It was near night when disastrous moment number three occurred.

Kai appeared by late afternoon and had been keeping them company and informing about the side effects the others were presenting.

Kris’ respiratory system enhanced. A lab assistant showed them a CAT scan of Kris’ body, in his abdomen he now had fourteen additional air sacs, instead of the previous nine. These air sacs are the kind found in birds that help the lungs process oxygen better in a one way circulation. That way they manage to survive high altitudes with little oxygen concentration in the air.

The downside was that his body was becoming stiffer because his bones had gotten stronger and denser. The calcification hasn’t affected his articulations, but it kept causing a lot of pain.

Suho’s skin severely dried, he would scratch and chunks would fall off. He had to be taken to medical care to fix his problem.

“Xiumin’s better now.”

“He’s not freezing stuff?” Sehun asked, Luhan looked confused and worried at the same time. He knotted his brows together as his eyes widened in concern and strangled the pillow in his hands.

“Yeah, he’s got a hold of it,” Kai scratched the outside of his nose. He sat on the edge of Sehun’s bed as the other pair where sitting next to each other with their backs against the headrest. Kai looked at Luhan and shrugged his shoulders. Then he shook his head. “Seriously it was out of the blue,” he said still looking directly at Luhan.

Sehun frowned as he was out of the telepathic talk. “Hey, don’t leave me out.”

“Sorry,” Luhan mumbled and leaned back into the headrest.

“Xiumin’s been fidgety,” Kai explained. “He keeps saying that he will become ice if he stays still for many hours. He wakes up in the middle of the night to walk around before going back to sleep,” Kai sighed deeply, “It’s pretty odd.”

Sehun thought about the time he was air, how he drifted away after breaking free from the chamber. He had no idea how he did it, so he wondered if the same thing could happen to Xiumin. Maybe when they were so still and thought free, they just became the element they could control. But deep down he knew it wasn’t a good thing, if he couldn’t control the direction of the wind while he is in the air as air; then who knew where he could end up.

“What about Tao?” Luhan asked, squishing the pillow with his palms.

“Is his insomnia working up again?” Sehun added, crossing his legs.

“Kind of,” Kai shrugged and reached for a nutritional bar from the pile on top of the side table. “He’s been able to sleep for many hours, but he seems to be having more visions now,” he munched off the snack.

“Has he told you about them?” Sehun asked a little too eager. He wanted to know what new information Tao had and if he finally figured how they could escape the underground dome.

“No, he hasn’t,” Kai replied. He lifted his hand towards his mouth and frowned. Sehun stifled a laugh as he realized that the snack bar disappeared. “Well this keeps happening,” he said defeated and reached over for another nutritional bar.

Sehun jumped in his skin when he heard the alarm. He looked at Luhan, who was now hugging the pillow tightly, and grabbed his forearm in a protective manner. Luhan didn’t push him away. He briefly glanced at his hand and then stared towards the entrance. Sehun’s eyes caught Kai coughing out the chunk of snack he munched as he directed his attention to where Luhan was looking.

Medics, nurses and lab assistants all ran into the room and headed towards Lay’s bed chamber. The heart monitor was fibrillating. Medical jargons flew here and there as they opened the lid and a nurse began chest compressions.

“What’s happening?” Sehun asked a lab assistant that came into the room.

“He’s crashing,” was all she said as she passed by his bed.

“No, no, no…” Luhan reiterated, cupping his ears with his hands as he shook his head madly.

“Luhan? Lu? What’s going on?” Sehun turned his body to face him. Holding onto Luhan’s forearms he moved the other to look at him. “Look at me, focus on me.”

“He’s dying,” Luhan said in the verge of tears.

“What?”

‘Lay’s dying. I can hear them think that,’ Luhan’s eyes shut and face contorted in a painful way. ‘There’s too much noise. Sehun, make it stop. Please. Make it stop!’  Luhan began to kick his legs, accidentally pushing Kai off the edge, and then he began to shake. The bed and the other inanimate objects in the room began to levitate. ‘Lay, he’s not responding. He’s going to die. Help him! Do something. Shut them up!’

Sehun felt so confused. He didn’t want to leave Luhan, he wanted to help him calm down, but he jumped off the bed to see what the hell was happening with Lay. The staff around the bed was in utter havoc as the patient was levitating three meters off the ground.

