T H R E E. 

SM High School ; K.D

10:25 PM

Soyou shrieked, pointing a shaky finger at the screen hysterically, still.  Hyuna took fearful steps back, clutching onto the edge of a desk to keep herself from falling.

    “Are we being punked right now?” Her voice was fighting to keep steady.  She bit down on her lower lip until her bold, scarlet red tinted lips turned white.  

    “What do you think, huh?” Woohyun balled his hands into fists.  Sungkyu pat Woohyun on the back, consoling him.   

    “Hey, Krystal.”  Jiyeon sat Krystal down, wrapping her arms around her frame.  “You need to take deep breaths.” She felt her shake even more, slick with cold sweat.  

    “I-I can’t- I c-can’t b-b-breathe...”  Krystal clutched her chest, pink spots invading her vision.   

    Jiyeon looked at the screen again.  Dasom was crying relentlessly in the glass tank, leaning against one side of the glass and kicking the other.  The tank didn’t even scratch.  The water bubbled up from the ground like a spring, the water level rising.  

    “The guy said we had to answer a question! What was the question?” Myungsoo finally spoke up, swallowing the shock.  

    The teacher squinted, trying to make out the frame on the screen better.  It looked like the glass tank was in the boiler room... infront of a board.  “Wait.  It’s an equation.”

    “Where?”  Naeun jumped on her toes, craning her neck to get a better view.  “Where is it?”

    “If you just see it... behind the tank...”

    “Ugh! I could see it but the idiot keeps moving,” Hyuna snapped, her hands self-conciously flying to her ashen fear-stricken face.  

    “Hey, have a little humanity.”  Myungsoo shot her an icy glare, ripping off his uniform jacket.  Hyuna tried not to look taken aback.  

    “Humanity, my .  Does it look like we’re going to survive if we just play it all happy-go-lucky ‘we’re good people’ bit?” She walked over and shoved him grisly.  “You think because you have a decent face and good marks everyone’s going to follow your calls?  Define humanity, then, Mr. Popular.”

    Myungsoo threw his jacket on the ground, practically lunging.  “What did you just say?”  

    “Back off,” Sungyeol cut in between them.  “we really shouldn’t be fighting amongst ourselves now.”  

    “I got it!”  Luhan ran to the blackboard in the front of the room and picked up a chalk, mumbling illegible words to himself before writing down the first digit.

    “The tank is almost full!”

    “It’s up to her chin!” 

    Myungsoo pushed past Hyuna’s shoulder, tossing his hair.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

    “Copying down the equation I saw on the screen,” Luhan replied, not even bothering to look up.  “It’s a millenium problem.”

    “What’s going on!”  Then, Mr. Dae stormed in, his tie askew.  

    Ms. Choi tucked away a stray hair, evidently shaken.  “Where is Byunghun?”

    “I told him to come back with the cellphones.”

    Nodding, Ms. Choi ran up next to Luhan to solve the problem.  “This doesn’t have a product... this...”

    “Is that-?”   

    People stood there, awestruck.  Crestfallen.  The tank was filled up to the rim with the clear water, Dasom no longer struggling.  No longer moving.  No longer living.  Her black mass of hair splayed around her head, covering her face like smog.  

    Soyou put a hand over , crying with jerking shoulders.   

    Jiyeon ran over to Krystal, who was now sweating even more than she was before, her pale face sunken in, her eyes bloodshot.  Krystal pressed the heel of her palm to her temples, trying to compress the shocking pain inducing the terrible headache she was expiriencing.  

    “Hey, Stal?  Krystal!”  Krystal fell into Jiyeon’s arms, shaking, eyes shut.  “Stal, come on, stay with me.”

    “What’s wrong?” Luhan asked, his eyes pooling with concern.  Before he could walk over to help, L beat him to it.  

    Myungsoo shook her a couple of times.  “Is she okay?”

    Jiyeon slapped his arm away, scared.  Angry.  Terrified.  “Trauma and she’s anemic.”  Myungsoo just took Krystal off her arms, calling the teacher over.

    “She needs help.  Now.” Then he faced Jiyeon again, his eyes seemingly darting her direct gaze.  “Does she have any medicine?”     

    “I-it’s in the dorm... I’ll go get it.”  Jiyeon stood up to sprint but he just pulled her back down.

    “Are you crazy?  Do you want to die out there alone too?”  His once relaxed, husky voice turned stern.  

    “She’s not going to die, okay?  It’s not like we can’t do anything.”  Jinyoung pulled Jiyeon’s wrist away from Myungsoo.  

