Code Black...

All students must head back to their dorms immediately. No student should come out of their room until they're told to in an email sent by the university.

Code black...

"Will this person shut up already? I'm pretty sure that everyone within a five-mile radius has heard the announcement," Joanna mutters angrily, clearly fed up after hearing the guy's annoying voice repeating the same thing over and over for the past five minutes.

To be honest, I can't blame her. "What even is code black? I didn't even know that universities have codes like these." I ask curiously as Joanna, Blake and I speed walk towards our dorms.

Judging by the nearly empty hallways - save for a few students here and there - we along with the other club members are probably the last people still in the hallways. However, before you start to say that we're not taking the situation seriously or that we're slacking off, I have to remind you that the art club's room is on the last floor of building 'Von', which is at least a ten-minute walk from the dorms' buildings, so no one can blame us.

"We didn't have these codes until last year," Blake says bitterly. "And code black means that there's either an intruder on campus, which I'm guessing is not the case, or that something serious has happened, and they don't want the students to know just yet."

Clearly, someone's not happy with these codes.

Or maybe he's not happy because of the reason those codes were put in the first place.

Bingo!

How didn't I think of that? If these codes were only put last year, then that means that they were probably put after something happened - like a student getting kidnapped from the middle of the campus.

But it looks like Joanna didn't figure that out because she looked clueless. "Are there other codes? And why would they put these codes last year only? Why not when the university first opened?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you both later," he responds before muttering under his breath. "I can't believe that they didn't tell you what happened before you came here."

Joanna looked at him strangely before letting the subject go when she saw that he didn't want to elaborate. Entering the hallway where our dorms are located, we bid each other goodbye and then enter our respective rooms.

Shutting the door behind me, I lock it when I hear rustling coming from the direction of Lena's bed.

"What do you think happened?" I hear her asking from behind me.

"Blake said that code black indicates that there's either an intruder or that something serious has happened," I sigh as I throw myself on my bed.

"What kind of a university needs to have such a code?" she asks while scrunching her face in confusion.

"The kind where a student gets kidnapped from her dorm."

"You're right," she says while laughing. "I can't believe that this university had the nerve to not tell us about that before we got accepted. Do you know that we didn't get to come on a tour last year during admissions because that girl who lived here got kidnapped around that time?"

Hearing her say that made me sit up and look at her with wide eyes. "What? Are you sure?"

"Yes, Riley told me. We're kind of friends now." She was looking at me waiting for some kind of an explosion, so I made sure to keep my face emotionless.

It's not like I am not hurt that she became friends with Riley because I am to be truthful. It's just that I realized that Lena has every right to be friends with whomever she wants even if that person can't stand me. So, I ignored that piece of information and continued talking normally.

"How didn't they shut the university down or something like that?" I ask bewildered.

Lena looked at me intently for a while, I'm guessing to try and figure out if I'm truly okay with her friendship with Riley. She must have found what she was looking for because she shook her head and blinked before answering my question.

"I think the better question would be, how didn't we hear about this on the news? Right?"

"Yes, you're right. Maybe this university is not as enchanting as we've thought it would be for more than two years."

Those words linger in the room because we both knew that they were true. We were both thinking about whether we've made the right decision by coming here without doing our full research on the university.

"You're right, they don't even have sororities and fraternities. We should have taken that as a warning when we first knew."

...

"Don't you think it's creepy?" Lena asks from her position by the window.

We've been in the dorm for the past four hours, which means that lunchtime has already passed. Thankfully, they brought us the food in the room instead of letting us starve like I honestly thought they would.

That was how Lena became ten pounds richer after winning the bet that we had going on. I bet that because of this code, they would forget to get us food today while she said that they would. That's why when the food was delivered outside our door with a knock, Lena started doing her winning dance while happily shouting at me to pay up.

It's safe to say that I'm a little upset that I've lost because I'm a sore loser, and let me tell you that I'm not even ashamed of admitting it.

You sure? I remember you almost burst with anger when the boy, Mint, said that.

Okay, maybe I'm a little ashamed of it, but it doesn't matter. Mint didn't have the right to tell me that. I mean who tells someone they've just met that they're a sore loser? That's just rude and inconsidera-

"Aurora!" Lena shouted. "I've been calling you for the past ten minutes," she continues when I look at her confusedly.

"Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking," I smile sheepishly at her.

