𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐍𝐃 | 𝐬𝐤𝐳 & 𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐳

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗘 !

Chan took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. He was going to play this fair, no matter how much he wanted to rip off Seonghwa's head. He pointed to a paper taped to the wall. "There."

Yeosang pulled it down. "Since you will be competing against each other, you will have separate clues, in bags that are labelled with your names. Do not take clues from each other or you will be automatically disqualified. These bags are in your classrooms, beware of traps. Should you die in the game, you must go to the designated out area. Be on your guard, may the best team win."

Much to all the tense boys' annoyance, Seonghwa scoffed and boasted, his voice drawling, "Well, we're obviously going to be the ones to find the clues. You guys are going to fall into all the traps."

"Did you really think now was the time?" Minho inquired, raising an eyebrow judgmentally. Seonghwa nodded confidently and everyone merely sighed.

"Should we go on our own or go in pairs or groups?" Woojin inquired, brushing off Seonghwa's annoyingly confident remark with ease. His heart was jumping as he chewed his lip in worriment, fear clouding his mind.

"On our own," Hongjoong and Chan replied simultaneously. They glared at each other before Hongjoong decided to present his reasoning.

"That way we can cover more ground," Hongjoong said. Everyone shrugged and—some more begrudgingly than others—agreed with him. Hongjoong turned to his friends and nodded as a farewell. Chan turned Stray Kids and waved farewell before everyone ended up running in different directions.

Seonghwa didn't run like everyone else. He simply strolled in the direction of God-knows-where (he hardly bothered to memorise where the classrooms were, he simply relied on one of the members of Ateez to guide him to his next class). Everything was rather dark for some odd reason.

There were loads of stupid things Seonghwa was doing at the time, but the stupidest thing was that he wasn't aware of the traps. He simply thought that he wouldn't get caught in any traps since he was "immune" to it. This stupidly overconfident personality trait was what led a lot of people to hate him with a burning passion. Even most members of Ateez weren't fond of him.

The sound of echoing footsteps filtered into Seonghwa's ears and he turned in order to find out who was after him. His face fell at the sight of him, bitterness was written all over his face. He scoffed and crossed his arms in hopes of being intimidating, which he wasn't.

"What do you want?" Seonghwa demanded. "Were you following me?" He pressed.

"As a matter of a fact, I was following you," he answered, his voice low yet enthusiastic. This was a side to him that Seonghwa had never seen. It seemed so unnatural and that's why he was getting defensive. He looked almost...intimidating. However, Seonghwa knew better than to unveil the slight weakness he felt; he knew better than to lift the veil of overconfidence that masked his permanent insecurities.

"What the fuck do you want?" He scoffed. A chilling smile crept up his face, eliciting an audible gulp from the blond. A low chuckle sent Seonghwa's heart on a frenzy, accelerating speeds he thought were lethal.

"Simple," his footsteps came to a stop as he stood in front of Seonghwa. "Your life and the sweet, sweet taste of revenge." With that being said, a violent punch was thrown at Seonghwa's face. The sheer force of the punch sent him stumbling backwards and a small line of blood to trickle from his nose.

Before Seonghwa could recover and retaliate, his face was smashed against his knee, his head aching as a result. There were only more and more punches and kicks launched at poor Seonghwa, though, undeniably, he deserved it.

Punch. Seonghwa had a black eye.

Kick. He was coughing out blood into his shirt, staining it a brilliant red.

Punch. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. Just how much blood had he lost? How many punches had he copped? How many times had he been kicked? Was his vision supposed to blur like this? Question swam through Seonghwa's head as he slowly felt his life force fade away from him. He never thought he would leave in such a painful way. Maybe he could overcome his overconfidence and arrogance and repent in hell.

"And for the grand finale!" he announced. Seonghwa groaned in pain as he felt his head being smashed against a wall. Seonghwa couldn't hold on much longer and let go of his life, the blood smearing down the wall as his body slumped onto the ground lifelessly.

He looked down at his fists, clicking his tongue and mumbled to himself, "Great, now I have to wash my hands." His echoing footsteps ran away from Seonghwa's dead body as if nothing had happened.

Jeongin and Jongho had broken the decision that the older members had chosen. They decided that they would suffer through this living hell together, trying to find clues together with their combined common sense. They assumed that there would be some in the library since it had more than enough hiding spots to hide a clue of some sort.

"Do you smell that?" Jongho inquired, sniffing with furrowed eyebrows. Jeongin reciprocated Jongho's actions and was blown away by the strong rusty smell that attacked his nose. It smelt like...blood. The pair shot each other terrified and, like wild dogs, they sniffed out the scent.

When the scent was overwhelmingly strong, they froze at the sight before them. The neat floor and slightly graffitied walls were stained a brilliant crimson. Lying lifelessly against the wall was Seonghwa. Although Jongho held a minor hatred towards the older, he couldn't help but feel his entire world crash when he saw his dead body. With shaky legs, Jongho fell beside his dead body, crying only slightly.

Jeongin didn't try to console him. He knew that losing someone close to you hurt like hell so he decided to have a search around. The search for whatever clues that could lead to the murderer.

"We're going to have to take him to his designated out area," Jeongin told Jongho, who wiped his minimal tears and listened. "He was also killed quite recently judging from the scent and warmth of all this blood." He observed, wiping some blood off of the wall with his index finger.

"All we're certain about as of now is that there's one of us rampaging and killing all of us. We have to be on high alert or else we could be next." Jongho ominously warned Jeongin, who nodded firmly in acknowledgment.