Slaughter House

“AH!” I woke up suddenly. In panic, I looked around me. I took in every detail I possibly could in the state I was in. There was no sign whatsoever of someone intruding the room. The window was closed, Mina was in a deep sleep, and finally, I checked myself to see I was fine. Phew… I thought, it was only another dream… well, nightmare. I slowly got off the couch and headed to the bathroom. I washed my face with cold water to wake myself up and ‘wash away’ the dream. Coming out of the bathroom, I felt a slight pain in my wrist as I turned the bathroom doorknob. I looked down only to be shocked to the point where I almost forgot to breath.

Right there, on my wrist, was a bright red handprint wrapped around it. I couldn’t be wrong, you could see upon first sight that it was indeed a hand. Was my dream perhaps… real? Did someone really come into my room…? No. Why would anyone do that and not do anything else. In fact, the question is HOW could anyone do that? And why me? I’m not as pretty as Mina, and that girl was in the center of the room, clearly much more vulnerable than me since I was hidden in the shadows of the room.

Speaking of the human Barbie, I looked at her sleeping figure once more. She appeared unharmed. I took a breath and walked up to the window and looked outside without opening it, scared of what could happen if I did. I saw nothing but almost pitch black. Nothing in sight, but a few stars and the moon, but they were shielded from my sight since the clouds were hiding them every now and then. I stepped away from the window and took a scarf from my suitcase, wrapping it around my neck carefully. I exited the room as quietly as possible to not wake up the sleeping beast.

As soon as I had closed the door, I started walking quietly down the narrow hall. I had to tell professor Daewon about this. We need to get out of here. This handprint can’t be a simple coincidence. I started my search for the professor’s room. Speaking of which, I didn’t even know which room he was sleeping in, which obviously just made my job easier. I tiptoed down the steps to the first floor and continued my search there being as silent as possible.

“Professor! Professor!” I whisper yelled. On the first floor, there was the dining room, the kitchen, the game room, what I supposed to be the staff room, but no sign of the person I was looking for

“Bohee?” I heard someone call me. I turned around expecting to find my professor, but instead I only came face to face with someone else.

“Sanghoon? What are you doing here?” I hoped I sounded polite there, because I was clearly not happy to see him.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he responded to me. “It’s nearly 3:00AM and it’s not safe for a girl like you to be roaming around the mansion like this,” he smirked looking me up and down as if I were nothing but trash.

“For your information, I wasn’t ‘roaming around the mansion’ as you say,” I mocked. “ I was looking for Professor. By any chance, do you know which is his room?”

“Nope. In fact, I don’t even care. What I do want to know is why you’re looking for professor Daewon at this time of night, when everybody is asleep.” He looked at me with a look that said he was thinking dirty… again.

“That’s none of your business, now bye,” I retorted before turning on my heel to get away from this pervert as fast as possible. Before I could take another step forward, I felt his hand grasp my unharmed wrist.

“What the- What are you doing?! Let go of me!” He smiled creepily and came closer to me slowly while I tried to yank my hand away from his grip.

“How about… no?” His creepy smile now raising alarms in my head, although to be honest, there were always alarms going off whenever I was close to him.

“Yah! Kim Sanghoon! Let go of my wrist!”

“You know, ever since that day, I can’t help but find myself wondering what you are like… You keep me interested in you,” he said. I twisted my hand a bit to try and get it free.

“Well, I’m sorry for keeping you interested, but I have much more important things to do,” I said. “Now let me go.” I was getting desperate.

“Oh, please stay a while longer. Nobody will know. Not even Mina…” His smile was now revealing his white teeth. I bet he uses shoe polish and bleach to make them that shiny and white.

“I couldn’t worry less about her, she’s sleeping like a log right now… But I really need to go, Sanghoon. Just let go of my wrist already!” I gritted my teeth as I continued to struggle out of the guy’s hold. Wonderful, as if one bruised wrist wasn’t enough. Man, what’s with guys and wrists?

“Why don’t we have a little fun? I really do like you. In fact, I’ve only been dating Mina to be closer to you and protect you from any harm.” Of course. And that’s why you’ve done nothing to help whatsoever, but laugh in my face and exchange saliva with Miss Barbie upstairs.

“Listen here, dude. I would have no problem at all dating you behind Mina’s back, but for me to even do that, I’d have to like you, which I don’t. Now if you’ll just let go of my wrist now…” Shoot, I just said something completely false unintentionally. I wouldn’t even date him if I did like him, especially behind Mina’s back, since I knew I wouldn’t ever like that guy.

