What was happiness quickly became a nightmare as an eerie silence took hold of their surroundings. They had been walking by empty roads, quiet houses, and closed stores, all the way to their school's gate which had no gatekeeper or student behind it.

  The school was quiet, too quiet for a school to be especially when the school's periods had yet to start, but behind the school's windows, shadows shaped like people could be seen from afar.

  Lee Hyunwoo, Han Suho, and Jake were nervously standing outside the gate, afraid to go in, and Jake wasn't slow in voicing that out loud.

  "I don't think we should go in…"

  "I agree, I don't have a good feeling about this."

  Hyunwoo agreed with Jake without a second thought. The ominous aura from the building put them all on their toes, but Han Suho had a different view of the situation.

  “We should go in.”

  Hyunwoo and Jake stared at their friend in disbelief. Thinking he had gone insane, Jake and Hyunwoo immediately disagreed, but Han Suho wasn’t one to budge.

  “Are you insane, can’t you see how weird this place is?!”

  “Suho-ssi, we should think about this more.”

  Han Suho didn’t wait long for the two to make up their mind and already started walking towards the building’s entrance, and just when he was about to cross the school’s gate, Hyunwoo’s hand caught his wrist and pulled him.

  Han Suho turned to face the two, a cold expression was drawn all over his face.

  “Suho-ssi, what Jake’s saying is true. This is too weird to overlook.”

  “Finally, common sense!” Said Jake with his arms crossed as he stared into Han Suho’s eyes.

  Han Suho, who was focused on guaranteeing their safety first, sighed as he realized the two won’t budge no matter what unless he explained his point of view.

  “Hyunwoo-ssi, Jake-ssi, whatever’s out there, it can’t be worse than what’s in this school.”

  Han Suho began explaining. The friends’ gazes were focused on each other, and he wanted to end finish and get moving as soon as possible.

  “Think about it. This is an overpopulated school in an overpopulated area in an overpopulated country, but so far, we’ve yet to encounter any living organism, be it a man, woman, child, or even a stray cat.”

  Hyunwoo unconsciously let go of Han Suho’s wrist. He knew what Han Suho said was true.

  ‘The neighbors that usually greeted us on our way to school, the old man who’d smoke and cuss at us if he saw us late to school like today, he never missed a single day, but today, there’s no one…’

  Jake still didn’t stand back after hearing Han Suho’s reasoning and argued back.

  “Man, even gang traps aren’t this quiet! But, fine. We’ll go in, but we’re leaving immediately the moment anything happens!”

  Jake spoke with his finger pointed at Han Suho’s face to which Han Suho gave a nod in response.

  The group, slowly but carefully, walked forward, crossing the school’s gate in an excruciatingly slow momentum. It was then the gate started glowing like it had been waiting for the three to finally make up their mind.

  The opened gate closed with a thundering roar, and the glowing effect on the gate swiftly latched onto the fences surrounding the whole school. The gate faded away and in its place the fences connecting before rising towards the sky like a bullet, connecting at the center above the school, the fences now appeared like a translucent, glowing bird cage.

  “What on earth… Bleegh?”

  “Ugh?”

  The group suddenly was hit with a nauseatic headache as bright colors appeared everywhere, Jake and Hyunwoo who couldn’t handle the feeling threw up while Han Suho, barely holding himself together, threw a powerful kick at the dome’s border.

  “Tch? it’s hard.”

  The powerful kick sent an echo that contended with the roar the gate made, but even after receiving such a kick from Han Suho, the dome was unphased.

  Outside the translucent cage-like dome, countless other domes appeared in a flashing light, slowly illuminating the sky that had gone dark in a dark green glow. The eerie silence that had once taken hold of their surroundings turned into horrible screams and cries for help resounding from every corner.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Help me! Help?”

  “Monsters! No! Stay away! No?”

  Bloody screams continuously faded and new ones appeared. Outside on the street were people that weren’t visible before, running away with tears and snot running down, they were gathering where the gate once was.

  “Let me in!”

  “Open the damn gate! I saw you get in!”

  “Please! At least let my daughter in!”

  A random lady, unrecognizable from the tears, held her 3-year-old daughter at the dome’s border, but the dome was still unphased.

  It was then a burning black ball of flames shot out randomly from the skin at where they were standing. An enormous hound-like monster burning in black flames appeared behind them, his roar alone made the people crowding in front of the dome fall to the ground in fear. The hound swung his claws at the crowd, slicing a quarter of them like butter.

