"Hey, can't we stay here for few more days?"

Lia asked while clicking the photos of the beautiful sunset in her camera.

After walking for so long, the two girls finally reached their destination before missing out the mesmerizing view.

Though it took them hours to reach the sunset point but it was all worth it.

"Nope. We promised the boys back in Seoul that we'll be coming back in three days and we have to leave tomorrow." You answered without leaving the sight of the nature as you leaned back on the trunk of a large tree comfortably.

You didn't wanted to miss a single second to capture all this beauty that you won't be seeing back in Seoul.

None of you realized how soon these two days wemt by with enjoying each other's company and collecting and recollecting so many memories for the rest of their lives. You just wished to re-live your childhood time where you were completely carefree from any problems and tensions.

But, you can only wish.
Re-living your past are only in movies. Your present is the reality and that's it. You have to accept it to be in the same pace as the people in the world otherwise you'll be so back in the race of life.

You kept your hand on your chest as you couldn't get enough of the nature in this forest.

Maybe this is your last time to visit this heaven like place as your last memory of this forest and that too with your best friend.

You turned your head towards Lia who kept clicking as many photos as she can and noticed you staring at her.

"What happened?" She asked as she lowered her camera and walked towards you before slumping beside you with a bright smile.

You shook and laid your head on her shoulder as she caressed your hand which was resting on your lap.

"I wish you could be with me for a long time. I really missed you a lot, Lia." You muttered and closed your eyes when your mind flashed back some bad memories of your past.

_______<•>_______

You walked down the path of hallway listening to light music that calmed your heart and mind, unknown to the fact of a person behind you.

You gasped when a force pushed you forward leading you to fell down on your face but thankfully you quickly placed your hand on floor to protect your face from getting hurt.

As soon as laughter ringed your ears from which the earphones were ripped out, you quickly turned around and glared at the person in front of you.

"Why the hell did you pushed me, Bomin?!" You yelled at the named person who shrugged her shoulders.

"Your little legs were on my way."

"So you could have said me to move or you can yourself walk past by me."
You tried to calm yourself not wanting to make a big thing out of this already knowing what Bomin is capable of.

Dusting your jacket you bend down to pick your earphones lying on floor, but a shoe came in your view as it stomped on your earphone.

Gritting your teeth, you eyed Bomin who was smirking at you and put more pressure until a small sound of something breaking came.
She broke your only earphone that you recently bought.

"Oops, I'm sorry. I didn't see that."
She chuckled and stepped back before walking past by you. You curled your fist and glanced at the students around.

None of them were trying to help you. Some were recording the whole time, some were just watching it as a show and some were simply ignoring it not even bothering to look at you.
That's how the students of this college were. None of them cared about you because you weren't anything to them except another student who gets bullied by the college's popular mean girl.

As anger filled inside you and now that you had enough of her shits from few weeks, you didn't think twice before standing up and following her in the class.

Without saying a single word you just pushed her with all your strength as everyone in the class gasped while watching Bomin fell right on her face.

She freaking deserve worse than this.

You breathed heavily as you didn't stopped right there. You grabbed her arm and turned her around before looking straight in her teary eyes from pain.

"Guess what? I didn't saw you too. So sorry and next time don't you dare to fucking bother me again."

"I'm not someone that you can bully easily and get away with your shits."

Silence.
The whole classroom was filled with complete silence as students just gazed at you with frightened eyes.

Though the realization of what you just did hit you so hard after you left the scene, but you knew you have fucked up badly and maybe your whole future has ended.

That same day you were expelled from the college without any warning.
Why? Is it just because you hit a girl?

No, because you raised your voice against the only daughter of the politician.

For a week, you were finding it very hard to enroll in another good college even though you had scored a very good rank in college's entrance exam, but because of the influence of Bomin's father most of them refused to take in.

Not having any choice, you decided to enroll in a not-so good college rather than sitting at home with a single sheet of good rank and wasting your time.

Your college life didn't went too good but it was bearable to survive there.

_________<•>_________

"Ugh!"

You opened your eyes and lifted your head to look at Lia who was furrowing her eyebrows while looking at your phone that was in her pocket.

You saw the name of the caller and sighed before sitting straight.

"Can you just pick it up Lia? He has been calling you since the day we reached here."

You were fed up of her stubborn ass. Hoseok has been trying to call on her phone but she just doesn't pick up.
Now Hoseok is calling you so that you can help him to talk to Lia, but she made you swear on her life that you won't pick up his phone.

"Lia-"
"He can go to hell. Y/n, you don't know how much I hate him."

She rolled her eyes and ignored the ringing phone before putting it on silent. You couldn't do anything but shake your head in disappointment.

"He is just worried about you and want you to be safe, Lia. That's why he was not agreeing with the trip."
You spoke softly while rubbing her arm.

"I know Y/n. I very well know but this is too much, too much for me to handle. I have been tolerating all this since high school and I am done with him and his possessiveness about me."

Lia tugged on her lower lip and played with the bracelet on her wrist as she muttered with each of her words traced with a hint of sadness.

"Since mom and dad died, he gets so overprotective for me and thinks that he will lose me if he removed his eyes from me even for a second. He fears that I'll disappear from his life. I understand him Y/n, I really do understand why is he like this.
But, he doesn't understand me. He doesn't understand that I'm not supposed to be locked in my house. I'm not supposed to live like this. He is not supposed to be worried and paranoid for me all the time."

"You know back in Japan at first when I applied for job, my brother was not letting me to work because he thinks I would be in danger. He said that I shouldn't be worried about anything and just sit in the house. For few weeks, it was only him who was out of the house for his work and lived a normal life but me, I was all the time locked inside away from any other human being, away from the outer world. I felt suffocated in that house. I felt like I'm in prison. I begged him and cried to him that I want to get out of the house and work to become independent. I'm not someone who can sit all day at home and do nothing. But, he never listened to me until I threatened him that if he didn't let me do what I want, the one responsible for my death would be him."

