Tension By Rivalry

Chp 1 : The Day We Were Left Behind

[ ⚠️ TW: Mention of  Suixide ]

10 Years ago
[ Elementary school field trip , Busan Outskirts ]

You can hear children's laughing as they ran around the whole beach playing around . The field trip was loud , happy , messy . Like any other day away from school. Among the chaos that was currently happening, there was two little girls holding hands .

Woo Seulgi ( age 8)
Woo Minjeong (age 6)

They were wearing matching hair clips that their mother gave to them , cheap plastic butterflies with chipped paint. But either way they still liked them.

"Unnie! Look at the frog! It's wearing a hat!" Minjeong said as she was pointing at the frog.

They chased the frog too far . Laughter was slowly turning into silence. Then they looked up , noticing everyone was gone and even the bus that was parked not too long . No voices. No footsteps . After both girls had face realization that nobody was here they both begin to cry , crying out for their mom and dad .

[ Hours later ]

Both girls had moved away from the beach and were now sitting near a flickering light. As people were driving by , that didn't get unnoticed by this one stranger , and she was a social worker.

The social worker was now speaking to an officer on the phone now seeing the two girls looking alone .

"No one has come for them. So it seems , we even tried the number that one of the little girls gave us it's just disconnected" As the social worker was speaking , Seulgi started to hold minjeong hand tightly , trying not to cry .

Behind them the streetlamp was now flickering causing the girls to jump a bit .

Somewhere in the distance, waves crashed again.

Meanwhile the social worker who was now known as "Ms . Han" was now a few feet away from the girls . Her expression had shifted as it got quited on the call , she was starting to get worried .

Minutes passed.

A quiet whoop of a siren was echoed in the distance. Headlights were super bright . Tires rolled across the dirt road, and a police cruiser pulled up beside Ms. Han car. The engine turned off, and a tall officer stepped out, brushing sand off his shoes.

Seo Dong Jae , mid-40s, kind eyes, sharp deep voice.
"Ms. Han?" he asked, approaching.

She nodded. " These are the girls.  Woo Seulgi and Woo Minjeong. They were left behind after a  school field trip. They said they were with a class from Busan Elementary, but the school has no record of them attending today's trip , once i had call them .

The officer than glanced at the girls , he gained thier attention as the girls had set up straighter. Seulgi instanly got up placing herself infront of herself in front of Minjeong not out of fear but out of protection.

"The number seulgi gave me went straight to voicemail and disconnected". Ms Han added.
"No other emergency contacts. No ID tags in their bags. I've called two shelters already  nothing."

Officer Seo Dong Jae took a deep breath he also sighed . " We will keep trying but..". He looked backed at the girls. "They likely have been left unattended for longer than just today".

Ms. Han frowned at that note . " You mean..."

"There's no missing child report filed anywhere in Busan. None matching either of their names." Ms. Han looked back at the girls . They were still sitting very close with each other , watching carefully and watching their back at the same time .  Minjeong was now rubbing her eyes , clearly exhausted.