The path ahead of you was dark as the three of you stepped inside of the forest. You pulled a flashlight from your plates and fumbled with it with one hand until you managed to turn it on.

“Let’s get inside, the trees will block the wind,” Sungyeol said, his teeth chattering slightly. After walking in the eerie silence for a few minutes, you came to a fork in the road.

Myungsoo and Sungyeol swung their hands back and forth with yours for a moment before Myungsoo frowned and looked over at you.

“Your arm is heavier than usual.”

“I’m wearing all of my plates. Back, shin guards, and gauntlets.” Underneath your jacket and gloves, it wasn’t a surprise that you were a little bit heavier than usual.

“I don’t know, I don’t think that’s it. You look like you turned into an eskimo, or a bear, or something.” You rolled your eyes before shining your light down the paths.

“Which one?” you asked, looking towards the other two boys.

“Don’t you watch horror movies? There’s always monsters down the right path. We go left,” Sungyeol said, dragging you and Myungsoo down the path without another word.

--

The silence was eerie, and your heart was beating so loud that you could almost hear it outside of your body.

“Why haven’t we run into anything yet?” Myungsoo whispered, his eyes roaming around constantly. You could feel him unconsciously tighten his grip on yours and Sungyeol’s hands.

“I don’t know. But something feels wrong.” Sungyeol’s eyes darted around.

“Maybe we should go back,” you said. There didn’t seem to be any ending in sight down that path.

Suddenly, a loud scream pierced the silence, making the three of you immediately clump together and look around wildly for the source. Breathing hard, the three of you forced yourselves down the path.

“That didn’t sound like a girl,” Myungsoo said.

“That sounded really deep for a guy,” Sungyeol shot back, eyes darting around the trees. How did trees manage to grow so that they blocked out the sunlight?

“Maybe it was a monster.” Sungyeol smacked you with his free arm.

“Are you serious? Did you just say that out loud? Don’t you know that the second someone says that, some crazy monster is probably going to-”

A loud crash behind the three of you cut off his words as a shock wave sent the three of you towards the ground.

You made out a gigantic monster in the dark, black and furry. Its eyes were shining an eerie blue, and its teeth stuck out of its mouth like daggers. It roared once before charging towards your group.

“! Why don’t you people ever listen to me?!” You felt Sungyeol and Myungsoo get up and start dragging you. You snapped out of your daze and struggled to get up and run. You looked over your shoulder and saw it gaining on you, bearing teeth and snapping its jaws.

“We can’t outrun this thing!” you shouted.

“Right, go right!” Sungyeol yanked you and Myungsoo over towards the right split in another fork. Then suddenly, everything was quiet again, and the monster was gone.

“What the hell?” you asked, struggling to catch your breath. You weren’t tired, but your heart was beating so fast, you felt like you were going to pass out.

“It’s gone.”

“God. Don’t say that either! That just means it’ll be coming back any second now!” The three of you stood in a tense silent for a moment, relaxing when nothing came running at you.

“Let’s just keep going. God. This feels like a maze.” As you walked, you noticed something familiar.

“Wait. Didn’t... didn’t we pass this tree before?” Sungyeol looked over his shoulder at you and raised an eyebrow.

“What? Are you a tree whisperer or something? You can tell the different between trees now?”

“No, this tree had a twist in the trunk and a knothole that looked like bow. We’ve passed this tree before.” You handed the light off to Myungsoo before letting go of their hands and making your way over to the tree. You pulled a small robotic bird from your plates and let it hop into the knot.

“Hey there. Promise you won’t be crushed again. Hopefully. Stay here okay? If you see us again, chirp!” The little mechanic bird let out a few chirps before settling down in the knot. You hurried over to Sungyeol and Myungsoo.

You made your way to the fork and cast a wary glance at the left path.

“Let’s try the right this time.” Sungyeol and Myungsoo followed you as you made your way cautiously down the path. After a few seconds, you heard chirping from beside you.

