Both Irene and Seohyun stared at the paper where the decoded message was printed on with total confusion. The rest of the girls just looked at the building in front of them with the same confusion written on their faces. This surely cannot be the place where they were supposed to be, but there was no other place in the city where there was a warehouse. So why did they feel strange about this building in front of them, as if someone was tricking them?

It could be the fact that they expected the warehouse to look old and abandoned with paint chipping off, the metal locks that prevented anyone from entering painted with rust from years of non useage, and a huge sign on the entrance that said 'NO TRESPASSING'. 

However, they saw none of that. In fact, the warehouse looked normal, like something you would see everyday. Nothing out of the ordinary. There was no sign, there was no paint coming off, and there was no rust on the metal locks. The warehouse in front of them looked as if it was brand new, with people working inside doing their jobs with little knowledge of what was going on outside. 

The six girls looked at each other before taking slow steps towards the entrance of the building. Seulgi slightly pushed Joy to the front of the group which earned her a glare from the younger girl but said nothing of it. Now being in the front, Joy was the one who unlatched the lock. She looked back at her unnies and Yeri whom gave her a nod. With a deep breath, she opened the door enough so that she could fit her head through and observe the inside of the seemingly innocent looking warehouse. From what Joy could see, there was nothing inside the huge place. It was just empty space, and that confused her even more. She took her head out and shut the door again before turning around. 

"It's empty." She simply stated, causing one of Irene's eyebrow to raise up, as if questioning the younger girl, 'Are you sure?'. Joy nodded, understanding what the leader had meant.

"Unnie, are you sure we are in the right place?" Yeri asked, disbelief written all over her face. This place came as a surprise to the maknae as she had expected a old building that looked ready to collapse. Why exactly would Gyuri bring them to a nice looking place? 

"From what I know, there isn't exactly any other warehouse located outside the city except for this one." Seohyun answered, as her eyebrows creased in confusion. This was where Gyuri has wanted them, so they must be at the right place.

"Near the edge of this city, warehouse. Next clue, don't be afraid, it's lurking. Hidden, no escape. Good luck." Irene read aloud the decoded message for everyone to hear, quickly gathering there attention. When she finished, she continued, "I think this is the place." 

"It looks normal, yet I feel creeped out being here." Seulgi said as she slightly shivered from the chills she was having, and no it was because of the wind blowing. 

"We should split up into two groups." Seohyun suggested and when a nod of aproval came from the leader, she continued. "Joy, Yeri, and I can be in one team and Wendy and Seulgi can be with Irene." 

The two maknaes quickly joined with Seohyun while Wendy groaned in disaproval hearing her name in the same sentence as Seulgi but she quickly closed when she found Irene glaring at her, telling her with her eyes that this was not the time to complain. Seulgi elbowed her side and she glared at her same aged friend who in turn glared right back at her. 

Irene sighed at the sight of the two, knowing that despite being in a predicament, the two of them will still end up bickering about the smallest things. She shook her head before calling out to the maknae, "Yeri-ah, why don't you switch with Seulgi."

This was the only way to prevent them from doing stupid things in this mission.

Hearing that, Wendy smirked slightly and bit her lip to keep herself from laughing when she saw how offended Seulgi was. 

"Why me though? Wendy started this!" The girl whine as she pointed to the smirking girl next to her. 

Irene didn't respond, but instead allowed her glare to answer Seulgi. The younger girl sighed, defeated as she threw her hands up in the air, officially giving up. She walked over to the other team, now taking Yeri's place. Both Joy and Yeri snickered finding the situation hilarious. Leave it to Seulgi and Wendy to cause a scene even in the most serious of situations. 

"Alright," Irene said gathering the attention, "Our job is simple, find the next clue in the warehouse and get the hell out of there. Clear?" Everyone nodded before Irene continued. "Good, now wear your earpieces, communication is much needed here." Everyone did as told and soon, they were ready to head inside. 

With a nod from each girls, Irene led the group back to the entrance. With a deep breath to calm her heart from exploding in her chest from her nerves, she opened the door wide enough so they could all slip through without a problem. When they all stepped foot inside, the door behind them immediately slammed shut, causing all six girls to flinch in surprise. They looked back and Seulgi being near the door stepped forward and tried to open it, but as expected, it was locked shut. 

"Locked." The girl stated simply as she headed back in the group. 

"I think they're watching." Yeri whispered, not wanting anyone else to hear her despite not knowing if Gyuri and the others were really watching. 

