Skull & Sones

It's the return of Kpopalypse fanfiction!  Please enjoy the following story about Sones, the best fandom in the world ever!

 

*****

INTRODUCTION

It's a hard life being a Sone.  Nobody really understands - or maybe they do and just don't care.

You've been a Sone - a diehard fan of Girls' Generation (SNSD) - ever since you saw them get shunned on TV at their infamous 2008 black ocean.  How dare people be so mean to such a nice bunch of innocent girls with great songs and so much talent?  You wish that you could have been one of the people in the crowd, holding up their pink lightsticks in defiance against the trend of hating SNSD, but you were too young to go to k-pop concerts unsupervised back then, and your parents wouldn't have let you go anyway, after all they think k-pop is stupid.

"Turn the music down!" your mother would yell from downstairs when you were playing "Into The New World" at full volume in your bedroom while doing homework.

"If you're going to blast your music, at least make it something good, not that idol pop shit!" shouted your brother from the next room, in agreement.

You'd think to yourself back then "Fuck, why do family have to be so controlling, can't they just mind their own business and let you do fun stuff?  It's not your fault that they like stupid parent-music that doesn't even have dancing in it."  Things are different now though, eight years later you're a first-year undergraduate university student studying a Bachelor of Arts with a part-time job and you have more autonomy and freedom.  You barely even care at all about the degree or study, you just like University because it means more independence and you get to live away from your irritating family.  It doesn't matter what your parents or anyone else thinks anymore, you'll go to concerts and listen to k-pop at jet-engine levels in your dorm if you want to.

You also feel vindicated that SNSD have climbed to the top of the tree of girl groups and pretty much solidly stayed there.  You think about all the other girl groups that challenged their crown.  At various points, 2NE1, T-ara, Sistar, Wonder Girls and most recently AOA all looked like they had the momentum to one day overtake SNSD in popularity, but it never happened.  Although it seems mean, you're so thankful for the scandals and mishaps that have slowed other groups!  Of course SNSD had their fair share of struggles too, but something about them just meant that they were immune to the broader effects.  Was it their incredible talent, their amazing good looks, the marketing smarts of their agency SM Entertainment, blind luck or fate?  Who can tell, but it's a thought that you return to often at times when you're alone, such as tonight.  You lie in bed pondering this thought, staring up at poster of SNSD you've pinned up across the ceiling, and gradually drift off to sleep.

*****

DAY 1

"Gee gee gee gee, baby baby.... gee gee gee gee, baby baby..." - you reach over and switch off the alarm tone on your mobile phone.  Time to wake up!  You squint at the overly bright screen of your phone when it's still on the charger.  One new message:

A completely unnecessary reminder - you knew all about the meet.  Girls' Generation's next music show appearance is tonight, and every time they do a new song on a music show you gather with your Sone friends after Uni for a mass voting session.  It's tons of fun - you meet up, order pizza, watch the show on a projector and sit in front of computers voting all night.  It might not sound like much fun to an outsider, but even though the tasks are repetitive it generates a special bond between the fanclub members, especially after the show ends and the person who brings the projection gear puts all SNSD's videos on repeat to keep the group motivated, it's like a neat cross between a LAN party and a slumber party except it's on campus and instead of sleeping there's dreamy music, you can't wait!  The message came through on a number you don't recognise though.  It must be one of your friends, but you don't know who.  You quickly text back.

Kristi has a new phone again, you should've guessed.  She's hyperactive and the kind of person who goes through a phone every month, she's always dropping it in the toilet bowl or leaving it on the bus seat.  It's amazing how careless with her phone she is given that she pretty much lives her whole life on it.  You think about how far she must be in debt with the phone company while you prepare some breakfast and then head on over to the main campus building.

Today's first lecture is English literature, it's about Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", a huge fiction book written ages ago that you really don't give a flying crap about but the weight of it makes a good doorstop on windy nights.  You sit in the lecture theatre and listen to the professor prattle on for ages about the characters in the book and take some quick scribble notes.  You've only read about a third of the way through the book so far, but the professor is talking assuming that you've read the whole thing, which means that a lot of what he says is confusing.  He asks the class to open their textbook and consider the first question:

You couldn't even give a shit.  You just want it to be 5pm already so you can start voting with your Sone friends.  It's going to be a long day.

