Sooyoung growls as she ruffles her own hair in frustration. “O-okay. Okay. So…let me get this straight. You,” she begins by pointing across the small campfire at Yuri. “You’re a fox spirit, who turned human on your one thousandth birthday, so you’re actually…1019 years old?”

The quidditch captain clicks her tongue. “That sounds about—”

“And, you,” Sooyoung says, gesturing to Taeyeon, “you...are an artificially created werewolf, and it turns out that your parents, the rich CEO’s of the wizarding medical company, Phoenix, are responsible for that gross experiment.”

Taeyeon frowns at the way her classmate offers the truth up like salt in wounds. “Yeah…I guess that’s basically what happened—”

“And, you two,” Sooyoung interrupts the girl and, using her pointer fingers, she draws an invisible line between Taeyeon and Tiffany, “you two have a lot of baggage to sort out. Whatever fight you guys had was clearly beyond either of your guy’s control. Seriously, as soon as we get back to school, I’m going to lock you two in a room till you figure out your .”

Tiffany sighs. “Soo, Taeyeon and I—”

“And, you three!” The Ravenclaw witch continues to ramble, now pointing at Hyoyeon, Sunny, and Yoona. “You guys lied to protect your werewolf friend, based on the Headmistress’ secret agenda. And me, I am,” she pauses to take an exaggerated, shaky inhale, “I-I am really…confused? A-and really stressed…anybody else got secrets worth sharing?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…Jessica’s an animagus.”

“Taeyeon!” the Slytherin witch yelps before smacking her friend.

“You’re an animagus?”

“Cool, what do you turn into?”

“This isn’t a party trick!”

“It kind of is,” Taeyeon snickers.

“How can you guys possibly laugh right now?!”

Whatever laughter and chatter filled the air, just seconds ago, suddenly bottoms out and the only sound that remains is the soft crackle of burning wood. Gathered around the fire pit, the small smiles on all the girls’ faces disappear as the youngest, Seohyun, chastises her seniors for their flippant attitudes.

“We’re lost in a forest with monsters crawling around every corner. We’ve been out here for days now and no one’s come looking for us!”

“Calm down,” Sooyoung responds. “We’re witches. We have tons of snacks that we can keep duplicating and we can even tranate food and water. We’re doing okay.”

Yoona softly chuckles before pointing to her right and adding, “Did you see the kind of crap Sunny has in her bag? She’s got a hamburger in there.”

“You laugh at this hamburger now, Im Yoona, but when you’re tired of eating sweet potatoes, you’ll be begging for duplicates of this.”

“Nobody wants an old burger,” Yuri snorts.

“Whoa, whoa, it ain’t nothing a little magic can’t clean up. Don’t hate on the burger,” Hyoyeon adds. “Drink, anyone?” she suddenly offers, pulling a small metal flask from her backpack.

Sooyoung almost tips backwards off the log that she’s seated on. “Y-you brought booze with you?!”

“Of course,” Hyoyeon laughs. “I mean, we were just going to have some fun on the trip, but now that things have turned out the way they have, I’m really glad that I brought—”

“Stop it!” Seohyun snaps. “Our professors and classmates are probably dead and you guys aren’t taking this seriously! We have to start thinking about—”

“Jesus Christ!” Hyoyeon growls. “Who has a stick up your ?! We haven’t been able to sit down and eat and talk and laugh for hours! We’ve been up since sunrise to scout the area. Why can’t you just let us have this, huh?” Huffing hard, Hyoyeon tries to catch her breath from her outburst. “If you don’t think we’re stressed too, then you’re ing crazy.”

“Hey,” Tiffany warns, disapproving of the way Hyoyeon’s speaking to her friend, “you need to chill out.”

“You tell her to ing chill out!” the blonde snaps back before standing from her seat. “Sick of this nagging bull,” she mutters before storming away from the fire pit and back into the safety of a shallow cave.

With a heavy sigh and an exhausted eye roll, Tiffany turns to Taeyeon to mumble, “The sooner we get back, the better.”

“Please. I can’t stand anymore ing,” Taeyeon groans, burying her face into her palms. If she thought she and Tiffany had their problems, well, that just feels laughable compared to trapping nine girls—nine very different girls—into a tiny cave together for days. And even though it’s just been days, Taeyeon thinks it feels like it’s been weeks already and if she has to hear anymore catty snarks—

“Unnie! You shouldn’t be eating hamburgers, they’re bad for you and they’ll eventually help kill you—”

“Oh my god!” Sunny growls through a mouthful of food. “Just mind your own business and eat your dumb sweet potatoes!”

Taeyeon sighs.

Ah. Day four….

***

(AN: Sometimes these gif links seem to break, so if you’re reading and pics aren’t showing up, just click on the logo to see the tumblr posting of the episode’s gifs. I’ll be applying this from here on out because I’m too lazy to maintain previous chapters, lol.)

***

Even after three full days have passed since they’ve arrived in the forest, Taeyeon’s still unaccustomed to the sensation of dried dead leaves that crunch beneath the soles of her bare feet. Crouched down, she runs her fingers through the small stream, cupping a palm full of water before rubbing the traces of dirt from her skin. It’s just traces of dust and soil, but Taeyeon still hallucinates seeing blood in the cracks of her skin and wedged beneath her nails. Frowning, she washes her hands in the cool stream a little more diligently and makes sure every last trace of filth is gone.

Those…hybrids, were they normal people once upon a time, just like her? Were they part of an experiment too? Would they have turned back into their human selves if Taeyeon hadn’t—

“O-okay, I’m all done.”

