“ I heard this place is like. . .  haunted.”

   Stepping around a huge old tree, Ga Yeon lifted her flashlight . . . and saw the house. Everyone else kept tromping through knee-high weeds, but something held her there,totally still.

   The abandoned big mansion rose up against the moonlit sky.Surrounded by seriously old trees and nearly covered by climbing trees, it was big and boxy, with massive columns and wide porches.Once the place had probably been white. Even at night she could tell that.But now it was dirty and worn out.Alone.

   A warm breeze blew off from nowhere, but Ga Yeon hugged her arms around herself  as she watched them – Tae Yeon, the stupidly beautiful cheerleader; her way-too-skinny best friend Hyuna; Tae Yeon’s little sister Soo Yeon; and the guys; Kai, the school hope in rugby (and Ga Yeon’s chemistry lab partner; Suho, who rarely said more than two words at a time; and the massively tattooed Sehun – making their way toward a broken window

   At the steps leading to the porch, Tae Yeon swung back to Ga Yeon .She was the one who invited her to tag along. “What’s the matter Ga Yeon-ssi? Are you scared?”

  tightened . She wasn’t scared . That wasn’t the right word. Just . . . uneasy.

    “Just taking it all in,” Ga Yeo said, forcing her legs to move. She could feel stuffs crunching under her sneakers. She didn’t want to know what.

   Hyuna made it to the window before she turned back. “Last year,” she said, her eyes glowing, “ these two seniors came here,”

   “Hyuna!!!” Tae Yeon shot a shut-up look to her. “What are you trying to do? Make her leave?”

   That would be a yes to Ga Yeon. Besides, she was the new kid, after all. On the first day of school when the teacher had said Shin Ga Yeon, everyone had turned to stare at her, obviously sizing up the new girl. Being from Danyang making her an outsider, but at least she looked that she belonged. With long dark hair and big dark eyes, skin her grandmother called olive, a T-shirt and denim shorts, she could’ve been Tae Yeon’s level. But still starting a new school junior was pretty much .

   “Leave?” said Hyuna. “No way.” And with that she slipped into the darkness beyond the broken window.

   Two of the guys – Suho and Sehun – followed. Tae Yeon waited until Ga Yeon reached the big bushes obscuring the porch before taking Kai’s hand and tugging him toward the darkness . Soo Yeon shot Ga Yeon a nervous look, but followed away.

   “You coming?” asked Hyuna.

   “Of course,” Ga Yeon said against the slap of warm air. Until Seoul, she’d never known air could be so thick. Breathing was hard enough. Her aunt kept saying that. She does that  a lot, tells her that she’ll get used to things.

   “Then what are you waiting for?” Through a mass of perfect, coffee-colored ringlets, Hyuna’s smile look more like a smirk. “Want Kai-ssi to hold your hand?”

   Tae Yeon’s eyes narrowed, invisible claws coming out for the thousandth time since she’d discovered her boyfriend and Ga Yeon  were chemistry partners.

   She eased closer to him, inserting herself between him and Ga Yeon. Through the play of shadows his eyes met Ga Yeon’s anyway , forcing me looking down towards the dusty floor of the mansion. She knew he was taken. She also knew she did not want to enter the house. Everything inside her screamed for her to stay right where she was.

    Ga Yeon stopped the thought, knowing she couldn’t just stand there like an idiotmin a trance.No one else heard the buzz .No one else felt like they stood in a freezer.Her flashlight showed the sheen of sweat on Kai’s forehead.Everyone had on tank tops – Tae Yeon’s plastered against her chest.No one was shivering.Only her.

     With a pretend laugh, she stepped from the warmth of Kai’s hand and again rubbeb her hands against her pants.She didn’t bother to look at Tae Yeon.She knew she’d be glaring her.

     “Holy crap.” Ga Yeon gagged on her first full breath inside. Mud and smoke mixed with something else, something really foul. “How old is this place?”

       “Really old.”said Kai.

       The beam of their flashlights jumped through the pitch-black room, creating a strobe-light effect.

        Refusing to let her hands shake, Ga Yeon played it cool and lifted her light to the far wall, and she could see many graffiti drawn onthe wall.

        The heart was done in black.A red cross ran through the top, with some kind of weird swirl design and grid through the middle.

        “Before the storm,”Hyuna said, strolling over to dominate the circle of light , “you could still see the blood.”

        Blood? Ga Yeon was startled to hear Hyuna’s word.

         “You still can,” Tae Yeon said “This place didn’t get any water.”

         “Oh my god,” That was from Soo Yeon. Ga Yeon twisted around, found her staring at the back corner. She was really pale – and really glued to Kai. His eyes were narrow, his dimples gone. “W-what’s that?”

          With her light Ga Yeon followed her line of vision to a small collection of sticks piled on top of each other. Except they weren’t sticks.

