C H A P T E R  O N E:

The Calling

October 1, 2013
6:39pm
Seoul, South Korea

The sky thundered loudly as the rain began to fall heavily in Seoul. The people of Seoul didn’t seem to pay much attention to the rain as they pulled out their umbrellas and quickly opened them shielding themselves from the cold hard rain. A woman walking out of the underground train thought differently though as she came to a stop at the top of the stairs barely under the cover of the little house cover above her. She quietly cursed herself for not brining an umbrella despite the fact of hearing the weather forecaster predict it would rain and advised everyone to bring an umbrella just in case. She then quickly tucked the manila file she was holding into in the front of her light brown jacket before she zipped it up all the way to her chin before she pulled up the hood. With a small sigh she took off into a run trying her best to avoid running into anyone.

It wasn’t long before she came to a gradual stop and started to walk keeping her head down and her eyes on the ground. Her heavy breaths could be seen as small clouds of water vapor that came from and nose into the cold air.

She glanced up and scanned the street as she saw an alley way coming up ahead of her. Happy with seeing no one at the current moment she swiftly turned into the alley way and disappeared into the darkness before she took off into a run again. Her running footsteps echoed in through the dark and empty alleyway before she took a sharp right turn and down a more narrow alley way. She looked up and smiled seeing the steel door at the end of the alley way.

Once at the door and slid the cover on the keypad up and typed in the pass code before the door beeped and opened for her. The female walked in and took off her shoes as the door closed behind her and the sounds of the locks clicked into place. She pulled down her hood before she ped her jacket taking the folder out. She placed the folder in between her knees and held it there as she took off her jacket and hung it on the coat rack.

After she was done she walked down the hallway and glanced into the living room to her left only seeing two males in there sitting on the couch playing video games.

“Yah, Haru and Minhyuk, where are the others?” the woman asked as she walked towards them.

“Don’t know,” Minhyuk replied shortly keeping his eyes glued to the screen.

“They’re most likely in their rooms,” Haru said as he too kept his eyes glued to the screen.

“Then where’s Ji Ra?” she asked.

“Probably in her room,” Minhyuk answered.

“Seriously guys, we have something really important to talk about and you guys are not even going to look at me?” the female stated in a very irritated voice waving the folder in her hand around. The two men didn’t seem to pay much attention to her. With that she closed her eyes and focused her mind on the TV before it quickly turned off.

“What the hell was that for?” Minhyuk have yelled as he stood up tossing the remote control onto the ground.

“I’m obviously trying to make a point. And you Haru! You should be listening to me since you are the leader,” she yelled.

“Okay, okay. Sorry, Sun, I just wanted to finish the game for once,” Haru confesses as he stood up in between Minhyuk and her.

“I have a file from Dongwook that says it’s very important you read,” Sun told him as she held the manila file out to him. Haru raised his eyebrows as he took the folder from her and looked at the read writing on the cover that wrote out his name and ‘urgent’ on it.

“I’ll be in my room then,” Minhyuk said as he walked past Sun and Haru.

“Mm, can I leave too then?” Sun asked looking at Haru who was looking at the folder still.

Haru nodded before he said, “Do me a favor though and tell Ji Ra to meet in my room when she has time.”

“Oh... Alright will do,” Sun replied in a cheerful voice before she turned and left.

Haru nodded as he furrowed his eyebrows and made his way to his room.

October 1, 2013
9:05pm
Obscure Living Quarters

Ji Ra walked down the upstairs hallway and came to a stop in front of the door on the left before she knocked three times on the door. She heard Haru call out from inside his room and opened the door slowly peeking into his dimly light yet oddly tidy room as she walked in carefully and closed the door behind her.

“Sorry I took a long time. I was helping Ryu with his homework,” Ji Ra said as she made her way to Haru who was sitting at his desk on the left side of his room at the end of his bed.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Haru replied as he glanced at her and gave her a small reassuring smile. Ji Ra smiled softly as she pulled the chair on the side of the desk and turned it to face the desk before she sat down.

“Mm, I want you to look at these,” Haru said as he moved the folder closer to her.