*****

Mid-afternoon and you're between lectures helping set up computers in the classroom that your Sone group books out for their voting session, when Cathy walks in.  Cathy is another university student in your lecture and she isn't a Sone, she likes that skank-hoe group Sistar who you hate because they are all sluts who like anal.  She stares at you with a bitchface that isn't far off her normal expression.

"Hey!  My group booked this room, you can't have it!" she yells at you.

"You can't vote for your slut group here, Sones have got it tonight." you reply, deliberately deadpan just to piss her off.

"Rubbish!"  She waves a bit of paper at you - the booking sheet pinned to the classroom door.  "We've signed this first, and you haven't!"

You look at the paper and she's right, her signature is on it but nobody from your Sone group remembered to sign for the room.  Oh well.  You're going to contest her anyway, why should she ruin your night?  "We book months in advance, and we were here first."

"I'm telling the student union on you!  They'll ban you from here!" she yells, throwing the bit of paper at you and slamming the door behind her as she storms out.  You quickly grab a pen and sign the paper, then stick it back up on the door.  What a bitch.

*****

The rest of the afternoon and evening passes exactly as you thought it would.  You get together with all the Sones in the University (there's enough of you to fill a class) and watch Girls' Generation's music show performance on the classroom projector.  When voting starts you all sit at your desktop computers voting in small but frantic rapid-fire RSI-inducing movements.  Naturally SNSD win - of course, why wouldn't they?  When do they ever not?  The margin was really close too, only a few dozen votes separated SNSD and the second place, some stupid smelly girl group that you don't care about or even remember the name of because they're not SNSD.  Cheers erupt around the classroom, and it's good feeling like you were part of it.  Once the show is over, the live feed from the show is replaced with SNSD videos and the classroom order pizza, play computer games, socialise, drink soju and swap files of SNSD performances.  It's a fun night and you return to the dorm exhausted at 11pm and crash into bed.

*****

DAY 2

"Gee gee gee gee, baby baby.... gee gee gee gee, baby baby..." - you reach over and switch off the alarm tone on your mobile phone.  Time to wake up!  You squint at the overly bright screen of your phone when it's still on the charger.  New messages:

Kristi being a spazz again.  Mind you the girl in the picture does look a lot like Taeyeon.  Not completely, but close enough for you to be envious.

*****

Your English literature lecture today is about "To Kill a Mockingbird", some book you haven't even read yet about prejudice in America or whatever.  There's way too much boring stuff you don't have time to read on the reading list for this stupid literature course, and you're reasonably hungover so you're not going to start caring now.  The lecturer asks the class to refer to their text book essay question:

The lecturer points to you.  "What do you think?" he asks.

"Ummm... er... no!" you reply.

"Would you care to elaborate?" asks the lecturer.

"Well, I was really fearful that you would ask me this question, so I think real fear can be found in other places besides books, like in this lecture hall, for instance."

The whole class laughs, but the lecturer is not impressed.  "Such a fear could be closely related to the fear of not achieving a passing grade, a fear which may in fact be very justified.  Does someone who has actually read the material care to attempt to answer the question?"

Satisfied that he's extracted his pound of flesh from you, the lecturer continues talking about the boring book and you start zoning out again.  Fuck this boring shit.

*****

You're sitting on a park bench in the University garden eating a sandwich when you hear a scream from behind you.

"Hey, YOU!" - you don't even have to turn around, that voice is instantly recognisable - Cathy.

"Oh, hi Cathy!" you say, smiling fakely.

"You fucking BITCH!  I told the student union about how you stole that room from us and didn't sign for it!  You signed the paper after we talked, you think you're so fucking clever, you bitch!  But I took a photo of the paper BEFORE you did that so you're FUCKED!  You and your Sones can go and suicide!"

"Dasom loves anal." you reply.

"Do you wanna be hit?  This isn't about Dasom you bitch!  You'll never be allowed to have another voting night again!"

You would love for her to try, so you could hit her back, so you prod a little more.  "Dasom is a 9.5 on the hornyometer.  She would fuck a statue without a condom, she likes the feel of the cold marble against her vag."

By now the commotion has attracted the attention of quite a few nearby students and a passing professor.  Noticing the increased attention and not wanting to start a public fight, Cathy backs off.  You smile your fakest possible smile at her as she glares at you and walks away.  Sistar fans are the worst.

