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“Jeongin, what the fuck?!” Jisung was the first to speak when the eight of them stepped through the door. “We leave you at home. For five minutes. And you turn this place into freaking Antarctica?”“I was hot! How was I supposed to know you guys don’t get hot in the middle of July!”“You asked us. If you could stay home. Because you didn’t want to go outside. Because it was nice and cool in here. And you didn’t want to come get snacks at the pharmacy with us. And we let you. Because we trusted you to stay at home without starting an ice age or breaking anything within five minutes.”“It was cooler than it is outside!” the younger whined while Hyunjin walked over to the AC to turned it off.“Can you please stop arguing!” Chan shouted from the kitchen where he was unpacking some of the snacks they had bought. “Do we seriously have to go through this every single time we go somewhere? Jisung, leave Jeongin alone, Jeongin, try not to turn the AC on next time. There we go, everything’s settled, now stop.”“Fine.” Jisung huffed, sending one last glare towards the maknae, who stomped off to his and Seungmin’s shared room. It was unfair. Well, at least it was for Jeongin. It wasn’t even like he hated the heat or got hot really fast. He just extremely disliked they type of heat that there was in the summer, when the sun just blazed overhead nonstop and made everything feel like an oven. For the most part he actually loved when it got warmer after the winter was over, or long hugs and cuddles (especially those from Seungmin).He’d been sitting on the top bunk of their bed for about fifteen minutes when there was a soft knock on the door and it was opened a fraction of an inch.“Can I come in?” Seungmin’s voice was soft, lacking his usual excitement and energy that always seemed to radiate from him in overwhelming amounts.“Yeah..” Jeongin sniffled, not even trying to wipe the tears off his face, knowing they’d be frozen by now.“What’s wrong?” The older didn’t even bother asking if he was ok, fully aware that there was something bothering his roommate.“I just- just hate being like this. All cold and- and just-just cold… all the time! Everything I touch, hell, everything around me is cold.” Jeongin stumbled over his words, more tears crystallizing almost instantly on his cheeks. “Why… I can’t! And then there’s you, you’re so perfect in every way. You’re always happy and warm. You’re like a live, moving, breathing version of the sun. Everyone loves being around you, I love being around you. And the only reason I’m still here is because I know it would kill you if I left!” At this point the only thing coming from the younger was word vomit, which also eventually trailed of into uncontrollable sobs.“Oh.. Jeongin…” It honestly broke Seungmin’s heart to see the younger like this. It happened occasionally, that he would break down for one reason or another (most of them having to do with his ability to freeze things) and then suddenly put on an emotionless expression and act as if it had never happened. “I’m so sorry…” The words barely a whisper, but he knew the younger had heard them, because he immediately stopped resisting Seungmin’s touch and leaned closer. His skin was icy, even colder than it usually was, as it often became when he was particularly emotional.“Everyone hates me, Seungmin. And it’s all my fault, just because I’m some cursed monster that can’t even-”“No. Jeongin, look at me.” Seungmin instantly pulled away, holding Jeongin’s face gently in his hands, warming his fingertips up just to the point where the younger’s tears melted and he could brush them away. “No one hates you for who you are. Your abilities, what you can do, that is not a curse. And you are definetally, most certainly, not a monster. If anything, you’re an angel, because you are far too good for this world. You hear me?” The younger nodded, closing his eyes tiredly. “Come here.. Why don’t you ever tell me when you need to calm down, Jeongin. We both know you can’t do it on your own without freezing the majority of the dorm.”“I’m sorry..” He whispered, already curling up against Seungmin’s side, half asleep. “I just forget sometimes…” “Ow! What the fuck, Changbin?!” Minho yelped as he felt a sudden stinging in his left index finger.“You wouldn’t stop pinching me on the way home, what else did you expect?” he shrugged, not looking up from his ramen.“Felix～ please get your boyfrined under control!” the older of the two whined, changing his expression to one of feigned hurt and betrayal. “He won’t stop giving me papercuts.”“Ughh, come here.” he laughed, his fingertips already beginning to glow a soft blue color. “You know, I don’t mind healing you guys, It just sometimes worries me how often I have to do it!”“Hey! It’s not my fault Changbin gave me a papercut!” “Well, it kinda is. You’re the one who kept pinching me on the way back home.” Changbin deadpanned, only looking up from his noodles when Felix sat down across from him, having finished healing Minho’s cut. Felix adored Changbin, and thought it was absolutely hilarious how he would give their classmates little cuts if they made fun of him for not being straight. Well, at least he had until Changbin had discovered that he could transfer any injury he’d ever had to someone else, no matter how bad it was. One day Felix had come home from school early, having convinced his teacher he didn’t feel that good, only to find Changbin sitting on the kitchen floor in a puddle of blood with multiple stab wounds and a broken arm. “Hello? Felix! Snap out of it.” When Felix’s sense of reality finally returned, Changbin was looking at him worriedly as Minho waved a pair of chopsticks around in front of his nose.“What?! Oh- what’d you say?”“Binnie-”“Only Lix gets to call me Binnie!” he interrupted, his lips forming a slightly ridiculous looking pout.“Changbin wanted to know if you wanted some ramen.” the oldest of the three corrected, sending an amused glare at said rapper who had already brought his chopsticks up to Felix’s mouth and was now feeding him some of his egg.“I knew it!” Jisung’s shout echoed around the kitchen, making the three of them jump. “I knew you guys were being all gross and domestic again!”“Fuck off.” Changbin growled as his boyfriend began to laugh again, almost causing him to choke on the noodles he was eating.“He does has a point, though, you know.” Minho pointed out, barely concealing a high pitched giggle. “It’s hard not to notice when you guys do that thing where you get all lovey-dovey for each other.”“Fuck you too.” Several hours later, Jeongin woke up to find Seungmin dozed off peacefully beside him, his are still draped over the younger’s waist.“Seungmin.. Seungmin, you have to wake up and go to your own bunk now.” he whispered, half hoping the older wouldn’t hear and keep sleeping. But to his dismay, he opened his eyes, blinking a couple times, before sitting up.“Ok, sorry for falling asleep, I didn’t want to wake you.”“No no, it’s ok, you can stay if you want, I’m just not sure what the others will think when the see you. Here. Sleeping in my bunk. For the- what- sixth time this week?” Jeongin finished with a shy giggle, shifting his gaze away from Seungmin.“Ok, if you’re sure..”“I’m sure. It’s ok, Seungmin. Seriously. Besides, we both know we can both sleep better when we’re both here.”“Yeah, I guess. Let me go brush my teeth and change really quick, though.”“Kay, I’m gonna get some water...and hope I don’t accidentally freeze it before I get back here.” Jeongin added the last part bitterly as he remembered how cold his world was. “Woojin!” Chan’s annoyed, yet very amused shout rang through the dorm. “Where is the toothpaste actually? I very clearly remember putting it next to your toothbrush, but we both know it isn’t there. Where is it?”“In the cupboard with that almond scented soap you bought last week. I still don’t understand why you had to get it, you know.” Said boyfriend yelled from the kitchen, probably getting a piece of leftover chicken from the take out they’d had for dinner.“It smells nice! Also, for fucks sake, stop messing with my memories! You have no idea how annoying it can get when you’re sure you left your phone on the table but then it turns out it was in your backpack the whole damn time!”“Hmm... sorry, Muffinhead.” He mumbled, placing a soft kiss on the back of Chan’s neck and wrapping his arms around the younger’s waist, having come upstairs after finishing his chicken. “But you’re so adorable when you’re confused or can’t find something.”“Fine, just don’t do it too much, otherwise I might actually have to remember something really important and just won’t be able to and get in trouble or something. Same goes for everyone else.” Chan turned and stood on his toes to peck Woojin on the tip of his nose. “I would actually kiss you, but you’re breath stinks of chicken. So brush your teeth and I might consider it.”“Hmmph, fine, but only if you stop stealing my memories and using them against me.” Woojin crossed his arms and rearranged his features into an exaggerated pout.“You’re ridiculous, you chicken.”“Hey! You can’t use chicken as an insult! Chicken tastes good!”“Did I ever say you didn’t?” At the younger’s words, Woojin turned a brilliant pink and quickly turned to brush his teeth, muttering something never being able to look at chicken the same way again. “Hyunjin, get up, sleepy head! You can keep sleeping in your bed, but you can’t spend all night on the couch!”“Fuck off, Jisung. Lemme sleep.” the younger mumbled, glaring tiredly at him.“I’ll let you sleep when you get back to your own bed. Also, I’m Chan, not Jisung. No talking to your hyungs like that. So get up and go upstairs before I get Jeongin to come here and freeze the couch.”“You wouldn’t do that.. He’s already asleep.” Hyunjin grumbled, but sitting up anyways, rubbing his eyes. “I swear, I’m never waking up again. This is awful.”“You said that last time.” Chan laughed, already pulling the younger to his feet. “Come on, bed are much more comfortable than couches, trust me.”After a while, a series of shouted “good night”s and multiple shouts for Woojin to get back to bed and not get more chicken filled the apartment. And eventually everyone fell asleep. Well, everyone except for Chan, who stayed up reading for another two hours before draping himself over his boyfriend and dozing off as well.
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At one point during the night, Felix woke up screaming, but had felt a sharp jab of pain in the crook of his neck and passed out before he could figure out why. Now he found himself lying on an uncomfortable, thin mattress in a small, gray, windowless room. Everything hurt. The area surrounding the spot where the needle had pierced his skin on his neck throbbed painfully, his head pounded with a terrible headache, and it felt like his hands and wrists were being forcefully held in ice water, the burn fading out towards his elbows.Groaning, Felix rolled over and swung his legs over the side of the, what he supposed was supposed to be, bed. He only realized how insanely cold it was when he realized how his breath had turned to a cloud of vapor the moment it left his lips. Shivering, he stood up and walked over to the heavy steel door on the other side of the six by six foot room. Or, at least Felix would have if his foot hadn’t immediately gotten caught on something and caused him to trip, barely giving him enough time to throw out his arms and catch himself. Of course his ankle had to be chained to the wall.As he looked back up, Felix noticed little details he hadn’t noticed before. Dark, smeared stains criss-crossed the steal door and were smudged across the dark rock the walls were made of. Inhaling a little too sharply at the sight, he choked a little on his breath, but also noticed the faint stench of blood in the air.“What the fuck?” he whispered to himself, his voice hoarse and almost nonexistent. Panicking, the healer stumbled to his feet, suddenly feeling very claustrophobic in the tiny room. No- this wasn’t a room. It was a cell. He was a prisoner in who knows where. Another quick look at the ground he glimpsed small bones, most of which were shattered, in the corners where the walls met the floor. Suddenly feeling very nauseous, Felix let out a small choked whimper.“Changbin? Woojin? Chan? Someone, anyone- is there anyone here?” Tears began to build up in his eyes as thoughts of the worst possible situations filled his head. “Someone please help me!” Visions of Jeongin lying motionless on the floor in a pool of blood as Seungmin sobbed beside him, clutching his lifeless hand, desperately trying to wake him up. Chan clinging feverishly to memories of Woojin’s laugh while crying silently by his grave. Changbin giving him a small, pained smile, trying to reassure him that everything would be ok before going limp in his arms.Eventually Felix managed to cry himself to sleep, not even bothering to move from his spot on the floor. But it wasn’t long before dreams full of screams of pain and terrified sobs woke him up again. He sat there shivering for a good three hours before finally deciding to move again, only to find that while he’d been asleep his other ankle as well as both his wrists had been chained to the wall, rendering him almost completely immobile. Desperately, Jeongin attempted to lower the temperature of the miniscule room for the seventh time, to no avail. He’d woken up in the middle of the night to Felix’s terrified shouts and whimpers from the room next door, probably from another one of his nightmares, and was getting up to try to wake up the older and calm him down, when he felt a needle pierce the side of his neck and he fell unconscious again. The next time Jeongin woke up, he was in a small room that couldn’t be any bigger than six by six feet, an intense heat blasting at him from all sides.“Seungmin? Where are you? Is anyone there?” His words were merely soft whispers, his voice hoarse from exhaustion, as well as all the panicked crying and screaming Jeongin had done when he realized how alone he was.Hours later all Jeongin had managed to do was tier himself out even more, the miniscule room seeming even hotter than before. The air around them seemed to shimmer and ripple, similar to what Jeongin would imagine a mirage looked like. Honestly, all he wanted to do was curl up and cry. He just wanted to give up and let his captors do whatever it was they wanted to do to him. But he refused to. He’d already done too much crying and giving up. So instead he sat on the cot in the corner of the room and willed the air around him to cool. Less than three minutes later, however, Jeongin’s body decided that he’d had enough and he passed out cold, the temperature of the cell finally getting to him. When Minho woke up and found he wasn’t in his room he immediately went into full panic mode, springing up from the thin straw mattress he was on. Or, at least he would have if he hadn’t immediately been pulled back by two chains around his wrists, making him fall back on the cot.“What the fuck?” It was then that he noticed how the walls kept shifting, changing their texture and color continuously, making it almost impossible to tell how big it was But the room was clearly not very big, judging by the heavy steel door opposite him. Even the air seemed to shimmer and move about, giving him a sick dizzying feeling similar to the one he sometimes got after going on a rollercoaster, but only if he combined it with watching some strange optical illusion for far too long. “How in the world...?”There was a sharp pain radiating at the base of his skull, fading out into a dull numb sensation that enveloped the rest his body, leaving behind a faint tingling, much as if his entire body was asleep. Tentatively, Minho stretched out his hands, inhaling a little too sharply when he saw how his wrists were rubbed red and bleeding in some places from the metal digging sharply into them. Maybe if he just made his hand small enough he could slip out… But to his shock and dismay, he couldn’t get as much as his fingernail to shift. But then again, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Afterall, if anyone tried to capture him, which they had, they wouldn’t make it that easy for him to escape.He did try a couple more times though, eventually resigning himself back to the thin mattress in the corner. If he couldn’t escape, then he might as well sleep until his captors came back for him. Minho lay there for a couple minutes staring at the ever-changing ceiling, constantly manipulating itself to create new, even stranger shapes, occasionally shifting to form painful memories or reawaken his burning desire to see the rest of his group and his worry for them. After a while, however, he managed to tear his eyes away from the images and doze off, only to be forcefully reawakened by nightmares of his family, each falling into an endless abyss, their screams never growing distant. Jisung couldn’t move. As a matter of fact he couldn’t move, see, hear, or feel anything. It was as if he was suspended in an endless nothing. Now that he thought about it, it was very much like the sensation he got right as he switched into the seemingly timeless “dimension” to speed up a boring class or stay in a moment for just a little longer. You idiot! The time bender mentally shouted at himself. Of course it feels like you’re switching into a different time! How could he have been so stupid? He had passed through this exact moment when he’d been figuring out what time to set his alarm to barley eight hours ago.He knew it wasn’t worth it, trying to call out to the others. Knew it would be hopeless to try and escape. So Jisung just let everything wash over him. Let himself be completely by the emotional, mental, and now he also noticed the physical pain, a dull ache pulsing under his skin accompanied by a burning feeling that seemed to be running through his veins. Groaning internally (he still couldn’t make any noise), he unsuccessfully attempted to will himself back to unconciousness, but in his current panicked state it seemed impossible. So, eventually he simply settled for lying- floating?-just existing there, letting his constant stream of thoughts take over his mind. There was ice everywhere. Seungmin was sure this was the closest he’d ever get to being in an ice cube. Everything was iced over, even the heavy looking metal door on the opposite side of the room, which would probably be impossible to open even without the frosty layer coating the whole thing. Secretly, he hoped it was Jeongin playing a trick on him, but realistically he knew it wasn’t him. Jeongin hated almost everything to do with the cold. But glanced around anyways, looking for any sign of the younger,“Jeongin? You there? Hello? Anyone?” But his words were met with silence, the only movement was that of his breath clouding and freezing in front of him before falling to the floor. Shivering, he stood up and started pacing back and forth as much as the little six by six foot room would allow, attempting to warm up. It was so strange, not having Jeongin there beside him, his laugh echoing throughout the dorm, the icy temperature that followed him everywhere momentarily forgotten. For a moment he thought he heard the younger’s high pitched giggle from behind him, but as it turned out, it was only a phantom of his memory.“Seriously, Jeongin, where are you? Chan? Felix? Minho? Anyone at all?” His desperate cries were becoming tearless sobs for help, the few tears that did manage to escape his eyes instantly freezing from the cold temperature of the room.After a good half hour of pacing back and forth, however, Seungmin began to get restless again. He did another brief survey of the little what he supposed was a prison cell of some sort and quickly spotted two iron rings near the floor, which he supposed usually had chains attached to them. Other than that, not much caught his attention, but for just a few moments he let his gaze linger on a spot to his left where the ice seemed to be melting a little bit. Sure enough, when he shuffled over to the spot and put his hand on the wall, there was a little bit of heat pulsing from the spot. Curling up leaned against the warm patch of wall, he realized this was what Jeongin must have to deal with every waking moment of his life. But, thoughts of the younger just brought more tears to his eyes, which he wiped away feverishly. The only thing Hyunjin hated more than not being able to switch to his infrared and ultraviolet vision was not being able to see at all. Yet, here he was, waking up to total darkness, silence pressing in on him from all sides. All his limbs felt like lead and a migraine was already building up behind his eyes. Panicking, he struggled to his feet, almost tripping over them and falling back down. Where was he anyways?