"Really? I didn't notice," she says sarcastically before frowning. "Don't you think it's creepy?" She repeats while looking out of our window. Luckily, our window was looking right at the long driveway leading to the entrance of the university, so sooner or later we'll know what's going on.

"What is?"

"The fact that we're living in a room where a girl got kidnapped."

"Yes, it is, but it's not like we had the choice of any room, and we chose this one. We didn't have any other options."

"I know, but still. Knowing that this happened creeps me out whenever I am alone in the room. I fear..." she trails off.

"You fear what?" I ask as I look up from the book that I was currently reading.

"Oh my god....come here right this moment," she shrieks, her voice coming out squeaky with panic.

Lena feeling panicked makes me feel panicked, period. Lena is the type of girl who's always chill unless something really angers her or frightens her, and that happens rarely. So her panicking frightens me because I know that it must be something serious.

"What is it?" I ask as I hurriedly move across the room to the window. "Why are there so many police cars? Are those...are those coroners?"

"Why would they need coroners in a university?" Lena thinks out loud, her voice still coming out squeaky, but this time it was also laced with fear.

"They must have come to have a meal at our amazing cafeteria," I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm, without even thinking. "Why do you think? They're obviously here to remove a dead body."

However, when I feel Lena's deadly, no pun intended, gaze on me, I flinch then quickly apologize before we both turn to look at the scene in front of us.

It was like a scene straight out of a movie. The red and blue lights of the police cars flashing all over the place with one of the policemen talking to a woman, who had her back to our window, while the others were looking down at the ground and shaking their heads sympathetically.

Then the real showstopper appeared drawing a loud gasp out of both Lena and me.

A black body bag was being wheeled out of one of the trails of the woods by a coroner, it was the kind of a situation where you wanted to look away and close your eyes, but you just couldn't. I didn't want to see someone, probably a student, getting wheeled in a body bag, yet I couldn't look away.

Seeing that scene made me feel a heavy feeling, a bad one, but when I saw the woman run to the body bag and collapse right beside it, the feeling got even more worse. It was a heartbreaking moment, seeing a full-grown woman break down and cry as if she was a toddler was one of the worst things to see.

But, little did I know that the breaking down and crying wasn't the worst part. No, it was when she unzipped the body bag even though the policemen and the coroners were clearly trying to stop her.

The moment went by in a slow-motion, she slowly unzipped the bag with one hand while the other was busy wiping away her tears, but it was of no use, as the tears kept spilling down her face like a waterfall.

I will never forget the heart-shattering scream that the woman let out as soon as she unzipped the zipper to reveal the face of whoever that person was. Even though the woman was standing really far away from us, we both heard her scream, albeit it was faint.

The scream was from deep within her heart. It was like seeing the face of the person hidden within the body bag unleashed something at the moment because suddenly, the heart-wrenching scream died down, and the women's face hardened. However, the tears continued to escape down her face and the sobs continued to erupt from her mouth.

It didn't have to take a genius to realize that this woman felt as if her world was shattering right in front of her eyes, yet she had to keep strong. If my chest was tightening and I was feeling this bad, what was this woman feeling?

I'm sure that the scene she saw clawed at her heart, deep enough that it will continue bleeding forever. It's a wound that will never heal, it will continue bleeding until it can no more, and that's when she'll shatter. She'll break down into tiny little pieces that will be beyond repair.

I was drawn out of my thoughts when I heard a knock on the door, so I forced my eyes to look away from what was happening outside and wiped the tear that escaped from my eyes. Looking at Lena, I could tell - with just one glance - that she was in a much worse state than me to the point where I don't even think that she heard the knock.

Making my way to the door, I opened it only to find no one outside. Scoffing, I started to shut the door thinking that it was someone knocking on people's doors because they're bored; however, just as I was about to slam the door shut, I noticed a bottle of water on the floor.

I bent down and got it before shutting the door. I was about to put it down on the desk and go back to the window when I saw that there was a sticky note stuck to the bottle. Feeling the dread fill my heart, I removed it from the bottle slowly. After making sure that Lena was not looking at me, I read the tiny letters written on the note.

Let me tell you that you will be the one in the body bag if you don't follow every single instruction written on this note.

As soon as they lift the code, I want you to take the journal along with everything in it, and then go to official trail number five and leave the journal in the tree marked with the 'X' sign.

I will be watching, so don't even think about doing anything stupid.

I will see you soon...

xoxo

-S

Heyy!

So, do you think S will go along with their threat? And what do you think will happen next.

Also beware, the next chapter is an intense one.

Till the next chapter..