Sowon sat in the living room of team one’s dorm, she had somehow taken residence there, it seemed. The other members of the dorm were all away, more like hiding from the thinking senior. She had quite the fearsome concentrated face, her eyebrows drawn together, her lips pursed.

B3 was the floor SinB was interrogated, B3 was also the floor with one cell, B3 was the floor whose cell was occupied by the illusionist, but, B3 was where the murder happened. Who died, Sowon had no idea, but judging by the facts she had in hand, either the illusionist was moved up out of her cell on a floor lower than B5, or there was no murder at all.

Standing up straight suddenly, she spooked Yuju who was quietly going to the kitchen for a cup of water.

“Eep!”

“Sorry. I’ll be heading out, tell Eunha that I will be back tonight, at exactly 11pm. No earlier, no later. If I’m back early, I will just wait until it’s 11pm, so do not open the door until then and do not open it at all if I don’t knock at exactly 11pm.”

“Alright, be safe.”

Sowon nodded and headed out. Breathing a breath of relief, Yuju motioned for the others to come out of hiding, the intensive aura that Sowon displayed when she was thinking was suffocating almost. They felt completely useless to help her, way out of her league to even be considered her partners in crime like they actually were.

“You think she’ll actually make it on 11pm on the dot?”

“Bet.”

SinB stuck out a 5 dollar bill, but Umji slapped SinB’s hand and gave a firm shake of her head.

“My sister is very timely, save your money. My guess is, this school, no matter how safe the headmaster says it is, no matter how much we know he’s hiding, there’s more and it’s a lot more dangerous than we came here for.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Yerin looked around, but then realized that Eunha hadn’t come out of hiding with them. Looking around the rooms, they found Eunha curled up hugging a hoodie that they didn’t recognize, on the floor in the corner behind the YeJu room door where they had left her as they came out of hiding from.

“She’s so tired all the time, you think Sowon unnie’s training is that harsh?”

“Well, she did mention that they were focused on stamina training right now, she’d have to be drained every time.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I need to see the record of prisoners.”

“You do not have the credentials to access that information.”

“What? I do, check again.”

“It says here that you don’t.”

Turning the librarian’s monitor around to check, she took the keyboard as well, clicking through the multitudes of lines of code to see where the change had been made.

“Date and time, today, four hours ago. They knew I was going to check. I knew it.”

Not having enough knowledge to hack her way in, she just reached over the desk and ripped the librarian’s id card right off his chest.

“He-hey!”

“I’ll be good in there, you know me.”

“I do, but you could be fake?”

Sowon double back from the door to the private files.

“How’d you know I could be a fake?”

“The headmaster called an all hands meeting just moments earlier, said there was an illusionist loose on campus. So that makes you just as dangerous, if not more.”

Sowon growled and tossed the ID card back to the librarian. Going in there would do more harm if she let the illusionist roam free, but free? There shouldn’t have been any reason why they would be free. Running back to the elevator behind the housing attendant’s desk, she rode the way down to B3. Impatiently stepping out when the door was just wide enough for her to fit, Sowon stared at the mess on the floor. Covering her nose with her sleeve, all she could identify were large blackish smears across the floor, it didn’t look like a dead body, it was a viscous fluid. But that was only possible with the power of the creatures of the dark’s digestive system, their stomach acids were extremely potent and could liquify humans at one touch.

Snapping pictures and leaving everything as it was, Sowon hurried to go tell the staff, not just the headmaster.

“Soyou unnie please be in your office, please.”

Running to the counselor’s tower, she checked the elevators to see where they were, spotting them all on different floors and not going up from where she was, she quickly sprinted through the fire escape, scaling the stairs 4 at a time.

Huffing a little as she arrived at the door marked “Kang Ji Hyun”. Knocking politely as she gathered her breath, Sowon entered as soon as Soyou made a noise of acknowledgement.

“Unnie, please, do you trust me?”

“Of course, what counselor would I be if I didn’t?”

Sowon chuckled bitterly.

“Our school is in danger, you-“

Frowning slightly, she noticed a brownish stain on the sleeve of Soyou’s white blazer. Grabbing hold of her hand immediately, Sowon took a closer look, half leaned over the desk.

“What is this?”

Looking back at her counselor, she gasped when she saw what was under the desk, her superior height allowed her to see something she wished she almost didn’t. Punching the person in her grip in the face harshly hearing a crunch, Sowon threw the imposter across the room, their nose fully broken. Looking at the clock, Sowon took off the ribbon on her uniform and tied the illusionist to a coat stand before jamming it into a closet and smashing it closed to keep her stuck there. Lifting up the real Soyou, Sowon sprinted to the infirmary. She had to meet 11pm no matter what.

The time was 10:54pm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SinB sneezed as she felt a shiver come over her, looking around the empty living room, she saved her game and turned the tv off, when she looked up, she noticed an odd reflection in the tv screen.

“Pink eyes?”

Turning around at the same time as Umji smashed the window open, SinB stared shocked as Umji quickly looked out the window to see what it was.

“What was that Yewon ah?”

Umji just stared out the window, breathing heavily. The pang of premonition was like stabbing a stake of ice in her chest, it meant that the dangerous level was so high that someone could have died. Hands shaking, Umji held onto SinB for support.

“You could have died.”

“Oh.”

Umji chuckled weakly.

“That’s all you have to say to me?”

SinB scratched her cheek.

“I guess I owe you twice now?”

Umji slapped at SinB’s arms weakly, a tired smile appearing.

=============

goodness, I should tag horror in this story as well...it's getting darker than I expected