Adrenaline must’ve gotten the best of her for before Mina could fully think through her movements, she had stepped foot into the forest. Having done the unthinkable, the action of which everybody in her life never dared to take, Mina felt relieved that her heart was still beating even after she crossed the divide. 

She must’ve walked about 20 feet when she thought about turning around while she was still alive. But a certain glow and the calling of the forest caused her to stand still. The wind moved passed her in strong motions, as if a deity was trying to convey something. When she turned to see where she had come from, the kingdom was no longer in sight. 

Strange, Mina thought. I haven’t gotten that far in. She looked in front of her, at the vastness of the woods. For the first time in her life, Mina was utterly scared. Her hands shook repeatedly and her feet wouldn’t budge. She was, at that moment, in complete darkness, one of which she’d never experienced until then. The stories she’s heard about the freightening unknown and the warnings sent by Jeongyeon came flooding in; this was nothing like how they explained it.

The dark was much scarier in real life. 

As there was no light that shone in the forest, she could’ve easily gotten lost. Her eyes took a while to adjust in the dark and she had to squint to even see the ground she was standing on. It was clear that some sort of dim light illuminated the place, otherwise the whole place would remain unseen. But when she looked up, there was no moon, no clouds, just darkness. It must be somewhere else, Mina thought, slightly disappointed of a missed opportunity to gander at the moon.

Before taking a step further, Mina tried to figure out where she should head. In the first place, how do people maneuver in the dark? But as if the gods were listening in on her, a light started to grow throughout the forest. Strands of green emerged from the branches, blending with the leaves and emitting a strong aura. 

Mina reached out and touched one of them on the tree next to her. The texture was smooth and it wasn’t as warm as she thought it would be. The light was faint but put in darkness and it became the brightest thing in the forest. 

The strands were only present in a few of the trees and it all seemed to go in a certain direction. Finding herself lost and unable to go back, Mina followed the light. 

~

There was no doubt about it, it was a human being strolling through the forest. Chaeyoung could see the girl’s white dress in plain sight. How she could walk through the dark without problem, she couldn’t comprehend. And what’s even surprising was how the dome-like building failed to catch the stranger’s attention. 

Chaeyoung watched her from inside, following the dress, which was the only thing she could see. The intruder’s face was obscured by the darkness and she couldn’t tell if the person was younger or older. 

She was about 200 feet away, but Chaeyoung’s eyes were much stronger than the average human’s. They were similar to that of a Canon EOS camera, allowing her eyes to focus on a single point, resulting in a high resolution of her subject but generally losing focus on its surroundings. So even before Mina could see her, it made sense that Chaeyoung was the first to be aware of another presence. And just as Chaeyoung was not yet aware of the green lights, Mina could not yet see the dome. At that moment, the two were oblivious of the different worlds that were about to meet. 

Chaeyoung kept a watchful eye on her, afraid she would miss something important. She followed her legs as it stepped over roots, her hands as it parted low-hanging branches, her chest-length hair as it followed behind her and move side-to-side as she turned her body, all the while trying to get a good look at her face. But the only light provided for her then was the dress, not enough to see the whole picture of this overly-dressed stranger.

What are the scientists doing? Chaeyoung thought. Isn’t this whole area off-limits? She couldn’t imagine someone dressed so extravagantly was here for scientific business. She could only assume this girl stumbled in the forest by accident and couldn’t find her way out.

But how can someone remain so oblivious to their surroundings as to not notice a giant building in the middle of a forest?

Chaeyoung thought of a way to get her attention, but just because she could hear past the wall didn’t mean that the ones behind it could hear her. So instead, she thought of tools from her past that she could materialize that might be able to aid her. 

As Chaeyoung was doing some thinking, she accidentally dropped her hand from the wall, shutting down her window into white. “Oops,” Chaeyoung mumbled. Then taking a deep breath, she placed her hand on the wall again, making a part of it transparent. And what met her eyes from the other side was the girl herself, standing right before her with curious-like and twinkling eyes. Chaeyoung froze. 

Mina looked up and down as if inspecting the building and then she looked at Chaeyoung. 

