This time, when Taemin woke up to the now-familiar sensation of drowning, he didn’t freak out. Instead, he pushed his hands against the glass that trapped him inside of his pod—and, much too easily, it gave way. He tumbled forward onto the ground, a little surprised gasp escaping his lips, and the glass molded seamlessly back into place behind him. Had it been any other occasion, Taemin would have marveled at the technology—but today, he was slightly preoccupied.

One quick glance around the room revealed the other sixteen boys to have also been tossed unceremoniously onto the ground, dripping and spluttering. Jongin knelt a couple feet away from Taemin, shaking water droplets from his hair. Taemin smiled, and was about to call out to him when suddenly a voice spoke from across the room.

“Welcome back.”

Immediately Taemin shot to his feet, looking toward where the voice had come from. It was then that he noticed a man in a suit standing at the head of a group of people in lab coats at the far end of the laboratory, their figures half-concealed in shadow. Out of his peripheral vision, Taemin saw the others standing too, gazing warily in the direction of the scientists. He knew they were all thinking the same thing he was.

They’ve been expecting us.

Before Taemin had time to react, the man in the suit stepped forward out of the darkness, revealing himself to be a forbidding figure in his late thirties with dark hair and a severe face. “Congratulations on escaping from the Island simulation,” he spoke. The slight smile on his lips did not quite reach his eyes, which remained cold and emotionless.

“I am Dr. Park, the director of this team of scientists—’’ the man gestured to the group of people standing behind him—“as well as of the Island simulation experiment. I am sure you all have many questions…”

“Yeah,” Minho called out, cutting the man off. “Why the hell did you stick us on an Island?”

His question sparked a series of demands and murmurs from the other Islanders, which did not seem to faze Dr. Park in the slightest. “That is an excellent question, Mr. Choi,” he said calmly to Minho, who seemed a little thrown off at being addressed this way. “The truth is, there is currently a highly contagious virus of unknown origin causing an epidemic in the world outside this laboratory. This virus, called Caedis, initially killed almost instantly, but since its conception has mutated, and is now taking longer and longer with each new strain to become fatal to its victims. Because of this, symptoms of the virus may not begin to appear until a very late stage of infection, by which time the virus will have been passed on to many more individuals.” He paused, letting the information sink in.

“So what are the symptoms?” Kibum prodded impatiently.

“Symptoms range widely from region to region, making the virus even more difficult to diagnose,” Dr. Park responded. “In most cases, however, the virus causes both your body and mind to slowly decay, eventually leading you to lose all aspects of your humanity. Yes,” he continued, as the Islanders stared at him in horror, “the Caedis virus, in essence, turns you into a living corpse.”

The room went silent. Nobody spoke, the terrible new information settling like a suffocating blanket over everything. At last, Jonghyun broke the silence.

“What does all this have to do with us?”

Dr. Park took his time answering, seeming to choose his words carefully. “When the Caedis virus first broke out,” he finally began, “there was thought to be no cure. However, as time passed, a select few individuals were found to be immune to the virus.” He paused for a moment before continuing, his next words ringing out clearly in the room.

“You are those select few.”

Taemin felt his mouth fall open. Dr. Park plowed on, leaving no time for the Islanders to digest all the new information being thrown at them.

“Because of your immunity, your memories were wiped and your bodies cloned so that, should any of you be attacked while participating in the Island simulation, your real bodies would not be affected. Your second bodies were placed onto a deserted island, where it was impossible for any other living organism—infected with Caedis or not—to reach them. Your consciousnesses were sent from the bodies you currently possess into your second bodies on the Island, where various trials were thrown at you in order for us to study and analyze your reactions. We had hoped that, in doing so, we would be able to determine what made you different from everyone else and, ultimately, find a cure for the Caedis virus.”

It abruptly occurred to Taemin that Dr. Park had switched tenses in his last statement. He was not the only one who noticed this, for Jonghyun suddenly said, “What do you mean, you ‘had hoped’? Isn’t there a cure?”

There was an awful silence. Then, slowly, Dr. Park answered, “No. There is not.”

The world seemed to come crashing down around Taemin’s ears. This had to a joke—a cruel, terrible joke, but a joke nonetheless. Because it just could not be true that everything the Islanders had been forced to endure for the past year and a half had gone to waste. There was simply no way.

“How do you know?” Jonghyun demanded, as though he were thinking along the same lines as Taemin. “Maybe you just haven’t conducted enough research; maybe you need more data…”

“Mr. Kim, I’m afraid we’ve already investigated all possible avenues,” Dr. Park interrupted firmly. “There is simply no cure. The virus is far too complex, and is even now evolving as we speak.”

“But maybe there’s something you haven’t yet discovered about our brains that could help,” Jonghyun persisted, an underlying note of desperation now lacing his voice. “If all of us just went back into the Island simulation right now…”

“Because you have all woken up and regained a part of your memory,” Dr. Park said evenly, cutting Jonghyun off, “sending you back into the simulation now would be useless. Your reactions to the trials would be affected by your newfound knowledge, skewing the accuracy of the data. And performing another mind wipe would be highly dangerous—if not impossible.”

A heavy silence followed his words as everyone attempted to find a loophole, but failed. Taemin swallowed; they had no choice but to accept that what Dr. Park had said was the truth—that there was, indeed, no cure.

“So…what do you propose we do, then?” Jonghyun finally asked, his voice hollow, as though he’d given up. Dr. Park, oddly enough, smiled.

“By this time, the entire population of the world will have been infected with some form of the Caedis virus—including me.” He spoke the grim words in an amazingly calm voice. “You seventeen are the only hope left for humanity. Well...I suppose that isn’t true.” And even more incredibly, his smile grew.

“What do you mean?” Jonghyun asked quickly, but Dr. Park ignored his question.

“In a minute, this laboratory will self-destruct,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to the stir of panic his words caused among the Islanders. “I think I speak for all of my team when I say that I would rather die here and now than by the Caedis virus. However,” and he paused, making eye contact with each and every one of them, “you are immune, and therefore must live on. So go back into your other bodies on the Island, before the laboratory explodes. You will feel no pain.”

As he was speaking, an alarm began to blare, and the room was suddenly bathed in a flashing red light. “Go now. Quickly!” Dr. Park shouted, as the Islanders began scrambling for their pods. “Ten…nine…eight…” a computerized female voice started counting down, and Taemin pushed aside his shock, making a mad dash for his pod. As the voice chanted “Five…four…” he couldn’t help it—he turned his head one last time to look back at Dr. Park and the other scientists. And as he stared at their faces, he was struck by how serene they seemed…as though they had already accepted their fates.

“Taemin!” he heard Jongin scream, and abruptly he turned back around, the sound of the woman’s voice filling his ears. He pushed his hands against the glass of his pod and fell through, just as the voice said, “…one.”

And as his eyes fluttered shut, the first sounds of explosion began to erupt around him.