D.O

-

Bright lights. Faded voices. Piercing beeping. Flash. I hear a shutter click. Flash. Another click. Flash, flash. I furrow my brow, before opening my eyes to intense white light, and closing them again quickly with a wince. I can distinctly hear some muttering, before my right eye is stretched open forcefully, and a blinding white light is shone straight into it. I jerk back, eyes watering, and go to rub my eyes, before I realise that my arms have been restrained. And my legs. I slowly open my eyes, squinting past the neon l ight to see the blurred silhouettes of people, looming over me in white outfits.

“He’s awake,” I hear vaguely. “It’s not ready yet, knock him out, now!”

There’s a moment’s hushed whispering, and I’m about to open my mouth to ask where I am when there’s a blinding pain in my temple and it all goes black.

~

The second time I regain consciousness, I stay still, having learned from before. I keep my breathing steady, and my eyes shut.

I can hear shuffling, and hushed mutterings. I strain my ears to hear what they’re saying, but all I can catch is little snippets and fragments.

“-should be enough…”

“.... he’ll wake up soon,”

I take a deep breath, and count to three in my head.

1, 2, 3.

I open my eyes and sit up, reaching out blindly and grabbing onto the closest person and pushing them against the wall behind me with a thud, harder than intended.

The person, a doctor of some sort in a white lab coat and glasses, winces in pain, but then his eyes open wide after a second, and his face breaks into a smile.

“Oh- oh my god it worked, it actually worked!”

He pushes me off and touches his neck, where there’s now a red mark from where I had slammed him against the wall with my forearm. I frown.

I don’t remember hitting him that hard...

He beams widely, almost jumping up and down in joy, and gestures over the other doctors in the room, who seem to have edged to the other side of the room in terror. I don’t move, head swirling with questions, with confusion.

“Who are you?” I ask, my voice rough from lack of use. I’m ignored.

He rushes over to the other scientists, baring the mark on his neck for them to see.

“Look at that strength! It worked!”

The other scientists crowd around him, touching the mark on his neck and even taking photos, bouncing with excitement. I clear my throat. “Where am I?” I ask quietly, before trying again louder. “Where am I?”

They all finally cease their celebrations and turn to me, eyes alight.

The man with the red mark on his neck steps towards me.

“Ah, welcome, Subject 12, welcome to home.”

~

I’m quickly cuffed before I can react, and am walked through a set of corridors, spotlessly white in a way that is oddly unnerving. They stop at a large white door, and a card is scanned, before the door opens. It slides open with a hiss, and inside I see a bed, a toilet, and a desk, all gleaming white and immaculate, like everything else in this place. Someone sits on the bed, dressed in the same white lab coat as everyone else, but his dark brown hair and chocolate skin sets him apart, and when he looks up, he looks like a lost child, because he doesn’t have that detached and careless air upon him that the others do, he has an aura of innocence in his eyes, and I can’t help thinking, ‘he doesn’t belong here’.

He stumbles to his feet, and I tilt my head questioningly. Why isn’t he meeting my eyes? He brushes his clothes off and clutches his clipboard to his chest, bowing hastily. “Kim Jongin, department of subject training and interactions, sir, glad to meet you.”

The two men who are escorting me nod at him, and release me, before stepping away and out of the room, the doors sliding closed with another hiss behind them. I stand motionlessly for a moment, before turning to Jongin, frowning slightly when he shrinks away.

“You can look at me, you know, I don’t bite.”

He nods.

“I’m sorry.” he looks me in the eye, but he still has a timid expression.

“Nice to meet you, Subject 12, I’m Kim Jongin, and I will be in charge of your training.”

His line is obviously rehearsed, and I sit down on the bed tiredly.

“Training for what, though?”

He stares at me with wide eyes.

“You- you haven’t been told?”

“No… was I supposed to be told?”

He chews his lip, obviously uncomfortable.

“I’m not sure, maybe not… I’m not sure if I’m qualified to tell you…”

“So you expect me to do this training of yours without knowing the reason?”

He sighs, sitting down on the other edge of the bed, as far away from me as possible.

“All I can tell you is that it’s for a good cause. Now-” he opens the clipboard, and scans through a few of the sheets.

“We’re going to do some small tests to check on your physical condition, okay?”

I nod numbly.

He puts his finger in front of my nose, so that I have to go cross-eyed to see it.

“Follow my finger with your eyes, okay?”

I nod again, and he moves his finger to the left slowly, then to the right. I follow it like he told me to, and when he finally puts it down, he looks satisfied.
“That seems okay, now we’re going to test your reflexes.

