A cool damp leaf brushes against Ten’s arm and he jerks backward in fright hitting the glass wall behind him with a thump. Rubbing the back of his neck from the impact, he takes a minute to soak in his new environment. Four glass walls loom around him, trapping him inside a tight space with only large vines and exotic plants tangled beside him.

Don’t worry. He assures himself. Don’t worry, Ten, it’ll be okay.

It’s been awhile for him, since he’s been in a dream session, so he forgot how jarring the experience was. His body was on full alert, his heartbeat pounding in his head.

The world outside of the glass case was red, blood red and stretched for miles.

“Ten?” Relief washed over Ten, when he turned to see Jaehyun’s face on the other side of the box.

“I’m trapped.” He mouths. The glass muffling his voice

Jaehyun nods knowingly and puts his finger to the glass, drawing a human sized square. The spots where his finger touches started to glow. When he finishes drawing the last line, the square of glass drops to the ground carving out an opening for Ten to escape.

“Are you okay?”

Ten nodded still trying to calm himself

“Once you relax, you’ll find that you can do so much here. The limit is really just your imagination.” Jaehyun was smiling but Ten recognizes those lines from the tape recording they listened to earlier. He seems like he really believes those words but to Ten they didn’t seem optimistic just scary.

“I found a few of the others that way,” Jaehyun nudges forward. “They’re in the white zone.

“White zone?”

“Yeah, you’ll see.”

“Whose dream?” Ten asks.

For the first time Ten sees a sword slung over Jaehyun’s shoulder. He must have made that.

“Taeil’s”

Ten trails behind Jaehyun and studies the palm of his hand. He imagines a small pocket knife and watches as the outline of the knife appears in a bright golden glow. He quickly dismisses the image and the outline dissolves in his fist. He can’t bring himself to do it.

“See that.” Ten follows Jaehyun’s point. The red tint of the world around him shifts seamlessly into a stark white. The colors on his and Jaehyun’s outfit brighten to dazzling yellows and blues.

“So, this is the white zone.”

“Jae, Ten!” Taeyong sits on a white block, his hair, an icy shade of grey, pokes out of his yellow beanie. “Taeil and the rest are over here.” The other boys are gathered around each other, all of them focusing on the eldest. Taeil pulls his sleeve up to show a golden eye marking on his skin which means he’s the host of this dream. “It’s my first time that you are all inside my dreams.” He breaks out in a large smile and Ten notices the yellow of his shirt growing brighter. There’s no mistaking that.

After a few sessions he noticed that while the major settings of the dreams aren’t easy to control, the dream host usually can change the environment with his emotions. It looks like the happier Taeil is, the more vivid this place gets. He tries not to think about what happens if the opposite emotion takes over. We really are in over our heads. Just a mismatch group of boys playing with something beyond their understanding.

“Look at this, guys.” Haechan wills an entire cake into existence, silverware, plates and all. “This one’s for Mark. Maybe he’ll get over his petty grudge now.” Mark just pushes past him and cuts himself a slice, taking a seat on the ground. “Ugh.” He spits it back onto the plate. “This is disgusting. Did you even try to make it taste good or did you only focus on the visual?”

Haechan winces. “I didn’t know I had to imagine the flavor too.”

“All this power and using it to make cake?” Taeyong shakes his head and holds up his hand. Two locators appear in his palm, and he hands one to Taeil. “I’m gonna explore but I don’t think it’s a good idea to be too far from you, since you control this place.” He holds up the screen. “If my locator is separated from yours, it’ll show how far we are from each other.”

He picks up a metal hammer that was lying at his feet. “Anyone coming with?”

Jaehyun, Haechan, and Doyoung move toward Taeyong. Winwin, Mark, and Yuta vote to stay in Taeil’s group. Ten can’t decide, his thoughts still spinning, but doesn’t have to as Doyoung grabs his arm and pulls him beside him with a smile.

“When I woke up I was trapped in a glass box, but I didn’t get a chance to really look around before I found you all, so I’m going back. Sound okay, guys?” Taeyong asks his group as they cross back into the red zone. All their skin colors are washed over once again with a crimson tint.

“Ten was also trapped in glass when he woke up.” Jaehyun looks over at Ten, who won’t meet his eyes.

“And the rest of you?”

“Just lying around in the red zone.” They collectively add in.

They keep journeying through the empty space of the dream world until a large building looms in the horizon. It has two columns in the front that run infinitely long, stretching from the floor to the dark abyss above. Its wall are dyed red like everything here. There is one wide entrance with no doors at the top of the front steps. It stares back at them, as if daring them to enter. As Ten walks past the doorway he noticed an eye marking engraved in the patterns on entrance floor, similar to the one on Taeil’s arm. Doyoung looks over his shoulder, studying the symbol too.

“Do you think it means something?” Ten asks.

