Yuri

*crunch*

On the ground beneath me, the sound of bristles snapping were oddly soothing as I jumped off the bus with both feet.

This looks like the spot, I mean there isn’t much guesswork involved to be honest. You don’t usually stumble across a giant amusement park. I can see a huge roller coaster, a Merry-go-round and a gigantic Ferris wheel in the distance.

At the front gate, I see a few people, they must work here...but they are all dressed up in weird costumes...it’s kinda freaky..

“It’s getting kinda dark, isn’t it?” Yena says looking up at the stars that were just barely becoming visible.

“Why? Are ducks afraid of the dark?” I ask with a mean smile.

“Huh? What are you saying, of course I’m not scared” She says crossing her arms with her cheeks puffed.

I can’t help but smile, she’s cute when she’s upset. I’ve been looking forward to today as well! It’s going to be so much fun!

As I continue admiring the giant park I hear some commotion behind me.

“Is that a clown?? I hate clowns! They’re so scary” Hitomi whines backing up towards the bus.

“Hey! Don’t be mean, that’s just Yujin!” Hyewon shouts sarcastically.

In return she receives a push from her dog companion. It doesn’t seem to bother her any though as she just continues smiling happily until the manager walks by.

“Even if the park is empty, they will have the food stands still going right? I mean of course, right?” Hyewon says, now following our manager as soon as he gets off the bus.

This scene is pretty much what it’s like every day, the only difference today is the setting. The park looms over us, just a few hundred feet away and the eerie feeling of dusk out in the middle of nowhere is starting to set in.  

When we heard “amusement park” we all thought it was going to be some bright and sunny place filled with people with cotton candy and rides and little kids running around. But now that were here it seems like that isn’t going to be the case.

“Did they really rent out an entire amusement park for this?” I think to myself as I start to notice Yena was right...it is getting kinda dark...it’s a bit scary.

No one else seems to have noticed though as they are all lined up in two rows in front of the bus, as if welcoming royalty. I also notice the unsuspecting victim still in the bus window looking through her bags, then making her way down the steps.

“Everyone keep a strict formation, we can’t allow any intruder to get close to the president!” Yujin yells in a serious tone.

Minju looks around confused and disheveled.

“Ahh...guys stop teasing me!” Minju whines as she stomps the ground with one foot.

Ah that’s right, Yujin said in the group chat earlier that Minju was running with Jiheon for student council, that really came as a shock.

I had to read it twice to be sure, but the other’s surely didn’t, I swear it was less than an hour before they were all competing to get selfies next to Minju and saying they had met Korea’s next president.

Looking back through my phone, the last thing in the group chat is a photo of Hyewon giving a peace sign next to a sleeping Minju titled “I met a celebrity today”

It’s gonna be a tough few weeks for Minju...

“Guys, everyone come here, we have to start filming and get your assignments” I hear our manager yell over to us and we all quickly walk over to the front gate.

Now that I’m closer I notice my past suspicions were right...these people are dressed up oddly...I don’t notice anyone in costume like earlier but even as the rules are being explained I can only half listen as I keep staring at the workers and into the abandoned park. It really is creepy...

“So that’s how it’s going to work, we’re going to be meeting back here at 1am, so everyone come up and pick your cards to find out what your assignments are” One of the managers said looking down at his watch.

“Huh? What assignments?” I ask, completely oblivious.

“The assignments for our mission! We have to complete them all before the other pairs do to win! You weren’t even listening, gosh that’s so like you Yuri~~ “ Yena says scoffing at me playfully.

“Ehh, me?? You’re the one who always distracts everyone and makes us late!” I shot back.

“What? Do not! You just – “

“Yena! Yuri! Stop arguing and go pick yours, they’ve been calling you over and over” Eunbi says pushing us both from behind up to the bucket holding the cards.

“Ah, haha, sorry sorry” I say embarrassed as I get up to the front and reach In to pick our cards, it looks like everyone else has three so that’s what I’m going to assume I need.

Once we have them we go over to the side to make sure no one else see’s what we got.

“Find a golden ticket, take a couple’s selfie overlooking the park, figure out one of the other pairs missions” The three pieces of paper each list respectively.

“Okay well those last two shouldn’t be so hard, but what the hells a golden ticket?” I say now looking over at Yena who seems equally confused.

“Maybe it’s like a ticket you win from a game or something” She says looking at the paper holding her chin with her “duck in thought” expression.

But before we can figure it out we hear a shriek behind us as the front gate creeks open

“I saw it! It was right there! I told you there was a clown, unnie. It was in there!!” Hitomi says crouching down and whining next to Eunbi.

“Ah-“ Eunbi lets out a sound as if she’s unsure what to do.

“Guys, why does there have to be clowns, I told you Hii-chan is scared of them, this isn’t funny!” She says over to the staff as she kneels down to console Hitomi.

“Are you sure there was one? I don’t see anything in there” Nako asks peering into the park.  

“Yeah! There was definitely one, I swear!” Hitomi says looking up at her partner.

