9^th February 2017, 12.30AM

Seoul Amusement Park was still lit up even though it was in the wee hours in the morning. Nobody minded it, though. People who noticed it were either too drunk or busy with their own illegal businesses to even poke their noses in.

Taeyeon and Taemin woke the other seven graduates who were sleeping soundly. Even though they felt bad for waking them up, they had to do it in order to save Kris and themselves from Mirror.

Taemin did not know if the others had realized it or not. If Mirror was going to haunt them, they were going to have to stick next to one another. They had to do that if they wanted to survive. He was still amazed at how Taeyeon managed to figure out what the hidden message was. He could not even see the pattern after the message had been revealed.

Well, Taeyeon was a police officer, after all. Obviously she had experiences from her past to make her able to spot the pattern in the hidden message. Well, Taemin had concluded one thing from this: Kim Taeyeon was a genius and the rest of them were just average.

Soon enough, everyone else was awake even though majority of them were still in their dreamlands, judging by the dazed expression on their faces. Some were even confused on how they ended up sleeping in the amusement park. All of them were still sitting on the ground as this was happening.

A few minutes passed by in silence as everyone tried to recollect their fuzzy memories.

“Have you figured out the hidden message yet?” Krystal asked huskily due to the fact that she had just woken up. She rubbed her eyes tiredly.

“Taeyeon-sshi did figure it out single-handedly. She’s a pure genius,” Taemin praised the older woman while Taeyeon just looked nonchalant.

“So what’s the hidden message?” Kai asked as he stretched his stiff neck, producing a loud sound as it cracked. Next, he stretched his arms. Seeing his actions, the others quickly followed suit in order to relieve the cramps in their muscles.

Sulli picked up the invitation letter on the ground and read it out loud, “Girls love to hear, criminals will not do. That’s the hidden message? Do we need to solve the riddle?”

Taeyeon just shrugged. “I’ve called Seohyun and she told me to wake all of you up and Kris will be returned to us,” she responded.

“But what’s the pattern?” Baekhyun asked inquisitively as he raised his eyebrows.

“First word of the first sentence in the first paragraph, second word in the second sentence in the first paragraph, third word in the third sentence in the first paragraph, first word in the first sentence of the second paragraph and so on and on,” Taeyeon answered.

Sooyoung’s jaw dropped wide open. “How did you find that out?” she asked, surprise was evident in her face.

The policewoman just shrugged, refusing to answer the secretary’s question. Well, how was she going to explain how she found out the hidden message? It was kind of hard to explain, anyway.

Awkward silence filled the air as the nine of them were still uncomfortable with one another. They had no topics to talk about. The only topic they could talk about was about Mirror and they definitely did not want to have that kind of conversation so soon – especially with someone they recently had just got to know.

Taemin did not know how long they sat there, waiting for Kris to be returned to them. What he knew was he felt so suffocated from the silence. How could silence be so heavy and uncomfortable? He let out a small sigh.

He hated the awkwardness of it all. They needed to discuss things but they could only do that once Kris arrived here.

Where was Kris, anyway?

At long last, the guy whom everyone had been waiting for arrived. Kris walked towards them at a steady pace. His face showed no signs of being handled roughly and he looked perfectly fine. Behind him was Seohyun who was holding a gun and pointing it at the back of his head in case the tall guy tried to do anything funny.

“Kris-sshi,” Sooyoung cried out in relief. But her features soon turned into a frown. “Your shirt is different from the last time I saw you in.”

Kris just shrugged nonchalantly, not saying anything. Just then, Seohyun stopped trailing behind Kris and stayed where she was. She flashed them a smile. “Mirror wants you to solve the riddle of the hidden message. She will be collecting the answers in a week’s time,” she told them.

“Collecting the answers?” Yoona repeated, raising her eyebrows in puzzlement.

