I Think I Wanna Marry You

Seven: 너도 솔직해지길 우리 특별해지길

Chapter Seven: 너도 솔직해지길 우리 특별해지길 (Just Be Honest, We Are Special)

Suddenly, a trap door beside Joy opened. A bloodied face appeared while growling ferociously.

"OPPAAA!" Joy's shriek reached an inhuman pitch towards the end of the word as she closed her eyes and ducked her head, leaning towards his chest, as if seeking comfort but too afraid to initiate skinship. At the same time, Sungjae screamed and became as a pale as a sheet, having nearly jumped out of his skin with fright, helplessly looking at Joy cowering into him.

Instinctively, Sungjae wrapped an arm around her back, drawing her closer into himself, and hurried the both of them away, deeper into the dark hallway. His eyes continued to dart around nervously, trying to spot moving shadows to anticipate when to close his eyes should they pop up, but there were none.

Instead, they both tripped over a metal square protruding out of the floor. Sungjae pulled Joy into a tight hug to brace themselves for impact while they found their balance. As they were stumbling around, Joy's foot stepped onto the metal plate and with a loud thud from within the walls, the hallway started shifting. The two of them looked around, confused, wondering what was happening. By the time the noise stopped, they realised they had stepped onto a trapdoor that had shifted two stone pillars which blocked off the way they came as well as closed them in from moving forward.

They were now trapped within four walls. When the whirling sound of machinery finally stopped, a dim light from the corner of the room came on.

"For wandering into our home, you are now prisoner. You have one minute to escape this room, or be doomed to live here with us forever!" A noise that sounded like four hoarse voices speaking in unison rang out deafeningly, echoing around the room long after they finished their sentence. But as the echoes faded, harsh whispers came in their place, carrying threats and warnings, sometimes sounding like they were spoken right into their ears.

Sungjae clung onto Joy, afraid to move, whining a little bit under his breath.

"Sooyoung-ah, I can't take this. I feel like something is going to come at us."

"Oppa, we have to move, we have to start searching," she said while patting his hand. "Look," she nodded her head towards a timer on the wall next to the dim light. On it were two flashing red number 5s, indicating that they only had fifty-five seconds left to get out of the room.

Unable to do anything but move his eyes, Sungjae looked around the room, noticing for the first time, the huge bookshelf that covered the wall from floor to ceiling.

"The answer must be the bookshelf, come on," he tugged Joy forward, taking timid steps towards the bookshelf.

"Maybe there's a key hidden in a book somewhere," Joy said, and started looking through the books, transferring Sungjae's hand into the crook of her arm and holding it there.

Instead of searching through the books, Sungjae was thinking hard. Ignoring the whispers that that left goosebumps throughout his entire body, he starting assessing the room. Apart from the bookshelf, every wall was bare. There were no other hints of a way out. Which could only mean that their way was through the bookshelf.

The door is behind the shelf. But how...?

His sharp eyes ran along the edges of the shelf. It covered the entire wall, the corners of it fitting right into the length of the wall beside them. There was no way they could leave the room by moving the bookcase.

There has to be another way.

Then he spotted it.

"Joy," his voice was filled with delight and certainty as satisfaction rushed through him, "I found it."