“!”

“Stop him,” Kai yelled at Sehun. “I’ll get him down, but damn it, stop Luhan!”

After a quick nod, Sehun ran back and propelled his body up to his levitating bed. He quickly hugged Luhan and tried to keep him still but the other would struggle against him. He didn’t know what to do. Trying to make Luhan snap out of his fit over the screams and commotion wasn’t working. He looked over and saw the floating heart monitor flat line. He knew he had to act quickly.

“I’m sorry,” he said and cupped Luhan’s mouth and nose with his hand, removing the air out of Luhan’s lungs. Luhan’s eyes went wide in shock. Sehun was pushed backwards. He created his air armor and pounced on top of Luhan, pinning him down to the bed. Luhan struggled against him, trying to pry his arms free.

“Luhan you need to stop this,” he tried to reason with him. “You’re preventing Lay from getting help-”

Luhan kneed his gut, cutting off his air supply. Sehun bent over and fell on top of Luhan.

“Get off,” the other said muffled.

“You’re killing him,” he groaned at Luhan’s ear. “Don’t hurt Lay. Don’t hurt him like you hurt Xiumin.”

Luhan stopped fighting. He let his arms go limp but the telekinetic force didn’t break. Sehun sat up on top of Luhan and felt his heart rip open as he watched Luhan cry silently. There was a look of utter remorse, one so painful that Sehun didn’t want Luhan to feel.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Sehun apologized. He gulped hard as he felt a pressure at the back of his throat and his eyes were beginning to water. “Can you put us down?” Luhan blinked, tears falling down. Sehun reached over and wiped the tears away with his thumbs as he cupped Luhan’s face with his hands. “Lu, please put us down.”

Immediately the beds and medical equipment fell to the ground. Sehun nearly fell onto Luhan again. He had to place his hands on each side on Luhan’s head to keep himself on top. There’s faces were close, too close for a hectic moment like this.

“I’ll be back,” he whispered and with the pain in his heart, he left Luhan crying.

Kai appeared with Lay’s unconscious body onto the bed, now safely on the ground. A nurse was reconnecting the IV line as another one placed the CPR board under Lay’s back and two doctors were charging the defibrillator. Once, twice but the pulse line remained flat. Sehun watched in horror between the staff as they injected epinephrine into Lay’s IV line in between each time they shocked him, while they aided his lungs with a portable ventilator. He felt himself jump in his skin every time he saw Lay’s lifeless body jerk upwards from the electrical shocks. Ten minutes.  Another epi-shot, heart compressions and then they used the defibrillator.

“We should tube him. Start with mechanical ventilation,” suggested a medic.

“No. It’s too late. He’s gone,” he heard the doctor holding the paddles say.

He motioned towards the nurse to stop pumping air into Lay’s lungs with the portable ventilator. That’s when Sehun lost it. The image of the doctors abandoning all hope on a patient and just leaving the lifeless body sprawled onto the bed. He couldn’t stand it, even less knowing it was Lay who lay lifelessly.

“No damn it! Do something! Anything!” Sehun cried out, wanting nothing more than to punch some sense into the man, but he was held back by two lab assistants. Kai quickly pushed them away and kept Sehun close to him in a protective manner. Wind began to pick up in the medical wing; Sehun knew it wasn’t the time to let his emotions stirr of so he forced himself to keep the wind at bay.

“Let’s try an epi-bomb then,” suggested the medic.

“It won’t work, he’s already got enough in his system for his weight,” said a different doctor.

“Higher the ing dosage,” fumed Kai.

“It could work. We can sustain his body alive with mechanical ventilation and an AV pacemaker,” the medic suggested.

“Are you mad? His brain’s already hypoxic,” the doctor retorted and put the paddles away.

“We don’t need a comatose subject, he’d be worthless,” added a lab assistant.

“He can heal himself!” Kai yelled.

“Save him or I’ll kill you,” Sehun threatened through tears, wind rising again. “I swear I’ll kill all of you!”

“Might as well give it a try. We could keep him alive and wait for return of spontaneous circulation,” said lab assistant X6LA8. “His cells are meant to heal themselves, even regenerate neurons after apoptosis. Maybe he could regain consciousness and resuscitate.”

The doctor laughed.  “So you think he’ll go Lazarus on us?” he asked bemused.

