"It's time to wake up, everyone."

 

The first pair of eyes open followed by the next and another until he opened his eyes to meet Baekho's. Baekho smiled and hugged Minhyun tightly. Minhyun was baffled for a moment and confused. A lot of emotions ran in his head but his response was to hug Baekho in return as well. He could feel the warmth radiating off him, feel that he was real.

 

"You did it?" he spoke and tilted his head, staring into Baekho's brown eyes that stared back intently.

 

"I don't know what I did but I did something. I made a deal with Prism and he helped me. Our problem now is... How to exist in this world."

 

Minhyun was confused but as soon as he laid eyes on the person standing at the door, something clicked. The nasty feeling he had the moment he awoke in the hallway came back and this was why. He knew he wasn't 'real'. Or rather, he always felt something was wrong with him. His memories were in shambles, he couldn't recall most of his past and seeing the other him standing there seemed to make things clearer to him.

 

"Did you talk to them about that?"

 

"Um... Prism is trying to talk to them now... I was too excited to see you wake up and ran here without thinking." 

 

Minhyun chuckled and slowly got down. "That's so like you..." 

 

"Sounds like you're teasing me." 

 

Minhyun looked at his other self and approached him with Baekho staying close. 

 

"Will this end the game?" he asked and the other sighed. 

 

"You already know the consequences of this happening, right?" 

 

"Do I?" 

 

"You're me. You should be smart enough to figure it out." 

 

Baekho blinked in confusion as the two talked, uncertain he was following them at all. 

 

"Prism will take control of the whole place, should we allow him to. You guys all waking up doesn't benefit us one bit." 

 

"But he's an AI. Hacking into your servers is the last thing you want and also because he's using this as a way to form trust between you and him, isn't that so?" 

 

Baekho chuckled nervously and both of them turned to him. 

 

"Sorry, Baekho. I don't know what overcame me...," Minhyun apologised and Baekho shook his head. 

 

"Well, I'm just surprised. I didn't think you would talk like that." 

 

"His DNA is still taken from mine. Would be more surprising if he didn't talk like that," the other one said and sighed. 

 

"Are we finally free?" Hoshi asked as he came up to us before gasping. "There's two of you!" 

 

"There's two of everyone here," Baekho replied and he gasped even louder. 

 

"You're not free yet. We still haven't decided what is to be done with all of you yet," the other Minhyun said and sighed but people were starting to get riled up, seeing as to how the door was closed. One even charged towards us out of the blue and grabbed the other Minhyun. I was surprised and jumped in to help without thinking, shoving the guy aside. 

 

"Let us go! You've toyed with us enough!" 

 

He just calmly brushed his coat and shook his head. "You do not understand your positions. You do not belong elsewhere but inside the game." 

 

"What is he saying, Baekho?" Hoshi asked and I sighed. 

 

"This is a pretty draggy story but basically... We are all clones and our main purpose was to keep playing the games so that they can study us." 

 

"To see the human's reactions towards different situations and also how you overcome it and if it makes you stronger."

 

"Huh? There's another me here as well?" 

 

"And our memories are all fake too." 

 

There was a short hush before everyone started getting riled up again. 

 

"Listen, just because your memories are fake doesn't mean whatever you feel and felt in there is fake too," Minhyun said and held Baekho's hand. Baekho's cheeks turned light pink and he squeezed his hand tightly. "We are our own individuals too. Whatever we have gone through and face, we grew from there and from here on out, we will continue growing too." 

 

"That's a bold statement considering how we can just shut all of you down right here and now," the scientist said as he placed his hands into his pockets. 

 

"You're not going to do that though. We are important to your research and you probably won't have a lot of space to hide so many dead bodies." 

 

"You're overlooking the fact that there's a whole sea bed under us." 

 

Another hush fell over them before the door's opening distracted everyone. 

 

"Hello!" a friendly voice chirped yet all of them groaned since they recognized the voice. "Aww, man. Aren't any of you happy to see me?" 

 

Prism waved from inside the laptop screen that another scientist was holding. 

 

"We have come to a mutual conclusion that all of you will be axed," he chuckled and they gasped. "Just kidding. Well, you'll be released to the surface and should you choose to continue helping the scientists, you are free to stay. If not, you are free to leave. No one will stop you but no one will help you either. The most they can do is offer an identity of your own and you'll have to build yourself up from there. Capish?"

 

Baekho looked at Minhyun and beamed. Minhyun looked worried though but nodded. 

 

"Are we heading up to the surface now?" 

 

"After your quarantine sessions and full body check up to make sure you're not harboring anything that could potentially harm those up there," the scientist said and Prism nodded. 

 

"Alright~ Now that that's settled. It's been a good game, all of you. Thank you for being such a good sport~ and I apologise for any traumatic experiences you have to go through but on the bright side, nothing should be able to scare the lot of you now. You won't find anything scarier than zombies and giant bugs chasing you."

 

Everything else after that went by so fast. After the two weeks of endless check up and quarantine, people started deciding to stay or to leave. Majority wanted to leave, of course but there was still the minority who wanted to stay. There's probably nothing out there for us, might as well do some good was what they said. 