He hands me a stopwatch of some sort, and then pulls a small device out of his pocket.

“This screen is going to display a red box. When the box turns green, I want you to press the button of your stopwatch, okay?”

“Yeah.”

He starts the device, then sits back, watching me carefully.

The box changes from red to green five times, and I hit the button reasonably fast, judging from his reaction when he looks at the results.

“Good, good, fast reactions, nothing concerning there. I think your physical is fine. Okay, I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you need to answer as truthfully as possible.”

I groan, a pain ringing through my head.

“Fine.”

He flips to the first page of his clipboard, pulling out a pen, ready to take notes.

“When you woke up, did you feel any pain?”

“No, but I got a headache when they knocked me out…”

“That’s normal, the tranquiliser is quite strong. Now, has anyone told you anything about your mission so far?”

“No… I don’t know anything, I was moved here straight after I woke up.”

He nods, scribbling frantically on his paper, not taking his eyes off the clipboard as he asks the questions.

“Okay, so what do you think of this new place?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you comfortable?”

“I don’t know."

His writing slows.

“What can you... Can you remember anything?”

Silence.

“No.”

His pencil hovers above the page, not moving.

“Nothing at all?”

“Nope.”

The pencil is brought down.

“Oh. That’s… I didn’t think they would take away all of the memories.”

“How could you not know? You’re one of them.”

“I.. I’m new. I don’t know what’s going on here, I just do as I’m told.”

He clears his throat, before putting his pencil back to the paper.

“Let’s return to the questions. How long have you been awake?”

I stare at him for a few moments, before answering.

“An hour or two.”

“Okay, so do you feel any pain right now?”

“I don't know.”

He hums.

“What do you mean by that?”

I turn to him slightly, studying his features.

“Well, honestly, my head is kinda numb and I'm not sure if it's because it doesn't hurt or because it hurts so much.”

An expression of guilt flashes across his face, but he hides it quickly, turning away from me.

“I’m sorry to hear that, I’m sure you’ll feel better soon. Now, I have to go and document this information. Thank you for your time.”

He rises to his feet hastily, avoiding my gaze.

He turns to me and bows quickly, and my hand shoots out to grab hold of his wrist before he goes.

“Tell me something. Anything. Why am I here? What are you all doing to me?”

My voice cracks on the last word, and he looks into my eyes for a split second, and I search his, for a clue, for anything. I’m so confused and lost, and I need something to anchor me, because my world is spinning out of control.

His gaze flickers down to my hand, the one that clutches his wrist, and I see that it’s turning a rich shade of red. I let go quickly, staring at it with wide eyes.

Did I do that?

I look at him, horrified, and he gulps, darting away from me and out of the room before I can open my mouth again, and leaving me in this stupid white room.

My eyes wander down to my hands, as I clench and unclench my fists. The image of Jongin’s purplish wrists comes to my mind.

I did that.

~

Baekhyun

-

I sigh, chewing at my thumbnail absentmindedly. I’ve been in this room for a long time, long enough for me to have lost track of how many days its been, and long enough for me to stop asking questions, because I know that I won’t be getting any answers. For the first month or so, they’d given me an instructor of sorts, someone to watch over my progress. He was strict, and had the air of someone who had gone through a lot of things and simply did not care about anything but getting the job done. His name was Siwon, and my days with him were just as immemorial as the days before. He’d come in, ask me questions, run some tests, and then leave. He hadn’t been unkind to me, but he had never been big enough to make a big difference. He had just been there. After he had decided that I had had enough training, they left me alone, in this white room with nothing but a desk, a toilet and a bed, and no company but for the timesI was called out to train every day with my supervisor, and the three times a day that a person dressed in a white lab coat would open the door slightly to slip in a plate of food. They come in at night when I’m asleep to collect my empty dishes, or so I assume, for I’ve never seen it happen.

This routine has become my life, and one of my most common pastimes has become to stare into nothingness, mind completely blank. Suddenly, I hear the click of the door being unlocked, and glance up curiously. Lunch shouldn’t be due for another few hours, so why are they coming in now?

A doctor in a white lab coat steps in, nodding his head slightly at me.

“I’ve been ordered to you to your new quarters, Subject 04.”

I furrow my brow, not moving.

“What new quarters? I’m fine here, why do I need to move?”

“Sir, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to come with me.”

“No, but why? I’m completely fine where I am-”

He doesn’t answer me, simply moving towards me and taking my