"I think so too." Joy whispered back in agreement. 

"This is where we split up," Seohyun stated, still whispering. "My group can search the entire bottom half, since there isn't much here." She looked around and saw nothing but empty space with a few amounts of trash scattered about the floor, although there were some doors around the perimeter of the building and a staircase leading upwards. "I think you three can search the upper half." She added as she tilted her head to indicate where the staircase was. Irene nodded.

"Alright, we all know what to do." 

With the leader's words, everyone split up each taking there own half of the abandoned warehouse. 

--------

"They finally made it." Gyuri stated as she and the other members watched the monitor in front of her showing the abandoned warehouse in various places with a satisfied smile resting on her face. They had planted tiny hidden cameras throughout the area. "I didn't think they were going coming today."

"Looks like brought some weapons today as well." Hara commented as she saw a pistol holster stapped onto Seohyun's side from the monitor.

"Well things shall get interesting then when EXP - 029 comes out." 

"When should be release it?" 

The four of them had placed one of their newest experiment inside a hidden room that had no windows nor ventilation shaft. The only way it could escape was through the door which was made of strong metals to prevent the monster from breaking it down. Gyuri had Nicole tweak the door so that they would be able to open it with a press of a button from where they were at.

"When they are close to finding the next letter we left for them." 

---------

Instead of just roaming about in the middle of the huge rectangular shaped room, Seohyun's team decided that it would be best to stick to the perimeter first, searching through all the different rooms behind the closed doors. 

One, two, three, four.

Seohyun counted the number of doors in her head. She quickly brought her group towards the nearest door that had the lable "Employee Lounge" directly placed on it. Seohyun gripped the doorknob quickly turning it and throwing the door open before returning to her original position, back facing the wall next to the opening, her head slightly tilted. When she was sure that there would be nothing coming out, she motioned for the younger girls to head inside with Joy being the first to enter, then Seulgi, then Seohyun.  

When they entered, they weren't surprised to find the place completely wrecked. There was a couch in the middle of the room that was turned over, some of the cushions having tears with stuffing coming out. What seemed to be a glass table in front of the overturned couch was shattered to pieces, only the frame seemed to be fine. To their right, there were cupboards that were wide open, empty, as if someone had looted some of the items inside. Next to the cupboard laid a brownish black colored refrigerator with a few white spots (its original color) that had seen better days. To their left, was a broken book shelf toppled over with a few of its wooden parts snapped in half. Books were scattered around the shelf, some of its pages torn and littered around the whole room. Directly in front of them was a vending machine that was ripped open, some of the snacks it sold still attached. 

Being the last one to enter, Seohyun shut the door behind her not wanting anyone to sneak behind them and attack while they were vulnerable. She watched as Joy and Seulgi headed towards certain parts of the room, inspecting what they could wanting to quickly find the next clue and get out. The eldest walked towards the right side of the room, firmly running her hand along the wall while she looked straight ahead scanning the room.

(She learned to do this a while back during her training days. Her mentors always told her that it was quite common for there to be hidden passages behind walls.) 

So far, there was nothing wrong. That was until she felt the wall start to cave in slightly beneath her hand. Her steps stopped as she whipped her head towards the area where her hand was. Seohyun pressed against the wall a little harder to confirm what she felt was real. 

"Seulgi, Joy, over here." The light brown haired girl called out as her teammates quickly shuffled over. 

"You found something, unnie?" Seulgi asked. 

"Press your hands against this part of the wall." 

Doing as told, both Seulgi and Joy placed their hands onto the area and the both of them could already tell that there was something behind this wall. 

"I have a hammer we could use to break down the wall." Joy stated as she pointed to her backpack that carried some really useful things, like grenades for example, if things really get rough.

 Seohyun nodded, letting the girl do the honors of destroying the fake wall. She then pressed a button on her earpiece allowing her to speak to the other team. 

"We found a hidden passage, in the employees lounge." 

"That fast?" Irene responded through the earpiece. 

"Yea, I guess we got lucky on our first try. If you need to find us, the door should be the furthest one on your left."

"Roger that." 

She let her hand drop to her side as she and Seulgi waited.

----------

Being on the upper floor of the warehouse was a different story. Unlike when they first stepped into the building and saw nothing but emptyness, the top floor was filled with large,tall metal shelves that almost reached the roof. Along the floor laid random cardboard boxes ranging from a small sized box that you could fit in your hand to a huge box that could easily each the height of six feet. Some of the metal shelves had fallen over, blocking most of the path. Not to mention that a bunch of rubbish material such as dirt was also scattered around. There was no room for anyone to walk across the top floor.

