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The main door was a step from them…

The four immediately slammed themselves on the wall, resting their pounding and tired heart for a while. Baekhyun groaned loudly and spoke between his pant, “I thought I might die!”

“Quick, open the door,” Sehun spoke really fast in his nervous mode.

Jooyeon approached the doorknob and turned it.

Only a clacking voice, not even opened.

She immediately tried turning it to the other direction –uh oh, still the same.

Sehun immediately stared at Jooyeon in horror.

...

“A-are we locked?” Jihye who was standing quietly behind them slowly opened her voice.

Joooyeon inhaled heavily and said, “Seems so. I thought usually the cleaners lock this at six?”

stay a little too long and we’re eliminated—

“Here, try this!” Jihye immediately took her hairpin off in horror. The sharp tip of it might be able to open the door and release all of them from this place… Her fingers felt like they were freezing when she handed the hairpin to Jooyeon.

In an instant, Jooyeon put the hairpin inside the lock and moved it left and right. Still, the door can’t be opened. Sehun who had lost his patience immediately pushed Jooyeon aside and tried hard to bang the door with all his power.

Kid, kid. Your force is no use in this kind of game.

“Someone!!!” Sehun yelled, hoped that at least a cleaner would hear him. “The door!! Please unlock the door, we’re trapped!!!”

Hah, funny. Why would someone even approach you and open the door for you all to let you out?

No one answered yet the door stayed still, locked perfectly without even letting a hairpin or strong bangs and loud yells to open it.

Sehun immediately widened his eyes in extreme horror by the fact; he slowly took some steps backward –and his heart beat even faster than before.

High, bold iron bars with sharp, knife-like tips facing the sky were surrounding them –surrounding the school endlessly. The cold, untouched iron bars that were always around them to prevent them from running away. The high, iron main door that stood briefly and still was not letting a boy’s power to move his hinge.

This sight brought endless horror to him –to them.

The truth brought more dreadful and undead horror to them.

“No, no, this can’t be,” Sehun slowly shook his head, realizing the truth that the four were locked inside this iron-made, jail-looking school.

Jihye’s small trembles, Baekhyun’s surprised face and Jooyeon’s silent, insignificant demeanor immediately made him realize that the truth was that they have been deliberately trapped inside this school.

“What should we do?” Jihye’s small voice slapped them into the reality that something had to be done to get themselves off the school.

“You guys remember that sharp iron bars are all around?” Jooyeon slowly spoke; reducing the scariness yet gave their hearts some more shocks in curiosity. “I believe that there is a room which the window isn’t directing us to the iron bar.”

“T-there is?” Baekhyun whispered a stutter.

It’s such a funny truth how they were locked in their own school and that forced them to escape by all ways, all actions that might get them off the school. Again, Jooyeon led the way to the second floor. She couldn’t lie that Jooyeon, the brave story-teller, had felt the uneasy feeling which made her looking at her back eventually, checking her friends’ state. She knew it was just a story which wasn’t even real, but still…

All along the way towards the second floor, Jihye kept on looking down. She couldn’t even feel her fingers anymore because of the chilly, cool tremble and her heart –it was beating all the time, the type of over-beating where your head, feet, whole body can also feel the beat.

Gradually, Sehun slowed his pace to catch Jihye who was walking on the most back. Once he reached Jihye, he immediately grabbed her small, shuddering palm and he glanced at her worryingly. The Jihye he knew was the quiet, shy Yoon Jihye, but never this scared and terrified Yoon Jihye.

“Sehun,” she whispered, nearly inaudible between their footstep voice that echoed all over the quiet, cold corridor. Sehun looked at her again, and his heart started to beat in horror and in hesitant –he was not ready to hear the following words.

“Why are there so many people here?”

The cold, strange breeze immediately hit him strong, which gave his heart extreme acceleration after he heard Jihye’s trembling whisper. So many people, she said, when the corridor was overly silent.

So many people, she said, when it was the four of them people only could see –yes, people only could see… so there were many people couldn’t see.

Sehun gulped hard and instantly tightened his grip on Jihye’s hand. The girl hadn’t even lifted her face up, and oh God, Sehun had chanted so many prayers inside his heart all the way towards their destination.

“It’s supposed to be here,” Jooyeon said with small voice, the image of their school’s outer body was still around her head. All of them were now facing a door on the other side of the school, another large wooden door to enter.

Baekhyun chewed his inner mouth before finally opening his lips to say something, but then Jooyeon’s firm and sure look made him slowly nodded.

With her breathe held and lips shut in a straight line, Jooyeon slowly turned the room’s doorknob.

The scent of dust, paint, and old, dirty things immediately made all of them sniff and cough once the door was opened. It was found to be the art storage room, a place to put all unused and old canvases left behind from seniors (can you imagine how many they were?)

“H-here?” Baekhyun whispered lightly before he finally took a glance at the room’s inner sight.

There was no light source at all inside the room but the slight scene of the creeping small moon out there gave it some dim brightness. Jooyeon was the first one to step in the storage, fearfully followed by the others behind her.

It would be a very obvious lie if you said you weren’t terrified by the scenery inside. Drawings and portraits were all over the shelves, hanging around the wall as well. Painting of a girl. Painting of a kid. Painting of a jail… Painting of a school.

