A young boy lays in the sand feeling the heat of the red sun on his belly. His white tunic blowing in the breeze.

“You’ll turn pink if you stay under the sun that long, child” A lady with a grey scarf wrapped around her head and a matching grey dress hovers above him with a smile on her face.

The boy latches on to her ankle and smiles back. “Stay with me. It feels so good, mama.”

“I need to head to the village before sunset. And you have to come with me. Get up, come on.”

The child reluctantly peels away from his spot and follows after his mother, dragging a stick behind him as they walk. The lady looks back with a grin “I almost forgot, but one of the older kids at the market told me to give this to you.” She fishes in her satchel before pulling out the prettiest glider the kid had ever seen. The kid’s face lights up as he grabs the toy, a glider made from parchment paper with a string tied to the end. “Can I play with it?”

“Only if you don’t fall behind. We still have a long way to walk.”

He places the glider in between his fingers like he saw the other kids do and points it up at the sky. The end of the string looped around his thumb. He lets the wind take it and it soars in front of them, dipping and swirling in the wind currents. He keeps playing with his glider as they journey through the desert. This time though he takes the string off his finger so that it could soar as high as possible. He aims, pulls back and lets it go.

It sails above him. But then it takes a turn.

 It goes up and up and up without falling down like before. As if something is pulling it into the clouds.

“Mama?” The boy calls out, but suddenly the winds start shifting around him, picking up speed.

A roaring noise floods his ears and his voice is lost in the chaos. His hair flies around wildly as the sand started to swirl around him. He sees the silhouette of his mother as she turns and runs toward him. His name on her lips.

And then she disappears behind the wall of sand.

***

Ten jolts awake, sitting straight up. The wheat around him swaying back and forth under the moonlight. A field? Last, he remembers he was taking an afternoon nap in the house. And that vision. This is the fourth time he’s seen it. He leans back and looks at the stars winking from above. It didn’t feel like the dreams the experimenter had shown him. It felt more… like a memory

He’s shaken from his thoughts when a sudden bright light blinds him.

“There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” A familiar voice calls out from beyond the light.

“Can you get that out of my face?”

“Oh, sorry.” Haechan lowers the flashlight, his rust colored hair swinging in the breeze as he looks down at Ten.

Ten gets to his feet and takes a good look at the field that he was just lying in. “How long was I gone this time and, where are we?”

“You’ve been gone three days.” Haechan points to his left. “See that tower in the distance? That’s the ruins.”

“Then we’re about eleven miles away”

“9.35 miles actually” Haechan waves the brass locator in his hand with the number 9.35 on its tiny screen. “You’re lucky I have a sixth sense for finding you, hyung. All the other guys gave up looking for you after a day. But I had a feeling you’d be around here.”

Ten shook his head at the younger boy and begins to part his way through the golden grain. “You were probably just running away again and found me by accident.”

“Wow, really? That’s what you have to say to me after I just saved you?” Haechan jogs up to Ten who is already far ahead. “Next time I’m not going to try to find you. I’ll just let you disappear forever, trapped in some random field.”

He ignores Haechan’s chatter and continues on in silence.

Ever since that Monday one month ago, when that guy in all black calling himself the experimenter showed up at the door to their clubhouse. Ever since then, things have been getting strange.

It’s been four times now that Ten has disappeared, had that mysterious vision and woken up in a strange location. This time was the longest he’s ever been gone. What happens next time? Will he vanish for a week? A month? There wasn’t anything that Ten hated more than not knowing what might happen. And ever since the experimenter started sharing his tricks, he’s no longer sure of anything in his life.

Just thinking about it all made him uneasy.

***

The sunrise just begins to stretch across the grassy horizon. Mark is perched at the top of the clubhouse chimney, holding the binoculars to his eyes when he spots two familiar silhouettes in the distance. A smile spreads across his face.

He slides down the roof, latchs onto a nearby tree branch and gracefully climbs his way down until his tennis shoes hit the dirt floor. “You came back” He says as he runs up to the two.

“I found him actually.” Haechan lifts his eyebrows at the showoff but Mark doesn’t even glance at him and instead walks right past him, embracing Ten in a big hug

Rude, but not unexpected. Maybe Haechan shouldn’t have eaten Mark’s last slice of cake but he shouldn’t have left it out on the table either. He’ll have to get over it at some point.

Ten looks on in relief as he gets closer to the worn brick walls of the clubhouse. He runs a hand along the wooden doorway and steps in with Mark leading the way. Three of the other guys are lounging around on the scraggly leather couches, twisting playing cards between their fingers. Taeyong sits on the stairs as usual and stares down at Ten.

“Look who’s back fellas.” Mark announces.

Yuta, Taeil, and Winwin nod his way but Ten can tell they only care about playing their game. Not that he really cares. He takes a spot at the table with Mark and leans back to watch the card game too.

Yuta sits in the middle, flicking an ace of clubs between his fingers. Once. Twice. Three times, Four times. They all watch his movements closely, but on the fifth spin the card fully disappears. Yuta holds his empty hands up to his audience. Taeil and Winwin shake their head in confusion. Yuta pauses for dramatic effect before snapping his fingers and pointing every one’s attention to the ceiling. From thin air a single card appears above their heads and floats down like a feather before gently landing on the coffee table, face up.

The ace of clubs.

It looks like Yuta’s gotten better at that trick in just the short time since he’s been gone.

