NCT : The Dream Lab

III : The Origins of NCT 127

Stage 6 of Taeyong's dream : NDE (near-death experience).

The first impression that took over Taeyong right away was that he had never felt so alive. No rush of energy had ever flowed through his veins this way.

A very foreign and undesirable feeling churned his stomach too. It was like he had never been alive before this instant and he'd never be alive after this either.

He had gained consciousness without waking up ; his body had always been standing, his eyes always open. Just, one moment he wasn't there and the moment after, he was.

With his brand new eyes, he saw a pair of feet - his - that were soft and tiny like those of a child.

A vague nostalgia seeped into him, but he couldn't tell why: he had always been a child after all, right ?

The strong but comforting wind was messing with the hem of his white linen tunic around his small thighs. When he finally dared to look up, he came face to face with the biggest and fullest moon he could imagine. Every crater, every hill was visible. The orb was enveloped in a sweet red light that gave it a unique color. The sight was marvelous.

After a while, the kid forced himself to look away. Something rough in his right hand caught his attention. It was a flag, a quite rudimentary one. It was only made of a bare woodstick and bright red fabric. He was quite taken aback that he didn't notice he was holding it sooner. Did it appear when he was distracted by the moon ?

He frowned as he distinguished an unknown shape from afar. Full of his newly acquired youth, the child ran without any hesitation towards it, thrilled by the idea of a new adventure. The flag was furiously flying next to him. It made him feel like a kind of skilled athlete for some reason. The thought of his made up heroic self made him sprint faster. He didn't even feel tired after swallowing those meters in unstable sand like they were nothing.

At first, he was quite disappointed by what he found : it was only a pile of burnt wood sticks. He stared at them blankly for a moment. Then, the sand moved a little because of the wind and unveiled something new, that was the same color as the sand. He bent down and touched it carefully with one finger. Since it didn't seem dangerous, he took it out of the sand. The object was in fact a parchment. All of a sudden, the half burnt wood sticks didn't feel as disappointing : he grabbed one, unfolded the parchment on the soil and started drawing whatever was on his mind. At first, he thought that he was drawing a desert since he was surrounded by it but the closer he looked into his artwork, the more it looked like a sea, devoid of any color. He would only be able to differentiate the sea from the desert if he had colors. Frustrated again, he closed his eyes for a moment, letting the calm wind caressing his youthful face.

Dizziness caught him up out of the blue and soon, some images unfolded in his mind that he couldn't control anymore.

First, crystal clear water calmly rippling. Afterwards, he had a disturbing vision of himself, standing still in a grass field. He jolted a little bit when his other self stared at him. Without even letting him comprehend this scene, it was followed by another one that took place in the familiar desert. A herd of cattle was traveling at a slow pace. They seemed mighty and unbothered neither by the heat, nor by the bareness of the desert that made them an easy prey for predators. They feared nothing. But looking at the back of the herd, the boy noticed a baby cattle that seemed to struggle keeping up the same pace as his peers. It still looked very determined though. It had no other choice after all : none of the adults glanced back to check out how it was doing. If it gave up on everything, no one would even notice. The little boy felt a bit sad for the cattle.

Back in the desert, the kid realized he didn't pass out but only blacked out. It felt like his soul voluntarily detached itself from his body so it could show him foreign images. Actually, he was woken up from his trance by soft lips on his forehead. He turned his head smiling at the visitor, as if he had known her for a long time. This for sure wasn't the case but she drew such a powerful aura of security that he couldn't help mirth about her presence overflowing. She smiled back, her eyes shining with motherly tenderness.