District Nine

3rd Eye

The light is too bright,

is this the reason why I can't wake up?

~

Felix had filled up his pockets with berries and with every step he took, he feared that he would crush them by accident. His clothes and fingers were already sprinkled with small dots of red that didn't bother him at all. By now he actually started to like the colourful splatter. He wondered if there was a way to dye his clothes completely. He was so sick and tired of the blank white everywhere.

Changbin's fingertips were also dyed red and he had painted countless small dots all over Felix's body with them. And Felix had done the same to Changbin. His eyes were stuck on a small dot of red directly below Changbin's right ear. He had placed his thumb right on this spot when he had buried his hands in Changbin's hair to pull their faces together for a last kiss just now. After that, they had hurried to join the others. They hadn't stopped to talk about it. The second their lips first met each other they stopped communicating in spoken words. There had been only touches and soft looks between them for that way too short piece of eternity. They had not exchanged a word for maybe ten minutes after that first kiss. Only kissed time and time again. Hidden away in the middle of a maze made of hedges they had painted the world red. Felix had never felt so alive before. Never so close to the sky. A small beam of silvery moonlight had hit a patch of the grey grass like a spotlight, making it sparkle in a vibrant green. So alive. Felix could not wait to see a world completely illuminated by this light. A world where everything was alive and vibrant and glowing. And he would see it together with Changbin. And then he would tell him how he felt. Outside. When they were finally free. But right now he had to focus on even getting there at all. They would have to wait just a little bit longer. But then they would be together. And the whole world would be colourful.

Four figures were pressed together in the darkest corner they could find in the brightly lit hallway. The door they had gathered around didn't look any different from the other ones lining the wall down the hall. It was painted white, a small metal plate showed the room number. 25-03-18. The only thing setting it apart from all the other doors around was the fact that this one was closed. Locked to be precise. But on first glance, Felix could not make out any kind of keyhole nor any other way of opening it. When he took a couple more steps towards the group, he noticed that Jeongin was crouching in front of a fuse box – at least Felix assumed that it was something like that – that was built into the wall right next to it. He must have unscrewed the lid on it somehow to free a bunch of cables in different shades of grey mixed with a slight shade of colour. The ghost of the actual vibrant colours Felix had seen glimpses of. Seungmin and Jisung were curiously peering over his shoulder and handed him a tool from the small box at his feet every once in a while when he asked them to. Woojin was standing on the other side of the door, nervously eyeing the clock on the wall every other second. When he noticed Changbin and Felix he relaxed a little, but his eyes were still wildly jumping back and forth between the clock and the other boys.

"Where have you guys even been?", he asked in a hushed voice. Felix only shrugged his shoulders and tried to not let his eyes tell what exactly Changbin and he had been doing while Changbin next to him nonchalantly pointed to a small bag filled with roots and other vegetables that he had thrown over his shoulder. Woojin's eyes trailed over the red spots that were sprinkled over both of them but he didn't say anything about it. Just looked back and forth between the two once and then turned back to stare at the clock. Probably his thoughts were with Chris and the other two. If everything went according to plan they should have gotten to the highest control lever already. In a few minutes, the lights would be turned off. If nothing happened to the other three first that was. Where there even guards up there? Was it really that easy for them to get in as Hyunjin made it sound? What if someone caught them? Chris had told them not to worry but the whole plan had been put together so quickly. So desperately. There was so much that could go wrong with it.