Amidst the chaos, there was one who sat isolated on a corner. She was hugging her knees and her head was down.

 

She was then nudged, making her look at the person.

 

"Hey," the person—a girl—who nudged her, said, and propped down to sit next to her.

 

"H-hey," she stuttered in nervousness. 

 

"You alright?" Hana asked the nervous girl.

 

"No," the girl answered honestly.

 

Hana shrugged and looked away. Hana proceeded to examine the device strapped on her leg and fiddled with it, continuously trying to remove it off her.

 

"Don't!" Hee Jin warned her, making Hana freeze.

 

Hee Jin's warning was loud enough for the other people in the room to hear her and freeze too.

 

"What?" Hana asked her.

 

"Try and remove that and you'll explode," Hee Jin said.

 

"What?!" Hana asked again, this time, in disbelief.

 

"You know what this thing is?" Jiho, aka Zico, asked, pointing at the device on his leg.

 

"It's a bomb. It explodes at a range of two meters. Nobody should try and remove it. It would activate and explode if you do. Right now, it's not working," Hee Jin explained in a 'duh' tone. "But if you try to take it off, it will activate itself."

 

"Well how do you suppose we remove it? And how the hell do you know about this?" Zico continued to ask her.

 

"It comes with a key. Whoever put us here, surely has the key," Hee Jin answered. "I know about this because my dad helped make them. It's supposed to be for the navy. But the government declined the product. They said it was unethical and useless. There were two copies of the product's blueprint. The original was burned. And the second one was stolen..."

 

"Who stole it?" Minwoo asked quite dumbly.

 

"Should I know?" Hee Jin asked, raising her brow, before burying her head on her arms again.

 

Hee Jin gave everyone an impression that she didn't want to entertain questions anymore. 

 

So everyone else started to search for a way out. But of course, there was none, except for the door.

 

It wasn't just a normal door. It was a metal door. So no matter how hard everyone else would try to open it, nothing would work.

 

Jihoo, looked at the people he was with and sighed at the hopelessness of their situation. Yes, he might be the smartest one in the room, or in their school, but he was no Einstein and he didn't have any idea how to get out of the bare room.

 

Bare room...

 

Something was weird. Bare room. Sure there were ten people trapped in it, with an explosive device attached to each one of them, but there was a feeling in his guts that was telling him that they weren't alone.

 

Jihoo instinctively raised his head and examined the ceiling.

 

Nothing. There were no cameras. But he did feel that there was someone watching them. Yes, them.

 

He searched everywhere in the room, his eyes scanning every little thing in the room. And then, he spotted what he was looking for.

 

Tiny white cameras were attached to the bright lights above them. 

 

He smirked. Whoever put them in the room was smart enough to hide the cameras by the lights. Through that way, they wouldn't be able to see the cameras at first glance since the light would blind them. 

 

“Yoomi," he called his sister, who had been sitting by one side of the wall, looking around the room blankly.

 

Yoomi turned her head towards her brother and raised a brow at him. Jihoo strode towards her and told her about what he discovered.

 

"I do hope that that fact is essential to our escape here," Yoomi said.

 

Jihoo sighed in frustration. Sure, he did see the cameras, but there was no use of it. 

 

"I found this though," Yoomi said and took a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of her uniform.

 

She spread the paper and gave it to Jihoo. 

 

Jihoo furrowed his brows and tried to understand the words written on it.

 

"It's in Italian," Jihoo said. "I can't read Italian."

 

Jihoo continued to decipher the words written on the piece of paper. It was a pity. He couldn't understand what was written on it when he was already so sure that it was essential to their escape.

 

Yoona saw the siblings interact and especially saw Yoomi pulling out the piece of paper from her pocket.

 

Yoona began to dig the pockets of her own uniform and frowned when she found nothing, no matter how much she stuffed her hands inside her pockets, there was still none.

 

Yoona sighed. She was going to have to appear desperate now and ask everyone to search their pockets. Since the siblings were too selfish to share what they had just discovered. 

 

"Everyone," Yoona started and everyone looked at her immediately. "Check your pockets."

 

Everyone else in the room looked at her before they did what she told them.

 

After a while of searching in their pockets, they found nothing. Except for Zico.

 

"I found a key," he announced and everyone looked at him with wide eyes.

 

"Try it on the door. If it doesn't work, on the bomb thingy," Yoona suggested. 

 

Zico decided to try it on his bomb strap first, but before he could even crouch down, Hee Jin yelled at him to not continue with whatever he was going to do.

 

"That's not the key," Hee Jin told him and everyone else. "The key is cylinder shaped. Try it and it'll go off."

 

Zico gulped and raised his hands. He then walked towards the door and tried the key on the small keyhole.

 

Nothing.

 

Frustrated, Zico threw the key across the room. Minwoo caught it and pocketed it.

 

As Yoona was about to say something about being careful with the key for it could be useful, Yoomi spoke before she could.

 

"Can someone here read Italian?"

 

Everyone turned to her and looked at her weirdly. Except for Jihoo and Kyung. 

