Death. An unalienable fact of life. But that 'life', did it apply to all life? Perhaps, just perhaps, humans....? Human life. Would we be able to escape that certain death?

It was Choi Minho's job to create a way. 

Choi Minho, the best doctor on Earth, the number one in his field.

Choi Minho, the miracle worker.

Choi Minho, the one who cheated death.

The person who just couldn't die. Stuntman-turned-magician, magician-turned-doctor. Constantly testing the boundaries of human life, exactly how far we could go, how far our bodies could and would take us. What had he been, what he had done, you ask, that gives him the title of being invincible? Jumped down from the 31st floor of a building, with no harness or equipment whatsoever, survived standing next to an exploding suicide bomber, stood in a fire and didn't die, need I list more? Of his many nicknames, "Superman" would, arguably, be the most apt. So what made him special? What gave him these amazing abilities? What allowed him to defy the very thing that defines life, death? 

He wondered to himself. Perhaps, then, it was something in his blood. Something only he possessed. What if he could pass these amazing abilities to others? To spread it? To make the whole world death-proof? To fight death, instead of capitulating helplessly to darkness and non-existence? He drew his blood.

-----

It was in that vial. The solution. That strand of unique DNA that prevented him from being killed. Now being replicated, duplicated, reproduced. There were now 10 copies of that DNA. Choi Minho injects it into his best friend. Lee Taemin. 

"Minho-ya....what if I die? What if this makes me die instead? What if...what if...what if it only works for you?" 

Minho shook his head and the younger one's hair gently. Tenderly. 

"You won't die, Taem. I'll make sure of it." 

"Pinky-promise...?"

Minho hooked his smallest finger around Taemin's. 

-----

It went in. Minho injected the purple fluid into Taemin's arm. There was no anesthesia used, nothing that would cause a potential opposing force or side-effects to the fluid. Taemin blinked away tears of helplessness, of doubt, of...anger? Was that what Minho saw in those eyes? He could and would never be sure. 5 seconds into the body, the fluid was making Taemin shiver. The shivering escalated to thrashing. Uncontrollable. Taemin screamed. Howled would be a better word, actually. Gutteral sounds emitted from the throat of the 19 year old. His body swelled with strength, one of his swinging arms knocking into a bedside table and sending it flying across the hospital room to the opposite wall 7 metres away. ".....what?" Minho buried his head in his hands. 

And then it stopped. The thrashing stopped. The screaming stopped. There was silence. Taemin sat up, as if nothing had happened. And lay down on the bed again. The air was still.

With trembling hands, Minho leant over to his friend. He turned over his face. His eyes were open and glassy, and where his eyes had been white, they were now purple. His eyes had shrunk slightly into their sockets, leaving gaps of space around the smaller eyeballs. They had no iris. But Taemin was alive. 

"Hyung... put me into a furnace. I feel strong."

Taemin's voice cut sharply into the silence, like a ceramic knife would slice tofu. His voice had changed slightly. The youthful, playful ring was still there, but it sounded more mechanical, more striking, more mature. Minho stood up from his roost on the chair and held Taemin's hand. It was cold and metallic. There was a small furnace at the corner of the hospital room. Minho lead Taemin there. "It's alright hyung, I'll be fine. You promised I'd be okay." A ghost of a smile swept across Taemin's face. It was there, but not quite there to substantiate into a proper smile. Taemin looked into the fire, the flames. And he stepped in. Minho's jaw dropped. Taemin was just standing there unscathed, letting the tongues of fire leap up, around his body, rise and fall like waves of heat, of energy, of life. 

Minho didn't know what to think. His experiment had worked. Taemin was equally invincible, equally immune to death as he was. But were there side effects...? Taemin stepped out of the fire, clothes singed but not destroyed. "Hyung! That was so COOL!" A grin emerged on the 19-year-old's face, his eyes curving into a crescent. Minho's trail of thought was interrupted as Taemin swung his arm over the older's shoulder, and for a moment, Minho ignored the medical aspect of this new life. 

-----

A week had passed. One hundred people had been injected with the same dosage of fluid. One hundred people would never die. It was amazing. Minho was amazed by the success rate so far. There were no side effects (other than the purple eyes) and everyone was immune to disease. It was, to a certain extent, a utopia. It was like a home, a home of all these purple-eyed mutants and their non-purple eyed housekeeper. Minho was the only one who was normal, in that sense. 

Another week passed. Minho had stopped giving people the fluid, as Taemin had discovered a mark on his skin. This was a chance of a side-effect. He would not risk endangering the lives of anymore people if it was. Minho sat on the bed, watching intently as Taemin scratched the mark absently. Minho took a closer look at the mark.

It was a beautifully designed, but simple, symbol. 3 rings of circles surrounded 2 squares. Enclosed in those two squares was the number 20. As the hours passed, more people reported similar marks on their skin. Minho worked to eradicate the mark from their skin, but to no avail. Nothing he did would help. The mark was embedded deep in their skin, and looked as if it had been branded in. With every day that passed, the number would shrink. A week after the mark had appeared on Taemin's once-flawless skin, the mark displayed the number 13, the angles of the square cut well past the first circle and was starting into the second, and the mark had darkened from a light bronze to black. Now the mark had appeared on all the patients, and regardless of how late they had been injected with the fluid, the number on their mark was consistent with that of Taemin, the first patient. 

On the day the mark turned 0, Taemin woke up thrashing in his bed. Minho flew to his side, checking his pulse. He had none. With each passing minute, each patient woke up and begun behaving the same way. Minho checked their pulses. None of them had one. Were they all dead? How could they thrash so violently if they were dead? What had the fluid done? An hour passed, and Taemin ceased to move. As each minute passed, each patient ceased movement. Their pulses were all still nil. 

And suddenly, there was a mass movement. The patients stood up. Their purple eyes were no longer. They were now a dark red. Blood red. 

What did red symbolise? Pain? Love? Blood? Passion? At that moment, Minho could not think of anything else but a question. What have I done? In trying to prevent death, have I instead created a new death? A new way to die? A new, more painful, more disgusting, more corrupted way to die? To die in a way that the body is not pure? In the case of these living dead, zombies perhaps, to die and yet to live? To live in death?

It was too much to handle. His world was crashing down. The guilt and regret he was experiencing was extreme. But it was too late. He couldn't stop it now. 

And suddenly, he felt tired. 

Choi Minho felt himself sinking into darkness, pitch black engulfing him. He felt no pain. He felt no pain as Lee Taemin, his first patient, took a syringe, filled it with 5 times the normal dosage of the fluid, and pushed it gently into his skin. He felt no pain as the fluid swirled around in his body. He heard no sound as Lee Taemin, his best friend whispered to him, “You won’t die, Minho. I’ll make sure of it. You will be here with us. In paradise. Where no one will die.” Lee Taemin cackled, pointed to the main doors of the hospital, and gurgled a language no one but the other patients would understand. The patients gurgled in reply, grabbed syringes and vials of fluid, swung open the door, and stepped out.

Back in the hospital room, Lee Taemin sat watching Choi Minho thrash in bed. He looked down at his mark. The mark that had stayed at 0. They were immortal. But what was the price to pay? They were freaks. Incapable of thinking. Lee Taemin was the only one who was able to think. To speak the language of the time before Now.  Lee Taemin was their leader. For now.

Choi Minho sat up, eyes closed, on the hospital bed. Lee Taemin leant over and murmured, “You’re one of us now. Lead us."

Choi Minho opened his eyes. They were scarlet red.