Kai pushed himself up, still feeling his chest tight and uneasy; he leaned forward and let out a yawn, confusing Taehyun almost instantly. He let out a heavy sigh and cleared his throat, “I think I lost my phone…”

“Kai, Hyuka, Kai Kamal Huening, and every other nickname your uncle gave you to embarrass you when you were a kid, what the hell happened?!?”, Taehyun yelled as he jumped to his feet for just a second, before crouching down again. He hesitated, then pulled the other into a tight hug.

“I literally can’t breathe, and you’re hugging me.”

Taehyun let out a soft giggle and pulled away, quickly wiping away the fallen tears on his cheeks. He looked behind him upon hearing footsteps, and saw Beomgyu and Yeonjun running as quickly as they could through the water, while Soobin tried to pick up his pace with his crutches.

“Kai!”, Beomgyu yelled as he hopped from a metre away and jumped over the younger, only for Yeonjun to tag along and embrace him as tightly as he could – it seemed that they all wanted to stop Kai’s breathing, though unintentionally.

Soobin finally reached the spot where the others were circling around Kai; he let out a smile and laughed, “Kai, you little .”

At that, the others looked at him with wide eyes, once again surprised at the lack of affection being showered over Kai like they expected from Soobin. The aforementioned tilted his head and asked curiously, “What? Can I not be mean to Kai at all?”

“No!”, the others replied in a chorus.

There was a second of silence before the youngest broke out into a loud cry; he hid his face in the crook of Yeonjun’s neck, muffling a sob as he tightened his hold around the other’s neck. The others watched him quietly, letting Kai cry and pour out all that he couldn’t while he was trapped inside the creature that disappeared into the river.

“Kai… W-What exactly happened?”, Beomgyu asked as he guided the younger further away from the water, the others following closely – it was almost an area of ordeal now.

“Well…”, Kai paused to let out a cough. “The bridge. You all must have felt it too, right? Some weird force, and my feet were shaking, and then the bridge split into two and off we go! Into the water!” He let out a nervous chuckle.

The others weren’t astounded by the younger’s positive tone and attitude; they all knew that Kai was more than terrified even now, but it was a coping mechanism of his that they discovered a few years ago. If anything, they pitied him and felt sorry for him.

“I tried to swim to the surface but suddenly, I was just engulfed by something and I tried to push my way out of this cage or whatever it was… Remember science class? The way some white blood cells engulf bacteria? It was like that. It felt so slippery but not like water, it was more like a sticky sort of slippery, you know? Like a slime, yes! A slimy surface and there was a horrible smell, kind of like how I’m smelling right now… Yikes… Anyways, I was stuck in there but I could see the water and the pieces of the bridge. I saw you guys too, but I suppose I couldn’t be seen. It was just me stuck in that blob, and after some time, I couldn’t really see the world anymore. All I saw was the ugly colour of the slime or whatever, and it was just pitch black at times, and it was getting difficult to breathe. I couldn’t hear anything and it honestly felt like death, haha…”

Kai had a distraught look on his face; his hands were shaking, and his eyes shifted from left to right – he was horrified, scared, traumatised. He shook his head and reached out to slap himself. “I’m okay. I promise.” He glanced up at the others, and was relieved to see that they weren’t crying or frowning out of pity.

“M-Moving on… I was stuck there, yeah? I heard my phone ring in my pocket a few times but I couldn’t move at all. Then the slimy creature started to move, or at least I felt like I was being moved. Then I saw the world again, the water and the other side of the bridge. I could hear you all! Your voices, your screams, and I figured you all were behind me, which is why I couldn’t see you all… T-Then… Well, I saw an opening.”

“An opening?”, Soobin seemed puzzled by all the information; it was not an ordinary experience anyway.

“Yeah, an opening. There was this fleshy piece of gland that was secreting some weird fluid, and it kind of looked like a uvula.” Kai pointed towards his open mouth.

“Just behind it was an opening! I tried to push myself and move my hands out to grab hold of this metal rod that was stuck in the creature about a metre away from me. I realised that I was able to move more freely above water than when the creature was in the water or some other dimension, I’m not sure about that… I grabbed that rod and I basically poked at the gland – can we call it that? – and the opening was even larger now. I continued poking and thrashing against it with the rod, and the creature went back into the water but the opening was finally wide enough for me to push through. Just before the creature stunned me in place again, I pushed forward and got out into the water.”

He let out a sigh and shook his head, glancing at the river behind him, surprised at how the water level remained the same. “I turned around and that thing was just gone! I couldn’t waste any time, so I swam to the surface and climbed my way out, but I think my phone fell at some point… I wanted to call out for you all, but I was honestly just exhausted and at the brink of death…”

“Kai…”, Yeonjun trailed off as he put his arms out for a hug, to which the younger readily leaned forward. There was no doubt in the fact that they were incomplete without each other. “Do you guys think there’s any scientific explanation for this? Taehyun?”

“What- Why are you all looking at me?!? Kai’s the one who brought in phagocytosis!”, Taehyun argued back as he folded his arms and huffed.

“Yet you remember the scientific name… Spill it, baby. We all know you’re the smartest one here!”, Beomgyu put on a silly smile that Taehyun just couldn’t resist.

“I will… I will take that as a compliment, thank you very much, but I don’t think we need a scientist to figure this out. This is unnatural, no doubt in that. We’ve got weird slimy creatures that disappear into the water! Where’s the sense in that?!?”

Yeonjun squi