“Pretty-” Chaeyoung subconsciously started to utter.

“What’s this child doing here...” Mina mumbled.

“-Rude,” was how Chaeyoung ended her admiration when she heard the stranger talk. But Mina could not hear her from the other side. The wall itself was strong, built with impenetrable glass that even a pistol wouldn’t go through. 

“WHERE. AM. I?” Mina spoke loud, emphasizing each word, thinking that the glass prevented Chaeyoung from hearing her. Of course, Mina wouldn’t think that this girl was imprisoned and had superpowers that allowed her to hear past a wall, even from a mile away. Therefore, Mina yelling only brought pain to Chaeyoung’s ears.

Chaeyoung placed a finger in front of , signalling her to be quiet. Mina instinctively covered and looked side-to-side as if someone might be there. Chaeyoung mouthed to her slowly, I can hear you.

“What?”

I. Can. Hear. You, she tried again.

“You can… hear me? But I can’t hear you.”

The shorter one nodded. 

Her confusion aside, Mina asked, “What are you doing there?”

Chaeyoung spread her arms to the side, showing her the emptiness of the room, and then shrugged. Best not to make this girl even more confused that she is, she thought, saving her a detailed explanation of ‘I’ve been imprisoned as a highly-dangerous species and am being experimented on.’ 

“Do you know of a way out of here? I’m lost, you see, and I can’t seem to find my way back.”

Girl, you and me both. Chaeyoung shook her head. The princess was wearing a simple, white dress and flat sandals. Chaeyoung wanted to ask her where she had come from, how she had stumbled upon the forest, and the sights that lay past it. But there was no way for her to convey her questions; gestures could only go so far. 

Mina looked at Chaeyoung with a slight smile. The shorter one tilted her head slightly to the side with a questioning look. Mina shook her head, “Nothing, just that, your fashion intrigues me. Such a cool, unique look.”

Chaeyoung looked down at her own outfit. She wore a white top and white scrubs with which she found nothing unique-like. It wasn’t even good enough to be called a sense of fashion. Chaeyoung was confused by this girl’s train of thought, but she forced a smile and mumbled a thank you that she couldn’t hear. 

The surprising turn of events of having a stranger standing outside the building in the middle of a forest made Chaeyoung slower at noticing the girl’s face. The bottom of her eyes were puffy, as if she had been crying. The make-up on her face were slightly ruined; tear stains could be spotted on her cheeks. Chaeyoung wanted to ask her what had happened, how she got there, where she had been, but the lack of resources prevented her from communicating well.

Chaeyoung leaned closer to the wall and let out several deep breaths on it, fogging up the glass. She slowly wrote on the wall, writing the words backwards so Mina could read it. It took her a while to write out even a single word, but Mina waited patiently, hands in front of her.

Is something wrong? You look like you’ve been crying, Chaeyoung wrote.

Her handwriting, as she had to write it with difficulty, looked like that of a child. But Mina found the effort quite endearing. She gave a melancholy smile, remembering the life that made the scary forest seem like a much better place. “I’m getting forced into a marriage,” Mina told her, her voice low and soft. “I want to run away, that’s how I got here. Though how deep I’m in, I’m not sure. Frankly, if I could choose to not go back to where I was, I would. Maybe my disappearance will put some sense into my father. But I don’t know where else I’m supposed to go. You don’t suppose I could get shelter from your home, do you? It would just be a short time.”

Chaeyoung erased her previous message and fogged up the glass again to write another set of sentences. This is not my home. It’s not a home at all. But you shouldn’t be here. If the scientists find you, who knows what they’ll do. They’re scary people.

Mina read the message as she wrote it and a disappointed expression appeared on her face. 

The truth was that Chaeyoung knew exactly how to get out of the forest. It was something she and her people created themselves, for security and sanctuary. The forest was, in technicality, a part of her world. But as of late, being drugged by the scientists who invaded her hometown and forced to hibernate in a capsule, Chaeyoung hadn’t been able to remember all of her memories. 

“What do these scary people do?” Mina asked.

They have the power and technology to do whatever they please. They could imprison you for all they care.

“Are you by yourself?”

