No matter what position Yerin tossed and turned in to get comfortable, she couldn’t fall asleep. Her brain plagued her with imagines of that soft, frightened creature she had met earlier today being whipped, beaten, and electrocuted. The looks of pain that seemed forever etched into the faces of Junmyeon and Eighty-Eight mocked from behind her eyelids.

Frustrated, she bolted up right and threw the pillow across the room, knocking the TV that hung from the wall out of its alignment. Giving up for now, she kicked the covers off and stomped out of the bedroom to the kitchen. The cold night air tickled her legs, sending goosebumps up and down the smooth skin, but she was too exhausted to pay enough attetnion to it. After searching the cabinets for her stock of night-time tea, hoping that would be enough to get her system to shut down for a few hours, she sat on the counter and waited for the kettle to start whistling, informing her that the water was bubbling.

Yerin looked around the apartment in the streetlamp light that leaked in through the windows. Since she wasn’t one for decorating, there wasn’t much around to look at. The living room had a couch and a chair, the obligatory coffee table and a standing lamp. A hip-high bookshelf held the many movies and novels she owned. She’d paid a little extra to have the other TV mounted on a swivel so she could adjust it when she was cooking. A round dining table that could only fit about two people comfortably (not that she ever had guests over anyway) took over the small area to the left of the kitchen. The walls held only about three or four pictures of her family. In the middle of them was a larger frame outlining the photograph of a beautiful brown curly-haired girl in her early teens with sparkling blue eyes and a smile bright enough to light up a rainy day.

Would she be proud of what Yerin was doing?

The high pitched squeal of the kettle saved her for the time being from answering that question. Yerin poured the scolding water into her favorite mug, letting the tea bag soak for a few minutes before she started sipping.

When she was done, she rinsed out the mug and triple checked to make sure the stove was off. According to the clock on the microwave, she had about five hours before she needed to be up for work. Well, at least that was better than no sleep.

Her eyelids were already becoming heavier as she shuffled back into the bedroom. The sheets were cold from being exposed to the fan kept at night. Curling up as tight as she could, she willed her brain to shut off, just for a few freaking hours.

Waking up to the alarm, she couldn’t exactly say that she was well rested, but she did finally get a little bit of shut eye.

Not caring an ounce about how she looked, Yerin simply ran a brush through her hair before tossing on a pair of tight fitting pants and a nondescript long sleeve shirt. While Nada preferred to change into scrubs as soon as she arrived, Yerin couldn’t stand the scratchy feeling of the material against her skin. There wasn’t much of a dress code beyond the lab coat and that most of your skin was covered. On other floors, Yerin had even seen some of the guys wearing character shirts with regular jeans. She tried to stay more on the professional side, but she still liked to be comfortable.

There was nothing special about the drive to work. Most people still didn’t know how to operate a motor vehicle and should have their licenses taken away. If only they knew how to use their turn signal. At the front desk, Yerin waved to the receptionist who simply gave a nod back as she headed for the elevator. Marcus arrived shortly after. A yawn stretched out his face and he moved his head side to side to stretch out his neck as the two of them waited for the doors to open.

“Long night?” Yerin asked, trying her best to make some sort of small talk to fill in the silence. It wasn’t her strong suit, casual, shallow talking, but once you got Marcus started, he mostly filled in the gaps himself.

“Just couldn’t sleep,” he answered. “I think it might be time for a new mattress.”

The elevator dinged and they stepped in. Thanks to the system, they both had to swipe their badges before the door would even close.

“Have you tried memory foam?” Yerin suggested.

“Nah, that’s too soft,” Marcus waved the thought away. “I’m not a ‘sleep on a cloud’ type person. Hey, I heard that you’re holding some sort of therapy sessions with the patients down there? How’s that going?”

“Oh.” Yerin hadn’t realized that that bit of information had become public knowledge. “I’m honestly not quite sure. They aren’t what I expected.”

“What? No gills or tails for you?” he teased.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t find it in you to laugh along. “No, they look perfectly human.”

“Well, they are.”

Marcus’s reply surprised her. Work was not a typical conversation for them and Yerin definitely had never spoken about the men living in the basement. Marcus wasn’t a bad person, but she still was taken aback by how sympathetic he sounded towards them. Most of the guards and orderlies - really everyone who worked on level sixty-six - thought of them as nothing more than experiments, like the mice used in the first trial stages. The others had been desensitized to who these boys were. A path Yerin might have taken if she hadn’t fought to speak with them or had ever met Sixty-One at all.

The elevator arrived before they could continue the discussion. Marcus went left to the security office while Yerin headed for the lab. Typically when she arrived, a to-do pile was already laid out at her station, put there by Dr. Wang who always seemed to be there earlier than anyone else and stayed later than anyone else. Sometimes Yerin wondered if she lived down here as well. Today, however, there was no such pile. In a bit of a panic, Yerin searched around her designated area thinking maybe it had somehow grown legs and shifted its position just to mess with her.