“What the...” The three of you stared at the little mechanical bird in the knothole of the tree.

“If we take the wrong path, we get sent back right to the start,” you said in a daze. “Who knows how many paths there are to take and what kind of monsters are out there?” The three of you looked at each other before Myungsoo took a deep breath.

“Okay. So we know the first direction to go is left. And then after that, we met that monster, and we took the right and got sent back here, so we go left again. Are we just going to trial and error until we get out of here?”

“That’s going to take forever,” you said.

“The only other option is splitting up, and I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sungyeol said with a frown. You cried out loud and dragged your fingers down your face.

“Let’s just hurry up and try to get out of here. What kind of crazy stuff is this? How did they manage this? I don’t feel Yoseob’s mind on us.”

“Maybe it’s an SS. Some of them have some crazy powers,” Myungsoo said, grabbing your arm and pulling you back.

“You think that monster thing will be waiting for us when we get back there?”

“Probably.”

--

TOP stood at the end of the course with the rest of your team. He kept glancing at his watch and turned to raise an eyebrow at your team after half an hour passed.

“Do they fall asleep easily?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Hoya asked, casting a worried glance towards the exit.

“This course is fairly simple. Left and right forks, one leads to a dead end, the other leads to the next area. There are a few traps here and there, but from what I’ve heard and seen of your training, this should be child’s play for you guys.” TOP frowned and took a few steps towards the exit and fell back like he bumped into something.

“Doojoon!” he yelled, holding his hand out in front of him. Woohyun could see the ripples in the air as his hand brushed against an invisible barrier.

“Oh god. Someone put a barrier around the course!” Woohyun ran forward with his hands out, stopping when they hit the barrier. He felt around it and closed his eyes as a group of SS came running over to them.

“What’s going on?” Doojoon bumped into the barrier and stared at the empty air in surprise.

“When did this happen?” he demanded, looking around at everyone. Junho pressed his hand against the barrier and looked over to Junhyung, worry etched all over his face. Junhyung frowned and punched at the barrier, groaning when shocked his hand back.

Woohyun tried to trace the source of the barrier, but it led him on a goose chase through everyone’s mind. He could hear laughter and someone mocking him as he tried to get closer.

“LEXICONICERS NEVER LEARN!” a voice yelled through his mind. The others heard the voice echoing around their minds and immediately went on alert, looking around for source of the voice. Woohyun fell to the ground and clutched at his head.

“Woohyun!” Sungjong ran over to him and helped him into a sitting position on the ground as he held his head.

“I have... no idea who’s doing it... but damn they pack a punch.” Woohyun squeezed his eyes closed and gritted his teeth before opening his eyes.

“Whoa, Woohyun.... your eyes are red.” Your team gathered around him as he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“What? Like devil eyes or something?”

“No, like you have pink eye and your eye dried out kind of red.” Woohyun leaned back against Sungjong and closed his eyes.

“Yeah. Whoever is making that barrier, they’re some crazy psychic user. Drained all of my energy. That’s why my eyes look like this.” Sunggyu let out a growl of frustration and threw his hands at the barrier. He blasted a hole into it while everyone got out of his way and stared in amazement. The hole closed up a split second later.

Doojoon looked over to Sunggyu and turned around towards his SS.

“Alright. We’re going in. Who knows what’s going on in there?” Junho stood up and started to move, but was pushed back by Doojoon.

“I think it’s better you stay out here.” Junho protested.

“Why? I can take care of myself. Doojoon, you can’t just keep me out of these things-”

“That’s an order.” Junho fell silent and fumed silently.

“The barrier only opens for a split second when Sunggyu blows a part of it up, so we’ll have to be standing right next to it in order to get in. How’s your boy’s aim, Leeteuk?” Leeteuk shrugged before glancing over at Sunggyu with a grin.

“Hit or miss. He gets the job done.” Sunggyu gulped as the SS lined up next to the barrier. Junho clenched his fists and inched slowly towards the area Sunggyu was going to be aiming for. As soon as he saw his hands go up, Junho dived for the spot.