*****

After University, you work a shift at your part-time job, a cashier at a supermarket checkout.  It's boring as fuck, but it's not a job where you really have to engage your mind in any real way, so you can at least think happy thoughts about SNSD's world domination while you check out people's groceries.  The shift passes uneventfully and you go back to the dorms and crawl into bed, having studied nothing.

*****

DAY 3

"Gee gee gee gee, baby baby.... gee gee gee gee, baby baby..." - you reach over and switch off the alarm tone on your mobile phone.  Time to wake up!  You squint at the overly bright screen of your phone when it's still on the charger.  New messages:

Could Kristi be any more annoying?  It's a good thing that you had your phone on silent at night.

You look outside.  There is a long black sedan parked in front of the dormitory.  Kristi seems really keen, what could be up?

You go outside, the rear car door opens for you.  Kristi is inside, she waves frantically for you to get in.  You get in the car and the door closes behind you, before you can close it yourself.  Sitting in the car with you is Kristi, and on the seat opposite and facing you is... Taeyeon?  Really?

Kristi whispers in your ear "it's that girl who looks just like Taeyeon that I was telling you about!"

You look at her face, hidden behind glasses and a black scarf with skulls.  It can't be Taeyeon - obviously.  What would she be doing here?  But whoever it is, it sure looks just like her.  Perhaps it really is someone who got surgery to resemble Taeyeon, it wouldn't actually be the first time you've seen that, but definitely the first time you've seen someone who looks this close to the real thing.

"Hello, thanks for joining me", says the girl.  She sounds just like Taeyeon too, it's uncanny and creepy.

"Err... that's okay.  Anytime!" you reply.

"Sure is nice of you getting up so early to join me in this car.  It's a nice car, isn't it?"

"Sure is!"  You admire the car's interior - black seats with cream trim.

"Would you like to be able to own a car like this one day" she asks.

"Um.... I guess so!"  Why is she asking you this?

"So I guess you'd like to know why you're here?"

"Yes!"  This conversation with this weird Taeyeon-lookalike is kind of freaking you out a little.  It would be sweet if she got to the point.

"Your activities as a Sone have been noted with gratitude.  I'd like to give you the opportunity to take your membership as a Sone to the next level, you seem like you would be a good candidate.  Is that something that you might be interested in?"

"YES, definitely!  SNSD is my life!" you reply without hesitation.

"You seem quite certain.  Be aware that with greater commitment to the Sone lifestyle comes far greater privilege, but also far greater responsibility.  Doors will open for you which you never thought possible, however you will be required to perform actions above and beyond that which are expected of a normal fandom member.  You will also be required to prove your worth.  Are you sure that this is something that you want?"

"YES!" you exclaim.

"Good.  Take this card.  When you're ready to prove yourself, contact us with a text message.  Don't call, text only.  Once you do, there's no turning back.  Goodbye for now."

The Taeyeon lookalike hands you a business card, and signals to her driver to open the doors.  You and Kristi - who, uncharacteristically, hasn't said a single word - both quickly exit, and look back at the large sedan as it drives away.  You stare at the business card in your hand.

Creepy, and doesn't seem very "Girls' Generation-ish".  You flip it over, there's a phone number on the back.  You program it into your phone.  You don't have time to do this now because lectures are soon, but when you get back to the dorm tonight you'll send a text message.  You look over at Kristi.

"She said the same thing to me" says Kristi.

"Well, yeah, of course, she recruited you too didn't she?"

"No, but I mean exactly the same thing.  Word for word."

You shrug.  "Well, I'm sure she does this all the time, she probably recruits a lot and has a script memorised."

"Just like our girls on TV" Kristi replies, smiling.

*****

English literature class this time is all about Jane Eyre again, and you haven't done any more reading of it than last time.  Seriously, the book is like 600 pages or whatever, why even bother?  You just want to hang out with your Sone friends, lectures and study are just a means to an end, you just want to do the absolute bare minimum to pass the course and not drop out or repeat a year.  The professor asks the class to refer to today's text book discussion question:

Who the fuck cares, seriously?  You see the professor scanning around the room, he'd better not pick on you again.  Fortunately he chooses someone else to shame into answering the question this time.  As you look at the girl who is answering the question you notice that she's from your Sone group the other night, and she also has one of those business cards in her hand.  After she answers the question (some stupid tripe response you didn't even listen to, but that the professor seemed quite pleased with) you watch her texting the number on the back.  For the rest of the lecture you keep one eye on her, she's constantly checking her phone.

