Breakfast goes as usual. Your body is sore but not something you can’t handle. Today’s activities seperates into two. There are two groups. One group for those who want to swim and canoeing again. Next is the forest team, who wants to walk or hike in the forest. You, not in the mood to be near water so you chose the second group. Yoojin joined as well because she doesn’t want to get wet today. And the gossiper girls and a few boys are in the same group as well.

Ms. Jung follows the first group because of the two activities in the river. While the second team, the one you’re in, has a staff guide. Your class president is in your group, making him the leader to make sure that everything and everyone is safe and return to the camping site. Being with a staff makes it harder to be free-willing in the forest. The gossip girls in your group are wild-free-thoughts people and probably hate not being able to explore freely without some adults babysitting them. You, on the other hand, just follow blindly behind the group. You bring your backpack and the black blanket neatly folded inside it along with your other necessities.

Yoojin is both picture taking and chatting with the rest of your groupmates. Your class president, Jaehyun, is walking beside her with his friends, Doyoung and Taeyong. Being at the back lets you observe things. The guide shows and leads you to a waterfall that took around two hours to get there with a few rest breaks. Your legs seem to coop with the long walking — probably the aftereffect after running for your life last night.

Speaking about last night, everything seems to linger in your mind. Questions reeling out from your head but no answers are absolute yet. Your heart is pounding, remembering the exact situation back with those running and chasing. God, it’s a nightmare and never did you imagine being chased by wild and vicious animals. Werewolves. And those men suddenly popped up out of nowhere.

It’s werewolves.

Your head voice just can’t stop telling you. You know the possibility, that it may be werewolves who Eunha had excitedly told you about. Those four paws creatures then those men — it seems to be the right answer. To think that you could’ve get eaten by big scary werewolves is horrifying. The wolves you encountered last night were not the kind ones like in Twilight. But if they want to eat you, why didn’t you die? Why did they carry you back to your camping place?

You shut your eyes, basking in the sun. The rest are enjoying the water of the waterfall, taking pictures or just playing around. Taking a seat on a rock, you scan the area, seeing the staff are on his satellite phone and talking to whoever is on the line. He seems like the worker that had been forced to work. His guiding session did sound robotic and scripted but you didn’t blame him because it’s a weekend so he probably wants a day off.

Back to your group, you see Yoojin taking selfies with Jaehyun. That little smiles and giggles coming out of is obvious. Even though Jaehyun is off limits, she’s still harbouring feelings for that dude. His girlfriend is literally in your same group. Eunha is there with Minjung, taking pictures of each other. You see Doyoung and Taeyong splashing water, Mirae and Kevin near the trees, making out with each other and there is Jongdae, silently and alone taking pictures. He’s a strange kid. Jongdae is almost like you, isolating himself and being in his own world.

After the trip to the waterfall, the staff continues with the tour. Showing the eldest tree, the old hunting place which was not allowed anymore due to old beliefs. You can hear the gossip whisper between Eunha and Minjung. Words of ‘It must be that legend thing’ , ‘might be because of werewolves’ , ‘do you think they’re big?’ and all that topic. You sigh and almost reply with ‘Yes, they’re big and almost ate me last night’ but you carved it to yourself.

The hike went on until the staff suddenly had to go back to the main compound, cutting the hike time. But half of your group is persistent in wanting to continue the walk. Persuading the poor staff that your group will follow the hiking trail and get back safely after finishing exploring. Although reluctant, the staff eventually carve in and note to us to be back before 3pm (like what he promised Ms. Jung) — giving Jaehyun the satellite phone to call the main compound if there is anything and then return back to the main desk.

You are amused, following your group mates which are led by Eunha (because she’s the one who managed to persuade the poor staff) and Jaehyun walking beside her. Your group really managed to explore without some adults guiding you. The walk is normal, just looking up at trees, some birds flying, insects on the rough bark and bushes and all that jazz. You almost didn’t notice but you realized Eunha and Minjung sneakily had led to a different path from the hiking trail.

Jaehyun was oblivious cause he was talking to his friends. Besides, this new path seems to have a lot of blooming flowers that distracts them. You want to say something because it seems like you’re the one to notice the difference in air. It feels like last night. Everyone was busy with their chatting and picture taking and eye gazing. Well, except for you and...Jongdae. The boy caught your glance, his eyes showing how he knows, how he realizes we’re outside the trail but he’s the same as you, keeping quiet.

The trees are so thick, the sun couldn’t pass through the high branches, only a little bit peeking through. The place is getting darker and colder. And that’s when Jaehyun realized something was wrong. He stops and the rest follows, scanning the whole area and notice there isn’t that blue line trail to follow anymore. He closes his eyes, you can feel the low frustration creeping inside him, before he opens them and turn to Eunha.