“Woojin? Channie hyung?” he shouted into the darkness, hoping for, but not exactly expecting an answer. He’d always relied on his sight for everything and was extremely lost without it. “Jisung? Where are you guys? Is anyone there?” His words felt empty and hollow as they faded into nothing.Muttering curses under his breath every time he stumbled, Hyunjin slowly made his way forward. Logically, there had to be an end to this place. Didn’t there?“Someone, anyone, please…” his whispers were soft, but very desperate, as Hyunjin attempted to raise his voice, which was already hoarse from all the panicked shouting he’d done in the last hour. A whole hour of stumbling along through the darkness had gotten him nowhere. He was still lost in an endless, black space of nothing. A single tear trailed down his cheek when he finally collapsed, the first to do so in over a decade. It was unusual for Changbin to wake up without Felix snuggled up next to him. It was also very unusual for him to wake up in a tiny room, probably no larger than their shower back at the dorm, not being able to move from the spot where his wrists were chained together above his head. It took about three seconds to register the searing pain blazing through his veins. He inhaled far too sharply, causing him to choke on his own spit, bringing tears to his eyes. There was nothing he could do, though, mostly due to the fact that the chains around his wrists didn’t let him move more than a few inches without him having to twist his arm back to the point of almost dislocating his shoulder. It was also due to the fact that his “ability” to transfer his own injuries to others did not extend to taking away his own pain as Felix”s did, and even if he could heal himself, he doubted that he would be able to, judging by the weird staticky feeling in his hands.Groaning, Changbin let his head fall back and hit the wall, sending another spark of pain through him. “Make it stop. Please. Let me go.” The soft whimper escaped Changbin’s lips before he could stop it. He tugged weakly at the restraints around his wrists, but the movement only made his vision blur even more and dark around the edges. He mumbled a soft ‘Felix∼’ before blacking out completely, the blinding pain beneath his skin the only thing to keep him company. There was nothing special about the room Woojin woke up in, apart from the fact that it was tiny and not exactly the one he could call his own. There was a this mattress on the floor in one corner, a heavy looking iron or steel door on the other side (he’d never really been able to tell the difference). But having obviously been kidnapped, injected with something judging by the dull pain in the side of his neck, and locked in a miniature room with gray stone walls was not the only thing Woojin found odd about the situation. Something was off, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was.Heart racing, he sat back down on the grey mattress in the corner, desperately trying to figure out what was wrong.“Ok, ok, ground yourself. Start with important things.” he breathed to himself, squeezing his eyes shut. “Remember your friends. Your family.” he muttered, still not opening his eyes. A mental image of Chan appeared in his memory, his black hair just a little wavy, the silver of his braces reflecting the sunlight- “Wait what?!” Woojin’s eyes shot open. Chan didn’t have braces- wait.. did he? And then he realized what was wrong. His memories were messed up, but he didn’t know what the real one were. “No no no no…” His breathing grew even more rapid than before as he put his head in his hands, frantically trying to reorganize his thoughts, and failing. Was this what it was like when he messed with other peoples memories? Did they know that what they remembered wasn’t real but couldn’t figure out what was? If so, he vowed to never do it again. Ever.He sat in silence, mulling over his jumbled up memories, not getting up until he realized how hungry he was becoming a couple-what- minutes? Hours? He wasn’t sure himself anymore to be honest. He tried one last time to get his memories of the others right, but was almost 100% sure that Jeongin was not the shortest of their group, before drifting off into a restless sleep.The worst part was not being able to help, the second worst part was not being able to black out and unsee it, he couldn’t even close his eyes to stop looking, having been paralyzed by the electric blue fluid They had injected into his arm the moment he’d started to struggle against the magnetized metal bands around his wrists and ankles, turning his view away from the screen in front of him. Tied in first place for worst part of the current situation was knowing the whole thing was his fault. It was his fault that his friends family was suffering. His fault that They had turned their abilities against them. His fault that they had been found in the first place. Silent tears streamed down Chan’s face as the image on the screen was switched to the cell Woojin was in. The older was asleep, but looked far from peaceful, probably trying to figure out what memories were real and which ones weren’t. Chan knew how They worked, he had spent the first decade and a half living being trained tortured and brainwashed by Them after all.If what Chan had been seeing for the past three or four hours was accurate and They still operated the same way the did five years ago and his informed guesses were correct then Jeongin had been put in a room with temperatures higher than those in the Sahara, Seungmin had been trapped in an environment that matched the antarctic, Felix had been imprisoned with death and injuries, Jisung was stuck in one of the wormholes he used to warp time, or at least very similar conditions, Hyunjin couldn’t see and had been put in one of the rooms where you didn’t get anywhere no matter how far you walked, Changbin was just in pure agony, Minho was trapped in a room of his own power, and Woojin’s memories had been messed up to the point where he couldn’t tell whether they were fake or not. And of course They knew just how to mess him up. Chan had been bound to one of their “special chairs” and forced to watch hours and hours of footage of the family he’d built up suffering at the hands of Them. Choking on a sob he tried helplessly to look away from the screen in front of him.“Ready to cooperate yet, or are you that desperate to see your friends suffer?” a steely voice hissed beside his ear.“I won’t-” but he stopped his sentence with a sharp intake of breath when the screen was switched to Changbin just as he let out a pained scream that made Chan’s blood run cold. “No no, stop! Make it stop! I don’t care what you do to me! Just stop hurting them!” he sobbed. If he could endure seventeen years of needles, chains, and blood, he could endure some more. He tried not to think of the long scars that covered the majority of his torso as the masked woman pressed a button to demagnetize the bands around his wrists from the chair and remagnetized them to each other behind his back. He could do this. Right?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Up.” the gruff voice belonging to the man towering over Changbin was cold and emotionless. “You’re being transferred. Now move before I do it myself.”“And if I don’t?” he tried to keep his voice steady, willing it to sound braver than he felt.“You really don’t want to find out. Or maybe you do, and are willing to risk you precious little boyfriend, how about that?” his voice was mocking with the slightest hint of a laugh when Changbin shot to his feet, not making a single noise when all his muscles screamed in protest.“What have you done to him?!” He hastily wiped a tear from his cheek, cursing himself for betraying the sign of weakness.“Oh, nothing yet. But I can promise you that that will change very soon, whether you come with me willingly or not. How bad it is simply depends on how much… persuasion… you need.” His black eyes seemed to gleam wickedly in the dim lighting, and Changbin swore there was some form of a smirk under the person’s mask, which covered the majority of his face.“Fine. I’ll go,” the words were whispered, full of unspoken apologies and promises to Felix. To Chan and Woojin and Jeongin. To everyone else he was probably betraying forever.“Wasn’t really a choice, darling,” a woman’s artificially sweet voice rang from the doorway, which was now open to reveal a long, white hallway, more steel doors spaced every seven feet or so. “The only choice here was whether you come with us, or.. well, you already know what the second option was....” She was also wearing a mask, but unlike the man that had shaken Changbin awake ten minutes before, hers was white and didn’t quite reach the bridge of her nose. “Well,” she straightened the indigo glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. “Time for you to go.”To be honest, the false cheerfulness in her voice made Changbin sick to the stomach. It was barely there, so that if you weren’t paying attention you could easily mistake it to be genuine.“Go where exactly?”“Oh, dear… you don’t really need to know that, do you?” The question was obviously rhetorical, but Changbin answered it anyways.“Well actually I kind of do want to know-“ But he was cut off by a blow to the head delivered by the burly man on his right. “where you’re taking me…” he finished faintly, just before his vision went black and he collapsed on the ground, knocked out cold.When Changbin woke up again he was in what he assumed was some sort of van or truck. He was, once again, bound tightly to one side, his arm twisting agonizingly every time the vehicle was jostled or turned a corner, with iron bars surrounding him in some makeshift cage. The bands around his wrists were tight enough for the metal to cut painfully into his skin, causing a few drops of blood to trail down his arms. Slowly, he turned his head to look around the rest of the van. The woman from before and two heavily armed guards sat in one corner, talking quietly among themselves. He wasn’t sure what they were discussing, but based on the few bits of the conversation he did hear he was pretty sure they were talking about the others. On the wall hung two dozen or so high tech looking weapons ranging from a weird spear thing that seemed to crackly with electricity, to something that resembled some sort of automatic weapon, except that parts of it were glowing a weird bluey- pink color and it looked like it came straight from some Sci-fi movie he’d once watched, to something Changbin was pretty sure was a flamethrower. In the corner opposite to where he was, slumped against the wall in another makeshift cell was-“Felix!” At his panicked shout, the younger stirred a little, lifting his head just enough to meet Changbin’s gaze. But it also alerted the three others in the van to the fact that he was no longer unconscious.“Oh, would you look at that, our guest is awake!” The woman sing-songed, focusing all her attention on him. Their gazes met and she smirked a little, getting up and smoothing out her blood colored skirt. Slowly she stepped towards him, still addressing the two others, but positively refusing to break eye contact with Changbin. “Let’s introduce ourselves, shall we?”But even as she said it, Changbin knew that “introduce ourselves” wasn’t going to happen.“Let’s see… if you don’t cooperate once he’ll do this,” the man on her right slapped him hard across the face, bringing tears to his eyes. “The second time he’ll do this,” the second guy punched him in the stomach just as hard as the first had, making him double over, tear now streaming down his face, the bands around his wrists cutting into them even more. “And on the third I’ll do this.” She reached down and pressed a little button on a panel Changbin hadn’t noticed before. He opened his mouth to ask what was supposed to happen, but before he could get the words out, an electric shock blinded him. Needless to say, he blacked out again before the electric current had even left his body. Nothing could describe how awful Felix felt as he watched, helpless to do anything, as his boyfriend, the person he loved most in the entire world, slumped lifeless against the wall, held up only by the magnetic bands around his wrists. He wanted to scream. Wanted to cry and scream and let out everything he was trying so desperately to keep inside. He couldn’t even heal Changbin without Them noticing he was also awake. So, instead of doing all those things he wanted to do, Felix stayed slumped lifelessly in his corner, trying his best to keep his breathing steady and his breath from catching in his throat.“Mirror ordered that subject CB-97 is to be taken to District 2 to have some tests run before being brought to District 9 with the rest.” At the sound of the woman’s voice Felix perked up, trying to pick up as much of their conversation as possible.“What about the two others?Subjects SPEAR-B and J-ONE.” a second gruff voice asked, the iciness in it making a shiver run down Felix’s spine.“No, they’re to be taken to District 9 with the other six.” But after that the three fell silent, giving him plenty of time to process what he’d just heard, which also helped distract him from what he’d just seen Them do to Changbin. What Felix managed to piece together from what he’d heard, was that three of them had been in one of these “Districts” before, but two of them for only short amounts of time. Apparently, they’d been given coded numbers or series’ of letters that acted as names. But although they seemed strange and foreign, Felix felt like he knew the code CB-97 from somewhere.He spent the next two hours sitting silently in the corner, searching through his memories for where he knew the code from. Chan would be able to figure this out, he remembers everything, he thought bitterly, suddenly recalling the older’s photographic memory as well as his ability to steal other people’s memories. And then it hit him. CB-97 was the incorrect quotes Instagram account Chan had created even before forming their makeshift family. Subject CB-97 was Chan. It was almost dark when Hyunjin was unceremoniously shoved out of the back of the van, along with Minho and Jisung, who’d been in the same one. Before them loomed another compound, similar to the one they had left that morning, but not even a fourth of the size. But it wasn’t the building that first caught his attention, it was the two other vans that were just about a hundred yards away, a group of about eleven people standing by them, five of which obviously had their hands bound behind their backs. And he could recognize their figures anywhere.“Woojin! Jeongin! Seung-” but he was cut off by a hand being slapped harshly over his mouth and nose, making it almost impossible to breath, let alone speak.“One more word and all your pretty little friends die, got it?” the voice belonging to one of the guards that had accompanied them here growled in his ear. He nodded as much as he could, only struggling a little as his arms were yanked roughly behind his back and cuffed together.After that, everything that happened became one blurred memory. The only things Hyunjin could remember somewhat clearly were being silently escorted through a gate in the chain-link fence surrounding the gray stone building, the cuffs being removed from his wrists, and being given a white uniform of some sort. Now, he was standing in a small, dimly lit room with the guards’ order to get changed quickly echoing through his head. But what would happen if he didn’t listen? What would happen if he marched right back out and demanded to be let go? Hyunjin pulled off the loose white T-shirt that he’d worn to bed- what, two nights before?- which was now smudged with dirt and appeared to be more gray than white at this point.The uniform he’d been given fit surprisingly well, and was not nearly as uncomfortable as it had seemed at first. It consisted of a pair of loose, white pants, a long sleeved shirt that exposed his collarbones just a little bit. They had also taken his bunny slippers, much to Hyunjin’s disappointment, and replaced them with simple white ones that he slipped on his feet easily. The uniform had a small piece of silver metal sewn neatly right above his heart, the words Hwang Hyunjin written on it in blocky letters, making him question exactly how They’d found out what his name was.After Hyunjin stepped out of the little room, the guards instantly grabbed his arms and dragged him further down the hall towards another door, this one seeming much less heavy and intimidating than the one from the tiny room he’d been locked in barely twelve hours ago. But that didn’t stop him from putting up a fight.“You’d better stop,” the soldier on his left growled a warning, yanking on his arm. But he didn’t let up, only tugging on his arm even more determined to escape this time. Suddenly he felt cold metal pressed against the side of his skull, only a quick glance to his right told him the other guard was holding a gun to his head, just as he’d suspected.“Struggle any more and I will not hesitate to put a bullet in your head,”“Anything would be better than being locked up here for the rest of my life!” Hyunjin spat back, his voice laced with pure venom. “Fuck you,” Without any hesitation he lifted up his foot and stomped down hard on the soldiers ankle, smirking with satisfaction when he heard a sharp crack. He was just spinning around to slam his fist into the other guard’s jaw when a sharp jolt of electricity shot through him and he went limp, falling hard to the ground. Woojin had gone straight into panic mode the moment he arrived. It wasn’t that he was afraid of these people or what they would do to him. Nothing could be worse than not even remembering what your family looked like, could it? No, it was the fact that he’d spotted every single member of his family. Every member that is, except for Chan. The one person who held his entire world together was missing. It was as if his mind had gone blank, his only thought were about the others, especially Chan. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about everyone else, it was exactly the opposite, actually. It was just that if They were doing the same things to them as They were to him, then they weren’t being treated that badly.Woojin mindlessly followed the two people escorting him to the stone building, not really paying attention to anything. He barely acknowledged them when they handed him some sort of uniform, and slipped in on mindlessly, not even thinking about where they could be leading him.Eventually, they reached another door, well, it was actually two doors, but they obviously lead to the same room.“No funny business,” the guard on his left muttered flatly, sounding extremely bored. The thought that it might be because he hadn’t done anything exciting to try and escape barely crossed Woojin’s mind, but once it did he was already being shoved through the metal double-doors, which promptly slammed shut behind him. “Woojin! You’re here!” Felix’s voice was much more high pitched than usual, but behind the excitement was still a small tremor of fear. “Wait- where’s Chan? Why isn’t he with you?”“Yeah.. we all got brought here with like- you know…” Seungmin trailed off towards the end, afraid of saying “boyfriend”, which was probably due to the fact that he and Jeongin weren’t really official yet, but they all knew that they were basically boyfriends.“Yeah, everyone except for you, Minho, Jisung, and Hyunjin, he’s still unconscious from when They used that taser on him, him by the way, because we all know they’re single pringles.” the maknae jumped in, earning himself a playful smack to the shoulder from Minho.“They didn’t- you know- kill him, did They?” Judging by Jisung’s voice, he was extremely worried, much more than Woojin felt. “I mean, Lix said that he overheard Them talking about bringing him to some place They called District 2 and ‘running some tests’, whatever that means, but They wouldn’t kill him, right?”“Wait what do you-” but he was cut of by some speakers crackling before an artificial sounding female voice filled the room.“Please get ready to meet your fellow district mates, as you will be staying with them until we deem you ready to be reintroduced to society. Thank you, and have a wonderful stay.”“What the fuck?” Changbin spoke for the first time, just as Hyunjin let out a soft groan and lifted his head blearily.“Where am I? Where are we? Why isn’t Chan here?”“Hello!” a cheerful voice startled them, making them all spin around to face the newcomer, only to realize the wall behind them had disappeared, in its place was standing a tall man, with raven black hair, wearing the most ridiculous fedora-hoodie combination imaginable. “I’m Sehun, welcome to District 9!”
