TIMESKIP 1 WEEK...

 

…

…

…

 

“What the…”

 

The junior boy stared at the computer screen, “Seulgi-noona?”

 

“Yeah Mark?”

 

The senior turned around, immediately walking over to where Mark was, “what happened?”

 

“I-I don’t know, I was downloading the files to show Irene and then the screen turned like this.”

 

It was a staticy blue screen, but Mark knew what he was doing, he knew he was being safe and cautious of malware and viruses… So why was he getting this?

 

The two were in an empty office room, no one else was around due to them thinking it’d be better if they were alone.

 

Then the screen turned black. 

 

“What the- Did the power turn off?”

 

“No, everything else seems to be fine… Even the pc box itself is still running… I got the files though.”

 

Mark handed Seulgi a small USB, the older girl putting it in her bag alongside a few papers she brought along.

 

“Hissssss…”

 

The two backed away from the computer, “what was that?”

 

Seulgi took another step back, “is that… a snake?”

 

There was indeed a black-scaled snake staring right at them from inside the screen, a dark violet aura surrounding the reptile as it slithered closer.

 

“Mark, we have to leave, now.”

 

The boy turned to follow Seulgi only to yelp in surprise, his body becoming sporadic before falling to the floor.

 

“Mark!”

 

“N-noona go,” the boy struggled to get on his knees as he gave Seulgi a weak smile, “I’ll be fine. You have to get that to Irene.”

 

The bear-like girl took a step back, reluctantly nodding before running out the door, “I’m sorry, Mark…”

 

Her shoes clacked against the floor as she ran out the building, her hands trying to fish out her phone from her pocket.

 

Ring… Ring… Ring…

 

“Come on unnie, pick up.”

 

“Hello?”

 

“Irene, we found information.”

 

“Good- wait are you running?”

 

“I had to leave… It got Mark.”

 

“W-what?”

 

“Karina’s right, whatever’s causing this, it’s from technology.”

 

Passerbys stared at the tall girl weirdly as she continued to run as fast as she could.

 

“Meet me behind the school, I’ll give it all to you there.”

 

“Wait- Seulgi.”

 

“We don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s definitely some kind of virus. Before it got Mark we saw a black snake on the computer screen he was using. I recorded everything we were doing, and Mark also got a screen-recording of the computer.”

 

“Okay, I’m here, are you almost there?”

 

“Yeah I am, I’m in the parKkinG l-l-LoT.”

 

“The parking lot? Seulgi-yah, you’re cutting out.”

 

Irene only got a wince for an answer, and her eyes widened as she began to run to the parking lot.

 

“-”

 

“Seulgi, what happened.”

 

“Joohyun.”

 

The difference in the girl’s voice made the president freeze, and she felt shivers run down her spine from Seulgi’s labored breathing.

 

“Take… everything from my bag okay? And I think it’s time you wa-A-A-a-rned everyone.”

 

“Seulgi?”

 

…

 

“S-seulgi?”

 

The call cut, which made Irene’s legs work again, and she sprinted down to the school’s empty parking lot.

 

And then she saw her.

 

Her closest friend, on the ground.

 

“KANG SEULGI!”

 

The senior staggered to a stop in front of Seulgi, falling to her knees.

 

“No no no no…”

 

Irene carefully rolled Seulgi onto her back, feeling the girl’s cheek.

 

“Seulgi-yah… There’s so many things I wanted to tell you… I’m so sorry I got you into this.”

 

“Hey, what’s going on here?”

 

Irene turned to see a teacher jogging over to them, and she willed herself not to cry in front of them.

 

“My friend, please, we need to take her to a hospital.”

 

The teacher’s eyes widened when they saw what was going on, fastening their pace.

 

“Help her onto my back, I’ll take her to the school’s ward for now.”

 

Irene nodded, helping her friend onto the teacher’s back, taking her backpack off of her afterwards.

 

“Thank you so much.”

 

They nodded, and they both began to jog to the school…

 

TIMESKIP 3 DAYS…

 

“Karina-unnie, me and you, arm wrestle.”

 

A certain group of four was outside during their break period, when Giselle rested her arm facing Karina on the table.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I want to. You’re really strong aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah, she did it with NingNing before and she won.”