A mysterious chuckle escaped Seohyun’s lips. She flashed them another smile. “You’ll see,” she replied. “I shan’t bother your reunion party, then. If you will please excuse me, I have somewhere to go to.” With that, the young woman left the ten graduates of Seoul Boarding School.

Everybody turned their attention to Kris. Soon, the tall guy was bombarded with questions. “Are you okay?” someone asked.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” another person inquired.

“What happened when you were kidnapped?” somebody else asked.

“Do you know who Mirror is?”

“Is Mirror the one who kidnapped you?”

Even though Kris had just been returned to them after being kidnapped, there was one person who looked annoyed from what was happening around him. Kai glared at Kris menacingly. “Oh, please. Stop fussing over him,” he hissed, causing everyone to keep quiet. “Does he look like he is hurt? Look at him!” He pointed his finger at Kris. “He looks perfectly fine for a person who has just been kidnapped! Is this a joke?”

“That’s so rude, you !” Sulli chastised, giving Kai the evil eye.

“But it’s the truth,” Taeyeon rebutted. “Look at him. He’s not even limping. There are no bruises on his body and he seems just fine. Are you sure this is not a joke?” She gave Kris a dirty look.

“Kris will never joke about Mirror,” Luhan who had been keeping quiet all this while snapped. “I know him and he’s freaking terrified of Mirror. There’s no way he’s playing a joke on us.”

Everybody turned to Kris for an explanation and the guy let out a sigh. He joined the others on the ground. He looked down for a moment. “Let’s start with what happened ten years ago, shall we?”

16^th July 2007, 11.30PM

The snores of his roommates assured him that they were sound asleep. Even though Mirror did not exactly tell what time they should go to the forest behind his school, Kris knew logically that it would be past their curfew time. Their lights-out was around eleven at night and he had been waiting for all of his roommates to fall asleep.

At last, convinced that they were all asleep, Kris sat up on his bed and walked to his wardrobe. He took out the folded maroon cloak and wore it. He turned around and was faced with a wide-eyed Luhan.

“You received the letter from Mirror, too?!” his best friend whisper-shouted.

Kris nodded and brought his finger to his lips, indicating that they should not be too loud in case their roommates – Dongwoo, Himchan and Yongguk – woke up. Each room in the hostel they were staying in was quite big and so each room was occupied with six people. Their other roommate, Minseok, decided to sleep with his friend that night.

Luhan also wore the purple cloak he received while Kris retrieved two torch lights from his drawer. He threw one towards Luhan and his best friend barely caught it. Luhan sent a glare to Kris. “What if I didn’t catch it and it makes a loud sound when it lands on God-knows-where and our roommates wake up?” he hissed.

Kris just shrugged nonchalantly and placed his torchlight inside his pants’ pocket and put the hood of the cloak up so that his face would not be seen and Luhan followed suit. Soon, the two of them crept out of the room quietly and closed the door with a quiet click. They tiptoed out of the hallway as silently as possible.

They reached the backdoor of their hostel at last after going down the stairs a few times. They sneaked out of the hostel and immediately broke into a run towards the forest. They ran a little bit farther and stopped only when they were sure that no one had followed them.

“Where do you think the mirror is hung at?” Luhan asked.

Kris just shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to find it,” he replied. “We’re lucky that the forest is not that deep.” Soon enough, they found the place where the mirror was hung at. The tree that the mirror was hung at was quite tall and shady.

Beside it was a circle of people sitting on the ground, all of them dressed in cloaks and in the middle of those people was a fire that somebody had made. Kris and Luhan approached them and the circle gave them space to sit in. They waited for a few more minutes and a few more people came and joined the circle. As expected, they wore their cloaks with the hoods up so that they would not be seen.

There were twelve people in total and all of them were in cloaks with different colors – white, black, maroon(Kris), purple(Luhan), yellow, blue, green, orange, gold, silver, bronze and pink. None of them said anything for a moment. Judging by the built of the people in the cloaks, Kris assumed that five of the people here were males and seven of them were females.

