Disclaimer: The "associations" and "qualifications" later in this chapter are not my original work, they are referenced from an ao3 fanfic, and isn't valid real information.
Spencer opened her eyes, she was lying on the sofa. She slowly sat up, there was no one else in their hotel room.
She didn't understand how she ended up here.
To her surprise, she remembered everything that happened, how she blacked-out and those words. But what happened in-between was unclear.
She walked out into the hallways and knocked on Hyunjin and Jeongin's door.
"Yes-" Hyunjin looked up from his phone.
"Ah-" he yelled, "guys she woke up!"
The other 8 rushed to the narrow door.
Felix was the first one, without saying anything he hugged her tight. No one said anything.
"Felix..." her voice grew dry, "I-I'm sorry."
"No," he said, "I was just worried, there's nothing you should be sorry about, I thought you were never coming back, I thought you j-just left me, left all of us..."
"I'm good now, and I promise that I won't ever leave."
They all sat around the room, and Spencer told them about what happened, "so how did I end up here again?"
"Well, Jisung found a note in his room on the nightstand, it said to come to this abandoned garage yesterday, when we all went, no one was there, as we walked in deeper into the storage spaces, there you were, sitting on the floor, unconscious," Seungmin paused, "we tried to do all we could to wake you up, but as you can see none of it worked."
None of them said anything, slowly digesting the new information.
"Wait!" Jisung suddenly yelled, "remember how Spencer's plane got hit? And "the mountain lions" did it, could they be involved in this too?"
"That's totally possible!" Jeongin whispered.
"Guys, according to my information though, they could be part of it, but they are definitely not the one behind it."
They all looked at Chan.
"I mean, you should be right," Seungmin agreed with Chan, "they might be a part of it, but they certainly aren't powerful and respected by the UTC enough to be the leader of this."
"Seo is dead, he's the only one that knows about the real leader; the two guys don't know because they aren't as high of a level in this. All the clues to trace are gone, and we can't just guess now after what Spencer has told us about the nasty 'game' the leader is playing with us," Minho sighed.
Suddenly, in Spencer's mind, she remembered about the hand-written note, "wait, I think this might help."
She ran back to her room and pulled out the slip from her bag. She ran back.
She showed it to Chan and they leaned in to see what it was.
"We should check for fingerprints and other clues," Hyunjin said, taking out a kit from Chan's special suitcase.
Moments after examining, Hyunjin spoke, "nope, there are no fingerprints."
"Where else would it have come from then?" Jisung asked, the others gave puzzled looks.
"Whoever put this must've been very careful, they probably wore gloves," Chan said, he didn't look as surprised as the others, "Dr. Shin showed us cases where the criminal didn't leave fingerprints and how to keep tracing without that clue."
"And how can we find out?" Minho asked.
"That's why we have to ask Dr. Shin," Chan pulled out his Mac.
They sat around the laptop, staring in the ringing screen.
She answered, "hey! What brought y'all here?"
"Dr. Shin," Seungmin started, "are you aware of what happened to Dr. Seo?"
"He's gone on a secret mission, if you wanted to talk to him, just call him."
"Well," Chan lowered his gaze, unable to face her, "he..."
He told the whole story, the lady's expressions changed fast, her heart probably sank, too.
"Are you serious?" she stuttered.
"Afraid so."
She sighed lightly, "We were the last two in the base who qualified for the Incheon Professional Military Educator level 10 and earned the South Korea National S&F Championship for the past ten years consecutively."
They all nodded in respect, the I-PME is the qualification for educators all around the base, approximately 300. All educationists level 1-7 are respectively called Advisers, level 8 are Instructors, level 9 are Professors and level 10--the top level--are Doctors. The hardness of levels adds up after level 5.
Dr. Seo, Dr. Shin, and Dr. Song who was never seen again after departing to North America 25 years ago at the age of 23. There was also only one female educator--out of 5 total--at level 9, Professor J.E., who was sent by the headquarters to assist after Dr. Song was disconnected 2 years after the relocation, she never came back or said a word either.
SKNSF stands for South Korea National Shooting and bare-hand Fighting, it is a league attended by only PME qualifiers all around Korea, I-PME being the top city, Busan-PME second, and Gwangju-PME third out of the 15 participating cities. There are championships every year, Seo and Shin held the record for ten years straight.
"We need help with this note," Chan has already told her about all they know about this slip of paper. He has submitted a copy of this to the headquarters.
Dr. Shin pulled up a file of the copy, she examined it carefully. It was covered only by Spencer's fingerprints since she held it for a long time.
"What is this paper made of?" she suddenly asked.
"The materials?" Woojin was caught off-guard by the question.
She lightly nodded.
He scanned the paper under a mini printer-like machine.
"Look!" he raised his voice, the others hovered above the small screen on the scanner, "it has more materials than original paper: latex, pumice, and other substances the scanner cannot determine."
"Pumice?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Do you have a candle nearby?"
There are candles in the bathroom of the luxurious hotel rooms.
"Yes."
"Light one up."
Jeongin fetched the soy candle from the bathroom and lit it up with matchsticks provided in the rooms.
"Now hover the written side of the paper 1.5-2 inches above the tip of the flame."
"What?"
"Do as I say," she instructed.
He held the paper above the flame.
"Remove after 5 seconds."
He took it off and turned it so the words faced him.
The lightly-colored, messy handwriting "Don't trust who you trusted before" turned into rows of neat, printed sentences.
I will clap for you in finding out the secret of this paper,
Here is the first hint: don't follow the sniper, if you do, there are punishments you cannot foresee,
Second hint: the ones you can trust are the ones that are very close but you are purposely avoiding them.
More hints will come in various forms, it's up to you to find them.
There was a creepy clown face hand-drawn at the bottom.
~~~~~
credit to ao3 writers. i cusre couldn have came up with all the names by myself lmao
epilogue on Christmas
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unnamed // stray kids ff COMPLETED
Fanfiction"My arrival was an accident; our love was, too." A group of nine training to work for the government met a girl who changed all their lives, specifically one of them was impacted forever... with love and fights and unreal pasts ♡ Highest Rank: #...
