Eunha crumpled the post it in her hand, burning it away by fireball and holding her hand outside the window, she sighed. Time was running out.

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

“Hey guys.”

SinB looked up from her puzzle and saw Sowon, walking in casually. That was odd, Sowon never got a copy of their key? Looking her in the eyes, SinB stared.

“Unnie? How did you get in?”

“Hm? Eunha just let me in.”

Tearing her eyes away, SinB shivered, calmly she accessed her surroundings.

“Oh, where did you go?”

She casually placed another piece of her puzzle down, fitting all four sides before putting it aside, acting nonchalant. When leaning over her puzzle, she peeked to see how far she was from Umji. Her partner was in their room, the door was open. Swishing her hand, she blew a gust that made the door rattle against the wall, imitating someone knocking on the door.

“Who is it?”

SinB bit her lip as she pretended to put another piece in, praying that her partner’s soft voice didn’t reach the imposter and that she would come out to see what was happening. Inside, she was panicking. Despite being a prankster and bad kid in school, making that fire tornado with Yerin was within safe places, fighting to save Umji had given her a fright, this one? This person was the illusionist, the one who Sowon had told them had attacked Soyou who was a professional and their counselor, more than enough well equipped to protect the students. What can she do?

Umji wandered outside and saw Sowon.

“Was it the pressure of the door opening and closing? Hey unnie, did your visit with Soyou counselor go well?”

She noticed SinB’s desperate eyes. But looked up at ‘Sowon’, keeping the suspicion low. She walked over and passed by SinB, patting her shoulder before heading to where Yerin, Yuju and Eunha were, but she didn’t see Eunha. She signaled with her eyes to follow her.

“Yerin unnie, could you make me a smoothie?”

“Ah, I want one too, Yerin unnie, make that two.”

This ‘Sowon’ watched them curiously as they gathered, she could be seen shuffling uncomfortably. SinB saw the imposter’s back and lunged, knocking her to the ground into a scuffle which the imposter’s illusion was easily knocked off. Huffing, this still unidentified girl flipped SinB over her back and pounced on top, landing a precise chop to SinB’s neck, it was strong enough to make SinB see black, but SinB held in her nausea, rolling off the side, her vision very slowly returning as her brain reeled.

Yerin grabbed the girl by her jacket, forcing her forwards, Yerin threw a powerful fire boosted kick into her side.

“Who are you!? What do you want!??”

Yuju turned the sink on and lifted the water into the air threateningly, in case the illusionist broke free of Yerin’s grip. Umji hurriedly grabbed a scarf and tied the imposter’s hands behind her back, before they went for rope from their camping trip.

Yuju still held a bubble of water over the girl as she stood guard, Umji checked to make sure that SinB was alright.

“Every fight with her ends so quickly, I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

Yerin paced in between Yuju and the girl, running her hand through her hair. Seeing something light up, she grabbed a phone off the table.

“This is Sowon unnie’s?” Three images loaded in when she unlocked it, this was Sowon’s password that she told for them to trust her for reentry if SinB wasn’t there. Seeing the liquified remains from the time Sowon went to check the jails, Yerin looked back at the girl with heightened alarm.

“No, don’t tell me.”

The girl only laughed, and she kept laughing. Even when Yerin grabbed Yuju and screamed at SinB and Umji to run. Until she exploded into a cloud of darkness and reemerged as a completely different being.

Umji cleared away the smoke as best as she could for Yerin to find the oxygen needed to ignite a flame for them to see, this was a weird fog that no matter how Umji tried to clear, seemed to remain the same thickness. When they finally caught a glimpse of this monster, Yerin gasped.

“Oh no.”

Before them, stood a six-foot-tall, creature of the darkness, the skin was completely black, with rolls of darkness rolling off it, what made it creepier was the humanoid skeleton that seemed to protrude from the skin, but it had horns, and an animalistic jaw set. SinB shoved open their dorm door and ushered them to get out, warn the guards, warn the security, but most importantly, warn the students who were completely unaware.

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

Sowon was on her way back to the dorm, but people were beginning to run away in the opposite direction, hurrying her steps she grabbed a running by student and demanded what the situation was.

“That crazy kid! Team one’s crazy air freak! She says we’re all going to die!”