“I believe that Mirror has sent all of you a letter,” White Cloak said and all of them nodded. Judging by her voice, it was obviously a female. White Cloak then stood up and turned towards the tree that the mirror was hung at. She placed her hands around the mirror and lifted it. The mirror came loose easily and the girl brought the mirror towards the circle. She placed the mirror in front of her.

“How are we going to kill her?” Green Cloak asked. It was a male’s voice.

“We shall put a curse on her,” White Cloak replied. It was obvious that the girl in the white cloak was in charge. White Cloak might even be the person that sent them the letter to go here.

“What kind of curse?” Pink Cloak asked – a female.

Suddenly, a gasp escaped White Cloak’s, Blue Cloak’s, Yellow Cloak’s and Orange Cloak’s lips. They seemed to be shocked about something. Instinctively, everyone shifted closer to one another.

“There are words that appear on the mirror,” Gold Cloak murmured. “It’s written in blood red.”

“What does it say?” Silver Cloak asked.

“‘There are a lot of curses you can put on Kwon Yuri’,” Bronze Cloak read out loud. By this time, Kris decided not to bother listening to their voices to see if they were male or female. It was not as if they were going to meet one another again after this night. He did not know how wrong he was at the moment.

“‘But there is one in particular that I really recommend you to choose’,” Blue Cloak continued.

“‘It’s called the ‘Heartless Curse’,” Yellow Cloak chimed in.

“What’s that curse about?” Kris found himself asking.

The atmosphere grew gloomier as the previous words on the mirror disappeared and were replaced by new ones. Black Cloak then took the mirror from the ground and held it in front of her. She read it out loud, “‘It’s basically a curse where you make someone becomes heartless literally and figuratively. That person will survive by eating humans’ hearts. Kwon Yuri must kill someone if she wants to stay alive and eats his or her heart. Once she does that, it will be considered as murder and thus, she will be convicted of it once enough evidence has been shown. She will be sentenced to death, regardless of her status as a minor because murder in such a gory way is too heavy to let her on probation or go to the institution for notorious teenagers’.”

“How do we perform the curse?” Green Cloak asked.

“‘It’s simple’,” Black Cloak continued to read out loud after a moment of silence. “‘You just have to dig out her heart and bring it here. Then, place her heart on top of this mirror and put some blood from each and every one of you on top of the heart. Next you must wrap the heart using a cloth and place it inside a box. Lastly, dig a hole somewhere in this forest and bury the box in it’.”

“Let’s do this curse,” White Cloak spoke up.

The others also agreed. Black Cloak then placed the mirror on the ground so that everybody could see the words written on top of it.

There would be a price to pay when you activate this curse, dear students. Are you sure you want to pay that price?

A pause ensued after that. Everyone looked at one another and nodded. “Of course,” all of them answered with determination.

All of them did not know how heavy the price was at the moment. They were only thinking about revenge. Paying a price to have Kwon Yuri dead would be worth it. The deserved to die, according to them. They were willing to pay any price as long as the girl would stop torturing them with their secrets.

They were willing to do anything.

And that was their greatest mistake.

They did not know that night would change everything.

The words then disappeared and were replaced with new ones.

After you’ve successfully buried the box, you must say ‘Mirror, Mirror, save me from the curse’ inside your mind and this curse will work.

The twelve people in cloaks soon discussed about who would bring what. They decided to bury the box of heart right at the place they were sitting at. Pink Cloak said that she could bring the box. Orange Cloak volunteered to bring the knife to cut out Yuri’s heart. Black Cloak decided to bring the shovel to dig a hole. All of them decided to meet in front of the girls’ hostel fifteen minutes later.

Fifteen minutes later, Kris found himself standing next to Luhan in front of the girls’ hostel. Only Black Cloak was not there. They waited for a few minutes more and at last Black Cloak arrived.

