Chapter 1: The Dream

"Coming up on your left now, Ash. At least two of them. Running round to the right of kitchen." Spoke Dongtae, who was at his computer.

Dongtae was in a particularly modern, but dark room, which had multi-coloured lights shinning on the ceiling and walls. Every few seconds, the sound of typing and clicking could be heard slightly under Dongtae's masculine, deep voice.

Perched upon his luxurious black and white gaming chair, Dongtae was sitting comfortably with a wireless headset on. The whole room was filled with electronics. On top of the desk, he was sitting at, resided a VR headset, a gaming PC, a webcam, a recording camera, a lamp, and much more. The front side of Dongtae was illuminated by a variety of colours, being displayed by what seemed to be a gaming monitor.

Dongtae had a slightly chiselled face, a small and thin nose, pearly white teeth, and a handsome smile. But what stood out the most, was his beautiful, baby blue eyes and gorgeously long, natural eye lashes

"Nicely done team! We won the first round. We don't have any more tonight so I'm going to head off. I'll ping you all when the next round is announced. Goodnight." Dongtae, once again said into the mic, shortly after doing a little celebratory reverse uppercut in the air.

As soon as he had finished speaking, a few mouse clicks later, the PC on the desk stopped shinning it's multi-coloured RGB lights and the fans stopped spinning.

"Ahhhhhh." Dongtae let out as he stretched his arms whilst leaning back into his chair more. Switching his lamp on, a certain section of his desk was highlighted.

This was now the only bit of light emitting within the room. Highlighted by the lamp, was a few pieces of paper. Besides the paper, there were various pencils of all colours and thickness. Dongtae picked up a certain pencil out of the selection and started drawing on the paper.

Half an hour had passed now, and Dongtae was doing the finishing touches on his art piece.

What Dongtae had drawn was quite exotic. In the middle of the paper, there was a drawing of what looked to be himself, with a scared and shocked facial expression. Behind the portrait of himself, was many tones and gradients of red. It was done in a way that looked like a red sea gushing out of the paper.

"That's all I remember from that dream. The red sea emerging and wiping out the entire city. Why do I keep having this dream? It's so strange." Dongtae muttered to himself as he once again leant back in his chair, this time seemingly lost in thought.

Dongtae was trapped in thought for another ten minutes before something disturbed him. A loud ringing noise was being emitted from his desk. To be more precise, it was his mobile phone. He had set an alarm for three in the morning in advance, for it was the time he usually went to sleep.

Switching off the alarm, and double checking the time, Dongtae got himself ready for bed.

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"Huh? Where am I this time?" Dongtae said to himself, as his eyes opened slowly. There was powerful winds blowing in the air, they were powerful enough to make a person lose their balance if they are not careful. Dongtae was on top of a hill, in a place unfamiliar to him.

There were no buildings. No trees. No sign of life anywhere. Before he could even gather his surroundings, something grabbed Dongtae's hand, pulling him quickly in a certain direction. Dongtae was pulled across by 3 metres. As soon as Dongtae stepped out of the range, a massive torando of fire appeared before him. If he had been pulled even a second later, he would have been burnt to a crisp.

Soon after the tornado of fire appeared, Dongtae woke up. Dongtae was in shock, he instantly sat up straight, clenching his heart, and frantically gasping for air. "It... Happened again.... Why...?" He muttered to himself as he looked around to find himself, once again, in his dark, empty bedroom.

A very dim, dark-green light was being emitted from Dongtae's desk. It was his alarm clock. It was now half seven in the morning, thirty minutes before Dongtae usually wakes up. There was no chance of Dongtae going back to sleep for a bit longer thanks to that dream, so instead, he got out of bed earlier than usual.

Carrying out his usual routine, Dongtae got ready to go out. He had planned a day out with his friends today for the anniversary of their graduation together. He was looking forward to it, but he couldn't stop thinking about that dream.

