- thirty six -

The only thing Renjun could remember before the black out into nothingness was the electrical cool shock of Taeyong's fingers.

The he was immediately flooded with darkness, until a fuzzy gray seemed to cloud his vision.

He remembers looking down as he walked, the white tiles seemingly seamless under his poorly ties laces on his similarly white shoes.

Everything was white to him.

White house, white clothes, white bed. Like everything was supposed to be.

He could hear the click of high-heels before a shiny pair were right in front of him, making him stop, but he didn't dare look up.

He was only about five years old, and had still yet to start speaking aloud to people he wasn't familiar of, and just looking down at the pointy stilettos sitting in front of him frightened him no less.

He didn't know why he was being separated from his mother, although he does remember that woman saying that she wasn't his mother, but instead a worker for the government.

Which was weird, since the government had been corrupted years ago.

The woman didn't do anything at the moment he was in front of her. She simply smiled at him when he finally looked up at her.

Quickly, he bowed to her, immediately apologizing.

She simply lifted him from his bowing stance, and turned to stand beside him, holding her hand out for him to hold.

Hesitantly, he accepted it, letting her much larger hand envelope him small one.

They continued down the seemingly never-ending hallway. The only thing heard was the click of her high heels as they approached the rest of Renjun's life.

The next time he saw the woman was about two months after being placed into his new dorm.

He had been sitting in his lone room, sitting on the bed getting ready for their bedtime for the night.

He had heard the familiar click of heels fainted, but chose to ignore it as well, thinking that he had heard wrong.

Then a knock had responded on his door.

Which was weird since his new dorm mates wouldn't approach his room, as he liked to keep to himself, or if they did, they'd only barge into his room.

He stood up, quickly jumping to the floor from off of his bed, and approached the door.

He was still confused as to who could possibly be behind the door, before he gripped the cold handle and turned it.

There he was greeting with the familiar looking woman from before.

"Hello there Renjun. It's nice to see you again," she said with a slightly tight smile.

"Hello, Mrs. -?"

"Abigail Carthwright, but you can call me Abigail," the woman answered, before featuring for Renjun to come into the living area, "Can we talk for a bit?"

Renjun was slightly confused as to what the woman, or rather Abigail, would want to talk with him about.

They walked into the living area, settling on the small worn couch, no sign of the other boys in the dorm.

"Renjun, I wanted to talk to you about your settling into the unfamiliar dorm life. I know it can be hard, but I want your transition to be as smooth as possible," the woman said, most of the words not quite clicking with Renjun.

"O-o.K. Everything's fine, Ms. Abigail," he answered, not trying to keep eye contact with the older lady. He could tell that she was definitely of importance, and he didn't want to cross her in any way.

She smiled at him, and soon made conversation with him, talking about his studies, and if he was getting along with his dorm mates.

He remembered answering with short and brief answers, and before he knew it, their conversation was finished, and she was heading out the door.

Renjun remembered going to bed with a headache that night, and trying to sleep it off.

The next time he had met with Ms. Carthwright was when he had just turned six and she showed up the same time she did last time.

She had asked similar irrelevant questions, and he answered with his brief and short answers until it was time for her to leave.

But unlike last time, he had seen her out, walking her to the door. He had learned that in a session that etiquette and politeness is a virtue that all should have, so he tried his best to have it.

She had been impressed, and praised the boy for his manners, and stopped at the door.

"Renjun, I want you to know that I am here always if you ever need anything. You can always ask for me," she said lightly, caressing his small face as he smiled up at her. He felt good that he had someone to look up to but also was there for him.

"Yes, Ms. Abigail. Thank you, and have a good night," he answered, sending her off well.

She smiled at the six year old, who seemed mighty eloquent in her eyes, and left the dorm, not looking back to see the boy close the door.

She had great plans for him.

Ever since then, she would visit him frequently, watching as the boy grew older.

It wasn't until the age of ten that he had started to show signs of a heightened memory, and sooner than he imagined, the woman took him to an unfamiliar building.