You're not going to text yet however, you want to wait until you're alone so you can give Skull & Sones your full undivided attention.  The professor then addresses the room:

"Listen up class, tomorrow morning we're going to have the first short exam!  This exam counts toward 15% of your final grade, so study hard!"

You panic for about 30 seconds thinking about how you're guaranteed to fail this exam, but then you start thinking about Girls' Generation and the feelings go away.  Is there any problem that Girls' Generation cannot solve?

*****

It's early evening and you're at the dorm, sitting on your bed with the Skull & Sones business card, and your phone.  You of course don't need the card as the number is already programmed into your phone, but having it there makes the moment feel more special.  You text the number, and a reply comes immediately.

Well, that was a letdown.  When are you going to hear something?  Still, at least you're "on the books" so you send a thank-you message to show your gratitude.

Hey!  There's no need for the automated text service to be so rude!  Anyway, you get the hint, and wanting to be a good Skull & Sone and start off on the right foot you don't text again.  Unlike University, this matters to you.

*****

DAY 4

"Gee gee gee gee, baby baby.... gee gee gee gee, baby baby..." - you reach over and switch off the alarm tone on your mobile phone.  Time to wake up!  You squint at the overly bright screen of your phone when it's still on the charger.  New messages:

You quickly put on the nearest clothes you can find and race out to the front door of your dorms.  A package is waiting for you, a cardboard box with your name on it.

You pick the box up - it feels light, like there's not much more than air inside, and it doesn't rattle at all when you shake it.  You wonder what's inside but you don't open it - doing the job right is your pathway to being a Skull & Sone, you're not going to blow it over some mild curiosity.  There's another package underneath yours on the doorstep with Ellie's name on it.  Ellie is one of the girls who is in your dorm, she's part of the Sone groups too, so you figure she's also a Skull & Sone in training.  You're not as close with her as you are with Kristi, so you take your package but leave the other one for her to pick up later, you're sure she'll find it.

You look up the GPS location that the Skull & Sone text thing sent to your phone.  It's not very far away, an office building a few blocks away from the University grounds.  You drop the box on top of the big pile of other boxes, clearly left by all the other Sones, and head off to your lectures... sorry, your EXAM HOLY SHIT YOU FORGOT THERE'S AN EXAM TODAY FUUUUUCK

*****

You're sitting in the lecture hall, working on your exam.  You look down the pages, it's all four-option multiple choice questions about books you've only half-read at best.  You have no idea about any of this shit, so you tick option "C" for every single question, that should be enough to get you over the line.  You leave the one-hour exam after 10 minutes of sitting.  The professor glares at you disdainfully as you exit.

*****

Later that evening, you arrive back at your dorm.  Your dormmate looks relieved to see you.

"You're here!  We're so glad you're okay!"

"What?" you ask.

"Didn't you hear about Ellie?"

"No?"

"She had a package delivered to her, and when she opened it, it blew up!  She's in hospital, she's lucky to be alive!"

"How....?  What was in the package?"

"They think it was a bomb!  Somebody might have tried to kill her!"

A cold shiver runs through your body.  Your package was light though, it wasn't heavy, like a bomb would be.  Or maybe it was just a... very light bomb?  You had better text Kristi and make sure she's okay.  You send her a message and a reply comes within a minute.

You breathe a sigh of relief.  But who knows how many other people got hurt... if any?

Just then another horrible thought occurs to you... what if all of you Sones were planting a massive stash of bombs and somebody was going to detonate it, blowing up that building?  Oh my god!  You run out of the dorms and through the nearby streets to where you dropped off the box earlier today, it's a short sprint that only takes you a few minutes.  You get to the location and breathe a sigh of relief.  There are no boxes there, they are all gone, someone has obviously picked them up.  Exhausted from sprinting and stress, you walk back to the dorm slowly.

*****

It's late at night.  You're drinking soju and playing cards with some University friends behind the dorm building, when all of a sudden you hear someone yelling behind you.

