trouble - evnne

19

Upon entering the tent, Tiot was greeted by a bizarre sight. The interior of the tent was littered with large colourful boxes, decorated with vibrant designs. Junhyun eyed the deep red walls of the tent nervously, scouring the area for a way out, but when the tent flap fell shut behind Woojin, the tent sealed up cleanly, trapping them in.

"Cool!" Minseoung wasn't unnerved, clapping his hands together, eager to enjoy some activity that wasn't in a slimy dark tunnel.

"Are those Jack-in-a-boxes?" Keonhee asked as he studied the boxes before them, darting a look at Junhyun before continuing, "Those... aren't really clowns, right?"

"Same difference," Woojin wryly replied, "Their faces are similar enough."

"If they spring out, I swear to god," Junhyun hissed.

"Have we not learnt? You'll jinx it if you said that-" Minseong couldn't even finish being exasperated before one box creaked open and out sprung a face attached to a large coil of metal, the jarring clown image startling them. While Minseoung, Woojin and Keonhee only stumbled for a second, clutching at their chest from the shock, Junhyun had shrieked, throwing himself down to the ground to avoid the clown face.

"Imagine if more of them opened."

"Woojin if you don't shut your mouth-"

With the sound of multiple springs releasing at once, a couple more boxes burst open, clown faces with varying exaggerated features and colours bounced menacingly.

"They're kinda like animatronics. With those faces. And the spring. Maybe they actually are-"

"Haha Woojin, let's be serious now-"

"I'm gonna call it a robot."

"Do whatever you want, my sweet summer child," Minseoung sighed, giving up on Woojin's nonsensical antics.

Keonhee created a stick of ice, adorned with "thorns" and swung it hard at the nearest box, the ice pierced through the wood but didn't break it. "Hm," He only thoughtfully hummed, abandoning the ice stick in the box and watched as his ice crawled up and into the box, wrapping around the metallic spring. That succeeded momentarily, before the robot, as Woojin had coined it, shifted creakily, and the ice was shattered off its surface.

"Cool, cool," Keonhee muttered, so intensely focused on figuring out the mechanics of these things that he didn't notice how Junhyun was on the ground, all but paralysed in fear.

"Junhyun, just think of them as beasts, nothing more," Minseoung encouraged, his face daringly close to another one of the clown heads, bobbing slightly on its spring.

"I'd rather tackle a beast, thank you," Junhyun squeaked out.

"This is not too bad a dungeon!" Woojin remarked, already completely forgetting the previous frightening incident. He dragged his hand over the side of one box, staring right at the clown face as it swivelled to face him, its spring contorting into a shape similar to the body of a snake. The ice speared through the box but only dented it slightly.

"That's annoying," Woojin mumbled.

"Hey, you S-class," Minseoung scolded Junhyun, "Get up or so help me."

Junhyun's face was still a stark white but he clambered to his feet under the scalding stare of his leader. "What's the plan?" Keonhee casually asked after sending a fleet of icicles hurtling towards the boxes, which littered the wooden surfaces but didn't break through.

"I've got nothing," Woojin announced, literally trying to tug the clown head out of the box.

"Woojin, be carefu-" Minseoung couldn't even finish nagging the younger when the clown head jerked upwards sharply, bringing Woojin along into the air. Releasing his grip, Woojin tumbled down, unharmed but startled.

"Hah, fire sure would be nice now, hm?" Keonhee remarked, which earned a disgruntled noise from Woojin.

Junhyun, with a little colour returning to his cheeks, suddenly said, "If we can't burn them, maybe we should try to crush them."

Minseoung cocked his head, eyes fixed on the clown boxes that were stealthily approaching. "Let's try that, then."

Right as they said that, the boxes began to move in a jerky fashion, and much to their disgust, a couple of appendages began to jut out from the boxes, adorably matching the patterns on the boxes as well as the clown faces.

"Oh. They can walk now," Woojin blankly noted.

"Okay, I'll admit it, that is kinda creepy," Keonhee commented uneasily. Shrugging it off, Junhyun got to work right away, flinging a ball of ice the size of a baseball into the air, as it flew, it grew in size. At the same time, Minseoung planted his hands on the ground, a sheet of ice spreading rapidly, cementing the clowns down in their places.

"Aren't you gonna help?" Minseoung spat out as he exerted, "Or are you gonna marvel at the clowns the whole day?"

At once, Keonhee dropped down, fingers splayed against the thick sheet of ice Minseoung had created. Similarly, Woojin began releasing streams of ice that wrapped gracefully around Junhyun's expanding ball of ice. Soon, Minseoung tore his hands from the floor to add on to the ball, which was so large that it started to bulge against the roof of the tent.

Mildly out of breathe, Woojin laughed, "Today sure is a great day to find out if we can survive being crushed by a wall of ice."

"Well, if it works out," Minseoung shook his bangs from his eyes, "We'll live. Junhyun, any time now."

Nodding sharply, Junhyun brought his arms down, and the ball of ice descended grandly, smashing down right onto the Jack-in-a-boxes.

When the ice cleared, the four studied the debris, pleased to see that most had been decimated into smithereens, with shards of wood and deformed springs coating the ground.

One clown face shuddered weakly, about to rise up, so with a final, hard strike, Junhyun brought down the last Jack-in-a-box. "I really hate clowns," Junhyun seethed. "Yup, we can tell," Keonhee nodded cheerfully.

A lid lying abandoned on the ground began to glow suggestively, its clasp linting. So, Minseoung shrugged and pried it open. Within was an inky darkness, Minseong even dipped his hand through, tentatively wriggling his fingers but couldn't figure it out. He looked a little uneasy, but Keonhee pressed on, "We probably should go through it. There isn't any other way out." His gaze flitted to Woojin, who was attempting to puncture the cloth of the tent with multiple spears of ice but to no avail.

"Alrighty then," Junhyun heaved a sigh of relief and tiredness, "Lead the way then."

an: you may be wondering. wtf was i thinking when i wrote this? to be fair, i don't know either.