“Let’s just humor the kids,” the medic suggested and instructed the nurse to inject more epinephrine through the IV line.

A nurse handed him a scalpel and he hunched over Lay’s head, feeling the throat for the trachea. With professional skills, he made a clean incision cutting through skin and muscle. But suddenly a hand grabbed his arm and pushed him away. Lay sat up, eyes wide as blood ran down his neck.  A high pitched wheezing sound emitted each time Lay tried to inhale air through the hole in his throat. He reached up and pressed his fingers against the incision. After a few more struggled breaths the skin and muscle regenerated and he was healed, closing the gap in his airway.

Sehun nudged Kai’s side and he felt himself fall into an airless dark pit before appearing next to Lay’s bed, away from the obnoxious staff. He let go of Kai and reached up towards Lay, hugging him tightly.

“You idiot, you scared me,” he cried.

“I’m sorry Sehunnie,” Lay soothed, his voice calm as ever. “But I don’t know what I did wrong.” Sehun pushed Lay back to be able to look at his face. “I just woke up,” he said innocently.

Kai laughed bitterly, wiping the tears away. “You died, Lay,” he sniffled. “You were dead for a while.”

“Oh,” Lay made a circle with his lips. He pulled Sehun back into a hug and motioned Kai to join them. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to temporarily die.” Sehun tried to laugh, but it came out as a choked sob.  “Don’t be sad, Sehunnie. I’m okay now.” Sehun nodded as Kai smoothed his hair.

Sehun felt his inside calm down. Any sorrow he had dissipated. He felt peaceful, a beautiful numbness that made you feel lethargic and giddy at the same time. He knew it was Lay manipulating his mood.

“Just don’t scare us again,” Kai said calmly.

“I promise I’ll never die again,” Lay smiled softly.

Lay didn’t need any follow up monitoring, since he was more than fine. His body completely healed itself. Any cell that died from lack of oxygen regenerated. He was like brand new.

Luhan had stopped crying and shoved all the staff away, pushing them out of the door so they could be alone in the room. Sehun gave a reprimanding look at his actions, in contrast to Kai who laughed at the situation.

“What? They were too noisy,” Luhan defended himself as he approached Lay’s bed. He walked up to the other side, “I… I’m sorry,” he looked downwards.

“Why?” Lay asked confused.

“If it wasn’t because of me you… I should’ve…” he scratched his arm.

Sehun had the urge to step in and explain in Luhan’s behalf, even tell him that it wasn’t his fault. Luhan looked up at Lay, his eyebrows tugged upwards in an apologetic manner. He bit his inferior lip and let his sight fall before looking back at Lay. Sehun wondered what the two might be thinking, but when he saw a smile spread across Luhan’s lips, he knew everything would be fine.  

Hopefully everything will be fine… someday.

 

Kai led them to the monitoring room where the rest were at. There were six medical beds in a row at one side of the room, each separated with glass walls. The opposite side was the same and at the middle there was a common area with two couches, four armchairs and a glass coffee table in the center. Kris was screaming in pain and holding onto his legs as he lay on a bed. Xiumin was pacing all over the place, walking from one end of the room to the other. Tao was sitting on a couch rather uninterested towards the commotion around him. His face looked pissed and restless.

Kris was yelling at a nurse to give him another shot of morphine. Lay immediately went over to his bed and began soothing the pain, followed by Kai. Luhan ran over to check on Xiumin while Sehun went towards Tao.

“What’s up with you?”

“A ing headache,” he groaned, slumping further into the couch.

“I’m sorry about that,” Sehun said and sat down next to him.

“It’s okay. I’m just cranky and sleep deprived,” Tao rubbed his temple.

“What a mess,” Sehun commented as he watched Luhan stop Xiumin’s endless pacing by enclosing him in a telekinetic force field.

“Yeah, Suho’s skin is itching. Kris’ bones are ing,” Tao smirked, “See what I did there? I’m a ing poet.”

“Man, can’t you be serious for minute?”

“They’re going to be fine,” Tao waved off. “All this -storm will cool off soon. Lay’s going to heal Kris. Chanyeol will join us in a while. Suho will come back in the morning and he’ll look a bit different.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve lost the element of surprise,” he said with sarcasm. But then his eyes shut and his body slouched and in a split second he sat upright and opened his eyes. He looked around confused before locking gaze with Sehun. “You’ve got to get off the couch and sit to my right. Like, right ing now,” he quickly ordered.

