First of all, since it's the first chapter I just wanted to say that this is my first story, I tried to develop the characters as much as I could. I based them mostly off of how I see them in real life with a couple of things added to make it more interesting. The Exo personalities will most likely be closer to their actual ones than SHINee simply becasue I know Exo better, but I still love them both. I'm going to try and make this story as realistic and possible, but if someonething is ridiculous please tell me so that I don't look dumber than I usually do. I tried to make this chapter as long as possible. I was trying so hard to get this done over the weekend, but even though I pretty much worked on it non-stop, the second I told myself, that I was going to finish chapter one over the weekend fate was like haha nope. So I'm technically just an hour late. Tell me where my mistakes are so I can fix them, I was very tired for writing most of this. Enjoy :)

When Jongin’s mind finally reaches the light of consciousness, his first thought is, ‘Why do I hurt so much?’.  His second thought is ‘Taemin’, which is followed by ‘No’. Jongin’s eyes snap open, immediately hurting from the bright light and colors. The smell of rain is so heavy in the air it can practically tasted, and Jongin sits up so suddenly that his vision blurs and disappears for a moment. The beach is gone. Some sort of tent has replaced it. His sore eyes take in a row of white cots similar to the one he is situated on. Jongin wonders if he is some sort of medical tent. The boy timidly places one foot on the ground. Jongin’s head snaps downwards, realizing that the ground is soft beneath his feet. Dirt covers the ground of the whole tent. He puts the other foot on the ground and, after stumbling and wavering a bit, takes a step. Out of nowhere, a dark shape comes flying at him and tackles him backwards into the bed. Jongin has half a mind to hit this thing, but the other part of him tells him to take whatever he gets. Because he deserves it. So the boy just lies there on his back until the shape over him stops moving enough to be seen clearly. A boy is holding Jongin down with a menacing look on his face.

In a harsh tone, the boy says, “What do we have here?” He slowly makes a fist and holds it over the frightened person on the bed. “Well?” he growls when Jongin doesn’t respond.

Jongdae smiles mentally. It’s always fun to see how someone will react to random situations he puts them in. He decided to do this the second this new boy was brought in. He, of course, got the clear from Yixing first so he didn’t accidentally hurt the boy more. Technically the ‘okay’ had been more like ‘He should be okay now,’ but either way, it still worked and meant the same thing. People at camp knew virtually nothing of this boy. The only things they knew were A). He had a demon as a parent, and B). Something happened to a boy named Taemin, who the boy must have been close to. They only knew the second because of all the times he had said it in his sleep. Ranging from muttering to screaming, it was the only thing they had heard him say.

“U-um…” the boy finally stuttered out. He was still shaking.

“That’s not an answer,” Jongdae threatens. He brings his fist down swiftly, stopping close to the boy’s face. His face got all scrunched up, and tense, waiting for a punch that never came. Slowly, opening one eye at a time, he cautiously looked up at Jongdae in question. Jongdae smiled brightly at him, and patted his face softly before retracting his hand.

“You’re cute.” He says, looking at the boy, “What’s your name?”

The boy’s face becomes even more confused, and Jongdae almost feels bad. “Jongin,” he says quietly. Louder this time, he adds, “May I ask why you would like to know, who are you, and what just happened?””

Jongdae smiles. This boy might not be as helpless as he had thought. “I’m Jongdae. I just jumped on you. I wanted to know your name and not just your friend’s.”

Jongin becomes more confused, not less after Jongdae says this. He can’t figure out where he is, and nothing is making sense. Why would Jongdae, a stranger, tackle him, then call him cute? Why would he know my friend’s name? What friend? Shortly after Jongin thinks this, he begins to ridicule himself internally. He only has one friend. Taemin. His face falls again. How could he forget so soon? It hasn’t even been five minutes and, already, he is thinking about someone else, not even sparing Taemin a thought. Suddenly Jongdae gets off of him, stirring Jongin back to reality.

Why did he suddenly get so sad? Jongdae wonders what happened to him. He was found lying on a beach, passed out and extraordinarily pale, as if he hadn’t moved or done anything to sustain his body for the past couple of days. He was taken back to camp and kept in the medical tent until he finally woke up. Yixing had worked on healing him, but after a week of not waking up, everyone had started to forget about him, save for the occasional times at night when Jongin reminded everyone of him by screaming and yelling for and about Taemin. On those nights, no one got much sleep until someone managed to shut him up.