 

Karina sighed, bringing her arm up to the table, “fine, one round.”

 

The two youngest stood up to get a good view, Winter holding the two hands together to “loosen them up”.

 

“Ready… go.”

 

But what happened after Winter let go made both her, NingNing, and Karina’s eyes widen.

 

“Aha~ Karina-unnie might be strong but not as strong as me~”

 

Right as the game started, Karina’s hand was on the table, Giselle’s on top of hers.

 

“W-what the…”

 

Winter held Karina’s shoulder in disbelief, “are you serious? Jagiya, are you being serious?”         (Babe)

 

Giselle and NingNing stared at Winter in confusion, “did you just call her ‘jagiya’?”

 

Winter flustered up and hid with her hands, unable to believe that she let that word slip when she was with all three of them.

 

“Oh my God you did call her ‘jagiya’.”

 

NingNing slightly leaned to whisper in Giselle’s ear, “that means ‘babe’ right?”

 

Giselle whispered back, “pretty much.”

 

Karina blushed slightly and scratched her head, trying to play it cool, “what’s so wrong with that?”

 

The other two glanced at each other, then to the blushing Koreans, “are you two dating???”

 

“What no!”

 

Both of them aggressively shook their heads, Winter hiding her whole face with her jacket sleeves while Karina shook her hands in a “no” motion to the smirking girls.

 

“Then what’s with the nickname?”

 

“Yeah, and Karina-unnie’s been calling Winter by her real name as well lately.”

 

“That doesn’t say anything!”

 

Giselle smiled smugly at her best friend, “your reaction says a lot, Winter.”

 

“W-we’ve just been watching a kdrama together and uh- we just… or well- Winter just- picked it up I guess.”

 

“You guys have been going on dates without telling us?!?!”

 

“No stupid! We’re just hanging out because we live near each other!”

 

Giselle and NinNing stared at the two of them with lenny faces, the older of the two not even commenting on how her best friend called her stupid.

 

“What else do you guys do?”

 

“Nothing!”

 

“Giselle stop thinking anything like that or I will bonk your head.”

 

“I never said what I was thinking about, you’re the one that’s assuming Ka-”

 

“Your expression says it all.”

 

“Well-”

 

“Giselle, if you say another word I will disown you.”

 

“You can’t disown me if you’re the puppy, and I’m older than you!”

 

Winter stared in annoyance at the Japanese girl, huffing with a glare because she couldn’t say anything at that.

 

“Okay guys, let's just calm down.”

 

“Gays.”

 

“What?”

 

“You made a grammatical error.”

 

“Giselle I swear I will talk to you as I did before I befriended you if you don’t stop talking.”

 

The second oldest made an “L” with her fingers on her forehead, doing a slight dance at the vice president.

 

Karina groaned, “Winter, how'd you deal with Giselle since you two were kids.”

 

“I have no clue.”

 

“‘Cause we’re dumb and dumber.”

 

Winter glowered at Giselle, ready to bark a retort at her.

 

“Karina.”

 

The four girls startle from the sudden new voice, all of them turning their heads to face a senior with very original visuals.

 

They all stopped what they were doing, and Karina spoke up, “hi, Irene-unnie.”

 

The two youngest smiled, “hello Irene-ssi.”

 

Giselle waved, “hello President.”

 

Irene gave them all a small smile before glancing at Karina, “come with me.”

 

“Huh? What’s wrong unnie?”

 

Irene began to walk away, “student council meeting, now.”

 

There was an icy aura around the president that none of the girls had seen before, so Karina quickly grabbed her things, waving at her friends before running to catch up with the senior. The walk was thick with silence, and the younger didn’t dare to talk until they arrived at the student council room.

 

“U-unnie?”

 

Karina tensed as Irene turned around, feeling fear from the senior’s cold gaze for the first time since she met her at the beginning of her high school years.

 

Irene’s eyes softened when she saw how frightened she was, “yes, Jimin-ah?”

 

Karina wrung her hands together, looking away, “what happened? You seem… I don’t know… like you’re angry? But sad at the same time?”

 

It was true, even behind that stone cold expression, Karina could see it in Irene’s eyes, there was sadness, pain, even.

