great escape ;; bongson (gncd)

two

"He's been stabilized," Youngtaek heard a calm, high pitch voice speak, but his heavy eyelids refused to open, "he should come to in about five minutes, please inform your father."

There was no reply from whomever the man was speaking to, instead Youngtaek simply heard a pair light footsteps slowly moving away from him. Youngtaek could feel that his body was resting on a bed and he was wrapped in a thin, polyester blanket. He was engulfed in the scent of sterilizer and sanitizer, all sorts of things one would commonly find in a hospital. Youngtaek groggily forced his eyes open and they were immediately met with a gray stone ceiling.

He rolled his head to the side to see three another beds occupied by people who were clearly unconscious or struggling to wake up. He turned to the other side and saw another two similarly occupied beds. He tried his best to sit up but he was quickly stopped by a pair of hands pushing him back down by his shoulders.

"Calm down sir," he heard the same voice of the man that was speaking earlier and looked up to see a petite looking man with a youthful face, wearing an all white uniform and a nametag that read 'Donghyun', "you can just lay down for now, no need to get restless."

"Where am I?" Youngtaek asked in a weak and hoarse voice.

"You'll be briefed on everything soon enough," Donghyun flashed him a polite smile, his eyes squinting into crescents, "just rest for now."

Before Youngtaek could ask any further questions, Donghyun hurried away to speak to one of other several people also dressed in the all white uniform. Youngtaek unknowingly sighed softly as he faced his head towards the ceiling. He was highly convinced that this was all some terrible dream that he couldn't wait to wake up from. Either that or somebody spiked his drink last night and Jaehyun took it upon himself to rush him to a very sketchy hospital. Yeah that's it, Youngtaek thought to himself, nothing to worry about.

The doors were slammed open, which made Youngtaek flinch in shock. He quickly sat up in his seat, this time without Donghyun trying to stop him, and watched as a tall dark haired man wearing a white lab coat walked into the room with quick and heavy steps. Trailing behind him were two other men in black suits. Further at the back of the trio was... Jaehyun? Youngtaek's eyes widened as Jaehyun, dressed exactly as he was for their date, took agonizingly slow steps into the room, his eyes lifeless and his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket.

"Yo Jaehyun!" Youngtaek exclaimed, before coughing loudly, "what's going on?"

Jaehyun flinched at the sound of his name and stared at Youngtaek with fearful eyes, as if he was about to get into trouble. Jaehyun briskly dropped his gaze to the floor, making Youngtaek frown in confusion. Youngtaek then heard someone clear their throat and he turned to see the man in the lab coat raising an eyebrow at him, his arms folded across his chest.

"Now that I have everyone's attention," he spoke with annoyance laced in his voice, "I would like to formally welcome you to this program.

"I am Doctor Lee, a scientist who has been working on ways to make life better for us humans," he smiled, pushing his round rimmed glasses up his nose bridge, "my latest experiment may change science forever.

"I have developed an ice chamber that will allow humans to stay frozen for a certain amount of time," he explained, slowly pacing up and down the room, "the purpose being that those with life threatening and incurable illnesses may be frozen until a cure is found.

"For now the chamber only lasts 24 hours, so we'll have to work towards a longer time period," Doctor Lee intently checked the expressions of those seated in the beds, "the good news is that it was tested on several animals and the results were successful. There is a high chance it will work on humans as well."

"Ah, I get it!" Youngtaek chirped in, causing Doctor Lee and everyone else in the room to stare at him, "I'm being pranked!"

"My friend Bomin probably set this whole thing up right?" Youngtaek let out a painfully fake laugh as he clapped his hands together, "he's always annoying me like this! I bet he did all of this just because I stole his-"

"This is no joke!" Doctor Lee raised his voice, startling Youngtaek, "we are here for an extremely important experiment.

"Now as I was saying, this could work on humans, but no volunteers are willing," he continued, "therefore we rounded you lot up in hopes that you would agree, you see we had to take matters into our own hands."

"Uh yeah," a well built black haired man raised his hand and shook his head, "I ain't doing this."

"Yeah, you basically kidnapped us and now you want us to help you?" A red headed man spoke up, his bangs falling into his eyes, "You can miss me with that, thank you."

Youngtaek looked back at Doctor Lee and saw him balling his hands into fists - he swore he even saw a vein throbbing at his forehead - before he exhaled deeply. Doctor Lee then put on his polite smile again, making Youngtaek's skin crawl at how unsettling this man was.

"I ask you all not to make such quick decisions," he laughed nervously, "just think about it and let me know tomorrow how you all feel."

Despite the shouts and jeers of protest from the people seated in their beds, Doctor Lee ignored them and stormed out of the room. Youngtaek watched as Jaehyun followed behind the two men in suits, his expression unreadable. Youngtaek just wished his annoying alarm would wake him up from this dream.