“Good morning, Dr. Lee.”

The sudden appearance of Dr. Wang caused Yerin to hit her head on the edge of the table.

Rubbing the now sore spot, she greeted back, “Good morning, Dr. Wang. Are you just now getting here?”

“No,” Dr, Wang said. “I’ve been here a while. Are you looking for something?”

“Oh, well, um,” Yerin glanced around one more time, making sure she really didn’t miss it. “I can’t find the work I’m supposed to do today.”

Dr. Wang smiled. “I haven’t assigned you any. I’m curious about your findings in the subjects’ psyches, so I want you to spend the next few days finishing up your initial interviews. Everything else can be held off until then.”

“Okay.” Yerin read Dr. Wang’s face, wondering – worrying if she was catching on to her empathy for the patients. But she was giving Yerin free reign for the next two days to talk to them without worrying about making it back to the lab in between. “Are there any that are scheduled for tests that I should be aware of?”

“Zero-Four, Ninety-Nine, and Twenty-One won’t be available until this afternoon, but there should be no problems with the others.”

That left Sixty-One open to interview first just like she’d hoped. Yerin wasted no time gathering up her notebook and heading out of the lab towards the other hallway. The orderly let her right into the cell without question. 

Sixty-One was awake this time, pacing back and forth the small length of his cell. At the sight of Yerin's entrance, he stopped.

“You’re back,” he said, shocked.

Yerin was a little embarrassed at the fact that he remembered her so clearly, even though he was supposed to be in a drug-induced haze back then.

“Yes, I am,” she replied.

He folded his arms. “Are you back for more blood?”

Shaking her head, Yerin sat down in the chair provided. “No, just to talk.”

Sixty-One frowned in confusion. “You want to... talk?”

“Mhm.” Yerin smiled, hoping he wouldn’t fight too long. “Think of it as a first therapy session.”

“Thirteen years and they’re just now concerned if their tests have messed us up mentally?” he sneered.

“I haven’t been here the past thirteen years,” Yerin said. Mentally, she notated the difference in times that he'd been here. Sixty-One tilted his to the side, making his ears stick out even more than they already were. It was cute and it made Yerin's small, reassuring smile grow into an amused grin.

Accepting her retort, SixtyOne sat down on the bed, his long legs out in front of him as he rested his arms on his knees. “So, what exactly is it you want to dissect in my brain?”

“Tell me how you got here and what you’ve experienced so far.” It was the one question she’d been dying to know the answer to, but hadn’t felt it was appropriate with Junmyeon or Eighty-Eight. There was something different about Sixty-One. Something that wasn’t yet closed off.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s become blurry over the years. I just remember waking up in a large room. Back then, they kept the twelve us together. Occasionally, they’d drag one of us out for testing, and we wouldn’t see them for days before they came back. No one ever remembered where they went during those times. It was terrifying and we didn’t know what to do. Only Junmyeon kept us sane. He looked out for all of us.”

Yerin wrote down shorthand notes, taking in every little detail, making sure to catch whenever his expression changed at each memory he recalled.

“But Kris wanted to do more than just sit around and wait. So, he took Luhan and Tao and staged a revolt.” Sixty-One’s face grew angry and his eyes began to water. “Idiots. They didn’t make it far. After that, we never saw those three again and eventually we were separated. ‘For our own good.’”

A silence fell in the room. Yerin wasn’t sure where to go with the conversation from there. There was nothing she could say that would be comforting and, as far as he was concerned, she was one of the enemy.

“Look, Sixty-One–”

“It’s Chanyeol,” he corrected.

Yerin lost the battle against the smile, his willingness to hand out his name gave her hope. “Well, Chanyeol. I know that this is frustrating.” She paused. “Do you miss them?”

He nodded. “Every day. We weren’t just strangers thrown together. We became like brothers. We looked out for each other.”

The two of them were becoming more relaxed as the time went on. He told Yerin of how the first time his temperature spiked, he thought he was on fire. He’d panicked and fought everyone to the point where they had to sedate him for three days. From then on, he was always warm. It was something he simply had to get used to and live with. Sometimes his temperature would spike out of nowhere and he’d break out in a ceaseless sweat. The doctors insisted that his body had adapted to the changes and he wasn’t in danger, but he didn’t believe that. “It scares me sometimes,” he admitted, “when I have an episode. I was having one the first time you came.” He gave out one short laugh, rubbing the back of his head. “Is it dumb that this is actually kind of working? I haven’t really talked to someone in almost two years.”

“No, it’s not dumb,” Yerin reassured him. “The need to communicate and interact with other people is just part of our nature.”

