Code: 01

Location: Day Care

Time: N/A

Hidden behind a wispy veil of clouds, the crescent moon with its spherical eyes and unsettling grin stared down at the playground illuminated by its light. Had Chanyeol not been occupied with the goat-headed child, he would've most certainly cowered at the sight of the nightmarish monstrosity in the sky.

As the monkey bars reflected faint beams of moonlight on to the furry visage of the boy, Chanyeol's face contorted in disgust as the details of the child's appearance became clearer. It was horrifying, to say the least. His blank eyeballs seemed to roll listlessly in their sockets, while his ears twitched slightly, as if the entire head was barely alive.

"I…no." Chanyeol began to make a comment, but found that the words had completely left him. "No. I refuse this. I will not, absolutely not, deal with satanic children."

Shaking his head, Chanyeol squinted his eyes shut in hopes that the image of the hybrid boy would just disappear.

"Chanyeol, you really need to learn how to stay calm." Kyungsoo reproached him, punctuating his disapproval with a heavy sigh. "Sehun probably has much worse things in store for you, so I suggest that you just it up and deal with it."

"Ah , it moved." Chanyeol jumped, edging backwards as the boy seemed to hobble closer. While in most cases such an action would've been intimidating, the child's movements were akin to that of a deer learning how to walk for the first time: clumsy, and perhaps even endearing.

With his head lolling side to side, the goat boy continued to move towards Chanyeol, only to trip on his shoelaces and fall flat on his face.

For a second, the child squirmed on the floor, while Chanyeol looked on in disbelief. Before his brain could compute what was going on, a red-haired man with a pastel pink apron appeared, mouth agape.

"Lucius!" He exclaimed, helping the child up to his feet. Upon a closer look, Chanyeol could read the name 'Baekhyun' on the man's name tag. "Oh dear, you need to be careful."

Lucius bleated in response after regaining his composure, before waddling off and away from the two men.

Turning to Chanyeol, Baekhyun stretched out his right hand with a friendly smile on his lips, "Nice to meet you, you must be the new practitioner, right? I'm Baekhyun."

Waving the hand away, Chanyeol's eyebrows knitted in confusion as he spoke to the man, "Err, I'm not real-"

"Just go along with it, Chanyeol." Kyungsoo interjected quickly.

"I mean, yes. Yes I am. Children are…great. Especially the goat-headed ones." Chanyeol confirmed his new job position unconvincingly, laughing nervously as he shook Baekhyun's hand.  "I'm Chanyeol."

Without bothering to question the man's odd introduction, Baekhyun eagerly led him to the day care centre, speaking enthusiastically about the children and other workers on the way.

When Baekhyun spoke of the day care centre, Chanyeol had expected to see a colourful little building b with happy children. Indeed, the appearance was everything he had imagined, except for one tiny insignificant detail.

All the children had animal heads.

Surveying the scene before him in horror, Chanyeol muttered to himself, "Oh dear Lord, I'm in hell."

Baekhyun's ear perked up, interested in the man's comment, "What was that?"

"I said, 'wow, this is swell'!" Chanyeol lied through his teeth, a massive grin on his face to hide that he was, in fact, screaming on the inside.

"Of course! The children are lovely, I'm sure you'll like…" Baekhyun beamed, resuming his spiel about the wonders of being a day care worker with obscure topics peppered in here and there. As Baekhyun droned on about his colleagues, Chanyeol watched the children cautiously as the pair walked into the building. Their glazed eyes stared at him with a nerve-wracking intensity, as if they would either shank him or smother him to death at any moment.

"…and that's why Jongdae refuses to wear cologne, even to this day." Baekhyun concluded his one-sided conversation, unaware that Chanyeol was on the verge of wetting himself from the fear.

Unable to bear it anymore, Chanyeol burst out with a question, "You do know that these children have animal heads, right?"

"Well…yeah." Baekhyun answered matter-of-factly. "This is a day care specialising in beast-headed children, what did you expect?"

Unsatisfied with the explanation, Chanyeol pressed on, "Could you give me a brief rundown on what you mean by "beast-headed children"?"

There had been no reply.

For a moment, the world around him became static, as if the simulation had been paused. Baekhyun's eyelids remained frozen mid-blink, while his lips were slightly parted and unmoving.

