(A/N: The prologue is set a little further in the future like the first story. This chapter continues where the first story left off. I forgot to mention this, but I'll fix it now.)

Tao's POV, past

The world was coming back into view, one sense at a time. The first to come back was touch as my skin reformed and solidified, sharpening the sense until even the slightest breeze felt like too much stimulation. It was painful at first, but the pin pricks dulled down to a quiet throb while my other senses returned. I could taste and smell the metal surrounding us thick and heady before I even realized that I was breathing again. Then came sound, harsh against my eardrums with strange growling and loud incessant beeping like that of huge alarm system. I could hear critters and birds and one loud roar that vibrated up my newly created feet that didn't have separate toes yet.

The very last sense that came to me was sight and I found that it was more important than I originally thought. My eyes flickered open and the world had a bright, golden haze that slowly ebbed away, revealing a room large and wide with one glass wall that separated us from the astonishing sight of a colorful jungle filled with creatures and plants that simply should not exist. Light flashed red on everything from somewhere above.

But I was distracted from this all by the huge pair of eyes too close to my face.

“Can you hear me? Can you move alright?” this man with wide eyes asked, unblinking and still. It took me a minute to understand what he said as my brain struggled to realize that those sounds coming from this man's lips meant something - in fact they were words in my native language that I should know instantly.

Once the words arranged themselves properly with the images and meanings in my muddled brain, I tested out my limbs, sending a command in my legs to step back a little so I could have breathing space again. My legs didn't quite understand and instead I tripped over my feet. I was at least glad to see that I indeed had toes again when I hit the floor of the pod.

The man knelt down in front of me and I realized that he seemed really familiar, I just couldn't figure out why. “Zitao, are your vocal chords intact? Try speaking.”

That's right. I could make those sounds, those words too.

How? This man's full upper lip moved in conjunction with the bottom whenever he made those sounds, so I started with parting my lips. Next, I remembered that talking required some amount of breath, so I breathed in through my nose and tried to focus on breathing out through my mouth. It was difficult and I still couldn't seem to make the same noises he could.

“Come on, Tao. Here,” This man scooted a little closer and took one of my hands (I have fingernails!) and placed it on his throat, humming. The warm vibrations stirred at my memory and I closed my lips to hum back. “Good. That's a start anyways.” He turned around and called out, “Can you hand me a robe for him?”

Ah, I'm , aren't I?

I'm in front of a strangely familiar man. There's someone else here too, as I saw an arm reach out and give the man something flowy and white that flashed red in the lights above.

My arm was pulled through a soft (and also familiar) cloth sleeve and I brought my wrist up to feel it on my cheek. It was a really nice feeling after all the pain my skin went through.

“You can do that later. Give me your other arm.” he ordered, leaning forward quite a lot to bring the robe about my shoulders. I obliged and suddenly remembered to feel embarrassed about my , heat flashing across my face. “Zitao, we're going to try to stand, okay?”

I hummed in reply and tried very hard to keep my legs supporting my weight as he helped lift me up. I was swaying on my feet, and was just able to keep myself there when I heard something that made me forget to keep upright.

“-That's it, Luhan. You're doing great!”

The man caught me when my knees bent back in surprise. “Lu-” I said, cutting off on the word when I realized I'd spoken. How did I do that? How do I finish this word? “Luhan!” The word came out fast as I forced my throat into speaking again.

“Yes, Luhan's here too.” The man grunted, effort straining his voice. “But it would be really nice if you focused on standing!”

Oops.

I put a hand to the cold wall of the pod and used it to stabilize myself. This man was short, but he was very strong and was able to help me every time I nearly fell while I walked out of the open pod.

We were in a lab. I recognized the basics that defined it as such even if I couldn't recognize the many tools, machines, and winding pipes and bottles that steamed, whirred, dripped, and spun. The flashing light made everything gleam sinister in time with the beeping alarm.

“Will you please shut that thing up? Everyone's already evacuated.” the man growled.

“I'm on it. Hold on!” came a voice and the name Chen popped up in my head. Why did I know his name and not the name of the man helping me?

A light was shone in my eyes, steady and bright that made me blink for the first time. I reveled in the way my eyelids slid closed, spreading moisture and calming the brightness of the alarm lights that stung them. It was fun, blinking again and again. The man grew impatient with this and held my eye open for me while he shined the light again.

“Your pupils are dilating nicely.” He set down the pen-light and put both palms flush up against mine. Amongst the flashing red light, a new light burned golden through the skin of his hands. His eyes and hair glowed the same color as the light spread through to my arms, highlighting bones and veins as it went across my whole body. “Nothing appears to be broken or out of place. There aren't any unusual growths or other abnormalities... Congratulations, Zitao. You're healthy.” He let go and the gold light abruptly left.

