Inside Park Manor • SKZ horror au

Chapter 3

A small pile of handwritten letters from Park Manor were stacked neatly on the kitchen table. Everyone had received a handwritten job offer from the manor, everything written neatly in black ink. Everyone except for Chan.

    After receiving the job offer, Hyunjin had immediately left, leaving behind nothing but a hastily written note. The others took their time leaving but always left the same day. Everyone was determined to find out what was wrong with Jisung.

    When the video calls with the others were over, Chan was forced to accept the fact that he was alone. He was impatient counting the days until their return, waiting for the day when the house would be full again. Why had the Parks offered jobs to everyone but him?

    His phone vibrated beside him, resulting in him quickly scooping it up. It was a video call request from the others. He accepted the request, their faces filling his screen. Many things immediately struck him as wrong.

    Jisung and Hyunjin were missing. Felix and Changbin looked worse for the wear, just as Jisung had before he fell off the grid. Seungmin was acting uncharacteristically paranoid, but everyone tried their best to look cheerful.

    "Where's Jisung and Hyunjin?" Chan asked, unable to look over their absence. They tried to redirect the conversation, but he wouldn't allow it.

    "Jisung did something that Mother didn't like, and Hyunjin is busy with the children," Jeongin said, speaking as quickly as possible when he mentioned Jisung.

    "The kids are pieces of shit I feel bad-" Changbin cut himself off, the others staring at him with horrified expressions.

    "Changbin, shut up. What if Father hears?" Felix said in a hushed whisper.

    "Do you want to end up like Jisung?" Minho added critically.

    "Guys, what's going on?" Chan demanded, growing more suspicious by the second.

    "It's nothing, Channie!" Jeongin replied quickly. "We need to go."

    Before he could even get out a proper goodbye, the call had already ended, leaving him alone with his thoughts. Mother? Father? It seemed to him that they were using those terms more out of fear than of respect. What did they mean that Jisung had done something that Mother didn't like?

    He considered calling the police multiple times. Even if they wouldn't say it, something was very wrong. 'Mother' and 'Father' had to be mistreating them in some way. But if something was wrong they would let him know, right?

    Around two hours had passed before another call request popped up on his screen. Was this to make up for the short call earlier? He picked up to see Seungmin alone in a dark room. It looked like he was in the basement of the manor and he kept looking behind him as if someone was after him.

    "Chan, Mother and Father want to kill us. Father has done something terrible to Hyunjin and Jisung and I think they've taken Jeongin. I don't have time to explain but please come save us," Seungmin begged. The sound of footsteps were growing increasingly louder behind him.

    "Don't call the police, they won't help." Someone grabbed Seungmin by the neck, causing him to drop the phone. "Chan, hurry!"

    The final thing he saw was a shoe coming
down on the phone before the call ended.

Maybe it was already too late.