"Don't question it." Kyungsoo hissed, clearly irritated by Chanyeol's refusal to comply, "Just accept what's going on."

In an instant, Chanyeol's surroundings regained life.

"Well…yeah." Baekhyun repeated himself, the situation having abruptly rewound to the beginning. "This is a day care specialising in beast-headed children, what did you expect?"

Doing his best to shrug it off, Chanyeol smiled hesitantly, "Nothing, just testing you. Good observation skills and all that."

"…Uh-huh." Baekhyun nodded with a flash of incredulity on his face. As he guided Chanyeol to the room on their immediate left, they happened by two other men with equally pink aprons. One with clear-cut cheekbones had his arm slung over the shoulders of the other, who had strikingly blond hair which his companion nuzzled affectionately.

"Jongdae, this is the workplace. Separate yourself from me, please." The one being coddled sighed, expressing his disapproval by pushing Jongdae's face away. The man in question slid his arm off, raising both in a surrender.

With a pout, Jongdae tried to nudge in closer again, whining as his advances were rejected, "But wh~y Minseok."

"Yeah wh~y Minseok." Baekhyun mimicked his tone, grinning mischievously as Minseok shot him an icy glare.

"It's Monday morning and I don't want to deal with this right now." Minseok huffed, stepping well away from his two co-workers and towards Chanyeol. Craning his neck to make eye contact with the taller man, Minseok gave Chanyeol a welcoming smile, "You must be new here."

"Yes!" Chanyeol answered overzealously, still unnerved by the unfamiliar environment. "Pleasure to meet the both of you."

Amused, Minseok patted him on the shoulder, "Enough chit-chat, let's get to work." He announced, which was followed by lazy cheers of agreement from Jongdae and Baekhyun.

After being handed a list of tasks, which Chanyeol found rather strange considering that there was no interview or induction period to gauge his child-caring capabilities, the other three went about their ways.

Chanyeol strolled through the winding corridors of the building whilst admiring Minseok's penmanship. "They want me to get poultry feed for the chicken-headed children's lunch and that's in the east wing, so I can get - wait a minute, why do I even have to do this?"

"You might find another 'key' on the way." Kyungsoo stated, the sudden sound of his voice surprising Chanyeol, even though he had been the one to initiate the conversation. "Keep an eye out."

"For what? Another gnome?" Chanyeol snorted with laughter. While Kyungsoo defended the importance of the gnomes, Chanyeol turned a corner into another hallway, at the end of which was an oak door clearly labelled with the words 'Pantry - Poultry'. "Is that where the poultry feed is?"

"You're a genius!" Kyungsoo gasped, the condescension dripping from his words, "Why, I don't think I would ever have figured that out."

"Aww, thanks." Chanyeol said with feigned bashfulness, refusing to let Kyungsoo have his fun. "Someday, you might reach my level."

"Unfortunately, that would mean a decline in my standards." Kyungsoo sneered, his contempt echoing in Chanyeol's skull.

Choosing to ignore his guide, Chanyeol swung open the pantry door to reveal several neatly marked cabinets fastened on the walls and brown sacks of feed arranged on the floor. After briefly inspecting one sack, Chanyeol hauled it over his shoulder, groaning when he realised that it was unbelievably heavy.

Unable to keep his grip on the feed bag, it slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor, spilling its contents over the marble tiles. As the feed scattered, a gnome rolled out from the depths of the sack, its bright red clay suit contrasting with the dull yellow pellets lying beneath.

"Before you say anything, I need to actually know your plan for my escape." Chanyeol asked, picking up the ruddy nosed figurine as he did. "You can't just expect me to accept whatever's thrown my way without an explanation."

"Fine, I suppose you deserve one." Kyungsoo agreed, "In short, there are 'cracks' in the simulation which I can exploit. If you move through these 'cracks', we'll be able to destabilise and shut down the system that's trapping your conscious here. It's sort of like hacking away at the weakest link of a chain."

"Thanks for telling me that but I was actually hoping for an explanation on the gnomes." Chanyeol said, emphasising his point by tapping the bulbous nose of the figurine.