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“Umm.. what exactly is this place?” Changbin asked tentatively after about fifteen minutes of being led through a seemingly endless maze of hallways and corridors, all while Sehun chattered avidly about the other people there and told stories, evidently unaware of how nervous and fidgety the rest of them were.“District 9!” he answered brightly, the cheerful smile he had never leaving his face. “We all just live here and every once in a while They come to check on us and see how we’re doing. The crazy thing is that we all have this curse and They’re trying to fix it so that we can be part of society without hurting anyone!”“So they brainwashed you to make you think your abilities are a curse.” Seungmin interrupted, glancing worriedly at Jeongin.“What?” the oldest of the group came to a stop and looked at the other eight following him. “What in the world do you mean by ‘brainshed’? We’ve known our whole lives that we’re cursed, it just is that way.”“No, it’s not. Why in the world would you think that?”“Do you have any idea how badly you could hurt someone?!” Sehun finally burst out. “Do you have any idea what these curses can do to people?! No! Because I can bet none of you have ever gotten mad enough to accidentally create a tornado or start a hurricane!” There was a sudden wind blowing through the hallway they were in, strong enough that it swept Hyunjin (who was still a little shaky from the electricity he’d been knocked out with) off his feet.“Sehun! What in the world are you doing?” A voice shouted from the end of the hall, making said airbender turn, shock filling his features at the realization of what he was doing, the wind almost immediately calming down.“Sorry, Junmyeon…” he mumbled, not daring to look up from his feet.“I told you to show them around, not terrify them with one of your outbursts!” The rage on the oldest’s face softened to a welcoming smile almost instantly as he turned to the others. “Sorry about that, I should have known this would happen. I’m Junmyeon, by the way, but most people call me Suho.”“Is it true that the things we can do are a curse?” Jeongin blurted out, quickly shying away when the older turned to look at him. Seungmin shot Junmyeon a glare that clearly said “don’t you dare scare him. Don’t you dare even think about making him hate himself even more.”“I- err… I don’t really know. It’s what I’ve been told, but there isn’t really any proof that they are…”“ANYways,” Woojin interrupted, trying to ease the uncomfortable atmosphere. “Is there like, anyone else here? Other people who- people who are like us?”“Oh! Yeah, there are,” Junmyeon’s features seemed to relax a little at the the change of topic. “There’s me and Sehun, who you’ve already met. Then there’s also the rest of our group, which has seven others. There’s another little gang of three people, but all they do is stir up trouble, well actually, Luhan’s ok, he just kind of tries to fit in with Yifan and Zitao.” the oldest fell silent for a moment before seeming to have remembered something. “Oh right! Then there’s this other kid, kinda skinny and pretty beat up who hasn’t said a word since he arrived here from District 2 about four hours ago.”“What?” Minho perked up at the mention of the other district. “Do you know what his name is?”“Uh… well, the thing is… his name tag didn’t really have a name..” he looked around nervously at the others, shuffling his feet a little uncertainly.“Ok, but what did it say?” the shape shifter questioned, trying not to get his hopes up at the thought that it might be Chan.“I think it said something with a 97 at the end… I’m not really sure…”“Where is he?” Woojin interrupted, a sense of urgency surrounding the group. “I need to know, just take me there. Please-”“Woojin! Woojin, calm down! He’s going to be ok. Just breathe, can you do that for me?” Felix was already slipping into the protective healing mode he always went into when something was wrong, wrapping his arms around the older’s torso. “Shhh, please just try to breath normally, otherwise you could start hyperventilating and pass out.” Woojin nodded, taking a shaky breath, trying to steady himself, as well as making a feeble attempt to stem the steady flow of tears now streaming down his face. “That’s it, keep breathing just like that..” To be honest, most people would think Felix was talking to a frightened kindergartener, not an adult perfectly capable of functioning on his own.“Can I- can we- Chan…” The older whispered, practically melting into the healer’s arms.“He looked pretty beat up, and wouldn’t let anyone talk to him… I’m not sure trying to-”“Just take us there.” Minho snapped, glaring daggers at Junmyeon. “Or would you rather deal with two very angry elementalists and someone who can break your arm with literally just a snap of his fingers.” He added when he became aware that Jeongin, Seungmin, and Changbin had grouped together to form a protective barrier between Woojin and the two from District 9.“Ok, ok. Back off, will you?” Sehun glanced around nervously, visibly intimidated by the three of them, even though they were clearly at least four years younger.“I will! I was just saying that he might not-” but the oldest of the group abruptly stopped before finishing his thoughts when Changbin wiggled his fingers around threateningly directly in front of his face. “The dorms are this way,” he laughed nervously, obviously trying very hard not to show how much the threat was actually affecting him.Chan hadn’t said a word since the two guards practically reeking of disinfectant had shoved him through a teleportation beam into this new District. He’d never been to District 9, although he had spent the majority of his life in District 3. But so far, from what he’d seen, they were more or less identical. The only difference was that District 3 was used for running experiments and District 9 was used for running experiments and attempting to drain people of their abilities. District 2, however, was completely different. District 2 was absolute hell (not that the other District’s weren’t).After being more or less forced to give in and go with Them to District 2, he’d been handed a uniform identical to the one he’d abandoned in that alley almost a decade ago, although this one had his real name stitched on the front instead of CB-97. He’d been roughly shoved into a beam and ended up in District 2. The hallways had all been identical to the ones in District 3. All the same, white, boring color illuminated by the bright lighting strips in the corners.The hours after that had been absolute torture. Not physically (for the most part), but more so mentally and emotionally. The whole time he’d been imprisoned in a cell much like the one from when he’d been watching the others in District 1, an enormous screen covering the entirety of one wall, the cuffs on his wrists magnetized to a short, square column in the center of the room. It was horrible, seeing his friends, his family, being brought to the new District. As much as he wanted to tear his eyes away from the footage of Changbin falling unconscious from the electric shock, from Minho struggling against his restraints as They injected something into the side of his neck, from Jeongin letting out small, terrified whimpers and sobs as he was imprisoned behind a wall of fire, he couldn’t. Chan just couldn’t bring himself to look away.The the woman of dread and tears had told him things he never wanted to here. She told him that he had a choice. Either he could watch his friends suffer, or he could buy them mercy with information. Information and letting them run some tests on him. How could he refuse that? He could ensure that Woojin, who’d never been anything but loving and Felix, who’d always been there for him and understood him when he broke down occasionally and was too tired or panicked to even attempt Korean, never got hurt. He could make sure that no one had to suffer any more for his mistakes.But of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as They had made it seem, it never had been before so Chan didn’t really understand what made him think that it would be now. But the point was, instead of just having to give Them information on how he had escaped in the first place, of course they had to occasionally send flashes of electricity racing through his body or inject him with some dark murky liquid that set all his nerves on fire with pain.“What do you want?” He’d finally gasped out, choking a little on his own spit. “I don’t care, what do you want? Just don’t hurt them anymore.”“Where is it?” a high pitched voice hissed in his head. Of course They had to use telepathic communication.“Where is what? You’ve been asking me where it is for hours but haven’t even told me what it is! How in the world am I supposed to even try to answer that when-” but Chan cut off his own sentence with a sharp scream as another shock of electricity ran from his fingertips through the rest of him.It carried on like this for a couple more hours, before They had, finally, decided that Chan really didn’t know what They were talking about and had shoved him through another teleportation beam, but not before he’d ripped off the name tag with his name on it and replaced it with the old, slightly rusty one he’d kept, engraved with the identification code CB-97 in a last act of defiance. Which is how he’d ended up here, sitting silently on one of the nine white bunks in the dorm dubbed ‘Stray Kids’. He wasn’t even sure how long it had been at this point. A couple people had come and tried to talk to him, but he’d remained silent, not even acknowledging their presence.It wasn’t until he heard a low, soothing voice through the harsh din of his thoughts. The voice, along with the soothing hand on his back were too familiar, and it terrified Chan at the thought of him being here.“Chan, come on. Snap out of it. We’re here now, Christopher, please wake up…” Felix was trying way too hard to sound calm, but it only resulted in his voice sounding strained as well as a little panicked.“Is he ok? Please tell me he’s ok! What did They do to him?” Woojin’s voice was distant, as if it was just in the background against his thoughts, or as if Chan was deep under water, just waiting for the people the voices belonged to to pull him out.“Come on, Woojin. There’s no point. It’s like Lix said, it’ll take a while for him to come back mentally,” Jeongin tugged on said hyung’s hand, pulling him past the two Aussies towards the rest of the group. “Come on, hyung. Junmyeon’ll just show us around and we’ll meet everyone else, and then when we come back Chan will be better and you can catch up on whatever needs catching up on.“But what if-”“No, Jeongin’s right,” Hyunjin cut him off, glancing worriedly at Chan. “It’s best we just let Felix do his healy magic on his own.” So after just a couple more minutes of light persuasion and a couple not so lighthearted threats from Seungmin and Changbin, Woojin eventually allowed himself to be dragged away towards the main halls.“You have to wake up now, Chris,” Felix’s voice was low and soothing as he brought his hand up to the older’s neck to check his pulse. “Or if you won’t wake up, at least tell me if it’s ok to check on your health, you know how much I hate doing that without someone explicitly telling me I can.” He was almost pleading at this point, losing his cool about healing someone for the first time since that day he’d found Changbin in a puddle of his own blood. But eventually he let out a sigh, closing his eyes for a moment before whispering a soft apology to both himself and Chan.Slowly, as if he was afraid to startle the older, Felix brought his hands (which were now glowing a soft gold color) up to Chan’s temples. And immediately drew them back. There was something extremely wrong with how his being felt. Felix had tried to explain it to Changbin before, but hadn’t exactly succeeded. Basically it was like everyone had this aura surrounding their existence. He could more or less tap into it or just feel it and depending out how it felt the person was healthy or there was something wrong. And there was definitely something extremely wrong with Chan’s.So this time, when Felix placed his hand over his heart, he forced himself to keep it there to try and figure out what was wrong. Everything about it just felt so wrong and tainted, but it wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before.“What in the world did they do to you?” The question was meant to be rhetorical, but as soon as the words left his lips, Chan’s eyes snapped open.“Felix… Lix please..” the broken whimper absolutely shattered said Aussie’s heart.“It’s ok, I’m here. You just need to tell me what They did so I can fix it,” his eyes darted around the room as he frantically looked for an answer, just as Chan began to go limp in his arms. “No no no! What did They do? Don’t leave me, please, Chris, just let me fix it!”“You know how to cheat death, you’ve done it before…”“What do you mean? I can’t cheat death, it’s the only thing I can’t do! Just tell me what They did, please!”“Always find me, yeah?” Chan’s voice was just a hoarse whisper at this point, growing fainter as he was slowly slipping away from reality. “I’m not gonna leave you behind,”“No- what- don’t go…” As the panic began to set in, Felix only had one goal; keep Chan alive.“Chan! You’re awake!” Jeongin’s happy shout rang through the small dorm when he saw the Aussie standing in the doorway, followed by seven or eight more from the other members. “Wait- where’s Lix?”“He absorbed it.” Chan’s voice was soft and sad, the others only now noticing the tears streaming down his face.“Where is he, Christopher. Where the fuck is Felix?” Changbin’s happy tone was instantly replaced by a threatening growl making even Seungmin back away a few steps.“I didn’t even know he could do that sort of thing! One minute I was passing out in his arms and the next he was passing out in mine…”“He’s still alive, right? Tell me Chan! Tell me he’s alive or I swear you’ll regret everything you’ve ever done!” The older sadly shook his head, not looking up from the spot on the floor he was staring at, his reply only a soft whisper,“I don’t know,”
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“Jeongin, get Yixing.” Changbin’s voice was deathly calm as the three words left his lips, sounding cold and stealy in the previous silence.“But-”“Now!” The older spun on his heal, glaring daggers and the maknae, who quickly nodded before running off back down the hall. Silent, angry tears were slowly trailing down his cheeks, smearing the little bit of eyeliner he still had on. Fury burned in Changbin’s gaze as he curled his hands into fists, glaring at anyone and everyone in the room. “You!” he rounded on Chan again, pointing at him accusingly. “This is all your fault! Why didn’t you stop him? Where is he anyways? Why- how-” but his words became choked sobs before he could finish, falling to his knees and collapsing.It was oddly peaceful, just laying there in the dark. Felix was pretty sure he was in a coma, still aware of what was going on around him but unable to move and interact with anything, or anyone. He was also pretty sure that if he had let whatever this poison was stay in Chan’s system any longer and hadn’t absorbed it, the older would have died hours ago and it was only due to his sped up healing cycle that he was still alive. Faintly he could hear Jeongin crying and Seungmin trying to comfort him against the deafening noise of his own thoughts. If only he could just pull himself out of this, then he could go back to the others and comfort Jeongin and make sure no one else was hurt and maybe find out some more information about this place.“Hey, Felix…” surprise overwhelmed the majority of the Aussie’s thoughts when he heard their leader’s choked up voice next to him, making it clear the older had been crying. “I know you probably can’t hear me.. but- but… oh god, I’m so sorry Felix!” There are no words to describe how desperately he wanted to shout out that he could hear Chan, and that there was absolutely no reason for him to be sorry as he felt the older’s arms wrap around him, pulling him into a tight hug. And then Felix was slipping back into the completely unconscious state he had been in just a little while before, frantically trying to hold on to the last bit of awareness he had left.The next time Felix regained some of his semi-consciousness, Chan was still holding him close, shaking with silent tears.“I know it- it’s stupid, talking to you… even when you- you can’t hear me..” the older sniffled, adjusting his grip on Felix’s torso a little. “But just in case you can… there’s someone who might be able to help you, and- and they’re here now, and they’re going to… ok?” If Felix could have screamed that he could hear Chan and that it was not stupid, because he had done the same exact thing, he would have. But all he could do was lay there in the older’s arms and mentally prepare himself for whatever was about to happen.But when someone placed their hand on his forehead there was nothing. No sharp pain, no strange calmness, no warm floaty feeling, there wasn’t even the strange tingling sensation he got when he healed a small cut or twisted ankle. There was just emptiness, as if everything unnatural or strange was being drawn to the spot where the newcomer still had their cold hand rested over his eyes.“Is it working..? Please tell me it’s working!” Chan’s voice cracked when he spoke up again, holding Felix even closer against his body.“There’s not much I can do, even with all the practice I’ve had. All I can really do right now without putting anyone in danger is keep all the poison in one place so his body doesn’t have to work as hard to eliminate it all.” His voice was quiet and calm, not betraying anything he was feeling or thinking. Or, at least that is what it would have seemed like to anyone else, but Felix saw- or heard- right through it. He’d used that voice countless times. The one that was cold and emotionless, except that it was the one that betrayed the most emotions to whoever could read it correctly. And Felix just happened to be fluent in ‘emotionless’ voices, and all he heard in this other healer’s voice was panic and doubt. He’d used it when he had healed Changbin, telling everyone it would be alright and not to panic because he had it under control. But that had just been a mask to hide how much he was panicking and how scared he was to lose the older, because in reality he’d had no idea whether or not his boyfriend was going to make it.He’d used the same, stealy voice with the mother of one of his first patients after she discovered how severely she’d been injured in a car accident. The girl had luckily survived, but only after 11 long hours of surgery and anticipation. Others, on the other hand, hadn’t been so lucky. Felix could clearly remember the first person he couldn’t save. He’d been about to leave the hospital when a young man had been rushed in with several bullet wounds. Apparently he’d been caught in the crossfire of two rival gangs a few towns away, but there hadn’t been anyone to call an ambulance. A tidal wave of memories of people Felix had managed to save, and ones of those he hadn’t been able to save hit him, overwhelming him with guilt until he slipped back out of consciousness again.The whole room was silent. It had been that way for about an hour now, everyone solemnly waiting for the moment where Yixing told them all to give up hope, that Felix, one of the few people who always seemed to be able to cheer them all up, wouldn’t make it. Waiting for him to announce that Felix was dead. Waiting for him to sigh and stand up, letting them all know that one of the people closest to them in the whole world would never wake up and smile at them all, telling them that it would be ok, again. This was also why everyone jumped in surprise, and Minho let out a little yelp, when Felix suddenly sat up coughing, causing him to hit his head on Chan’s chin, who still hadn’t let go of him.Changbin was the first to move, instantly springing up and rushing to his boyfriend’s side, cupping the younger’s face gently in his hands.“Lix. Lix! Felix, are you ok?”“Changb-"“Talk to me! Are you hurt?”“Changbin-”“How do you feel?”“Changbin I-”“Do you need any-”“Changbin!”“What? Are you ok-” Changbin finally paused his steady flow of questions, staring hopefully into his eyes.“I feel fine, Binnie. It’s gone, no more poison, look, seriously,” But the older was the opposite of convinced by Felix’s rapid heartbeat and heavy breathing.“He’s gonna be ok, right?” He turned worriedly towards Yixing, who was leaning casually against the wall watching the two.“What do you think? It seems like you’ve had your fair share of injuries and been in rough conditions quite a bit. So, I could ask you the same thing, is he going to be alright, or does he seem like he’ll drop dead any minute, hmm?”“Stop being a smartass! Just answer the damn question, Yixing!”“Of course he’ll be ok,” the eldest sighed tiredly. “It might take a while, judging by how long he was out for, but it won’t kill him. They don’t work like that, at least not that I’ve ever heard of. They prefer to scare us, or use… different… methods to gain information.”“No,” Felix mumbled hoarsely. “That poison would have killed Chan. I probably would have been out for at least another week if you hadn’t helped.” This resulted in the group talking among themselves in hushed voices for the next couple minutes, sometimes stopping altogether to process what was happening.“So, you can heal people too, huh, kid. Your name’s Felix, right?”“Yeah, I’m not very good at it, though. I don’t really ever get the chance to practice because if I use my abilities at the hospital people will get suspicious, you know?” Felix and Yixing were walking down a deserted corridor, identical to all the other ones, exchanging stories about different people they’d healed. “Hey, Yixing?” The younger of the two stopped abruptly, staring curiously into the taller’s eyes.“Hmm? What is it?”“Do you actually believe these things we can do are a curse?”“What makes you ask that??” The older tried to keep his lighthearted smile he’d been wearing up to this point, but the happy sparkle had already left his eyes and the smile, too, now appeared far too forced.“It’s just that- well- you know what, nevermind, I’m just being stupid…” Felix looked down at the white slippers he was wearing miserably, fidgeting nervously on the spot.