    Krystal began shivering, shuddering.  She grabbed a fistful of Myungsoo’s shirt, trying to catch her breath.  “We have to get help for her first.”

    Nana and Hyuna scoffed in unison.  “But we can’t do anything, don’t you see?” Nana flipped her bag over until the contents all tumbled out on to the desk infront of her.  Wads of cash, coin purse, lipgloss, the works.  She toussled the things around.  “We can’t do anything.  Nothing.  What can we do now?”

    Hyuna flipped through the deck of dollars, smirking- not in amusement this time, but disbelief.  “This money’s pretty much useless now.  Who knows when we’ll get out?”

    “Or how long we’ll be alive until the psycho kills us all out?”  

    “Kim Hyuna! Im Jinah!  Don’t think of doing anything out of line.   Remember, you are still under authority!”  Mr. Dae slammed his hands on the wood. 

    “Everyone! To your seats! And no one leaves the group, you are all in danger right now.  We’re waiting until the next question.”

    “What about Krystal?” Jiyeon shouted, exasperated. 

    The two teacher shot Jiyeon one last patronizing look.  “After we get the second question and file everyone in, we’ll move together to the dorm circle.” Ms. Choi prompted.  

    Mr. Dae shook his head a little too vigorously.  “No.  We have to get these kids out of here.  And fast.”

    “But the announcement-”

    “So you want to stay here and partake in this sick, little cherade?”  

    Everyone started talking at once.  The picture was chaotic.  People were complaining, all of them scared out of their wits.  “We have to get out!” 

    Soyou shook her head, clearly in denial.  “No.  No, I’m not staying here.”  She broke into a run to the door.  

    “Soyou! Soyou!” Ms. Choi  nearly fell over her heels trying to make it to the door before she made it out to the hallways.  “Did you see what happened to Dasom?”  Her voice was grave.

    Soyou tried to push through her arms.  “I don’t want to die!”   

    The yelling and uproar started up again in the classroom.  Ms.  Choi put a finger to her temple, clearly on the verge of screaming.   The counterpart teacher just dismissed her former orders and said, “There’s a phone at the convinience store nearby the school.  We can call in for help.”  

    Naeun was frozen in her seat.  Everything and everyone was just moving around her like a blur.  Atleast, it seemed like it.  She never felt the air so tight, so full of avid fear.  She never even saw it coming.  

    “No one leaves!”

    “Yes we are,” Woohyun ran out of the door, into the dark hallways.  Sungkyu put his arms in surrender before running after him.  Everyone else followed suit.  Soyou gave the the remaining teacher an apologetic look, eyes full of tears.  It was chaotic.  Footsteps were loud, breaths were shallow.  

    Taking the lead infront of the crowd of students, Woohyun veered to the left.  Krystal struggled to run, even with Jiyeon pulling her.  She was getting dizzier by the second.  Students more to the middle were nearly being trampled by the throng.  

    From the back of the crowd, she heard metal clashing and locks ringing against bars.  

    “!”

    “All the exits are locked!” 

    “We have to go to through the main entrance!” 

    “What if the psycho’s waiting for us there?” Gongchan put his hand to the nape of his neck.  Woohyun and Sungyeol paused for a second.  The situation was almost too hectic, no one could follow.  

    “To the main entrance!” Chorong cupped her hands around before sprinting down the stairs to the left on her own.   

    “Come on!”

    “What if we actually die here?”

    “When’s the next question?”

    The teacher pushed through the crowd to the front.  “Is everyone here?”

    “Ms. Choi and L.Joe are still back there!”

    “Should we go back and get them?”

    “It’s too late now,” Hyuna snapped.  “They made the decision to stay, if the criminal gets them, they’re at fault.” She glared at Myungsoo to her left, just for the kicks.  

    “Sir!” Chen shouted after him.

    The teacher was already seen running before them, panicked.  He wants to live just as much as anyone does.  And there’s no saying he’ll put our lives before his.  Naeun felt her heart hammer against her ribs and her lungs compress, which were the effects she only had once, when Namjoo had snuck in whiskey to their dorms.  

    There, just a meter away, was the main entrance, with open doors.   The gates and fences surrounding the school were locked, but everyone knew you could easily climb it.  

    Jiyeon felt relief surge through her veins again.   

    But the teacher ran out the doors into the spotlight of the moon only to be stabbed by an airborne knife.   A collective gasp rang through the group.  

    “Is he out there?” Yuji asked, wringing her hands.