“Did you lead us outside the trail?” His voice is low and soft, although it has a bit of a warning tone in it. It’s his girlfriend, making him question whether to be angry or not. “How many times had I told you to follow the trail”

“Jaehyun-ah, we’re in a famous forest. This is our class trip thanks to Ms. Jung. We should explore more of it! Not by boring ourselves with what they want us to see. There’s a lot more of this forest—“

“We have to get back to the camping site before it gets too dark. We don’t know the forest. We haven’t eaten too. Ms. Ju—“

“We will get back! It’s just a longer strol—“

“Fine! Do you remember how to get back then?” Each time their voices grew higher and louder. Jaehyun had put a smack in his words to Eunha that made the girl pause and think. Slowly pointing to the way behind, telling it’s the way back.

“That way. We just have to follow back our steps. We haven’t walked that far” she says, face confident but wary. You know or kinda remember the way. But you’re not too confident to lead back too. You also know that your group had walked far from the trail. Besides, you’re also way too curious about this side of the forest, that’s what makes you quiet. There’s something in the air, something magical or something. The nature seems more naturally? Like it’s truly like a normal forest should be feeling. Without humans trespassing or making hike trails or random activities that ruin the forest.

Did those wolves suddenly make you curious? You shouldn’t be this curious to walk around this part of the forest. The compound warned you but you still want to. Maybe that’s what made you wandering carelessly last night. But one thing to add, you hope that you won't find those wolves again. As intriguing and fascinating they are, you want to be alive.

Eunha and Jaehyun’s bickering had stopped after a few minutes, with a frown on his face and a pout from the girl. The boy made us walk back to where we started. You let the rest walk first because you want to be in the back, with Jaehyun leading this time with the help of the others (with their little memory of the path). Yoojin comes up to me shortly, whispering ‘Someone’s sulky’ before we both crack a smile. Yes, Eunha is sulking right now, walking behind her boyfriend.

The walk continues on for half an hour until Jaehyun stops with a sigh and “We’re lost” hands already getting ready to take out that satellite phone. That makes voices coming out, telling ‘this way’ and ‘that way’ or various suggestions from the guys.

The place is dark and gloomy, the air is chilly and quiet. Above you all is a dirt hill, making the place around you darker and shady. The area is quiet, too quiet. The noise from your groupmates didn’t stop you from noticing the faint low sound of grumbling. Time seems to stop when you recognize the tense that you’re feeling. Blood rushing to your head as you scan around the area. Your eyes meet Jongdae, the boy’s shoulders tense, face unmoving. He glances at you, somehow you two connecting, telling that it’s something bad.

The memories from last night come crushing your head again. Your eyes perk up when you hear the familiar growling from above. You and Jongdae slowly look up, seeing a dark silhouette looking down at you, yellow eyes staring at you. It all comes to hell when Doyoung screams bloody murder (you know he saw it too) and then loud growl and howling can be heard, breaking a few eardrums before it pounces downwards. The lot of us, with panic rushing inside, running away, sprinting as fast as you can.

Loud screams, loud growls.

You can hear the sound of big footsteps behind you and multiplying; there’s more. There’s more than one wolf chasing you.

“Is that a wolf??!”

“Well, it’s a ing huge dog! What do you think!!”

“IT’S A WEREWOLF, GUYS! THE LEGEND IS REAL!!”

“SHUT UP EUNHA! WE’RE ALL DEAD! WE’RE GONNA GET EATEN!! HELP!!!”

“HELP!!!”

They’re shouting for help while still running. You bravely glance behind you and see around three wolves chasing you; a black, a grey and a light brown one. You hear someone, sounds like Eunha, about splitting up to lose the wolves. It’s a stupid plan but they actually ran away in different paths. You keep up with Yoojin and surprisingly Jongdae follow as well. We’re running side by side, faster than during our physical class. The forest is getting darker and thicker, careful not to trip like last night. But your luck is bad because the three of you suddenly stumble across a downhill and roll down. The height is probably around 20 meters down and there is a bloody hard fence collide with your back at the end. The fence crashed under your weight.

You groaned, Yoojin groaned, Jongdae cursed. The three of you on the ground. Bloody pain, your body is aching and you feel warm liquid flowing out of your body. You didn’t have the time to check it when a hand pulled you up. Jongdae hauled you two girls back up from the ground. “No time to rest. They’re still behind us” as fast as he said it, the three of you sprint again.

You ran, not knowing where to go.

“Why are they chasing us! We didn’t do anything! Tell them to stop” Yoojin yelled out, her face sweating and there is a cut across her cheek.

“I don’t think they want to talk, Yoojin-ah” You answered back, as casually as you can even in pain and fear. You can feel the adrenaline pumping in your system. Your head is starting to get dizzy too from all the running.

