“Hyung, it’s been eight hours.” Daehyun reminded the pacing Yongguk. It was 7PM, exactly eight hours since Jongup was missing. Daehyun, who didn’t feel as concerned in the beginning, was now worried that something had actually happened to Jongup.

“I’ll be right back,” Yongguk said as he walked out of the hotel room and towards the door in front of him. He knocked on the door, only to be surprised by an equally surprised Airi. “Um, is Jiyeong in here?”

Airi’s throat was dry, so she wasn’t able to mutter any sound and only nodded. She quickly walked back inside her room and Jiyeong shortly came out. “Yongguk-sshi?”

“Hey, you left your hotel room this morning, right?” Yongguk asked as he pulled his wallet out and showed Jiyeong a picture of Jongup. “You see this kid here? He’s been missing since this morning. Have you, by any chance, seen him on your way out?”

“I haven’t,” Jiyeong nodded her head. “When I walked out, it was completely quiet.”

“Oh,” Airi muttered as she stood behind Jiyeong. “I saw him this morning.”

“You have?” Yongguk asked as he walked towards Airi, only to have Airi back up in fear.

“Yongguk-sshi,” Jiyeong pushed him back. Although she had just met Airi a few hours before, she understood that Airi was afraid of men. She felt as if she had to take care of Airi.

“Sorry,” Yongguk apologized. “I’m just really… Would you like to come into my room to talk?” He asked with a sigh.

Jiyeong turned her head to glance at Airi. “I’ll be with you, okay?” she assured. “Gather your things and bring them to my room.” Jiyeong found it fishy that Airi wasn’t able to get inside her room, but as soon as that creepy worker arrived, it worked. She wanted to keep Airi safe, so Jiyeong did anything she could.

Airi didn’t have to do much since she left almost everything in her suitcase. Packing up her things in the bathroom and things she left out from before, she brought them to Jiyeong’s hotel room. Quickly after, they two walked into Yongguk’s room.

Airi quickly hid herself behind Jiyeong when she realized the room was full of men. “It’s okay.” Jiyeong whispered. “I’ll be with you, remember?”

Airi nodded and they took a seat on of the sofa that was conveniently placed in the room. “I’m Yongguk, that’s Himchan, Youngjae, Daehyun, and Junhong.” Yongguk introduced. “The one that’s missing is Jongup. Airi-sshi, can you please tell us where you last saw him?”

“He was walking with a woman; she seemed like she was twenty-five or so.”

“So that brat is busy getting it on with a chick?” Himchan groaned.

“He didn’t look happy. He looked like he was troubled.”

“That’s not like Jongup. He’s usually smiling…” Youngjae spoke out. “Something tells me Jongup was taken against his will.”

“No , Sherlock.” Junhong retorted as he took a seat on the edge of the bed and held his head in his hands.

“I’m going to report this to the police.” Yongguk announced as he began walking towards the door. “You all stay inside this room.”

As Yongguk walked out, he noticed two other females standing in front of the elevator.

“Jiejie, the elevator is taking a long time to come.” Annabelle said as she noticed that they were standing there for at least five minutes.

“That’s weird.” Sooyeon mumbled. “Did it break down?”

“Is there a problem?” Yongguk asked as he walked up to the two.

“The elevator stopped working.”

Yongguk stared at the elevator for a while before turning around and walking towards the stairway, opposite of the elevator.

“What the hell?” Yongguk asked himself as he tried to turn the door knob. “Is this locked?” He tried again, applying more pressure as he pushed his shoulder onto the door.

“Is the door locked?”

“Yeah,” Yongguk sighed out of frustration before walking back into his hotel room. “The elevator is broken and the door to the stairs is locked.”

Everyone in the room stared at Yongguk with an alarmed look.

“Does that mean we’re stuck on this floor?” Himchan asked, hoping that was not the case.

Yongguk sighed heavily.

“Hyung, what are we going to do? We have to the police to tell them about Jongup.”

Yongguk walked up to the phone that was sitting on the bedside table and held the receiver up to his ear. “Dead.” He announced as he put the phone back down.

“Check your phones.” Youngjae commanded as everyone in the room pulled their phone out of their pockets.

