Everyone, except Jihoon, had gathered in a forest, that was supposedly haunted, and were now waiting for Jihoon to show up so they could get this Test of Courage out of the way. Of course, they only decided to do this because it was Friday 12th and they hadn’t had a break in a while. Surprisingly, Jihoon had been the one to bring it up, with help from Soonyoung.

“Where is he?” Seungcheol looked around, slightly annoyed by the fact that, despite organising it, Jihoon was late. Seungcheol had mainly agreed to this because Jihoon, and some of the others, but mainly Jihoon, hadn’t been outside much for the past couple weeks.

Just then, Seungcheol’s phone went off. He quickly produced the hand sized device from his pocket and answered it, after seeing it was Jihoon, “Woozi? Where-”

A scream was heard from the other end of the phone line, “Help!” Jihoon screeched, through a dodgy phone connection. “Please...me...help.” was all Seungcheol was able to make out before the phone line went dead.

“.” Seungcheol accidentally released. Everyone gathered closer with worry in their eyes, “I think Woozi’s in trouble.”

“Now that I think about it, it’s weird that Woozi’s not here, considering that he left before all of us to set up.” Soonyoung mumbled.

“What do we do now?” Chan’s voice came out from behind Mingyu and Wonwoo. He struggled to see between the two.

Seungcheol put the phone back in his pocket, “Well we have to go find him!”

“Should we split up to make it faster?” Seungkwan suggested, but Seungcheol was quick to shake his head to the idea.

“No. As much as it would be faster, it’s too risky to separate. Especially seeing as we don’t even know what’s happened to Woozi.” Seungcheol responded and everyone nodded, “Come on!” Seungcheol began running into the forest, “And don’t get separated!” Little did they know someone else had already gone missing…

“This is tiring!” Minghao gasped after a while. Everyone slowed to a halt and looked around.

“Let’s do a number check. 1.” Seungcheol called out, before quickly adding, “And Woozi’s not here so move on.”

“3”

“4”

“5”

“6”

“7”

“8”

“9”

“10”

“11”

“12”

There was a pause.

“Jun.” Seungcheol called out. There was no response. Everyone quickly glanced around.

“He’s not here.” Hansol stated.

“.” Seungcheol breathed.

“Language.” Jisoo whispered.

“Ok… Now we have 2 people to find.” Seungcheol whispered, “I’m going to give everyone a partner, that way we shouldn’t lose anyone.” Seungcheol looked around, “Joshua with Jeonghan. Mingyu and Wonwoo. Hoshi and Dokyeom. Vernon and Boo.” He paused for a minute, “And then, me, The8 and Dino.” Everyone quickly shuffled into their pairs, or 3’s in Seungcheol, Chan and Minghao’s case.

Once everyone was in their pairs, they continued moving. Seungkwan clung to Hansol’s arm and flinched at nearly every sign of movement. The sky was beginning to darken and the forest floor was becoming harder to see. This time, everyone remained in a brisk walk, to conserve more energy and also to avoid people getting too separated. Soonyoung and Seokmin tried to lighten the mood with the occasional joke, but any laughter was short and weak. Mingyu and Wonwoo would whisper something to each other once in awhile, before returning to silence and Minghao had an arm around Chan in an attempt to calm him down, but it wasn’t going too well as Minghao was trembling as well. Jeonghan and Jisoo kept up a small conversation, but it wasn’t as lively as their usual conversations.

“Do you think we’ll find them?” Jeonghan murmured at one point to Jisoo, but loud enough for Seungcheol

“I’m sure we will.” Seungcheol called back, “Woozi’s tougher than he looks and Jun…” Seungcheol paused for a minute, “Hopefully, Jun’s with Woozi.”

A while passed, with the group slowly becoming more worried for their two friends, when they came across a note. By now the sky had become a pitch black, with little stars and the group were now relying on the torches that were meant to be used for the Test of Courage. Of course, only 1 actually worked.

“So…” Seungkwan started, “Who wants to approach the scary note?”

“I think we should do a number check again.” Seungcheol felt like they were lacking in numbers more than before, “I’ll start, 1 and of course Woozi’s not here so…” He prompted.

“3”

“4”

“5”

“6”

There was a pause.

“Hoshi?” Seungcheol glanced around. There was no one.

“DK’s not here either!” Chan relayed.

“!” Seungcheol didn’t bother holding back his confusion this time, “What the hell? Both of them are gone?”

