Chapter 1

He was cold and lying flat on his back.  He could feel a thing sheet of fabric over his body and face.  He tried to move his hands a bit to pull the blanket down but it was a struggle.  His whole body felt stiff and he couldn’t remember where he was or why he was here in the dark.  The boy tried to open his eyes, but it wasn’t any different from when his eyes were closed; pitch black.

When he finally was able to more his arms, one of his elbows hit something cold and hard to the right side of him.  He immediately placed his hand against it.  It felt like metal and it seemed to stretch all around him.  He then used both hands to feel around himself.  He felt like he was in a box. Panic started to take him when he couldn’t find a way out.  He started to bang on the walls beside him, above his face and even kicked his feet a few times, trying to break free, until with one hard punch above him, seemed to release something.  The small door opened just a bit but even with a thin line of light that seeped in seemed like the sun. 

He closed his eyes and tried to turn over onto his stomach, his shoulders hitting the walls in the small area.  He pushed the door all the way open and covered his eyes from the light.  He let his eyes adjust to the light and even squinting a bit, he tried to pull himself out.   It took a few tries; his muscles were still stiff and didn’t want to work properly.  Luckily he was close to the floor and was able to crawl out somewhat awkwardly.  It was then that he realized that he was .  He snatched up the thin sheet that was half lying out of the small hole he came from and wrapped it around his shoulders and held it shut by hugging himself.

It was then that he surveyed the room.  It looked like a morgue.  The door he had come from was connected to a wall with five other doors around it.  There was a small desk in the corner on the other side of the room and a few metal slabs scattered around the room.  He made his way over to the desk to see if there were any papers or anything around to tell him what was going on.  He remembered his name, Daehyun, and he remembered that he died.  He couldn’t remember how or anything else about his life besides that.

Daehyun looked around the desk but there was nothing on it and the drawers were empty as well.  He sighed in frustration and looked around for a filing cabinet or anything to help him understand what was going on.  He wasn’t ready for the sudden slam against one of the freezer doors.  The sound almost made him cry out and stumbled over the desk chair.  He regained his footing just in time to see the top left door swing open.  The man stuck his head out and looked around, blinking his eyes a few times.  Daehyun stared at the newcomer in confusion; they both had the same platinum blonde colored hair.  Daehyun shook his head and hurried over to help him out of the freezer.  The man was cold to the touch and was shivering.  Daehyun grabbed the sheet from the freezer and wrapped it around the bigger male, one to help warm him up and two because he was also .

“Thanks,” the man said in a deep voice.

Daehyun smiled and nodded.  He started to rub the man’s arms to help warm him.  The man seemed grateful and when he was warmed up enough, he stood, wrapping the blanket around his waist, exposing his thin but built upper body.

“Where are we?” the stranger asked, running a hand through his blonde hair, the promptly returning his arms to hug his body.

“I have no idea,” Daehyun said, looking around the room again.  “I checked the desk but there was nothing there and it doesn’t look like there is anything else in this room that could tell us.”

“Do you remember anything?” the guy asked his voice deep and husky.

“I just remember my name,” Daehyun stated.  “It’s Daehyun.  And I think I died.”

“I’m Yongguk, and I think I remember dying too,” Yongguk said, scratching the back of his head.

“Why would we both have died?” Daehyun asked, biting his bottom lip.  “And why can’t we remember how we died?”

Yongguk shrugged and look back at the freezer he had come from.  He walked back over to it and pulled out the steal bed.

“What are you looking for?” Daehyun asked, joining him.

“I don’t know… something… anything… to help us understand what’s going on,” Yongguk stated.

Both males jumped when the heard a bang against the door right at their feet.  Daehyun took a few steps back, but Yongguk knelt down and opened the door quickly, grabbing the handle of the steal bed and pulled it out.  A young boy looked up from under his hands as he shielded his eyes from the light.  His blanket was pulled down around his waist, showing off a very sculpted upper torso.  Daehyun hurried over and held the blanket around his waist, as Yongguk helped him up.  The boy seemed shy and after securing the blanket around his waist, he hugged his arms over his chest and stomach. Yongguk and Daehyun stayed close, rubbing his arms a bit to warm him up, the new boy was shivering worse than Yongguk when he first came out.  Daehyun was now very confused.  The boy’s hair was the same blonde.

“What’s going on?” the boy asked, sitting down in the chair by the desk.  He rubbed at his arms, watching the other too, eyeing the both of their blonde hair.

“We don’t know,” Daehyun said, looking between Yongguk and the boy.

“What’s your name?” Yongguk asked, sitting on the desk next to the boy.

“Jongup,” he said with a small smile; Yongguk giving him a gummy smile back.

