Atlas

4

Next, I found myself in a dance studio. In that room, there were three people. Two of them, a boy and a girl, were dancing. The boy I recognized as one of the boys I saw when I entered the motel. I didn't know the girl at all. As they danced together, they smiled at each other in the mirrors of the studio. The third member of their trio was another boy. He wasn't dancing, and he wasn't smiling. He was just sitting on the ground in a corner of the studio, watching them dance.

When the door to the room with the mannequin and the crying boy closed behind me, all three of them stopped what they were doing and stared. I noticed that unlike the boys, the girl did not have a gold string around her wrists.

"What are you doing here?" Jimin asked. His face was pinched in annoyance. I thought about moving right through this room, as my presence didn't seem to be welcomed. But the other two people were smiling.

"Don't be rude, Jiminie," Hoseok said. "We could always use the company."

Next to him, the girl faded into empty air, like she hadn't been there in the first place.

I jumped back in surprise. But the two boys didn't seem surprised by this strange occurrence.

"What happened to her?" I asked.

Hoseok shook his head sadly. "She was never here."

Jimin got to his feet and pressed one hand to one of the mirrors on the wall. The glass shattered under the palm of his hand, revealing a dark hallway.

"Go that way," he said, much more gently this time.

"What will I find?" I asked.

"We don't know."

The gold strings tied around their wrists glowed as I walked into the hallway.