“Hey, we’ll find them.” Wonwoo reminded them. While they had been walking, Wonwoo’s hand had slowly slipped into Mingyu’s and to his surprise, Mingyu hadn’t pulled back.

“Is 8 still here?” Seungcheol inquired.

“Yeah, I’m here!” Minghao called out.

“Good.” Seungcheol moved his attention back to the note, “I’ll read it, Dino, hold the torch.” The torch was passed to Chan, before Seungcheol hesitantly stepped towards the tree which had the note pinned to it, “! Is that blood?” Seungcheol jumped backwards, nearly tripping, before regaining himself, “It just says ‘LEAVE.’” Everyone shuffled closer to the tree and on closer inspection everyone noticed the claw marks in the tree.

Suddenly, the torch went out and there was a clank as something hit the ground, followed by shuffling, “Oi? What are you doing, Dino?” Seungcheol called out. There was a scream, “Oi! Dino!” Everyone quickly felt around for the torch. After a couple minutes of shuffling, the torch was found by Wonwoo. Everyone eyed their surroundings. Chan was gone.

“Damnit!” Wonwoo hit the tree.

“Wait what’s that other there?” Seungcheol pointed at one of the trees in the area and they all shuffled towards it.

“What is it?” Mingyu tried to spot what Seungcheol was on about.

“Isn’t this from the jacket Woozi was wearing earlier?” Seungcheol lifted a piece of pink fabric off of one of the branches and held it for everyone to see.

“Yeah, it is…” Minghao confirmed.

“Does that mean Woozi’s been this way?” Seungkwan raised his head, allowing his eyes to hopefully dart around the area only to be met with more trees.

“Possibly.” Seungcheol bit this way, “Come on, we’re going this way.” He paused, “Oh. And, this time, everyone link arms in 2 lines of 4. Hopefully, we won’t lose anyone else.” Everyone quickly agreed. Seungcheol, Minghao, Wonwoo and Mingyu quickly linked arms, Seungcheol taking back the torch, and Hansol, Seungkwan, Jisoo and Jeonghan linked arms. As they walked, Seungkwan would occasionally sing a few lines of a song, in an attempt to make sure everyone wasn’t too down.

Even more time passed and they managed to lose two more, Wonwoo and Mingyu, after Mingyu said that he needed the toilet desperately and went behind a bush, taking Wonwoo with him, just in case something happened, and neither came back. After 10 minutes, everyone went to search the area and the two were nowhere to be found. Turning into two lines of three, they kept walking.

Eventually, they found another few notes, spread out on 4 trees in a slightly wider clearing.

The first note read: ‘I warned you!’

The second: ‘You didn’t listen!’

The third: ‘Now, you will pay!’

And, the final one read: ‘I’m watching you’ and underneath was the drawing of an eye.

While they were panicking about what it meant, Minghao managed to disappear. While they were recovering from the disappearance of Minghao, they decided to take a short break, as they had been walking for a few hours. The torch flickered occasionally. Jisoo and Jeonghan sat next to each other under the 4th note and cuddled, for comfort. Seungkwan and Hansol were sat in the middle of the clearing and Seungcheol was pacing between the two deep in thought, causing the torch to change direction every time he turned.

Eventually, Seungcheol’s constant pacing began to get on everyone’s nerves, “If you’re going to walk around, can you at least give the torch to one of us?” Seungkwan moaned. Seungcheol sighed, but quickly handed the torch to Seungkwan.

Once everyone had calmed down slightly and decided it was getting too cold to stay still, they got up and continued walking. This time, they all linked arms with each other, as they decided a two and a three was too risky after how Soonyoung and Seokmin disappeared. The wind was beginning to pick up slightly and the clouds were threatening to break down. Every few steps Seungkwan would moan about how it was too cold for this and how he hoped they found everyone fast. Hansol would sometimes respond to Seungkwan’s complaints and tell him that it’s alright and that they would find them.

The flickering of the torch was getting worse and everyone was becoming aware of how if they didn’t find the other’s soon, they would be left in the dark. The rain was also beginning to trickle down on them.

“Maybe, we should just call the police and have them deal with it…” Seungcheol muttered. “Or at least to help.” He pulled out his phone and waited for the other’s approval. They all hesitantly nodded, slightly panicked. By some strange of misfortune, Seungcheol’s phone was dead. He turned to the others who pulled out their own phones. Both Seungkwan’s and Jeonghan’s were dead and Jisoo had forgotten his. In one last hopeful gaze, they all turned to look at Hansol. He dialed the number and went to phone the police, but there was no signal.

“Well, looks like contacting the police is out.” Hansol frowned.

