“Euthanasia,” Sooyeon mumbled to herself as she tried to remember where she had heard that word before. With an IQ of 170, Sooyeon never had a problem of forgetting any information she had retained in her mind, but for some reason, her mind was completely blank. “Euthanasia,” she mumbled once more, trying to ignore the fact that she was stuck in such a large, dark room. One thing Sooyeon hated the most had to be being in a dark place due to what happened to her family before moving to South Korea.

“Do you know what that word means?” Youngjae asked Sooyeon in a gentle tone. Even though everyone was afraid of what might happen to them, Youngjae couldn’t help but only care about Sooyeon. The word Jaehwan used wasn’t Korean and Minjung wasn’t able to translate it since she had never heard that word even in America.

“Euthanasia!” Sooyeon exclaimed as she finally remembered the meaning of the word. Her face quickly drained of its color as she hesitantly explained it to the others. “It’s Greek for ‘good death’. It’s a medical practice where the doctor intentionally ends a life in order to relieve pain and suffering. In other words…” Sooyeon’s breaths were uneasy as she continued. “Mercy killing.”

“Basically this euthanasia thing is a doctor killing a patient because he feels like it?” Junhong scoffed as he glared at shut door. “Who the gives you the right to decide when we die, you son of a !”

“They can’t perform euthanasia if we don’t give them our consent. Although this practice is greatly looked down upon, there are many countries that consider euthanasia legal. Non-voluntary euthanasia is illegal in all countries, but if you request to go through this process, it’s completely legal.” Sooyeon shifted her gaze to the door and stared at it with piercing eyes. “South Korea never legalized any form of euthanasia, and the point of this method is to end a person’s pain and suffering painlessly. I don’t think being bound to a pipe in a dark basement is anything near mercy.”

“So you’re saying involuntary euthanasia is murder and he’s not allowed to be doing this?” Minjung asked as Sooyeon nodded her answer. “You hear that, you piece of ? This is murder on your part! Think of the consequences before you decide to do such a ty thing!”

“Do you guys think they’re related to the Busan murders last year?” Annabelle spoke up as she tried to remember what her students were discussing before she came to South Korea. “Six bodies were found on the coast of Busan, and the only way to get to Jeju is by plane or by boat from Busan. He told me that his other patients were Korean mixed with other ethnicities – what if we aren’t his first group?”

“That sounds reasonable since he sure as hell doesn’t seem like he’s new to this.” Yongguk scowled as he glared at the handcuff on his wrist. “Pain and suffering, my . Who the hell gave him the right to do this ?”

“I told you that I’m your Angel of Death.” The door opened once again, allowing a bright light to shine inside the dark room. Jaehwan walked down the staircase alone as the door closed behind him. “Don’t you all listen?” He asked the group with a chuckle as he grabbed a chair that was leaning on the wall and placed it in the middle of the room. “Since we’re going to be friends for a bit, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me.”

“We aren’t your first group, right?” Minjung asked the second Jaehwan finished his sentence. Jaehwan sighed and smiled brightly, “you are correct.” Shifting his position to where his left leg was cross over his right, he continued. “You all are actually my second group. The first group that was found on the coast line of Busan was, of course, my work.”

“Euthanasia is a practice of painless death – the way those bodies were manipulated was nowhere near painless!” Jaehwan faced the obviously disturbed Sooyeon and chuckled. “They didn’t follow any of my instructions, so I had to do whatever I needed to get them to relax.”

“Yeah, like this whole experience is relaxing.” Daehyun scoffed as he glared at Jaehwan. “Daehyun-ah, you have to wait until the big show starts! That is when it starts to become relaxing!” He smiled before facing the quiet Airi. Airi was pale and frozen in shock from all the things happening around her. “Now, if you all don’t mind, I’d like to ask a few questions. I’ve been a fan of Airi’s for a while, but she’s so mysterious that it’s hard to find any information about her even though she’s so famous!” He chuckled. “I’d like to know if your father is doing well.”

Airi wanted to scream, but she knew she couldn’t. She hadn’t brought any of her pills, so she knew if she went over her limit, she would have to say goodbye to her voice forever. “Why aren’t you speaking? Oh, is it because you’re right next to Himchan? I heard that you were afraid of men; I shouldn’t have been so careless.” Jaehwan stood up from his seat and began walking towards Airi. The closer Jaehwan was to Airi, the more afraid she became. Her breathes became uneven as she tried to ease her pounding heart.

“Let me just unlock this and put you somewhere else. Do you want to sit next to Jiyeong?” Jaehwan asked as he pulled a small key out of his left blazer pocket. Himchan noticed how Airi was acting and his body reacted without him thinking. Himchan lifted his leg and violently kicked Jaehwan’s side, causing him to fall over. “Don’t ing touch her,” Himchan growled as he glared at the wincing Jaehwan.

Jaehwan speechlessly stared at Himchan before quickly standing up and dusting his behind. “Overprotective, aren’t we?” He chuckled as he sat back down in his seat and adjusted his blazer. Himchan turned to face the shaken Airi and his face immediately softened. ‘Is that why she acted like the first time we met?’

“Anyways, Minjung-sshi, since you technically weren’t supposed to be here, I’d like to know more about you. Please feel free to tell me anything.” Jaehwan said with an innocent smile.