“No, kid, seriously. You don’t actually believe that crap, do you? Please tell me you don’t,” Yixing crouched down as if he was talking to a little kid, looking directly into the younger’s eyes, his heart shattering at how incredibly tired and sad he looked.“N-no, I don’t- I don’t think I do..” Felix’s voice shook with the effort he was making to hold back his tears as he turned away towards the blank, white wall, which had earlier been aesthetically pleasant but now just seemed cold and unfriendly. Yixing’s heart and soul had both shattered into a million pieces the moment the question had left the boy’s lips. He thought he’d seen a lot for his age, but now trying to imagine what this actually child had been through made him want to throw up. He should have known the moment Felix opened his eyes. They were too old and far too knowing for a kid his age, held far too much pain and grief to be healthy for anyone.“Hey… Felix, you gotta stay strong, ok? Just do that for me, do that for the rest of your family, do it for Changbin, hell, do it for yourself. To be honest, I don’t care who you do it for, just please stay strong,”“I don’t know if I can,” Felix laughed bitterly, turning back towards Yixing to reveal the tears streaming silently down his face. “I’ve been strong for too long, you know? The things I see. Every. Single. Day. Do you know how much that can break you, and mess you up?” He was almost shouting at this point, but didn’t bother even trying to keep his voice down. “No, you don’t! Because all you do is sit around and do nothing. All day. Except for letting your friends be fed lies that will eventually become truths if they start believing them! You wanna know what happened when Jeongin had to read about King Midas in school?! You wanna know what happened? I don’t care if you don’t because I’m going to tell you anyway! He came home and curled up in his room and refused to touch anyone of us for months! All because he started to believe that it was a curse. You wanna know what else happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Jeongin, the literal angel of our family, started to believe it was a curse so much that it actually became a curse! Literally everything he touched turned to ice. It took three months for it to start wearing off, and it still hasn’t completely gone away!” At this point Felix’s voice had begun cracking with fatigue and his ranting was starting to be interrupted by choked sobs. “How in the world can I stop that from happening to all of them..?” With those last words he sank to his knees an crumpled on the floor in exhaustion, instantly passing out as a couple last tears escaped from his eyes and down his cheeks.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“I know it’s not a very nice thing to say, but it’s kinda annoying when Lix gets all fidgety…” Jisung starred absently at the blank white wall across the room, slowly lifting his fork to his mouth.“What makes you say that?” Jeongin mumbled through a mouthful of dry chicken. “Felix’s nice, I don’t understand how he could ever be annoying to anyone.”“I don’t really know… it’s just kinda weird. Like, no one else gets like that, at least no one else that I know. And why does he sometimes wake up screaming at night? It’s not like he served in the army or anything like that.”“Don’t let Changbin hear you say that, you might end up with a broken nose,”“Ok, fine. But still, why is he like that? I didn’t even mean that it was annoying, it’s just a little strange, you know?”“You know he gets nightmares, Jisung. Just drop it, will you?” Jeongin huffed, making sure the stale cracker he had just picked up crunched almost obnoxiously when he bit into it.“Ptsd,”“What?” the two of them said in unison, looking up to see Yixing standing at the end of the table.“Post traumatic stress disorder,” he deadpanned again, staring into Jisungs eyes in an almost threatening way.“Yeah, we know what ptsd is, but why the fuck would Felix have it? He’s never left home for more than a week without the rest of us, so where in the world could he have become so traumatized that he gets nightmares so bad he wakes up screaming?” Jisung shifted nervously, staring at the ground to avoid the eldest’s gaze.“You seem to have forgotten that Felix had a life before he met you guys. Maybe ask him about it next time before you start making fun of him for getting nervous easily. Also, don’t forget to mention all that time he spent at the hospital trying to stab people back to life and having to tell people who loved someone that they’ll never see them alive again and having to cut open dead bodies to try and figure out how those people died, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”“I didn’t mean- I don’t understand- well if he does have ptsd or whatever, he never told us or talks about it!” He was beginning to get defensive, his hands already curling instinctively into fists at his sides.“Well you may find,” Yixing leaned in so that their noses were almost touching. “That most people that’ve had traumatic experiences. Don’t. Talk. About them. Very. Willingly.” It was only then that they noticed that the entire “dining hall” (it was called that even though it was far too small and disorganized to actually be one) had gone silent and was holding its breath.“Oh also,” Yixing turned back to look at Jeongin who instantly flinched and subconsciously leaned away from the healer. “Thanks for sticking up for Felix, he’s having quite a rough time here and he really doesn’t need anyone making him feel worse.” He ended his statement with a small smile, ruffling the youngest’s hair a little before leaning away and stalking out of the room.The two of them were still staring dumbfounded after him when Felix slid onto the bench next to Jeongin.“What was that all about?” But he continued talking before either of them had even started to come up with an answer. “This chicken is literally the most flavorless thing I’ve ever eaten. Why the fuck is it so dry? You’d think that after literally kidnapping us they’d at least give us some decent food.”“Hey, Felix?” Jeongin asked tentatively, not exactly how to go about asking the question that had been on his mind.“Yeah? What is it?” The Aussie didn’t look up from his chicken but tilted his head slightly in the younger’s direction to show he was listening.“Um… you’ve never really mentioned what your nightmares are about…” he paused for a moment when Jisung shot him a warning glare, but only for a second or two before he took a deep breath and continued. “And Yixing mentioned that he thinks you have ptsd from before you met us..” Felix instantly clenched his jaw, tightening his grip on the fork he was holding until his knuckles turned white.“It’s nothing,” He growled, stabbing his chicken with far too much force, causing it to slip on the plastic try and fling the slightly grayish peas next to it across the room. “Don’t worry about me. You’ve never wondered before anyways, why would you care now?” But before Jeongin could even opened his mouth to answer he had stood up and sprinted out of the room leaving the beigy tray on the splintering table.“How could I do that to him? How could I yell at Jeongin?!”“Hey, shhhh, it’s ok. Think about it, Felix. Over the last week you’ve been kidnapped, forced to live through one if your worst fears, and put yourself in a coma. You have to stop being so hard on yourself,” Chan murmured (in English) as he hugged the younger Aussie almost even tighter than he had before Yixing had healed him a few days before. “You’re stressed, it’s natural to snap eventually,”“Yeah, but I snapped at Jeongin! All he was trying to do was understand! I should have told them before, I should have just calmed down and started from the beginning! But I didn’t, so now Jeongin thinks I hate him and everyone else hates me for yelling and getting mad!” Felix sobbed into the older’s shoulder, leaning into his touch.“I don’t think you hate me,” The maknae’s voice floated in from the door. “And no one hates you, that’s for sure,” he continued quietly, never breaking eye contact. “We all love you, Felix, and we know you love us. We all have our own history and secrets, and we don’t all know each other’s, and that’s ok. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I was just trying to understand you better.” He walked over to the two and put his arm around Felix’s shoulders.“N-no,” he took a shuddering breath as an attempt to calm down a little bit. “I should have told you guys long ago. It’s just so hard to think about, let alone talk about or tell other people. I- I’m sorry, I’d better go.” The Aussie abruptly stood, shrugging the younger’s hand from his shoulder and sprinted out of the room before either of them could stop him.“Hey, guys. Is Felix here?” Seungmin asked, poking his head through the doorway of Exo’s room.“No, why?” Chanyeol looked up, grinning when he saw the younger. The two had instantly bonded over their shared ability to manipulate fire and had become almost as close as Seungmin was with Jeongin (which Jeongin was becoming a little too jealous about).“Apparently he was upset earlier and ran off. None of us have seen him for hours.”“Shit-”“What? Do you know where he is?”“No… I don’t know where he is… he might have accidentally gotten caught in the current that surrounds the teleportation beams. If he was then he’ll be back by tomorrow morning.”“Oh, ok. Bye then, I guess. I just have to tell the others,” So Seungmin ran back down the hall to where their dorm was.“What did you do that for?” Minseok asked with a slightly aggressive tone as soon as the youngest of the three was out of earshot.“Well, I couldn’t really tell him that They took Felix away to torture him, could I? Besides, I wasn’t exactly lying. He was transported to some unknown location in a teleportation beam and he will be back by tomorrow morning.”“That’s if he comes back at all,” the older snapped, glaring daggers at the fire elementalist. “Remember Mark? And Taeyong and Ten and Kun? Yeah, them. One day they just disappeared and we haven’t heard from them or gotten any sign of their existence since.”“Yes, of course I remember them.” Chanyeol sighed defeatedly, sitting down heavily on his bunk. “How could I forget them? Especially now with the new kids around, how could I forget them?”“Yeah, well, what if Felix doesn’t come back? Hmm? What will you tell them then? You were the one who just told Seungmin that he would be back by tomorrow morning, not me, not anyone else. I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. Before you do anything else you’re going to go and find them and say that there is a chance that he might not come back. I don’t even care what excuse for that you make up. Hell, you could tell them that sometimes the beams malfunction and spit people out at random points across the globe and I wouldn’t give a damn. Just give the poor kids a heads up that they may never see Felix again.” At this point the ice elementalist had stood up and started pacing back and forth in the small space there was to do so. “Although, it would be best to just apologize for lying and give them the whole truth now. If Felix comes back he’ll tell them anyways, so it’s not like it’s an avoidable thing.”“I know… I just can’t do that to them. They don’t deserve to be here.”“I know,” Minseok’s gaze softened as he stopped pacing and looked back at Chanyeol.“They’re just kids. How am I supposed to tell eight scared kids that Felix is probably unconscious in some room, semi-aware of himself and his surroundings hoping he won’t wake up because who knows what they’ll do to him next!”“I don’t know, but you better figure it out soon because the sooner they know what’s happening to them, the more time they’ll have to prepare for it, mentally at least… there’s no way you can physically or emotionally prepare for that.” And without saying another word he left the room, leaving the younger alone to think about what he was going to do.“No- no, please stop,” Felix whimpered softly as he felt yet another needle being jabbed into the side of his neck, the thick black liquid catching all his nerves on fire as it made its way into his bloodstream. He didn’t even know what he was here for. All he knew was that one minute he’d been trying to find a place to just be alone, and the next he was being dragged into a weird, electric blue beam of light and had ended up here. ‘Here’ was a room painted completely black, illuminated only by the black lights lining the corners where the walls met.“Why are you doing this? I haven’t even done anything. Why-” but Felix’s hoarse whispers were cut off where the other person in the room grabbed his jaw and slammed his head back onto the hard, wooden headrest. There were already multiple bruises forming on his jaw and cheekbones, as well as a nasty blackish blue one around his left eye. Blood trickled down the side of his face and the previously pure white clothes he was wearing were now torn and stained with blood.“You know why,” the robotic, artificial voice hissed through it’s mask. “You know why you are here, and you are going to pay for what you did.”“No, I swear- I don’t-” but once again the healer was cut off by a stinging slap across the face.There were only two things Felix didn’t understand. The first one was how and why he was here in the first place and what exactly he’d done wrong to make Them this angry. And the second was how they were blocking his accelerated healing. Usually if this happened the majority of the bruises would be almost completely gone by now and the cuts across his chest and collarbones would be barely visible anymore, but here he was, bruising and bleeding just as easily as a completely normal human being.“No- stop- don’t…” All his thoughts were fuzzy, his vision was going in and out of focus, blackening around the edges and tinting red (which was probably due to the fact that he’d gotten cut right above his uninjured eye, causing blood to get in it). He didn’t know how long he’d been here now. Everything was blurring together, the room was spinning, and his whole body felt like it was on fire.“Do it again and you’ll get it twice as bad,” the metallic voice hissed in his ear, pulling Felix’s head up by his hair before letting go as he blacked out.The next thing he knew, the electric blue beam of light was spitting him back out into the cold, white hallway, making him hit his already pounding head against the opposite wall. Everything hurt. His skull felt like it was being split in two, the cuts on his chest and back felt like they were bands of fire burning across his skin, the junction between his neck and shoulder hurt like a bitch from all the times a needle had been jammed there, causing it to bruise a dark purple color, and of course he couldn’t forget all the other bruises scattered in miscellaneous places all over the rest of his body which ached no matter what position he tried to sit in. Somewhere in the distance Felix could hear the others desperately calling out his name, waking him slightly from the dazed state he was in.“I’m over here! Please don’t leave me…” he tried to shout, but it came out as a soft, raspy whisper that was barely audible, even to himself. “Please…” He could feel the wall of defiance he’d built up beginning to crumble, control slipping from his grasp. Coughing, Felix tripped to his feet, stumbling along the now semi-familiar hallways. He got to about half way back to their dorm when the sharp pain in his chest became too much to bear and he had to stop for a minute, leaning heavily against the nearest wall, leaving blood stains streaked across it.Somewhere in the back of his mind Felix registered the sound of soft footsteps. The gentle padding of said footsteps becoming far too loud as they thundered towards him. He whimpered at the sound."-Lix! Felix? Shit.. Felix..." Minho mumbled, arms looping under the younger's so he could hoist him up. Felix groaned, dazedly blinking an eye open before flashing Minho a weak smile."Hey.." He whispered before he lost consciousness, falling forward into the older's arms.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“No.. no no no, Felix, come on! Don’t do this! Please… you gotta hang on… please-” Minho whispered frantically as he half carried, half dragged an unconscious Felix back toward their dorm, struggling beneath the younger’s weight. It seemed to take forever, stumbling down the cold hallways, wincing in sympathy every time Felix let out a small whimper.
“Come on, Lix. Just a little farther. Just hang in there a little longer. I’ve got you. You’re going to be ok,” Minho mumbled, even though he knew very well how much of a lie it was. “Oh my god, I’m so stupid,” He abruptly stopped, causing the healer to wince at the sudden movement before passing out again. How had he not thought of shifting into a stronger version of himself? Silently cursing himself, he screwed his eyes shut in concentration, focusing on a less feminine form and smiling a little with satisfaction when he felt his muscles tense up a little and Felix’s weight became somewhat easier to support.
Just a little farther. Just one more right turn. Just two more doors. Every step Minho felt like it took much longer than it usually would have. He was running out of time. He wouldn’t make it in time. Felix was going to die-“Minho? What’s going on- is that- oh my god, what happened to Felix?!” Hyunjin’s running footsteps met Minho’s ears, making him sigh in relief.
“I don’t know. I just found him like this- I swear I don’t know.” It was only then that he noticed the tears streaming down his face, making his cheeks tacky.“Hey, hey, Minho. It’s ok, I’ll go get some help. He’s going to be ok-”“Don’t let Changbin know,” he interrupted, his voice cracking and sounding a lot weaker than he’d hoped.“What? Why?”“He cares too much- he’ll be so upset… just don’t-”“Okay, ok, just breath, Minho. It’s ok, I’ll get some help, just stay here with Lix. Everything’s gonna be okay,” The older’s words were rushed and he backed up slowly as he said them before turning around and sprinting back down the hall towards the dorm. It was only then, as Hyunjin disappeared around the corner, that the whole situation began to set in.
“No,” he mumbled, shaking his head in disbelief. “No, no no no.” Slowly he fell to his knees, laying down Felix’s lifeless body next to him. The younger was a mess. Blood stained his previously spotless, white uniform, his hair was sticking to his forehead, and nasty looking bruises covered the majority of the left side of his face and were scattered at random across the rest of his of him. He was pretty sure it was worse under his shirt, seeing how bloody it was, but he didn’t want to hurt Felix even more, so he decided it would be best for Yixing to check that. Not much later the sound of multiple sets of footsteps could heard running down the hall, making Minho look up.“Sorry,” Hyunjin panted as he came into view from around the corner. “He overheard and he’s literally the most terrifying thing when it comes to Lix, no one was brave enough to try and stop him.” Half a second later Changbin rounded the corner, a look of pure hatred and fury filling his features, followed almost immediately by Chan and Yixing. But he came to an abrupt halt when he saw the healer lying unconscious on the floor.“Oh my god.. Oh my god…” Changbin murmured, kneeling down next to Felix. “Lixie.. What did they do to you?” The older mumbled, a gentle finger coming up to stoke the youngers freckled but blood stained cheek. Tears gathered in his eyes as he looked over the injuries that covered the once bright boy.“Changbin, let me see him,” Yixing’s voice was soft when he spoke, placing a gentle hand on the younger’s shoulder. “Please move aside, I can’t do anything if you’re in the way.” But he remained unresponsive and mostly oblivious to what the healer was saying, refusing to leave his boyfriend’s side.“I don’t think he’s going to move, Yixing,” Chan murmured, his worried gaze not leaving Felix.“Changbin… you really have to move aside,” he shook the younger boy’s shoulder, gently at first, but then somewhat rougher after he didn’t respond.“It’s unfair,”Changbin’s voice shook as he spoke, and it was only then that the others noticed the silent tears streaming down his face. “It’s so god damn unfair! Why does it always have to be him! First he almost died from healing Chan, and now they took him and did this and I don’t even know if- if…” But his words trailed off into an indistinguishable mess of hiccups and choked sobs. “Hey, hey,” Chan’s voice was soft as he crouched down next to the sobbing boy, putting a comforting hand on his back. “He’s going to be ok. Here, just scoot over a little bit so that Yixing can have a look.” This time he nodded and shuffled to the side a foot or two, but absolutely refused to let go of Felix’s small hand, who’s fingertips had become icy cold.
After a couple minutes of thoroughly checking the younger healer for any visible injuries, the oldest of the group finally spoke.“Hyunjin, go get Chanyeol and Minseok, I’m going to need their abilities for this next bit-”“Our dorm is closer, I could just get Seungmin and Jeong-”“Do you really want them to see Felix like this?” he snapped back, but quickly realized his mistake and continued in a much gentler tone. “Please just get them over here as fast as you can.” After the younger had run off, he continued, this time addressing Chan. “Ok, I know how much you hate doing this, especially without explicit consent, but I really need you to see what they used on him.” He took in a shaky breath, closing his eyes for a moment, almost as if he was physically pained by the thought.“Do I have to?” Chan looked up at the healer, everything in his eyes pleading the older to not have to do it.“I’m sorry, but there really isn’t another way to find out,” he smiled sympathetically, beckoning the younger over to Felix’s side.“Ok… ok, I’ll do it.”There was almost nothing in the world Chan hated more than this. Everything about it seemed so wrong and unnatural. It terrified him, reaching into someone else's memories. It was foreign territory to him, and if he wasn’t careful he could get lost. It wasn’t even like he could memorize the exact layout of people’s memories because everyone’s mind was at least a little different.“Ok, ok, you’ve got this,” he mumbled to himself, taking a few deep breaths and nodding his head as he tried to reassure himself.“I’m sorry you have to do this, I really wish there was another way.”“No, it’s fine, totally fine, I’ll be fine,” Chan really didn’t know who he was trying to convince at this point but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t Yixing. “Ok, let’s do this.”
