The Last Call | An Iz*One Journey

Chapter 34: Help Wanted

Nako's POV

"Help... Me." As we all gathered around Chaeyeon, she muttered these words - what appeared to have been left behind by Yuri through morse code. A few of us drew in astonished breaths - inferring that Yuri had been taken against her will.

"Yuri wrote that?" Sakura asked, still doubtful of Chaeyeon's epiphany as she swiped the note out of her hand. "She did," Sakura answered herself, "look - there's even her cursive style of writing in the dots and dashes." she pointed out. 

"Well, that means we gotta find her!" I blurted out, wondering where and who had taken away my closest friend - the hamster whom had always helped me with my Korean, singing classes, and many other things...

"Who knows what happened to her..." Eunbi mumbled to herself, though audible enough for us to interpret. 

"Well, what do we do now?" Yena asked, looking up to the leader for an order. 

"Should we split up and find Yuri? I don't think we can just abandon Minju and all go out in search for her..." Chaewon reckoned, "Besides... we have to be prepared for the worst case scenario..."

"We're definitely not going to let that happen." Hyewon put her foot on the ground, determined that we will find Yuri no matter what it takes. She turned to the clock - 7 hours remaining, before help arrives to get us. They would not wait for long - as Eric had explained that the radiation on the mountain could leak to the rescuers and the helicopter structure and spread back on mainland. 

"Alright, let's calm down and think. Where would she have gone?" Circled around the table, we all put our heads together, coming up with all the possibilities of where Yuri could have gone. 

"What about the radio station? Could that be one possibility?" Someone suggested.

"I doubt so - there's nothing that can be used there aside from the radio equipment."

"Are there other cabins on the mountain?"

"Okay stop, everyone." Chaeyeon held up her hands in a paused moment, signaling for everyone to put aside their incessant questioning and think rationally. "We wouldn't have any idea where Yuri could have gone, and it would take too much time to comb the mountains and look for any other places of settlement." She stated factually. 

"You're right. Instead, maybe we should look for any other hints Yuri had left for us to pick up." Eunbi added. "Since we know now that Yuri went against her will, let's see what other signs she had given us to follow her." 

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(5 hours to extraction)

"There's nothing here!" Yujin yelled in frustration, tugging at her hair in a crazed manner. "This is hopeless." 

"Wait, there's something I don't understand." Wonyoung asked, garnering the attention of everyone who had been busy searching for clues leading to Yuri's location. I hailed for Hyewon and Yena who were trudging around the outside of the cabin for clues, to come back and listen to what Wonyoung had to say. 

"Earlier, Chaewon- and Chaeyeon-unnie, you said that the unnies didn't drink any alcohol last night?" The unnies looked at each other warily, but agreed that they had not found or shared any liquor in private - or even kept it unknown from the maknaes. "Then how did we all pass out at the same time?"

"Wonyoung's right - I thought usually Sakura-unnie would stay up quite late playing games- oh wait, nevermind. Isn't Hitomi a light sleeper?" I pointed out, directing my gaze towards her.

"It was strange... I felt very tired all of a sudden while talking to Chaewon-unnie - So I decided to just take a seat up against the wall. I must have passed out without even realising." She recounted, rubbing her temple with her hand sorely.