“Everything here means something.” Doyoung replies. “Whether it’s worth figuring out is another question.”

“I don’t like it, any of it.” Ten whispers to himself.

The eye of stone, that never blinked, keeps watching him from its place inside the swirls in the stone. Ten captures the image in his mind before reluctantly moving on. Taeyong is inside curiously staring at a glass box with one of its four walls completely shattered across the floor. Well now Ten knows why Taeyong had a hammer with him.

The boys go off to explore, all of them scattering across the wide marble floor of the building with its dozens of columns and mysterious passageways that branched off of the main room. Most of the passageways led nowhere, only ending in black smoky, abyss. Jaehyun seems to have found something as he motions all of the boys toward the second hallway way on the right, which ends in a winding stairwell.

“What if we find someone hiding in here?” Doyoung tenses at Haechan’s words when he pops up behind them. “I mean what if it isn’t just us that can go into each other’s dreams? At the top of these stairs could be some kind of monster waiting for us.”

“Stop it.” Doyoung cuts him off, sternly. “It’s Taeil’s dream, he wouldn’t let something like that happen.”

“You don’t know that.” Ten adds silently. “He can’t actually control what goes on in here.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Doyoung asks.

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, I thought you were just being a little nervous about everything, but it seems like you are completely against it all. This is a learning experience, but you seem so negative about everything.”

Doyoung's words aren't wrong. They aren't. But it's not like Ten is trying to be a pessimist. It's just that he feels deep down that something, no everything about this place is... off.

“He's just been moody ever since his vanishing acts, started. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why did you lie to the experimenter?” Ten almost jumps at Haechan's unexpected question. He turns to reply but they come to a sudden halt. Ten almost colliding with Jaehyun’s back.

They had reached the end of the stairs.

A wooden door blocks their way, chains strewn across its face and dozens of locks piled on the handle. It is a deep shade of red, almost black, and it towers over them, the chains rattling despite the lack of a breeze. If the sight of it isn’t enough to catch the eye it surely draws his attention by the pull it had on his mind. As if it’s dragging him forward slowly like a magnet.

“One of you, make a lock pick. I’ll try to break through these on my own.” Taeyong pulls the hammer from his belt and Jaehyun unsheaths his sword. Doyoung is already forming a lock pick between his hands, the golden glow contrasting with the shades of red.

The chains clang and shudder under their blows and Ten steps back to watch. But they didn’t break. Even as they re-forge the tools in their hands, making the hammer heavier and sword sharper. It still stands there, without a single scratch.

Taeyong’s hammer drops to the floor just as Doyoung puts the finishing touches on his lock pick. “It’s not budging. We’ll try the locks.”

“All of them?” Haechan whines

“Do you have somewhere better to be?” Taeyong hisses.

Haechan swallows his protests and folds his arms in defiance.

Doyoung steps forward, picking up a shiny crimson padlock in one hand while grasping his new lock pick in the other. The chains rattle once more in a terrifying sound of grating metal.

“If this is Taeil’s dream, do you think he’ll mind us breaking down a locked door?” Jaehyun wonders.

“Every other passageway ended in nothing. Only this one had a door and I just know there’s something important behind it. Don’t tell me you guys can’t feel it too?” Taeyong responds.

Ten looks around at the other boys, the way they nod at each other confirms it. They all can feel some kind of pull toward that’s door. That had never happened in any other the other dreams. This was new.

Doyoung’s face is scrunched up as he fiddles with the first lock. A bead of sweat drips down his brow but he’s only concentrated on the task. Only the padlock swimming in the reflection of his eyes. And then it clicks.

The boys quiet down in surprise as the lock falls to the floor.

“It worked.” Haechan whispers.

If he was honest, Ten didn’t think it would open at all, but there it is, unlocked. He glances over at Doyoung whose smile spreads from ear to ear, holding the lock pick up in the air. “Guys, we can do this. We just need to unlock the others and-”

Do’s unfinished words hang in the air like a chill that raises the hair all down Ten’s arms. The only answer to his words is the clink of the lock pick hitting the floor. The top step where Do had sat, now empty. Ten lets out the breath he had been holding and immediately glances at Taeyong in horror.

The leader hadn’t moved, hadn’t blinked, only staring at the empty step.

“Do?” Taeyong cries out, his voice uncharacteristically weak and unsure. they all wait in silence, Ten can feel Haechan huddling closer to him in fear.

“Doyoung?” Taeyong shouts this time, his voice rising in the end like a question, that he desperately wants an answer to, but Doyoung doesn’t answer, doesn’t reappear. There’s nothing.

“Guys… the lock. It reattached itself.” Jaehyun, his hands shaky, slowly points at the door. The padlock swinging on the chain like it had never fallen off.

Taeyong’s fingers wrap around the hilt of his hammer, his eyes dim. “Move out the way.”