“No bars.”

“Signal’s dead.”

“How about yours, Airi?” Jiyeong turned her head to ask Airi as she simply nodded her head.

“,” Jiyeong cursed before walking out the door; of course bringing Airi along with her. “Excuse me,” she called out as she walked towards Sooyeon and Annabelle who were still in the hallway. “Do you have any signal on your phones?”

“We don’t,” Annabelle answered. As soon as they found out that they were stuck on that floor, the two had checked their phones to see if they could call anyone.

“Ah, thank you.” Jiyeong was about to turned around and walk back into the boys’ hotel room, but Sooyeon spoke up.

“Do you know the reason as to why nothing’s working right now?”

“Whoa, is there a party going on in here?” Minjung asked as she walked towards the large group. She was on her way down to meet Daehyun, but was surprised to see the four in the hallway.

“Are you planning on leaving?” Jiyeong asked as Minjung nodded her head. “The elevator is broken and the door to the stairway is locked.”

“What? I was supposed to meet Daehyun on a date in a few minutes!” Minjung whined. “Please tell me you’re kidding!”

“Minjung-sshi?” Daehyun popped his head of out the hotel room when he heard Minjung’s voice. From all the worrying over Jongup and now the elevator and stairs, he has completely forgotten about the date with Minjung.

“Daehyun? What are you doing here?”

“My hotel room is here.”

“Since when?”

“I’m sorry, are you two done with useless questions?” Junhong asked annoyed as he walked out of the hotel room. “You!” He exclaimed as he pointed at Annabelle. Annabelle was the last person he’d want in his presence, and he was about to break if Annabelle decides to go crazy on him again.

“Don’t point at me with your dirty finger.” Annabelle cursed under her breath. “What are we going to do now?” She asked as she turned to Sooyeon. Annabelle wanted to go out and have some fun that night, so having to stay in her hotel room the rest of the night left her feeling aggravated.

“Well, we can’t really do anything right now.” Sooyeon sighed as she brushed a strand of hair behind her left ear. “Let’s just go back to our hotel room.”

“I don’t mean to sound creepy, but is it alright if you all head into this room with us?” Jiyeong asked the remaining three as she motioned to B.A.P’s room. “One of their friends was taken without a say, and although I don’t really know you at all, I don’t want another person being taken away.”

Minjung eyed the Airi and scowled as she placed a hand on her hip. “He was taken without a say? What if he just wanted to go out for a walk?” Ever since Airi gave Minjung an attitude at the airport, Minjung told herself that she would never want to be in the same breathing space as Airi.

“Minjung-sshi, right?” Sooyeon faced Minjung and spoke once more. “I know it’s really weird to suddenly be asked to stay in a room full of strangers, but I think she has a point.” She faced Annabelle and gave her a small smile. “Shall we go inside?”

Minjung groaned as she walked inside the room with an annoyed expression as everyone followed. Annabelle was slightly annoyed that she couldn’t go anywhere and had to be in the same room as Junhong, but she let it go when Sooyeon asked. As everyone entered the room, Yongguk closed the door and everyone introduced themselves so they could all be acquainted with each other. They had found out that at the age of twenty-three, Sooyeon was the oldest, followed by Yongguk, Himchan, Annabelle, Daehyun, Youngjae, Jongup, Jiyeong, Junhong, Airi, and Minjung being the youngest.

Yongguk was sitting closest to the door with Himchan, Youngjae and Daehyun were on the bed next to the phone so in case if it began working again, they could immediately call the police, Zelo was sitting on the edge of the bed, Jiyeong and Airi were on the couch, Annabelle and Sooyeon were sitting on the opposite couch, while Minjung was standing in front to the window, leaning on the window sill.

“To be honest,” Jiyeong spoke out in order to break the silence that ensued. “Ever since I’ve gotten to this hotel, it has been giving me this really weird feeling.” Everyone’s attention was on Jiyeong as she let out a sigh. “I don’t know if it’s just paranoia, but even though it’s nearly been a week since I’ve been here, I have seen people leaving this hotel; I’ve never seen them checking in.”