“Hey- I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Jongdae asks softly, not wanting to startle Jongin.

Jongin shakes his head slowly. “I just… remembered something.” Jongin looks so absolutely hopeless and sad that Jongdae is shocked.

“Is it about Taemin?” Jongin’s head moves swiftly to look up at him.

“How do you know his name?” Jongin suddenly looks very defensive as he stands up and walks towards Jongdae. “Are you one of the people that hurt him?” Jongin may not have hurt Jongdae before, but looking at his face, he has no doubt that Jongin would murder anyone who laid a hand on Taemin.

“No! I didn’t hurt him! I don’t even know who he is, but you kept saying his name in your sleep, so I guessed that something had happened to him.” Which is not exactly true, Jongdae along with the rest of the camp learned that by the countless times Jongin had said his name, accompanied by a ‘no’, but Jongdae doesn’t want to irritate him any more than he already is, so he stays quiet. Suddenly Jongin deflates, and Jongdae comes to the conclusion that this guy must be on his period for all because of all the moods swings going on.

Jongin doesn’t know what he’s doing. Of course this boy couldn’t have hurt Taemin. Jongin would have known by his smell if he was a demon or a child of two demons. Which makes him realize, Jongdae must be the child of a single demon, like himself. He sits down on the bed, trying to be more controlled, but the truth of the matter is that Jongin doesn’t know what he’s doing. All times before he had Taemin were dark, and Jongin feels like he was taken out of a bright sunny field and plunged into the depths of the ocean, struggling under pressure and unable to breathe. He looks up at Jongdae.

Jongdae hadn’t thought that Jongin could look any sadder, but here he was, proving Jongdae’s thoughts wrong again. The boy named Taemin must have really meant a lot to him.

“I’m sorry. I don’t- I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know where I am, I don’t know anything about this situation, and I just-“ Jongin’s voice breaks and he looks down, a single tear dripping off his face. Jongdae suddenly feels a rush of sympathy for this boy, who looks like he just lost everything he every cared about. “I just want this to be over. I want him back.” Jongin spurts out before beginning to shake softly. Jongdae pulls him into a hug, muttering reassurances that might not have been 100 percent true, but they were all Jongdae could think of at the moment.

After a few minutes of crying his feelings out, Jongin looks up at Jongdae in embarrassment, worried he might be teased and laughed at, but the boy just smiled down at him kindly. Jongdae gets up and offers a hand down to Jongin.

“Are you ready to go? You have things to see,” Jongdae speaks, looking down at him. Jongin nods and stands up on his own, ignoring Jongdae’s hand. It might not have been the nicest thing to do, but the gesture reminded him too much of Taemin.

Jongdae lowers his hand. He figures that at the moment Jongin couldn’t really be judged for who has was, seeing as no one knew a thing about the boy, and he was hurting. Jongdae thought that after Jongin got used to everyone, then he could consider what Jongin did as rude. He smiled again and led Jongin to the edge of the tent.

Jongdae walks out of the tent, leaving Jongin to follow him. Jongin doesn’t know what to expect. Are they in the middle of nowhere? Are they in a park? Are there other people here? How many? He takes a deep breath and steps out. Looking around, Jongin feels very overwhelmed.  Trees fifty feet tall stretch in all directions. The ground is wet and soggy, and they are in what seems to be the center of at least twenty tents. Suddenly another man runs up to them, looking as if he is supposed to be mad, but is too happy to actually care.

“Kim Jongdae! How dare you not tell me he was awake! You probably scared the poor boy to death!” Suddenly the sweet looking man hugs him as if trying to protect him from Jongdae. Turning to look down at Jongin, the man says, “Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Poor baby. What’s your name?”

Jongin looks up at him, perplexed but slightly touched that some random person cares for his well-being.

“His name is Jongin, and I didn’t hurt him! Just woke him up a bit.” Jongdae answers with a playful look in his eye.

Yixing frowns, but he is amazed and happy that the boy- Jongin- is awake. The poor kid probably got physically assaulted by Jongdae before he had time to register what had happened. Yixing sighs. He knows that Jongdae would never physically hurt someone unless they really deserved it. 

“I’m holding you to the fact you didn’t tell me. We’ll talk later,” Yixing addresses Jongdae before letting go of Jongin and looking at the two of them. “Jongdae, go show Jongin around. Don’t scare him more than necessary. I have things to do. Bye!”