  “Run!”

  “They are everywhere?”

  Shortly after, more hounds appeared and the crowd became a puddle of blood and limbs that fell from the hounds’ mouths, their sharp teeth crushed indiscriminately, turning everything into fine dust. But they weren’t done, soon the hounds diverted their gaze into the group as one leaped, crashing into the dome.

  The dome glowed brighter where the hound crashed into, a running electric current that wasn’t there when Han Suho clashed with the dome appeared, turning the hound into smoke as the black flame burning on it got extinguished.

  The group stared blankly at what happened.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Jake couldn’t retort at Han Suho’s remark and just stood still, his eyes glued on the blood puddle left by the ‘Hell Hounds’ before they scattered away.

  “Let’s go, we don’t have time to waste.”

  Han Suho naturally claimed the position of the leader.

  “I’ll only follow you for now since you were right…” said Jake, unsure of what has happened.

  The horrible sight of other people getting massacred in front of them affected them heavily, all but Hyunwoo.

  Hyunwoo was still staring outside of the dome, the screams that were once far now became closer and closer, finally being heard from everywhere, and the school was no exception. The nonsensical happening bewildered him, monsters that were supposed to only exist in novels and games appeared in reality.

  He was focused on the scene of the hounds ripping through the crowd of people with one thought in his mind.

  ‘The blood, the stench… They looked too real. The monster's fur was detailed and there is a huge hole where he landed. This is real!’

  Hyunwoo didn’t want to accept what he saw, but it was too real for him to deny it anymore. Han Suho and Jake were making their way into the school’s entrance, but Hyunwoo was still at the dome’s border.

  He didn’t follow them but kept looking at the border, his hand slowly rising toward the border. It was then a powerful electric current hit him, Zzztt?!

  Hyunwoo felt enormous pain as hell backward on the ground, it was too painful that he couldn’t let a single sound or a whimper out.

  ‘Am I going to die like the hound?!’ thought Hyunwoo while his other hand clutched his wrist.

  But instead of turning into dust like the hell hound, the pain instead slowly subsided and his hand glowed in a dark green color, similar to the color of the dome. He kept staring at his hand in amazement as it slowly went back to normal.

  ‘Did this happen to Han Suho-ssi too?’

  Hyunwoo got immersed in thought again until they called out to him from in front of the school’s entrance.

  “Hyunwoo! Hurry up!”

  “Ah, coming!”

  Hyunwoo quickly got up while dusting his back and ran to his friends.

  ‘Should I tell them about what just happened?’ Thought Hyunwoo on his way.

  ‘I don’t want to add more things working to divide us when we should be sticking together.’ Hyunwoo didn’t want to take his friends away from the main goal, their survival. And ultimately decided on a different approach.

  “Took you long enough. What were you doing just standing there?” asked Jake.

  Hyunwoo took a glance at Jake before answering.

  “It’s nothing. By the way, Suho-ssi, did anything happen when you kicked the dome?”

  Han Suho stared at Hyunwoo for a second before he answered him.

  “No, why are you asking? did you find anything special about it?” Han Suho gazed into Hyunwoo’s eyes as he asked, but Hyunwoo lied to them without hesitation.

  “Did you find a way out?!” added Jake.

  “No, nothing for me too. Besides, why would you want to go out after seeing those hell spawns?” replied Hyunwoo to the both of them. His lips moved with difficulty, but he swallowed the guilt.

  ‘Sorry, this is for the best,’ Thought Hyunwoo. He quickly diverted his gaze from Han Suho and his eyes moved toward the entrance’s handle, his hands didn’t fail to swiftly follow through and open the door. Hyunwoo pushed the handle and went in as the others followed, he was the first to go in.

  As the group opened the door and went further in the long corridor, a clean bloody scene came into view. The screams didn’t fail to follow them even inside the school, blood stains painted the floor, seeming licked by something.

  “It’s coming this way!”

  “Take it in the other corridor!”

  Three students were running with all of their might through the corridor as heavy footsteps followed after them. The three students slowly came into view, but so did the thing following them.

  “I can’t! It’s too fast! Blee?”

  A long and deformed monster as wide as the corridor ran after the three students, the monster was fast and its huge body didn’t seem to hinder it as it quickly caught up to one of the students. And suddenly a huge mouth-like slit appeared, catching the slowest of the three and eating him whole.