He scoffed, leaning back on the bed so his back was against the wall with his arms crossed. “I think our natures are a bit different.”

“Not really. Even the lone wolf is constantly searching for a pack.”

Those large round eyes looked over at Yerin. The corners of his lips pulled down as if he was trying to wrap his mind around something.

The watch on Yerin's wrist beeped at her and she sighed. Time was up. She had to put a limit on the sessions today if she wanted to make it through them all.

“I have to go now,” Yerin said. Chanyeol’s eyes widened and he reached out, taking a hold of her right arm.

“No, please don’t go.”

Pity coursed through her as she took in the desperation in his eyes. Placing her free hand over his, Yerin made him a promise. “I’ll come back. You’ll still have someone to talk to. But now I have to talk to the others as well; your brothers.”

Seemingly comforted, he left go, nodding his head. “Goodbye, Yerin.”

“Goodbye, Chanyeol.”

Yerin felt horrible as she left the cell and shuffled into the hallway. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. The more she spoke with them, the more her heart hurt.

Going over the list, Yerin tried to decide which one to visit next when she heard laughter coming from the direction of Ten’s cell. The door was slightly ajar, letting the sound escape. Running without thinking, she stormed into the viewing room, appalled at what she saw. The laughter was coming from the orderly stationed there as he leaned back in his seat with his hands behind his head like he was watching a movie. On the other side of the glass were two guards standing on either side of Subject Ten, who was tied to the chair, shirtless.

The guards took turns cutting and stabbing at Ten’s skin, gleeful at the spilled blood. Yerin's jaw dropped as each injury healed miraculously in front of her eyes. Ten’s face remained emotionless, staring at nothing while this torture took place. Yerin's own blood was boiling in her veins.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The orderly nearly fell out of his chair, only now realizing she was there.

“Oh, um, we were just–”

“I don’t even want to hear whatever bull is about to come from your mouth,” Yerin barked, fighting the temptation to kick him right where it would hurt the most. “Open this damn door, unless you want me to have both your job and theirs.”

“Y-yes, doctor.” He slammed his hand down on the button to unlock the door. Yerin marched into the cell.

The first guard saw her fiery hateful glare and dropped the knife. It hit the concrete with an ear ringing chime. As soon as the other guard saw her, he ran behind his buddy.

“Tell, me,” Yerin said in an eerily calm voice that scared even herself, “did you have orders to do this? Or did you think you could just get away with this?” Neither of them answered. “You’d better say one way or the other, or I’ll make sure this goes on record. How do you think Dr. Wang is going to feel about this?”

“Th-there were no orders, Ma’am,” the first one stuttered.

Yerin raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Then why did you think this was okay?”

For two grown men who had almost thirty centimeters of height on her and at least an additional hundred pounds, Yerin took in a slight amusement at their cowering.

“We were just bored,” the second guard argued.

Disgusting. Her self-control was on the verge of disintegrating. “Bored? Well, then I guess the next time I’m bored, I’ll just tie you to a chair and see where the fun is in stabbing you over and over again. Does that sound like a fair deal?”

The first guard stepped forward. “Please, ma’am–”

She held up a hand. “Save it. From now on, stay away from all the subjects. If I catch you back here, I’ll fill out every single incident form I need to in order to get you fired. Got it?”

They both nodded and hightailed it out of there.

Once alone, Yerin knelt down and untied the ropes that held Ten captive. “Are you okay?” she asked, staying crouched down as she glanced up at him.

He said nothing, still not looking at her. His features were pointed and smooth and Yerin wondered what his face looked like when he smiled. Just like the others, he was in top shape and there wasn’t a single mark that would have suggested he’d just been inflicted with wounds for who knows how long.

“My name is Yerin,” she said softly. “I’m a doctor here. I know it might not mean much with what I just said, but I’m sorry. Something like this isn’t supposed to happen. And I promise it won’t ever happen again.”

Finally, he looked up from the floor. “Are you here to take me for more tests?”

Yerin shook her head. “No. I’m more interested in what’s in here.” She gently tapped the side of his head. “There’s no poking or prodding involved.”

“Everyone says there’s nothing up there,” he said gloomily.

“Now, I doubt that.” Yerin tilted her head. “I think there’s a whole a treasure trove up there that’s just waiting to be found.”

Something with what she'd said registered with him and he gave a small, crooked grin. It was enough to reveal a previously hidden dimple in his right cheek. The revelation made him seem so childlike, Yerin wanted to protect him even more.

“Why don’t we both sit on the floor and start our session there, hm?”

He nodded, sliding off the chair and sitting down on the concrete with his legs crossed.

“Now,” Yerin placed her notebook on her lap, pencil ready, “why don’t we start with your real name?”