The other two introduced themselves and bowed at each other.  Yongguk took the time to search the room a bit more.  There were two doors to the room, one opened to a hall and the other opened to a small closet.  Yongguk rummaged around in the closet and came back with a stack of grey blankets, a lot thicker than the thin sheets they were wrapped around them. 

Daehyun took the time to open up the other three freezer draws and pulled the beds out.  He was and wasn’t shocked at the same time to see three more bodies as he pulled the sheets back on all of them and took a step back.  Jongup joined him when he saw the surprised and confused look on Daehyun’s face.  Both boys looked at each then stared at the bodies.  The other three males had the same blonde hair.  Yongguk walked over to them when he was back and handed them the thicker blankets.

“We should wait for them to wake up,” Daehyun said as he laid the thicker blankets over the other the three males as Jongup helped him.

“Did you find anything else in that room?” Daehyun asked, looking up at Yongguk.

“Nothing to really help us, just some more blankets and it looked like cleaning supplies,” Yongguk shook his head, with a slight frown on his face.

“Do you remember anything else but your name?” Daehyun asked, glancing over at Jongup.

“I’m pretty sure I died,” the boy said in a soft voice.

“I can’t seem to figure out what has been going on,” Yongguk said, scratching the back of his head, looking frustrated.  “I mean, if we died or at least were hurt enough to think we did, shouldn’t we have some wounds or marks on our bodies?  Shouldn’t there be other people around?  I don’t think we are in a hospital but I don’t know where else would have a morgue.”

“When the others wake up, we should go explore more,” Jongup said, looking at the three bodies.

They didn’t have to wait long.  Zelo was the next to wake, seeming more shaken from the event then the others.  He seemed to the youngest out of all of them.  Himchan was after him.  The bunny looking boy seemed to bounce back from their weird situation faster than the others.  Yongguk and Himchan seemed to pay more attention to the boys then themselves, making sure everyone was warm enough.

The last boy didn’t wake for over an hour.  The five boys were starting to get a little nervous that he wouldn’t wake.  Zelo had ventured over to the body a few times, shaking and poking at him, Jongup joining the boy a few times.  Himchan would make his rounds to each boy, making sure they were warm enough, the older male seemed to watch Daehyun more than the others, like something was on his mind, but he never spoke up.

Regardless of being the last to wake, the boy was the most vocal and animated of the bunch.  He quickly sat straight up and gasping for breath.  Jongup and Zelo had been near him when he woke, making both jump; Zelo grabbing onto Jongup’s arm almost hiding behind him.  After the initial shock, all five males hurried over to him, Himchan grabbing another blanket to wrap the boy in.  They helped him off the metal bed, as Himchan wrapped him in the blanket as the others helped him over to the desk chair to sit.

The boy seemed distraught.  He looked around the room wildly as if he wasn’t taking anything in.  He kept looking at the other males, trying to focus on them.  He rubbed at his eyes and he seemed to finally focus on Daehyun who was leaning over in front of him. 

“Can you hear me?” Daehyun asked, waving a hand in front of the boy’s face.

The boy blinked and nodded slowly.  He smiled a bit, bashful from acting the way he did.

“What’s your name?” Zelo asked, placing a hand on the boys shoulder, turning his attention to the maknae.

“Youngjae,” he stuttered a bit as he saw the hair color on each boy.  “Why do we all have the same color hair?”

“We have no idea,” Daehyun laughed a bit.  “We only remember our names and that we died, everything is foggy after that.”

“I get a headache if I try to remember anything else,” Himchan stated, raising his hand a bit to be noticed by the others.

“Once he gets on his feet, we should go down that hall and see where it leads,” Yongguk said, rubbing his chin and glancing at the door that led to the hallway.

The group nodded and tried to warm Youngjae by rubbing his arms and back.  When he informed them that he was good to go, the group made their way out the door the hallway.  After the last male left the room, he shut the door behind him.  The six hesitated, glancing at each other, trying to figure out if this was a good idea or not, before Yongguk took the lead.  The walls were brick and dark, it had a creepy feel to it, making the boys stay close to each other.  Daehyun, who was bringing up the rear, kept glancing over his shoulder, even though there weren’t any other doors to be seen but the one they had walked through.  He didn’t notice the group slowing down and bumped into Youngjae when they came to a stop.  Both boys jumped, and then laughed in embarrassment when they noticed who the other was.  They both became serious when they noticed what the rest were looking at.

