“I came down to drink some water, but… I swear I saw a figure tracing me! There was someone here!” 
“Oh my, you guys are insane!” LE snorted. She was now clearly annoyed by the maknae line getting too affected by the horror movie they had just watched. They were on half-way to getting paranoid and LE couldn’t stand that. But she couldn’t blame the maknaes alone: Solji and Hani also seemed to be in two minds, they looked confused about whether they should believe or not. 
“I too have a weird feeling about this.” Hani stated at last. “Can’t we leave this place and find somewhere else to stay?” 
“Are you kidding me? Where shall we go at this time?” LE mocked. 
“We can contact the manager oppa.” Solji suggested. 
“Listen, guys!” LE broke in again and let out a silent sigh of annoyance. “Let’s just go upstairs, and stay all together. That’s the best thing we can do instead of splitting into groups so that the serial killers having a walk in this house can approach us better.” 
Solji obviously didn’t approve of LE being a little rude, but she tried not to interfere this time. Arguing with a clearly annoyed LE wasn’t the best idea, so she decided on agreeing with her. After all, staying in one room wasn’t a bad idea after all. Except five of them had to share one bed for two. But well, she could sacrifice her comfort and sleep on the floor to give her ‘children’ more space. She was the leader, after all. She had to take quick and appropriate decisions. 

As they reached the top of the stairs, LE looked up and frowned. Something indeed didn’t feel right. “Junghwa, did you turn off the lights in our room when you left?” she asked. 
“No.. why?” Junghwa came closer to have a better look. LE was right: they left the lights on, yet when they came back, they found the lights turned off. LE still thought she just forgot she turned them off, unconsciously maybe. She didn’t want to believe something was indeed wrong with this house. She wasn’t scared, just confused. She tried to hide that in order to prevent other members from freaking out more. 

They entered the room and shut the bedroom door. Everyone sat on the bed except for LE but no one suggested sleeping; after all that they experienced, there was no thought of sleep in their minds. All of them were confused. Or, precisely, frightened. Except for LE, obviously. 
“Hyerin, was it a man that you saw?” Hani suddenly asked. 
“What? Oh… I don’t remember… A shadow… In the darkness…” Hyerin replied semiconsciously. 
“A shadow in the darkness? It doesn’t make sense.” LE objected, crossing her arms. 
“I mean… a figure… in the darkness… I was too afraid to explore…” Hyerin explained. 
“Shush!” Hani made a gesture to keep them silent. They abruptly stopped speaking and… listened to the noise. Light taps and scratches, which were getting louder and more ferocious with every second; becoming violently intense until the persistent scratching built up into a loud bang. 
“One of us has to go check what’s going on there.” LE suggested at last. But seeing the frightened looks on her team-mates’ faces, she knew she was the only one who thought this was a good idea. “Fine.” she sighed. “I will.” 
“Are you crazy?!” Junghwa retorted. “What if—“ 
“Don’t worry.” LE faked a smile. No matter how annoyed she was, she clearly loved Junghwa and she knew the maknae was caring about her. “I’m just going to glance at whatever or whoever it is.” 
“I’ll go with you.” Solji declared and stood up. All others looked at her in wonder. 
“No. You better stay here with the maknae line, unni. I will go.” Hani tapped Solji’s shoulder. She then looked at LE and nodded, as a sign to leave. 
From the bedroom that Junghwa and LE were sharing, one could see down the hall to the living room, which is connected to the kitchen. Hani and LE looked down the hall toward the living room to see the light darker, even though all of them clearly remembered leaving the lights on. Somebody had flicked off the light from the kitchen. Another sound came, this time from the living room and Hani saw what seemed like black shadow before the living room light went out. She nearly screamed, only to be silenced by LE, and they back-tracked at a lightning speed and closed the door. 
“What’s going on?!” Solji squeaked. She looked all messed up and untidy. She was the eldest one and hence had to take care of them all, but she couldn’t ignore her own fear. 
LE looked at Hani briefly before lowering her voice and stating: “Someone is there.” 