“We’re going to die!!” She wails and you had the audacity to chuckle. Man, you think you’re being delirious right now. You hear a scream, Yoojin’s scream, as she looks wide eyed at you, at your side. You turn your head just in time to see yellow eyes and wide teeth. In a second, you got thrown to the ground as the wolf pounced on you. Yoojin and Jongdae shouted your name in the background. But you were too distracted by the massive weight on top of you. Your body’s shaking, your head throbbing and your heart is pumping too hard.

Fear. You’re feeling tremendous fear.

Is this where you’re going to die?

No.

Whatever energy you have left, you try to hold the big growly mouth from eating your head. Your body is in pain but you’re too terrified to even do anything. Just hoping for a miracle or something. Saliva from the wolf’s mouth dripping on your face as you still control its mouth from devouring your head, it didn’t even faze you or have the ounce to be disgusted. You’re too scared to get eaten!

More screams ringing your ear and more growls. Then, what felt like forever, the heavy weight was lifted off of you and a loud thudding crash in the distance. You gasp for air, your hands still stunned in place from holding the beast’s mouth. After a few seconds, you managed to get your head straight. You realized you’re not dead yet. With what’s left in you, you sit up from your lying position on the ground before wincing in pain when you try to move your leg. You look down at your leg, seeing claw marks on your right thigh. Blood seeping through the large wound and soaking your jeans and some even dripping and pooling the ground.

You heard Yoojin’s calling your name before seeing her face closing in on you. Her eyes are frantic and panicked. Her face has cuts and bruises and blood covering her left arm. “Seoyeon-ah! You’re alright?!”

You managed to nod even in your shock. You see Jongdae coming to you as well, he’s clutching his side. His clothes are battered, same with you and Yoojin. Other than that, he looks fine with a few bruises on his right cheek. You turn away your attention to the ruckus in the area. Seeing more wolves than one, fighting with each other. You’re not sure whether to run or to watch. Yoojin and Jongdae also seem to watch the scene unfold in front of you.

A dark cooper red coloured wolf with a white wolf attacks a wolf with a light brown coloured fur. Two against one, you can see who’s winning there. On the other side, you see a black wolf with few lighter patches on its body, smacking its clawed paw on a grey wolf, the one who had almost eaten you, and threw its body to a tree. The tree cracked under the impact. It whimpered but before it could rest or gain his momentum, it got attacked again by the black wolf. The black wolf growls loudly, glowering with heavy intensity that you also can feel the intimidation it’s pulsing to the other wolf. Your heart pounds.

Whimpers sounding from the two defeated wolves, knowing that they lost. The black wolf growls again before those two wolves run away in the opposite direction. You thought you were watching some tv channel, showing some wolves fighting, but reality snaps back to you when the three wolves move to you. Yoojin’s grip tightens on your arm and you know she’s scared too. Both of you looked terrified to even move. Before any of you girls can do anything, Jongdae suddenly holds up his hands in surrender.

“We didn’t do anything” He starts, voice defending, saying it to the wolves. The wolves apparently had stopped, just a couple of meters away from you. “We’re students. We didn’t mean to trespass” he adds, looking at the wolves. You and Yoojin give a stunned and terrified look at him. Also giving a ‘what the are you doing’ look at him for talking to the beasts. He seems so casual and calm about it, almost as if he knows about them. Well, maybe the general concept of werewolves, maybe.

You hear huffing, making you turn back to look at the wolves. The black one advanced towards you, making your eyes bigger than normal. Your right leg is screaming in pain when you want to move. All the while, you keep staring at its yellow eyes. Like it's trying to tell you something.

Just then, some glow coming out from its body, morphing the big dog into a human. A bloody man. He walks towards you and slowly crouching down in front of you, eyes soft and familiar.

Too familiar

“Seoyeon-ah? Are you okay?” he says, his voice soft and a bit husky like you once remember from those few coincidence meetings months ago. “Do you remember me?”

Your mouth opens and closes, still stunned to say anything reasonable. “You’re...you’re ” you said instead, eyes fighting to look at his eyes rather than his nudeness. Someone snorts at the side and you glance at the side, seeing two familiar faces — his friends that you also happened to meet before. They are too. You don’t want to admit it but you see all of their ‘’ before lowering your sight. You turn back to the man in front of you and see his soft eyes twinkling in amusement. He nods, “Well yes, you’re right, I am ” he says, chuckling. You just stare at him, shocked? baffled? amazement? scared?

Did your grandpa know about this? About him?

“Baekhyun” You finally say his name, the name that you heard a lot of times from your grandpa. The name you want to say but keep on the tip of your tongue. The man who made you curious of his mysteriousness and giving you stress. His eyes lit up when you said his name, and seemed to be happy that you remembered him. How could you not, he’s one of your main problems.

You feel Yoojin’s grip and that makes you snap back from your thoughts to the girl. Seeing how she lowers her gaze to the ground and a pink blush on her cheeks. Either it’s from the heat and exhaustion or something else you might know about. That thought also makes you feel hot unde