“Ahh crap, we’re gonna fail our COMB mid years.” Jongup sighed. They buried their heads and stepped into the room. Jaehyo was screaming “Returio Returio!” But a blue hologram screen just kept popping up “ERROR: Unable to undo.”

“Don’t just stand there! Help me get them outside! They’re dying!” The creatures no longer looked like bunnies. Now they look like a stack of papers that were just burnt, leaving ashes and bits and pieces of paper that didn’t manage to float up in the air, left helplessly in the furnace. Their respective colours fading in and out as their chests rose up and down at an alarming slow rate.

They looked so lifeless, each looking so brittle, as if the wind would just carry them away with a gentle breeze. Jaehyo plopped one of the creatures on his head, its plug dangled in front of his eyes, swinging left to right as he walked towards the door. “Yes hyung!” Jongup immediately responded, carefully scooping the creature that had green exuding from it into his arms. He remembered this one very clearly and was fond of this one. Jongup smiled and took the dumbbell with him out of the room, and slowly the others followed his lead. Himchan picked up one with a barely visible white cross on its forehead. He rubbed its forehead and quickly walked outside.

 Yongguk then ran towards a familiar book, it was the red book that had the words PLAY BOY and a rabbit on the cover which was beside another creature. He hugged the book close to his chest while Shishi cradles the creature. Keke then takes off her hoodie and wraps it around the once pink skinned one.

Daehyun then sees another creature at the far end of the room, with stacks of paper scattered across the floor boards and a couple of poker chips that fell over. Seeing that the rest of them were taking precious items that belonged to the creatures and bringing them out to the school grounds, he too did the same. He gathered the papers and placed some yellow poker chips in his pockets, with the creature in his other hand he made his way out to the field.

Once they were all outside, Jaehyo instructed them to place them on the grassy land. Just like how he had found them he said; strewn across the blades of grass. They then saw beams of pink light beaming down to each of them, the light that gave these creatures life. Tats took out her flute and started to play a piece which she recently composed.

Silence fell over them for a couple of minutes till Jaehyo broke it. “You know, two years ago an explosion happened at this exact spot,” “Oh. That’s uhh nice.” Jongup gave him a sheepish grin. “Or I should say a crash landing. These six creatures buried deep into the ground. It took me a whole day to just dig up one of these creatures.” “Why couldn’t you use magic?” Keke whispered. “For some strange reason, they are resistant to our kind of magic. They came from a different world. Maybe even a different universe.” Jaehyo sighed. “The worst part was that even Headmaster Ziaco didn’t know what they were. He’s never seen anything like them,”

“A letter was clutched tightly in its hand.” Jaehyo pointed to the red mask creature. “There had to be some information about them, why they were here. How to take care of them and so on but I just couldn’t read it. Everything was in runes and runes reading is an ancient skill. So ancient that it was used even before Professor Quet was born.” “Isn’t Professor Quet a ghost now so… Even before he was born, woah that had to be a long time ago.” Shishi said throwing a rock in the air.  

“Yeah, it not being able to read what’s written. However, Headmaster Ziaco knew a friend. His friend was able to read runes. But, he asked for a hefty sum of money and we had no choice but to pay him.”Jaehyo slammed his fist on the grass, “He read the first line and immediately extended his hand out once again. Requesting for more money if we wanted him to continue reading the letter. So the only thing we knew was that they were six creatures called Matokis that came from Mato planet.”

“I’m sorry, did you say Mato Planet?” Daehyun sat up. “Yes, do you know anything about that place?” “Uhh no sorry, it just sounded so familiar.” He replied mouthing the words “holy crap” to the others. And the rest gritted their teeth while Tats mouthed back “I know right”. “Well,” Jaehyo continued, “He then gave us an offer which was to read the entire letter in exchange for to become the headmaster of EA. And of course we rejected him.”

 “So there’s no one else that can read runes?” “Well I’m afraid we don’t know anyone. Unless-” He lowered down his volume and went into deep thought. He muttered under his breath, “niece, niece. But there’s such a low possibility…” as he stared into space. The rest gave him a weird look, not knowing what was going through Jaehyo’s head.

They suddenly heard movements from the Matokis, they were alive. But as they stood up, it seemed that they grew taller; like they somehow ‘grew up’. They helped each other up and the red mask creature placed the blue one over its head. Yongguk and the rest shielded their eyes from the bright pink light that was approaching them. A silver disc landed on the ground and the Matokis ran towards the UFO.

“So they’re leaving?” “I guess so.” “I think they are leaving because they have come of age.” Jaehyo his imaginary beard. “What makes you say that?” Tats said, staring up in the night sky. “Well, their way of growing is by dying and getting reborn by the pink light, making them stronger and older I think.” The UFO floated in mid-air, not moving.

“Why aren’t they leaving?” “I don’t know.” They then saw a small rocket fly out from the UFO’s window. A small paper was flapping by its side, the Matokis took one last glance at the school grounds. They could faintly see the Matokis waving from the UFO’s tiny circle window, jumping on top of one another to get their turn to wave. They all laughed at the Matokis’ cuteness and waved back.

After the UFO had vanished into thin air, they ran towards the rocket that plummeted into the earth. They unfolded the paper, “GOODBYE, WE’LL SEE YOU SOON” was scribbled in the middle of the paper, each letter written in a different coloured crayon. It was as if a preschooler wrote it. At the corner of the note was, “P.S. The smart one wrote this” and a small stick figure with a yellow mask rabbit head was drawn. The letter had runes surrounding it but of course they couldn’t read it.

“OMG guys!! I can read runes!” Jaehyo excited exclaimed. “Noo… It’s written in English.” Daehyun snorted. “Oh.” Jaehyo mumbled. “Was this always here?” Himchan pointed to the grass and on it was a huge Matoki logo with many circles overlapping one another, around the circles were runes. “Holy crap, this is amazing!!”

Jaehyo glanced at his watch, “Crap! It’s so late already guys! Don’t you have Biology tomorrow? Go and sleep! Quickly, before they lock you guys out of the castle!” “Wait, when you say lock out. Will we be punished?” Yongguk was smirking. Jaehyo gave him a weird look “Why are you smirking? And no you will not be punished. The creatures of the night will be doing that.” He paused and stared at each and every one of them.

“Nah I’m kidding,” Jaehyo chuckled, “but seriously you won’t be punished. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to stay out. Get your asses in before I-” “Alright alright ahjusshi geez, you’re so naggy just like Himchan.” Yongguk jogged back to the front doors of the castle as Himchan chased after him. “Ahjusshi? Ugh! How dare you! Aish honestly! I’m still young alright!” Jaehyo shouted across the school grounds and as they entered the castle they could still hear Jaehyo squabbling. “Am I really that naggy?” Himchan whispered to Tats and she avoided his gaze, making a run for it.