“Why?” Sehun bewildered.

“Just do it, I don’t want to reverse time again,” he crossed his arms over his chest and rested one leg over the other as he leaned back into the back rest in a sassy manner, “It’s tiring.”

Sehun nearly jumped up from the couch, just to get away. He half-ran to Tao’s right side and sat down on the armchair next to the couch. Within two seconds Kai appeared next to the spot Sehun was previously sitting at. Confused, Sehun frowned deeply.

“It’s just Kai,” he said to Tao.

“Well hello to you too,” Kai grumbled and crossed his arms.

“Were you just messing with me?” Sehun asked annoyed.

“No, no I wasn’t,” Tao chuckled. “I’m serious, you had to get away from him.”

“Why?” Kai asked bewildered.

“Because you accidentally made Sehun disappear,” Kai’s eyes widened and he sat up straight.

“I did what?”

“You know, you just touched him and puff,” Tao puffed out his hands dramatically, “gone into a different dimension, lost to never be found again. You’ve got to get your together Kai.”

Kai’s face paled, he hid his hands under his legs and kept his head down. Sehun slapped the back of Tao’s head, nagging at Tao’s poor choice of words.

“He’ll learn to control it,” Tao hissed as he rubbed the sore spot. “Everyone will be ing masters one day. Even Luhan.”

Sehun felt his face fall and his stomach sink. He knew his response wasn’t the right one, but he couldn’t stop the first thought that came to mind. He won’t need me anymore.

“Geez, I thought I was the bearer of good news,” Tao rubbed his chin.

“Hey what’s with the sad faces?” a deep voice boomed. “Aww did you guys miss me that much?”

“Shut up,” Sehun mumbled and left towards Luhan and Xiumin, while Kai disappeared leaving Tao alone with Chanyeol.

“Man you guys ,” Chanyeol pouted and slouched onto the couch next to Tao. The raven haired boy patted the lanky guy’s shoulder in comfort.

 

He was awake, he knew that. Shortly after Chanyeol’s arrival they had to go to sleep. And now he was conscious, but not laying on his bed. He had drifted away and was trapped against the far-right corner of the division that separated his medical bed from Chanyeol’s. He was air again. He must have transformed during his sleep and drifted far away from his bed. He thought hard in condensing his body back to its original form. He didn’t want to remain stuck against the roof for long. He focused and his solid body formed back, causing him to fall onto the floor. He grunted as he tried to sit up, but his sore knee and elbow were bringing him down. He heard quick and light footsteps. Then a pair of cold hands helped him up.

“What happened?”

“I just… fell,” he said awkwardly as he leaned against the edge of the bed.

“Off the bed?” Xiumin asked incredulously raising his eyebrows as he looked up at Sehun.

“What time is it?” Sehun looked around, trying to change the subject. He saw the clock at the left side table indicate it was 6:07 in the morning. “Why are you up so early?” he looked back at the shorter guy.

Xiumin shrugged his shoulders, “Couldn’t sleep.”

Sehun nodded and let out a yawn. “You really think you’ll turn into ice?”

He frowned, “Kai?”

“Kai,” Sehun confirmed.

Xiumin sighed and walked up next to Sehun, leaning onto the bed like he was. “I’m not sure, but I definitely know I don’t want to find out.”

“You mean?”

“I don’t know how to unfreeze things, Sehun,” his eyes casted downwards. He fidgeted with his right foot.

“So if you turn into an ice block, then you wouldn’t be able to unfreeze yourself?” He nodded in response. Sehun thought for a moment, the room went silent until he spoke again. “Are you sure about that?”

“I just said I wasn’t,” he crooked a brow.

“I mean, are you sure you wouldn’t be able to unfreeze yourself. Because I…” he scratched his ear uncomfortably, knowing how weird he was going to sound. “I can turn into air.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know, I just do. I wake up and I’m this conscious bodiless thing floating around. Then I focus and my body forms again and I,” he paused, “normally, I fall.

“Is that what happened before?” he asked while balancing on the balls of his feet.

“Yeah,” he smiled embarrassedly.

The boy in light blue hummed to himself as he tried to picture what Sehun described. “How can you just disperse into air and condense again?”

