Chapter 3: Grid Lines

The third day of the Ceremony brings in another set of examinations for the participants. Soojung stands outside the room with her group mates and Junmyeon. There are other groups of participants in the area and they are all waiting for the room to be opened for them. Junmyeon greets the other administrators with polite good mornings and hellos, his enthusiasm this early in the morning makes Soojung feel like throwing up. Beside Soojung, Ilhoon is a wreck of nerves. The boy has one hand inside his pocket while the other is nervously playing with the collar of his shirt. Soojung somehow understands how he feels. She never liked the policy of the ceremony about not letting the participants know the results of their exams until the last day. Soojung hears a low grumble and she looks over to find Jongin sitting on the floor, half awake and grumpy. It took all four of them a long time to drag him off his bed.

A warm body suddenly leans towards Soojung’s left side and a chin presses on top of her shoulder. After spending two days with her group, Soojung learned that the girl from Cirena is extremely clingy. She hears Jinri sigh.

“They say the exam will be different this time.” Jinri says.

“Different? How?” Soojung raises an eyebrow.

Junmyeon turns to them and takes it upon himself to answer the question. “Last time the examination was written,” He starts. Ilhoon stops tugging his collar, and even Jongin pays him attention. “This time you guys will be using a different method. I can’t really say much, but let’s just say that Kaptan provided us another innovative way in performing the Ceremony.”

“Oh no.” Ilhoon gasps. He lifts up both his hands to clutch handfuls of his hair. “This is not good. This is really not good.”

“What’s wrong?” Jinri asks, frowning. “You look so pale.”

“You don’t understand!” Ilhoon hisses. The boy looks close to having a panic attack. Soojung turns to Junmyeon to ask for help but the young administrator is laughing at them.

“Then explain it to us.” Jongin grumbles before yawning loudly.

Ilhoon releases his grip on his hair and smoothes the strands down before he takes a deep breath. “If I’m correct, then this means the scientists from Kaptans finally finished their project. They created a device that would make examinations paper free.”

“Okay,” Soojung says slowly. “That sounds like a normal examination performed on a computer. Why are you so scared of it?”

“That’s not it.” Ilhoon chokes out, it looks like all the blood has drained from the young man’s face.

Before Ilhoon can explain further, the door to the examination room opens and a tall man comes out. Junmyeon chuckles before clapping Ilhoon on the back.

“That’s enough chit-chat.” Junmyeon says. “The administrator for this examination is called Kyuhyun. Follow his instructions and you’ll be fine.”

Several people wearing white uniforms, the same one doctor Jinah’s assistant was wearing, start ushering the participants inside the room. There are about 50 chairs in the room, Jinri starts marching towards the ones nearest to the front of the room so Soojung, Ilhoon and Jongin follow her. Soojung notices that there is only one computer in the room and it seems like the administrator, Kyuhyun, is the only one who has access to it.

“Well this is exciting.” Jinri chirps. She looks comfortable as she sits on the chair, playing with the wires connected to its handles. Ilhoon suddenly grabs her hands and gently coaxes the wires from her fingers.

“Trust me when I say you wouldn’t want to play with those.” Ilhoon says before carefully sitting down on the chair next to Jinri.

Soojung sweeps her eyes across the room and catches Sehun frowning as he sits on his chair. She looks at the other participants in the room and notices that most of those from Kaptan don’t look comfortable.

“Ilhoon,” Soojung says. “Is there something wrong with that device?”

“I don’t know.” Ilhoon sighs. “But I heard that one of people who volunteered to test the device was hospitalized for a month.”

“What?” Jongin hisses. “Are you saying this examination is dangerous?”

“I- I don’t know!” Ilhoon says. “I mean that accident happened last year and then after that no one really knew what happened with the project. Most of us thought it was dropped.”

Jongin stares at Ilhoon with an expression that is downright frightening. Ilhoon’s eyes widen as he tries to make himself as small as possible, afraid of what Jongin might do. Soojung places a hand on Jongin’s chest, pushing him away from Ilhoon.