Ten’s thoughts raced as the desperate pounding of the weapons against the door echoed throughout the stairwell, even Haechan was trying to unlock the padlock with the lock pick but it was to no avail.

Won’t you do something Ten. His mind hisses back at him, as he looks down at his palms, cold and empty.

You knew something bad would happen, but you still let them come? You could have prevented this. His breathing was getting faster till it matched the frantic pace of the Taeyong’s hammer against the door. The shouts of the other boys fade until their nothing but background noise. His eyes darting from the door, to his palms. Do something. Make something. Save him, Ten. Save him, like you couldn’t save the woman in your vision.

Ten gasps and suddenly he was no longer in the stairwell but in a familiar sandy desert, a glider in his hand. The same vision starts to replay with the violent winds and swirling sands and he reaches out. But instead of his mother reaching back toward him, it’s Doyoung stretching out his hand toward Ten. And it’s Doyoung that is swept away, disappearing behind the tornado of sand.

The whispers of his mind grew louder as the vision grew stronger, but a familiar voice calls him back to reality.

“Ten?” The color of Ten’s red skin brightens in a wave, and he spins around to see Taeil on the bottom step.

Sound flooded back into his mind, and soon he was out of that strange trance, the voices of the boys and the cool feel of the room rushing back into his senses.

“What’s going on? I got this horrible feeling all of a sudden, so we decided to find you all. But is something wrong?” Taeil and the others peer up at them. The boys at the door went silent and Taeyong’s hammer went slack in his hand.

“Taeil,” Jaehyun barely whispers it. “Doyoung is…gone. He vanished.”

“What?” The walls deepen to a deep blood as Taeil’s face twists in confusion.

“Calm down, Taeil.” Jaehyun warns.

“How am I supposed to calm down when you just told me one of our friends is missing? So, where is he?”

“We don’t know.” Ten’s voice is almost a whisper, and he avoids looking at the others all together.

“Does it have to do with that door? I can sense something strange about it.” Everyone is silent which just confirms Taeil’s question. “Let me through so I can try to open it.” Taeil’s face twists in anger as he stomps up the steps. Ten starts to feel uneasy when he sees the stairs seemingly glitch after each of Taeil’s steps. The colors around Taeil no longer brightening but darkening instead so that the red walls turn a shade close to black.

“Taeil, I think you need to calm down. Your dream is becoming unstable.”

“Stop telling him to calm down. Let him try.” Yuta barks back up at Jaehyun.

“Guys let’s just stop and think about this for a moment.” Winwin adds.

“What’s there to think about? Just let me try to open the door.” Taeil continues to step forward, his foot on the last step.

But the moment Taeil’s hand reaches the door, the dream shatters like a broken mirror.

For a second Ten watches as the red steps collapse brick by brick, breaking away beneath his feet until he is left floating in an empty vat of darkness. And then he wakes up.

Streaks of grey fill his vision, blending together after every blink until the cold stone basement ceiling stares back at him

His grip is tight around the metal lining of his bed.

The experimenter is leaning over him, ready to say something but Ten shoots past him, down to where Doyoung’s bed is. The other boys must of have the same idea because all seven of them are crowded around. Ten pushes past some of them and sees his friend. Doyoung lays there, still and motionless on his cot. Jaehyun sticks a finger below his nose. “He’s breathing.”

“Send me back I can get him out. It’s my dream.” Taeil, is sitting in the corner, wringing his hands. “I can open the door.”

“Door?” The experimenter asks with light-hearted curiosity. “Was it locked? If it was then you can’t open it.”

All the boys freeze at the experimenter’s words. Ten watches as Yuta’s face curls up before he pushes past all of them, the table beside him falling to the ground with a clatter. The experimenter backs up in a panic but Yuta yanks him by his collar, pulling him in close. “What’s wrong with our friend? What did you do to him?” His words seething through his lips.

The experimenter clears his throat and trys to pick Yuta’s fingers off his coat. “I’ll be more than willing to explain that to you, if you choose to be compliant.”

Yuta’s face is inches away from the experimenter’s, anger barely contained between his clenched teeth.

“Stand down, Yuta. Maybe he can help us.” Taeyong approaches.

The experimenter rubs at his neck before answering. “Locked doors only appear in this kind of dreams for one purpose. A passage into the deeper parts of your mind. It chooses who to let through. And it chose Doyoung it seems. Doyoung has entered what I like to call a dream within a dream.”

“You didn’t tell us anything about that before.” Ten speaks up from the back.

“I said earlier that it’s a more enriching experience for you guys to learn along the way rather than me laying out all the facts for you.”

“But will he wake up soon?” Haechan asks.

The experimenter hesitates “He’ll wake up… sometime. It’s different for everyone so we’ll just have to wait and see.”

 

Reference: The 7th Sense M/V