“What is this?” she asked looking down at the folder to see a letter saying ‘We welcome you to Castle Darvin, Obscure.’.

“I don’t know what to make of this,” Haru confessed to her. Ji Ra titled her head as she stared at the paper.

“There’s not just one either,” Haru said as he reached below it and pulled out some more of the same message all made out of letter clippings.

“Is there anything else?” Ji Ra asked.

Haru nodded and pulled out the papers under that stack before he handed them to her, “Dongwook, your uncle, sent all of this. I’m guessing that Hyori did most of the research though.”

Ji Ra nodded seeing her neat cursive on the endless sticky notes on one of the paper.

“What do you think of it?” he asked her.

“I think we’re going to have to go to this Darvin castle and see why we’re getting these endless amounts of spam,” Ji Ra told him.

“Um… Can you… possibly see who made them?” Haru asked her.

“Oh. Yeah I can try,” Ji Ra said nodding her head before she grab one of the letters and held I in her hands. She closed her eyes and let herself drift into the past.

The papers that where used to write the letters where in the hands of a women and nothing more than from her chest and down could be seen. She had long elegant fingers with red painted long nails. She started to cut letters out, and glued them onto the paper. Someone called her name, but the voice was distorted. She quickly stood up dropping everything in her hands.

Ji Ra snapped out of her trance and looked at Haru.

“Anything?” he asked looking back her.

“I saw nothing more than a girl, with long elegant fingers and bright red finger names starting to make the letters. A voice called to her, but it was distorted and I couldn’t hear her name nor decipher if the voice was a male or a female,” Ji Ra told him as she set the paper down.

“Hmm I see…” Haru said his voice trailing off before he let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help a whole lot,” Ji Ra said to him apologetically.

“No, it’s alright,” Haru stated with small smile.

“Mm, do you want me to help you tell the members?” Ji Ra asked hoping that she could at least help him out a little bit.

“That would be great. Thanks… Ji,” he said smiling.

“It’s the least I can do,” Ji Ra replied smiling softly.

“I guess we’ll go tell them now, so we can depart soon,” Haru told her as he stood up and placed the papers back into the folder before he closed it.

“Mhm,” she mumbled as she stood up as well and moved the chair back to where it was.

With that the two of them made their way downstairs both gathering up the other members. 

Once all the member were gathered around the dinning table and seated Haru opened the folder and gathered the paper ups.

“Obscure has been pinpointed by a semi-anonymous person who has seen us letters,” Ji Ra announced as she glanced at Haru hoping that she was doing an okay job. It wasn’t often that she talked to all the members at once like this, nor was it often she brought up new cases and missions.

“These, are the letters,” Haru stated as he passed out a letter to all the members. Each of their reactions consisted of confusion yet hints of being surprised.

“This is a very serious case with many profiles of people traveling there, and either going missing or coming back and falling seriously ill,” Haru explained to them, “The reason we are called out and to we don’t know, nor do we know if these letters come from someone that needs help, trying to get a message to us or is trying to kill us.”

“Kill us?” one of the girls with medium aburn hair asked looking up at him wanting to know if he was being serious or if he was somewhat joking.

“Kills us. You know people don’t like people like us, Churim,” he stated looking at her. She nodded and looked back down.

“So when are we leaving?” Minhyuk asked.

“As soon as possible,” Haru said.

“So… like in two days?” Sun asked.

“Something like that. I’ll let you guys know as soon as I get word back from Dongwook,” Haru replied with a nod.

“Does anyone have any questions? Ryu? Minako? Jihyo?” Haru asked the quite members. They all shook their heads.

“Well then, the meeting is over. If I were you guys I’d start packing,” Haru told them before he gathered all the letter back up and placed them back into the folder. The members nodded and one by one they left retreating back to their rooms.

Author's Note:

I hope you guys like the first chapter. I know it's not all that interesting, though I did try, and if your character didn't get a lot of lines here they will later in the story I promise. Also, actual member interaction and relationships will be more apparent in the next chapter and the chapters after that.