Sunggyu’s jerked his hands up in surprise as Junho flew into his vision. Junho went flying through the hole in the barrier before it closed up again. A high pitched scream came from the forest, a scream that your team recognized.

“Oh god. Something’s happening, is she in trouble? That was her! That was her!” Sunggyu yelled.

“Go after him! Junho’s going to get himself killed!” Sunggyu tried to blow another hole in the barrier, but it wiggled and bounced with the blast, making it bounce off and send it back towards a parked car.

“Good freaking god! My car!” Leeteuk yelled, staring at the remains of the jeep. Junhyung let out a breath and turned to look at the forest. He prayed that Junho would find you soon.

--

You cried, and you screamed, grabbing at whoever you could get your hands on. You three managed to make it past the path with the gigantic bear, wolf monster, and now in this room, there were things crawling all over the floor.

“Get them away from me!” you sobbed, feeling chills and creeps when you felt them crawling over your feet and up your leg. Sungyeol grabbed you and pulled you onto his back, making a break one of the paths as you cried.

“Which one?”

“Just take one before we get overrun with these things!” Myungsoo yelled, brushing them off of his body and checking up on you. Sungyeol had to reach up and loosen your arm around his neck before he made his way down the right path.

It was quiet again. The things were gone, and as Myungsoo looked to his left, the bird wasn’t there.

“Hey, they’re gone now. You can stop crying,” Sungyeol said gently as you slid off of his back. You wiped at your face with your hands and sniffed a few times. You’d never felt so panicked in your life before, and it overwhelmed you before you could even think about what to do.

“Bugs. Nice to know there’s something you’ll cry in the face of. Good grief, though, next time, jump on Myungsoo. I thought you were trying to choke me.” Sungyeol rubbed at his neck as you took a few deep breaths to calm down.

There was light on this path for some reason. You looked up and saw a break in the trees above you.

“Think you can get up there and see how much more we have left?” you asked, shaking your head and slapping your cheeks with your gloved hands.

“Of course. Give me a boost up, Myungsoo.” Myungsoo got down and laced his fingers together to make a step for Sungyeol. Sungyeol ran at him and stepped onto Myungsoo. Myungsoo gritted his teeth and gave him a boost up.

Sungyeol looked like he was about to clear the trees until he bumped into something, stopping his momentum and sending him back down ungraciously to the ground.

“Ow, jeeze...” Sungyeol rolled over onto his side and curled into a ball.

“Sungyeol! Are you okay?” Sungyeol rubbed the top of his head as he sat up, glancing up at the break in the trees.

“Yeah, it just hurt, that’s all. Nothing I’m not used to. There’s something like... I don’t know. Glass? Or something up there. It’s like we’re trapped in a dome or something.”

“That’s a bit extreme. Barriers? For what? Cheating? I thought there weren’t any rules.” Myungsoo crossed his arms over his chest in thought as you helped Sungyeol up.

“You don’t think this course has been tampered with, do you?” You held Sungyeol still as he wobbled unsteadily on his feet.

“I have the worst headache ever right now. I think that barrier thing sapped my energy.” You could hear footsteps in the dark and started to push Sungyeol down the path. Myungsoo grabbed Sungyeol’s hand to help steady him as you took the rear, slowly taking off your jacket.

“What’re you doing? You’re going to freeze,” Myungsoo said as you pulled your gloves back on after taking your jacket off.

“I can barely run in this thing. Can’t you hear that?” The footsteps turned into multiple footsteps coming in their direction. Then the footsteps stopped. You heard a strange chirping noise and stopped before turning around to look.

You stared off into the darkness before you heard something screech and jump out at you. You threw your jacket at it before turning and running towards the other boys.

“Go!”

“What are those?” Myungsoo asked as you ran. There was a stampede of them behind you now, and Myungsoo was too busy dragging Sungyeol along to look back.

“Dinosaurs. At least, that’s why they look like. They look hungry, too.”