“Calm down.” Soojung says.

Jongin turns his glare to her, and Soojung fights down the urge to retract her hand from the boy’s chest because of it. Jongin then wordlessly walks away and leaves the three of them rooted to their spots. Ilhoon exhales loudly, and Jinri, who had been quiet the whole time, fans herself.

“When I said exciting, I didn’t mean like that.” Jinri murmurs.

“I honestly thought he was going to punch me.” Ilhoon swipes a hand through his hair. “People from Apolaki are really scary.”

“He has the right to be angry about how dangerous this test might be.” Soojung sits down and faces the front of the room where Kyuhyun is discussing something with three of his assistants. “But he was wrong about directing his anger at you.”

“Well,” Ilhoon sighs. “I just hope the scholars from home made sure that no one will be hospitalized again because of the device.”

All of Kyuhyun’s assistants wear eerie smiles on their faces. Soojung supposes the smiles are supposed to make them feel secure, but she really wants to tell them that it’s doing quite the opposite. They inject the participants with a serum without explaining what it is for and then gives them a black tinted eye visor. Soojung inspects it curiously.

“Please wear it.” The assistant assigned to Soojung is a young woman with long brown hair tied up in a ponytail. She attaches wires to Soojung’s temples before looking at the watch on her wrist. “The serum’s effect will take five minutes to work. Please wait patiently.”

The assistant takes one of Soojung’s arms and places it on the armrest of the chair before strapping it on place. This surprises Soojung and she tries to free her hand but the assistant stops her.

“What are you doing?” Soojung asks frantically. Around her, the other participants are also startled by what the assistants are doing.

“Certain procedures need to be performed in order for the examination to be successful.” The woman says. She grabs Soojung’s other arm and straps it too on the chair, before grabbing the visor from Soojung’s hand and placing it on Soojung’s face.

The lenses of the visor are heavily tinted, prohibiting Soojung from seeing anything. She wants to take it off but her hands are strapped securely on the chair. She hears Jinri and Ilhoon frantically talking to the assistants beside her.

“I can’t see!” Ilhoon complains.

“There is less than one minute before the examination begins.” One of the assistants, a male, says calmly.

“How the hell are we going to do tests with our arms tied to a freaking chair?” Jinri screams loudly, making Soojung wince.

Soojung blindly turns her face towards where she thinks the assistant assigned to her is standing. “Can you at least tell me what’s going to happen to us?”

The assistant is quiet for a moment, but then Soojung feels the assistant touch the inside of her arm and then she senses a quick sting on her skin. Soojung almost misses the words that the woman whispers to her ear.

“Good luck.”

Soojung blinks and then white grid lines appear before her. She looks around herself but there is nothing but darkness and the white lines. She tries to open to talk, ask the assistant what is happening, but no voice comes out of her. There is a buzzing sound in the air that seems to be caused by the grid lines.

Soojung cannot hear Jinri and Ilhoon’s voices anymore, in fact, she can’t seem to hear anything else aside from the buzzing sound and her own breath. She can feel her heart beating wildly inside her chest as she wait for what is about to happen next.

Suddenly, there is a loud beeping sound and then a static voice of a male fills Soojung’s ears. A voice she recognizes to be as Kyuhyun’s.

“Good day participants. Welcome to the part two of your Aptitude Examination. Each of your consciousness is now inside a virtual plane through the device that was created by the wonderful people of Kaptan. You will not be able to control your bodies in this state, but your mind is definitely at its most powerful condition here.”

Two paths suddenly appear in front of Soojung, one has green pavements and the other has red. The paths lead to separate ways, they are both long and Soojung cannot see where it ends, it just seems to go on and on.

“You will be presented different sets of questions and these paths will serve as your choices. For example, if the question is about whether or not you want to stay in your region, the words ‘yes’ will hover over the red path, and the word ‘no’ will appear on the green path.”

As Kyuhyun says the instructions, the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ appear on the paths, bold white letters hovering over thin air. Soojung cringes as she watches them float, thinking about how much the test is slowly turning into a creepy dream.

