As soon as the iron gates were lowered down behind them, the team was immediately engulfed with pitch-black darkness. Chaeyoung couldn't even see her own hands nor the color of the bullets she picked for her paintball. 

And along with the darkness were complete silence that's only being broken by stridulating noise of that particular insect, that if it decided to stop, they will be hearing even their own breaths. 

"W-where's the captain? Where did they go?" Asked by a teammate, shaken by the feeling total solitude in the darkness and everyone could feel it. 

"Switch on your night-vision gears, everyone," Chaeyoung suggested as calmly as she could despite the creeping feeling and fear that something might suddenly jump on them. Everyone then switches on their goggles and they immediately sighed in relief once they regained their vision with just one beep. 

Chaeyoung sharply turns her head around to see if there's someone around. They haven't even taken another step from the gate yet and they were all huddled together but, the heavy feeling won't leave her be. 

"We need to go," Chaeyoung suggested again. 

"Y-yes..." Their team leader agreed, stammering and even shaking. "Uhm... as we have discussed earlier, we can cover a lot of grounds if we go on separate ways then rendezvous at the mark we agreed in the middle of the forest once you've reached the marks. Please inform everyone accordingly of their status, okay?"

"Affirmative..." Everyone responded. They divided themselves into three groups and decided to make much use of the devices that were provided to them especially the communicator radios which covers at least 2 km from each other. 

It was Chaeyoung's suggestion to split up. Everyone was against it at first, but after Chaeyoung explained the gravity of how much time they would waste if the team remained intact in the same place, they all agreed. After all, this is a race and they needed to cover many grounds as they could to search for the flag.

Chaeyoung was then grouped with two men she barely knew. They were classmates once but never did she opened up to a lot of people. She only needed a few friends she could really depend on and those are Ryujin and Jaeyhyun. However, she needs to trust her team now because the general and even Aris had frequently expressed the importance of teamwork. 

They have only trekked for about 15 minutes when her teammate gasped.

"Jesus in' christ..." The man to her left swore, gaze fixated west from the northeast of their position. When Chaeyoung looked at that direction, someone was walking towards them, creeping slowly but she recognized the built of the uniform the Rescue Corps wore for this test. 

However, her teammate quickly aimed his rifle at the approaching guy but Chaeyoung was quick to hold the tube of his rifle and lowered it and reminded him in a hushed tone, "Save your bullets. Remember what the general said. We need to fight them hand-to-hand." 

"A-are you crazy. That man is already from the Rescue Corps, we won't win against him." The guy retorted and re-aimed his rifle immediately fired which hit the approaching man on his lower abdomen. Chaeyoung's breath hitched and focused on the man who stopped in his tracks as soon as he was hit and looked where the paint had hit him. 

But then, the man continued his way, now pacing a lot faster than what walking usually is but not totally running. 

"What?!" Her other teammate gasped in confusion as he thought that once you fired and shot them, they would stop.

Chaeyoung knew better. They were told that the Rescue Corps will imitate the zombies as close to real life as they can and shooting the monster in that area definitely wouldn't kill the monster. However, the other guy from her team is also aiming his rifle at the posing monster who now starts to run.

"Damn it! Don't Shoot!" Chaeyoung exclaimed and pull her wooden sword from her back before covering his aim with her body. After scanning the area as far as her eyes can, she then runs towards the posing monster. She was sure he was alone so there's no need to use the guns. 

Grip tight against the wooden sword's handle, Chaeyoung prepared to swing within a foot's distance from the man and with one swift move of her sword, she hit the guy on the neck in a slicing motion. 

The posing monster stumbled to his feet and fell flat on his face. After a few seconds, he started coughing so hard before curling like a baby, holding his neck. 

Chayeoung trembled as he looked down on him, trembling not because she was afraid. The sudden surge of adrenalin felt good like all her molecules were moving in all directions, wanting to escape its containment and would explode anytime. She felt so strong that it created a desire to hurt someone, she wants to find one of them again and fight them.

"You !" The man on the ground was then able to make words out of his harsh coughing. "You didn't have to hit me that hard, jesus christ!" 

"I'm sorry." She apologized, quick to get on her knee to help the man up. 

"If you were holding a damn blade, you would've chopped my head off..." The guy said as he willingly takes Chaeyoung's hand. "Kudos, imma leave you alone now.... Damn that hurt like... . Thank god I decided to wear a full-length armor." 

The guy left walking