Rustle. Everyone’s heads snapped in the direction of the noise and they shuffled closer together for safety. The rustling grew louder and everyone held their breath. Meow. The rustling stopped, as a cat crawled out of a bush with a mouse in it’s mouth. They all couldn’t help, but laugh.

“Ah!” Everyone snapped their heads to Jeonghan, “Joshua’s gone.” They all looked around and were shocked to see that Joshua had in fact disappeared.

“How?” was Seungcheol’s immediate question.

“I must have let go of him when we were distracted by the noise.” Jeonghan looked down.

“No… It’s fine. There’s still 4 of us.” Seungcheol rubbed his forehead.

The torch went out, when Hansol had finally managed to turn his phone on and turn on his torch, Jeonghan and Seungkwan were gone. Seungcheol and Hansol looked at each other, biting their own lips.

“We’re screwed.” It was all Hansol managed to say, accidentally slipping into English. They both stared at each other for a minute, “What do we do now?” Hansol finally squeezed out.

“We can still find them and besides, I doubt we’ll be able to find our way out now anyway.” Seungcheol sighed and they both linked arms again and continued walking. Hansol occasionally points out a direction he thinks would be a good way to go, but it was mainly Seungcheol leading. Eventually they found themselves arriving at a large clearing. They walked straight into the middle of it.

BANG!

Suddenly, 11 figures ran into the clearing and jumped onto Seungcheol and Hansol. After a minute, Seungcheol started laughing. As the 11 other members of Seventeen slowly climbed off of Seungcheol and Hansol, all that could be heard was laughter and the rain.

“Damn! You guys got me good.” Seungcheol moaned, sitting up, “Vernon, did you know about this?”

“Yup.” Hansol simply responded.

Seungcheol rubbed his forehead and whined slightly. “I can’t believe you guys tricked me like that.” Everyone could only laugh in response, “But how did you do it?”

“It’s pretty simple really,” Jihoon stepped forward, “I arrived early to hide in the forest and pick a spot near the meeting point, with little signal. Then, I waited for all of you to show up. After, I knew you were all here and I knew that you, S.Coups was beginning to worry, I phoned you up and pretended I was in trouble. The hardest bit was getting far away enough for you to not hear my scream.

“Then, I got closer and began signaling to people about when it was an appropriate time for them to disappear. Jun was first and I just had him stay near the back and then just quietly walk off, while you were stressing about me.

“After that, I got Hoshi and Dokyeom to slowly slow down while they were walking and then just allow the others to walk off. You were so focused on finding me and Jun that you didn’t even notice the two disappear.

“I decided to let Dino improvise slightly, but I didn’t expect him to turn off the torch. Luckily, I was wearing night vision goggles so I quickly ran over and pulled Dino off to the side. Yes, Dino’s scream was a real one. However, it was still pretty dark, even with the goggles, and, annoyingly, I ended up catching my jacket on the branch.

“Wonwoo and Mingyu were pretty easy. They just wandered off instead of going to the toilet like they said they were going to do. They were of course shortly followed by The8, who I signalled other, while you were distracted.

“Seungkwan and Jeonghan were pretty hard to get away from you. Originally it was going to be Vernon and Seungkwan, but seeing as the torch died, I thought it would be better to grab Seungkwan and Jeonghan, as Vernon had claimed to have a phone, so it would be better for him to stay as his phone had a torch on it. Of course, we thought it would be no fun if we ran out straight away, so we went to wait for you in this clearing.” Jihoon finished.

“And you thought of all of this?” Seungcheol gaped. He was shocked. To think Jihoon would put so much effort into something that wasn’t work related.

“I had some help.” Jihoon gestured to everyone else.

“Damn…” Seungcheol whispered, “That’s awesome.” He smiled, “But I hate all of you for doing this to me.” Everyone laughed.

“Well, we should go home. This went on for longer than I anticipated.” Jihoon rubbed his eyes, “And it’s raining.” He pulled several torches out of his backpack that he had brought with him and handed them out.

As they were heading back, Seungcheol leaned towards Jihoon, “I’ve got to say, it’s pretty impressive. The notes were a nicely done effect.”

“What notes?” Jihoon answered immediately. Everyone quickly turned their gazes to Jihoon.

“Woozi, you did make those notes, didn’t you?” Seungcheol whispered.

“No. I didn’t make any notes.” Jihoon shook his head in response. They all looked at each other for a brief moment, before everyone quickly began legging it out of the forest.

None of them ever went back to that forest.