The few moments that he spent staring into the eyes of the creature seemed like hours to him. Time seemed to slow down around him and the world went dark; he could feel a spotlight just on him and the creature.

The creature then pulled its lips back, revealing a set of fangs much bigger than his own, and his instincts took over. Quickly tapping Taekwoon's arm, effectively snapping the other three out of their trance, the four took off.

They ran, and at some point, Taekwoon and Hongbin shifted in order to put more distance between themselves and the thing. 

As they ran, Hongbin swore that he could feel dark waves pass by him at times. It felt like short gusts of wind that would brush past his fur, sending chills down his spine. 

Eventually though, the two wolves ran out of energy and had to slow down to a stop. They lay their heads low, their tongues rolling out as they fought to catch their breaths. 

"Wh...what was that?" Hongbin managed out.

"Don't you know?" Taekwoon answered, "That was a hellhound."

"A hellhound?" Hongbin asked. "How do you know?"

"Wonsik lent me a book of his to read the other day," Taekwoon said. "That thing fits the description completely."

Hongbin turned and looked back, his ears flattening against his skull. "If that really was a hellhound," he slowly said. "We're in big trouble."

Taekwoon got up, turning to Hongbin. "We should find Wonsik and Sanghyuk," he suggested. "I want to make sure they didn't die."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Hongbin agreed.

The two then proceeded to track down Wonsik and Sanghyuk's scents.

Wonsik and Sanghyuk stumbled, coming to a full stop. Wonsik bent over and held his knees for the second time that night, panting deeply while Sanghyuk leaned against a tree, wiping the cold sweats off his forehead.

"I'm...getting...too...old...for...this..." Wonsik mumbled.

"Forget about that!" Sanghyuk piped up. "What the hell was that thing?!"

Wonsik turned his head slightly to get a better view of Sanghyuk's face. "That...was a hellhound." 

"A hellhound?" Sanghyuk asked.

Wonsik nodded. "They're demonic energies that usually live in a parallel dimension. They get their forms because in our world, everything manifests itself in a physical form. If they're here, it means big trouble."

"Wait, dimensions exist?" Sanghyuk asked, then shook the question out of his head. "How do you know this anyway?"

"Hellhounds were only seen once," Wonsik explained. "There's been only one documented case of hellhounds in our dimension, they usually can't move freely between the worlds."

"And we saw one today..." Sanghyuk said.

Wonsik nodded. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he said. "I don't know much about hellhounds, but I do know that that gaze it gave us was not normal."

At that moment, Wonsik heard his name being called out and turned, finally heaving a sigh of relief. "Took you two long enough!"

Hongbin and Taekwoon ran up to the two. "You two are okay, right?" Taekwoon asked.

Wonsik nodded. "We're fine." He then narrowed his eyebrows. "Which doesn't explain why the two of you just decided to happily abandon us and run off!"

Sanghyuk hummed. "Even I agree with him on that."

"We're sorry for running off like that," Taekwoon said. 

Hongbin then sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. "This is bad," he commented.

There were small murmurs of agreement among the other three. "It is," Wonsik agreed.

"How bad is it?" Hongbin asked him.

"I don't know," Wonsik looked down apologetically. "I didn't read the entire thing. I only gave it to Taekwoon because he asked me to, and I don't think even he finished it."

"I didn't," Taekwoon clarified.

"Either way, the book did have a lot of missing information, and it was only one documented case too. Who knows how many others are there?"

"So, what should we do?" Sanghyuk asked.

The other three looked at him and then back at each other, asking the same question. What do they do now?

"We need to get back to our families," Hongbin decided.

"I'm worried," Sanghyuk muttered.

"I'll come with you then," Wonsik volunteered. "I have no one else to get back to anyway."

"What about your grandfather?" Taekwoon asked.

Wonsik shook his hand. "That old man? He'll be the last one to die on this earth." 

Sanghyuk raised an eyebrow but nodded. "It would be nice to not have to face my parents by myself," he admitted.

"We should also be getting back to the party," Hongbin said.

"Party? What party?" Sanghyuk asked.

Wonsik clapped his palms together. "Oh, you don't know, right?" he exclaimed. "Ah, yeah, today is Hongbin-hyung's birthday."

Sanghyuk turned to Hongbin. "It's your birthday?" He asked, slightly more as a statement than a question.

"Yeah," Hongbin answered.

"Well, happy birthday," he said curtly before gesturing to Wonsik. "Let's go, I honestly want to get home and forget this day ever happened."

Wonsik silently nodded and followed him, and the two fell into conversation. Taekwoon and Hongbin were left amidst the dark forest, neither of them speaking so that the only sounds they were surrounded with was the whispers of the leaves whenever there was a slight wind.

It was eerie that the forest was so quiet.

Taekwoon then turned to Hongbin. "Some birthday, huh?" he tried to make a light joke.

Hongbin gave a very light laugh. "Yeah," he said. "Let's get back."

Sanghyuk didn't even turn to Wonsik their walk back. 

Finally, Wonsik sighed. "Are you still mad?"

"Mad about what?" Sanghyuk asked. "It's not like anything big happened. Just my entire world has been thrown out of whack, my lab partner turned out to be in cahoots with wolves, who just so happen to be the first in school and his tag-along, I saw what is definitely going to be my worst nightmare and it just so happens to be an inter-dimensional being! No, I'm not mad at all!"

The corner of Wonsik's lip curled down. "You didn't have to put it like that," he said in a low voice.

"Put it like what? Huh?" Sanghyuk asked, still clearly agitated.

"I can literally hear the sarcasm dripping off your words," Wonsik said, maintaining a controlled tone.

"Good, because that's exactly what I intended," Sanghyuk said, turning away again and virtually storming to his house.

They came up to it and Sanghyuk stopped. 

"What's up?" Wonsik asked.

"Do you hear that?" Sanghyuk asked.

Wonsik listened, but heard nothing. "Hear what?" he asked.

"Exactly," Sanghyuk said.

Wonsik's eyes widened as he shared one look with Sanghyuk, and the two then burst through the front door to come across the most horrific sight.

Lying on the floor were the bodies of two people, a man and a woman, stained deep red and lying in a pool of their own blood. Their bodies had multiple scratches all over, and their eyes were open, glassy and lifeless.

Wonsik clasped his hand over his mouth at the sight as he moved a bit closer. Looking around, he noticed that the house hadn't escaped a beating either, with articles broken and strewn all over the house. There were claw tears in the wallpaper and the items near the dead couple were stained with blood.

Sanghyuk leaned down and sat on the ground, his entire body trembling like a leaf. His eyes held unshed tears, and he continuously clenched and unclenched his fists.

"Kim Wonsik," Sanghyuk said, his voice shaking as a tear escaped from his eye.

"What is it?" Wonsik asked.

"Who did this?" Sanghyuk asked, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out.

Wonsik sighed. "The hellhounds," he said. "The hellhounds did this."