~~~HELLO EVERYBODY I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU FOR BEING SO PATIENT! I JUST FINISHED MY FIRST SEMESTER AT UNIVERSITY AND I AM SO HAPPY I CAN CONTINUE WRITING AGAIN!!! PLEASE LOOK FORWARD TO READING MORE CHAPTERS THIS WINTER BREAK!!!!!!!~~~

Let me tell you something about ants. I hate them. I can see your reaction right now, it probably fits under two categories: ‘why’ and ‘same’. If you’re asking me ‘why’, it’s because my powers are based on life and growing whereas ants love chowing down on anything that grows. Do you know how many times some of my saplings have been chopped down because of ant hills in the backyard? It’s a pain and I never want to deal with that again. If you are thinking ‘same’ then bless your soul because you understand me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Mingyu is a great guy and all but does he really have to show his affection by sending an army of ants, carrying my precious seeds, over to me while I rest my shot-inflicted self? That’s like making me a cup of tea and pouring it on top of me all because you thought you were being helpful. Though, they didn’t bite me, they simply creeped me out to an extent. If he really wants to show some affection, he should give me a hug or hold my hand, NOT send small disastrous creatures to my locked cell.

After staring at the messenger ants, and crawling up into the further corner away from them, I watched them as they slowly began to march their tiny feet out of my cell, leaving the seeds. Hoshi simply slept, leaving me to deal with my panic attack all by myself. Though, I don’t blame him. Maybe he, too, has a slight phobia involving ants. Maybe when he was small, he accidently stepped into an ant hill and became a puddle of Liquid-Hoshi while ants began to swim and chomp away at his squishy well-being. That, my friend, would be a great reason for phobia. When the last of the ants were out of sight, I crept over to the pile of sesame seeds and stuffed them in my pocket.

I know Hoshi told me to hide them, but where was I to do that? It’s not like I can carry them in my mouth at all time. Let’s be real, it’s my first time in prison and I don’t know all the tricks. From what I’ve watched on television, prisoners usually hide stuff in the toilet or in the faucet of the sink but I’m not the type of guy to be sticking my hand down a toilet and I use the sink fairly often so that wouldn’t work out in my favor.

“Give them to me,” Hoshi grunted as he sat up in his bed. “I’ll hold them in the gelatin pockets in my body.” He scratched his hair and yawned.

“What does that even mean?” I asked in complete confusion. Does his body come with pockets that lead to alternate dimensions where he can grab things out and stuff things in as he pleases?

“It means I will hold onto them until you need them. Give them to me and go to sleep before I hack into your blood stream and kill you from the inside.” He said impatiently. His face was obviously full of exhaustion which shocked me because not even five minutes ago he was running over to me and covering my mouth shut. He is either a quick sleeper or bipolar.

I went over to him and took the seeds out of my pockets. He began grabbing the seeds and jabbing them into his stomach. Every few handfuls he’d yawn and roll his eyes. Look at this precious soul. Who would have thought I’d be blessed with such an amazing cellmate? I could have been placed in this dungeon with a person who reads newspapers and shanks people with coat hangers, but no, I was blessed with a blonde, squishy-abed cellmate who keeps my seeds safe in his belly.

The next morning, I ran into the person I wanted to run into since yesterday at lunch: Jeonghan. It’s hard to explain why I wanted to run into him versus the maniac bug tamer Mingyu, but hear me out. In Woozi’s letter, he explicitly explained we needed a guard that would work for us as an undercover guy. Yesterday at lunch, It was obvious S.coups was crushing over Jeonghan and I seemed to be the only one who noticed it. It’s like everybody is oblivious to this ship. I just met the people but I ship them. It’s great, actually.

“Jeonghan! You Angel, I found you.” I said as excitedly as one could in a prison full of depression and chemical fragrances.

“Why were you looking for me?” He flipped his hair out of his eyes, revealing his angelic skin. “Is it because I’m beautiful?” He smirked.

“Okay.” I said and ignored the remark. “Can you flirt with S.coups, the guard, so he can help us break out the prisoners of level one security?”

“Why would I do that?” he asked in confusion.

“Because he likes you and you want to escape, or do you like the clouds on the sky and the chemicals in the air?” I shot back and he complied with my request.

It’s funny, actually. If you want something in prison, all you have to do is tell them it’ll help break them out, even if it won’t. I have no way of confirming the prisoners from level one security will actually be of any use on this escape mission but Jeonghan took the bait and will now flirt back with the obviously love-induced guard, S.coups. What a beautiful day it is to be planning a prison break.

“HOLD IT THERE, PRISONER!!!” A loud voice called out behind me. I stopped dead in my tracks and allowed my sweat to drip down over my face. Did I have seeds in my pocket still? Was my walking too fast? What did I do wrong? I closed my eyes and waited for the impending shot to be injected into my arm.

After a few seconds of waiting, I opened my eyes to see one of the prisoners in front of me in an arm lock. Shortly after, he was carried away. On the way out, he began spitting fire, literally. Flames shot out of his mouth as he raged. The guard, surprisingly, absorbed the flames into his mouth and laughed. Despite the slight fear I felt just now, I also learned something: one of the guards eats fire. I bet guards are selected by their power. If they can suppress other people’s powers, they are guard worthy.

“Hey, want to take a trip into level on security?” Hoshi poked me on the back of my neck, scaring the living daylights out of me. “Field trip?”

“Won’t we get in trouble?”