 

"Me," Kyung said raising his hand.

 

Yoomi nodded and threw the crumpled piece of paper to him.

 

Kyung caught it and spread the paper to see the words etched on it.

 

Zico, Myungsoo, Minwoo, and Yoona stood behind him and took a glance at what was written on the paper.

 

"Pensate rosso," Kyung read aloud. "It means 'think red'."

 

"'Think red'?" Yoona mumbled. "What's red..."

 

Everyone began to puzzle over the translation.

 

Red. Think. Red.

 

"Look for something red attached to us or something," Kyung suggested.

 

Everyone else followed what he said. They all removed their uniform jackets; the girls took off their shoes, while the boys removed their ties and shoes.

 

Nothing. With their dark blue uniform, it would be easy to spot something red attached to them, but apparently, they found none.

 

"Red? Blood?" Minwoo suddenly spoke.

 

"Blood?" Hee Jin raised a brow at him.

 

Suddenly, Luna looked at Hee Jin and strode towards her, eyes piercing.

 

"L-Luna sshi...w-what are-are y-you--"

 

Before Hee Jin could finish her stuttered sentence, Luna was in front of her. But Luna wasn't glaring at Hee Jin. She was glaring at something behind Hee Jin.

 

"Move," Luna ordered.

 

Hee Jin shakily slid to her side and watched Luna.

 

"There's something written here. I can't read it. The handwriting is too small," Luna said.

 

Yoomi gave Jihoo a push, knowing that he could read small fonts, and even messy handwriting. Jihoo had amazing eyesight which was one of the things that came along with his high IQ.

 

Jihoo walked towards Luna and examined the vandal on the wall.

 

True, it was really small. But the bright red color was hard to miss.

 

Jihoo leaned in closer and read the words, "'The more you have it, the less you see'".

 

"What the..." Hana mumbled.

 

"It's a riddle, obviously," Zico said.

 

"And do you know the answer?" Yoona asked.

 

"Yes," Zico said simply.

 

"Well, what is it?" Yoona asked expectantly.

 

Now everyone else was looking at Zico the same way.

 

"Darkness," he said. "Or the dark. It's an easy riddle."

 

"So?" Hana mumbled. "What does that have to do with the situation?"

 

"Turn off the lights," Yoomi blurted out.

 

"What? Are you insane?" Hee Jin said.

 

"Just do it," Jihoo said.

 

Myungsoo, who was closest to the door, found the light switch and flicked it off. 

 

The lights went off, but something glowing from one side of the wall replaced it and caught the captives' eyes. Vandal written with Fluorescent paint was on the wall. The paint couldn't be seen with the lights on. But with it off, everything was clear.

 

 

"What does it say?" Hana asked as she couldn't read properly in the dark.

 

"Welcome! I'm sure you're all wondering why you're here. To answer that, you're here to play a game. Not your game.  My game. So let's start, shall we?

 

On your ankles are bombs strapped enough to kill the bearer. Only I can control and remove the bomb, and of course, set you free. 

 

There are ten rooms in this house. Answer a riddle correctly and the door opens. But answer it incorrectly, the one with the lowest IQ amongst all of you dies. You have ten minutes to answer each riddle.

 

Be careful, I can hear your slightest breaths and see your every move. 

 

Failing to do so, one of you will die.

 

Let's begin with an easy one:

 

#1 Eskimos are very good hunters, but they never hunt penguins. Why not?"

 

"What the heck..." Kyung and Zico mumbled.

 

Myungsoo turned the lights on and suddenly, the timer on the bombs strapped on their legs started to go on.

 

"Hey, hey, what's going on?!" Hana shrieked.

 

The timer was counting down to zero from 2 hours.

 

"," Hee Jin mumbled. "We only have two hours until this bomb explodes."

 

"So, is anybody ever going to answer that riddle? You all don't suppose that one of us is going to die if nobody answers the riddle, right?" Yoona asked.

 

"How are we going to answer the riddle? I mean, I know the answer, but do we just speak it out loud? I mean, can this person who really put us here really hear and see us?" Zico said.

 

"They can see us. Look above you. Attached to the lights," Myungsoo said, finally noticing the cameras.

 

Everyone, except Jihoo and Yoomi looked at the cameras attached to the lights.

 

"Well, damn," Kyung muttered.

 

"Well what's the answer, Jiho sunbae? We only have ten minutes for it and 2 hours until we turn to ashes," Yoona said.

 

"Uhh," Zico mumbled, trying to remember the answer. He had just thought of it a while ago, and he had suddenly forgotten it.

 

"Gosh, answer it! I'm going to die if you don't!" Hee Jin screamed at him.

 

"Uhh," Zico continued to mumble and almost everyone else started to panic.

 

"Eskimos live in the North. Penguins live south," Minwoo said as if it was the obvious.

 

And click, the metal door opened.

 

"That was..."

 

"...easy," Kyung finished for Minwoo.

 

"As long as we keep answering this stuff, we're all gonna get out of here. Nobody has to die," Yoona said. "Right?"