“Left fork,” Myungsoo said, dragging Sungyeol down the path. There was a rushing noise around your ears until you heard a familiar chirping from beside you.

“Oh my god. We’re at the beginning again.” Sungyeol collapsed on the ground, his chest heaving.

“Nothing trying to eat us here, right? Let me get a couple seconds of rest.”

--

Junho entered the exit and immediately pulled out a glowing orb, hanging it on his belt. He glanced around the darkness before heading down the path.

“That’s cheating, you know,” he heard a little girl’s voice echo around him. Junho stopped and looked around for the source of the voice.

“Really? And it’s not cheating to hijack someone else’s game?” Junho asked, running down the path faster.

“Boo, you’re no fun. You’re never any fun. Why are you so mean to me, Junho? I thought you loved me.”

“No, I don’t love you, I love her. Now, unless you’re going to tell me where they are, just shut up!” he yelled into the darkness. When he didn’t get a reply, he ran faster down the path until he came to a fork.

He took the left one and kept running until he heard chirping noises.

“... don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it through that bug path again.” Junho followed the sound of your voice until he saw you and Myungsoo sitting next to Sungyeol.

“What if we never get out of here?” Sungyeol asked.

“Don’t be stupid. It’s just like a logic puzzle. Except we’re doing this trial and error instead of trying to figure out which path to take. There’s got to be clues or something.”

“Oh, okay, Myungsoo. Let me tell the dinosaurs not to eat you while you try to figure out the clues to whatever path we need to take,” Sungyeol said sarcastically. You heard someone call your name and turned to see Junho running down the path, looking at you like he saw a ghost.

“Junho! What’re you doing here?” you asked as he ran over to you, grabbing your arms and making sure you were okay.

“Is he okay?” Junho asked, looking down at Sungyeol.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just needed to take a break to replenish some energy. What’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Myungsoo asked.

“We have a mild problem. Someone’s trapped you guys in here, in a barrier. What’s been going on in here?” After you explained what was going on, Junho blinked a few times before shaking his head.

“And you didn’t think to call for help or anything?”

“We didn’t know! We thought the course was supposed to be like this!”

“That would be a pretty interesting power, to loop things forever until you found the right path. You could trap someone in here forever.” Junho looked out towards the path and sighed.

“Well. We’ve gone through three or four of the paths. Let’s just hope that there aren’t too many more after that.”

“Yeah, wait till you see them, Junho. Dinosaurs.”

“Dinosaurs,” Junho repeated, following after your group.

“I just want to get out of here already. This place doesn’t feel right,” you said, looking around and rubbing your arms.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you guys out of here,” Junho said, grabbing your arm and pulling you closer to him.

You took him through the usual paths, running away from whatever monsters you encountered. You jumped onto Sungyeol and let him carry you through the bug path again with your face buried into his back, ignoring the creeping feeling on your legs until you made it back to the path with the dinosaurs.

“It’s the right fork here!” Myungsoo yelled. Junho cast a glance over his shoulder at the stampeding dinosaurs and yelped when one of them tried to take a bite out of him. He felt you grab his arm and yank him down the path again.

There was another rushing noise around your ears as the path darkened completely, then turned an eerie blue. You looked around cautiously as you all walked down the path. There was the sound of a metal door falling and a sealing noise. Then you heard rushing water.

“Oh my god, you’re kidding me!” you yelled as you ran down the path. The water was coming in a gigantic wave, and you could see something swimming in the water, and it had a lot of teeth. You pulled full face diving masks from your plates and handed two of them to Myungsoo and Sungyeol as you ran. Junho shoved one into your hands before grabbing his own and pulling it over his face.

“Brace yourself!” you heard Junho yell as he took a hold of your hand. The water was going to hit as soon as you made it to the paths.

“Quick! Just go!” The four of you managed to run down the path before the water hit, but you still felt it behind you.

“It’s coming after us!” There was a burst of light as you exited the course and crashed into the barrier. The SS and your team clamored around you, shouting and yelling things at you.