Jongin watches the smiling man practically skip away and concludes that he is probably a nice guy. He suddenly realizes that he still has no idea who that guy is, so he turns to Jongdae with a raised eyebrow, and the message seems to be received.

“That was Yixing. He is the medic around here, which makes sense given that he has the power of healing. He’s quite sweet, but he likes to pretend that he’s tough and tries to scold people a lot. He usually just ends up being kind to them though.” Jongdae laughs a bit before walking off and gesturing for Jongin to follow him. Jongin wonders if everyone around here has a power.

Jongdae leads him to a tent. “This is the leader’s tent. Junmyeon and Yifan both live in this tent. Junmyeon is generally nice, but he’s not much fun. He tries to be, but he’s not really. Yifan isn’t nice to anyone, so don’t mess with him, but he’s kind of a cool guy once you get to know him.” He says while laughing. “Knock, knock!” Jongdae calls out.

A tall man pokes his head out of the tent, and Jongin quickly jumps behind Jongdae. He wonders if this is Yifan or if it’s Junmyeon. After taking one look at who’s in front of him, the tall man says, “No.” and shuts the curtain. Jongin thinks that the tall man is probably Yifan. He suddenly hears rustling and another voice speak, “Yifan who was that?” proving Jongin correct.

“It’s me!” Jongdae calls out to who Jongin assumes to be Junmyeon, “I have a guest!” Jongin hears more rustling before the curtain is opened again, this time by someone shorter, and a lot more approachable. Suddenly Jongin is yanked out of his hiding spot with a small squeak. “Junmyeon, meet Jongin. Jongin, meet Junmyeon.”

Junmyeon smiles at him. “It’s nice to finally see you up, Jongin. I wish we could talk more, but Yifan and I are busy working on important things.” With one last bright smile, Junmyeon shuts the curtain.

Jongdae turns to the boy. “The first person you met was Yifan. Like I said, he’s not very nice.” Jongdae laughs and walks away. He hopes that the people here will be nice to Jongin. The poor boy had looked terrified when Yifan showed up. Jongdae tries to decide where to take Jongin next. Luhan is Jongin’s room (tent?) mate, and there’s no doubt Sehun will be there, so Jongdae rules them out. Kyungsoo or Minseok might seem to intimidating for him right after Yifan, so they’re ruled out as well. The only people left are Baekhyun and Chanyeol, and while they might not be the best people to meet on your first day, none of the rest of them are either.

Suddenly Jongdae starts moving again, startling Jongin for a moment before he jogs to catch up. We’re about to meet Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Don’t take them too seriously. They’re good guys, you just have to see past what they put up. Especially Baekhyun, but you’ll learn that in a minute. Jongdae stops in front of a tent that seems to be more worn down than all the others. There are stains and places that looked like they were burned off all over the outside of the tent.

“Baekhyun? Chanyeol?” Jongdae calls out towards the tent, waiting for a response. A figure appears, opening the tent up. He doesn’t open it fully, just enough so that his body and face alone- nothing of the interior of the tent- can be seen. The boy’s hair is a mess and he looks like he’s short of breath, which makes Jongin wonder if they interrupted something. 

“What Jongdae? I was kind of busy.” The boy states harshly.

“I wanted to introduce you to someone.” Jongdae says, and suddenly, for the second time, Jongin is pushed forwards.

The second Baekhyun sees him, his eyes light up and rake up and down Jongin’s body hungrily. His scowl quickly becomes a smirk, and Jongin suddenly wants to flee the scene. “Hey there you y piece of meat. Who are you?” the guy purrs and Jongin begins to inch backwards slowly.

Jongdae cuts in, “His name is Jongin. You know, the guy that has been out for the past week.” Jongin’s eyes widen. Two weeks? Why hadn’t he thought to ask how long he had been asleep? Taemin must be wondering- Taemin. Taemin wouldn’t be wondering. Taemin might not even be around to be wondering anything.

“Oh. You mean the one who kept disturbing us by yelling for that guy- what was his name? Taekin? Lamein?” Baekhyun laughs coldly.

“Taemin.” Jongin finally speaks up. This seems to surprise the boy, who looks over at him with wide eyes.

“Ah. Well, good for you.” The guy says without emotion. Suddenly, a loud whine is heard from in the tent.