Your heart clenched while looking at Lia who was holding herself back from shedding her tears.
You hugged her while patting her back, sighing at both of your fates.

Neither of you had a good life as you grew up. Each one of you were struggling with something at every step of your life. One moment it feels like everything is fine but another moment it all crumbles down. The blocks of happiness that you builded all crashes down. The hopes of living a good life again fades away.

God knows what more things he has planned for the two of you. Will you both ever live a life that you dreamt of? A life with no problems.

Time will only tell what more hurdles or surprises are coming for the two of you. Maybe it's next year or month or day or even an hour.
Who knows?

***

After few more minutes you finally started to make your way back to the cabins with Lia walking in front while you were close behind her. It was a small trail through the woods leading the way to the cabins.

"Y/n, can you give me torch?" Lia spoke while trying to look around the woods. It was almost dark and your phone's flashlight wasn't helping at all.

You scrambled through the bag and handed her the torch and took your phone back checking the time on it.
"7:23"

"What would we make for dinner?" Lia asked as you speeded up and walked beside her.

"I was thinking about Ramen. It will take hardly few minutes to cook."
You suggested to which Lia agreed.
You both know till you will reach your cabins you would be so hella tired to stand in kitchen for an hour and make something.

"I have even thought about the movie that we are going to watch."
She said as you nodded in excitement.

As you both kept talking while making your way through the dark woods, suddenly you both heard a loud blood curling scream far away from you that echoed in the whole forest.

You froze on your place with eyes widened in pure horror.
You just heard a scream of a girl.
Gulping loudly, you looked at Lia who was already staring you with shocked eyes.

"Did you heard that?"
She asked as you breathed out heavily and looked around you. It was all silent now.

"M-maybe it's the sound of an animal or something." You tried to think something else because you were freaking out so badly.

"No. It was of a human."
You turned to look at her and gasped before quickly grabbing her arm when she was walking away from you towards the way from where that scream came.

"Where the hell do you think you are going?" You pulled her back looking at her with furrowed eyebrows who was still trying to look through the woods while flashing the torch.

"Lia!" You quickly pushed her hand down that was holding the torch and glared at her.

"We should quickly get back to cabin. Come on." You dragged her hand wanting to leave this spot but Lia just pulled out her hand from yours and glared back at you.

"Y/n, don't tell me we are leaving that girl who maybe is in danger. She might need our help."

Your throat dried as you realised what she was doing and hell no way you are going to let her go and search for that unknown person who screamed in the middle of a forest at night.

"Nobody needs our help Lia. It must be an animal. We are going and that's it."
Grabbing her hand again, you started to walk down the path but Lia tugged on your hand making you stop.

You looked back at her as she pointed at the left side of you. Following her gaze, you remained silent and carefully heard the low sound of someone or something groaning.

Before you could process anything, Lia has already pulled her hand out of your grip and was following the sound in the woods making you panic.

"Lia! Don't!" You yelled at her and followed her who doesn't seem to listen to your shouting and kept walking deep in the woods towards the sound that has stopped.

Your legs came to a halt when Lia finally stopped walking. You grasped her shoulder to face her but then you noticed something that shook you to the core.

Under the light of torch on ground, there was a poodle of bright crimson blood smeared with some scratching marks on the ground. Near the blood, there was an earing that was shining under the light covered in blood as well.

Looking at the scene in front of you, your mind flashed the night when you and Yoongi got to know about the murder of the kid in that house.
Thinking about that, your whole body started shaking as shivers went down your spine.

"Is that human blood? Did an animal attacked the girl?" Lia questioned while looking at the gory scene.

"I-I don't know. It....it can be a murder too." Unknowingly, words slipped out of your mouth as Lia looked at you with wide eyes when realization hit her.

All this time she thought an animal has attacked that person and they need to help her. She never thought about someone killing the girl in middle of the forest.

"I..I am calling police." You stuttered and with your shaky hands you tried to call the police but you noticed there was no network in this area.

"Lia. There is no network. Wait."
You said without looking at her and tried to walk a little away keeping your eyes on the internet bar.

Sighing in relief when the network connetcted, you turned around to look at Lia but your heart dropped dead when she wasn't there on her spot.
She was completely gone from your sight.

"L-Lia...Lia!"
You shouted and frantically looked around for her with your heart beating like crazy as your mind was corrupted by so many bad scenarios.

"On my God!" You yelled in frustration and worriedness after not finding her and quickly dialed the first number while still looking around.

Before you could bring the phone near your ear, you were suddenly grabbed from behind whose arm circled around your neck taking you in a headlock.

You screamed at the person as the phone fell from your hand while trying to get away from the man. Thrashing around and trying to hit the man, he forcefully placed a cloth on your nose making your eyes widened.

He was making you smell chloroform.

You held your breath and violently shook your head to get away from man's grip but he tightened his arm around your neck choking you badly as you coughed out loud. Unfortunately, you gasped at the lack of oxygen and took a breath in along with choloform.

The man left your neck as you fell down on the ground with your vision getting hazy and blurry. You tried to stand up but you weren't able to balance your body. Your eyelids were getting heavy by each second. You tried so hard to keep them opened and stand up again, but it was too late.

Your blurry eyes wandered towards the bright screen of the phone lying away from you as you tried to reach it, but before you can even crawl towards it your eyes closed taking you in a deep slumber.

The man grabbed onto your arm and dragged you away from the place disappearing in the darkness of the woods only leaving the silence of aftermath except the low sound of the phone saying -

The person you are trying to reach is not answering. Please try again later.

~To Be Continued

_________________________________________