 

Irene sighed, holding Karina’s hand to lead her inside, “I’d rather just say it once with all of you…”

 

The vice president nodded, looking inside to only see Wendy and Suho waiting for us, both with anxious expressions.

 

“Okay, so.”

 

Irene and Karina sat down with them, and seeing that the president gave no time for the other two members to come, they all came to realize what happened.

 

“Mark… And Seulgi… They fell victim to this virus.”

 

“T-they… no way…”

 

Irene hung her head low, her previous fire nowhere to be found, “Seulgi tried to run after Mark got ‘hit’, but…” 

 

She glanced at Karina with a solemn expression, “the technology got them both. I was calling Seulgi but then suddenly the call cut and well… I found her unconscious at the school’s parking lot.”

 

“W-what happened to Mark?”

 

Suho tried hard not to let his voice tremble, he couldn’t believe he lost Mark, the guy was like the perfect younger brother to him.

 

“Seulgi has a video on everything that happened up until the thing got Mark, and Mark also recorded what was going on in the computer… If this is a viral transfer… We have to be careful, but we need to watch it.”

 

“Wait…” Karina hesitantly raised her hand, “I’m not trying to be insensitive but… Why did Mark get hit first?”

 

Suho rubbed his chin, “if Mark was recording the computer, he must have been using it… Maybe the one that’s closest to the piece of technology gets hit.”

 

“Then what about Seulgi-unnie?”

 

Irene sighed, taking out a USB and plugging it into the school’s computer, “the virus must have somehow followed her and went into her phone after it attacked Mark. Maybe through power lines or something like that…”

 

Karina nodded, staying silent as all of them backed far enough away from the computer to hopefully be free from the virus’s clutches. There was only one computer in the room, and right as Irene got the video’s set up, she pressed play on the one Seulgi took with her phone.

 

…

…

 

“We’re currently in this semi-abandoned office place right now. We asked the front desk if we could borrow one of the rooms since well, not a lot of people were here, and we thought that maybe we’d be safer if there were less people?”

 

“Yeah we don’t really know, but I have a pretty good feeling about this one.”

 

The screen showed Mark walking down a lone hallway in front of Seulgi, who was hidden due to holding the camera. They came across an empty room, walking inside to have Mark boot up a boxy computer.

 

“We’ve asked around town, and it turns out a lot of the kids that fell victim to this were either computer geeks, gamers, the likes.”

 

The two continued to talk, the computer Mark was using showed files of those who were in a coma in South Korea, as he switched back and forth between different tabs, while the camera went from up-close zooms of what he was doing to what Seulgi was doing, showing up different documents.

 

“We’ll bring these docs to you guys afterwards, or well, Irene-unnie will have them.” 

 

Seulgi then flipped the camera around to face herself, giving the camera a thumbs up, “we got this.”

 

She flipped the camera back again, pointing it at Mark who called out, “and we might save everyone too!”

 

Seulgi gave another thumbs up, the camera still facing Mark and the computer, “hwaiting.”

 

Mark suddenly stood up, walking over to crouch next to Seulgi, “but, we wanted to say this before uh- anything happens.”

 

Seulgi nodded, suddenly in a serious mood, “since we honestly don’t know what’s going to happen…”

 

“We wanted to tell you guys a few things just in case we become hospitalized too.”

 

“And if it’s on video, you guys can see without us actually being there.”

 

“All of the info we gathered will all be in this bag for y'all,” Seulgi held up the backpack she was wearing, “and we only used one USB so far, which you’re probably using to watch this.”

 

“We tried to hand-write as much as we could to put you guys in less danger, or well- Seulgi-noona did since her writing’s better than mine.”

 

They both chuckled, “anyways, yeah, there’s a lot of papers in there, we haven’t had time to organize the information.”

 

“And hyung, thanks for being the hyung I never had.”

 

“Oh we’re doing this already?”

 

Mark nodded at Seulgi, “I mean, it was your idea.”

 

“True… Yeah Suho-ssi, you’re really cool. Red hair suits you.”

 

“And Irene and Wendy-ssi, you guys were really helpful, literally our council’s pillars.”

 

“Wendy-yah~ I’m going to do you first and Irene-unnie later. Thanks for being there for me, or well, all of us really, even the crackhead satan-spawns known as our maknae-line.”

