her left arm. Her legs were tied to a chair. She tried to move her arms except the ropes were tied hard. She whimpered. She realized there was duct tape over as well. Don’t panic; don’t panic, she told herself. There were pipes on the ceiling and water dripped onto the ground. Am I still at school? She thought. She heard footsteps around the corner.

“Is she awake?” a girl with a hoarse voice asked.

“Last time I checked she was still unconscious,” another girl responded.

The two girls rounded the corner.

“How bad did you knock her out?” the girl with the hoarse voice asked as they found Lizzy with her eyes still closed.

The other girl shrugged. “She’s just weak.”

They snickered.

~

“Guys don’t worry about Lizzy, maybe she had other stuff to handle,” Nana suggested.

“I hope so,” Kaeun said.

“If any of you here from her tell us,” Seohyun said.

They all nodded and went their separate ways to class, except for Nana who decided to check her room incase Lizzy was there.

“Aren’t you going to class?”

Nana turned around to see Raina standing behind her.

“Yeah, I will. I just have to do something,” Nana said quickly.

“Is something wrong?” Raina asked noticing the worry on Nana’s face.

Nana sighed. “Lizzy’s missing. Well, not missing, we just haven’t heard from her since she left the headmaster’s room this morning.”

“Are you going to go find her?”

“I’m going to check our room. If you find her can you please tell me?” Nana asked.

“Of course,” Raina replied.

“Thanks.”

Nana left the cafeteria and walked towards her dorm room fully alert incase she spots Lizzy somewhere. She took her keys out of her bag and unlocked her door. She the lights except there was no sign of Lizzy. She checked the bathroom except it was empty.

“Yah, Park Lizzy, where are you?” Nana whispered.

~

Lizzy opened her eyes after a while. She thought she heard the two girls leave the room except there they were staring directly at her.

“Look who finally decided to wake up,” one of the girls said. Her hair was brown and cropped short.

“Should we take off the duct tape on ?” the girl with the hoarse voice asked. She walked up to Lizzy and ripped the duct tape off of Lizzy’s mouth.

“Owwww,” Lizzy groaned in pain from the tape burn.

“Do you know why you’re here?” the girl with the hoarse voice asked. She had long brown hair.

“Where am I?” Lizzy asked confused.

“Do you think you can take our President away from us?” the other girl demanded.

Lizzy smirked. “The President wasn’t yours to begin with.”

The two girls exchanged a look of astonishment from her response.

“You think you’re a smartass? Let’s see if you’ll be a smartass once we’re through with you,” the girl with the hoarse voice said.

“Bring it on,” Lizzy replied.

~

“Nana-ssi,” Kahi called as she was walking down the hallway.

“Headmaster,” Nana said as she bowed.

“Have you seen Lizzy?” she asked.

“No, is there something you need?” Nana asked.

“I forgot to tell her the reason I called her to my office yesterday was to discuss her grades. If you can tell her to stop by my office when you see her, that’d be great,” Kahi said.

“Of course headmaster.” Nana bowed as Kahi continued to walk down the hall.

~

“Let’s see what should we do to our dear secretary, Park Lizzy?” the girl said mockingly.

“Hm,” the other girl said as she pretended to think. “Ah, I know!”

She walked over to her bag and pulled out a pair of scissors. She walked up to Lizzy with a menacing look on her face.

“A little haircut won’t hurt anyone will it?” she said as she grabbed Lizzy’s head and pulled her hair.

Lizzy groaned in pain. She tried to be strong. It’s just a haircut, who cares if it looks bad? She thought. She heard the scissors cutting her hair. The girl pricked at her skin a few times on purpose.

“Oops, hope that doesn’t leave a mark,” she said as she pulled at Lizzy’s beautiful brown hair.

~

After classes had finished, Nana ordered a meeting in the Student Council room with all the members and Raina.

“We need to find Lizzy,” she said.

“But where could she be?” Kaeun asked.

“We should split into teams and look throughout the entire school,” Seohyun suggested.

“That’s a good idea! But, we can’t make it so obvious that the headmaster will notice,” Nana informed.

They all nodded.

“Raina and I will go together. Seohyun, Kaeun and E-young you’ll go together. If anyone sees her or knows where she is we have to tell each other, got it?” Nana said.

“Got it,” they all said in unison.

~

“Aw our secretary looks so ‘cute’. Nana will definitely want you now,” the girl with the hoarse voice said sarcastically as the other one laughed.

“Even if she won’t want me, she definitely won’t want you two either. Nobody wants to be with a crazy ,” Lizzy retorted.

The girl with the long brown hair got angry. She slapped Lizzy across the face. Lizzy slowly looked up at them. She arched her eyebrow.

“Is that all you got?” She smirked.

~

After checking the entire school all the girls met up in the Student Council room again.

“Where the hell could she be?” Nana exclaimed.

“The weird thing is everyone we’ve asked haven’t seen her at all today,” Raina said.