“Baekkie! Come back already!” a guy says, sounding like a child.

‘Baekkie’ looks like he’s about to leave Jongin and Jongdae, but then Jongdae says, “Baekhyun, why don’t you go get Chanyeol. I’m sure he’ll want to meet Jongin.

Baekhyun smiles, eyes full of contempt, “I’m sure he would, but right now isn’t the time, nor is it the place. On second thought, no. I’m fairly sure he wouldn’t want to meet Jongin.” Baekhyun leaves and Jongdae drags Jongin away from the tent before the innocent boy can hear anything. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken Jongin to see them, but he didn’t imagine Baekhyun would act that rudely towards him. His attitude seems to be decreasing every day, and Jongdae wonders how Chanyeol stands it. The sky is starting to get dark, and so Jongdae figures he can call it a night.

Jongin’s head is still reeling from Baekhyun. Why would he be so rude? Jongdae said not to take him too seriously, but Jongin can’t help but wonder if he had done something wrong.

“This,” Jongdae states, “is your tent. You are sharing a room with Luhan, who is a very nice guy. Nothing like Baekhyun. I will warn you though, Sehun will be in your tent more than he will be in his own. He and Luhan are together. A couple. They are also inseparable. Good luck!” Jongdae tells him before running off. Jongin prepares himself. He hopes that Sehun and Luhan won’t act like Baekhyun and Chanyeol did.

Jongin walks in timidly and sees two boys, they must be Sehun and Luhan, cuddled up together. The smaller one has his head against the other’s shoulder, and the taller one has his arms around the other. They seem to be in their own little world, not doing anything but being with each other. The moment is so beautiful that Jongin doesn’t want to say anything to ruin it, but suddenly he feels a sneeze coming on. “No, no, no!’ he chants internally, but apparently fate was in a bad mood today because Jongin sneezed loudly, snapping the two out of their trance.

“U-um, hi.” Jongin stutters out, “I’m sharing a room with Luhan?”

The shorter one smiles and walks up to Jongin. “I’m Luhan, this is Sehun,” he motions to the boy behind him, “You must be Jongin. Yixing came by earlier to tell me about you. I’m glad you’re finally up. Are you tired?”

Jongin can’t decide if he is or not. On one hand, he spent two full weeks sleeping. On the other hand, his brain had been overwhelmed today, and he was about to mentally collapse.  He nods his head and Luhan leads him over to a cots like the one he woke up on today. Jongin still has so many questions, but as his head lolls back onto the pillow, he thinks that he can ask them tomorrow. Before falling asleep, he vaguely sees Luhan blow out the candle and climb in bed, cuddled up against Sehun. Then everything is dark, and his last thought is ‘Taemin’.

~~

Darkness is everywhere, pressing him down, flattening him. His eyelids feel like weights. It takes too much strength to open them. He doesn’t want to open them. All he can feel around him is doom and he wants to sink back into the unknowing bliss of sleep. However, a sharp, searing pain makes its way down the boy’s body and he is quickly aware that no other rest will be permitted.  Taemin’s mouth opens in a loud, strained scream, an anguished cry for help, but the pain only grows worse. He tries to get his eyes open, but they won’t budge and the pain gets worse and worse and nothing is stopping it. He hears the same ominous laugh and finally realizes what’s going on. ‘No.’ he thinks. ‘I don’t want to be here. I want Jongin.’ But, he thinks, Jongin isn’t here. Jongin can’t be here. Taemin would rather be tortured for the rest of his life than have Jongin be here. Poor, innocent Jongin. Why didn’t Jongin tell him? Maybe if Jongin had told him that he had a demon as a parent when he realized it, then they would still both be above-ground, happy. But of course, that idiot had thought to keep it to himself. Then again, maybe if Taemin hadn’t have disguised himself so heavily- no. He just would have attracted more demons and possibly gotten Jongin hurt more than he probably was right now. There wasn’t a solution. No matter what, it still would have turned out this way. Taemin wonders if Jongin was doing okay, where he was-

Taemin’s thoughts are suddenly cut off by a strong, deep voice. “Have you had enough yet? Ready to wake up? Taeminnie?” Although the pain from whatever they’re torturing him with is suddenly amped up and hurts more than being eaten alive, Taemin’s hurt still hurts and he gets angry from the use of Jongin’s nickname for him, used in a sarcastic manner. How dare they?