After having that little conversation with the other group, Irene sighed as she eyed the mess that was in front of her. "How should we approach this..." Irene mumbled to herself, not liking how the room looked as if a tornado had ran through it.  

"Do you think they actually have something in here for us?" Wendy questioned Yeri as she looked at the maknae who was quietly looking for a way around the blocked path in front of them.

The youngest shrugged in response, tearing her eyes away from her surroundings and focusing on her unnie. "That or they could be doing this on purpose as a way to test us and see if we can quickly and easily find a solution to this." 

"Or, they could be tricking us into thinking there is actually a significance to this room." 

"Possibly." Yeri replied, returning her attention back to the messed up room. She turned her head back to look at the entrance from where they came and titled her head, wondering if there could be an alternative path from this one. Thinking that there was another entrance where they should be, Yeri turned around and walked over to the door. 

"Yah, Yeri-ah." Irene called out as she caught sight of the youngest leaving. 

"Don't worry, unnie." She waved her off as she advanced forward, now almost out the door. "I'm just wondering if my suspicions were right." She then disappeared around the corner. 

"Aigoo." Irene let out as she her heels and followed Yeri out, leaving behind Wendy who was stuck in her own world.  

"Hey, wait for me!" Wendy called out when she realized she was the only one left in the room. She quickened her steps as to not be left behind. 

When Yeri reached the hallway that connected the top of the staircase and the obvious entrance to the disaster called the top floor, she paused in her steps looking at the walls of the hallway. "There has to be something here... Why else would this hallway be like this?" She mumbled to herself as she touched the walls on her left. The walls were made out of bricks, which had Yeri suspicious over why the walls would be made out of brick instead of regular concrete. 

She pressed onto one of the bricks, but got nothing. The blonde haired girl stepped back and observed the brick wall, her face scrunched up trying to think of what the solution would be. She stood there thinking for a while before looking up, and to her surprise, she found writings on the ceiling. 

"Yah Kim Yerim, why didn't you think of looking up?" She reprimanded herself, mentally giving herself a facepalm as she read the puzzle.

Seems like luck was on their side today. 

---------

"Hm... Yeri's quite the smart one." Gyuri commented as she watched the younger girl on her screen. A pleasant look appeared on her face, seeing the girl's capabilities. "I didn't think they would figure that out as quick as they did." 

"Well, it looks like they've been trained well." Nicole said as she sat to the right of the older girl, her eyes never leaving the screen. She scanned the multiple moniters finding where the six girls were currently at.

"That's good then, it means they know how not to die." Hara added, watching the monitors closely as well. She was sitting next to Nicole, her head resting on the raven haired girl's shoulders. 

"They should know unnie, I wouldn't want to them to die when the fun has just begun." Jiyoung replied to Hara's statement. "It would be a waste, really." 

Gyuri nodded to her groupmate's words, pleased that they had a similar thought process as she did. She cleared before speaking, "All of them are pretty observant of their surroundings, I give them a plus for that." 

"Yup." Jiyoung agreed with a quick nod. "Unnie, remember that one group we tested?" 

The eldest turned to look at the maknae. "Which group? There were plenty that we've tested before." 

"The group that had that girl named, I think 'Naeun'?" 

"Ah, that group." Gyuri said as she recalled those memories. She sighed in disappointment remembering how they had perished, "They were so close to the 'finish line' too." 

(One of them had made the wrong choice and ultimately caused the death of all six girls.)

"Hopefully they don't make the same mistakes as the past groups. I actually want to see how they would fair on the final 'game'. The other groups always died way too early." 

"They could possibly be the first ones to actually finish." Nicole added in, breaking her quietness to the whole conversation. 

"One thing is for sure though, I have high hopes for the six of them." Gyuri said, her arms folded against her chest as she watched the six girls on the monitor with a smirk. 

A/N: Whoo! First update of the month of December! This was actually the longest chapter I have ever written for this story so yay! 

Ok so first of all, I can't wait for TTS's 'Dear Santa' to come out. The teasers have slayed me and I don't know how long I can wait knowing it will be out very soon XD. OH AND BY THE WAY ENGLISH VERSION OF DEAR SANTA OMGGG!!! R.I.P. Your Author, Wolfey. 

To all my subscribers, silent readers, and anyone else supporting this story, thank you so much!!! Wolfey signing out *peace*