“You will pick between these two paths for your answer. All you need to do is to look at the path you want and then ... choose it.”

“Oh, we have a monitor over here and I can see most of you are confused about that but you don’t really have to worry too much about it. Just trust the device. It will know when you have chosen.”

“Why don’t you try it? The choices are in front of you. Would you like to go back to your native region? Or do you want to be Transitioned to a different one?”

A heavy feeling settles inside Soojung as the question goes through her thoughts. The green path is bright and it reminds Soojung of Sinukwan’s fields and of her mother’s favourite dress. But the color also reminds her of envy. Of the countless Name Days she spends inside their home’s dining room by herself. Of the lone candle burning bright in the dark room as she eats the pastries given to her by the old man from the bakery. The only person left who still remembers her Name day because her father used to buy cake from him every year.

Soojung closes her eyes as she remembers all of that. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. She opens her eyes, turns her head towards the red path, and watches it glimmer invitingly.

She makes her first choice.

Soojung wakes up to a dark room that she doesn’t recognize. The bed she is lying on is small and uncomfortable. is dry and her body is weirdly tired. And to top it all, she feels her head hurting so bad, she feels like it will explode. Soojung groans.

“Oh, good. You’re finally awake.” Soojung looks over to where the voice came from and finds a tired looking Jongin sitting beside her bed. “You missed dinner.”

“What happened?” Soojung asks.

Jongin stands up and walks towards Soojung, helping her sit up. “A lot of kids fainted after the exam. You were one of them.” He picks up a pitcher from the bedside table and pours water on a glass before handing it to Soojung. “The moment we stepped inside our dorm, your nose started bleeding and then you lost consciousness. Junmyeon and I brought you here. He had to go back to check on the others so I stayed.”

Soojung drinks a small sip of water, and then she places it back on top of the bedside table. Her head is still hurting so she lies back down. Jongin sits on the small space beside her and watches her carefully. There is great sadness in his eyes, as if he has failed to do something.

“If I knew something like this would happen I would have stopped them.” Jongin says.

“What are you talking about?” Soojung frowns.

“It was my-” Jongin cuts himself off. He wipes a hand over his face and releases a loud sigh. He looks at Soojung, the sadness in his eyes is gone and is now replaced with the look of sheer determination.

“Jongin?” Soojung murmurs.

Jongin turns his head and faces the window. The sky is starless and the moon is the shape of a perfect circle. The light of the moon hits Jongin’s face, making it look like as if he is glowing. Jongin closes his eyes and his mouth opens to whisper inaudible words.

Suddenly, there is a loud commotion coming from outside the door. Jongin stiffens for a second before scanning his eyes all over the room. He stands up from the bed and opens the largest cabinet in the room. He pulls out all of its contents and stuffs them under Soojung’s bed. He then turns to Soojung and takes her hand, quickly but at the same time carefully helping her get up from the bed. Soojung’s body is still too weak to protest so Jongin doesn’t have any problems moving the girl around. Jongin wordlessly guides Soojung towards the cabinet and gently pushes her inside, making her sit on the corner. He pulls the blanket from the bed and then he squats in front of Soojung.

“Wait for me here.” Jongin says as he wraps the blanket around her. “Do not come out from here unless I tell you to, alright?”

“What is going on?” Soojung asks. “Why-”

Soojung freezes at the sound of a gunshot and her body starts to shake in fear. Someone from outside the room screams, loud and hysterical. Soojung suddenly finds it hard to breathe. Jongin gently holds her face, his thumb on her cheek. One of her hand moves up to wrap long fingers around Jongin’s arm, trapping him in a tight grip.

“Calm down Soojung. Breathe.” Jongin orders. He looks directly towards Soojung’s eyes. “You’re going to be fine. I promise.”

Jongin carefully pries Soojung’s hand from his arm. He stands up and closes the closet’s doors, leaving Soojung in the dark cramped space.

