My alarm buzzed at 5:30 am and I groaned as I rolled over. The mattress left much to be desired, I felt like I had a coil shaped indent in my back from one particularly sharp area. I stretched in bed and then sat up. My first mission of today was to find the showers, from what I remembered the girl’s bathroom was somewhere near the emergency exit. I gathered the shower supplies and a fresh set of underclothes and my tracksuit and went in search of the bathroom. I opened the door only to find a dimly lit quiet hallway. I turned towards the vice-dean’s room and found myself at the exit. A dark door stood beside it with a female sign on it. The bathroom was dark, when I flipped the switch the light illuminated a stunning marble room. There were 4 bathroom stalls and 4 private showers which seemed out of place when compared to the opulence of the marble. I assumed the stalls must have been installed by the school after the building was built.

Feeling refreshed after using the facilities I headed back to my room to dry my hair. I was concentrating on balancing my stuff and didn’t notice the figure in front of me until I was 1 foot away. I came to a sudden stop and looked up at the towering figure which turned out to be a very sleep Seungho. He mumbled a soft greeting, scratched his belly and wobbled to the opposite end of the hallway where the male bathroom was. I was glad I didn’t have to walk that far. The intercom buzzed right as I entered my room signaling it was 6 am. I put my stuff and away, hung the wet towel on the chair in my room and dried my thick wavy hair, trying to make it presentable. After finishing I still had 10 minutes until breakfast so I started to get my notebook and other supplies ready, trying to distract myself from the first day jitters. They would be testing us tonight before dinner and I couldn’t afford to fail. I decided to walk to breakfast early.

Arriving in the same dining room I was surprised to find Myungsoo already there, sitting alone. He had a bowl of cereal in front of him and was reading a thick book. I paused trying to decide whether to leave him alone but changed my mind, I was going to try and be friendlier, after all we would be classmates for the next few days.

“Good morning,” I said, trying to sound peppy. I was rewarded with a 2 second glance after which he went back to his book. I sighed and moved towards the buffet table which was laid out immaculately. There were a few choices including scrambled eggs, sausages, bread, assorted fruit and a couple different cereals. I didn’t think I could stomach any hot food so I poured myself a bowl of cereal as well and grabbed an apple. I went to join Myungsoo and sat quietly opposite him. Tucking in I ate quietly until loud footsteps were heard. I craned my neck around to see who it was. Seungho appeared first followed by Dujun. They both said a quick hello before heading straight to the food. I returned to eating while they both piled their plates with eggs and bacon. I looked up and then stared in amazement as Seungho brought with him half a loaf of bread. He saw where I was looking and smiled sheepishly.

“I need a lot of carbohydrates for learning.”

Breakfast passed by pretty quickly. We cleaned up and headed back to the conference room where we had lessons yesterday. I looked down at my phone, I didn’t have service here but the time was 7:00 am, we still had ten minutes before the lesson started. I turned to Seungho and immediately asked how many people had been on the island with the billionaire’s son before he died. I felt like I had to get it out before we were interrupted again.

“According to what the article mentioned, there were five others. His girlfriend at the time Lisa Cheung, a socialite who now is a big name in fashion in mainland China was staying with him. His secretary and trusted aide Kim Sungkyu. The architect Thomas McDowell and foreman of the site Tommy Lee. The last one was the landscaper but I don’t remember his name off-hand.”

“What did the investigation of his murder reveal, was anybody suspected?” Dujun asked, looking interested.

“Per the records I hacked into everyone had pretty air-tight alibis.”

“Wait, you hacked into records?” I asked.

“I’m pretty good at what I do, no one will ever notice.” Seungho smirked.

At that moment the conference door opened and instructor Jung walked in followed by Mr. Young. Neither of them looked rested.

“Thank you for being on time, we will begin now. Instructor Jung will be teaching you this morning, as I mentioned yesterday you will have a quick break. Dr. Kang will then come to lecture about medical forensics until lunch. I’ll be finishing up paperwork in the lobby office for the time being,” stated Mr. Young, directing the last statement to Instructor Jung. He gave us a nod and walked out of the room.

We turned our attention to instructor Jung who stood in the middle of the room. He was still dressed as an army drill sergeant but had taken off his sunglasses revealing his stern face. He held a pile of papers which he distributed to us.

“This morning we are starting on cases. You guys have three hours to solve these ten cases, they are real cases solved by our detectives. This would have been part of your entrance exam if you had been there. After you complete it you can go for break.”

I stared down at the papers in front of me, a little excited but nervous nonetheless. Myungsoo and Dujun had already started writing so I started the test not wanting to be left behind.

Myungsoo stood up about 30 minutes in, when I was only halfway through the fourth case. He handed his papers in and left silently. Dujun followed him 20 minutes later, giving me and Seungho a thumbs up while walking by. I sighed and went back to reading the case. It was actually pretty interesting, it took place in an all-girls school and involved theft of an heirloom necklace. All of the suspects had alibis. The only thing I was missing was the motive and so I re-read the case. The victim was a scholarship student who had worn the necklace to school that day, she only noticed it missing during her test which she had been very worried about. It wasn’t an expensive necklace. The suspects did not have a clear motive to steal a necklace that didn’t have any monetary value. I puzzled over this and then it clicked. It had to be that person. I picked my answer and moved to the next. The other cases were pretty clear cut after that one and I finished them in another hour. I handed my paper to the instructor and walked out giving an encouraging smile to Seungho who was still completing his test. I noticed as I walked out that his paper did not seem to resemble the one I had and wondered if we all had gotten different questions.

I joined Myungsoo and Dujun in the dining room. Myungsoo was reading his book again and Dujun was spinning a pencil around his fingers looking bored. I looked down at my phone, it was only 9 am. Dujun looked up and a huge smile broke out on his face. It gave me butterflies in the pit of my stomach which I proceeded to squash. No nonsense was need at this time of my life.

“Finally, someone I can talk to! Myungsoo just ignores me, I am so bored,” Dujun whined. “How do you think you did?” he asked.

“I think I did okay, did you guys have the question about the girl’s school? Who did you pick as the suspect, I thought the victim was the one who set up everything.”

Dujun nodded, “That’s what I thought as well, she wanted to avoid her test, likely she didn’t want to lose her scholarship and so she created the distraction of the necklace going missing.”

We went through our answers together, occasionally Myungsoo would chime in. I was glad I had the same answers as these two, they were first on the application exam which added reassurance.

“It seemed like Seungho had a different test that we did,” I mentioned offhand. Myungsoo looked interested with that comment.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, frowning.

“Well as I was passing by his test I noticed that the paragraphs were shorter than what I had, none of them on that page seemed to correspond to any of the paragraphs I had in terms of length. I thought they may have given us different tests but you guys had the same questions as I did.”

Myungsoo looked pensive at that comment. He looked at the two of us and asked,” Don’t you feel like something is wrong with this place, this situation?”

He's right.