“Uhh…” he knotted his brows together as he tried to come up with something somewhat coherent.

“Yeah, weird just keeps happening,” Xiumin concluded instead.

“Right,” he nodded. “So, maybe you can too.”

“Maybe,” Xiumin pondered. “But I insist. I don’t want to find out.”

He his bottom lip. “Xiumin?”

“Yeah?”

“If… If we could leave this place, would you do it?”

“Do you even have to ask?” he chuckled. “Of course Sehun.” He sighed deeply, “This place stopped being a home a long time ago.”

 

It was only a matter of time for the others to wake up. This morning it was easier to calm Luhan from ‘the noise’. They all gathered in the common area and sat on the couches and armchairs while they had breakfast –which consisted in a variety of nutritional bars, food and nutrient supplements, and water. Suho finally was back and, as Tao foresaw, had a new feature. A light tan line, that contrasted his white skin, painted down laterally along each arm. They went from just below the jaw down the neck, onto the shoulders, down the arms and stopping at his wrists. He showed them that the lateral line also went down from the sides of his torso, along his legs down to his ankles. The tan line was made of clusters of dermal melanin, with sensitive cells and nerve endings. Suho explained that these lines gave him the ability to detect movement and vibrations in the surrounding water, which aids spatial awareness and navigation.

“They made me do a test where they created small currents and vibrations in a tank filled with water. I could feel everything ten times better and detect the direction of the currents,” he explained.

Luhan suddenly laughed out loud, got up and high fived Chanyeol, whom at first was confused but then began to laugh along as well.

Kris crossed his arms and frowned, “You’ve got to stop doing that.”

“I can’t help it,” Luhan shrugged and went to sit back next to Sehun.

What did he think?

‘At least he didn’t grow fins,’ Luhan chuckled.

Sehun failed at restraining his laughter.

Suho looked angered and sat next to Kris. “What’s the joke?”

“Nothing,” Chanyeol said with a warning look at them.

‘He says to shut up and get it together,’ he smiled.

Sehun slightly nodded and mustered his best stoic face.

Luhan, I think it’s time. Since we are all here together.

‘Alright,’ his gaze was serious.

“Guys, there is something we’ve got to talk about,” Sehun said, gaining everyone’s attention. Sehun explained about having the same memories as Luhan and oddly Kris, Suho and Kai didn’t look surprise.

They explained that they had discovered it before and gave up on finding a reasonable answer as to why they all had the same memories. Only one guess made sense. It was obvious they were all brought up by Mama, but they could only hypothesize why all the memories were the same.

“She’s probably our guardian and made sure to repeat the same occurrences with all of us,” Suho surmised. “If you see it with a scientific point of view it makes sense.”

“How?” Chanyeol spoke for the rest.

“When you…” he looked down and grimaced. “Sorry for the expression guys. When you experiment on a group of a same species, you need to make the conditions as similar as possible. So the subjects are bred from the same genetic pool and brought up under the same environment.”

“Are you saying we are all brothers?” Chanyeol asked again.

“I don’t think so, we are obviously too different to be related,” he pointed out. “But I believe we were brought up in the same environmental conditions.”

“It does make sense. We all grew up here, right,” Xiumin commented.

“Yeah, it sounds like the most plausible reason,” Lay nodded.

“Why hasn’t anyone asked Mama?” Chanyeol asked, but quickly rendered defeat under the judgmental stares. “Wow, geez. Sorry I asked.”

They all remained in a weird silence, mulling about the conversation they just had. It was a strange subject and Sehun wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

‘I can’t believe it, it’s too hard to believe,’ Sehun looked up at Luhan who was rubbing his fingers together. ‘My memories feel so real.’

Mine too.

Eventually the silence wasn’t bearable anymore, and Chanyeol was the first to speak up.

“What if our memories aren’t really our memories?”

“What do you mean?” Tao asked.

“Like they are fake memories,” Chanyeol said.

“That’s impossible,” Lay retorted.

“It would make sense though,” Sehun commented. Luhan nodded.

“We already thought of that,” Kris pointed out.

“It would be like memory implantation or something like that,” Chanyeol said, Kris and Kai nodded in agreement.

“Again, it makes sense with the ‘same environment’ hypothesis,” Suho added.

“Isn’t that too farfetched?” Tao said.

“Is anything ever farfetched around here?” Kai stated rather than questioned. Tao shrugged but nodded in agreement.