The door was closed, but it made all of them uneasy, like there was something behind it that would change everything.  They weren’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but nothing was going to get solved by staying out in the hall.  Yongguk glanced over his shoulder at the others, they nodded at him.  He took a deep breath and opened the door.  They filed in quickly, as if they would miss something if they didn’t move quickly.  None of them had any expectations for what was behind the door but the room they entered still shocked them.  It looked like a disaster.  An ambulance had smashed through one of the walls, broken chairs and other objects littered the floor.  There were stretchers lined up everywhere, IV bags hanging next to each bed, with manikins laying on them; some of the manikins looked burned.  The boys looked at each other again, nervous about splitting up to look around the room, but each boy seemed to be drawn to a certain part. 

Yongguk had walked to the left corner of the room.  Everything was smashed; sides to some filing cabinets were beaten in.  He started to feel soreness in his knuckles and his sides; his right temple beginning to throb.  He reached out and picked up a hundred dollar bill that seemed out of place.  He picked it up and held it up.  He shook his head a bit, his mind starting to show him some type of memory.  He remembered a bank and a kid running from it scared, and then four other bodies running out of it.  He had stopped two of them, but as he tried to go further pain shot through his head, making him lean over, holding both sides of his face.

Jongup had made his way to the ambulance and touched the hood, his brain started to hurt a bit, as if it was trying to remember something.  He rubbed his eyes when he got a flash of seeing a small boy in the middle of the street and felt wind on his face as if he was running.  He sat on the floor in front of the vehicle trying to remember more but his head started to pound.

Youngjae walked toward a cluster of manikins laying on gurneys; he touched one of them and then looked up at the IV bag.  He didn’t know what it all meant but when he touched the IV bag he got a flash of him lying on an operating table, nurses around him, beeping noises, people yelling.  He shook his head, running his fingers into his hair, a headache starting to form over his brow when he remembered a small boy.

Himchan walked toward the manikins that were burned.  He reached out and touched the face of one; he could still feel the warmth of the fire.  Daehyun was close by him inspecting some manikins that looked like they had been shot.  Himchan stared at the smaller boy.  Ever since he woke up and saw his face, he couldn’t help but stare at him.  Something about him, made Himchan think they were connected somehow.  He had seen the boy’s face right before he died.  But there was also a kid and there was fire.  Frustrated, Himchan rubbed his forehead and eyes, trying to make himself remember what was going on.

Daehyun looked at the scattered bodies of manikins on the floor.  They looked like they had been in front of a firing squad.  Some of their limbs were lying next to the bodies as if shot off by a powerful gun; a decapitated head lay next to its body.  One in the middle had his attention over the others.  The only wound it had was a single shot to the abdomen.  Right as he reached his hand out and touched it, pain ripped through his core, making him clutch his stomach and sit on the floor quickly hunched over on his knees and free hand.  He remembered a child being there but the pain over took him when he tried to remember more.

A black rose in a pitcher of green water is what got Zelo’s attention.  He picked up the pitcher, smelling it and seemed a little shocked when there wasn’t a scent.  He pulled the rose out to inspect it.  It wasn’t supposed to be a black rose.  At the bottom of the petals, near the stem, was a bright red color.  It’s as if something seeped into the rose to turn its petals black.  A memory flashed through his mind just then.  He was sitting on the sidewalk; he was crying and staring at something.  He couldn’t see what it was, but there was a lot of yelling.  Then a small boy was next to him, telling him everything was going to be okay and offered him a bottle of water.  Zelo knew enough to not except stuff from strangers, even if it was a boy, but he did and took a sip.  Pain shot through Zelo’s head then, making him drop the pitcher, it shattering when it hit the floor, as his hands flew to his head.

“So I see you are beginning to remember,” came a soft voice near the door that had all come in at.

All six boys jumped and quickly ran to each other, away from the newcomer.  They all saw an old man in raggedy grey robes and a large staff in his hand; it looked like he used it more for a walking stick than anything else.  He was old, his grey beard almost touched the floor and his eye brows were shaggy.

“Who are you?” Yongguk asked stepping in front of the group, a dangerous look on his face.

“There’s no need for that boy,” the man chuckled.  “I’m not here to hurt any of you.  I’m here to help.”

“How are you going to help?” Yongguk asked, the dangerous tone in his voice softened a bit, but he still looked on edge, ready to defend the group if need be.

“I came to give you a proposition,” the man said, slowly walking to a chair that was in the middle of the floor and continued when he sat down.  “You all remember your names and that you died.  And now being in this room has given you a bit of what happened.  Now it’s up to you, if you want to move on to the afterlife or I can bring you back.  All six of you died way before The Fates had declared.  You all have a destiny that should have been fulfilled before you died.”

“What kind of destiny?” Zelo asked from the back of the group.

“That, my boy, you will find out, if you choose to stay alive,” the old man chuckled again, eyeing each of them.  “You have to decide as a group though, either all move on or all come back. That is your choice.”