 

Seulgi chuckled as Mark spoke up again, “and Karina, you’re doing really great, thanks for being that one funny but supportive friend.”

 

Seulgi nodded, “I don’t know you that well yet but hopefully that can change! Irene seems to really like you and any friend of hers is a friend of mine.”

 

“And Joohyun-unnie… You’re really bad at lying, you know that? Hiding things too. Since you didn't have the confidence to say it first~ I love you~ A lot.” 

 

Seulgi blew a kiss to the camera, a hint of pink tinting her cheeks.

 

“Hopefully I can tell you that in person, or well, hopefully you can woman-up and tell me first before even watching this.”

 

The two giggled again, “but yeah, that’s all we wanted to say. Now back to our research.”

 

The two fist bumped each other, “Kang, Lee, boom,” before giving finger guns to the camera.

 

But soon after their heartfelt messages, the trouble began…

 

“What the… Seulgi-noona?”

 

“Yeah Mark?”

 

The camera turned to the computer Mark was using as Seulgi came closer, “what happened?”

 

The camera showed a blue screen as Mark shrugged, “I-I don’t know, I was downloading the files to show Irene and then the screen turned like this.”

 

“What the- Did the power turn off?”

 

Everyone in the council room was filled with dread as the computer seemed to have lost power, knowing what was going to happen.

 

“No, everything else seems to be fine… Even the pc box itself is still running… I got the files though.”

 

The camera showed the transaction of the USB going into Seulgi’s hand, then into the backpack slung over her shoulder.

 

The students in the room tensed from the subtle hissing noise the video produced.

 

Mark took a step back while Seulgi was still behind the younger boy.

 

“What was that?”

 

After the hissing came a weird pattern on the screen of the computer Mark was using.

 

“Scales…” Suho whispered under his breath, his hands clenched to fists at his sides.

 

The camera went further away, indicating that Seulgi took another step back, “is that… a snake?”

 

A dark snake with a black mouth hissed at the two, seeming to come closer to them.

 

Then the camera jolted around, most likely due to Seulgi trying to turn the video off.

 

“Mark, we have to leave, n-”

 

A large pause sign filled the screen, indicating that the video had ended… 

 

…

 

“Holy …”

 

No one else muttered a word as they stared at the screen, as they tried to process what happened. Wendy could be seen hugging Irene, the older’s mouth covered with her own hand in both fear and shock.

 

Karina hesitantly went over and rested a hand on Suho’s shoulder, giving him a small smile when he glanced at her. That seemed to have relaxed the older student, and he gave a weak one back her way.

 

He walked over to the computer, taking out the USB before unplugging the whole box.

 

“That should make it so whatever that thing was doesn’t get here.”

 

‘Hopefully it stops it…’ Karina thought to herself, not wanting to frighten the others even more.

 

“Seulgi-yah…”

 

Wendy tried to reassure the president, rubbing soothing circles on Irene’s back, “hey, it’s fine Irene-unnie, you’ll get your chance to confess back to her.”

 

The older girl stared back with a hint of desperation, “how do you know that?”

 

Wendy smiled, “Seulgi will be okay, Mark will be okay… They will all be okay… Soon enough.”

 

Irene weakly returned her smile, nodding in thanks before staring at Karina and Suho.

 

“We need to be extra careful now. And we also need to tell the teachers what we found.”

 

“What exactly did we find though.”

 

“Some kind of electronic snake is attacking the high schoolers… But we’ll need help from outside if we’re going to find out exactly what it is.”

 

If this was a lighter situation… Without so many lives at stake… They would all have joked around about it, talking about one of the high schools nearby, MNet High School, home of the snakes, who were well known for their online schooling.

 

But this was no time for jokes.

 

But maybe… Hopefully… 

 

They all could talk about it in a different manner later along the line… 

 

For now… The four remaining members of the student council nodded at each other.

 

“Suho and I will tell the staff, Wendy, Karina, start telling your friends, let the news spread.”

 

“Yes ma’am.”

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Wow this is almost 3k words... Hopefully that wasn't too long of a chapter. And! I promise things will turn later on, stay tuned for what's going to happen next and thank you for reading :) -Minah