Ten can’t fully relax with the others though because Taeyong’s gaze had never left him since the moment he walked in the door. Finally, the leader speaks up from his spot on the stairwell. “You missed a visit, yesterday.”

“Did I?” Ten shrugs it off.

“So are you leaving on purpose or just have awful timing?” Taeyong asks coldly

“Don’t know.”

“Hey, he just got back. Do you have to interrogate him?” Haechan speaks up moving Taeyong’s glare away from Ten.

“And you.” Taeyong points a finger at the youngest. “You don’t think I noticed that you ran away and took my locator?”

“W-what? Was this yours?” Haechan laughs unconvincingly, fishing out the brass device from his pocket and handing it over. The number on its screen reading zero.

“If you take that without asking again, you’ll be in serious trouble. The experimenter gave this to me to keep safe.”

“Can you stop treating the experimenter like some kind of God. The only thing he is, is suspicious.” Yuta spoke up from the living room, still spinning a card in his fingers until it disappears.

“Really? You’re the one playing around with the magic he showed us.”

Yuta presses his lips together and the playing card appears again from thin air, falling to the floor, bent and crumpled. The boys who were watching the show start booing.

Some part of Ten wishes he stayed in the fields. The atmosphere somehow always gets hostile when Doyoung isn’t around. Which reminds him. Ten leans back to face Taeyong. “Where are the other two?”

Taeyong tilts his head upstairs. “They’ve been having it rough. Jaehyun has spent all day in bed again and now Doyoung… his condition is just strange.”

“Is he sick too?”

He just shakes his head. “If you were here then you would know. Just see for yourself.”

Ten’s mind starts racing with questions as hesitantly gets up, Mark following silently behind. 

They climb up the narrow stairs passing Taeyong, a painful sounding whine echoing from upstairs. Ten reaches for the light switch, but Mark stops him, offering no explanation. With no other option Ten uses his hands to move around in the dark corridor, relying on the weak light streaming from under Jaehyun’s door. He’ll make sure to visit Jaehyun later but if Jaehyun’s nausea is anything like the last session, then he won’t want anyone trying to talk to him for the next two days. The soft whine gets a little louder as they head down the hallway toward Doyoung’s room.

Ten gives a slight knock on the door and the whine stops. “Hey. It’s me, Ten. You alright?”

“One moment.” His voice is quiet but not as weak as Ten expected.

Mark and Ten wait as each of seven locks are unlocked one by one. The door slowly swings open and they step inside. It’s pitch black until Doyoung swipes a match and begins lighting up the candles on his desk. “Sorry guys, the fluorescent is just too much for me.”

He turns around and Ten, even in the dim room, could see the grey bags under his eyes, and the thin wrinkles on his forehead that he didn’t remember him having before. “Taeyong said you weren’t doing so well.”

“Well, it’s not really that bad. I’m okay, I guess.”

“That sounds convincing.” Mark folds his arms across his chest.

“I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t feel sick like Jaehyun. I’m just. It’s like I’m getting more…sensitive to things. To sounds and lights and…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but his eyes wander off like he’s recalling something.

The way he doesn’t blink often and the shadows that catch along his thin face. It brings back a feeling of uneasiness. This all started ever since that guy calling himself the experimenter showed up. Ten’s strange disappearances, what’s happening to Jaehyun and Doyoung.

“You shouldn’t go on another dream session.”

Doyoung looks up swiftly at Ten

“I was thinking about it all as I was walking back here. But this experimenter guy just showed up out of nowhere. And ever since he came weird things have been happening. I can’t help but get a bad feeling about all of this. I’m thinking about stopping the sessions. Maybe you should too.”

Doyoung shakes his head and lowers his voice. “No, we have to keep doing this. Tell me, what do you guys remember doing every day before the experimenter showed up?”

Mark and Ten exchange looks. “Just hanging out around the clubhouse, I guess.”

“That’s all I remember too. We didn’t use to do much. We just sat around day after day. But now, all of us are creating, thinking, and playing around.” Stopping his pacing, Doyoung stares down at the camcorder on his nightstand. “I don’t think we should go back to where we were before. That life where every day is the same.”

Ten wants to argue but he can’t find a good enough reason. It just doesn’t sit well with him. This entire thing. If it’s making his friends like this, it just can’t be good.

“I kinda agree with Do.” Mark speaks up. “I want to find out what’s going on and stopping the sessions would send us back to zero. I get what you’re anxious about, Ten, but we need to gather data first. Find out who this experimenter really is.” 

Ten could already see Doyoung’s point. Mark just a few weeks ago didn’t talk about things like data and didn’t try to reason with any of them. He didn’t say much actually. In fact, Ten can’t remember himself saying much either.

“We’re all changing. Getting smarter, I think.” Pulling a notepad out of his coat pocket, Doyoung hands it over to Ten. “This is where I write a daily journal. Just look it over when you get some time and see the difference in the entries since the experimenter came. My descriptions get more detailed and complex as days go by. The next session is in one week and I want you to come with us again. Please, Ten.”

Ten reluctantly nods in agreement but his mind still flashes warnings signs about this whole thing even as he hears the rest of Doyoung’s explanation, even as sees Do’s smile disappear behind the door, and even as all the seven locks click closed, leaving him and Mark in the dark hallway again.

Reference video: NCT The Origin