Jun’s Pov:

“Jun, can we please pause for a few minutes? Jihoon and I are tired”, Soonyoung whined whilst a tired looking Jihoon leaned on his shoulder. “You’re kidding, right?” I replied, getting frustrated from all the whining. “We haven’t even been walking for that long and we need to find the others”. “Do we really have to find the others?”, Jihoon said, earning him a confused look from Soonyoung and an angry look from me. “What do you mean do we really have to find the others, of course we do. Do you want all of them to die in here whilst you escape?” I remarked, feeling myself get angrier by the second. “Wait, calm down, that’s not what I meant”, Jihoon said trying to justify himself. “What I meant to say was do we really have to find the others right now? Isn’t it better that we’re split up? I mean, this way we have better chances at finding those keys and the killer is less likely to find us all when we’re split up. We should just rest for now and find some keys”.

Soonyoung was looking at Jihoon in confused amazement, having not expected the sudden burst of intelligence from the smaller, whilst I was trying to think of some counter arguments. “But what if someone’s all alone? We can’t risk our member’s lives like that?” I said, getting worried thinking about the others, Minghao in particular. As if he read my thoughts, Jihoon replied, “Minghao will be fine Jun, you don’t have to worry about him. If anything, he’s probably the most likely to escape out of all of us”. I felt a blush rise to my cheeks as I tried to tell them that I was definitely not worried about Minghao, but the two of them were too busy laughing their asses off because of my reaction. “I guess that means we’re having a fifteen minute break right now”, Soonyoung said whilst making his way to one the bedrooms we had found and explored earlier. “I’m gonna take a short nap, wake me up when we’re going to leave again”.

Jihoon and I sat down on the ground in silence, neither of us having anything to say at the moment. I tried to calm down my mind, but thoughts about the others’ safety kept me in a state of nervousness. “Aren’t you worried about the others?”, I asked, trying to get rid of my nerves by making light conversation. “Of course I am”, Jihoon replied, “but there’s nothing we can do for their safety right now, except for finding those keys that is. We just have to trust their ability to survive. We are just as likely to get hurt as they are”. Jihoon let out a long sigh, closing his eyes before continuing. “But yeah, I’m definitely worried about the others. I have this feeling that something already happened to someone, and it’s definitely not helping”. “You think someone is already hurt?” “I don’t know for sure, but I just have this feeling that something already happened, you know?” I nodded my head, feeling even more jittery than before.

“How long do you think we’ve been here?” “I have no clue. We haven’t come across a clock of any sorts yet, have we”. We were engulfed in silence once again. I closed my eyes for a moment, wallowing myself in a short-lived sense of peace. I thought about where we were before all of this happened. We were all in our waiting room, hanging around doing our last bits of practice when this indescribable thing happened. I focused harder on the memory, trying to remember anything out of the ordinary in our waiting room. I was having a conversation with Jihoon and Soonyoung in the corner of the waiting room. I remembered looking around for Minghao and eventually seeing him, practicing the choreography on his own. The maknae line was fooling around on the other side of the waiting room, Seokmin was on his own practicing high notes, Joshua hyung and Jeonghan hyung were talking one the couch, the meanie couple was sitting on the other couch, being all lovey-dovey and Seungcheol hyung was standing by the door talking to the producer-nim.

Soonyoung’s sudden scream made Jihoon and I jump to our feet. We rushed towards the bedroom and opened the door. Soonyoung seemed to still be asleep, but he was trashing around, screaming at the top of his lungs. We tried to call his name and shake him, but he wouldn’t wake up. “Hoshi fighting!” Jihoon suddenly yelled. Soonyoung immediately sat up, eyes wide open. “I didn’t think that would actually work”, Jihoon said, looking at the now awake Soonyoung. Soonyoung’s face was pale and he was breathing heavily. Tears suddenly started to fall from his eyes. I sat down next to Soonyoung on the bed and slowly started rubbing his back. Eventually his breathing went back to normal, but he was still crying silently. I looked Soonyoung in his eyes, which were filled with fear. “Do you want to tell us what happened?” I asked him. I saw Soonyoung snap back to reality and he composed himself.

“I had this nightmare”, he said quietly, “but it felt so real. I think it really might have happened, or that it’s really going to happen in the future. We have to go now, we have to find Seokmin, Seungkwan, Vernon and Chan.” Jihoon and I shared a look, starting to get worried now. Soonyoung was never someone who would freak out easily. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a dream? And what happened to them in your dream?” “In my dream, something happened to one of them, I couldn’t really make out who, but I’m sure it wasn’t Seokmin. One of them suddenly just disappeared, fell through the floor and into some kind of trap in what seemed like a cellar. He was screaming loudly, it couldn’t have been anything good. I’m really worried that it might happen, or maybe it already has. We need to find them, just in case. Just to make sure they’re safe”. Soonyoung was looking at us, waiting for us to agree with him.

I looked at Jihoon, who seemed to be deep in thought. “It wouldn’t hurt to go find them. If something really happened, they could probably really use our help”, I said, hoping to convince Jihoon. “Alright”, Jihoon said, “but we don’t know where they are”. “They’re somewhere on the ground floor, but it would be better if we tried to go to the cellar”, Soonyoung replied. “So we just have to find some stairs, that shouldn’t be a problem”, I said, letting my back hit the bed. I let my eyes wander, suddenly seeing something hanging from the ceiling. I stood up, walking to the center of the room. I could feel the guys’ eyes on me. “There’s a key here”, I said, looking at Soonyoung and Jihoon, who were now standing beside each other.

The ceiling was around three meters high and hanging on a short wire was a small silver key. “That’s pretty high up”, Jihoon said frowning. “Hey Jihoon, go grab it for us”, Soonyoung said whilst laughing loudly. Jihoon smacked him across the head and turned towards me. “How are we going to get it?” he asked me. “Seeing as there is nothing in this room we can stand on, I’ll just have to lift one of you up. Soonyoung get over here and grab it”. “How exactly are we going to do this? Should I stand on your shoulders or something?” Soonyoung asked. “Yeah, let’s try that, we should be able to reach it.”

After a few trial and errors, Soonyoung finally managed to grab the key. “I never would’ve thought these keys were hidden in such strange places. I mean come on, hanging from the ceiling.” Jihoon grumbled, feeling shorter than ever. He took the key from Soonyoung and studied it, putting it in his pocket afterwards. “Hey, why can’t I keep it”, Soonyoung whined. “Because you’ll lose it, just like you lose everything else”. “I agree with Jihoon on this one. Now that we have gotten this key, we should really get moving. Onwards to the cellar!