“This could just be a coincidence, but if I can recall correctly, all of us were on the same plane while coming to Jeju.” Sooyeon said as she stared at everyone’s faces. “Everyone except Annabelle, of course. When I was walking to my seat, I noticed that it was only us on the plane. I know it was first class, but wouldn’t there have been more? It was also kind of weird that the plane was a little bit too quiet.”

“Jiho seems very strange,” all eyes were on Airi as she spoke in her quiet voice. “He tends to pop up suddenly, and he’s just very strange in general. Earlier when my card didn’t work to unlock my door, he suddenly popped up as if he knew that I couldn’t get in.” Airi cleared from speaking. For normal people, that wouldn’t be a lot of talking, but for Airi, it was close to her limit. “We’re on the eighth floor, so how did he know my door wouldn’t open?”

“He knew my name as well,” Annabelle said as she looked at the others. Due to the fact that she was speaking in front of a larger crowd, she decided to save Sooyeon the trouble and speak Korean. “When I was checking in, he called me by my name even though I hadn’t mentioned it.” She scoffed, “he called it his ‘worker’s intuition.’”

All the girls had spoken with a story about Jiho or what they found odd, all except Minjung. Their heads turned to face Minjung, who was on her phone desperately waiting for signal to come. “What?” she asked as she finally raised her head. “I haven’t had anything weird happen to me.”

“What about you guys?”

“In a sense, we cut ourselves away from humanity.” Himchan dryly chuckled as he eyed Yongguk. “This guy here made us practice nonstop ever since we got here, so even if something weird were to happen to us, we wouldn’t have known.”

‘Ring, ring, ring’

All eyes shifted to the phone on the bed-side table and stared at it in surprise. Daehyun, having quick reflexes, quickly picked up the phone and placed it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Tell her to move if she doesn’t want to die.” It was a deep, terrifying voice over the phone.

“Tell who to move?” Daehyun asked slowly, staring at the others in the room.

“The girl with the red shirt.”

‘Click’ went the phone as Daehyun scanned the room to see whoever it was in the red shirt. His eyes immediately landed on Minjung who was wearing a bright red over the shoulder top. “Move!” Daehyun yelled as he got up and ran to her, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the way.

As soon as Minjung was out of the window’s way, the window’s glass cracked in millions of pieces as an unknown object flew inside the room. As it hit the floor, everyone dropped to the floor and covered their heads to stay out of harm’s way. It was quiet for a moment as the final pieces of glass fell onto the floor. “What was that?”Minjung asked with obvious fear in her eyes.

Yongguk quickly walked to the window, keeping himself low just in case another object flew inside the room. He motioned for everyone to stay where they were and slowly picked up the object. It was a large rock, and Yongguk let out a sigh thinking someone has just thrown it for the hell of it.

“Yongguk-sshi, what’s that on your hand?” Jiyeong asked as she noticed there was a red liquid on his hands. She walked closer and finally noticed what it was. “Is that blood?”

Yongguk transferred the rock from his right hand to left as he inspected his hand. “I didn’t touch any glass; I don’t see where this blood in from.” He mumbled to himself as he stared at his hand.

“There’s something written on the rock!”

Yongguk flip the rock over to see what was written, but his question-filled face quickly transformed into a facial expression full of shock, worry, and fear.

“Hyung, what does it say?”

Yongguk wasn’t able to answer from the emotions that suddenly overcame his body, so Jiyeong leaned in the get a closer look. Her eyes rounded as she made the smudged words out.

Author’s Corner:

It’s a shorter chapter from what I’m used to, but here it is! Sorry if it’s not the greatest, I’m still kind of out of ideas LOOL. But wow, the story is slowly getting to the ~interesting~ parts! I’ll try to update soon when a wave of ideas hit, okay! Bbyong! <3

Stuff you don’t need to know: I got to talk to Teen Top’s Chunji and L.Joe from my lovely unnie! The two are the biggest sweethearts I have ever spoken to, and I’m sad that I think I might have offended them. ;o; Also, my cousin in China recently sent me Exo-M’s Luhan’s autograph! I told him that I was a fan of Exo, so being the wonderful person he is, he met Luhan and got me one! He also said that he used to go to school with Luhan, but I’m not sure LOOOL my Chinese is horrendous.