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Leaving his apartment, Dongtae made sure he locked his door. It was a bright and sunny day today. Not a cloud in the sky could be seen for miles. With that sun, came a tremendous heatwave. That explained the small amount of clothing Dongtae wore. He was dressed in dark shorts and an off-white t-shirt.

The apartment that Dongtae lives in was a fairly small building. Looking similar to most American motels, there was a total of two floors. On the second floor, there resides five individual apartments. The one labelled number three belongs to Dongtae, whilst the others belong to his neighbours.

Speaking of which, at the same time as Dongtae was closing the door to his apartment, one of his neighbours was just about to unlock the door to their own apartment.

"Eh...? Dongtae! Hey! How have you been?" Behind the mature sounding, feminine voice stood a fairly small lady. The lady had long, straight hair which was brown in colour. The lady had quite a mature body and she looked to be no older than 20. Of course, her actual age was 18, same as Dongtae's.

Her glistening hazel eyes lit up from Dongtae's appearance, and she was slightly blushing. Those facial expressions didn't last for long, as she coughed and corrected herself, as if she was hiding certain feelings of hers about Dongtae. Instead, she just stood there with her hands together behind her waist, slightly leaning forwards.

"Oh, hey Chloe. I've been doing well, what about you?" Dongtae replied as he faced towards her. Dongtae's expressions were fairly blank. He wasn't acting friendly with Chloe, but he wasn't acting unfriendly either.

Dongtae is normally like this with everyone he comes across. He doesn't feel emotional attatchment, to just about anything, as much as any ordinary person would. Chloe knew this about Dongtae, so she took absolutely no offence from it.

"I'm doing good too! What you up to?" Chloe said as she took a few steps closer to Dongtae.

Dongtae on the other hand, was walking towards the stairs leading to the ground floor. Dongtae had now reached the bottom of the stairs, whilst Chloe was still behind the railing on the second floor.

"I'm just about to go meet some friends. Wanna come along?" Dongtae queried as he turned back to face Chloe, who's face was as red as tomatoes.

"M-m-me? C-come along? I w-would love to! Just give me a minute to get ready!" Chloe replied, embarassingly as she hurried into her apartment. It only took a couple of minutes for Chloe to come racing back out of her apartment, locking it behind her in the process.

Her clothing had completely changed. She was now wearing a formal-looking dress. The colour of the dress was a lovely pearlescent white which matched well with the shoes and handbag that she also had equipped.

Dongtae being Dongtae didn't react in any abnormal way. Although Dongtae was dense, he wasn't rude. "You look smart." He said as Chloe started walking down the stairs. That 'compliment' alone was enough to make Chloe start blushing once again.

"Th-thanks?" She let out with an awkward smile, failing to hide the embarassment she was feeling. Chloe's beautiful clothes really put Dongtae's clothing to shame. All he was wearing was his lousy T-shirt and some shorts.

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As the two walked throughout the town, they stumbled across many stores and restaurants. They were within the town's most active shopping center. The reason for that being, the meet up place for Dongtae and his friends was within a local cafe in the middle of this shopping center.

Both Dongtae and Chloe walked side by side, making them seem like a teenage couple. Chloe was blushing the entire time whereas Dongtae was ignorant to the potential misunderstanding.

Finally, they arrived at their destination. And as soon as they had walked through the doors of the cafe, they heard.

"DONGTAE!!!!!"

A familiar voice shouted out Dongtae's name, causing both him and Chloe to look in the direction which it came from. In that direction, sat three other people on a table.

"HEY! KEN! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO STOP SHOUTING IN MY CAFE!" Someone, presumably the cafe's owner, shouted in response in a grumpy tone.

"Sorry Mrs Walker!" The one named Ken responded, whilst rubbing the back of his head and making an weary smile. "Anyway Dongtae! It's about time you got here! Come, have a sea-" Ken's sentence was cut short as his eyes panned along to see Chloe standing to Dongtae's side.