“Get us out! Get us out!” you yelled, beating your hands against the invisible barrier. Junho turned around and whipped his head towards you before running at you and wrapping his arms around you.

Water flooded out of the course, filling up the barrier with water.

“Get them out of there!” Doojoon shouted.

“Sunggyu, me and you. If we combine our powers, it might be enough to break open the barrier,” Hoya said, as they took a few steps back.

“Everyone move!”

“There’s a shark in there!” Sungjong yelled. A gigantic shard emerged from the exist and started to swim around on the inside. It came up tot he edge of the barrier and eyed everyone outside with beady eyes before shifting its gaze up towards the four people trapped inside.

Sunggyu could swear that the shark smirked before swimming up towards them.

“Junho! It’s coming for us!” Junho turned to look and narrowed his eyes. As it zoomed towards you, Junho pushed you against the barrier and turned around to shield your body with his. You closed your eyes and braced yourself.

Junho kicked at it in the water, sending it veering off into the barrier and crashing into it. In the impact, Junho crashed into you and knocked into your mask. It broke, and let the water start flooding in. You pulled it off of your face and reached out blindly for him.

--

There was water everywhere, and you struggled in it, trying to find your sense of direction to get to the surface. Your lungs were burning for air, and you couldn’t find your way up. Which was was up?

You heard a splashing noise as someone else jumped into the water, then felt a hand on your arm, dragging you to the surface.

You took a huge gasp of air as you broke the surface, then started to cry as they helped you off to the side.

‘Oh my god, I thought I told you not to go swimming without me. I was so scared, don’t you ever do that to me again.’

‘I’m sorry, Junho...’

--

“Ready?” Hoya closed his eyes and started to move his hands. The ground was rumbling hard, making it hard for Sunggyu to aim. Sunggyu brought his hands back though, and concentrated all of his power into his hands before sending a shot to the barrier. He heard Hoya yell out from beside him before cracking the ground open.

There was the sound of shattering glass as the barrier broke, and the water spilled out in all directions. One of the SS threw up their hands and managed to hold the shark into a floating water bubble as it snapped your jaws at you and Junho.

You took a huge gasp of air as you landed on Junho when you fell to the ground. Junho groaned and pulled off his mask, lifting his head up to get a look at you. You were breathing hard and giving him a look like you couldn’t believe who he was.

“Junho... you... do we... do I know you from somewhere?” Junho blinked at you a few times, but before he could answer, you were dragged away by your team and Junhyung. Sunggyu wrapped a blanket around you while Junhyung dried your hair.

“You’re going to catch your death in this cold. Hurry up and get dried and changed. We’ll talk about this later,” Junhyung said as he watched Sunggyu and your team surround you completely and drag you off in the direction of the school.

“But wait, Junho- I need to talk to Junho!” you shouted, struggling against Sunggyu.

“You can talk to him later, just please. I don’t want anything else to happen to you.” Doojoon wrapped a blanket around Junho as he sat up, taking a few shaky breaths.

“You’re an idiot.”

“They’re alive.”

“You were fighting a shark with your bare hands. Underwater.”

“Give him a break, Doojoon,” Junhyung said with a smirk on his face as he sauntered up to them.

“They’re alive, and at the end of that day, that’s what matters.” Doojoon sighed and rubbed his eyes before shaking his head.

“I have some work to do before someone tries to eat me.” Junho and Junhyung watched him walk off before Junho shook his head, sending water flying everywhere.

“I think she remembers me,” Junho said. “I might have to disappear for a bit.”

“I don’t think you’ll have to disappear. Just do what you do best and avoid her questions.”

“It won’t be long until she remembers. What do we do then?”

“Tell her everything. Her memories won’t make sense to her unless we’re there to make sense of them for her. Everything will be fine,” Junhyung said, extending his arm out to Junho.

“I hope so,” Junho said, taking Junhyung’s hand, letting him pull him up into a standing position. “I really hope so.”