Minjung stared speechlessly as the man in front of her and scoffed. “Are you serious right now? Are you ing serious? Do you honestly think I’m going to tell you anything?”

Jaehwan pursed his lips and stared at the ceiling as he gathered his thoughts. “You’re very different from Woosung.”  Staring at Minjung once more, he continued on. “You and Woosung were born on July 1^st, 1992 in New York, New York. You are thirty minutes older than him, although he is considered the mature one. Woosung attends Hanyang University as a music major and I’m assuming you do as well. Although I don’t know much about you, I know of your childhood.”

Minjung furrowed her eyebrows and tried to speak up, but Jaehwan continued. “I know you kill your mother. Even though you said it was an accident, whose fault was it that she died? You weren’t smart enough to just take your shoe off before the train came. Such a kind soul your mother was. She sacrificed herself in order to save her only daughter from being hit by that train. Your father was so disturbed by the incident that you all moved to Seoul, am I correct? You were sent to live with your grandmother as your father went on his business trips, but unfortunately, he was killed before he even got to go home. When you think about it, your parent’s death was caused by you. If you hadn’t killed your mother, your father wouldn’t have died early.”

“I- I didn’t,” Minjung stuttered as she tried to find the right words to say, but she realized that he was right. If Minjung had just taken her foot out of her shoe when the train approached, her mother wouldn’t have been killed. If her mother wasn’t killed, her father wouldn’t have been so distressed that he had to move his entire family back to South Korea. If they hadn’t move to South Korea, he wouldn’t have had to send his kids to live with their grandmother as he went away on multiple business trips to earn enough money for them. If he wasn’t on so many business trips, he wouldn’t have been in that car accident. If he wasn’t in that car accident, he would have died. It was Minjung’s fault that their parents are now dead.

“Ah, I ran out of time with you all today.” Jaehwan sighed as he stared at his watch. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning to see how you all are doing.” He stood up and slowly walked up the stairs to the door and before leaving the room, he turned his head and stared at the others with a proud expression. “I hope you have a nice stay.”

The others stared speechless at the now closed door. “Did Woosung really hate me?” Minjung mumbled to herself as she began tearing up. “I killed his family. He has to hate me.”

“Minjung, don’t do that to yourself.” Daehyun said as he placed his free hand on Minjung’s shoulder. “That’s what he wants; don’t let him get to you.” He looked at her with comforting eyes and made sure that Minjung was not having any more of those thoughts.

“We need to quickly find a way out.” Junhong grimaced as he pushed his bangs out of his face. “We have to find the key for these ing hand cuffs.”

“Really? I think we should stay down here and enjoy the dark and deadly atmosphere. These hand cuffs are really comfortable; I think I’ll leave them on.” Annabelle scoffed as she gave Junhong an annoyed looked. “I’m pretty sure it’s obvious that we need to find a way to leave.”

“Holy ,” Junhong groaned. “Do you really have to act like a now? I know it’s obvious, but are you kidding me?”

“It’s not my fault that you’re so stupid.”

“Annabelle, stop.” Sooyeon spoke with obvious annoyance in her voice. “Just let it go for now. If you start arguing with him, we’ll get nowhere.”

“Can you not tell me what to do?” Annabelle asked with hostility. “Just because we hung out together for a bit, it doesn’t mean we’re friends and I have to listen to you.”

“Excuse me?” Sooyeon asked in Korean. She was so disgusted by Annabelle’s words that for a moment, she forgot to speak in Chinese. “We were kidnapped and on our way to death; are you honestly going to act like this?”

“It’s not like people aren’t going to know we’re missing.” Annabelle nonchalantly replied as she let out a long breathe.

“Annabelle-sshi,” Jiyeong spoke up before Sooyeon could scream her head off at Annabelle’s attitude. “If that’s the case, then why did those people before die? You heard what Jaehwan said about all of us; we don’t have anyone that will report us missing. Even if the people before us had a loved one, why aren’t they alive? Why are they dead?”

“Please,” Annabelle sighed. “He was talking about you all. I’m too important for people to not notice that I’m not there. My students and faculty will surely report that I am missing.”

“With your attitude, I’ll be surprised if they do.” Sooyeon mumbled under her breath.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Sooyeon turned to face Annabelle and gave her a hard look. “Ever since the first day I met you, I’ve always thought of you as a brat. You don’t treat anything as a privilege and you’re completely disrespectful. I’m wondering if any of your students actually like you.  I assure you that if I was one of your students, I would hate everything about you.”

“You dirty little ,” Annabelle cursed as she glared at Sooyeon. If she wasn’t chained to the pipe, Annabelle would have already jumped onto Sooyeon.  “Say that one more time to my ing face.”

“Are you stupid? I was staring straight at you.”

“Stop it,” a small voice spoke up. All eyes turned to the voice and stared at her with a surprised expression. “Don’t fight,” Airi struggled to say. “This is their plan. They want us to fight and consider each other as our enemies.”

“They want to see us at our weakest.”

Author's corner:

Well, how was that? Sorry I haven’t updated forever (again). ;o; I had a really hard time writing this chapter because I honestly couldn’t find what to write, so I winged this chapter. Hopefully it’s not completely bad, and you all like it!

Those who have stayed and commented, thank you! I really, really appreciate you all! ♡