“Chen! I'm serious about that alarm. Shut the thing off already!” The man stalked off and I remembered a short phrase I'd heard before in Chen's voice.

---

“...Kyungsoo's been moody lately. He even asked me to call him D.O again.”

---

Was this man Kyungsoo?

Something felt off about him. What was it?

Wait, there was something off about me too. My joints felt different from how they should be, my skin seemed different too. What's wrong with me?

A screen on the left wall lit up just as the alarm system shut down and the room was no longer threatening and red. A face showed up here and the emotion it brought back hit me all at once.

“How are they? Any complications?”

“K-Kai?” I asked, moving carefully closer.

“Taozi!” my alien called and my heart jumped in my chest. “You're not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“He's fine.” The man who might be Kyungsoo interrupted. “Him and Luhan are both regaining their senses just fine. Are there any troubles on your side?”

Kai cleared his throat and spoke with an authoritative tone. “We have the citizens at bay and as soon as the SHINee division has cleared enough space for us, we can deploy the first shipment of supplies to the breeding grounds. ” His eyes looked over to the left side of the screen until they reached me, a small smile building. “When can we see them again, Kyungsoo?”

So this man really was Kyungsoo.

“Not long. We still have to get them dressed properly-” Kyungsoo broke off and screamed, causing me to jump. “-His reflexes are improving." he continued calmly while I placed a hand on my racing heart. "There's still a blood test as well and we should probably check his ear canals for any parasites before we give him his vaccinations otherwise they might eat their way into his circulatory system for the new chemicals and eventually munch down on something important-”

The loud beeping sounded again, this time on Kai's side, red light flashing over his features. “You get right on that. I have to go. Taozi, I'll see you soon-” The screen went black and I couldn't stop staring at it.

A hand was laid on my arm and I turned around to see Luhan standing there in a simple bathrobe just like mine. He smiled wide and pulled me in a hug that I was glad to return. We were safe. We would see the others soon. We were healthy and-

This wasn't the Luhan I remembered.

I mean, it was the Luhan I remembered, but not the right Luhan.

This Luhan... was younger?

That's what's off about all this. Kyungsoo looked exactly as he had the day I first saw him, but that was twelve years ago.

I lifted my hand up from Luhan's back, still in his embrace and saw skin smoother, muscles less bulky.

On the screen, Kai had been correctly aged, so why were we different? What happened to us when we landed?

“H-how old...?” I managed, breaking off the hug to direct this at Kyungsoo. Luhan blinked at me once before the realization struck and surprised glow emanated from the ends of his hair. “What... what happened?” I asked, unable to stop my fingers from curiously touching the golden strands.

“You were dying.” Kyungsoo said simply. “Chen!” he shouted when the alarm went off again.

“Sorry! Minor hiccup. I'll fix it, Kyungsoo-”

“It's D.O!”

“Right, right! Sorry, D.O-”

Sighing, Kyungsoo said, “Honestly, how hard is it to shut that thing down?”

Chen heard this from where ever he was and replied, “A little more difficult than you'd think with the civilians constantly trying to hack into our pass-codes.”

Luhan poked me in the cheek to get my attention.

“Lay-” he said, trying to push across a meaning with that one word.

Lay wasn't here, I realized with a start. And neither was- “Kris.” I breathed out.

“Taemin!” we both said in unison.

If we'd been dying, then how were the others fairing? Did they not survive? Was it just me and Luhan left out of the five of us?

“Oh, relax; they're fine. We would've told you immediately if something happened. You're assistant is with Minho. The others are catching up.” Kyungsoo rubbed at his temples. “Chen, you're killing me here! Shut that thing up, please-”

“I'm trying, Kyung- D.O!” came Chen's exasperated voice and he rushed across the room to get to a cup of something purple, bringing it with him back to his spot just out of sight. I walked around Luhan's pod and saw that he was in front of an impressive system of screens and buttons, where symbols I didn't understand ran across faster than I could process.  “If you could hurry up your tests, that would help a lot." he said, taking a long gulp of the purple liquid before his hands blurred into typing. "The computers in here aren't exactly up-to-date.”

"It won't be long." Kyungsoo sighed and pulled me away to sit on a squishy kind of bench next to Luhan. “We'll bring you all together and explain everything soon." He brought an instrument to mine and my friend's ears as he talked. "As you can see, we're kind of pushed for time here, but first,” He dropped the instrument and grabbed a strange device, fitting it with something small and sharp. “I hope you aren't afraid of needles. Or blood.”

And I wasn't afraid of either, until I saw him smile a little too sincerely, lips pulled into the shape of a heart, but eyes alight with an eagerness that told me this would probably hurt. A lot.

All my questions were pushed out to make way for panic.

This man was terrifying.