“Then all you need to do is like me,” he whispered as he took a step closer to me. Ok, this is getting annoying. Have you never heard of personal space?

“Ya, Sanghoon. What are you doing to her?” Someone had interrupted this prick from doing anything more.

“Yoogeun? Oh thank God you’re here!” I exclaimed. I took advantage of Sanghoon’s loose grip to free myself and sped off towards my savior. He looked at Sanghoon and then me.

“What d’you want, Ball?” Sanghoon spat.

“I see no reason why I should tell you. All I asked was what you were doing to Bohee. Does Mina even know about this? If she ever finds out-”

“Shut up,” he interrupted Yoogeun before he could finish his sentence. “What Mina thinks about this is only my business, don’t you think? Now, I’ll be going, g’night.” And so, Sanghoon left Yoogeun and me alone in the hallway, but not without giving us a last glare before turning his back to us. Yoogeun looked down at me with a concerned look.

“What are you doing here, walking in the middle of the night?” he asked, sounding very motherly.

“I was looking for professor, but I didn’t know where his room is.”

“Why couldn’t you just tell him whatever you want to tell him in the morning?” I shook my head as if saying ‘I couldn’t, it’s urgent’ and took out my phone. I turned it on and aimed the light it made on my wrist which had the mark. “I don’t recall seeing this during the day… What happened?! Where did it come from?!” He took my wrist in his hands carefully not to hurt me and examined it from every angle. As I said before, he was acting like a mother.

“I don’t know… All I know is that there was someone in the room… I don’t know what they were trying to do, though… But I can be sure that he wasn’t trying to kill me. What I don’t understand is why me and not Mina…” I ended in an almost whisper. Wait, why was he here? “How about you? What are you doing awake in the hallways in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I think I saw something enter the building… more like a shadow…” he answered, thinking back to what he saw. I asked him if he too was looking for the professor in that case and he nodded. “Maybe we should try calling him.”

“Sure, but the network here is crap, so I don’t know how you’ll do it,” I thought out loud.
Yoogeun shook his head. “No, I meant calling him as in calling his name or something.” I agreed. After all, we had no other choice.

We wandered about the house. We decided to try opening the doors of other rooms and open the lights just in case we don’t see him with them closed. At least we would be able to see whether or not Professor was in the room. In the end, we found nothing that could lead us to believing he was in any room at all. We even searched the gym, an empty private swimming pool, and more doors whose uses remain unknown to me. This whole place was big... too big. But where could professor Daewon possibly be?!

“Well, the first floor is officially empty, meaning the only place left is the second floor with us,” I declared.

“Hm… But there are over two dozen rooms upstairs and what happens if we wake one of the guys up? Not that I’m concerned about their beauty sleep. I’m just worried about myself if they decide to hurt me for disturbing them.” Yoogeun had a point. Our lives would become hell if we decided to really check around and accidentally wake someone up.

“You have a point, but I suggest we not bother ourselves with our college life when our own lives could be in danger.” I took a few steps towards the stairs. “Come on, let’s go check the second floor.”My partner decided to follow me in the end and walked up with him behind me to the second floor.

We checked the odd numbered rooms that we hadn’t occupied -- 11, 17, 19, 21 and 23 with the keys we had found downstairs in the empty reception. The rooms were identical to mine and almost pitch black. None of us made a sound and we were on our guard the whole time. We had even checked the closets and bathrooms this time. But in the end, the result was the same as downstairs on the main floor.

“This is hopeless! It’s like he isn’t even here!” I said to myself. “Well, the only room left is room 4. Might as well go see if professor Daewon is sleeping there or not…” We headed to the door and unlocked it before entering as silently as possible.

The room was just as dark as the others, maybe even darker, so we left the door behind us slightly ajar and switched on the lights. What we found inside was kind of shocking. What is all this…? The room we had entered was in turmoil. Papers, photos, research papers, newspaper cuttings, and drawings with some scientific notes or symbols I was ____ were pinned on the walls.

“W-what the hell is this...?” I said slowly, my voice had cracked slightly.

“It looks like someone’s office…” Yoogeun said.

I took a closer look at the drawings and perceived some writing under them. There was written reverse pentagons, transmutation circles and some other writing I couldn’t read. I supposed it was Latin according to the letters. Why would anyone keep such information and research here? Anyone visiting could have accidentally come in and seen this just like we had. That is… unless they wanted us to see it.

Notes