          “Bones,” Hyuna whispered.

          Ga Yeon swallowed hard as Soo Yeon let out some kind of strangled sound. “I don’t think,”

          “No, one’s making you stay,” Tae Yeon pointed out before her sister could finish. “If you want to leave. . .”

          “Probably  an animal.” Kai’s voice held absolute calm.

          Soo Yeo, a small, less y version of Tae Yeon, looked up at him as if she wanted nothing more than for him to be right. It was so painfully obvious how badly she hung on its every word. He smiled as he gave her a brotherly pat on her back.

         Ga Yeon was quiet sure it broke her heart.

        “I thought everything  flooded ,” Ga Yeon said, stepping toward the wide hallway that cut through the middle of the house. She’d only been a kid, but the memory of the storm were vivid. It wasn’t until her grandmother died that she understood why.

         She’d never been one to talk about the past, had always said, Ga Yeon-ahh, there’s no point looking backwards. But Ga Yeon never really thought much about it. Maybe because she didn’t have much to look back at. Her parents died when she was little – she didn’t even have any picture of them.

         “The roads were like rivers ,” said Kai, “but most of the houses were okay.”

         Through the beam of Kai’s flashlight, Tae Yeon’s  smile glittered as she dragged her finger along the grid superimposed on the heart. “Which is why the blood is still here.”

            Everybody practically begging Ga Yeon to ask. “What blood?”

            “No one knows for sure,” Tae Yeon said, and Ga Yeon  could hear the deliberate drama inher voice. “But they say when the moon is full . . .” Like it was tonight. Ga Yeon doubted that was a coincidence.

             “The walls start to bleed.” That was Hyuna. “And that you can hear a girl crying from one of the rooms upstairs.”

              Ga Yeon’s heart bumped hard, even though it was obvious what they were doing. They were like lame, wannabe actors reading the script from some low-budget horror flick.

            Tae Yeon and Hyuna had been friends forever.Kai and Suho were cousins.They’d all grown up together. Ga Yeon was the new girl.

           Still, she swallowed hard and tilted the flashlight to shine on her own face. “I want to see.”

Sometimes she really regret her smart mouth . Now was definitely one of those times . Tae Yeon led us through a shadows of the kitchen to a closed door. She pulled it open, revealing a hidden staircase.

          “This is what the servants used,” she said, taking the first step.

          “You mean slaves,” Hyuna corrected. “The blood is theirs,” Hyuna just had to say. “Some weird voodoo—“

          Her terrified scream stopped Ga Yeon cold.

          “Hyuna!” Tae Yeon cried as the other swung their flashlights behind them. They saw them immediately, Sehun pressing Hyuna against the graffiti-polluted wall, his hand over . Her eyes were wide.

          “Jerk,” Tae Yeon muttered. But Sehun only laughed.

          “Let her go.” That was not Kai, as GaYeo expected, but Suho.

          Sehun’s lip curled as he stepped back from Hyuna. She recoiled from him , slinking up several stairs while barely seeming to move.

          “I think it’s time for you to go,” Tae Yeon hissed, shining her flashlight into his face. “No one wanted you here to begin with.”

          His mouth curled. “Now who’s scared?”

          Her eyes narrowed. “Kai. Make. Him. Go.”

          Kai moved between them like a referee, and in that moment Ga Yeon felt so bad about him. She mean , putting him in that position between his girlfriend and his best friend.

          “I want him here.” Kai’s words surprised Ga Yeon as much as he surprised everyone else. “If he goes,I go.”

          The walls pushed closer. Tae Yeon don’t move, though. No one did. It was Tae Yeon who moved first, after a long hot second, glancing beyond Suho to her best friend. Their eyes met. Understanding flared.

          “It’s cool,” Hyuna said, even though it was obvious she was lying.

          “Then come on,” Ga Yeon said. Standingin place made her feel like a sitting duck.

          “Need me to lead?” Sehun asked, obviously needling Tae Yeon. “Because I’d be happy to show you where to go—“

          “Oh, shut up.” With the words she took off.

          Flashlights in front them, they all followed, Kai and Soo Yeon behind Tae Yeon, Hyuna and Suho behind them, Ga Yeon with Sehun. He said nothing, but Ga Yeon would have sworn she saw a flicker of respect in his quick glance. Or maybe that was a gratitude.

          Upstairs, doorways lined each side of an ultra-long hallway, all closed, like in a hotel. Except this had been a house. Just empty.

          Oblivious, Tae Yeon swung open the second door to the left, and vanished inside.

          Again they followed. Ga Yeon pounded hard as she crossed into the room— the mattresses stopped me. Surrounded by the remains of little white candles and an unbroken chain of dead flowers, they dominated the center of the room, like. . . an altar.

          Crouching beside them, Tae Yeon glanced up through a tangle of dark hair, and smiled. “You wanna see?”