Hell and Back (EXO x Reader)

Failure (Trial 19)

Chapter warnings: Mild themes

Word count: 1362

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"We decided that Baekhyun would be next, and it looks like the limited power is Lay." Kyungsoo said, already on top of it.

"That's healing." Sehun pointed out.

"I don't like this..." Luhan muttered. "If he's the limited, I could be something dangerous."

"That's not true," Chanyeol argued. "He wasn't limited for his own challenge, and that got him hurt. He was able to fix it, though."

"It's just random." Kris said with a wave of his hand. "Stop overthinking it and let's just go." Sighing, she pressed Baekhyun's name. Suho was right in his warning... this had only been challenge 18. It was only going to get worse from here. She kept thinking it, and yet the thought kept failing to resonate. She knew what she should be feeling, but it was difficult to process.

"Uh," Chen started to say, looking down at his phone. "Y/N? You might wanna..." Drawing her attention back to reality, she glanced down at her own screen. Oh no...

"Baekhyun, you, uh..." She swallowed. "You have to jump out of a second story window." Baekhyun looked a little stunned at that.

"Hey, it's not that bad..." Xiumin tried to say. "It's just two stories, I'm sure Kris has fallen out of windows plenty of times."

"Yeah, but he's smaller than me." The man in question commented.

"Not. Helping." Baekhyun shook his head, forcing a laugh.

"It's fine, I can just go from one of the windows in the dorm building. There are bushes on the back side, it'll be fine." Deciding to go with that plan, they moved to an appropriate window. Opening it, he looked down, swallowing hard. It seemed so close, and yet so far. Still, as the resident clown of the group, he wasn't about to make everything all serious.

"It'll be like skydiving, but without all the waiting." He said with a smile, moving one leg to straddle the windowsill.

"Hey, Baekhyun, maybe we should wait for-" Before Y/N could even finish her sentence, he waved, leaning over to fall out of the window. Eyes widening, she ran to the edge, leaning over to see if he was okay. When she looked down to the ground, though, his body was nowhere to be seen. There was no way he had gotten up that fast- she hadn't even heard him hit the ground.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" She heard a voice from her left. Spinning around in surprise, she saw him standing there, a genuine grin across his face this time.

"But- I- how did you-?"

"Kai teleported me back up before I hit the ground. Very much preferable to breaking an arm!"

"You wouldn't have broken an arm if you hadn't jumped out at such a strange angle." Kyungsoo pointed out.

"There's no way the stupid game is gonna accept that." Lay said cynically. "The whole point is to put us through hell, yeah?" Opening the app again, her gaze shifted.

"Actually, it completed."

"Why wouldn't it?" Baekhyun shrugged. "I jumped out of a second story window, didn't I?" Suspicious, Kyungsoo looked to the app again, but decided not to dispute it. After all, it wouldn't exactly look good for him if he argued with the game and they ended up making him do it again.

"See? We can make it through this." Baekhyun continued. "We just need to utilize our abilities. So, who's next?"

"Uh, well, a few issues." Y/N said. "I remember we said that the order was gonna be Sehun, Xiumin, Lay, Chanyeol, Luhan, and then me."