“So it might be that then?” Chanyeol concluded.

“You boys have to stop nit picking every single detail. It’s becoming infuriating,” Mama said annoyed as she walked into the room. “If it comforts you, then yes it’s all of the above,” she stood next to the couch where Suho, Kris and Lay sat. “But rather than seeing it as something aggravating, think of it in a positive way. You all have a lot more in common,” she offered.

“So our memories are fake?” Suho dared to ask.

“Oh no dear, they are real,” she replied and let her eyes wander to each of their faces. “Much more real for one of you though.”  

Sehun felt his breathing hyperventilate as he looked around with shocked eyes. Everyone looked quite the same, drowned into a state of bewilderment. If Mama was telling the truth, then they have the implanted memories of one of them.

“Luhan, honey,” her voice sweet yet warning, “Stop prying into my mind, it’s rude.” He felt the other stiffen next to him. He watched as Luhan balled his hands into fists. “If you want to know, just ask. You don’t have the right to be searching in my mind nor do I have the authority to tell you everything,” she said sternly.

She looked around at all of them in an analytical way. Then she sighed and took a seat at the empty armchair between the couch and Xiumin.

“You boys are too curious for your own good,” she commented as she crossed a leg over the other. “You already know what needs to be known and are all capable of figuring the rest out. But I’ll tell you this.” She paused as she searched in their eyes if they were paying their full attention. “I do not agree with the change of direction the company took. These trials have stopped being for scientific purposes only and took a turn for the worse,” she said in a serious tone, her eyes eerily calm as ever. “Your lives have never been free,” Sehun felt her eyes fall upon him but then realized she was lingering at Tao, next to him. “Now they hardly can be considered a life,” she said softly and stood up. “Now boys, I need you to follow me. We’ve got much to do and if you behave, I might be more…” she mused for a second, “Talkative. It can be beneficial, if you think well about it.”

She escorted them towards sector C, the mid back of the building, followed by a group of guards. They went through a passage that led them to a staircase that went underground. They’ve never been there before. The main subterranean hall had only two ways, they took the right. Many meters in and there was a vast lobby before two entrances. There were lab assistants waiting at each side.

“Suho, Sehun, Xiumin, Chanyeol and Luhan you take the entrance to the right,” she said as she stopped walking. “Kris, Kai, Lay and Tao take the left.” She turned around to face them. “Don’t worry, you’ll do just fine,” she smiled reassuringly. “This will be quite similar to the previous individual trials. I admit, they are going to be harsher. But do not distress, for you are all capable of passing.”

Sehun didn’t pay much attention afterwards and mindlessly followed the rest. His mind replayed the memories of his trial and how much he hated it. He wanted nothing more than to leave. He felt sick as a chill ran down his body and his breath became struggled. He felt lightheaded and his vision blurred causing him to stumble. He felt something cold on his side and then it was replaced by something very, very warm. He looked up to see Chanyeol helping him walk, steadying him with a long arm around his back.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Do you need Lay?” offered Xiumin.

“No, no I just felt dizzy for a moment,” he tried to smile, but being inside a long hall with doors only at one side made him realize they were going to be separated. His eyes landed on Luhan’s worried face before he felt a sudden pressure in his head and then his sight blackened.

“Everyone hold your breath,” he heard Xiumin yell. “Now!”

He was conscious again. But he couldn’t feel the warmth of Chanyeol’s body. He looked around as he got higher, higher in the air. Quickly he focused on desublimation. His body formed before reaching the ceiling and he fell down, gratefully being caught mid fall. He was hovering over Chanyeol’s head and staring down at the tall boy’s wide eyes and quirky expression. He couldn’t move his body, but slowly he was put down softly to the ground.

“Are you okay?” Luhan asked as he held onto Sehun’s shoulders, once he broke the telekinetic hold. His round eyes searched around his face.

“Yeah,” Sehun breathed out.

“Dude, what the was that?” Chanyeol said.

“Are you fine, Sehun? Sehun? Did you actually turn into air? How did you do that?” Suho clutched onto his shoulders and steered him around. “Are you really alright?”

“I’m fine, seriously,” Sehun said more convincingly. Suho still looked concerned, but nodded anyway.

“The trials have to start now,” said a lab assistant and immediately the rest moved to each of the boys into separate rooms.