Soojung hears the doors of the room open and close. She hopes Jongin went out to get help. There are more sounds of gunshots now. But those are faint and seem to be coming far from the room she is in. Soojung has only read about terrorists once. The only time an uprising happened was more than twenty years ago. It was a failure and Hannan never fails to remind everyone about that. The soldiers from Apolaki are all loyal to Hannan. A rebellion would be impossible, so why bother attempting it again? And why now?

Soojung lifts both of her hands in front of her face and squints her eyes to see how much they are trembling. They are shaking so bad so Soojung tucks them in between her knees. Soojung starts worrying about Jongin, wondering what’s taking him so long. The dorm isn’t that far from the healing rooms. Soojung wonders if Jongin has forgotten about her amidst the panic. She hopes not.

The door to the room opens with a loud bang and Soojung covers with both hands to stop herself from screaming. Her heart is thundering inside her chest. She counts every second with small breaths, wrapping the blanket tightly around her as if the flimsy material would be enough to protect her. The closet door opens and Soojung closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she is relieved to find Jongin.

“Jongin!” Soojung exclaims. “What’s happening outside? I heard gunshots!”

“Right.” Jongin sighs. He pulls Soojung so she can stand.

“Explanations will be given later Soojung.” Soojung turns towards the door and finds Junmyeon, his hair is messy and there is a small gash on his cheek. “For now, we need you to be quiet.”

Soojung blinks at him. Jongin tugs on her arm. “Come on. We need to get to the elevator and meet the pale kid.”

“What?” Soojung says. “What about Jinri and Ilhoon?”

“They’re safe.” Junmyeon answers. They start walking and the halls are surprisingly deserted but Soojung finds a number of bullet holes on the walls.

“What happened to everyone here?” Soojung asks. “I heard screaming earlier and-”

“Soojung be quiet.” Jongin says and Soojung glares at him

“Where are you taking me?” Soojung directs the question to Junmyeon who is walking ahead of them.

“Some place safe.” Junmyeon says.

They reach one corner and Junmyeon raises his right hand, Jongin places a hand on top of Soojung’s shouder to stop her from walking. Jongin presses his side against the wall while pulling Soojung behind him. Junmyeon turns the corner and leaves them.

“What is he doing?” Soojung asks quietly.

“You ask too many questions.” Jongin grumbles. “Weren’t you supposed to be sick?”

“My headache is gone.” Soojung says. “Answer my question. What is Junmyeon doing?”

“He’s making sure no one is around to see us.” Jongin sighs.

“Are you...” Soojung gasps. “Are you kidnapping me?”

Jongin rolls his eyes. “Soojung please.”

“It’s clear! Let’s go!” Junmyeon calls.

Jongin detaches himself from the wall and starts walking before Soojung can ask any more questions. Soojung follows the two men hesitantly, afraid of what they might do to her if ever she tries to run away. They reach the elevator and the three of the steps inside. Soojung stands on one side, watching Jongin and Junmyeon alternately. Junmyeon turns to her and chuckles, seemingly amused.

“Are you two terrorists?” Soojung asks.

“What kind of question is that?” Jongin snorts. Junmyeon’s smile only widens.

“There were gunshots and screaming! Junmyeon has a wound on his cheek so I assume he fought with someone before he came to the room I was in, and he has a gun!” Soojung points to the gun tucked behind Junmyeon. The elevator dings as they reach the ground floor but Soojung doesn’t hear it, nor does she notice it opening. “And have I mentioned the fact that the two of you are kidnapping me even though I am no one important?”

“Three.” A voice says. “The three of us are kidnapping you.”

Outside the elevator stands a boy with pale skin, long limbs, and a hair so blonde it almost looks white. Soojung would be able to recognize him anywhere ever since the first day she saw him sitting in between the shelves of books inside the dimly lit room of the library. The boy smiles at her and Soojung opens to whisper his name.

“Sehun.”

WARNING...

ATTACK DETECTED...

SYSTEM BREACHED...

EMERGENCY SIRENS STARTED...

LOCKDOWN INITIATED...

this is my favorite gif