A few more deep breaths and a couple self-administered slaps to the face later Chan was sitting cross-legged next to Felix, staring a little fearfully at his fingertips as they began to glow a light silvery color for the first time in more than a decade.“Well, here goes nothing,” he murmured before placing the palm of his hand on the unconscious boy’s forehead.Then he was speeding through the whirlwind of blurred colors that made up Felix’s memories. Ok, focus. Just the past twenty four hours. Apparently, and extremely unsurprisingly, the last twenty four hours had been absolute hell for the young healer. “Why are you doing this? I haven’t even done anything. Why-” he heard himself- well, Felix- say, before the rest of whatever he was going to say was cut off by his head being slammed backwards onto a hard wooden headrest and he- well, once again, Felix- let out a soft whimper of pain. Ok, that’s it, get me out of here! he screamed internally, using all the mental strength he had left to get himself out of the memory. But apparently, he didn’t have quite enough mental strength left to pull himself back into his own head, because suddenly he was falling backwards into another vortex of memories, except that this one was far deeper and darker than any of the others he’d seen in Felix’s head so far.Images of dark, trashy alleys flashed before his eyes as he was pulled farther into the depths of Felix’s memories, making him question exactly what had happened to him before they met. But then he instantly regretted wondering, as he was flung into one of the darker, more fearful memories. When he opened his eyes again he was sitting backed up into a corner in a dimly lit room, his vision blurry, but the unmistakable figure of a man looming over him. Shaking with fear, he tried to stand up or scramble out of the way as another kick was aimed in his direction. His efforts, however, proved to be completely useless as he felt the man’s foot come in contact with his ribs (at this point he had become very glad that he didn’t register the majority of the other person’s pain while “visiting” their memories). Just a moment later he was in a new memory. A cut on his cheek stung and another on his arm burned as he struggled to his feet, trying to put himself between the man with the broken glass bottle and the little girl crouched fearfully beneath the rickety wooden table.“You can’t hurt her, I won’t let you.” His voice wavered when he spoke, but refused to break eye contact. Well, of course, it wasn’t actually him speaking, he was viewing this from Felix’s perspective, so the younger had actually said it, but it still felt extremely real. “You won’t let me?!” the man laughed incredulously, actually pausing his slow advance on the two for a moment. “What makes you think you can stop me? Is it your good will, or your unwavering love and loyalty to that slut you call a sister?” For whatever reason there had been genuine curiosity in the man’s voice when he asked the question, or at least there had been until he had mentioned Felix’s sister, which is when his voice had filled with menace and disgust again, spitting out the words as if they had a foul taste to them. “N-no, but I can-” a harsh blow to the face silenced him again, making him stumble backwards a couple steps.“What are you gonna do about it, freak?”But before he could see anymore, Chan was hurtling through Felix’s memories again, not quite being able to find the strength to get out. They were all like that. Every memory Chan fell into was just the younger being thrown around and beat up by his abusive father (he’d figured out that much from what he’d seen). They’d all been the same, until he finally reached the last one.“You still trying to protect her, huh? It’s useless, if I were you I’d have abandoned her and run away long ago.” The man’s voice seemed almost tired, as if it was boring having to go through the same motions again and again.“Yes, I -”“Shut up.” A punch hit him squarely in the jaw, both silencing him for a moment and throwing him back a couple feet. “I won’t let you!” his voice shook, just as it had all the other times he’d said it, but he narrowed his eyes anyways and crouched into a defensive position. Rage coursed through his veins as the older male advanced on him, every instinct telling him to run and hide, to save himself. “You are the same exact coward you were all those years ago when you’re whore of a mother died saving you! You’re nothing but a worthless piece of shit!” he spat, swinging another punch at the young boy with every word (although in his drunk state he missed most of them).That’s when he snapped. It all happened so fast. The sudden rush of energy, his father’s agonized scream before Felix felt his heart stop and he hit the floor. Adrenaline burned in every fiber of his being as he rushed over to where his nine year old sister was still crouched under the now smoldering table.“Come on, we have to get out of here,” he reached out a shaking hand towards her. But she only looked up at him fearfully and shrank away, now attempting to hide herself from him, not their abusive father. “Please! I won’t hurt you, I promise! It was an accident!” “What did you do?” The young girl’s voice shook and her eyes were wide with fear.“I don’t know- I-”“No!” Chan shouted, sitting up straight, his whole body going rigid. “No, no no no! Please- Felix! Where’s Lix?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Hey, hey, calm down. Felix is right here. He’s right here, Chan.” Frantically, he began to look around for the young healer, but was quickly stopped by Yixing tightly wrapping his arms around him, refusing to let go no matter how much the younger struggled against his grip.
After a while, when Chan had stopped sobbing and screaming and trying to get away, he finally let go and shuffled around to face him.
“You have to tell me what you saw, Chan.” he murmured gently, taking his hand and rubbing small, soothing circles onto his wrist.
“Felix… our Lixie- he.. oh my god, Yixing it was awful-” the younger bit his lip to keep himself from bursting into fresh tears.
“Christopher, you have to tell me exactly what they did, otherwise I won’t know how to fix it and could end up making it worse.”
“There- there was this black goopy stuff-” Chan managed to choke out, still fighting back more tears.
“Yes, of course, they gave that to me too… right here?” Yixing tapped the spot on the side of his neck. The younger nodded, letting out a small, shaky breath. “Anything else?” He shook his head,
“Not unless beating him senseless counts, no.” Chan let out a shaky breath, forcing back the tears gathering in his eyes again. Forcing himself to keep in the nearly uncontrollable screams and sobs he so desperately wanted to let out.
Yixing was terrified, but it wasn’t for Felix, not the majority of it anyways. He knew he could heal him easily. It was because of Chan. The kid had seen things, and he could tell that exactly 0% of them were good things. He could recognize when someone was trying to maintain false calm, and this was by far one of the worst attempts he’d seen.
“Chan.. what’s wrong?”
“No-nothing, I’m fine, honestly.”
“No, you’re not. I know when people are lying about the things, you know. You’re not fine, Christopher.”
“Fine then! Who cares if I am anyways? It’s not like I- I… I’m sorry…” the younger let out a soft, broken whimper as a single tear trailed down his cheek, looking absolutely defeated.
“Who cares? I care. Woojin cares. They all care. You just have to-”
“Just shut up and help Felix,” the younger snapped, glaring at the healer. “We’re nothing without him and I would never be able to forgive myself if he died or something else happened to him. Actually, now that I think about it, I already can’t forgive myself for letting that happen to him.”
Yixing spared Chan one last worried glance before turning back to the younger healer.
“Damn it, where are Chanyeol and Minseok-” Yixing started, but didn’t have the chance to finish, because at that moment the two came hurtling around the corner, extremely out of breath.
“Sorry,” Minseok panted, leaning against the wall. “We couldn’t find Yeol for like five minutes.”
“Yeah, ok. Minseok, can you please make some sharp icy thing? I need to cut off his shirt to see the rest of his injuries and no one else can really make solid things.”
“Yeah, sure. What- what the hell happened?” The oldest almost tripped over his own feet when he saw the state Felix was in. “I mean- they beat us up pretty bad, but it was never like
that
.”
“I don’t know. We might never know. But please just make the damn icicle or whatever crap you do.” Literally everyone could tell how nervous and fidgety Yixing was becoming as more time passed, everything from the tone of his voice to his posture screaming impatience.
“Ok, ok,” the older almost immediately handed him a gleaming shard of ice, which Yixing took gratefully, turning his attention back to Felix.
“Chan,” he murmured, placing a gentle hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “It might be a good idea to look away now. Same goes for you, Changbin,” Yixing sent a pointed look in said rapper’s direction, who was sitting silently against the wall, pure shock filling all of his features as he stared blankly at his unconscious boyfriend.
After waiting for a couple seconds, however, the healer just shook his head and muttered an exasperated “We don’t have time for this,” and almost effortlessly made an extremely precise cut down the center of Felix’s shirt, revealing several deep gashes, most of which were still bleeding, in his heavily bruised torso.
“I can’t heal him with the poison still in his bloodstream-”
“So you want me to..”
“Please, Chanyeol. You would have done the same for Mark-”
“Don’t you
dare
bring him into this!” He half shouted, before lowering his voice again to a dangerous whisper. “Don’t you dare bring him into this, but yes, I’ll do it. I wouldn’t ever forgive myself if I let some other kid get hurt. Actually, I still haven’t quite forgiven myself for that last time. They’re children, Yixing, if given the chance, I would die for any one of them. But if he burns up like- like…” Chanyeol’s voice broke and he looked away, seemingly staring at something only he could see, tears welling up in his eyes. “Ok, back to business.” And almost faster than he had left, he snapped back to reality, kneeling down by Felix. “Here goes nothing,” Carefully, he placed his hand on the younger boy’s chest, letting it warm up slowly before letting the smallest amount of fire creep into his veins.
The entire room held it’s breath as a glowing, almost spider web-like pattern etched it’s way into Felix’s chest, spreading from each of Chanyeol’s fingertips.
“No, no make it stop. Please, no. Stop-” Felix whimpered, his fingertips twitching a little as he instinctively tried to get away from the intense heat, at least some of his previously deactivated neurons beginning to work again.
“Stop! You’re hurting him!” it was the first thing Changbin had said since finding Felix unconscious, startling almost everybody in the hallway.
“He’ll be fine, let Chanyeol do his thing,” Yixing said gently, trying to pry the younger away using as little force as possible.
“No, he’s hurting him! He’s not gonna be ok-” angry tears were streaming down his face, falling heavily to the floor.
“Changbin, don’t-”
“No, let me too him!” It was at this moment that the older healer noticed his fingertips beginning to glow scarlet.
“Ok, that’s it, goodnight.” And without another word he put his palm on Changbin’s forehead, making him fall asleep instantly. “You almost done over there?”
“Yeah, just give me another minute.”
“Ok, healing time is go,” Chanyeol announced, having finished retrieving all the fire from Felix’s veins.
As if on cue (technically it was on cue, but whatever) Yixing shifted his attention to Felix, who was breathing heavily, his whole body shining with sweat, a few whimpers still slipping past his lips. “Hold on just two more minutes, kiddo, I’ve got you.” A split second later both of his hands were completely glowing gold, tracing every cut and bruise decorating the younger’s body. It was almost exactly how one would expect the scene to look in a movie, each cut sealing itself before rapidly fading away until nothing but a neat scar was left behind, the bruises being seemingly absorbed back into Felix’s body.
“Is he going to be ok?” Chan’s shaky voice split the momentary silence when Yixing was done and the others gone back to tell the others Felix was ok for now (Chanyeol had carried Changbin who was still fast asleep).
“Physically, yes. Psychologically, mentally, and emotionally? I’m not so sure. Things like that have a tendency to break people. The Felix that wakes up may not be the one that sat down for lunch with Jeongin and Jisung yesterday.” Chan nodded, finally letting the tears that had been gathering in his eyes escape down his cheeks.
“It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t-”
“Don’t even try to finish that sentence,” he interrupted. “Nothing,
nothing
, that happens here is your fault. It’s not your fault they did that to Felix. It’s not your fault you guys ended up here. So don’t you dare blame yourself for this. Also, speaking of psychological damage, you were going to tell me what had you so panicked earlier, what was up with that?”
“Oh-” all the horrible images from before flashed through Chan’s minding him want to curl up in a corner and not come out again. “It’s nothing, I’m ok-”
“We’ve been over this, Chan. I’m not one of your members, I can tell when you’re fibbing.”
“It- It was awful… I don’t know how he handles it-”
“His memories?” He nodded, before completely breaking down and not being able to compose himself enough to get out another single coherent word.
“Is he gonna be alright?” Baekhyun mumbled about half an hour later, gazing worriedly at Felix, who was now sleeping peacefully in Changbin’s bunk (Changbin had woken up a couple minutes after having been carried away by Chanyeol). He hadn’t had much to do with him, which was mostly due to the young healer spending the majority of his time either with the rest of his group mates or Yixing so they’d only met four or five times in total.
“Yeah, he’ll be fine, physically anyways.” Baekhyun nodded slowly, still not quite being able to process that they’d chosen Felix out of all people, but then again, they weren’t exactly known for being fair about their choices.
“Why’d it have to be him…” he whispered softly, voicing his thoughts aloud. “I mean, I barely knew the kid, but honestly, I’d die for him. Any of them.”
“I don’t think any of us would argue with you on that,” Even while Yixing’s voice was soft and understanding, his expression remained thoughtful and sad, but otherwise emotionless.
“Oh god, they haven’t even gotten to the trials, how the hell are they going to deal with that? I mean, Sehun’s 25 and he can barely handle the training alone.”
“I don’t know, Baek. I really don’t know.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Felix’s dreams were downright awful. Most of them consisted of old memories of his father that had somehow resurfaced after years and years of repressing them. Of course, they had never gone away completely, old nightmares from over a decade ago still plaguing his mind almost every night, but they hadn’t been this clear for almost ten years. It was as if they had been reawakened by something.
His father loomed over him, holding the broken bottle menacingly over his head. Multiple cuts already burned on his cheek and forearms, but through his adrenaline induced rage, Felix barely noticed them, many were already beginning to heal anyways.
“You are just as worthless as your mother was, you useless fuckup.” The harsh words were growled, making his younger sister flinch and let out a small distressed whimper.
‘Fuck off,” He spat, his eight year old voice sounding small and week behind the two words.
“You didn’t mean that,” the terrifying figure hissed, advancing on the two even more.
“And what if I did?” Felix had no idea where the sudden rush of bravery was coming from, but what he did know was that he instantly regretted saying those four words.
He’d relived this moment hundreds of times, some of the others even more than that, and it ended the same way every single time. His father would swing the broken bottle at him and he would wake up in a cold sweat every time.
Just as predicted, the man drew back his arm to backhand his across the face with the broken beer bottle, and swung at him.
A blinding pain erupted across the right side of Felix’s face making him scream in both pain and surprise. This never happened. Never in any of those hundreds of times that he’d had this particular nightmare did he not wake up. Distantly he could here Changbin calling his name, but it was as if he was submerged under water trying to hear someone on dry land miles and miles away.
“Felix! Wake up, it’s just a dream!” Gasping, Felix jolted upright, but immediately recoiled again with a small yelp, a sharp pain blooming on his forehead.
“What- oh… damn it,” still internally cursing the top bunk from being just that much lower than he was used to, Felix stumbled out of bed right into Changbin’s arms.
“Oh, thank god you’re awake, I was so worried,” The older wrapped him in a tight hug and started peppering him with little kisses, letting everyone know that he wasn’t letting the healer go anytime soon.
“I’m ok now, Binnie,” Felix smiled softly, leaning into his touch. “Honestly.”
The moment his boyfriend had been in his arms again Changbin had felt like his entire world came back to life. Just seeing the younger boy’s smile filled him with a happiness he thought he’d lost weeks ago when he’d found himself in that awful room. But after spending just five minutes with him he knew something was off. The usual glimmer that had been in his eyes, even after having been kidnapped, was gone, even as he smiled and laughed with the others.
“Hyung?” Jeongin spoke up behind him, tapping his shoulder. “What’s wrong with Lix?”
“What do you mean?” What he actually wanted to say was ‘apart from the way his smiles seem genuine and fake at the same time?’ but he couldn’t risk alerting the maknae to that if it was something else.
“His smiles are… off… I guess, it’s weird, I don’t like it,”
“Yeah, I don’t know, sorry Jeongin. My best guess would be trauma, I don’t think anyone could get out of something like that completely unchanged.”
“Oh.. ok,” Jeongin gave the older a last small smile before running off to find Seungmin.
“Minnie!” he whined, throwing his arms around the older boy’s shoulders from behind. “I’m bored. Let’s do something!”
“What is there to do? We’re stuck in some military grade compound with nothing in it except for some crappy uncomfortable bunk bed and a few tables bolted to the floor.” The statement was supposed to be lighthearted, but due to the current circumstances, it came out a lot darker than Seungmin meant it to be. “Come on, I’ll give you a giddy back ride. If I can still carry you, that is.”
“Yah!” Jeongin swatted playfully at his (unofficial) boyfriend, his eyes turning into little creasents as a small giggle escaped past his lips.
“Ok fine, if you’re gonna be rude about it I won’t even try.” Seungmin turned his back to the younger wearing a ridiculous pout, crossing his arms.
“Ok ok, I’m sorryy!” He panicked slightly at the meaningless threat, clinging apologetically to the older.
“No, you’re not.”
“WEEEE!” Not even five minutes later Seungmin was sprinting through the halls carrying a cheering Jeongin on his back.
“Do you love me now?” the older panted, slowing down a little to go around a corner.
“I’ve always loved you!” Jeongin laughed back, wrapping his arms just that much tighter around his shoulders.
“You what?!” Seungmin stopped abruptly at the younger’s confession, making Jeongin go flying forward, pulling him along and causing them both to land heavily on the floor.