"I programmed something to be a marker for the weaknesses in the simulation, to act as a 'key', and they just happened to be gnomes." Kyungsoo continued in his level tone. "The problem is, I can't control what happens when you interact with these 'cracks' because this is still Sehun's simulation after all, which is probably why you saw that memory."

"Do you think Sehun knows that you're doing this?" Chanyeol responded with another question, interest piqued.

"…No." Kyungsoo answered, the brief moment of hesitation disregarded by Chanyeol. "If he did, I would've been shut out immediately."

Just as the man had finished talking, Chanyeol launched in once again, "Last question, is Sehun on drugs or something? Why are there children with animal heads? Why does the simulation rewind when I don't 'accept it'."

"That's three questions, Chanyeol." Kyungsoo chuckled wryly, "I'm no mind reader, so I don't know what's going on in Sehun's mind, and the only explanation I can give for your last question is that there is a limited amount of in-world information provided by the simulation. You can ask a question, but there won't always be an answer because there isn't one."

With brows knitted in thought, Chanyeol offered an idea, "Surely we can just exploit that? We could make the entire system short-circuit by, I don't know, making it repeat the same scenarios over and over again."

"Do you know why I keep telling you to not question what's happening?" Kyungsoo spoke with a hint of irritation, "It's precisely because of your suggestion. We want to shut down the system so you can escape safely, not corrupt it and risk losing you in the simulation all together."

"Oh." Chanyeol muttered softly, his voice barely audible to Kyungsoo.

"So could you-"

"Stick my hand in the gnome, yeah, yeah, I got that." Chanyeol said dismissively, accepting his fate with resignation.

Filename: Diag_20190414

Tag: [Sehun][Chanyeol][Hospital]

A thin strand of light broke through the still darkness of Sehun's hospital room, the origin of which was the narrow crack of a carelessly "closed" door that separated the boy from the outside world.

With his head rested on an elevated pillow, Sehun stared blankly at the adjacent window, its thick navy curtains obscuring the bustling Seoul city skyline. Faint murmurs of another lively night could be heard, filling the cold silence of the room with a glimmer of energy.

Sehun closed his weary eyes slowly, letting the noise wash over him and his tired body.

On the other side of the door, a snapshot of a different world unfurled, one where familiar and unfamiliar voices spoke hushed and sombre toned.

"Other than con heart disease, we've come across another condition, albeit unknown, related to his heart…"

The boy shifted from his position, the pain in his chest exacerbated by the movement of his ribs. He winced, but far worse afflictions had practically made him immune to mild discomfort.

"…Reduced blood flow…paralysis of limbs…"

Beside his bed was Chanyeol, who looked on in silence. With his eyes transfixed on his companion, Sehun's lips were pressed in a line, an unreadable expression worn on his face.

"…It would be a miracle if he lives beyond twenty."

As the conversation concluded, the door creaked open, followed by the entrance of a paediatrician, who greeted Sehun with an amiable smile. Frowning at the absence of light, he flicked on the switch, allowing the moody darkness to be engulfed in a warm glow.

"Hi there Sehun, I'm Dr. Byun Baekhyun." The doctor walked up to the side of the boy's bed, patting his hand reassuringly. "I'm just here to tell you that you'll be staying the night here, are you okay with that?"

Sehun did poorly to hide his discontent, frowning while he focused his gaze on the hand on his own.

"You'll have your friend over there to keep you company, and I'll drop by every now and again so you don't get too lonely." Baekhyun addressed Chanyeol with his cheeks pushed up into a comforting smile, which Sehun inwardly sneered at.

"Where's my dad?" Sehun muttered, voice hoarse and trickling over cracked lips. "Why can't I go home with my dad?"

"Sehun, your dad wants you to rest here." Baekhyun said in a sympathetic tone, tilting his head slightly as he often did when addressing children. "He can't visit you right now, but he'll come tomorrow."

"He's working, isn't he? He's too busy to see me, isn't he?" Sehun seethed through gritted teeth, tone laced with venom.

Shaking his head fervently, Baekhyun placed a hand on Sehun's shoulder, which the boy immediately shrugged off, "Mr. Oh really did want to see you, in fact, he's left you a few gifts for the night." Baekhyun quickly changed topics, not wanting to invoke Sehun's anger. "I'll go get them for you."

