NCT : The Dream Lab

XXVI : The 7th Sense + Without You

Stage 4 : Empathy Phase.

Location : City 127.

Taeyong's prediction turned out to be true. The following night, he woke up in his own cage.

Right now, he could understand why Mark was so shook. The experience was more nerve-wracking than expected even though he had the whole day to prepare mentally. He tried to guess which memory he would live again and after deep reflection, he settled on that time when he created a monstrous version of his sister and woke up with a terrible panic attack. And there was his peritonitis when he was eleven that kind of left him traumatized too.

Apparently, his analysis was all wrong. The most traumatic event of his life was one he could only remember partially, and very vaguely. It was the day he drowned in the Han River. In all honesty, he would have preferred not remembering that at all but here he was, fighting against the tide in spite of his weak body. The water was freezing him to the core. He was in so much pain that it felt like his soul wanted to part from his body. The best word to describe his state was torn. By the tide, by the cold, by his survival instinct gradually replaced by a strange willingness to die. Fighting for his life required too much effort, he couldn't keep up with it anymore.

After several unending minutes of suffering, his mind drifted away and he closed his eyes.

Enveloped in the dark, some stars started dancing under his lids. He couldn't be dead yet, because the pain that pierced every centimeter of his body was stronger than ever. He barely had the time to notice the presence of a planet in the distance that it exploded in blast, propelling the purest, most blinding light towards him. He flinched in anticipation of it hitting him harshly. As he raised a hand to protect his face, the light gathered around his wrist, forming a burning circle around it. It was so unbearably hot.

There was an impact, probably him colliding with the walls of the cage and the next second, he hit the ground of the temple. His breathing was erratic. He closed his eyes in an attempt to calm down by ignoring his surroundings and let uncontrollable shivers travel down his spine. He couldn't help but think about Chittaphon : the poor man had already woken up in such awful conditions three times already and he couldn't escape from it as long as they hadn't "opened their eyes", since he didn't have the Jalja serum to control the frequency of his dreams.

Taeyong inhaled and exhaled deeply, hugging himself to help him feel safe. Then, he blinked a few times to get used to the light. He observed the tattoo around his wrist attentively, letting his mind get flooded by visions of the space. Was his parallel world part of an actual universe as wide as the space he glimpsed when he dilated time ?

The swirl of interrogations made him nauseous. He swallowed his uneasiness as well as he could and stood up just in time to see Jaehyun barge into the room of the temple dedicated to him. The doctor bombarded him with questions but Taeyong was still unable to speak, too startled.

He couldn't turn a blind eye anymore : there was something ugly in the Neozone.

***

Seoul, South Korea. 2016.

Taeyong wasn't usually fond of this but he stayed his whole Saturday in his bed, almost lifeless. His dream left him in some kind of gloomy lethargy that paralyzed him. In the evening, Jaehyun came in to bring him a bowl of homemade ramen with a worried frown. Sensing that the student wouldn't eat any of it if he didn't insist a bit, he sat down on a stool next to the bed. Taeyong kept his eyes fixated on an invisible point in the corner of the room, unable to face Jaehyun's concerned gaze.