~

Hani, who was too effected by all that, came stumbling onto the bed with a look of unconsciousness in her eyes. She crashed onto the bed, and got the necessary support by Solji, who helped her to somewhat regain her composure. “We should leave this place. As soon as possible.” Hani muttered. 
“We will have to go to the front door. We’ll have to pass the living room. Don’t you think we’re better off here?” LE said. 
“But what if they come here?” Hani reasoned, her already bloodshot eyes solely focused on LE. The latter only replied with a gasp. 
“T-they…” Hyerin trembled at the mention of whoever ’they’ might be. 
“Hey, there there, don’t be afraid. We’re all here, together.” Solji walked up and hugged her as a sign of support. Hyerin hugged her back, although semiconsciously, she was all pale and her face had lost all colour.
“Oh my…” Hani sighed. 
“What?” Solji looked up. 
“Too late…” Hani made a gesture for silence again, and they fell silent, listening to something that scared them to no end and forced them to sit on their seats shivering… Footsteps. They were accompanied by scratching that seemed to be inching towards their room. All of them held their breath as they held each other’s hands, pure fright filling their senses. 

And then… 

The heavy stepping stopped. 
Whatever (or whoever) it was, it stopped. They heard nothing more and let out a gasp each. At this point, neither of them knew what to think. This all seemed impossible. 
“Oh my!” LE let out a silent gasp. “Junghwa, when did we open the window?” 
Junghwa quickly looked over and a shiver ran up her spine; she looked back at LE with an expression of extreme fright and bewilderment at how the window had been opened because they kept it locked ever since they came in for the first time. LE ran over to the window straight away and tried to lock it but the latch was snapped. After closing it shut, she slowly walked back. 
“We should leave until it’s too late…” she said with an infinite sickness in her stomach. As if the fear they were experiencing was not enough, the lights within the door started blinking until it completely went out. Now they were sitting in complete darkness, bearing nothing but a heavy fright within them. In order to prevent any screams or shouts or shrieks, they all approached each other and stood together, holding hands. 
“Wait! Does anyone have a phone?” Hani asked. The replies were only “! I left mine in my room!” or “Mine is downstairs!”, “I can’t find mine” and “Neither do I”. 
“Hold on, I have something to fix this with.” she lowered her hand to her pockets and started thoroughly searching through them. In a matter of seconds, she took a small pendant-lantern. “A fan gave this to me in the airport today. Happy I still have it with me.” she explained and turned it on, finally letting the other members have a piece of light, as well. 
“Now listen. All we have to do is just run down the stairs and get to the front door.” Hani implied. 
“No way! If we leave this room—“ Hyerin protested, but got interrupted by LE. 
“They might come up here at this point. And none of us can find her phone to contact anyone. All we have is ourselves.” LE continued. Hyerin ignored this statement, though. All she said was: “You heard the noise. It stopped just before the room. Opening the door is a no-no!” and she wasn’t wrong. They had no guarantee that opening the door wouldn’t throw them into trouble directly. 
“Wait…” Junghwa suddenly mused, breaking into the conversation and gaining all the attention. She was silent for almost the entire time so whenever she spoke, she was listened to carefully. “If they came this far… they would have locked the door so we’d have to stay here…” 
“We’re screwed if they did.” LE related. 
“The only way to check it is to go downstairs.” Hani suggested again. 
“I have a better idea.” LE stated. Everyone quickly looked at her, expecting her to say something. “We can use the window.” 
“W-what?” Hyerin shuddered.
“One of us has to use the drainpipe and climb downwards. Then she can run to call out the managers and come back here to open the door.” she looked at the members and explored their expressions. “And well… I guess it has to be me.” 
“No. I’ll go.” Hani broke in. 
“Are you two out of your minds?! It is the drainpipe, it can’t bear the human weight! Even if it will, will we send one person to go outside at this dark while we all will stay here? I will never say ‘yes’ to that!” Solji avowed with intensity and fervor. It was so unlike her. She usually was calm and objective. But this time no one could blame her; she was the leader, the eldest one, she had to ignore her own fear and support and comfort everyone, additionally she had to deal with Hani and LE who couldn’t stay calm and craved adrenalin. 
“Unni, there’s obviously someone in the house. We have no more option but to go outside and call for help, otherwise we’ll either die or… die.” Hani countered.
“No, no, no! I can’t let you go alone. No way.” Solji objected again. “What if something happens to you?” she asked with evident tremor in her voice. Before she knew it, her eyes started to tear, but she succeeded in holding back her tears. Hani, upon noticing that, was quick to lift her hand and rest it on Solji’s shoulder, half-hugging her in the process. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” she whispered with a smile, wrapping Solji in her arms. “I promise. Just let me go.” she added a few seconds later. 

~