As Baekhyun left the room, Sehun snapped his head towards Chanyeol, eyes ablaze with fury,

"This is your fault. He isn't here again because of you." Sehun snarled, face contorted in a burning rage.

"I hate you."

Code: 01

Location: Day Care

Time: N/A

When the image of the day care centre appeared before him again, Chanyeol felt tears forming, the stinging sensation pricking at his eyes.

"." Kyungsoo cursed, and judging by the sharp breath that followed, Chanyeol knew that he wasn't meant to hear that. "What did you see?"

"I-I saw Baekhyun in a hospital with Sehun." Chanyeol uttered, voice croaking as he dried the tears with his sleeve. "It can't be real then, can it? Baekhyun's part of the simulation…it's not real. It's not real."

"…Good, you're learning." Kyungsoo affirmed, a kindness to his voice which mildly shocked Chanyeol. Unlike the first memory, the second one hadn't caused as much emotional turmoil, even though Sehun's harsh words had been permanently ingrained in Chanyeol's mind. "Grab another bag, the chicken-headed children must be hungry."

After dragging the feed sack across the floor, Chanyeol eventually managed to bring the food to the children, albeit with great difficulty. As soon as he entered the room labelled "Chickens", the boys and girls with their assortment of feathered heads flocked to him in an instant.

Before he could even open the sack, they had already ripped it open with their beaks and started feasting on the pellets.

Jongdae passed by, giving Chanyeol a thumbs up upon seeing the children happily eating their food.

"Good job! By the way, the manager wants to see you in his office." Jongdae informed Chanyeol, gesturing him to follow.

Glancing one last time at the children with a confusing mix of pride and disgust, Chanyeol trailed behind Jongdae, who had began to bring up an odd mix of topics, most of which included Minseok. Chanyeol chalked it up to the 'limited in-world information' Kyungsoo talked about, but the affection Jongdae had for Minseok felt genuine, even though Chanyeol didn't really have anything to compare it to.

In a matter of minutes, the pair arrived at modest oak door adorned with a golden plaque embossed with the word 'Manager'. After Jongdae left, Chanyeol knocked on the door, opening it slightly to poke his head in.

"Hel…lo? Oh crap." Just as Chanyeol said his greetings, a hand pulled him in by the collar. After being forced into the room, Chanyeol found himself face-to-face with Sehun, the tips of their nose almost brushing against each other.

"Found you." Sehun growled, his hostile eyes piercing Chanyeol's. Raising his bionic right arm, Sehun held the blue orb embedded in his palm to Chanyeol's cheek, the whirring sound vibrating in the ensnared man's skull. Chanyeol's vision was obscured by a bright blue glare, distracting him from the danger at hand.

"Bend your knee and push it upwards diagonally." Kyungsoo hastily instructed, breaking Chanyeol out of his dazed state. Chanyeol slid his arms underneath Sehun's and clutched on to his waist as he delivered a swift blow to his stomach.

Still holding on to Chanyeol's collar, Sehun lurched backwards, pulling the man along with him. Chanyeol collided with Sehun, the momentum knocking both of them to the floor.

"Keep that orb as far from you as possible, it's going to release a surge of energy soon." Kyungsoo advised while Chanyeol straddled Sehun, whose right arm was stretched outwards and pressed into the carpeted floor by both of the Chanyeol's hands. Lacking the necessary strength to restrain the metal-frame, Chanyeol's grasp on the limb was broken with ease..

Swerving his arm, Sehun aimed the palm of his hand at Chanyeol's face while still lying on the ground, his jet black hair in a disarray.

"Why don't you talk to me, Sehun?" Chanyeol shouted over the noise, seizing the man's wrist and ing it away from himself.

"Why? You’re going to die anyway." He said with disdain, the curl of his lips reminding Chanyeol of the memories he had seen.

The hum of the generator in Sehun's arm grew louder, turning into a deafening sound that reverberated in the air around the two.

Unsure of what else he could do, Chanyeol pinched Sehun's cheek as hard as he could, resulting in a shocked cry of protest from the man, "Hey!"

"Stop being a stubborn and talk to me, for goodness sake." Chanyeol spoke indignantly, displeased with the attitude Sehun had been giving him, both inside the simulation and in his 'memories'.

