••••

CHAPTERFOUR

❝AGOODREASON❞

"It's just as we expected,” Sunggyu mumbled, skimming over the documents Leeteuk gathered. “If they keep this up, the citizens of South Hallow will be wiped out.” He placed the papers in the middle of the table, allowing the other men occupying the room to take a look.

The man seated on the right of Sunggyu was the second-in-command of INFINITE, Jang Dongwoo.  The short deputy commander leaned forward, grasping a handful of the documents, “How are they going run a country with no citizens?”

“This is madness. They’ve gone too far. We need to stop them,” Sunggyu crossed his arms.

“What are they planning, though? What’s their goal?” A tall male to left right inquired.

“Who cares? Let’s just bust in there and–” Across from them, a young woman with blonde hair demanded.

“And how exactly do you plan on busting into the BEQP facility? By just walking in?” The tall man retorted.

“Yeah and with guns blazing of course! Do you have a better idea, Minho?”

“I do, Amber. How about we use this thing which we call the brain–which obviously you don’t have?” Minho spluttered offensively.

“Hey!–”

“No one’s busting or walking into the building!” Sunggyu slammed his fist on the table, ending their argument instantly. “We sent in a team to infiltrate the place previously, but... We lost them. We lost Jinyoung and his team,” Sunggyu sighed. “I’m not losing anyone else to those scumbags.”

“Well then, what’s the plan? Standing around talking about what we’re not going to do isn’t going to get us very far,” Amber indicated.

“I know. I've sent Hoya and Sungyeol to scout the facility. We’ll wait till they report back before we come up with a plan.”

“What’s the point of scouting, Sunggyu?” Another resistance member in the room pointed out. “We haven’t found anything in the past. Besides, there is no secret entrance into the building. Why keep looking?”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Dongwoo answered before Sunggyu could. “These papers and photographs revealing some of the inhumane experiments going on in the BEQP aren’t the only things Leeteuk brought us.”

Confusion and curiosity was etched on the resistance member’s faces. They wondered what else the smelly, old man brought.

“What do you mean?” L asked. He was in a corner of the room with his back pressed against the wall and arms crossed.

“As I have mentioned,” Sunggyu started. “Hoya and Sungyeol are scouting the surrounding areas of the BEQP facility. Leeteuk was fortunate enough to come across some old blueprints of the building before they remolded a few years back. On the blueprints, there were a few entrances into the building via underground passageways.”

“Like the sewers?” A random resistance soldier asked.

“That and some of the underground tunnels linked to the old transit system that used to run around that area,” Sunggyu nodded

“I highly doubt those entrances still exist,” L pointed out.

“True, but we’ll never know till Hoya and Sungyeol report back.”

L frowned as the members of INFINITE continued their discussion on possible infiltrations with the least possible injuries and deaths.

Woohyun woke up to find himself in a small room with a table and a couple of chairs in the middle. He was sitting on one of the chairs with his face pressed against the hard, metallic table. A small light was dangling from the ceiling, shining down on him and the table. The brunet felt like he was in one of those ‘cop shows,’ and he was brought to the big house to confess and pay his dues.

“How did I get myself into this?” Woohyun brooded aloud, rubbing the black eye that embellished his face. He sat up.

The pain Sunggyu delivered to Woohyun helped him realize that he really wasn’t dreaming. None of this was a figment of his imagination. There was also enough proof around him to substantiate the fact that he was in another time period, another world. All of this was happening, and he had to get use to it. 

“What exactly conspired together and made me travel to this time period in the first place?” Woohyun mumbled, trailing into his thoughts. That bridge and the weird earthquake definitely had something to do with whatever let me travel here. The same thing goes for the necklace…

Woohyun felt his neck, making sure that the jewelry was actually missing. He knew without a doubt that the necklace had something to do with all of this as well. What normal accessory would glow in the middle of an earthquake?

For all he knew, the necklace was the sole reason why he had traveled through time. If he wanted to get back to his own time, he might need that necklace again, right?

But the question is what in the world happened to it? That thing could be anywhere. How am I supposed to find something like that in this city?

“What if I can’t find it? Will I be stuck here forever? Will I never be able to go home? Will I–”

“Do you do this often–talking to yourself?” Someone suddenly asked.

The new voice scared the living daylights out of Woohyun, causing him to fall out of his chair. The brunet quickly scurried across the floor, pressing his back against the wall. He looked up and saw a young boy–a teenager perhaps?–place a tray of food and medical supplies on the table.

“Calm down. No one’s going to hurt you,” the teenager soothed. He had short, burgundy hair pulled back into a small ponytail, barely reaching his shoulders. His fringe was swept across the right side of his face, covering his brows.

He was wearing a brown belted vest with a white long sleeved turtle neck shirt underneath coupled with a pair of pocketed shorts. It gave off a ‘martial arts meets safari’ vibe.

Woohyun shakily stood up, eyeing the boy with apprehension, “That’s easy for you to say. You didn’t get punched in the face for poking someone.”

“True, but from what I heard, you also insulted our leader. People get really crazy and violent if you touch them,” he chuckled, sitting down on one of the chairs. “Sit down. I want to clean that cut on your cheek and that black eye.”

“Well, he started it,” Woohyun whined. He grabbed the cha