𝙳𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚍

1

"hello? are you dead? wake up!"
the man woke up to two other men who looked like they were around the same age as him. he quickly sat up and looked around.

it seemed like he was on an island in the middle of nowhere.
"what the hell is going on..?" he muttered.
"..and why does my head hurt?" his head was pounding. it felt like his brain was going to explode out of his head any second now.

"that happened to all of us when we woke up. it's normal. the side effects will go away soon." the man with the long blonde hair said, causing the man who just woke up to look at them both.
"there's more of you here?"
"of course! there's 7 of us. you're here too, so that makes 8." the other man informed him. he had black hair. he looked pretty tall too, maybe about 6 feet tall. he was probably the tallest out of everyone on the island.

the man who just woke up kept looking around. he couldn't believe what was going on, and he can't remember anything that happened before he woke up on this island. he had so many questions to ask, but wasn't quite sure where to start.

a group of 5 other men came into view from the forest behind the 2 men in front of him. some of them were holding wood. it was most likely for a fire that they were going to be building. "we're back!" one of them shouted. it was the shortest one. he had black hair, and two moles. one underneath his eye, and another one on his bottom lip.
"i see he's finally awake." the tallest one of the five said. he had a deep voice that could send chills down someone's spine upon first hearing it. he had black hair like the other tall guy, but he had brown highlights in his hair as well.

"now, i know you probably have a lot of questions going through your mind right now.. but we're all just as confused as you are. we all woke up here, not knowing what was going on and not being able to remember anything that happened before we got here." the tall black haired one explained.
"so basically.. we're stuck here?" he asked him.
"well.. i don't mean to sound depressing or anything, but-"
"yes. we are stuck here." the blonde hair guy said, interrupting him.

"don't sugarcoat things, just tell it like how it is! how many times do i have to remind you?" the blonde hair guy said, nagging the tall guy.
"can i at least know your names..?" the man asked.

the tall guy took the responsibility of introducing himself and everyone else. he pointed at the blonde hair guy. "this is yeosang." then he pointed at himself. "i'm yunho."
he looked at the other 5, and pointed at them as he introduced them. "and that's jongho, san, wooyoung, mingi, and.. uh-"
"he doesn't have a name." mingi said.
san whispered something to mingi.
"what i meant to say was, he doesn't remember his name." mingi said, correcting himself.

"why?" the man who just woke up asked, clearly very confused.
"he just doesn't remember." wooyoung responded.
"he can't speak either." san added.
"..well, it's nice to meet you all. i'm hongjoong. i hope i can get along with you all. i hope we can figure out what is going on and why we're here." the man who just woke up said, introducing himself.

a few hours later, the sun was starting to set. they were all sitting in a small circle, trying to start a fire and failing miserably.
mingi tried first, but nothing happened. wooyoung went after him, but still, nothing happened. when jongho tried it, nothing was happening, but he kept trying. he was so concentrated that he started sweating. yeosang wiped the sweat for him.

after about what felt like a decade, there were a few sparks, which made yunho, mingi, yeosang, san, and wooyoung start screaming. unfortunately, the sparks disappeared, and they all went right back to being miserable. jongho silently cursed under his breath and tried it again.

hongjoong stopped watching them fail over and over again, and decided to focus on something else. he accidentally made eye contact with the nameless man for a few seconds.
the nameless man smiled at him and waved, and hongjoong smiled and waved back at him. "..hello." he said in a soft voice.
and as expected, the nameless man said nothing back. instead, he wrote something in the sand. it said, "hello!" with a cute smiley face next to it.