    “How do you know it’s a he?” Nana put her heel to the tiled ground, unknowingly feeling herself quiver at the sight of blood expanding on Mr. Dae’s dress shirt.

    Screams.  Another knife shot through the air, hitting his calf.  Then another to his neck.  All of them were coming from different directions.  This couldn’t be a human.  A spray of blood hissed through the air.  He staggered to the ground, turning slowly to face the students before the final knife whizzed past his head.  Then he hit the ground, blood pooling out of his mouth.  

    Yuji screamed, putting both her hands on her ears, eyes shut close.   Everyone stood still, eyes wide and throats tight.  Right infront of the staircase... right infront of the school...

    Someone had died.  

    Nana recovered slowly, pushing Yuji to the wall with panicky breaths.  “Get your together,” she barked with a whisper, her voice so low it was barely audible.  Yuji slapped a hand over to muffle her sobs.  Even Hyuna, who was looking at them from a distance, looked shaken.  And terribly petrified.   

    “His eyes are still open.” Naeun backed away from the entrance.  “I thought your eyes were supposed to close when you died.”  Chorong pulled Naeun closer to her side, embracing her small frame.  

    “Naeun, you need to calm-”

    “Why aren’t his eyes closed?”  Naeun felt stares boring into her.  Their classmate was dead, their teacher was dead.  All in one day.  This showed no one was safe.  And they weren’t going to survive.  

    “Son Naeun!  Calm down.” 

    “,” Hyuna twisted a tuft of hair.  “I want to live.”  

    “Don’t we all?” Sungyeol knitted his eyebrows together before turning around.  Woohyun slammed the glass doors shut, as if it could conceal the teacher’s corpse, surrounded by a ring of blood.  As if he could unsee what he just witnessed. 

    But there are some things you cannot forget.

    “We can catch the killer,” Jiyeon opened the glass door and stepped outside before anyone could stop her, inches away from walking down the stairs until she felt a pair of arms wrapping around her waist and  pulling her back in just as another blade landed on the second set of stairs.  She felt herself lurch to the side but the person who saved her broke her fall.  Jiyeon sat upright until she saw Myungsoo wincing.  He was grabbing onto his side, clearly in pain.  “Are you okay?” 

    “Stop acting stupid, we can’t catch the culprit.  He wasn’t out there.”  Myungsoo got up from the ground before she could to help him.  He shut the doors again before bringing down the metal bars to lock them in completely.    

    “What do you mean?”  Soyou rubbed her bloodshot eyes, twisting the charm bracelet around her wrist with her free hand.  

    Myungsoo rolled up the sleeves of his button down.  “I mean, the killer isn’t out there.  Whoever killed Mr. Dae knew someone was going to try to escape.”  Jiyeon closed her eyes, trying to grab at the details in vain.  

    The second Mr. Dae touched the third step of the staircase, the first knife shot out from the left coming from a sixty degree angle up.  The next three knives came out from different directions, meaning it couldn’t just be one person.  The only place to shoot the knives from without getting caught is the rooftop, but no one could do so with such speed and precision.  And there’s only one other rooftop.  From the right.  

    Jiyeon snapped her fingers flippantly.  “So you mean the person had everything set up, right?” Myungsoo turned his gaze towards her, nodding.  

    “Exactly.”  

    “But how?  How did the person know exactly when he was going to come out?”  Luhan asked, although he could’ve guessed the remedy in his head was already correct.

    “Judging from the speed and timing, it must’ve been some sort of machine triggered by a sensor,” Myungsoo replied, his eyes flitting from the door to the rest of the students.   “Same thing happened to Jiyeon when she reached the front steps.” 

    Before he rescued me.  

    A pang of guilt hit Jiyeon’s insides as she pictured him falling on the floor.   Silence then filled the hallway, infront of the locked doors.  They made it clear.  No one was going to get out.  No one was going to get out alive without trying.  

    A buzzer rang before the Deathbell rang throughout the speakers for the second time that night.  “You have failed to answer the first question.  Fortunately, your teacher served the very demonstration of the consequences when trying to escape.”  

    “Bastard!” Jinyoung ruffled his hair.  Gongchan shook his head.  

    “I hope you all are ready for the second question.”  The voice made Krystal shake- with rage, fear, and all her emotions just coelesqued.  

    She looked around, seeing everyone’s face dark and stormy.  

    One down, nineteen more to go.      

KIM DASOM ; DEAD

10:57 PM

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(A/N) Hey guys! Thanks so much for commenting & subscribing, I think it's been helping me update more consistently

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