There is blackness for what feels like forever, then suddenly white cracks bleed into it and it’s painful to look at. I feel sick, disorientated and about ready to pass out from all the of the strange sensations that are filtering around my body.

Thankfully I don’t throw up but as the white light continues to burn through the blackness I become more aware of myself. There’s some kind of plastic over my mouth, providing me with air that I can breathe and I’m suspended in some kind of tube that is filled with liquid. What the hell is this madness? Where am I, what’s going on? Where are the others?

Painfully I force my eyes open, almost instantly regretting it because the liquid surrounding my body slams into the delicate membranes and stings but only for a few seconds. The black and white are gone now, replaced by a strange distorted view of some kind of lab. It takes me far longer than it should to realise that I’m looking out from the tube which is similar to the one I saw Tao in. Something is seriously not right here and for the life of me I cannot figure out what is going on.

Then there comes a flashing light, followed by a siren and the liquid that had been around my body starts to drain away and suddenly the air provided by the mask tastes vile. Instinct makes me reach up, pull it off and try to inhale properly but it only forces me to cough harshly.

How long have they kept me in here this time?

The liquid has barely finished draining when the tube opens and either by my own will or something pushing me, I really can’t tell at this moment in time, I’m staggering out of the tube and onto the clinically white floor. There’s too many sounds around me, people moving around, pens being clicked, paper being rustled, someone clacking away on a keyboard and it’s overwhelming. I close my eyes, trying to figure out just what is going on and become aware of my body.

It’s thankfully covered with some kind of clothing, soaked naturally so it clings to my skin in a horrible fashion that has me shuddering badly. I realise that I’m too thin, I can practically see the bones in my hands as I look down upon them and a few long strands of blond coloured hair hang down in front of my face.

Before I can process that thought properly however, another cough is brought from my throat along with bile that leads to be being sick.

No one comes to me though, the doctors or scientists or whatever these beings are just leave me to get on with it all as per usual. Eventually I stop, noting that what has left my stomach has left via a hidden grid and very slowly I raise my head.

There are five other tubes around me, each one containing a young boy, aged between thirteen to twenty-one and all are suspended in the same fluid that I was. My stomach churns again, very much tempted to throw whatever was left out of it but I manage to keep it down for now. What the hell is all this?

I attempt to stand, big mistake as my body can’t take it but it allows me a chance to look at my wrist.

Tattooed on in heavy black ink is, “00 EXO K”

For a second I don’t understand, frowning but then one of the other tubes opens and instinct makes me scramble to help the next boy whose released. He feels heavy in my arms but real and as he throws up the same bile as I did, I hold onto him tightly and keep the long strands of black hair out of his face. The boy is dressed the exact same way as me and is just as cold, thin and shivering.

Finally, he stops and grips tightly to my forearms as he pushes himself up to a sitting position, blinking rapidly in confusion and I’m glad that I’m not the only one who is confused about this whole situation.

That is until he turns and immediately I recognise the boy in my arms, “Joonmyeon?”

He blinks, “Yifan?”

Suddenly reality comes crashing back to me, forcing the air out of my lungs as I pull the younger eighteen-year-old into my chest and hold him tight. There was no triple x program, there was no Xander Cage or any hope of getting us out of this horrible mess. We were experiments for the SM Corp, a group of scientists who wanted to find out if they could tap into the unused portion of the human mind and make it so that people could have powers.

They had been successful before with a group of powerful beings named Super Junior and the world had been in awe of them. Until at the age of twenty-five, each and every one of them collapsed and broke down. I had the misfortune to witness one of these apparent breakdowns and to say it was terrifying was an understatement. The man, Yesung I remember, had literally just crashed down to the ground and started convulsing. If it had been anything like a standard epileptic fit then he would have been saved but it wasn’t.

SM Corp had already started the ‘EXO’ program before this apparent problem came to light and it only made them more determined to succeed with us. But somewhere along the line, things got a little twisted and heavily dependent on us being able to outdo our predecessors and have the ability to survive past the age of twenty-five. Hence these strange simulations that they would put us in, throwing our minds into scenarios to see how we coped, what we would do and where we could go. Really it was like some kind of bad science fiction story that I would have ditched after a few chapters but this reality was not something that I could just pick up and throw away.

Joonmyeon blinks as he looks around the room, looking pale, “Did we pass?” he asks in a quiet voice.

I can’t answer him in the slightest because I don’t even know what the objective was. I don’t even know what happened to trigger us out of that scenario. Oh wait, that was me. Which probably means that the food we need will be held back because we didn’t complete the scenario properly and that causes a sigh to escape from my lips. “I may have screwed up,” I say gently, pulling Joonmyeon close, “I’m sorry.”

Before either one of us can speak however, one of the tubes begins to open and Sehun staggers out, looking just about ready to pass out and we both move towards him. The poor lad has only just turned thirteen, why the heck they’re pushing him through these sorts of test I don’t know but thankfully he’s coherent enough to grab tightly onto the pair of us and not start wailing. My little kitten is growing up.

I barely have time to hear his babbling questions however as the other tubes open up in rapid succession and I’m dealing with two other boys who are throwing up their guts. Xiumin looks and sounds as if he’s going to heave up his guts and Luhan spits out blood which immediately has us all panicking because that is not good in the slightest. Thankfully both of them recover quickly, though Luhan is curled up against my side and shivering so badly. But he’s nearly twenty-four now and every time he comes out of these simulations he progressively gets worse. I hold onto him tightly, glancing up to see if I can see where the other tubes are because I desperately want to check on the others and also begin to wonder why the heck the doctors have made zero move towards us.

Shouldn’t they be checking vitals and making records, ordering us about and generally making a complete nuisance of themselves to the point where I want to punch them.

Though as I turn to the glass wall that technically separates us from the scientists until we’re fully ‘decontaminated’, I find myself letting out a gasp of surprise. There are figures moving through the scientists, taking them down, arresting them and shooting the guards. They’re all accurate and on point and for a second I feel really confused because I can barely follow the action that is going on. I drag myself closer to Suho, cuddling him closer to my check which causes Sehun to curl up in-between the pair of us and Xiumin staggers closer with a passed out Yixing in his arms. We’re all looking at the glass beyond which begins to fill with smoke and I don’t know whether we should be terrified, running or hiding as far away as possible.

There’s a click, making me jump in surprise as the door to our room and a man steps inside, his body covered with a white suit and a heavy black gasmask that has me pulling away. I know those men too well and I really don’t want to be dealing with a spray right now on top of everything else.

However, the man just seems to pause in his steps, and I can hear someone else faintly talking to him so he has a radio somewhere which is strange.

I gulp, finding a little bit of sassy pride building up in me as I pull the others closer to me, “No! No! You’re not taking them away from me again!”

It’s a pointless thing to say, even I can hear Joonmyeon groaning at me but he increases his grip on me ever so slightly and that’s a relief.

However, a deep chuckle comes from the man in the strange suit, one that is oddly familiar and, “Oh don’t worry, I’m not going to.” The voice is deep, heavy and twanged with an American accent that settles deep in my gut. There’s a pause, clearly the man asking if it’s okay for him to do something before he reaches around and pulls the mask off his head.

Bald head, tanned skin and a racy smile on his face are exposed, “Long time no see, Nicks,” Xander comments casually, “Though boy are you a lot different from the last time I saw you.”

authors babbling: yay, only one more chapter to go and then this is done. Hope you're all enjoying the ride