Sehun looked at all of them while holding his breath. There was this one painting of school, all painted with red paint on white canvas. Surrounded by bloody iron bars, red humans were all running out of the school. All classes had red bloody windows, but this one room… this one classroom had a figure of a bloody woman in it.

“Sehun, walk!” Baekhyun whispered to Sehun. Sehun who just realized that he was immersed to that painting until he was not moving slowly started to walk again, and truthfully his heartbeat increases.

Jooyeon stood in front of the window, and then she opened the creaking window wide. It was heavy to push it at first because of its rusty frame and how disgusting the small spider webs around it, but she didn’t need too much time to open it.

The four immediately approached the window and looked downwards. It was true that this is really the window with no iron bars down there, the only window that was available for them. Jooyeon looked at her friends behind and slowly said, “We’ll jump from here.”

“What?!” Baekhyun immediately blurted in shock once Jooyeon uttered her idea. “Are you crazy? We could not, and could never, jump from the window!!”

“It was just a story!!” Jooyeon yelled back to Baekhyun being a sudden unrealistic in this kind of situation. “If not, then what do you want? You want to just stay in the school until morning when the gate is opened?!”

“S-stop fighting,” Jihye’s small whisper made the three of them looked at her.

Baekhyun shut his eyes in order to make himself calmer. “Sorry,” he murmured halfheartedly between his still anger. “Let’s just jump. Let’s just jump and let’s not care about the legend she told us.”

Didn’t want to mind Baekhyun’s sarcasm, Jooyeon sighed and looked around the room, hoping that her eyes might catch something that would be useful for their ‘escape’. Jooyeon gently pushed her friends away a little, and she went along to search for things behind the shelves.

The three other friends couldn’t see her anymore because of the overly darkened room. Their hearts were beating so fast as ten seconds, twenty seconds, Jooyeon hadn’t appeared at all.

“Joo?” Jihye’s voice cracked in horror.

“I… found a rope here,” suddenly Jooyeon’s voice broke the silence, and immediately each of the three sighed mentally. The thought of Jooyeon disappearing or even dying immediately got wiped away from their mind.

“Oh, nice,” Sehun muttered half in relief and half in slight annoyance because of the fact that he just got worried about Jooyeon.

Jooyeon slowly walked out of the shelves with a folded white, long rope in her hand. Baekhyun immediately puffed his cheeks, mentally rubbing his pounding chest that his friend was safe and sound.

“So,” Jooyeon spoke, cracking the tensed silence. “Since no one seems to be brave enough, I… I’m going to jump first,” she murmured as she lifted the window again.

Another long silence when Jooyeon tried to put a stick of iron or something on the window’s hinge to keep it opened. The three were still looking at her with uneasy expressions, a bit shocked for Jooyeon’s all brave and sudden actions.

“Y-you are going to jump first?” Jihye whispered in scare, and Jooyeon looked at her with a nod.

“Don’t worry,” Jooyeon grinned, but actually her heart started to beat so fast. When she was gripping on the window’s frame, it was cold; freezing by the soft breeze and the sky outside started to turn darker. How hard she tried to convince herself, fear had persuaded her too strong.

“It’s just a story,” she continued as she looked through the window.

It’s just a story.

‘No jumping from the windows as well.’

Jooyeon her lip and gulped. It’s just a story…

“How will you do it?” Sehun’s sudden speech immediately made her look behind in surprise.

“Oh, yes,” Jooyeon murmured in shock. “I will jump first with one tip of the rope in my hand and another tip in yours. Once I reach the ground down there, I will tug the rope to give a sign that it’s all safe. It’s your time to decide who will jump next then,” she smiled nervously.

Another silence moment. Jooyeon bit her own tongue before finally approaching a table beside the window to pull it closer for her to step on. The spot under the table’s feet were all free from dust, so when Jooyeon pulled the large dirty table, it left a large track on the floor.

“Somebody, help me,” she murmured when she was still struggling to pull that table closer. Baekhyun was the first one to approach her and help her to pull the table. Still, no words said even after the table was perfectly on place for Jooyeon to jump.

She got on the table by Jihye’s help. Slowly Jooyeon untied the rope until it was all straight. She had to admit that her fingers felt dead and were all trembling when she was untying it. Her heart was beating so fast in nervous. It’s just a story. It’s just a story.

Jooyeon took the tip of the rope and slowly pulled a length of it. She uneasily grinned to her friends for a quite long moment before finally saying, “Remember… I will tug the rope.”

The three nodded in overwrought.

Jooyeon turned around, looking down the ground. There was a small balcony right under the window which was likely only fifty centimeters away. The grass down there seemed to have died already, but it wasn’t too hard for a landing space –only around three meters and it was likely soft.

It wasn’t that far, but it looked ways too far.

“I-I’ll jump,” Jooyeon whispered in fear for a moment. She placed her right foot on the window, and then her hand started to grip the window’s freezing outer frame so hard.

When she was all ready to jump, a small voice called her name from behind.

Baekhyun smiled at her faintly, and then with his quavering voice he spoke, “Take care.”

“I will,” Jooyeon whispered back and jumped down.

...

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