“Dude, you did it! You survived three minutes against Woozi!” My eyes opened to see an excited Hoshi shaking me to death.

“Huh?” I asked in confusion. “Didn’t I lose?”

“Yeah, but the goal was to live for THREE minutes.” He put three fingers really close to my face. “Which you did. SO YOU WIN!” He stopped shaking me and clapped with a giant smile on his face.

To be honest, I didn’t really win. I bragged about having this amazing power but couldn’t even show off what I had. Then again, that’s probably because I haven’t had much experience with other people’s power. It was always me and my sister. She’d grow flowers and I’d throw seeds. We’re basically born-and-raised-farmers. Fighting against Woozi was a whole new experience to me. His power is no joke and I can see why he is in level one security.

“He got you pretty badly though.” Hoshi poked one of the wounds on my arm and the irritation made me flinch. “Are you alright?” He asked while squinting at my wound.

“Of course I’m not fine! I’m stuck in a prison with a guy who turns into liquid and a fairy that manipulates paper! In what world is that fine?!” My face heated up as I yelled at the squishy fellow. His face stayed focused on what seemed to be my wound. “What?” I glanced down.

At first, I didn’t see anything but after a few glances at the wound, then at Hoshi, I finally saw what he was looking at. In the very corner of the wound, a hard-to-see corner of a piece of paper poked out. This could mean one of two things. The first being a piece of paper ripped off and got stuck to my wound OR there was a piece of paper trying to eat me from the inside out. Hoshi, being the fast-reacting, non-thinking type began pulling at the small corner. As I watched him pull, a piece of paper slid out from under my skin. There was no way a paper of that size fit undetected under my skin like that.

“Why was there a piece of paper inside of me?” I looked at my other wounds as a precaution just in case there were more hidden weapons stuck inside of me. “I bet that Woozi-guy wants to kill me!”

“Would you calm down,” Hoshi spoke calmly. How can he tell me to calm down? He didn’t fight a fairy that attacked with paper airplanes. “It’s a message not a weapon.”

“Message to Hoshi. First off, I’d like to thank the new guy for being my messenger. I’d also like to apologize for getting upset and almost killing you. However, I was told you have the ability to turn people into stone and you know the saying ‘paper beats rock’. I wasn’t at all terrified but when you started throwing fire seeds at me, I got upset that I was lied to and well.. this happened. On a totally unrelated note, you aren’t as weak as I thought you’d be.

Anyways, back to my original trail of thought. Hoshi, I received your message via toilet. Nasty, by the way. Next time send it via sink.. or bottle of water. I agree that we should use the new guy’s power as a placebo. However, it won’t work on people who saw the battle. People in level two security will be fooled but people in one and three won’t buy it any longer.

You mentioned something about fighting our way out using all twelve of us, but without a guy working from the inside out, us in level one security won’t be able to escape. As powerful as we may be, we have locks on our door that can only be opened from the outside. I have four advanced technological doors: the first door is a layer of fire, the second door is layer of spinning blades, the third door is a layer of aspirated electrify and the final door is a wall of water. Don’t even get me started on Minghao’s, Jun’s and Joshua’s doors. The point is, we need someone to deactivate our doors. The only people with access to the doors are security guards. If this is going to go down, we need someone from the inside to use their key card to swipe us out.

When you have someone that can do this for us, tell me VIA SINK NOT TOILET. In the meantime, I will get the guys ready just as you should on your side. Do more than turn into a puddle of nasty, alright?

-Woozi the angelic fairy of paper"

 “That was fast of him.” Hoshi said while placing the piece of paper underneath his shirt, revealing his squishy abs. That’s right, SQUISHY abs. I’m serious, this guy is basically a body pillow. “I only spoke to him last night.”

“Wait. He mentioned something about befriending a guard. How do we do that?” I asked.

“I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, you should stock up on seeds. Don’t get caught with them though, they won’t be as nice to you as they are to me!” He melted into a puddle of non-Squishy-Hoshi and swam away.

I walked around the cells for a while, searching for signs of a cafeteria. I know the guys were eating out in the courtyard yesterday but I didn’t see any signs of a food dispenser around. Everything looked the same, white walls over here, white walls over there. It felt like we were living on a blank canvas waiting for something new to be painted. After a few minutes of walking in what feels like circles, I found a room with chairs, tables, food and security gaurds. In the back, there was a guy in a chef’s apron but that’s all he was wearing. In one hand, he held a spatula and it looked like he was about ready to flip over more than just a patty. His smile was missing teeth but it wasn’t missing a factor of creepiness. As I approached to grab food, a horde of people walked in from two opposite sides. I spun around with my food and saw that basically every spot in the cafeteria had been taken.

“Wonwoo, come sit over here!” A familiar voice said. I turned my head in the direction of the voice and saw Mingyu waving me over. He was sitting with Jeonghan and two guys I didn’t recognize.

I walked over and took the final seat at the table. Jeonghan elegantly ate his food while ignoring the two other guys who were bickering. Mingyu simply stared in my direction in a non-creepy fashion.

“What?” I whispered and rubbed my nose just in case there was something there.

“Nothing,” he laughed. “just eating.”

I looked down at his plate of food and saw an army of ants ripping apart his hamburger, piece by piece. I looked back at him and he winked. A chill ran down the back of my spine as I focused my attention to my own food. The hamburger on my plate was nothing special. It was a basic hamburger, with a sesame seed bun and a piece of lettuce.

