wake up. | nct/wayv

10

LEVEL TEN : RELOAD

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

UNIT : DREAM RUN

PLAYER : DONGHYUCK
DECEMBER 2020

༄

> he temporarily shared a room with na jaemin, whose own room was still being prepared. that one december night, the two decided to go to the cafeteria for a midnight snack.

the cafeteria was most likely one of the biggest rooms in whatever building they were in. the room stretched around half of a football field and could fit many, many people. however, most (if not all) of the tables were empty at this time of night.

they found a vending machine and bought ice cream, then moved to find a seat before someone blocked their way.

"ah... sorry, my bad," the male said, eyes avoiding theirs.

mark lee, donghyuck thought. "it's fine... you're up this late too?"

"yeah..." mark nodded. "had trouble sleeping. i'm a bit nervous about... this."

he motioned towards the room. they assumed he was talking about the game preparation.

jaemin cleared his throat. "don't be. there's an inevitable result."

"how comforting," hyuck rolled his eyes. "you could at least be a little more optimistic."

"i'm being honest. unless he's a trained and unpredictable fighter, he will die eventually. so will we."

mark shifted uncomfortably. "b-but what if we did survive?"

jaemin laughed and looked him up and down. did this fool not know the ultimate rule of the game? he stood no chance, probably would get eliminated early.

"we won't. so don't get your hopes up."

"you're scaring him," hyuck said jokingly, then patted mark's shoulder. "don't worry. just try your best."

try your best... jaemin scoffed. what was this, a school project?

"i'm not gonna sit here and baby you," jaemin snapped. "you give it your all, or you die. that's just the reality."

silently, mark nodded. how else could you respond to that? with a light sigh, hyuck gave up and walked away from the scene. then, he found himself a few steps away from a board.

it was more of a standing screen to be exact. it displayed six names vertically, yangyang at the top and johnny at the bottom. he didn't know what it meant or why the order was the way it was, until words appeared above the list: PREVIOUS WINNERS.

the screen soon switched to what looked like a stream of the game. the date in the corner was october 12, 2018 and the scene was a conservatory greenhouse. one of the players he recognized, lee taeyong, was creeping up behind someone before swiftly snapping their neck. not long after, the screen switched to a different scene from january of 2017. johnny suh was on a bridge—the brooklyn bridge? hyuck curiously stepped closer to the board, watching as johnny shot someone onscreen.