I’ve been alone for years. Loneliness is not something anyone would want.

“Then, if they take me too, would they put me with you? If I’m lost and you’re alone, it would be better if we’re together.” The look on Chaeyoung’s face must’ve had a drastic change because Mina tilted her head slightly to the side and said, “What?”

The stranger’s words brought confusion to Chaeyoung. How could she think of someone else in her situation? she thought. Chaeyoung decided that this girl was utterly gullible, or utterly insane. 

You can’t stay here, but you can come back. Though the only thing you’d be seeing is me in this crummy, old room. 

Mina smiled, a pure, heartwarming smile. “I’m sure you have your own story. Won’t you tell me? I’m curious about the outside world.”

Outside world? Chaeyoung thought. Had she been trapped for a long time just like me? Just then, the door from the other room opened; Chaeyoung’s ears caught on the metal lock turning. Someone was coming. Chaeyoung quickly wrote, Someone’s here. You have to go. Retrace your steps and you might be able to leave. And when she saw the girl hesitate, she added, NOW.

Chaeyoung let go of the wall and its white, bleakness returned. Just in time, the door to her chamber opened and Tzuyu came in. 

The scientist had her pajamas on underneath her lab coat. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“I have an extremely limited amount of resources. As you can see, I’m exhibiting my creative imagination through painting in my head,” Chaeyoung said with a hint of sarcasm. Then she let out a chuckle. “What are you doing here so late?”

“I don’t know… I couldn’t sleep.” Tzuyu shoved her hands in her coat pocket and sat down on the chair. “I’ve had a lot on my mind and somehow, I just feel like talking to you right now.”

Chaeyoung found this rare. This girl was showing vulnerability to her subject, something no human had ever shown her. All the scientists in the lab— male or female, young or old— they all acted like they were far superior, all smug and arrogant. Tzuyu was the only one that ever bothered showing her the tiniest bit of kindness, and for that, Chaeyoung had grown to like her. 

A light voice at the back of her mind wanted Tzuyu to leave as soon as possible so she could check the forest and see the girl again. But a part of her wanted Tzuyu to stay, to stay as long as she could and talk to her for long hours. 

“Are you sure you should be leaving Momo all alone right now?”

“She’s fine. It was her idea for me to come.”

“Oh really?” Chaeyoung knew little about Momo. Tzuyu spoke about her a couple of times, but never in great detail. From the way she talked about her, Chaeyoung could tell they were more than just roommates. Though she didn’t know anything about love, she had a feeling there was a hint of that in their relationship. “It would be nice if I could meet her. She seems like a really cool person.”

“Yeah… I want to bring her here too and introduce her to you. But you know, rules.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Chaeyoung rolled her eyes. “Oh, by the way. Instead of the books, can I have a whiteboard instead? And some markers and eraser. I want to draw. It’s been a while.”

“A whiteboard? You’re asking as if I really am going to get you those things.”

“I thought I’d give it a shot,” she shrugged. “You don’t have to force it if you can’t. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Momo told her to spend more time with Chaeyoung, but Tzuyu didn’t even know where to start. She put her in this hellhole; what’s a capturer supposed to say to a prisoner? They definitely weren’t going to drink tea and gossip. A cold silence permeated the place, and all of a sudden, the room felt hot. Tzuyu realized how quiet it actually was. No windows, no cracks, nobody else; it was a sad place to be living in. 

“Hey,” Chaeyoung started to speak. “Can you tell me what makes me different? From a biological standpoint, I mean. I just realized I’ve never really asked before.”

“Hmm. Well, physically, you’re just the same as us. You have almost all the necessary organs we need to live, but they function quite differently than ours. To start off, your heart is rather quiet, as if it performs the necessary tasks to keep you alive in secrecy. Everything your body does seems to be doing so in utter silence, like it’s afraid it’s going to be found out. It’s hard to explain without explaining the entire biology of humans, but to put it simply, a life has an aura. Most people can tell that someone is in the same room as them without looking, or if someone is watching them. But with you, you could very well easily get past someone without them knowing you were there. Does that make sense?”

“Basically, you’re saying I have no presence.”