"HEY you fucking BITCH!" - you don't even have to turn around, that voice is instantly recognisable - Cathy.

"Oh, hi Cathy!" you say, smiling fakely.  You look at her, she's furious!  Even by Cathy standards she looks angry, like she'll start throwing punches at you at any moment.

"You little shit, I don't know what the FUCK you said or did, or to WHO, but the student union is now saying that STAR1 tried to steal the room off you Sones, and that they're going to ban US from booking the rooms out!"

You're thoroughly amused by her display as well as the fate of her crappy Sistar fandom, but also genuinely confused.  "I didn't say anything, I don't know what you're talking about."  You realise as soon as that statement comes out of your mouth how fake and cliched it sounds, but it is actually the truth.  Oh well, who cares if she doesn't believe it - she's not even a Sone.

"Bullshit!  You wanna die?  I'll fucking cut you, bitch!"  Cathy makes a grab for one of the empty Soju bottles on the ground but a couple of your friends in the drinking circle restrain her.

"Honestly, I didn't have anything to do with it.  Maybe the union just realised that whores spread disease." you tell her calmly, as your friends push her further away from physical contact with both you and any sharp objects.  Eventually she gives up and walks away, yelling something about how she'll be back or whatever, screaming off obscenities into the night.

*****

DAY 5

"Gee gee gee gee, baby baby.... gee gee gee gee, baby baby..." - you reach over and switch off the alarm tone on your mobile phone.  Time to wake up!  You squint at the overly bright screen of your phone when it's still on the charger.  There's a new message from Skull & Sones:

And of course also one from Kristi:

Skull tattoo - icky.  You're so not keen on being branded for life with a cheesy skull, but hey it is a way to show your dedication to the cause of Sone life, and you definitely want to make the grade to be a Skull & Sone, so you figure that you might as well.  You have no lectures today and only a class meeting in the late afternoon, therefore plenty of time to find a tattoo place, not that you'd know where to find one.  Maybe Kristi knows?  You send her a message and as usual, she replies quickly.

Of course Kristi would know.  You begin the walk to her dorm.

*****

At the tattoo parlour, a middle-aged Korean tattoo artist with tattoos everywhere on his body laughs at you both.

"This is the fifth and sixth tattoo I've done today for the exact same thing!  I hear the other tattoo parlors have plenty of this type of work today too!  Skull & Sone!"

You and Kristi look at each other.  "Yeah um... it's a fandom thing." you explain, sheepishly.  You feel slightly stupid.

"You're sasaeng!"

You laugh nervously.  "No, we're not sasaeng!  We just like SNSD a lot."

"Yes, like a sasaeng!  The other girls who asked for this, they definitely were sasaeng!  They talk about how they would do anything for their idol, even kill!"

You're about to say "we wouldn't kill for SNSD" but the words stick in your throat, as you begin to wonder if that's true.  You stay silent.

"I would do a lot for SNSD too, I think I would tattoo Sunny's breasts for half price!"

You and Kristi make eye contact and both try to roll eyes at each other, but you can't do it without appearing rude in front of the tattoo guy so you just end up both looking at each other and raising your eyebrows a little.

"Okay, so who goes first?" the tattoo artist asks.

"ME!" says Kristi, a little too keenly.

*****

Later that afternoon, your arm still hurting and your tattoo encased in plastic wrap, you attend your class meeting.  Everyone gets the results of the English literature test given to them.  The professor walks up to you and hands you a piece of paper, your marks for the test, 15% of your grade is riding on this, which is a lot for such a small test.

The professor sighs as he hands you the results, seemingly reluctantly, while also glaring disapprovingly at your new skin art.

You look at the paper - 100%, you aced the test!  How?  Was option "C" really the right choice for every single question, surely not?  You look up at the professor.  "How?" you ask him.  He doesn't reply, but shakes his head and looks to the ground, then ignores you while he continues to hand out results to the other students.

