A brief silence followed Taemin’s words. Then Jonghyun said,

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Taemin closed his eyes, rubbing his temples and trying to put what he’d seen into words. “I should’ve died,” he said at last, opening his eyes and looking around at the rapt Islanders. “I did die—or at least, I thought I did. But then I woke up in this weird laboratory. There were people there—scientists or something—and TV screens showing different parts of the Island.” As he said this, he gazed up at the canvas of the tent above his head distrustfully. “In fact, we’re probably being watched right now.”

Nobody responded, and Taemin sighed. “That’s not all,” he continued into the silence. “I was trapped in some sort of…pod. And so were all of you. We were all in that laboratory, floating in these pod things. Except I was the only one who was awake.”

“But…that’s impossible,” Jonghyun broke in at last, looking utterly bewildered. “We were all here this whole time. And so were you.”

“These aren’t our real bodies, hyung,” Taemin explained, gesturing down at himself. “These are only shells, created solely for the purpose of being put onto this Island. Our real bodies are in that laboratory, being studied by scientists. None of this is real life.”

Again, complete silence; you could’ve heard a pin drop. Then Jinki whispered loudly, “D’you think the snake venom messed with his head?”

Taemin almost groaned in frustration, the desperation to make everyone believe him nearly unbearable. “Listen to me,” he growled, sitting up in bed. “I’m just telling you what I saw. Doesn’t what I’ve said make infinitely more sense than any other explanation for what’s happened to us? All of us waking up here with no memories, the raft washing up empty with some cryptic message—it’s all a bunch of tests, thrown our way to see how we’ll react. Even the wildcats aren’t real; they’ve been placed here by the scientists as well, and I’ll bet you anything that their ambush on our camp wasn’t just some random occurrence. Nothing here’s real, not even our bodies. It’s all some kind of…simulation.”

He finished speaking and looked around. Seeing some faces still filled with doubt, he added defiantly, “And why on earth would I lie?”

Another brief silence followed. Then suddenly, Jongin said, “I believe you.”

Taemin dropped his gaze to Jongin’s in surprise, to see the other looking back at him with his face set, traces of the tears from before still on his cheeks. Jongin took a deep breath and looked around at the other Islanders. “Taemin’s right; he has no reason to lie. All the time we’ve been here, we’ve been searching for some kind of explanation—and now we’ve finally got it.” Jongin took Taemin’s hand. “I believe you,” he repeated firmly, meeting his eyes.

Taemin felt a wave of warmth course over him, and squeezed Jongin’s hand tightly, trying to communicate just how grateful he felt towards the younger. Something passed between the two of them as they stared at each other—some kind of unspoken understanding. And then Jonghyun cleared his throat.

“I believe you too,” he said, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. “I’ll admit I thought you’d gone a bit crazy at first, but…I can tell just by looking at you that you’re telling the truth.” He smiled slightly at Taemin, who grinned in return.

“I believe you too,” Kibum suddenly piped up. “Me three,” Minho added. And then everyone was calling out their faith in Taemin’s story, filling the tent with confessions of belief.

Jonghyun turned toward them, waving his arms around for silence. When at last it fell, he spoke up again. “Thanks to Taemin, we now finally know how to escape—or, rather, wake up—from this Island,” he began. “Unfortunately, in order to do so, we have to kill ourselves. Somehow.” There was an awkward pause.

“Well, aren’t you just great at killing the mood,” Kibum said sarcastically. Jonghyun flushed red, and Kibum rolled his eyes. “What Jonghyun means to say is that we’ll have to die in these bodies in order to wake up in our other ones—the ones in the laboratory that Taemin described,” he explained. “And Taemin here has given me an idea of how to do just that.”

He strode over to a cupboard sitting in the corner of the large tent and opened one of its drawers, extracting something that earned intrigued “oohs” from everybody else. Taemin sat up to see what it was, and saw Kibum holding a glass vial in his hand.

“Snake venom,” Kibum explained, raising high the greenish liquid so that everyone could see. “I’ve been collecting it for a while now in order to study its scientific properties, and one of them happens to be that's it lethal if consumed.” He paused. “In other words, it’ll kill you painlessly within about ten seconds of drinking it.”

There was a silence. Then: “Wow,” Jonghyun said, in an amazed voice. “I never would have annoyed you if I’d known you’d been storing that.”

Kibum snorted, putting the vial away. “Let’s see,” he said, turning so that his back was to the Islanders as he rummaged through the cupboard. “I’ve got about…twenty vials of this stuff. More than enough for each of us.” He turned back around, offering everybody a wry smile.