“That’s right. While some humans are like that, you take it to another level. It’s like your body is constantly asleep, quiet and undisturbed.”

“And you lot are afraid of what happens when it wakes up.”

She really doesn’t remember, Tzuyu thought. “Chaeyoung-ah, how far back do your memories take you?”

Chaeyoung looked up for a moment, pondering. “I remember my family— my little brother and my parents, my city, our neighbor. I remember everything up to that day, when I lost everything...”

Her eyes looked grim. Amid that sadness lies a powerful hatred, Tzuyu knew. When that damned scientist brought over an army to dominate this little village, Tzuyu was merely 15 years old. Holding onto the hem of her father’s lab coat, she listened to him speak over matters she couldn’t comprehend then. 

As the daughter of well-respected scientists, a couple who dominated the world of science and made a name for themselves, Tzuyu had always been surrounded by science. Her father often brought her to labs and explain to her the processes as they happened. The first time she saw Experiment 160 was also the first time she ever felt scared of her parents’ profession. What she once regarded as a highly-respectable role became that of an association to madness. For keeping a mere teenager, only a year older than their only daughter, in a confined space of ooze and wires was nothing short of torture. 

To relieve her fear, her mother told her that they were keeping the little girl alive, and to do so, they had to strap her up and fill her with the right nutrients; the consequences would be the halting of her age. That made Tzuyu’s little mind a little better and once again she felt proud of her parents for saving this little girl’s life. But only until she reached the age where she had to undertake her parents’ assignment that she found the disgusting lie behind her mother’s words. They were not saving this girl; they were using her. And now she was doing the exact same thing that caused her to despise her parents and the world they lived in. Tzuyu had never felt so despicable of herself. 

“Sorry,” Tzuyu said, “for bringing up such a sorrowful memory.”

Chaeyoung gestured her hand, telling her to not worry about it. She sat on her bed, cross-legged, hugging her knees close and cradling herself back and forth. For someone who’d gone through so much, she was surprisingly happy-go-lucky and often times sarcastic. If they’d met in normal circumstances, Tzuyu was almost certain she would end up hating her. She chuckled at the thought. 

“What?” Chaeyoung asked.

“Nothing. Just that I was thinking, if you and I ever met outside this place, that I would’ve been annoyed by you.”

“Why? I’ll have you know I’m one of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet.” The younger one puffed up her chest in sarcastic arrogance. 

“And probably a huge troublemaker. I can already sense how impulsive you can be.”

“Well, you would probably be so uptight that I won’t want anything to do with you. Rules this, rules that. You seem like someone who don’t know how to have fun.”

“Excuse me. I know how to have fun,” Tzuyu said, somewhat defensive. 

Chaeyoung folded her arms with a smirk on her face. “I’m going to bet your life is always filled with work. You probably don’t even go anywhere else. Basically, you’re living like a middle-aged salaryman.”

“Who are you calling middle-aged, you rude brat!” 

Chaeyoung laughed, holding onto her stomach as she did so. Just then, Tzuyu’s phone rang a message, which caused Chaeyoung to stop and watch her carefully pull it out and check. Phones weren’t allowed in the lab; Tzuyu once told her. She must be so out of it to be forgetting, Chaeyoung thought with a smile. 

“I have to go. But just you wait, I’ll show you just how much fun I can be!” She huffed as she got up, her eyebrows knitted together and a slight pout played on her lips. Chaeyoung couldn’t help but giggle amongst herself. Before she disappeared out the door, Tzuyu turned and pointed at her, “Just you wait! I’m going to bring tons of fun in this crummy room.” Then she walked out and then came the click of the lock.

Chaeyoung waited about 10 minutes before moving, making certain that Tzuyu had indeed left. Then, she slowly sat cross-legged in front of the wall and performed her power once more. She placed her hand on the cold barrier, breathing slowly, as if afraid of something.

The forest had reverted back to its bleak scenery. The girl was no longer wandering around and the leaves of the trees started to fall apart one by one. It was like an illusion her brain had conjured out of boredom. But Chaeyoung was sane enough to know that the girl had been there. Well, it’s more like she wanted to believe. I wonder what happened to her…