“Hey! What was that for?” Jeongin shouted, a pout that rivaled Seungmin’s previous one planted firmly on his face as he skidded along the patch of ice he’d spontaneously created out of shock until he hit the wall behind him. “I tell you I love you and you respond by catapulting me halfway across the room?!” Despite his loud complaining, laughter still danced in his eyes, lighting up all his features in the best way possible.
“Well, you tell me how I was supposed to react-”
“Maybe
not
catapulting me would have been a good start!”
“Shut up. Like actually. I was running down the hall at, like, almost top speed and then you just throw that at me, what else did you expect?!”
“Ok, instead of complaining about my complaining can you just either reject or tell me you love me back, cause like, I seriously can’t stand waiting, it’s awful,” Jeongin’s mirth filled eyes and hilarious pout had slowly become a worried gaze and small frown, unsure what to expect from the older.
“Of course I love you, Jeongin! I’ve been trying to tell you for months!”
“You- what?” This time it was the younger boy’s turn to be surprised, causing the ice on the ground to spread a little and change from a thin layer of frost to a decent enough sheet of ice.
“I love you?” Seungmin mumbled shyly, a little bit quieter this time due to the initial spark of excitement having worn off just as quickly as it had come.
“Ok, just had to make sure,” Jeongin’s giggles quickly brought a smile back to his lips, the younger’s dolphin shrieks always being contagious to anyone who happened to be anywhere near him at the moment. “Come on, your turn!”
Without bothering to clear up any of the ice that had now started to creep up the wall as well (it would begin to melt as soon as Jeongin left anyways), he clambered onto the smaller boy’s back, resting his head on the other’s shoulder. At first he’d protested, due to Jeongin being at least 5 centimeters shorter, but the younger had simply replied by stating that he was a lot stronger than he looked (which turned out to be true as he could lift him quite easily).
“Ready?”
“No,”
A split second later Jeongin was thundering down the hall back in the direction from which they had come, his high pitched laughter echoing through the empty corridors.
“You know what I’ve been wondering since we got here?” the older shouted over his happy shrieks. “Where in the world did Sehun get the hoodie and fedora? Like, all of them have other clothes that aren’t white and part of this crappy uniform!”
“I actually have no idea,” he slowed to a stop, panting slightly. “You wanna go ask? We still have an hour before curfew.”
“Sehun! We have a question!” They shouted in unison, bursting into the ‘EXO’ dorm.
“Huh? What?” The older turned from what he was doing, clearly startled by their sudden appearance. “Did something happen?”
“No no, we were just wondering-” Seungmin paused for a moment to catch his breath. “Where in the world did you get your black hoodie and fedora? I though other clothes were banned here?”
“Oh, those! Can you keep a secret?” They both nodded, excitement shining in their eyes. “The people from the different districts have somewhat of a black market. You see, Jongin figured out how to tap into the teleportation beams’ energy, since they take away his ability to teleport on his own without supervision. The only catch is that he gets pulled back here by their energy after an hour or so. So every once in a while when they’re not paying attention he’ll go out and get some other clothes. Sometimes he’ll also distribute them to the other districts in exchange for favors.”
“How many other districts are there?” It was Jeongin who spoke up, the temperature of the air around them dropping a couple degrees at his excitement.
“Um, we’re not really sure yet, we know there’s at least 9 because we’re in District number 9, but Jongin thinks there’s either 2 or 4 due to Mirror’s fascination with prime numbers. A couple of them are completely abandoned, though. Completely destroyed. We still don’t know what happened to them and we don’t know what numbers they were either.”
“Oh,” Seungmin nodded along thoughtfully, his eyes narrowing a little. “Does it ever bother you?”
“Does what bother me?”
“That you don’t know anything about the outside world apart from what you’ve been told by them. They could be lying, for all we know.”
“I’ve never really questioned them, they do keep us here to protect us, after all.”
“No, definitely not,” the younger chuckled darkly. “The outside world is
so
much better than this shit hole of a place. I would literally rather live in a dump.”
“So you didn’t get jumped at every other corner for being able to do things other people can’t?” Sehun asked sceptically, fidgeting nervously under their stares, which contained a little anger but mostly confusion and, to Sehun’s surprise, pity. “And you weren’t locked up and had experiments done on you?’
“What the actual fuck, Sehun?!” Jeongin burst out incredulously. “We are locked up and having experiments done on us
right now
! What part of locked up and experiments do you not understand?!” He was pacing around the room, his agitation making the temperature in the room drop to the point where ice began crystalizing on every surface.
“That’s not what I meant… I mean kinda… but not really- at least they’re humane about it-”
“NO!” the youngest abruptly rounded on him, standing on his toes to try to look him in the eye. “This-” he gestured around randomly at their surroundings, “is the
least
humane thing I’ve ever experienced. Hell, it’s the least humane thing
any
of us have
ever
experienced!”
“Listen- Jeongin, I don’t know-”
“You don’t know? You don’t know what?!” he shrieked, the ground turning to ice beneath his feet with every step as he began pacing again. “You probably don’t know a lot of things! But you want to know what I
really
want to know? No? I’ll tell you anyways! I want to know what the actually
fuck
you think the deffinition of humane is! I want to know how you could let them brainwash you into thinking this is humane and the best place for you to be! I want to know why you’ve never even
considered
questioning anything they tell you!” Angry tears were running down his cheeks by now, most of them not even making it an inch down his face before freezing in place.
Seungmin absolutely hated seeing Jeongin this obviously distressed without being able to help, and it was clear the same was true for Sehun even if the two didn’t see eye to eye. What made things even worse was that the older didn’t even attempt to mention how cold it was becoming, it must have been getting to the point where it was pretty unbearable (not that Seungmin could feel it himself as his body automatically heated up when he was in a cold environment).
“Jeongin… Jeongin-” He started, before being interrupted.
“What is it now?” The youngest growled, whipping around to face Seungmin, his eyes barely softening from the cold chips of ice they had become.
“Look... “ he gestured uncertainly around the room, being the first to point out the fact that a thick layer of ice had formed on every surface, sealing the door shut.
“Oh no…” Jeongin groaned in defeat, his eyes going back from the icy blue to the warm brown color they usually were as he began to take in the room around him.
Snowy tears sparkled on his cheeks, and his hair seemed to be frozen with the occasional streak of frost running through it. The ground was completely frozen, making it far too slippery to walk on everywhere except for where the three of them were standing.
“I’m sorry…” Jeongin whispered in shock, horror slowly spreading across his features at the realization of what he’d done. “I- I…” but his voice (which was already almost nonexistent from all the yelling he’d done) faltered and gave out completely before he finished. ‘I’m so sorry’ he mumbled almost completely silently to Seungmin before collapsing in his arms.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What is up with everyone passing out?!” Seungmin angrily paced the room, heat coming off him in intense shock waves in time with his (extremely rapid) heartbeat. “I mean, what does it take to spend one, just
one
, week without someone being brutally tortured or- i don’t know- abducted in some way or another.”
“I’m sorry,” Chan murmured, wrapping his arms around the younger boy, visibly wincing at the sharp heat radiating from him, but pulling Seungmin closer anyways. “It’s all my fault, they know how to find me and I stayed put for too long with you guys. When they found me they found you, and I will never,
ever
forgive myself for that.”
“What?” The younger stopped pacing, filling the room with a heavy silence. “No, no no no. Channie hyung, no. You are
not
allowed to blame yourself for this, got it? You brought us all together. You took in me and Jeongin when we had no where else to run, you gave Jisung a home, you gave Minho and Hyunjin a family, you made sure Changbin and Woojin never had to be lonely again. Hell, you gave Felix a reason not to kill himself.”
“But I-”
“No. Listen to me. The only person you aren’t allowed to blame for this is yourself, end of discussion.” Seungmin closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the temperature of his skin going down significantly. “We got ourselves into this mess, so we can get ourselves out of it, it’s always been that way. Ok, hyung? We can get ourselves out.”
“Ok..” Chan let out a shaky sigh, letting himself relax for the first time in what felt like forever.
“Come on, let’s get some food and find out what the others are up to, maybe we can get Minseok to turn the dining hall into an ice skating rink.” He shot the older a small reassuring smile, only for it to fall when he saw the tears swimming in the Aussie’s eyes, threatening to spill over.
“Thank you,” he whispered, single tear trailing down the left side of his face as he pulled Seungmin into a tight hug, burying his face in the younger boy’s shoulder. “Thank you so much.”
“Hey, you ok, Channie?” Woojin had pulled the younger aside after dinner, having become more than just a little worried after Seungmin told him what had happened.
“Yeah, I’m fine. This whole thing’s just been a little overwhelming, that’s all.” He gave him a reassuring smile, his eyes twinkling softly in the dim light. “But enough about me, how are Jeongin and Lix doing?”
“Jeongin’s almost back to normal, he’s just still a little shaky and somewhat furious with Sehun, and I can’t exactly say I blame him. Felix, however…” the older boy let out a worried sigh, glancing in the direction of their dorm. “He still hasn’t said a single word since his breakdown and refuses to eat anything. Jongin even went to the effort of getting him his favorite rice cakes, but he didn’t touch those either…”
“How’s Changbin handling it?”
“He’s been trying to get Lix to eat all day, hasn’t left his side once, but hasn’t really spoken to anyone apart from that.”
“Oh... I’m sorry.. I’ve been such a bad leader. I shouldn’t have to ask you to know these things, I should be doing more to take care of everyone.”
“Ok, I’m sorry for being rude, but literally shut up, Chris.” Woojin murmured, pressing a gentle kiss onto the younger boy’s cheek. “You can’t blame yourself for this. I know Seungmin already told you this but it’s true. None of this is your fault. You’ve spent every waking moment making sure we were ok.” He wrapped his arms around Chan, peppering him with more small kisses. Chan sighed, visibly relaxing in his arms and letting the older boy pick him up bridal style almost effortlessly.
“I love you,” he mumbled, already half asleep, his hair falling softly across his forehead and brushing his cheekbones.
“I love you too.”
Smiling to himself, Woojin padded down the hall, turning left into their dorm, and lowered Chan onto his bunk, gently pulling the blanket up over his torso. It had been so long since he’d had seen him this peaceful, even in his sleep.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Woojin murmured, brushing some of the curly dark strands out of the sleeping boy’s face. “Take care of yourself instead, how are you supposed to look after Lix and Jeongin if you don’t even look after yourself?” He sighed and closed his eyes, leaving one last peck at the corner of Chan’s lips.
“Woojin…” Felix’s raspy voice nearly made the older fall out of his chair in surprise, looking up from where he was going over some lyrics Changbin and Jisung had written over the past week (they often wrote new songs when they were bored or stressed, or, in this case, both).
“Felix! You’re up- oh my god, here, drink this-” he handed him the glass of water he’d brought with him earlier. “You have to eat something, you’re burning up.” Woojin fumbled around for a bit longer, checking up on the younger boy in every way he could think of.
“Hyung... I’m… I just- I need- can you do something for me?”
It had been six days since they’d taken him to that dreadful room, five days since the others had found him in the hallway, unconscious and barely clinging to life, and three days since he’d cracked, his shell of feigned happiness shattering into a million pieces, leaving him broken. Time, since then, had moved far too fast but also painfully slowly, leaving him to wilt, withering away as his thoughts consumed him. He hadn’t slept or talked, always staring blankly at the wall in front of him, even as Changbin or Woojin encouraged him to eat something or drink some water. It had taken three days for him to finally snap out of whatever trance he’d been in. Three days for everything to finally set in and panic to take over.
“Hyung… I’m… I just- I need- can you do something for me?” Felix’s voice was a broken, barely- there whisper, but it split the silence like a gunshot.
“Yes- of course! Felix- why do you even think you have to ask for that?” From an onlooker’s perspective it would have looked like Woojin was just being the older brother he always was, caring about Felix and remaining at least somewhat calm in order to not scare the younger boy. But in reality, he was panicking. It wasn’t like Felix to ask for help. He’d always been stubborn and refused to let anyone even try to help him. He’d mentally fight himself for hours on end sometimes, just so that he could deem himself as not “incompitent” or “helpless” (not that he was) and fight off his own suicidal thoughts just so he felt like he didn’t always have to rely on antidepressants or therapists (the rest of them obviously hated this and were always asking him to please at least let them try to help). So while Woojin was relieved that Felix was finally asking for help, it felt so terribly wrong to be coming from him. It was just a fact that Felix was a fighter and if he was asking for help it was a reason for everybody to be worried.
“Because- because you’re not going to let yourself do it-” the younger boy sniffled, a couple tears starting to steak down his face. “No matter how many times I ask you’re not going to do it because you won’t be able to live with yourself if it breaks me.”
“No- no no no, Felix, don’t say that. I’d do anything to help you.” But internally he was screaming, breaking down at the sight of the boy he thought of like a brother he had to protect. One of the few people he’d protect with his life. And the worst part was, if Felix had said it, it was probably true, he’d always had an uncanny knack for reading people and knowing how they were going to react to different things.
“Would you erase my memories?” Felix’s abrupt question caught the older off guard, his thought coming to a sudden stop.
“What- would I- I beg your pardon?” Woojin stumbled over his words, looking at Felix, half wondering if he’d misheard the younger boy.
“Erase my memories…” His voice was small and shy now, his lower lip trembling as tears threatened to start trailing down his face again. “I’m sorry.. please don’t be mad..” Felix sniffled, roughly wiping the tears off his face with his pastel pink sweater paw, courtesy of Jongin.
“No no, don’t cry, it’s ok, I’m not mad. How could I be mad at you for that?!” But apparently Woojin’s outburst wasn’t the right response, because it just made him cry harder, stumbling backwards a few feet. “Hey, Lixie- I could- I can...the thing is-”
“You can’t do it can you?” A sudden chilling calm fell over the younger, his voice soft, not tearful and broken as it had been mere seconds ago, yet it had an almost accusing tone to it, as if he was almost daring Woojin to confirm it.
“No- Felix.. that’s not it-”
“What is it then? Are you afraid you’ll break me? Or are you maybe afraid to live with the thought that you’re the one who broke me?” At this point the older was becoming slightly scared by how fast Felix could switch between emotions as the healer’s voice had just taken a cold steely edge to it. “Because you know what, if you think that, you’re wrong. There’s nothing in the world that can break me more than I’ve already been broken. At this point I would honestly rather die than have to ever think about those things again. So, I honestly think you’d be doing everyone else a huge favor-”
“Aaand let’s end this conversation here!” Jisung interrupted, stepping out of the shadows in the corner, making Woojin look up from where he was in the process of pulling the healer into a hug and Felix jump around to face Jisung, his hands raised defensively, before noticing who it was and lowering them. “First of all, Felix I’m not going to let you get rid of some of the most important parts of your life, no matter how painful they may be. And, second of all, Woojin, I’m not letting you break my best friend by getting rid of his memories, no matter how many times he asks.”
“No, no no no, Jisung, no, I can’t live with them, they’ll kill me. Please, Woojin, I know you’re perfectly capable of wiping someone’s memories. Let me start over, please. It’ll be just like I have amnesia. It’ll be fine, I’ll just meet everyone again and-”
“Changbin. Changbin! Wake up!” Jisung whisper-shouted, shaking said rapper awake.
“Mmm, what is it?” he mumbled blearily, sleepily slapping the younger’s hand away.
“You gotta stop Lix, please, he won’t listen to me.”
“Wait, what?!” Changbin immediately sat up, cursing when he hit his head on the bunk above his.
“He also just happens to be much more persuasive than me? And Woojin has an automatic bias towards him because of his freckles and he’s from Australia-”
“Jisung, what the fuck is he doing?” It was a rhetorical question, as he already knew the answer deep down, but silently hoped he was wrong.
“He wants Wooj to erase his memories,” Jisung answered in a stunned whisper, the reality of it all only just setting in. “Please, Changbin, he’s not going to listen to me. He-”
“Please don’t do it, Lixie,” Changbin’s voice tearful voice cracked when he spoke the younger boy’s name. “Please don’t start over. I need you, we all need you.”
“Hyung? Why are you- you’re not supposed to be here- you weren’t supposed to know…” Felix’s broken voice shattered Changbin’s heart into a million peices, this wasn’t right, no one should hate their memories so much that they wanted to kill themselves.
“Lixie.. come here,” he murmured, wrapping his arms tightly around his boyfriend. “It’s ok, you’ll be ok, I’m here for you, yeah? I’m always here for you.”