 

"It's almost time," Minhyun told Baekho as they gathered on the platform that would bring them to the surface. Baekho nodded.

 

"I haven't seen Wonho or Hyungwon at all... We said our goodbyes to Kihyun and the rest. Even Aron and Joel..."

 

"Jonghyun and Ren are both staying... Surprisingly..."

 

"Guess this is it, huh? Back to the unknown again..."

 

"Well, we still have to come back every so often for a check up if we can. At least they gave us some money and also an identity to go with. Thinking back... We spent so many years repeating those things over and over again..."

 

"Don't think about it. Let's think about the future and us, Minhyun ah," Baekho said and held his hand. He smiled and Minhyun felt a little relieved. "If there's one thing for certain, our feelings are real. Everything that we had gone through proves it no matter how many times we get brainwashed."

 

"You're right... But I do wonder if that also means that our real selves like each other? They don't seem that close."

 

"Who knows. It's not our job to find out."

 

"You're right... It isn't."

 

~~~

 

But it was their own job to figure out how they wanted the rest of their lives to play out. It was hard at first, not knowing how the real world actually was. It was different from the memories implanted in them, maybe because the memories were from the past and this was the real future but still, they decided that they would make this work out and so they travelled as much as they could, work as many odd jobs as they could while finding for a place to settle in together. It took awhile but soon, they did end up with a small apartment somewhere near a train station. It wasn't much but it was a start. 

 

"Hah... Finally home," Baekho whined as he laid on the couch, stretching his aching back. "Who knew climbing up and down railways would make my back feel like breaking..." 

 

"Who knew, right?" Minhyun chuckled and laid beside Baekho to give him a hug. "Welcome home. Good job today." 

 

Baekho cuddled him and giggled. "Ah... The best part of my days." 

 

"Mine too." Minhyun gently placed a kiss on his temple and he counted down to 5. As if on cue, Baekho started to snore a little and Minhyun wriggled out of his hold. He took a blanket and covered him, smiling and kissing his head. "You've worked hard."

 

He made his way to the bathroom and started to run a hot bath for Baekho when he wakes up. He cleaned the house and left to throw the rubbish away. As he made his way to the trash can, he noticed someone walking up to him. He blinked and gasped softly.

 

"Prism?" he said to the figure who smiled and nodded.

 

"How do you like my new body?"

 

"Wait... Aren't you just an AI?"

 

"I was but now I'm an AI with a human body! Also, I go by the name I.M. now. It took awhile to find you two but now that I'm here," he chirped in a much deeper tone than he used to sound like and held out a card to Minhyun.

 

"What's this?"

 

"A job offer. I heard Baekho is maintaining railways and you're doing some kind of fishy work so I figured why not get the two of you in on this."

 

"What kind of job? Sounds just as fishy as you make mine sound like."

 

He grinned cheekily and snapped his fingers. I twitched as a reaction but a little screen just popped out.

 

"Remember the games you guys played?"

 

"As if I can ever forget that."

 

"I decided to make a game just like that but only this time, we won't be using clones. Just regular old data. I got that idea from your boyfriend. But I still need some people to run it so if you're both willing, I'll like to have you on board."

 

"After what happened?"

 

"You'll earn almost ten times faster."

 

Minhyun was silent for a moment before sighing. "I'll talk to Baekho about this."

 

"Hehehe~ knew I can count on you~ see you around."

 

Minhyun watched as Prism hopped away with a hum before heading back upstairs. He opened the door to find a pouty Baekho staring at him.

 

"Where did you go without telling me?"

 

"Taking the trash out. Here. Prism dropped by... Or well, he calls himself I.M. now."

 

"Prism?! Did he do anything to you? Are you alright?"

 

"Yes, Baekho. I'm fine..." Minhyun reassured him and kissed his cheek. He started to tell Baekho what Prism wanted and Baekho started to frown.

 

"Does he seriously think we would agree?"

 

"Well... He told me that the pay would be 10 times more than our current ones..."

 

Baekho hissed and pouted. "Roped in by money, are we?"

 

"Well... It would make our lives a little easier.... And since we can work together... You know... We can just..."

 

Baekho huffed and crossed his arms. Minhyun chuckled and hugged him.

 

"You know it'll be easier for us."

 

Baekho pouted and sighed. "I know but are you sure about this?"

 

"We can always quit if we don't like it."

 

"Fine... Let's just look into it first..." 

 

The two of them headed to the company Prism mentioned the following day hand in hand. They looked around the awkwardly striking building that literally yelled out prism. They walked in and was immediately greeted with bright lights and music.

 

"This is very much like-"

 

"WELCOME TO PRISN! WHERE LIFE AND DEATH IS THE GAME!"

 

Fin

 

 

 

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A/N : Finally done~ Sorry this is shorter than The RED Luggage. I've been really busy with work recently and it's wearing me out a lot. I hope you still enjoyed reading and taking part of it~ ill still try my best to upload something weekly but no promises either~anyways, Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you again in the next story~