“Sorry, I decided to place the shovel where we would bury the box so that it would be easier,” Black Cloak murmured.

All of them entered the girls’ hostel. It was the first time Kris had ever entered this place. Usually, boys and girls were not allowed to enter the opposite gender’s hostel.

They crept upstairs as quietly as possible, looking out for wardens. Kris did not know whether it was luck or fate because there were no wardens in sight. They managed to slip in unnoticed. As soon as they arrived at the front door of Yuri’s room, Pink Cloak, White Cloak and Gold Cloak decided to enter, leaving the rest outside of it. They did not want to make much noise and risk waking their bully up.

Kris waited like the others. He held his breath and prayed that everything would go on just fine. It was ironic how he still asked for God's help when they were going to do something evil. Suddenly, a shriek sounded from inside the room. Loud thuds could be heard. Then, the door to the room swung open and Yuri appeared. She looked petrified and Kris did not blame her. She let out another scream and ran as fast as she could. The twelve of them quickly chased after her.

The thirteen students from Seoul Boarding School ran as fast as they could. One of them was running away from the others while the others were chasing her with all their might. They headed straight towards the forest. Suddenly, Yuri slipped and fell. Seeing that this was an advantage, Kris immediately ran towards her gripped her arms tightly. The other eleven people in cloaks reached them and all of them were instantly working together.  Luhan and Kris handed their torch lights to Pink Cloak and Bronze Cloak and the two of them led the way as Kris, Luhan, Green Cloak, Blue Cloak and Orange Cloak worked together to carry Yuri.

Black Cloak, Gold Cloak and White Cloak ran ahead to dig a hole for the box while Yellow Cloak and Silver Cloak walked behind the five males who were carrying Yuri's body to keep a look-out for anyone who might be passing by.

Yuri was thrashing around as the five males were carrying her. “Let go of me!” the girl yelled repeatedly but none of them paid any attention to her. “Please let go of me!” she whimpered. “Have mercy, please.”

Hearing this, Green Cloak suddenly snapped, “Have mercy on you? Why should we? Every day in school you tortured us, you bullied us and we begged you for mercy but you never gave us any. Why should we show mercy on you now?”

“Please. I’ll stop torturing you. I’ll stop bullying you,” the girl pleaded. But the victims of her bullying had closed their hearts and ears. They had had enough.

“Karma, ,” Orange Cloak snarled.

Yuri did not say anything after that but she started to cry. Her cries went unheard by all of them. They pretended like they could not hear. At last, they reached where the place they would bury her heart at. They placed Yuri down on the ground and held onto her.

“Who shall have the honor of cutting out her heart?” Black Cloak asked.

“Me,” White Cloak answered. Orange Cloak passed the dagger to White Cloak.

Kris turned his head away, unable to see the scene of White Cloak cutting out Yuri's heart. It was too gory for him. He closed his eyes as he heard the painful shrieks of Yuri but his grip still did not loosen. Yuri’s screams became louder and soon they stopped.

They stopped completely.

Kris turned around and saw that Yuri’s face was contorted with pain and fear. was shaped like an ‘O’, indicating that she had been screaming and there was a hole right at where her heart was supposed to be. The ground was covered with blood. Blood was everywhere and Kris almost gagged. He peered at Yuri one more time.

Kwon Yuri was dead.

But when they performed the curse, she would be alive but at the same time dead. She would be able to function once again but she would need to eat humans’ hearts, according to Mirror. After she committed murder, she would be sentenced to death and then, Kwon Yuri would truly be dead.

Kris did not know what to feel. He could not feel happy because he had just helped them commit murder. He could not feel sad or remorse because he did not grieve for her death and he did not regret killing her.

All he felt was emptiness.

Black Cloak took the heart from White Cloak and placed it on top of the mirror. She slashed her palm slightly and let the blood drop on top of the heart. The other students followed suit. Then, Black Cloak put the heart inside the box that Pink Cloak had prepared and closed it. She dropped the box inside the hole and began to cover it. She covered it well and the ground looked untouched.