*****

DAY 6

"Gee gee gee gee, baby baby.... gee gee gee gee, baby baby..." - you reach over and switch off the alarm tone on your mobile phone.  Time to wake up!  You squint at the overly bright screen of your phone when it's still on the charger.  There's a new message from Skull & Sones:

The meeting room isn't far, you're there in five minutes.  However the door to the meeting room is locked.  Most of the other Sones from the University are here too, and a few trickle in behind you as you arrive.  Everyone's comparing mobile phone messages.  After a few minutes of confused chatter it becomes clear that all the students have been told to go to the same locked meeting room, but they all have different package numbers.

"EXCUSE ME GIRLS!" bellows a loud voice.  It's the Taeyeon-lookalike girl, who walks through the crowd of students.

Much discussion erupts among the students about whether the Taeyeon-lookalike girl is really Taeyeon.  The consensus seems to be that she looks identical, but it doesn't seem possible, because why would she be spending any time here?  As the girl walks you can hear a jingling metal noise - she has the keys to the room.
"Do you know what time it is?  It must be party time!  Here we go!" she says in a cynicism-tinged imitation of Tiffany's vocal intro on SNSD's "Party" as she unlocks the door.  All the girls crush each other as they race into the room.  The room is bare except for one side which has some stacks of cardboard boxes.

You recognise them - they're the same boxes that were stacked up in the street the other day as part of the first test, except this time they have small numbers on the top of each box.  The group gets apprehensive.  Some of them start talking about Ellie, who was blown up by opening a box.  A loud thump then startles the group, followed by a metal turning sound - the Taeyeon-lookalike has locked you in the room!  A few girls scream but then this is interrupted by loud mobile phone sounds as every single person in the room simultaneously receives a text message.  You check your phone, as does everybody else in the room.

After the experience with Ellie blowing herself up, you decide to remain cautious and wait for someone else to open the first box.  Kristi, being Kristi, throws caution to the wind, finds her box and opens it first.  Inside her box is a cute pink and purple skipping rope, and a photo of a girl.  She shows you the photo, you don't recognise who it is.  A girl behind you says "hey, that's me!".  You turn around, it's someone you don't know, but you look at her facial features and it's evident that she is the girl in the photo.

Kristi starts trying to skip using the rope, but it's difficult with so many people crammed inside a tiny room.  Meanwhile, other girls start opening their packages.  Each one has a different item, and a photo of a different person.  Various items other girls obtain include a butter knife, a brick, a computer hard disk, a takeaway food container with nothing inside it, a ping-pong racket, a roll of toilet paper.  You find your package and open it.  Your package contains a clothes iron, and a photo of Kristi.  Some gasps of shock come from one corner of the room as someone's package is revealed to contain a small handgun, which makes the whole room turn around and Kristi stop skipping.  After a minute of unboxing, everyone's phones start buzzing again.  You look at your phone.

You look around the room in shock.  Most of the girls start either screaming or crying, as most of them know the person they have been ordered to kill.

"I'm not going to kill anyone!" one girl screams.

"I didn't sign up for this!  I just wanted to love SNSD with all my heart!" says another girl.

"You don't love SNSD, you traitor!" yells someone else, as she tries to stab the previous girl in the face with a butter knife.  Several other girls restrain her.

"This is ridiculous!  We can't kill each other!" you yell at the group.  "Let's all lay our photos out.  Is there anyone here who is not in one of the photos?"

Everyone becomes suddenly reluctant to show their photos, holding their cards to their chest or in their pockets.

"What?" you ask.  "Let's get to the bottom of this!"

"I... don't want someone else to have an advantage." confesses one girl.  "Somebody might see their face in my photo... and kill me first!"

"Damn right you traitorous BITCH" yells Kristi as she runs up to the girl and loops her skipping rope around her neck.  Several other girls try to remove Kristi from the girl but Kristi's grip is too tight and she stays latched on firmly.  Both Kristi and the other girl fall to the floor and start rolling around and struggling, tripping up several other people in the process.  Kristi's pink and purple skipping rope becomes stained red as she draws blood from the other girl's throat, choking her to death.  The scene is horrible - is your friend that much of a psycho that she can kill anyone?  The rest of the room look on in utter shock.

"I killed her - now let me out!" Kristi screams toward the locked door.  No movement on the other side of the door.

"Why did you have to kill her Kristi?" you scream.

"I just want to be a Skull Sone!  I want to win!" Kristi starts crying.

"But where's the evidence that the girl was an anti?  How do you know the text isn't just lying?"

