𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐋. ☐

PROLOGUE.

Han Jisung wasn't an idiot.

He was aware of this, but apparently, his friends needed to constantly be reminded of it. Because as hard as he tried to finally get a word in the conversation they were holding, they laughed him off.

"I really think this is more dangerous than you think," He pushed, making a sad attempt at having his voice heard.

"Be quiet, Jisung," Hajoon scoffed, waving him off half-assedly. "Anyways, as I was saying, I'm planning on going in there tonight. Who's coming with me?"

The blond standing beside him, Kim Siwoo, straightened his posture. He had a cocky grin plastered on his face, "I know I am. All of us are, right?"

His friends all exchanged murmurs and chuckles, all agreeing to the (deadly) plan that Hajoon had put into place. Once all of them had spoken up, a few students looked towards him.

"Are you in on this?" Hajoon narrowed his eyes, doing a horrible job at hiding the knowing smirk growing on his face. "If you miss out on this, you'd be a fucking loser. You know that, right?"

"And you'll be fucking dead," Han Jisung hissed, standing up with a wretched screech of his chair. He listened as his classmates snickered amongst themselves, before promptly walking out of the club's classroom.

Jisung never liked leadership in a friend group. He found it to be ridiculous, and frankly, it opened up a power trip for whoever people trusted enough to lead them. Leadership in general was ridiculous, but he had made an attempt to tolerate it here, as Na Hajoon was the president of the club he had reluctantly joined - the athletics club.

Jisung was fairly confident it was made on a whim simply for the students to have more time to talk to each other. None of them could truly be described as athletic, let alone sporty enough to found a club surrounding it. It was laughably fake.

The few that were genuinely active had dropped the club about a week in, as Jisung now wished he'd done. Lee Felix, he remembered, was one of them. He'd moved on to focus on dancing anyways, but Jisung was fairly confident his dance group was only partially factoring into him leaving.

He quickly closed the door behind him as he walked out, making a point to slam it. The clipboard pinned to the door rattled indignantly as he did so, screaming the schedule of whatever teacher had decided to sponsor the club.

He let out a deep, frustrated sigh as he walked forward a bit, deciding to lean against the wall to lower his anger.

The plan that Na Hajoon had pushed onto everyone was utterly ridiculous. The senior must've held some form of hero complex, because that seemed to be the only explanation for the journey he put into place.

On the outskirts of school campus, stretching onwards past the horizon, was the Yellow Wood. Jisung wasn't quite sure where the name originated from, as the trees remained a deep, looming green all year round. The most color he'd seen was the neon caution tape that used to wrap around a few of the trees, but it was removed for some reason.

The Yellow Wood had seemed relatively normal when he started attending the school. It was a typical forest, despite the absence of any animals inside. But with every passing month, week, even, the patch of untouched land felt stranger and stranger.

Every time his gaze would travel over to the labyrinth of trees, it became harder to look away. An odd feeling crept over his shoulders, holding him in place. He would've described it as his fight or flight kicking in, if he wasn't entirely confident that he would've broken into a sprint if that were the case.

The first time he truly paid any mind to this feeling was when the disappearances happened. It started off as one student, joking about how he was going to see what was inside of the forest. He snuck out of his dorm room one night, half a bottle of alcohol in one hand, and flashlight in the other.

The school didn't pay much attention to it. Jisung agreed with the ignorance; you let a drunk man into a forest at midnight, and he goes missing. It made perfect sense. But a few more missing persons surfaced after that.

Reckless jocks, girls trying to impress someone, overall idiocy from the students on campus.

Then, slowly, the absences got worse. The stories began to fall apart, and ends stopped connecting. Some students began to worry that the Yellow Wood was a bigger problem than previously established. And when an avid member of the student council disappeared, the school administration finally agreed.

But the worst one, by far, was when the police sent to investigate never returned.

So now, Jisung's only friends were setting up a death trap for themselves to go rescue everyone who'd become lost in the forest. It was absurd, and utterly terrifying. He'd made an attempt to mask his fear with his frustration and anger, but he lost hope in that as soon as he leaned against the wall, realizing his heart was pounding in his ears.

He could still hear his friends talking in the classroom, and he pressed his eyes shut in an attempt to block them out. His hands were trembling, and he slid down into a sit in an act of defeat. A part of him was fearing for the students, and the sensible part of him was laughing at his empathy.

The boys had shown him nothing but disdain, and they were about to pay the price for that.

And Jisung was to have no part in it.