“We’ve got to check on that later,” said a lab assistant pointing at Sehun. “Find the cause and conditions.”

“Right,” agreed another. Sehun recognized him as X4LA1.

Suho was taken away towards a different room as X4LA1 held onto Sehun’s arm to pull him into a room. He quickly glanced at Luhan, who pushed away the lab assistant that tried to touch him. He looked at Sehun as he walked towards his designated door.

‘Good luck.’

Be careful.

‘I will,’ he smiled and the door closed.

 

Sehun was led into the viewing room, where the lab assistants would observe and monitor what occurred in the exam room at the dark side on the one-way mirror. They made him sit on a chair in the middle of the room. Two lab assistants were with him while the other two took their seats at the control desk in front of the see-through mirror.

“How did you do that?”

“What?”

“How did you transform your body?” X4LA4 asked again.

“I don’t know. It just happens,” Sehun frowned.

“It has happened before?” X4LA1 asked.

“Yes, twice.”

“Describe the conditions before you fazed,” he ordered as he took out a notepad.

“I don’t know. I was asleep,” Sehun said frustrated. He didn’t feel comfortable telling them about his new ability. He hated not having any sort of privacy.

“Can you elaborate further?” X4LA4 asked kindly.

“No, I,” he slouched onto the chair. “I just wake up as air. Then I think hard and form back. That’s it.”

“You have consciousness in that state?” she said surprised. Sehun merely nodded. “That’s quite interesting.”

“I’d say impossible,” said the other.

“It’s just fascinating,” she commented. “What about this time? You were awake before it happened. What did you feel?”

Sehun rubbed his forearm. “I… felt weak and lightheaded. I felt dizzy and my vision blurred.”

“Did you feel a headache? Maybe even a spike of heat or cold?” X4LA1 questioned.

“I felt cold and a slight headache,” he answered.

“Syncope,” X4LA4 concluded.

“Undoubtedly, he fainted.” He nodded and wrote some notes. “Probably the loss of consciousness is a trigger.”

“Yes, but what caused the fainting? Would it be hypotension?” She pondered. “I know this will sound ridiculous, but what if his body decompresses and goes through sublimation, turning into a vast pseudo-gas form. The fall of blood pressure could be the trigger.”

“We’ll have to run some tests afterwards,” X4LA1 said, putting his notepad away. “Right now we have to get started with the trial.”

“Right then,” she agreed. “Follow me.” Sehun did as told. They exited the room and she turned around to speak. “I’d be careful with it.” He frowned in confusion. “I mean, until we understand it better, don’t use it much.”

“Why?”

“Well, if you become air, then what could prevent you from being inhaled in that form? Would you be able to form back if someone breathed you? Would you form inside the person’s body? See there’s much to worry about.”

She was right. What the hell did he know about his ability? He realized that drifting in the wind wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. He’s lucky to have survived this far, thanks to Xiumin. But what if one day he woke up inside someone else’s body? Inexplicably though, he felt a sense of confidence. Something in him knew that it would never happen. He looked down at his hands and knew that no matter which form his body could take, he would always be whole.

“That will never happen,” he said confidently as he opened the door.

“How can you know?” she asked perplexed.

“I’m unbreathable,” he smirked and shut the door.

 

The room at the bright side of the one-way mirror was simple, tall and wide concrete flooring, walls and roof. Six concrete pillars, two lines of three columns.

Sehun tried to conserve his sense of confidence and walked towards the middle of the room with his head held high.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said towards the darkened mirror.

A red light went off and a metal retractable gate on the furthest wall rose. Sehun recognized the horrible high pitched shriek and knew exactly what they wanted him to do.

He didn’t give the dogger a chance to change its doomed fate. Immediately after swatting the creature against a pillar, Sehun created a vacuum effect around its head and asphyxiated the dogger. He waited until the lifeless body disintegrated, then he turned to face the mirror.

“That’s what you wanted, right?” he said smugly. “Now let me out.”

“Not just yet,” said the voice in the intercom.