"Fuck you.  The text said I can't leave the room until I kill her!" Kristi screams back.

"It doesn't matter if it's a lie!  It doesn't matter!  They won't let us out anyway until we kill all the traitors!" someone else screams.

"They HAVE to be traitors, why would they lie to us?  What do we need evidence for?  Why would someone just randomly lie like that?  Nobody does that, do they?  It must be true!" replies Kristi.

Kristi's crying is interrupted by a squelching sound as the girl with the butter knife uses the distraction to stab the other girl she aimed for previously, swiftly removing an eye socket.  Much screaming commences from the now-eyeless girl as the butter knife girl is then pounced on by another girl wielding a plastic bag who does her best to try and suffocate her.  Chaos ensues as more girls attack each other with random objects.  You notice that the girl with the gun is trying to figure out how to disengage the safety lock, so you do your best to huddle up into a corner, behind some of the discarded cardboard boxes, before bullets start flying everywhere around the small room.  A few seconds later someone else grabs the gun off her and starts beating her in the head with the handle, removing the threat.  All the while, Kristi keeps screaming at the door "LET ME OUT!  I've done what you asked, LET ME OUT!" but the door doesn't budge.  All of a sudden you feel faint, and spots appear in front of your vision, then everything turns black.

*****

You wake up.  You're still in the same room, lying in the corner.  Kristi is still screaming "let me out" but much quieter as she appears to have lost most of her voice.  The entire rest of the room is a gigantic pile of dead bodies, severed limbs and blood.  You must have been out for a while as some of the bodies are starting to stink up, and you can smell feces and urine leaking from the corpses.

Kristi turns to look at you, her face covered in blood and offal.  "Why won't they let me out?"

You take the photo you were given out of your pocket and show it to her.  "Because you're a 'traitor', Kristi."

Kristi stares at the photo for about thirty seconds, dumbfounded and speechless.

"I can't kill you Kristi, just because someone says I have to."

Kristi shakes her head.  "But you do have to.  Or how are you going to be a Skull Sone?"

"Fuck being a Skull Sone, seems shitty."

Kristi smiles.  "But they won't open the doors if you don't pass the test, we'll starve to death.  They have the power.  Hey, who was supposed to kill you, anyone?"

"I don't know.  It could be anyone here.  I guess they're not alive anymore.... but nobody attacked me."

Kristi starts rummaging through the corpses.  "Oh look, here it is!" she says as she finds the small handgun and points it at you.

You put your hands up.  You don't even know where your weapon is.  "I'm not going to kill you, like I said."

"Fine then." says Kristi, as she puts the gun inside her own mouth and pulls the trigger.  Click.

You gasp.

"Oh.  Safety's still on.  I'm so stupid."  Kristi takes the gun out of her mouth, flicks a lever on the side, puts the gun back in and pulls the trigger, this time successfully killing herself.  Her body falls to the side and lands amongst all the others, as you start crying.  You then hear the sound of a key turning in a lock, and the door to the room opening.  Your grief turns to anger, as you grab the gun Kristi used to kill herself with and rush out the door looking for the Taeyeon lookalike, but she is nowhere to be seen.

*****

EPILOGUE

A week later, you're visiting Ellie in hospital.  You were never that close, but you have a newfound appreciation for Sone friends now that most of the ones you knew are gone.  Ellie's right leg was blown off by the explosion, but the doctors are working on a new prosthetic leg which she will get fitted for soon.  Ellie seems in good spirits, considering everything.

"You're so fortunate to have missed the third test.  You're one of the lucky ones, you know" you say to her.

"So are you", she replies.  "Look what was in the box I had which blew up".  She hands you a photo.  It's a picture of yourself.

"Excuse me, you have another visitor!" says the nurse, as someone walks in.  You gasp in shock and a shiver runs down your spine.  It's the Taeyeon lookalike!

Tears start coming from your eyes.  Why is she here?  Has she no shame?

"Hi there!  Congratulations on your membership!" she says, smiling as if nothing in the world is wrong.

"W...why?  Why would you kill all those Sones?"  you ask.

She laughs.  "Ha!  You would too, if you were us!"

You and Ellie stare at each other.  You think about how easily Kristi and all the others in that room were willing to end the lives of people they thought they knew, just based on nothing but lies.  Maybe she has a point?