Mirror, Mirror, save me from the curse, Kris thought to himself, remembering what Mirror had told them. He hoped the others would remember it, too.

“Kwon Yuri will wake up the next morning but she won’t have a heart,” Black Cloak murmured. “Don’t worry, the curse will work. I’m sure of it.”

“Why are you so sure?” Gold Cloak asked almost accusingly.

Everybody stared at Black Cloak, waiting for an explanation. Black Cloak pulled up her hood slightly just to show that her lips were curled into a smile. “I’m Mirror,” she announced. “Bring Yuri up to her room and she will wake up tomorrow morning. Don’t worry.” With that, Black Cloak or Mirror left the forest, leaving everyone in their daze.

9^th February 2017, 12.45AM

“What we did was horrible,” Sulli murmured quietly. Her eyes were wide open in fear. Her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes tightly. When Kris told them what had happened ten years ago, Sulli’s memory of it returned. She covered with her hand.

She did not know that she was that heartless and cruel ten years ago. She did not expect herself to be so evil. She was horrified to know the truth of what happened. She could not believe it. She could feel the tears burning in her eyes. The tears spilled on her cheeks involuntarily and she did not bother to wipe them away. She let them stream down her cheeks.

“Hey, we were young and vengeful,” Taemin tried to comfort her. He laid his hand on top of her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

Sulli jerked away from his touch and stood up. “No, you don’t understand!” she shrilled hysterically. The tears were running down on her cheeks fast. Sobs began to escape her lips.

“We do understand, Sulli-ah,” Taeyeon said quietly. “We’re all in this together.”

“Taeyeon-sshi is right,” Baekhyun agreed. “We’re all in this together and we will make it out of this mess together.”

Sulli stomped her foot like a small child. The tears were blurring her vision and she wiped them away in order to clear it. “You don’t understand! You don’t understand!” she yelled, throwing her hands up in the air. “What I did was totally horrible!”

“What we did,” Luhan spoke up. “We’re all in this together.”

Sulli continued to cry for a moment. They definitely did not understand what she was feeling. They would never understand it. They did not know what she had done. She tried to muffle her sobs but she failed miserably. Her sobs still could be heard and the other nine people exchanged worried glances. “Don’t you guys get it?!” she shouted suddenly. “I am White Cloak! I was the one who cut out her heart! I was the one who killed her! I was the one who heartlessly dug out her heart when she was screaming like crazy!”

Everybody went quiet at her sudden outburst. Sulli recognized the expression they had on their faces. It was pure terror. They were terrified of her. They were horrified by what she had done. She could not blame them, though. She, herself, was disgusted at what she had done. “These hands,” she spoke with her voice shaking while staring at her two hands, “were the ones that cut out her heart. These sinful hands were the ones who truly killed her before she was awakened as a heartless monster.”

Sulli sank to the ground and buried her face to her knees. She rocked herself back and forth while sobbing. Suddenly, someone embraced her and soon, everyone followed the person’s actions.

She looked up tearfully and found herself facing someone totally unexpected. Kai was the one who comforted her first. He had hugged her first before everybody else did. She did not expect Kai to be the one who would comfort her first. She thought that it would be someone like Sooyoung or Taemin.

“Remember, Sulli-ah, we’re all in this together,” Kai murmured to her.

Author's Note:

Okay, I seriously don't know what in the world I had just written. I'm not quite happy with this chapter because it's too gory and it didn't turn out as well as I wanted it to. I cringed a lot of times when I wrote this. I don't know whether I should put it under Rated M or not. Well, for the time being, I won't but if I receive complaints, I will mark this Rated M. I tried editing it so that it would be less gory. I hope it isn't as gory as it originally is.

Congratulations to sooyoungee and seoexo_01 for figuring out the pattern!

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