He broke away from Sowon and continued to run for his life, this confused Sowon. SinB wasn’t a bad kid, not to her at least. She cared for Umji a lot and Sowon was thankful to have someone else watch and care for her baby sister. Maybe she was a little deviant, she liked causing trouble sometimes, she’s heard the reports of the teacher’s frustrations of SinB making fart bombs and stuff in class, but did it warrant scaring the other students like this?

She began to sprint towards the dorm.

“Eunha, I have to find Eunha at least if this is something bad.”

Pushing past the hoards of people that seemed to increase in panic, she heard snippets of comments some screams here and there.

“A demon? They’re talking about a creature of the dark, but how can they be inside?”

She turned over her clues in her head, patting her pockets, she remembered she had left her phone with her notes at the dorm. Cursing, she internally scolded herself that her brain game was never as strong as it should be.

“Come on, think! How!”

Finally remembering the liquified pools in the jails, she snapped her fingers. This was bad, very bad. Why didn’t she realize this earlier!?

Cursing under her breath, she boosted her speed by pushing a gust of air behind her, her priority changed as she veered off course. She needed Chungha, and fast.

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

Eunha climbed on the outside of the school building. After her little incident with her post it notes, she was shoved around before she saw why, she didn’t know it happened in their dorm, she had been just outside in the hall when she decided to just escape the chaos via window.

“Not enough time? You ! You mean right now!”

She grunted as she lifted herself onto the roof finally, a proper place where she could put her feet. Hearing an explosion coming from the back of the school, she hurriedly climbed over the steep roof to see what.

A loud cracking sound followed after as she continued to stare, what could make that noise? She looked up and paled. The barrier, the one which protected the academy from the creatures of the dark was shattering. Hearing the screams of students, she turned to look down the courtyard. This wasn’t good, creatures of the dark were attracted to fear or hatred, the smarter ones took advantage of human rage to get things done, the stupid just rush at them.

Following the cracks to the point of explosion, Eunha’s hands started to shake. A mass of darkness revealed itself behind the barrier, she watched as they began to sense the fear in the air. All she could do was stand there and watch as they poured in in a mess, spreading out everywhere and anywhere, all following their own target. Where was Sowon? This was her moment. She jumped off the roof, using gusts of hot air to slow her fall to the ground, landing perfectly, Eunha ran back inside the school.

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

“Chungha! Has anyone seen Chungha!”

Sowon ran through the senior halls looking for her best friend. Some seniors were still sitting and having their afternoon tea or whatever as they watched the academy favorite scream her head off for Chungha.

“Chungha? She’s in the library, same corner as usual.”

“Thank you, and please, just get your weapons near you.”

They shrugged her off, even if she was the academy favorite and a rather popular student among the boys for her body, not many paid her much attention out of jealousy.

Sowon sighed and turned for the library, there was no helping deliberately ignorant people. Pushing open the library doors, she simply shouted for Chungha, who immediately came running out to stop her yelling.

“Yah! This is a library!”

“And the school is about to blow up! What do you want me to do!?”

“What?”

Sowon quickly explained that a high-level creature of the dark had managed to get inside the academy grounds with the ability to use illusions.

“Wait so that girl we caught wasn’t human?”

“No! Now you get why I need you?”

Chungha hurriedly grabbed onto Sowon’s wrists, unsealing the power trapped in the black cuff, she hesitated on the white cuff.

“Do you really need both?”

Sowon looked Chungha in the eyes.

“Fine, don’t come whining to me when your body hurts all over.”

Releasing the curse on the white cuff, Chungha winced as both cuffs glowed in resonance, causing Sowon to grunt in pain. Her muscles were tensed and her veins throbbed as both white and dark purple veins crawled their way up her forearms.

Hugging Sowon one last time, Chungha ran off to tell everyone what was going on, people tended to listen to her better than Sowon.

With both her cursed cuffs unlocked, Sowon had a limited time of control before her body would give in to the pressure, once her body gives in, the two curses would fight over the control of the body perhaps making decisions on its own. Sowon looked at the clock on the wall, remembering the time.

Blasting down the halls ignoring the curses of students diving out of her way, Sowon finally arrived where team one was trying to hold off the demon.

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

extra long today to make up for yesterday, I was distracted because I heard a gunshot near my dorm, but there were no police sirens, since there has been no news, I'm forced to believe that it was a car popping its tire....it was just so close, maybe it was the parking lot across the street...oh well.