“Also one last thing before you guys go in, you’re not allowed to have your phones, so everyone come and put them in the basket” One of the managers says as they point to the table beside them.

This is greeted with a collective “Ehhh??” by the rest of the members, well frankly I’m not to keen on that either, but I guess we don’t have much of a choice.

First Mission: 

Walking in I can’t help but notice how big the place Is, when they’re filled with people it kind of masks it, but completely empty like this you can’t help but feel so small looking at all the open space.

“Where do we start?” I ask, still peering around.

“We should start with my idea and play the games!” She says looking enthused.

“Yeah we could do that... but, wait how are we going to take a picture without our phones?? what the heck” I wonder out loud and turn back towards the entrance.

 It seems like everyone else has already wandered in further though as there’s no one behind us.

“Well this has to be a mistake, we should go back and ask” I suggest as we start retracing our steps.

But when we reach the front entrance we are shocked to realize the metal gate has now gone back to being completely closed.

We both look at each other in disbelief.

“What...” I say to myself and probably out loud as well.

“Oh my god...” I hear from Yena next to me, with the most serious expression I’ve ever seen across her face.

“This...so this means...this must mean...they’re locking us in here to die and become idol ghosts who are forced to be stuck here performing for all of eternity in an attempt to make their creepy park theme more popular and authentic! We’ve been conned!” She says with complete confidence.

“Huh...what...no, no that’s definitely not what is happening here” I say in a daze from her ridiculous interpretation of the situation before us.  

As we continue looking helplessly at the gate something shiny appears out of the corner of my eye, when I look over I can no longer see it, but it was definitely there, when I head over to where I thought it was there’s a bench sitting there and on top of it is a weird tin looking toy coin. It must be some currency they give to kids here to play the games or something like that, not really helpful though. What we need is a camera.

It seems we’ll have no choice but to find something in the park, I am sure there’s something to use, like a booth or a camera station or something. They obviously will provide us with some way to complete the mission, we just have to find it.

I relay those thoughts to Yena who takes a bit to persuade but eventually agrees.

“it also said it needs to be overlooking the park though, does that mean we have to be in a certain spot?” She stops to ask me while we were walking back.

“You’re right...I’m not sure..” I say, realizing I hadn’t thought of that part before.  

“Or could it mean... that?” She says, pointing to the giant Ferris wheel that’s visible even from the opposite side of the park.

Oh, that would make a lot of sense actually...

“That’s a good idea, we’ll have to see if it’s actually open though when we get over there” I tell her before she has quickly lost interest and runs over to one of the game booths.

“Hey, come look at this it’s so cool, it’s one of those guns that shoots water, I want to play this one!!” She says as excited as ever.

But there’s no one here...it’s just her and I, and we certainly have no idea how to make everything work, who even knows if this place is managed at all, half the park looks completely abandoned.

“We can probably find one we can play though” I say ushering her over to the other booths as we walk through we see all the typical games and booths that are usually filled with parents, teenagers and children alike on a sunny day.

We eventually encounter one that looks playable, it’s a game with balloons against a wall all numbered and you’re supposed to toss darts at them to decide what prize you get. Oddly enough the balloons are inflated and look like they are fairly new.

Now all that’s left is to find the darts, we hopped over onto the inside of the booth and started looking. Most of it was completely empty, some tape, tassels and other random things, but sadly no darts.

“Wow! Look the prizes are still up there though!!” Yena shouted pointing up above us, and she was right, there were lots of giant plushies, toys and most importantly what looked like an old-style camera on the upper most portion of the stand, way higher than we could hope to reach. But that didn’t stop Yena, she took the step stool that had been on the ground and set it on top of the front of the booth and tried to climb up and reach.

“Hey, be careful! We’re definitely not supposed to be messing with this stuff, were dead if Eunbi Unnie finds out” I quietly say looking around and trying to urge her down.

“Hey!” A snarly voice snaps at us from the back entrance of the booth, immediately sending Yena tumbling down the step stool on top of me.

“What?? W-who’s there?” We say tangled together trying to get back to our feet in a panic.

“Have you come to play?” The voice says, coming closer into vision revealing itself to be a small clown, hunched over with cracked face paint.

“Pick one, Pick one, Pick one, Pick one, Pick one, Pick one” The clown keeps repeating with a repulsive smile across it’s face.

We instinctively kept scooting backwards more and more until we hit our heads off the front of the booth, were trapped.

“Pick one what??” Yena ends up yelling back but unable to make eye contact.

“Pick a number of course, hit the number and you get the prize, Pick one! Pick one!” The clown again repeats.

“But that is if the girl has a coin”

Could he mean that thing I picked up earlier?

“I have one...” I say pushing it forward on the ground in front of me.

“Huh? Where’d you get that?” Yena asks looking to me with a confused expression.

“It doesn’t matter...but that’s what you wanted right?” I say back at the clown, still flustered.

He bends over and picks it up off the ground and inspects it thoroughly

“Ah yes yes, girl has coin” He says clapping his hands together, then reaching into his front pockets and taking out a handful of darts, placing them on the booth.

“Ehh? Really I get to play?” Yena says standing up, see