Road to Utopia - NCT

39 - Escape

Silent screams filled the screen as they saw their leader slump in his seat. More guards came and took his body away. Most of the Dreamies sobbed and cried, trying to pull out of their restraints.

"You have one hour until the execution of Chenle." Jisung said to the camera. "We'll leave you alone now."

That left the nineteen members to mourn on their own as their guards left their rooms, not forgetting to lock them. It also left Kun to devise a plan since he was unofficially the next NCT leader. He had already loosened the ropes tied around his wrists and had almost sawed through it using the corner of his chair. They weren't the smartest, he thought, if they could all escape so easily. Surely by now the others would realise this? Well, unless their name was Lucas, who was just sat still and staring at the screen, unmoving.

After a few minutes, he had managed to break free and was stretching out his legs by walking around he confined area. I have to look for a way out, he thought. The door would obviously be locked and there were no windows, so those options were out. But the ceiling? Cheap, removable tiles for easy access to wires and insulation. It was a little far but if he could stan on the chair and jump a little more, he could remove one. And there was a wooden table to the side of the room, so stacking both items of furniture would allow him to climb through it. If technicians could do it and not go through the ceiling, he would definitely be able to crawl through.

Not forgetting about his other members, he tried to mime out how he broke free and stacked the furniture to show that he was escaping through the ceiling. Luckily, most of the other members had caught on with his ideas and followed his idea, and the others took a few more minutes to understand. After all, their mics were muted on the screen, mainly because there was no microphone in their rooms.

Of course, leaving the room that way was a little obvious in how they escaped, so Kun kicked the chair over and it luckily made it seem like he'd been on a rampage. Now crawling through the ceiling, he made it to the quietest area, where he hoped that it was either a corridor or somewhere that he could escape. He had no time to plan like other missions, it was a case of shoot or be shot at and he didn't have a gun, so you could tell where it was going to end if he didn't move.

He had met with Johnny and Ten in the ceiling and they had crawled through together. No one had an accurate sense of time since there was a lack of windows both between the ceiling they were in and in the building in general.

"We just have to run." He whispered to the others. They had landed in a utility room. "I'm being selfish here, but the more of us that make it out with different plans, the better. If we try to regroup, the harder it is to hide and run away."

"I know, I get it." Ten reassured him. "That's why I always failed the Leader tests, I just wanted everyone to be together in a situation like this."

"The others know what to do in situations like this, right?" Johnny asked.

The current leader shook his head. "We rarely had so many people infiltrate or have a reason to be captured. I'm just hoping that the others notice how no one's coming for them and just run, which we should be doing now."

"Yeah, they haven't noticed us yet, so we have the element of surprise if we encounter anyone now. Let's use it to our advantage." Ten added.

~~

They had decided also to make a run for it and were crawling rapidly through the spaces in the ceiling, avoiding the open or loose tiles. Along the way, they had helped Lucas and Hendery up and led them to what they hoped was the end.

Some of the other members like Chenle, Sungchan, Jeno and Yangyang had been quick to follow Kun's orders and had already managed to get to the ground floor through ducking into empty rooms and sprinting.

Others like Xiaojun, Renjun, Haechan, Jaehyun and Shotaro had gone solo and were scattered around the building, partly due to their lack of direction. Currently, Xiaojun had found a bathroom and Renjun was a floor above somehow and Haechan had managed to go down a floor to a break room, stealing their snacks. Jaehyun was on the first-floor corridor and Shotaro was so close to Chenle's group, but he would always be slightly too far behind and not catch sight of them.

Just then, a siren rang in everyone's ears. The members that were still close to the starting point could hear the guards yelling that their prisoners had escaped. Now, everyone had known that they had escaped and thy no longer had the element of surprise and sneakiness on their side. It was just a case of run and not be caught.

"I want them dead!" A male voice called out on the intercom. "No survivors!"

That prompted everyone to run, or at least find a weapon to defend themselves with. The quick-minded members would be able to do both.

~~

Kun's small group had managed to get to the ground floor and had spotted the main exit until the warnings filled the building. Now, they decided that the back entrance was probably the best, especially since more guards had come to the front, ready to shoot any moving object that approached them.

They had managed to do well until Ten's fake glasses had slipped from his face and clattered to the floor. It alerted two guards to shoot at them, so they ran further. Just as they reached the door and opened it, Johnny had been shot in the head and fallen. With no time to carry the wounded or check if he was still breathing, they continued their journey.

Opening the door, they had managed to get out of the building but in their adrenaline-filled heads, they had not predicted people shooting outside as well. They tried to avoid the slowly growing mass of guards that were chasing them and had almost left the area when Kun received a sharp pain in his leg, blood quickly leaking through his pant leg.

"Ten, just go!" He yelled when he saw his friend hesitate to check on him. "I'm leaving NCT to you, get to EXO and regroup."

"Thank you, Kun." Tears started to brim in Ten's eyes. "I love you."

"I love you and the rest of you too." He smiled sadly and accepted the next bullets to his heart and head.

END

Yes, I did just render the official leaders useless to this fic. I'm curious to see who you think will escape now? I'd like you to guess who and how many before you go to the next chapter, but it's not a requirement.