They stood there in the dark for what seemed like forever, minutes dragging by like hours until Changbin noticed Felix had fallen asleep in his arms. Carefully, he picked him up, making sure not to wake the healer, and carried him down the hall to their dorm. There, Changbin quietly tucked him under the covers of his bunk before joining him and wrapping his arms around the younger’s shoulders again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Not much happened over the next few weeks, every day almost completely identical to the last. Every morning they woke up, made their way to the main hall, forced down their unappetizing breakfast, and spent the rest of the day talking and messing around before going back to the main hall, forcing down yet another flavorless meal, having a more serious conversation with the EXO members and going to bed. That is, everyone except Felix.Felix woke up when the lights had not yet been lit, untangling himself from Changbin’s limbs, and wandered aimlessly around the halls for a while before eventually making his way to a large, secluded room with a large mirror covering most of one wall. Then he danced. He danced for hours without even thinking to rest. He only stopped once every morning when Changbin padded in, softly setting down two trays in a corner, and watched him dance for a while. Neither of them ever spoke, a silent agreement to which they had come to the first time Changbin had found him here. Eventually Felix would stop dancing and shuffle over to where Changbin was sitting to eat whatever they’d been given that morning. Once again, they didn’t speak, only eating in silence until the younger was finished. Then he’d give his boyfriend a small, somewhat sad smile and get up to keep dancing, not losing his focus even once.When night came Changbin would come back to the room. Sometimes Felix would be passed out on the floor already, having been too tired to keep going, but also reluctant to go to the dorm. Other times he would still be dancing, fatigue making him occasionally trip over his feet before finally giving in to the exhaustion that plagued his mind. Either way, Changbin would gently pick him up and carry him back to their dorm, curling up beside him after laying him down on the somewhat uncomfortable bunk.“Still dancing?” Changbin nodded, setting down the two now empty trays on the long table in the main hall in silence.“He hasn’t spoken in weeks…” he let out a deep sigh, running his fingers agitatedly through his hair. “I wish I could do something, I wish I could help him.”“You do help him, trust me.” Talking to Yixing was frustrating. He would insist that Changbin was helping Felix, but would never specify how. He would tell Changbin that it would only lead to Felix getting even worse if he changed anything that he did, but it was still so incredibly difficult to not just let out all his impatience and frustration.“Three days until training starts,” Kyungsoo noted at dinner as he made his way to the otherwise silent table. “You guys should probably just take it easy.”“Um.. what? What the fuck is ‘training’?” Hyunjin asked incredulously through a mouthful of dry bread. Chan, on the other hand, glanced nervously around the table and attempted to quietly slip away. But, unfortunately for him, Jongin noticed and teleported behind the Aussie, effectively stopping him in his tracks and forcing him to reluctantly sit back down in his spot in order to not make the others become uneasy as well.“Basically they stick you in a really big room and you practice using your abilities for a month and then you go to the arena and fight everyone else from the other districts that have been here for as long as you. Depending on how well you did you get a certain amount of points and at the end they tally up all the scores and the district with the most points wins and earns- they earn- we don’t know what you win, as we’ve never won before, but we will this year.”“And why the actual fuck did you think this wasn’t important enough to tell us before now?”“It’s not really that big of a deal,” Kyungsoo shrugged, taking another bite of chicken. “It’s not like anyone died last year.”“No one died last year?! Oh my god, how can you be so casual about that?! You’re literally telling us that at least one person has died every other year!”“Well, no, which year was it… three- no, five years ago?” The older looked to Jongdae for confirmation, who nodded quickly before refocusing on the lichtenberg patterns he was burning into the splintering wood, the steady crackle of electricity deafening against the tense silence. “Five years ago no one died either.”“How- why- what the fuck?!” Hyunjin looked like he was about to punch someone, which was probably a bad thing because the last time he’d looked at someone like that he’d ended up breaking their nose. “You know what, I’m not even gonna question it, it shouldn’t even be a surprise that they do all this crap anymore. But what about Felix? Do you have any idea what absolute shit he’s been through? Of course not! We don’t know what he’s been through! Hell, even Chris barely knows what that kid’s been through!” “We’re figure out something for him,” Kyungsoo sighed tiredly, turning back to his food and poking at it a bit with his fork, his nose wrinkling up a little bit at the unpleasant flavor. “Hey can I come in?” Jisung murmured, making Felix stumble in both surprise and fatigue. He nodded after a moment, but not because he was debating over whether or not he wanted company. Instead, the look on his face suggested that he hadn’t exactly comprehended the words when he’d first heard them, probably a result of not speaking, or being spoken to, in weeks. “Is it ok if I talk?” he asked, not wanting to cross any boundaries the younger had built since the last time he’d seen him. Felix nodded again, with less hesitation this time, still not bothering to get up off the floor where he was still sitting after tripping.“It might be a little tough to take in though, just saying-”“I’m not fragile, Jisung. Just tell me.” Felix’s voice was soft and raspy and he had to whisper to even get any sound to come out. Jisung looked up, his expression one of clear surprise and even a little shock. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Just because I’ve kept to myself for a couple days doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to talk.” “A- a couple days? Felix… it’s been almost two months-” he choked, his expression shifting from surprise and shock to mild panic and something that resembled horror. Everything up until this point had been kind of hazy. The days had all blended into each other. Time had distorted itself as the hours slowly became identical. But Felix neither noticed nor cared. From his point of view days flew by as mere hours, everything blurring around him, the only clear and focused points being Changbin’s kind smile and his broken reflection in the cracked mirror on the wall. But now it was as if everything had just come back into focus all at once, far too quickly.“Jisung-” he inhaled sharply, panic setting in. “Where am I- where’s everyone else- wha-”“Hey- hey, shhh, breath. It’s ok, I’ve got you-” Jisung wrapped his arms around the younger boy, holding him tightly with no intention of letting go. And Felix let him, practically collapsing in his arms and burying his face in the older’s shoulder. It physically hurt Jisung to see his best friend this broken, this panicked. What made it even worse was that Felix was one of the strongest people he’d ever known. He never cried about anything, so when he did, something was really wrong. “Where’s everyone else?” Felix whispered again, his voice cracking as he broke down in a fresh wave of tears.“They’re back in our room now, do you want me to go get them or-”“No. Stay here, please?”“Do you want to stay here?” Felix shook his head, curling himself up closer to Jisung, still completely overwhelmed by his surroundings.“Is it ok if I bring you to our room?” The younger boy hesitated for a moment, but nodded a second later, lifting his arms up and wrapping them around Jisung’s shoulders.Despite Jisung’s frame being somewhat on the slimmer side from the past couple weeks of basically daily stress, he carried Felix with ease, only putting him down when they got to the entrance of their room.“You ok to talk to them?” Felix nodded again, hastily wiping the tears off his face and standing up a little straighter.“I’ve got this.” His voice was still a little scratchy from disuse and came out as more of a loud whisper, and sounded more like he was trying to reassure himself than anyone else, but there was enough confidence in both his expression and the way he said it that he could probably convince even Chan or Woojin that he was ok.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Minho let out a small yelp of surprise and toppled backwards out of the chair he’d been sitting in when Felix poked his head in through the doorway.The seven of them had been sitting in a circle, creating little figures of ice or fire or whatever else and letting them fight in a small makeshift arena. As a result, most of them had their backs turned to the doorway and those who didn’t (read; Hyunjin and Changbin) were too focused on the two little figures currently throwing minuscule fireballs at each other. “Oh my god, Felix! You’re back!” Minho shouted, but instantly shifted to a gentler tone when said healer flinched at the loud noise. “Are you ok? We’ve been so worried-”“Felix?” Changbin’s head shot up, his attention shifting instantly from the little figurines to the younger boy who stood somewhat shakily in the doorway. “Are you ok?” The older boy got up and half ran over to Felix, standing a little awkwardly in front of him for a second. “Can I-” Felix nodded enthusiastically, or at least the closest to enthusiastically he could get in his current state, before Changbin had a chance to finish, flinging his arms around his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” the younger boy whispered, a soft sob slipping past his lips, clinging to Changbin as if it were life or death. “I’m so sorry.” He pressed his face into the crook of Changbin’s neck, both hiding from the rest of the room and trying to muffle the choked sobs he could no longer contain.“Hey… Lixie, it’s ok. You don’t have to apologize for anything, you hear me? What you went through was more stressful than anything any of us could ever imagine. You’re so much stronger than the rest of us, I’m pretty sure anyone else wouldn’t have been able to deal with it the way you did. I’m proud of you, got it? I love you for who you are and that will never change.” At this point the other members had quietly filed out of the room, silently agreeing that it would be best to leave the two alone and wait to talk to Felix later.After a few minutes of just standing there, letting Changbin press soft kisses into his hair and gently wipe away the stray tears still lingering on his cheeks, the healer finally spoke.“I’m tired of crying,” He admitted softly, almost as if he was scared to reveal what he’d been feeling since Jisung had snapped him out of the trance he’d been in. In response, Changbin pulled him even closer, letting one hand snake around Felix’s waist as the other protectively crossed his back.“Are you sure he’s ok?” Minho questioned for what seemed like the fiftieth time that night, letting his eyes turn the soft lavender color they tended to become when he was worried.“As far as I can tell, he’s much better than he was just a few hours ago!” Jisung shot back, slowly becoming irritated with the shape shifter.The group was gathered around the rickety table the had sat at just a few hours earlier when Kyungsoo told them about the tournaments. It was surprising how fast a group of restless power-wielders could wear down a previously sturdy wooden table when put under enough pressure. One end of the bench on one side was splintering a bit, turning black from how many times Jongdae had sent his lightning through it, burning the jagged scars into the wood. Other parts of the picnic bench (yes, despite the rest of the facility being pure white and spotless, they were still cheap enough to just fill the “dining hall” with a couple picnic benches) were wearing down from the near constant assault of Minseok and Jeongin’s (mostly Jeongin’s) ice, Seungmin’s fire, and one end of the bench was pretty much permanently drenched from when Junmyeon would absentmindedly trickle little streams of water over the same spot again and again. Overall, the table was absolutely destroyed, not a single inch of it still in the same condition as the other two unused ones.Jeongin was currently curled up in Seungmin’s lap, sighing contently in his sleep as the icy temperature that haunted him so constantly was slowly melted away by the older boy’s fiery one. Seungmin, on the other hand, was silently sending death threats at anyone who even though about waking up the younger boy, his eyes becoming glowing coals, which, if you asked literally anyone else, looked terrifying against the jet black hair swept across his forehead (this would usually be absolutely adorable if his eyes weren’t literally burning pits of hell).Hyunjin, on the other hand, was pacing restlessly across the table top, occasionally looking nervously back towards their “dorm”, using his infrared vision to make sure everything was still somewhat ok. Chan and Woojin were quietly discussing something at another table on the other side of the room, sending worried glances at the rest of the group as they waited for Felix and Changbin to come back.Despite his anxiety about how his friend was doing, Jisun had dozed off by the time Felix and Changbin quietly padded back into the room (the quiet part applying more to Felix than Changbin).“Hey, wake up, sleepyhead! We have to go back to our room, or would you rather sleep here on the floor?” Jisung a shaken awake to see Hyunjin’s smiling face mere inches from his own, which, although he would never admit it, scared the living shit out of him.“Yah! What the fuck Hyunjin? Do you mind?”“Nah, I don’t mind. Also, you got it wrong, I’m not Hyunjin.” No matter how many times he saw it, Jisung would never get used to seeing Minho shift in front of him. It kinda looked like what would happen if something both went through every state of matter far too rapidly and managed to exist in all three at once before going back to normal (or whatever “normal” happened to be at this moment in time).“Ah, fuck off, Minho.”“Only if I get to f-”“NoPE NOPE NOPE. ONE MORE WORD FROM YOU MINHO AND I WILL PERSONALLY STEAL YOUR VOCAL CORDS THERE ARE CHILDREN PRESENT,” Chan quickly interrupted the younger, effectively disabling his ability to speak by firmly slapping a hand over his mouth from behind.“Yah! I’m eighteen! I officially graduated from being a child a year ago!” Jeongin shouted from across the room, having been woken up a few minutes before when the real Hyunjin had tripped and fallen head first off the table he’d still been pacing on top of.Their cheerful banter continued for a good fifteen minutes before an incredibly grumpy Jongin teleported blearily into the room, almost falling over and glitching around a couple times before steadying himself in the center of the room.“Literally what the actual fuck are you guys doing here at like four in the morning?”“Well actually it’s only 2:57-” Jisung cut in, using his uncanny understanding of time to be the smart ass he always was.“Shut up, Jisung. No one cares,” Jongin grumbled, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Point is, it’s the middle of the night and the nine of you are- wait there’s nine of you- Oh my god, Felix you’re back! Are you ok?” The oldest’s annoyance almost instantly became a combination of shock, joy, and the smallest bit of confusion.“I’m fine, hyung,” Felix smiled, hoping the tone of his voice wouldn’t betray how exhausted he really was. “Just a little tired, that’s all.”“Ok, why don’t you all get to bed, we can talk more in the morning. I take it they haven’t told you about-”“Oh- no, Binnie told me about the training and all that. Honestly, it doesn’t even sound that bad,” his voice was completely emotionless, something he’d become frighteningly good at over the past few years to avoid talking about his past. “Seriously, it’s fine, I’ll be ok,” he added forcing a smile onto his face, trying to make his voice a little more cheerful, when the others just looked at him with eyes full of pity and concern.“Well then,” Jongin broke the somewhat awkward silence, swinging his hands in front of him with a loud clap. “Let’s get you lot to bed. You’re probably all tired and you need to save your energy over the next couple days so there’s no use just standing here. Come on-” He pulled Jisung to his feet by his elbow, accidentally stepping on Minho’s foot in the process, who in turn jumped back into Hyunjin, which resulted in all four of them crashing into Woojin and falling over on top of him.“Well that was the most elegant thing I’ve ever seen,” Felix laughed, but immediately falling silent, shocked by the sudden rush of joy. “Changbin!” He spun around and grabbed the older boy by his shoulders, rapidly shaking him back and forth.“Huh- what-”“I’m happy! Oh my god, Changbin, I’m happy!” The healer wrapped his arms around him in a bone crushing hug, simultaneously jumping up and down and trying to kiss the older, which just resulted in the two of them also ending up on the floor after Felix accidentally rammed his jaw on the top of Changbin’s head.“Who’s the elegant one now?” Minho grumbled, shoving Jisung off him and unintentionally elbowing Hyunjin in the ribs in an attempt to get up.After a while all ten of them ended up sprawled across each other, catching their breath from laughing and tickling each other, only to make eye contact with someone again and burst out in fresh laughter.Chan and Woojin had been reluctant to join in at first, but eventually the older of the two hadn’t been able to resist anymore, Chan following shortly after. Their playful shoves and pokes quickly becoming one massive tickle war. At first it had been every man for himself, but then Seungmin and Jeongin had formed an alliance, making it their goal to get at least one good shot at Changbin. Changbin had then turned to his boyfriend, who had absolutely nothing against being his ally. Next came Minho, Hyunjin, and Jisung, and then Chan and Woojin, leaving only Jongin alone. After that, it was basically just Stray Kids vs. Jongin. This was the point where the oldest started resorting to teleporting around to dodge the attacks of the younger group.“What the fuck, what’s going on in here?” Baekhyun shuffled into the room, blearily rubbing his eyes (the rest of EXO had voted him as the least intimidating to check out what was going on). “Jongin, why are you out here?” He scanned the group lying on the floor, still recovering from their previous fits of laughter.“We were just having a tickle war,” Miinho explained. “Basically, Felix came back and Jisung was asleep so I woke him up-”“You know what, I don’t care, just go to bed, it’s like four in the morning-”“Actually, it’s only 3:32-”“-shut up, Jisung.” Baekhyun was half way through yawning and turning on his heel to head back to his own bed when his eyes widened and he froze on the spot. “Wait- Felix is back. Felix! Oh my god, are you ok? Why didn’t you mention that before?” He spun around again to face the group who were all looking at each other somewhat sheepishly.“Sorry..” Seungmin mumbled. “We were- um… tickle war?” Baekhyun facepalmed.“Ugh, did you seriously think that was more important than- nevermind. Now go to bed before I get Yixing and have him knock you all out.”The group agreed, their fatigue finally catching up to them, causing Jeongin and Hyunjin to crash into each other and almost topple into Chan and Woojin.“Oh no, we are not repeating that.” Jongin quickly teleported over, catching them before they hit the older pair. “Bed. Now,” he said, his stern mom voice ™ coming out.By the time they’d all finally fallen into their respective bunks (well actually only Jisung, Minho, and Hyunjin were in their own bunks, the others had paired up) they were barely keeping their eyes open. Jeongin had resorted to collapsing on Seungmin who gave the younger a piggy back ride back to their room. Feliix had fallen asleep in Changbin’s lap while Baekhyun was questioning the others about why they were still awake, so the older boy was now carrying him bridal style (many people questioned how he fit the strength to do so in his small body, but he was proud to say he was stronger than he looked), holding he healer as close to himself as possible.Chan was leaning on Woojin, dragging his feat as the older lead him slowly back to their dorm. “Goodnight, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Baekhyun extinguished the soft glowing orb floating a couple inches above his palm with a flourish, smiling a little at how peaceful the group looked in their sleep, they were just kids, after all.“Goodnight,” a few voices murmured back, to quiet and sleepy to really make out who’s voices they were.“I’m gonna kick your ass tomorrow, Jeongin,” someone mumbled through the dark, referring to how said maknae had frozen almost everyone’s pants to the floor during their “tickle war” making it nearly impossible to escape from him. This comment was reciprocated by a high pitched laugh that sounded more like a dolphin on steroids than a laugh which was quickly followed by the sound of someone being slapped.Chan’s angry mutter of “shut up and go the fuck to sleep” was the last thing heard out of an of the boys, well, apart from a few occasional snickers that became less and less frequent over the next few minutes before disappearing completely.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The fear that washed over Chan when he woke up to find that Woojin wasn’t beside him wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt in his entire life. But then he realized he’d just woken up in the training facility where everyone was kept separate at all times unless they were training. And then he panicked all over again when he realized what he and all the others were going to experience in just a few hours from now, about three hours to be exact, judging from how dark it was outside the little window in the corner.
The room he was in wasn’t much unlike the first cell the others had been kept in when they first arrived in District 1. This one, however, wasn’t quite as small and dark. The walls were the same sharp white color as the walls in District 9 and the room was big enough to contain a small mattress in one corner and a little storage unit in the other for the few belongings they were allowed to “purchase” from the little shop with accumulated points based on how well they did. They did, of course, still have the black market run mostly by Jongin and a few of the other people with similar abilities.