"Chanyeol, reasoning with him is useless." Kyungsoo interrupted, the clarity of his voice becoming a reassurance in the disorientating buzz of the machinery. "Punch him in the jaw and run."

Chanyeol had never considered himself to be a violent person, but after being subject to Sehun's scathing glare and adamance against a reasonable discussion, he found no reason to disagree with Kyungsoo. Leaving no time for another response, Chanyeol slammed his fist into the line of Sehun's jaw, leaving him with sore knuckles and Sehun with a growing bruise.

With the shorter man momentarily stunned, Chanyeol launched himself off of Sehun and ran out of the office, almost flattening a bewildered Baekhyun on his way.

"Go find the gnome!" Kyungsoo commanded in his ear, drowning out the sound of pulsating blood in his head.

Upon reaching the pantry, Chanyeol hurriedly picked up the garden ornament, preparing to slide his arm inside. Just as he did, a familiar burst of light surrounded him, almost blinding him with its stark brightness.

As the world around him faded in a cluster of cyan pixels, Chanyeol remained long enough to watch the destruction unfold around him. Debris turned to fragments, which shattered into minuscule particles that were soon engulfed in the brilliant white that encapsulated Chanyeol.

At that moment, it wasn't the fear that struck Chanyeol, but the feeling that he had lost a friend. For vague reasons which Chanyeol was still unwilling to accept, the original perception he had of Sehun seemed so contradictory to the one that lived and breathed in his memories.

Chanyeol couldn't even remember what made him so fond of the man in the first place, yet the emotions lingered, like a baseless affection.

Filename: Diag_20190414

Tag: [Sehun][Chanyeol][Hospital]

Sprawled across Sehun's bed was a variety of board games and picture books, all of which he deemed himself far too old to be playing with. Beside him, on the other hand, were two male nurses, who were enthralled by the picture books, which they urged Sehun to flick through.

"Jongdae, pass that one to me." One of the nurses pointed to a hardback with silver writing on the spine, where an image of a crescent moon was debossed.

"Ah but Minseok, I wanted to read it." Jongdae pouted, holding the leather bound book firmly in his hands. Rolling his eyes, Minseok reluctantly agreed, which his colleague returned with a wide toothy grin. "Thanks! Right then…'The Night the Animals Came out to Play'."

While Jongdae enthusiastically read the story aloud, Sehun leaned further back into his pillow, absentmindedly thumbing the nose of a Rilakkuma while glancing every now and again at Chanyeol.

"Aww look at this!" Jongdae spun the book around to show Sehun one of the illustrations. It was a little girl wearing a bunny mask, her pinafore a cross-hatched fabric in black and white; above her head was a smiling moon, which Sehun found unintentionally sinister. Then again, he wasn't particularly fond of anthromorphism.

As Jongdae continued to read, he would make the occasional comment about the outstanding quality of the images, but upon reaching one certain page, the nurse burst out with laughter.
 

"Dae, show me." Minseok edged closer, peering over Jongdae's shoulder to take a look. "It's a colour picture, what's so funny about it?"

"The flying squirrel boy has red hair, how is that not funny?" Jongdae guffawed. His laughter began to reach an unbearable level of obnoxiousness, leading Minseok to pry the book out of his hands. "Reminds me of the time Baekhyun dyed his hair red."

"Dr. Byun? He used to have red hair?" Sehun asked with genuine surprise. In the boy's eyes, the doctor had seemed far too straight-laced to ever attempt anything more serious than littering.

"Oh yeah, the three of us used to be in a band during our university days together." Minseok responded, a wave of nostalgia washing him over as he smiled tenderly. "My hair was bleached blond back then, which, if I recall correctly, was all Jongdae's fault."

Snickering, Jongdae remarked with a smirk, "You really shouldn't have trusted me with the hair dye."

"I didn't 'trust' you with anything! You took it from Baekhyun's stash and used it on my hair when I was dru- ahem, I mean, sleeping." Minseok said in defence, a disapproving glare aimed at his amused co-worker.

As the pair discussed their school days together, Sehun joined in with their laughter, his spirits having gradually lifted in the presence of the nurses. It didn't take long for the boy to start sharing his own anecdotes, his eyes forming half moons while his cheeks ached from the prolonged smiling.

Quietly but surely, Chanyeol watched the boy, the image of his warm smile etched in his memories.