“Nah, nobody guards them. Just the impenetrable doors.” Hoshi giggled and placed his arm on my shoulder. “You probably won’t like this part.”

Suddenly, Hoshi walked directly into me. My body felt like I stepped into a bowl of gelatin. I couldn’t move and everything was sticky. Surprisingly, my cells didn’t break apart when we somehow managed to squeeze through the nearest drain. It felt like a roller coaster except I wasn’t strapped down to anything and the only thing I could see was a multitude of baby Hoshi cells floating around me, waving every time they looked at me. Every so often, a random sesame seed floated by. That’s when I realized I was in one of Hoshi’s body pockets. I looked out at the surroundings of the drain pipe we were in and, to my surprise, it wasn’t covered in hair. It was covered in security cameras. Somehow, Hoshi managed to slip through their field of vision.

Once we were out of the drain pipes, my body was back to normal size and Hoshi walked out from inside of me. It felt like I stepped out of a hot shower and into a blizzard. It’s almost as though he used his body heat to shrink me. Which is disturbing to think about.

“How was it?” Hoshi looked around with a smile on his face. “I bet you feel closer to me now.”

“Hah,” I sarcastically laughed. “Because I wanted to get closer to you… wonderful.”

Level one security was a bit boring. The walls were completely black and there were four cells. At least I believe they are cells. They looked a bit more like tunnels. Each tunnel had a computer next to it and a key-card swipe.

“Watch this.” Hoshi took out one of the seeds from last’s night encounter with Mingyu’s ants. With precise precision, he aimed the seed into one of the tunnels and threw it. In the blink of an eye, a large wall of fire shot upward. The seed burnt instantaneously and I’m pretty sure I got a sunburn from just standing too close to it. “That’s one of the doors Woozi mentioned in his letter. To get passed them, we’d need to shut them off by using the keycard for every door. And by we, I mean whoever we recruit from the long line of security guards.”

“One step ahead of you. Jeonghan is recruiting S.coups because they have a thing.” I bragged about my success.

“Huh? They like each other? I always thought Jeonghan liked Joshua.” He scratched his chin in confusion.

“Who is Joshua?” I asked and Hoshi walked me over to another tunnel.

“Close your eyes and walk through the first door.” He said as he held tightly onto my hand and we walked through the first door with our eyes closed. I’m not sure why we closed our eyes but it’s better to be safe than sorry. “It was a door of light. We can go through his doors easily; they only affect him. To an extent.”

We continued walking and after around two minutes, we came across the second door with the computer next to it. This door reminded me a lot of Hoshi in the sense of gelatin. There was a wall of gooey stuff that shimmered pale green. It honestly looked disgusting. Not that Hoshi is disgusting or anything.

“Ready to ride the ol’ Hoshi express again?” He asked and answered for me as he jumped on my person and carried me through the wall. This time around was much more disgusting because he gave me no warning and I had no time to mentally prepare myself. “I love doing that.”

“At least one of us finds joy out of this.”

The final two ‘doors’ weren’t at all dangerous, which made traversing the long tunnel that much longer. The first one we came across was literally a holy water shower. It felt good to get that holy cleanse working through this prison grime. The final door was not really even a door; it was a circle around a boy that looked to be around our age. On the floor, chalk circled the boy, along with candles that seemed to be his only source of light. The boy sat in the middle of the chalk-circle and meditated. He looked like he could be a priest.

“Hey, Joshua!” Hoshi hollered at the guy and threw him out of focus. “We came to visit your lonely self.”

“Oh, hey. You must be the new kid, Wonwoo, right?” He stood up and shook my hand.

“Why don’t you just walk out of here?” I asked in confusion.

“You didn’t tell him?” Joshua looked over at Hoshi who nodded to say ‘no’. “Well, the guards believe I’m a ghost so they used all of these holy tricks they searched up on google to stop me from escaping. In reality, I just phase through things. I’m not dead though.”

“Okay, sure. But you can’t leave? Suspicious.” Hoshi teased.

“Hilarious.” He said sarcastically.

“Why are you in level one security?” I asked.

“Because they need to make sure I don’t escape.” Joshua suddenly disappeared. “You see, well, you probably don’t, but I can go completely invisible.” Something poked me in the back and I turned around to see nothing there. “And I can also go through walls and people, which makes me incredibly ‘dangerous’.” He reappeared.

I’m going to be honest with everybody. I’m incredibly upset that I wasn’t placed in level one security. How can a kid that disappears be placed into level one security but a guy who throws seeds that can possibly be bombs be placed into level three security? This is completely unfair. I want doors that seal me off from everything and everyone. My first door could be something like a flamethrower and then it can go onto things like lawnmower or a vacuum cleaner.

“You look upset?” Joshua poked my face.

“Huh?” I refocused my attention back onto the beautiful people in front of me. “No, just distracted by your doors.”

BEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!

“MISSING PRISONERS!!! PRISON ON LOCKDOWN!!! CODE RED!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!”

“Dangit!” Hoshi cursed and grabbed me by the hand, taking over my body once again. He quickly ran through all the doors in record time and jumped into the nearest drain before anyone could find us. Before we made it back to our cell, the cameras in the drains began going crazy. Every one we passed by made a loud ringing sound and followed us as we swam by. When we popped back up into our room, guards were waiting for our arrival.

QUESTIONS:

Will Hoshi and Wonwoo get in trouble for leaving their respected level of security?

I haven’t introduced a few characters, please guess down below! If they are really interesting, I might just use them, using your credit of course.