“There’s only one place to check,” E-young said.

“The basement?” Kaeun asked.

She nodded.

“Why would she be in the basement though? There’s nothing there except for pipes!” Nana shouted.

“Nana calm down, we’ll find Lizzy,” Seohyun said gently as she patted her back.

Nana closed her eyes and sighed. “Let’s go to the basement.”

They snuck into the Janitor’s room and stole his keys.

“ any of these could be the key to the school basement,” Nana hissed.

They were in front of the door that leads to the basement. It was at the far end of the school. Nobody ever went there, it was always empty. The door was made out of steel and had a giant lock on it. They tried every key except none of them fit.

“Someone already stole the key,” Raina said.

“How do we get in now?” Nana complained.

“Step aside,” Seohyun commanded as she took a bobby pin out of her hair. She put it in the keyhole. One turn, two turns, three turns, click. The lock opened. The girls all looked at Seohyun shocked. She shrugged. They opened the door slowly and headed down the stairs. They tried to be as quiet as possible since they had a feeling Lizzy wasn’t alone. There was water dripping everywhere from the pipes.

Once they climbed down the stairs, they followed Nana until she stopped before a corner. She turned around and put a finger to her lips to tell them to keep quiet. She took a peak around the corner and saw Lizzy tied up with two girls hitting her. Nana was bewildered. She quickly turned around.

“There are two girls torturing Lizzy as she’s tied up,” Nana informed in a whisper.

The other girls gasped.

“What do we do?” E-young asked worried.

“I have an idea,” Nana announced.

~

“Do you think your ‘friends’ are gonna come save you? Think again,” the girl with short brown hair shouted as she punched Lizzy in the stomach.

“They’ll come,” Lizzy said breathlessly. Her face was badly damaged. There was blood strolling down from and nose. She couldn’t see out of one eye because it was swollen.

As Lizzy was being tortured, the other girls had formed a plan. Nana rounded the corner and cleared . The two girls immediately turned around.

“P-President Nana,” they stuttered and bowed.

“What’s going on here?” Nana demanded.

The two girls couldn’t answer her.

“What do you think would happen if the headmaster were to find out?” Nana questioned.

The two girls just stood there in panic.

E-young and Kaeun went through one of the back pathways to enter the room. They untied Lizzy who was losing consciousness.

Raina and Seohyun appeared behind Nana. The two girls were shocked and quickly bowed again.

“What do you think we should do to them?” Nana asked.

“Well they definitely should be punished,” Raina said.

E-young and Kaeun carried Lizzy to the staircase.

“We’re so sorry, please don’t tell the headmaster!” the girl with the long hair pleaded. She got down on her knees and begged. The other girl followed and begged as well.

“How pathetic,” Nana scoffed.

“You’re lucky we’re merciful. We won’t tell the headmaster but we will punish you,” Seohyun told them.

“We’ll do anything,” the girl with the short hair said.

“What are your names?” Nana asked.

“Jiyeon,” the girl with the short hair answered.

“Hyorin,” the girl with the long hair replied.

“If you two ever harm Park Lizzy or any other students again I will tell the headmaster, understood?” Nana warned.

They nodded their heads quickly.

“Good. I will think of your punishments,” Nana said.

“Now hand us the keys to this basement,” Raina commanded.

Hyorin took the key out of her pocket and gave it to Raina. Hyorin and Jiyeon walked ahead of the other three girls with their heads down as they walked to the staircase where E-young and Kaeun were waiting with an unconscious Lizzy. Raina helped them carry Lizzy up the stairs. Once they were out of the basement they locked the doors and left the creepy hallway.

Jiyeon and Hyorin were dismissed back to their own rooms but Nana recorded their numbers in her phone so she could punish them later. They tried to hide Lizzy from prying eyes, as they quickly, silently, and sneakily went back to Nana and Lizzy’s dorm room.

“Put her on the bed,” Raina said as Kaeun and E-young placed Lizzy on her bed.

Nana went to the bathroom and got a bowl full of water and a towel. She placed it on the side of the bed as she cleaned Lizzy’s face gently with the wet towel.

“How could someone do this to her?” Kaeun wondered in disbelief.

“This is all Nana’s fault,” Raina said angrily.

Nana turned her head sharply in Raina’s direction.

“You think I don’t know that?!” she yelled.

“Girls calm down. The only thing that matters right now is Lizzy’s health,” Seohyun said.

Nana turned back to face Lizzy and continued to clean her face.

“They cut her hair,” Nana said softly. She carefully picked up Lizzy’s head from the pillow. The back of her head was also bleeding due to the pricks from the scissors. Nana put the wet towel under Lizzy’s head and slowly placed her head back on the pillow.

“You guys can go,” Nana said without averting her eyes from Lizzy.

“Are you sure?” E-young asked.

“I’ll text you all when she wakes up,” she said.

They all bowed and exited her room. As soon as the door shut, Nana quietly wept as she Lizzy’s cheek.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.