Sighing, Chan slumped back down on the cheap mattress, his thoughts running a mile a minute as he relived all the memories he had from the horrid place he was stuck in now. The majority of his memories were of strict overseers, making sure everyone was acting how they were supposed to be acting and not getting up to any “funny business”, harsh training, often ending in limping tiredly back to his own cell, covered in bruises and occasionally some cuts and burns. Of course, every morning they would be gone when he woke up, leaving only a phantom memory of the day before behind. But, while most of the memories of this place were of the stressful training, there were a few select memories outshone all of them. Brian taunting the kid he’d been paired up with, teasingly sticking his tongue out at him until the other was blindly waving his sword around in front of him in frustration, Jae wrapping his arms around Chan’s shoulders and comforting him for hours after practice on the days where he couldn’t handle the stress of it all, often finding himself fiddling with the small knife he’d managed to sneak from practice once, thinking about how easy it would be to end it all then and there.
Hyunjin blinked his eyes open, squinting at the harsh sunlight threatening to blind him.
“Fuck off,” he mumbled, waving around in front of his as if he were trying to swat away the brightness. “ I already have to deal with too many overly bright fuckers in my life, I don’t have room for another one.” He laughed a bit at his own joke, fondly remembering how one of said ‘bright fuckers’ had frozen everyone to the floor and tickled them all half to death. They had, of course, all gotten their revenge the next day, but it had all been in good fun.
“Wait, what the fuck-” Hyunjin was suddenly snapped out of his train of thought, realizing how strange and almost foreign the sunlight on his face felt. At this point he didn’t know how long it had been since he’d felt the warmth that was now soaking into his skin, how long he’d spent without seeing natural sunlight, how long he’d spent in the horrible place called District 9.
He was about to panic, but at that moment the door behind him swung open, apparently on its own, leading to a… fire escape? Well, it wasn’t quite a fire escape, but it had the same structure and was made of the same cold iron- yeah, it was a fire escape. Whatever you want to call it, it ran all along the ridiculously tall walls with what seemed like hundreds of other heavy metal doors leading away from it and overlooked a room that somewhat resembled a football field (American football, the one not played with your feet, just to clarify). The only difference was that instead of the whole thing being covered in grass just half of it was, the other half being covered in a white training mat, similar to one you’d find in a karate or taekwondo studio. Another difference, and probably the most obvious one, was that it was a room, not a field, with walls a good 75 meters (about 250 ft) tall.
“Ah yes. Glorious, glorious District 16. I have
not
missed you,” Chan’s voice deadpanned from somewhere to Minho’s left. He couldn’t honestly say that it was surprising to wake up in yet another strange room with no memory of getting there. But, he couldn’t exactly say he was complaining about the long needed change of scenery either.
“Hyunjin?!” he shouted, sprinting out onto the metal platform, almost launching himself off over the railing and falling down the entirety of the 30 meters between him and the ground, and would have if Chan hadn’t caught him by the back of his shirt and yanked him back.
“Slow down! We seriously don’t want you to die any sooner than we can avoid.”
“Seungmin? Woojin? Jeongin? Felix? Hello?! Changbin? Jisung? Where are you guys?!”
“We’re all good!” Jeongin’s somewhat muffled voice came from a couple meters below him. Looking over the edge he saw the younger boy leaning over the edge, grinning up at him, his red hair a mess and falling into his eyes. Well, at least that’s what he saw until someone else abruptly pulled the maknae back, accompanied by a fuck ton of screaming and about seven variations of “Jeongin get the fuck away from the edge!” or “You’re going to fall off one of these days and we’re
not
going to take the blame” (let’s be honest, they would all totally blame themselves).
“Why didn’t you wait for me?!” Minho whined, already sprinting down the metal staircase that was actually more of a ladder, closely followed by Chan, who, until now, had still been recovering from the shock (well, not really, he was far too used to it at this point) of almost losing another one of his members. This consequently resulted in him tripping and falling on his face, splitting his lip and getting a bloody nose.
“Ugh, come here,” Felix muttered, trying to feign exasperation but failing miserably when his expression cracked into a grin and a laugh bubbled from inside him.
“Yah! Cut it out!” Minho jokingly punched the younger boy’s shoulder, but Woojin quickly butted in before anyone could fall and get seriously injured, his boyfriend moving to his side once he’d also made it down the ladder.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Jisung called from a little farther ahead. “I think I saw some other people!”
“You know it’s funny,” Chan remarked as they made their way down yet another rattly ladder. “Most of the doors here are fakes. There’s not nearly enough people to fill up this many rooms. They just do it for the uniformity, or aesthetic, if you will. But, honestly, it’s not very aesthetically pleasing, and the fire escape doesn’t help.”
“Wait, you’ve been here before?!” Seungmin shouted, a few sparks flying from his fingertips.
“Yah! Don’t shout, unless you want us to go deaf!” Jisung yelled back just as loudly, if not louder.
“What else do you know that you haven’t told us about?” Seungmin continued, barely noticing when Jeongin wrapped an arm around his waist and intertwined their fingers, trying to just subtly cool him down, having noticed the sudden increase in the heat radiating from the older, as well as the fact that Felix had flinched and unconsciously moved farther away from the group when Seungmin had raised his voice.
“Hey, Seungmin…”
“Hm?” Jeongin quietly nodded over to the healer who was now walking quietly a meter or two behind the others, almost as if he was trying to go unnoticed, staring at his feet. “Oh… I’m sorry, wait- do I go apologize to him, or do I- I don’t know- what if he doesn’t want anyone to talk to him- I’m sorry…”
Of course, the entire situation didn’t go unnoticed by Changbin either, who padded over to the younger, gave him a small smile, and put an arm around his waist, protectively pulling him close and silently daring anyone to raise their voice again. He smiled back softly, and leaned a little close to Changbin, glad to have an anchor in the unfamiliar environment.
The other people Jisung had spotted earlier had turned out to be a group of five other boys, all of which seemed to be older than the majority of their own group. The moment Chan realized who it was he broke into a full-on sprint, all but flying down the last set of ladder-stairs and jumping into one of the boys’ arms.
“Jae! You’re still alive!”
“Of course I’m still alive, silly, I’m literally immune to almost everything in this hellhole, what did you expect?” He laughed, ruffling Chan’s hair playfully before his expression became serious. “But what are you doing back here? We heard rumors about some rookies joining EXO’s district, but I never thought for a minute it would be you, how did they manage to find you?”
“Aah, well, as it turns out, it’s a lot easier for them to locate a large concentration of us than just one,” he gestured to the other members who were now standing about two meters away. “Oh, right! I have to introduce you guys!” Chan half-jogged over and grabbed Woojin’s arm, dragging him back over to the boy he’d called ‘Jae’ and the other four still standing behind him watching Chan’s group curiously.
“Ok ok,” Chan took a deep breath. “This is Woojin, Minho, Changbin, Jisung, Seungmin, Hyunjin, Jeongin, and Felix,” he gestured to each boy as he said his name, all of them responding with a cheerful ‘hello’, except for Minho - who mimed taking off a top hat, pretending to twirl it around twice, and bowed, one hand resting on his back, because,
“No, Christopher, I can
not
‘act like a normal fucking person for once in my goddamn life’, and, no, I will
never
stop being as extra as humanly possible.”
-and Felix, who gave a small little wave, a tiny smile, and an even tinier “Hai〜”. At this, everyone’s hearts instantly melted, their eyes going soft as they all simultaneously decided that they were going to protect this angel at all costs.
“Anyways, I’m Jae. This is Brian-”
“YoungK!”
“This is Brian,” the brunet repeated a little more forcefully. “Then there’s Dowoon, Sungjin, and Wonpil.”
“Uh… Jae?” Chan’s face was full of confusion as he muttered the two words, hoping it wasn’t what he thought it was. “Where’s Junie hyung?”
“Oh…” the older boy’s smile faded from his face. “We tried to escape shortly after you did, just after that year’s tournament. They caught the rest of us and took us back to District 2 for a while. He tried to come back for us-” He coughed hoarsely, trying to hide his otherwise choked sobs. “I- I don’t know what happened… he just ended up- ended up badly injured, I have no idea whether he’s alive or- or..”
“Oh… Jae.. I’m so sorry,” Chan murmured, pulling him into a hug, a single tear running down his cheek, but despite this it was clear he was also holding back the majority of whateverer pain he felt at that moment.
“Is it always like this?” Hyunjin asked carefully a while later as they were exploring the stadium-like hall (or rediscovering, in Chans case). There was a moment of silence before their leader spoke a single agonizing word.
“Yes.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next few days weren’t particularly eventful. Every couple hours a new group arrived, first a group of literal demons, then a group cybernetic, yet otherwise normal humans, then a group of miscellaneous mythical- creatures? monsters?- they weren’t exactly either of the two, but, although they weren’t quite monsters, they definitely weren’t human either. Chan, of course, already knew most of the people here, only meeting a few new ones mixed in with all the familiar faces.The most intriguing group, however, arrived three days after they did. At first glance, they all appeared pretty normal, much like themselves, but everyone (and I mean everyone) did a double take the first time they met. Because, while they seemed pretty normal, there was something off about them. They didn’t give the impression that they were one cohesive group either, as all of them were quite different in terms of the feeling one got from being around them, unlike all the other groups, in which all of the members had the same sort of energy surrounding them. “Hi, I’m Jonghyun.” The black haired boy grinned, sticking out his right hand to shake Felix’s.“Felix,” the younger boy smiled. Said smile faltered a split second later as his eyes narrowed in confusion and concern. “You don’t have a pulse-” his eyes widened the moment he realized what he’d said. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to be inconsiderate-”“No no, it happens all the time, no one’s noticed as fast as you, though. You broke the record, it was a week, three days, seven hours, and two minutes, just in case you wanted to know.” Jonghyun smiled.“That’ll be the healing,” Felix chuckled, smiling a little at the ground at the reminder that that part of him, however small, was still good and untouched. “How are you still..”“Alive?” Felix nodded looking away from the older boy. “Well, technically speaking, I’m not. I’m not dead either. I just kind of… exist, if that makes sense.”“Oh,” He nodded, still kind of puzzled. “Why are your eyes two different colors?” he blurted out, unable to stop himself.“What colors are they for you?”“Huh?”“They’re different colors for everyone, based on the person’s cultural and personal experiences,” Jonghyun explained, his tone kind and patient.“Oh,” in the back of his mind Felix realized he was saying “oh” quite a bit. “The left one’s this minty blue-green color and the right one’s like a dark, metallic brown-grey.”“Interesting…”“How so?”“Most people see them as black and white, and if not, they’re not so specific about how they describe the colors. They’ll usually just say ‘red and white’ or ‘blue and yellow’ or something,” he clarified. “Hey, is there anything in here that’s the same or a similar color to my left eye?” Jonghyun spoke up after a moment of silence.“The greenish one?”“Yeah.”“Uh.. I guess the doors are kind of similar? Why?” Felix pointed somewhat randomly up at the rows of doors lining the walls 10 meters above their heads.“I mean I can’t see my own eyes, can I? I was just kind of curious about it.” “Hey, Chris?” The boy spun around from where he was apprehensively examining a rack of swords, ranging from a full-sized claymore to a wickedly sharp jian to a thin, whip-like rapier.“Oh, hey Jonghyun. What’s up?”“Nothing much,” the older boy’s lips were drawn into an uneasy frown, as if he was weighing his options and slowly mulling over the pros and cons of each one.“What’s someone as powerful as you still doing here anyways? Shouldn’t you be out guiding those troubled souls you’re always so concerned about?” Despite the phrasing of his words, they were said out of genuine curiosity, not a single trace of mockery in Chan’s voice. “You’re literally a god, you could break out at any time, and yet, you’re still here.”“I can do my job just as well from here as from anywhere else on the planet, or even in the universe, so why bother breaking out when it would do more harm than good in the first place? I am not, however, a god. While I can’t be killed due to my lack of a heartbeat, I can be wiped from existence just like any other being in this world.” He smiled faintly, but not enough to remove the troubled expression from his face.“Hey, what’s wrong?” the younger boy looked up concern melting into his features.“I- does Felix happen to work at a hospital?”“Yeah, he’s a surgeon, why?”“Does he ever.. talk about it..?” “Uh.. now that I think about it, no, not very often. I mean, he comes home beaming and tells us all about it if something went really well, and it’s clear as day if something went badly, but other than that I don’t think any of us really know much about his work.”“Oh, ok.” “How often does something not go well, exactly?” Jonghyun’s uneasiness was growing clearer by the second, seeping into his tone and demeanor.Judging by how long it took for Chan to reply, it was clear that the older’s anxiety was getting to him.Finally, after what felt like forever, he finally responded.“Often enough that it can’t be something serious more than four or five percent of the time.”
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The days of the apparently dreaded “training” were fast approaching. Every day Hyunjin and the others watched with mild confusion as the people around them became progressively more restless and agitated. Eventually, however, he’d had enough of their extremely ambiguous explanations of what was going on and decided to find out for himself.“Ok, enough, Chris. Spit it out. What’s up with you guys. What could possibly be so much worse about this so-called ‘training’ than what’s already happened to us?”“Nothing, it’s fine-” The lie was clearer than the difference between day and night, not that there was much of one in the districts, but whatever.“No, don’t give me that bullshit, Christopher. We’ve been drugged, tortured, isolated for days on end, almost killed, and brought back from the brink of death, and you’re all still acting like the apocalypse is coming! We’re tired of being left in the dark! Just tell me what the fuck is going on so that I don’t have to watch you guys slowly going insane without knowing why!”“You wanna know what’s worse?!” Chan shot out of his seat, knocking it over in the process. “You really want to know?! I’ll tell you! The one thing worse than being drugged, tortured, almost killed and being brought back from the brink of death is drugging, torturing, almost killing your best friends and then having to bring them back from the brink of death! Do you want to know how many times I’ve tried avoiding this? I’ll tell you that too! I tried to avoid it a total of 783 times. It took 783 days for them to finally break me-” Chan’s voice shook and became progressively softer, silent building up in his eyes before spilling over. “It took 783 days of me refusing to do that to finally give up…” His last words were barely a whisper, making him almost impossible to be heard.“Chan I-” Hyunjin had stepped back at the older boy’s outburst, but now didn’t know what to say to comfort him. “I’m-”“Don’t bother saying you’re sorry,” Chan snapped, cutting him off, clearly angry at someone, but it was unclear who he was angry with and for what reason. “You get used to it eventually. We all did.” He gave the younger a strained smile as a (fairly weak) attempt to reassure him that things were going to be ok. Chan smirked with satisfaction as he counted the “overseers” that had arrived merely 15 minutes before to supervise the training and competitions that would occupy the next weeks. There were 13 of them, but it hadn’t always been like that.When Chan had first been kept in District 3, there had been a total of 17 overseers. One of them (he was pretty sure his name was Dongjin) was killed when he and the other captives in that particular district rioted and blew the place up. Normally he’d disapprove of any killing whatsoever, but that man had hurt and even killed so many people that it was impossible for Chan not to be glad that he hadn’t survived the explosion. Most of the people there had escaped, some with minor injuries, while others had managed to pull themselves from the wreckage with a couple broken bones or deep gashes from sharp pieces of metal. A few, however, hadn’t been as fortunate and had died in the rubble that had once been a stone grey bunker in the middle of nowhere. And for that, he’d never forgive Dongjin.Chan had tried to help. He’d spent days after the explosion trying helplessly to find survivors and get them out, but had come back every day empty handed. It was only after months and months of other survivors trying to convince him that it wasn’t his fault that some of his guilt finally left him, and even after that it still hung heavily over his head everywhere he went.Finding the other eight of them finally cleared his conscience, for the most part, at least, but his memories still plagued him enough that he’d occasionally ask Woojin to make him forget them for a few days until he was prepared to deal with them again. Apart from Dongjin, though, three other overseers were missing from the lineup. It had been a couple years since he’d last been here, but Chan was pretty sure they had been the ones in charge of a group of literal angels, and some elves/fey people, considering they were missing from the miscellaneous people a creature gathered in the large hall. The last one had probably been in charge of the old weapons laboratory. He’d heard some rumors about it blowing up two or three years back, which he could pretty much confirm to be true now.He’d only met Samuel a few times. Out of all the overseers he was the most pleasant to be around. He was the youngest and actually treated them all like actual people. even when he was getting them to fight each other. To put it short, Samuel reminded Chan of those soft kids that somehow end up in gangs. However hard he tried to seem like the other overseers, Samuel had never really developed the same harshness as the others and treated everyone much better than the others.It wasn’t even really a surprise to Chan that the angels (well, they didn’t have the wings and shit, but they were pretty much angels) he’d been supposed to supervise had escaped. In all honesty, he hoped that Samuel had survived and just been fired for negligence. The kid still had a chance to fix himself, and Chan genuinely liked him, the only grudge he held was that Samuel hadn’t realized what an awful position he’d put himself in when he signed the contract to work in the districts. Mingming (Chan was pretty sure that was his name, but honestly couldn’t be bothered to care if he was right), however, was an absolute nightmare. Like Samuel, he seemed like the type of kid that didn’t really know what he got himself into and had just stumbled in with the wrong crowd. But that’s here the similarities ended. While Samuel had still seemed to have his innocence, Mingming had become one of the worst supervisors there. He had a charming personality, but used it for all the wrong things. He’d had time to develop the same harsh edge as the others, and his previously sweet personality became cold and calculating. His laugh became cold and sharp, his jokes became increasingly violent and disturbing, and his eyes would gleam evilly when he smiled, which was only when someone was in extreme pain, regardless of whether it was mental or physical.Chan had hated Mingming with every inch of his being. He hated him almost as much as he hated Joshua. Mingming could rot in hell. A mischievous glint sparked in his eyes and he smiled far too sweetly at Joshua, the man that ran the training and competitions and looked far too sweet for his personality. From now on he had exactly one goal. Make the overseers lives living hell.