“So…are you all ready to die?”

◊◊◊

Half an hour later the Islanders were gathered outside on the beach, each holding a vial of snake venom in their hands. Someone had pointed out to Jonghyun that if they really were being watched, then the lab workers would know that they were about to wake up in their real bodies. “So what?” Jonghyun had retorted. “Would you rather stay here forever?”

No one had had a response for that.

As the final preparations were being made, Jongin pulled Taemin aside, out of earshot of the rest of the group. “Hyung,” he said in a nervous voice, “could we talk for a sec?”

Taemin peered at Jongin in confusion, watching the other run a distressed hand through his hair. Finally he answered, “Of course, Jongin. What’s up?”

Jongin took a deep breath, looking as though he were trying to choose his words carefully. And then suddenly he blurted out, “Hyung, I like you.”

Time stood still. Taemin’s mouth fell open slightly, and he wondered if he’d heard correctly. At the same time Jongin shook his head furiously, words tumbling from his mouth as though he’d been meaning to speak them for ages.

“No—that’s not true. Hyung, I love you. I don’t know when it started— just that it’s been driving me crazy, and I can’t stand it any longer.” Jongin grabbed Taemin’s hands, his eyes filled with a mixture of torment and adoration that warmed Taemin’s heart.

“When you first got here, you asked me if we’d met before. The truth is, I recognized you the moment I saw you. And I realized that you were the one thing I remembered—the one thing my mind had chosen to hold onto. But I didn’t know why until today, when I thought I’d lost you forever.” His voice broke, and he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I’ve never felt anything like it; it was worse than dying myself. I thought it was too late—that you’d died, never knowing how I truly felt about you. So that’s why I have to tell you now. I’m not going to make the same mistake again.” Jongin spoke determinedly, the intensity in his eyes burning through to Taemin’s soul. “I love you, Taemin.”

Silence filled the air, save for the soothing sound of waves on the shore as well as the others’ distant voices. Taemin tried to speak, but found that he couldn’t. Unfortunately, Jongin seemed to misinterpret his silence.

“Please say something, hyung,” he begged, squeezing Taemin’s hands in his own. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way—just please say something. Anything.”

And at last Taemin found his voice.

“I love you too, Jongin,” he said, immediately feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He laughed, his heart swelling with pure joy. “I love you,” he repeated, pulling Jongin in for a hug, “God, I love you.”

Jongin pulled back to look Taemin in the eyes, his own wide with shock. “R-r-really?” he stuttered. “Do you actually mean that?”

Taemin, too full of surreal happiness to speak, merely nodded. Jongin’s face broke out into a smile and he pulled Taemin back into his arms, his hand gently Taemin’s hair.

“Thank God,” he murmured, his voice filled with relief. “I was starting to freak out a little.”

Taemin laughed, and they stood there like that for a minute, forgetting about all the troubles surrounding them and just holding one another. Then eventually Taemin pulled away, smiling ruefully up at Jongin.

“We’d better get back,” he said softly. “The others will be wondering where we’ve gone.”

Jongin nodded, and as they started back toward the beach he took Taemin’s hand. The other blushed but didn’t protest, even as they neared the rest of the Islanders. Almost immediately Jonghyun walked up to them with an impatient look on his face.

“Where have you guys been?” he demanded. “We’re getting ready to leave.” Then he caught sight of their intertwined fingers, and his eyes moved up to rove both their red faces. His brows rose in suspicion, but to Taemin’s relief, he didn’t inquire further. “C’mon,” he said instead, turning to lead them back to the rest of the boys.

Everyone stood in a circle on the beach, holding vials of the sinister green liquid in their hands. “We’ll drink on the count of three,” Jonghyun commanded. He looked to Kibum, who nodded, and then back at the other boys again. “One…” he began, his face set in determination.

“Two…” Everyone raised their vials. Taemin gave Jongin’s hand one last little squeeze, and then as Jonghyun said “Three”, he downed his vial in one gulp. Almost immediately he began to lose consciousness, his vision fading rapidly—and then all was black.

A/N: hi guys! do you like the new poster/background? (*^▽^*)

i'll be going on vacation for a couple weeks, so i won't be able to update for a bit - but don't worry, i'll be back soon!

also, just a warning that there are only a couple of chapters left - there are ten in total, as i stated in the foreword. ^^

anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter! please leave me a comment if you did!

p.s. //adopts minho's voice// are you married to the music? :3