Taeyeon turns her head and watches as Jessica crouches down to her level to rinse her hands in the clear stream water. She’s still unaccustomed to seeing the Slytherin witch without makeup, but even without her daily skin-care routines, Taeyeon can’t help but to admire the glow of the other girl’s clear, milky complexion. Even if Jessica’s face is covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and there crumbs of dead leaves in her sweater, she thinks the Slytherin witch is far cleaner than she is. Even if Taeyeon’s hands look unsoiled, she knows they’re not.

“You’re all good?” Taeyeon asks.

“Yeah,” Jessica chuckles embarrassingly, still unaccustomed to having a ‘bathroom buddy’ to travel with. “I swear I’ll be more thankful about my life and modern toilets when we get home. I never want to pee in a forest again.”

The wolf-girl chuckles as she finishes drying her hands on the green lining of her cloak. “Believe me, I understand. Camping’s not my thing.”

“I didn’t expect Sunny to be so into it,” Jessica remarks. “She kept telling me how nice it is sleep under the stars,” she laughs, finding nothing romantic about sleeping on the dirty forest floor.

Taeyeon chuckles. “I think she likes making campfires and roughing it out here—even if there are monsters around. She’s always been into non-magic stuff, but parents were never really happy about it and—”

Click.

Alarmed by the sound, Taeyeon immediately stands up to scan the area. With adrenaline flooding her body, her eyes instantly spark gold as her olfactory receptors multiple along the roof of her nasal cavity. Thinking she heard crunching leaves in the distance, she starts to sniff the air, trying to isolate any foreign or familiar scents.

Slowly rising to her feet too, Jessica scans the area before turning back to her friend. “Wh-what’s the matter?” she whispers, feeling fear begin to shake her knees.

Taeyeon takes a lengthy pause, drinking in every sight, smell, and sound one last time before she safely tells Jessica, “I…I thought I heard something…but I think we’re okay. We should head back anyways though, just in case.”

As Taeyeon begins to leave the stream side, she instinctually reaches behind her and Jessica doesn’t hesitate to reach forward and take the girl’s hand into her own, following the wolf-girl’s lead.

***

Tiffany grimaces as she continues to clutch her wand far too tight. She’s sure the silencing charm she’s casted will stay in effect for as long as they need, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch the charred creature continue to twitch on the ground, with peaks of flames still burning on his body. Even though the smell isn’t much different from barbequing meat, Tiffany still feels the urge to retch and she has to look away while Hyoyeon watches to make sure the half-turned creature burns to death.

“Another one bites the dust,” Hyoyeon whispers before blowing the smoke from the tip of her wand. She casually steps over the blackened body on the ground and Tiffany grimaces at the sight and smell before following after her classmate.

“…Y-you make it look so easy,” Tiffany mutters, half-horrified, half-envious of the other witch’s abilities. “Does it not…bother you?”

“Does what bother me?”

“You know what,” Tiffany says seriously. “Killing people.”

Stopping dead in her tracks, Hyoyeon whirls around to meet Tiffany’s gaze. “These are not people. They’re zombie-werewolf…things! They’re monsters.”

“Still….”

“I don’t understand,” Hyoyeon states, titling her head to the side. “Why would you enter the military program if you weren’t ready for combat like this?”

“This,” Tiffany stresses by gesturing back at the corpse, hiding beneath a thin blanket of mist, “this is not what I had been expecting. I thought I was going to graduate and become an auror.”

“And you don’t think auror officers have to face danger like this too?”

Tiffany frowns at the thought. “This is still…a lot to take in.”

The Gryffindor witch shifts her weight, feeling the soft forest floor sink before her feet. “Are you still thinking about her?” she asks her classmate.

Tiffany feels her jaw instinctively clench. “I...I used to have lunch with Soyou from time to time. I didn’t really know her that well…but she was really nice when we did talk and hang out.”

“And that Soyou is not the same one that you took out,” Hyoyeon states. “You did what you had to do. If you didn’t attack her, maybe she would’ve summoned more creatures or even killed Taeyeon.”

“What if we could’ve helped Soyou?”

“You know there’s nothing we could’ve done,” Hyoyeon scoffs. “We’re trained for this, Tiffany. If anyone was going to be okay killing these monsters, you’re the last person I thought that would have trouble.”

“But Soyou—”

“Look, if we want to get everyone out of here alive, I need you to grow a pair,” Hyoyeon finally snaps when her patience finally wears out.

“I’m not you. I can’t just do…that!”

The blonde huffs and feels her eyebrows knit tight as she stares at her emotional classmate. Though she’s irritated by Tiffany’s inadequacy as a military major, she can’t help from feeling bad about the girl’s conflictions either. Even knowing the words she’s about to offer are harsh, Hyoyeon boldly states the truth for the other girl, regardless of her emotions.

“You know…I couldn’t ing stand you in school. You’re such an , Tiffany.” As soon as the words are out of , Hyoyeon can spot the sparks of anger bloom in Tiffany’s tightened features. “But you’re also a badass…so start acting like it, cause I need the extra hand.” Offering the girl a small smirk, Hyoyeon finally turns from her spot and continues forward, leaving a surprised Tiffany to stare at her classmate’s back.

The Hufflepuff witch sighs when she feels so…useless. As a young witch, she felt like she was constantly standing in her best friend’s shadow while Taeyeon’s magical skills flourished strong. And even now—even though they’re almost twenty—Tiffany feels like she hasn’t grown at all as she stares at Hyoyeon’s back, slowly disappearing into the mist. Still, Tiffany does what she’s always done and she starts to follow after her superior, doing her best to keep up.

Just a few minutes later, the duo finally discovers what they were searching for.

“,” Hyoyeon hisses at the smell of the decomposing body and has to pinch her nostrils shut.

Lying at their feet, the two girls stare at