In a place somewhere between reality and imagination, Sookyung kept drifting in and out of it. It’s been about two and a half days since she’s been in this place and she’s been let out once to go to the washroom. An unrecognizable face came into the room, holding a blindfold in one hand. The light from outside streamed in and blinded her momentarily, making the face remain unknown. They blinded her on the way to the bathroom so she wouldn’t see her surroundings. Normally, Sookyung would’ve been able to memorize the number of steps from one place to another from that collection of sessions when she was thirteen and her father somehow thought that it would be appropriate for her to endure a two day session where she had to try to escape from an underground cell, but due to the lack of water, food, sunlight, and movement from her in the past forty eight hours, all energy seemed zapped out of her and she felt like a living robot, doing things she was forced to and enduring everything until she was tossed out of this place.

Her meal on the second day didn’t come from Kyungsoo, but from someone else, but again, Sookyung didn’t seem to have the mental nor the physical fortitude to be able to analyze his face. She wondered how many of them there actually were and if they all were the absolute geniuses behind capturing her here and not doing anything with her.

It was an afternoon on the second full day being held as a hostage, and she desperately felt the need to get out of here more than ever, but her body just didn’t seem to cooperate. She was darn fortunate that it wasn’t that time of the month, but it didn’t subside from the fact that her body was still painfully trying to endure everything that it’s encountered, from the transitioning temperature of the room, the hard cement floor, little sunlight streaming in, and lack of water, food, and bathroom breaks. By now, she figured her back and immune system might as well be useless in supporting her wellbeing as it’s done its part in trying to survive.

She leaned against the cement wall, once again dwelling in the thoughts of her own mind, sure that she was going to corrupt and go mental now from thinking the same things over and over, whether it be escape plans she knew were never going to work, Joonah, her patients, or her father.

For the umpteenth time in the past two days, she felt her fatigue taking over by just heaving herself to a sitting position, and her eyelids began to weigh down more. Her senses began to dull and subside until she heard a loud bang from a few metres in front of her.

Her eyes forced itself into bigger slits as she regained her senses. She snapped back to reality when she saw that the figure coming in through the door was not just one single person sent in to help her do her business or bring her dinner, but it was, seemingly, a whole group of men.

She blinked several times, forcing herself to snap out of the slumber to get ready and take whatever these men were going to throw at her. She counted and saw that there were exactly eleven people, all now beginning to stream in through the doorway.

The group dispersed to stand in a somewhat jagged line horizontally in front of her. Sookyung’s inner healthy, semi-jokester self snickered at how fit for a possible boyband they’d be.

One of the men stepped forward, holding a wooden chair in his hand and placing it between her and the rest of them. She wondered what it was for--an electric chair? A torturing device?

One of the men suddenly stepped forward, bringing her out of her outrageous thoughts. He was super tall and definitely looked the most intimidating out of all of them, vibing off a more foreign beauty than the rest. He took a few more steps forward until he was right in front of her. He kneeled down to get on eye level with her, but now as he did that, she didn’t feel the need to cower away like she did when Kyungsoo looked at her in the eyes. She stared right back at him with the same sense of sincerity and authority as he had.

“We’re going to untie you and you’re going to sit in that chair and you’re going to answer our questions. You dare twitch even as small as a hair on your body, you’ll be dead just like that, you understand?” he sneered, staring daggers into her, snapping his fingers to summarize her potential killing process.

She heard a sigh come from the opposite side of the room from one of them, “Lay off of her, Kris. There’s eleven of us. She won’t be able to do it.” It was Suho.

Hearing that, she barely muffled an arrogant scoff that threatened to leave her lips right after Kris warned her about her attitude. Who was he to say that she couldn’t take down a group of eleven full grown males at once? It’s not like she hasn’t ever done it before. But really, she knew he was right. She could feel her weakness and body odour waft to the other side of the room. She was sure she looked terrible and felt even worse. There was no way she could try to do anything to these guys right now even if she tried her absolute hardest. That meant the only solution she had left that included getting out of here alive was to do whatever it is that they’d tell her to do.

She resisted the urge to bash her forehead onto Kris' and knocking him unconscious before she felt her wrists and ankles being freed and the foreign cold air hit the fresh, raw cuts on her wrists.

She let out a strained cry, barely being able to touch the skin on her wrists. She clutched her arms to her stomach and heard a voice from the other side of the room, “G-guys, she’s hurt. Maybe we should get her some ointment or something before we--”

“Shut the up, Lay,” Kris snarled under his breath.

And with that the male grew quiet and bit his words back. She made a mental note to thank whoever ‘Lay’ was after this. That is, if she makes it out alive. Kris’ big hands lifted her up from her arms and dragged her weak legs over to the chair. She stumbled quite messily in his arms, her legs still not easily accustomed to vigorous movements just yet.

“She’s not accustomed to moving around too much yet, maybe we should just--”

“For god’s sake, Yixing, I thought I told you to shut the hell up!” Kris snapped back once more at the worried voice.

She looked up and saw a surprisingly apologetic look on Lay’s, or Yixing’s, face. Beside him, Chen gave him a small pat on his shoulder and another version of an apologetic look on his face to Lay. She gave the two a small nod before forcing herself to get back up again, this time with Kris’ grip on her tightened. At least there was still a little bit left of humanity still floating around.

He practically threw her onto the chair, his hand on her shoulder pressing her down for a full second before moving up and joining the rest of them in front of her, folding his arms in front of his chest.

Right then, Sookyung suddenly felt so little. In front of this group of men, she was nothing but a speck of dust. She was a toy, being tossed around and treated in whatever way her owners wanted and accommodated to their own liking. She felt frustrated and the foreign urge to want to cry. In her past forty eight hours here, she hadn't yet, and she didn't care if it was in front of these people either. Let them see. Let them see what they've done to a human being that was caught just trying to get through her day. Never before has Sookyung felt so miserable in her life.

"So," began a voice. She looked up from her blurry, slightly teary eyes, at the person. It was Suho again. What was he, the leader of this group of vultures? "You must be wondering why you're here." Cue eyes internally rolling.

He paused before continuing, "We are called EXO. We are the group from the East. From our knowledge, you are the blood daughter of Park Deokhwa, our frenemy from the West, am I right?"

She couldn't help but notice the venomous touch in his tone at the last part of his sentence. She wasn't sure if she blamed him or not. She nodded anyway.

He smiled and Kris stepped up. Lovely. "And Park Sookyung, it has also come to our attention that you are something your father views very precious, but according to our reports, you work at a hospital as a nurse using a fake name: Lee Soorin. Hm, why is that?" By now, he was feigning pure ignorance and Sookyung, for once, wanted some rope to refrain her from punching his beautiful face into a puddle of pulp.

She huffed in defeat and gritted her teeth before answering,  "He may be my father, but I despise him and everything he stands f