"You said they wouldn't come for me."
"Hyunjeong... They came for me."

Legend

The good news is that the four of us victims were now roommates, or hutmates, rather.
The bad news is that we're all probably going to be killed.
At least that's what Eric thinks.

Eric Nam, the male victim whose glasses were brutally tossed into the fire even though he couldn't see as much as two feet in front of him without them, seemed to know a lot about the people here. I had gasped when he told us how this was his third day here.
Namjoo the hysterical woman, and Jonghyun the dino-boy, had arrived just a few hours before I had.

"All I know," Eric began, "is that we aren't going to be killed tonight. Have you seen that tribal chief?"
"There are no tribals here, man. This is some seriously messed-up cult of zombie-people and we're their sacrifices," Jonghyun clarified.
"Yeah, Suho. What about him?" I asked, brushing aside Jonghyun's macabre comment. We were trying to keep our voices low, but fear can make your voice pretty high pitched sometimes.

"Exactly." Eric said sarcastically. "It's either Kris or Suho who really rule the tribe, but I can't be sure which. And have you seen the locals? They're all too cultured to be a tribe in this remote area. Way too civilized. And they don't even serve water. No actual human food. And they have electric lamps when there isn't even any electricity here! How does anybody manage that?"

Eric was right. I looked towards the small lamp that lit our space with a dim yellow light. Definitely electric. But it wasn't even connected to anything. There were no switchboards or plugpoints in sight.

Suho... An unfamiliar feeling crept through my chest as I remembered our walk a few hours ago.
"I heard a stream nearby," I offered. 

"Like these posh s would drink from a stream!" Jonghyun retorted. 

Eric shot him a hard look, signalling him to keep his voice down. "They eat Bloodberries. That's practically poison. It's not like muddy stream-water is going to stop them." That shut Kim Jonghyun up.

"What I don't get is," Namjoo spoke for the first time since dinner. "Why is this place unlisted? How is it possible that even the government can't know about Neukyong? If they knew, it would be on a map."

"Or they know. But they're hiding it," Eric said. "The queston is, why?"

"If Chaerin hadn't been waiting for me by the end of the road, I wouldn't have even come here." I said.

"Who's that?" Namjoo asked. 

"That woman with the snake-like hair and the bad attitude," I replied. Namjoo didn't say anything, but her eyes glinted strangely. For a brief moment, she seemed almost hostile. But the moment passed and her eyes were wide and uncertain once again.

"But they must get their supples from somewhere!" Jonghyun piped up. "The people who live in that tiny village just before the mud road begins, they should know, right?"

"Oh, they know something's fishy here, alright," Namjoo replied. "I asked for directions to Neukyong, and all I got were weird looks. Those people were practically terrified. This old woman, she even told me to get out of here and never to return. It was creepy."

I certainly did not remember passing any village around here for miles. Perhaps I just hadn't seen it because I was in the taxi. But that didn't make sense: I was wide awake and looking out of the window for the entire journey. If there was a village, I couldn't have missed it. I shrugged it off. Maybe these guys came from a different route.

"Creepy," Jonghyun echoed. "Why can't we just run away?"

"Jonghyun..." We all started to say. 

"Running away, are we?" Kris appeared out of nowhere. His tone was far from amused, and his perfectly expressionless face had an underlying menace to it.

"Kris, watch your temperature," The cute, childlike boy who had helped the other deer-eyed boy incinerate our stuff placed a hand on the taller man's shoulder. Kris shuddered a little, and calmed down instantly. He even shot Jonghyun a small smile.

"Xiumin, Kris, please leave." Suho stepped into our hut. The deer-eyed boy popped up behind him. I noticed that Xiumin bowed to Suho and dragged Kris out of our hut. Kris did not bow.

"Mr. Kim Jonghyun, what is this talk about running away?" The deer-like boy asked. His eyes sparkled innocently, but I knew better. It's the cute ones you have to watch for. I was hyper aware of the deer-eyed boy's eyes darting briefly towards me.

"It was, uh, a joke," Jonghyun stammered. "It was a joke."

Suho sighed, "Perhaps we should keep them in separate rooms."

I saw, from the corner of my eye, Namjoo's hands tremble.

"Like he said, it was a joke," I clarified, looking straight into the deer-like boy's eyes. He looked back at me, his eyes were cold, hard and unwavering, like glass. I could feel the air around me shift unnaturally. My hair crackled slightly as if there was static.

"Luhan." Suho's command was implied.

I turned towards Suho. His eyes darted quickly between Luhan and me and his composure faltered, but only for the briefest of moments. When our eye-contact was broken, whatever strang