More shrieks were heard and Sehun took a defensive stance. This time the gates on the adjacent wall opened. Three groups of three doggers ran into the room in their anomalistic trot. Sehun stretched his arms and moved his body in a wave, dancing and directing the wind current towards the doggers. He managed to push them back, but there were too many for him to fight alone. He compressed air in between his hands and shot a dense current towards the dogger running towards him. The air pierced through the creature. Sehun felt movement behind him and, without thinking twice, he propelled his body upwards. He twisted in the air to spot a nasty dogger that tried to pounce behind him. Sehun extracted the air out if its lungs quickly, causing the organs to collapse. He didn’t worry about waiting for it to die; he knew it was doomed anyway.

Sehun created his pressurized air armor and caught his fall. A dogger pounced at him, but was thrown backwards, repelled by the armor. Sehun created a vortex to hold four doggers captive. Then he ran from the other three that were behind him. He went towards a pillar, propelled his body, kicked off the pillar and jumped over the doggers. In three swift moves, he extracted the air out of them.

He turned and prepared to finish the rest. Using the vortex he concentrated in feeling the wind and the different particles suspended in it. He accelerated the rotational speed of the current and created a vacuum effect with the vortex. It took a lot of effort and energy to keep the vacuum vortex steady. He kept it up for six minutes just to be sure the doggers fully asphyxiated.

Sehun took deep breaths to steady himself after the whole ordeal. He didn’t want to suddenly faint again. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and stretched his tired limbs. Thanks to the elixir mutation he went through, it took only a few minutes for his energy to be restored. He rolled his shoulders and his neck, before turning to face the mirror.

“That’s it?” he challenged. Overconfident idiot Sehun resurfaced.

“Don’t get cocky,” the voice said annoyed.

The last contractible door opened, but Sehun didn’t hear any horrendous shrieking. He shifted to his defensive stance and formed the air armor. He waited and kept his sight on the dark entrance. He clenched his fists when he perceived a sudden movement. In a second a black bogger appeared in front of him. Sehun barely reacted and managed to avoid being stabbed by a long white claw by propelling his body backwards.

Now, further away from the creature, he had a few seconds to fully see what was in front of him. A tall thin bogger, with black ragged skin stood with a misty shadow around its feet. Sehun didn’t know what he should be more afraid of. Either the long claw in each hand, that looked sharp and lethal as a katana sword. Or the monstrous face. Unlike a normal bogger, this one’s excessive skin was pulled backwards, dangling at the back of its head. The damn thing had eyes, big round white eyes with a black iris. There were no eyelids, the whole orb was visible as well as the red muscles around it. Its nose was of a skull, it only had a thin nose bridge and two holes as nostrils. The jaw was squared and smaller than a normal bogger, it also lacked the black goo.  

Sehun propelled his body upward as the black bogger disappeared into its misty shadow. He watched as the mist disappeared and formed right where he stood before in a second. The bogger jumped out from the mist and pounced up at him. Sehun quickly gusted wind towards it, pushed it backwards while propelling his body back at the same time.

He broke his fall with a current and stood in a defensive stance, ten meters away from the shadow bogger. It dived into its shadow and the mist teleported two meters to the right. Then it appeared two meters towards the left. Sehun noticed its eerie resemblance to Kai’s teleportation abilities.

! What do I do?

The mist appeared next to him, he had three seconds to react before the bogger with eyes popped out of it. He created a current towards the bogger and ran the opposite way, hoping for the wind to buffet its senses and give him time to escape. The bogger teleported in front of him, Sehun didn’t react quick enough to change his course and the bogger stepped forward, out of the dark mist. Its long arm swung at Sehun’s head. Quickly he covered himself with his arms and tried to duck, but he felt a slick movement against the pressurized air around his left arm. He propelled his body to the right and created a wind vortex around himself. He looked down to check his arm and was relieved to see that the armor protected him from getting sliced.

Finally with a plan, Sehun compressed air between his hands. He stopped the vortex and waited for the bogger. The mist appeared to his left, Sehun took a step back as the crazed eyed creature popped out of the mist. Sehun released the air towards the shadow bogger and pierced its coal black chest with the attack. The bogger fell backwards. Its dead wide eyes looked impossibly terrifying. It disintegrated with its mist.

Sehun took a few steps back before canceling his air armor.

“Damn,” he said breathlessly.

 

 

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A/N: Finally I finished this chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it. 

Thank you to amanda_87, Kareemy, rapgodchoiminho, Kitao_exo12 and pandinosaurleevi for subscribing to this crazy fic. 

Have a great week guys.

Annyeong!

-Blackie.