The deep voice laughs. “Now, now, Tae. Don’t get mad at me, I’m only trying to help.” The pain climbs higher and higher until Taemin can’t stand it, and another scream filled with pain tumbles out of his lips. The voice only cackles louder at this. The pain keeps increasing and it’s too much for Taemin to deal with. He blacks out for a moment, only to be awoken harshly and greeted with something new. The pain is making him go dizzy and suddenly a high pitch, layered voice breaks through his thoughts.

“Taemin! Taemin! Listen to us!” the frequency is hurting his ears, but he can’t block it out. “Taemin! We came to deliver important messages! The first is from Jongin!” The voices sound so gleeful, and Taemin has to believe that they are there to help him. Why else would they give him a message from Jongin? Taemin’s hopes soar. Maybe Jongin knows where he is and is coming to save him. Maybe Jongin will scoop Taemin up in his arms and rescue him from the blinding pain.

“Jongin says, ‘Taemin how could you? After everything we’ve been through, you left me to be hunted and killed! You must be a monster!’ The next one is from Jongin’s old friend!”

Taemin’s head is spinning. Why would Jongin say that? Why would Jongin hurt him purposely? But it makes sense. Taemin did leave him. Maybe the voices are lying. He holds on to the fact that they’re lying.

“Jongin’s friend says, ‘You stole him from us. You brainwashed him. You know, before you made him crazy, he used to tell us how much he hated you, and that he was only pretending to like you. You know Jongin’s always been a talented actor. I wish you had never been born. If you had died, then he would still be safe.’ The next one is from your old friend!”

Jongin had always been a talented actor- wait no. They’re lying, they’re lying. Taemin repeats mentally trying to forget about what they’re saying, but the little voices overwhelm him. He tries focusing on the physical pain, but that soon goes away too. The only thing left are those stupid little voices. It can’t get any worse, at least.

That was the easiest day. Every day after that only got worse and worse.

On the good days he only heard voices or only got pain. On the bad days He could see the people clearly as they spoke to him and told him everything to little voices had told him, but in their own voices, and in their own points of view. On one particularly bad day, he had heard a loud crashing from down the hall. He tried and found that he couldn’t open his eyes that day. Suddenly the door to his room flew open.

He heard something collapse onto the ground and then he heard someone speak, “How dare you try to steal my Tae! You’ll know what torture feels like when I’m done with you. Taemin’s heart started beating very fast, because that was Jongin’s voice!

“My Taeminnie. My poor, brave Taeminnie.” He felt someone hovering over him, and his eyelids were lifter open by someone. Jongin was in front of him, not a scratch on him and looking at Taemin with eyes full of affection. Taemin was lifted off the bed into Jongin’s arms, and Jongin hugged him tightly. This was too good to be true. Taemin couldn’t believe it. Everything he had dreamed about every single second he could think was coming true. That’s when Taemin looked up at Jongin’s eyes. Everything came crashing down. They were pitch black, the color of a black hole. This wasn’t Jongin. It was some sort of demon or hallucination.

Cruel laughter echoed through his mind as Taemin found himself on the bed again, chained down and eyes closed. You actually thought that puny thing could’ve have gotten in here alive without us letting him in? No one can beat us. Silly boy.

This happened again on other days, but the scene was always different. It was always believable and Taemin always believed it.

Jonghyun’s cage was right next to Taemin’s, which meant that every time Taemin let out a scream of hurt, Jonghyun was forced to sit and listen to it. When Jonghyun was put through this test, he gave up after the first couple of days. He lost it the first time he hallucinated. Jonghyun couldn’t comprehend how Taemin was still doing it. From his endless screams, Jonghyun had found out that the person they were torturing Taemin with was named Jongin. He couldn’t imagine what kind of horrors Taemin was going through on his second week of being tortured. Nobody that Jonghyun knew had made it that far, so he couldn’t exactly ask someone. He figured that if Taemin ever got out of his cage and into the real world, he would ask.

By the time the fifteenth day of Taemin screaming, Jonghyun really wants to beat them up for what they were doing to the poor kid. He couldn’t of course, otherwise something even worse would happen to him, and no good would come from it. A large shadow appears at the doorway to Jonghyun’s cage.

“Jonghyun,” the shadow, his mom, coos, “Today you will be meeting Taemin.”