“STOP EATING THE PLATE, SEUNGKWAN!” A familiar voice came closer to the table. I think I remember his voice from when I was placed in the box back when I was being admitted into the prison. I turned to see a guy wearing a guard uniform. He looked annoyed but not in an upset manner, more like “I have to pick up after everyone’s mess” sort of way. He stopped yelling at the guy who was chomping away at his plate and looked at Jeonghan. “H-h-hello, Jeonghan. Lovely weather we’re having today, aren’t we?” His cheeks lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Sure. I love how the white clouds on the ceiling are always there and the aroma of chemical-infused air circulates our forever-cells.” He said sarcastically and elegantly ate a french-fry.

“If you want, I can add more clouds to the sky! Anything for you!” he obviously didn’t catch the sarcasm but that doesn’t matter. I caught something that was much more valuable than a little sense of sarcastic humor.

“Go away, S.coups.” Jeonghan shooed the guard, S.coups, away and as he did so, Seungkwan continued eating his plate. It wasn’t too long before he began eating the other guy’s plate as well.

“How many times do I have to tell you, just because you can eat anything you want doesn’t mean you should!” The guy yelled and began turning his hands into a metallic version of themselves. “Don’t eat my substance mimicry-plate hands. I mixed the substance with gasoline.” He stuck out his tongue and his gasoline-infused hands.

“You’re nasty, Vernon.” Seungkwan said and turned away from his with his arms crossed and his lips pursed.

“Stop it, both of you.” Mingyu sat back in his chair and revealed an empty plate. “We have a guest, stop scaring him away. Seungkwan, you can eat my plate.” Mingyu threw his plate in the air and Seungkwan practically jumped in the air and caught the metal plate in the air. Seungkwan ate that plate faster than he ate his own burger. “Anyways, Wonwoo, this is Seungkwan. He can eat anything, not kidding. This half-American, half-Korean guy is Vernon. He can be stuff.”

“It’s called substance mimicry.” Vernon corrected.

“They’re from level two security, right guys?” Mingyu glanced over at them, waiting for their agreement.

“How’s that possible? I thought we were only allowed to be with people form our own security levels.” I questioned.

“That’s why this room has so much security. They bring security guards from both levels of security to watch over us.” Vernon whispered while looking around to see who was listening.

“You should eat that burger.” Seungkwan looked at it with watery eyes.

“Here,” I began sliding it over to his direction. Before it reached him, I realized the bun had seeds. “WAIT!” I screamed and the entire cafeteria stopped talking. I began plucking off every seed from the bun and once I was done, I saw that the guys were looking away.

MHMMM! A man cleared his throat from behind me. I turned around and saw one of the security guards standing behind me. A giant number 2 was printed on the corner of his bulletproof vest.

“Hand them over.” The guard said and I obeyed. “You’re getting a shot. A level two shot.” He threw the seeds on the floor and grabbed my shoulder, tightly.

“What? You can’t do that! He’s in level three security!” Mingyu stood up and the other guards eyed him.

“Would you like to join him?” The security guard asked him.

“You don’t have two. What’s the worst that can happen?” I asked and the security guard began to drag me out.

“Wait! Take me instead.” Mingyu volunteered himself.

“You heard the boy. What’s the worst that can happen?” The security guard pushed Mingyu onto the floor and dragged me out of the room.

. . .

Level two security was a lot uglier than level three security. The walls were painted grey, like a prison, and they didn’t have a courtyard with fake trees that flickered every two seconds. The security guard dragged me to a room where a table awaited. I was thrown onto the table and strapped down. A light scanned over me, rendering me unable to see for the time being.

“Here’s what happens when new people try to steal food from the cafeteria. You punk!” He said and jabbed a needle into my left arm. At first, the only thing that hurt was the poke itself. However, after a minute, electricity began coursing through my veins. It felt like being electrocuted from the inside out. I couldn’t tolerate the pain and I passed out.

. . .

“Why do you keep passing out?” Hoshi’s voice woke me up.

I opened my eyes to see myself in my cell with Hoshi sitting next to me. My body wasn’t harmed the least bit except for where the security guard poked a needle into my body. I laid on my side and stared at the squishy Hoshi.

“Stupid prison.” I sighed.

I closed my eyes and tried to forget the fact that I was in prison. I pictured myself sitting at home, finishing that watermelon popsicle I never got to finish. I could be studying while my mom yells at me to go pick Jei up from school. I could be making my sister upset because I was late picking her up. I could be sitting in my bed, allowing ants to run across my arm.

“HUH?” I woke up and brushed my arms off. Ants fell to the floor, spilling sesame seeds all over the place. “WHY-??”

Hoshi jumped up and covered my mouth.

“Don’t say anything.” Hoshi uncovered my mouth and sat back onto the bed.

The ants huddled together to form a message.

“Sorry, I couldn’t save you. -Mingyu.” I read. “Why is he bring ants over, to apologize?”

“You’re stupid. They’re carrying seeds for your unappreciative self. He likes you, by the way. Go to sleep after hiding those seeds.” Hoshi said and melted into his bed.

QUESTIONS:

How do you think they are going to find a guard to work with them?

What do you think Jun’s, Minghao’s and Joshua’s powers are considering they are in level one security?