It seemed an off-white, and dark windows.

She had been holding his hand, giving reassuring squeezes to calm the boy, until they were each inside and facing a man with a white lab coat, clipboard and pen.

Renjun looked at the man, who eventually took him away from Ms. Abigail, who kept telling him he was going to be fine.

But those were lies.

The strange man had led him to a room, completely white, with no windows or detectable lights, and told him to sit in the chair that sat in the middle of the room.

Renjun did as he was told, sitting in the chair without any comments or questions.

The man had placed two stickers onto his temples, which caused the boy to look at him, confused written on his face, but again, Renjun said nothing.

Then the man left Renjun, leaving the way they had come in, and Renjun was left in the silence.

But he never had doubts about what Ms. Abigail had told him, because he had no reason to have distrust for her. So he sat patiently in the chair, until the throbbing began.

It was dull at first, starting with his temples, and then they started to get stronger. Deep and aching throbs of pain was eventually coursing through Renjun's body, but then he realized something else.

He was receiving information, information he had already learned nonetheless, but as soon as he realized that, the pain seemed to subside since his focus was elsewhere.

He recalled the information and quickly matched up everything he had learned to what he had been shown, until it all stopped.

Renjun's body relaxed, and Ms. Abigail was there when he opened his eyes, clapping at him softly.

"You did well, Renjun," she said, slowly approaching him.

She put her hand on his shoulder, and then everything had went black.

He remembered waking up the next morning in his dorm, but as soon as he went into the living area, he was told that he was going to be moved.

Renjun didn't say anything, but he was still mildly confused.

Leave? He thought, for what?

Renjun was never one to voice out his questions or doubts, and nothing changed that from happening in this scenario either.

The only question he did ask was where.

Ms. Abigail answered with a question of her own.

"Renjun, you've been studying Korean recently, no?"

He answered with a quick nod.

"I'm almost there, but there's still a while," he said, still confused as to where this conversation was going for them.

"You're going to be moving to the Seoul Province, where that is the language mainly spoken, and you'll need to know it," she answered, but said nothing more.

Renjun had made his way back into his dorm room, eyebrows furrowed.

Why did he have to move to the Seoul Province so suddenly?

And why now?

Was it because of the test?

Or because he hadn't proved himself, and he was leaving because he blacked out?

Questions were flowing, but again he didn't act on them. He knew he wouldn't for a while.

Before he knew it, his bags were packed and he was already headed out the door.

For once, he thought that his dorm mates would be there to send him on his way, but they were all no where to be found. That hurt him a little, until he realized that they were never close. And no one made the effort to do so, so why did he have these expectations of them.

That made the hurt feeling go away. He no longer wanted to search for companionship in his fellow peers.

He turned towards the door, not once looking back again, and headed out to the transit. There was Ms. Abigail, smiling widely at him, and he chose to return it.

And then they were off.

Although actual vehicles were not allowed, there were types of transportation that were eco-friendly and no harm to anyone under the barrier.

In this case, they rode in an electric van, one of a kind and nothing like Renjun had ever seen before.

His bags were put into the back and before he knew it, he was snuggled into the back seat, and already feeling drowsy.

He had slept for the whole ride, until they had reached a building, tall and dark in the middle of the night.

Renjun was shaken awake, and he stepped out, his breath showing in the colder air, and he shivered at the biting cold air.

Ms. Abigail had walked him up to the building, and told him to press any finger to the keypad, and he did so. Soon his fingerprint was scanned into the system, and the large door opened to him.

He let out a small gasp, surprised that technology like this existed but the woman standing beside him shook him out of his trance. He smiled meekly at her, as she led them inside.

The inside was glamorous, but soon Renjun was anxious as to who his new dorm mates would be, after all, he did just promise not to get close to others again. Well, all except Ms. Abigail.

She had sat him onto the couch, letting him get settled and start explaining things to him.

"Renjun, this is your new dorm. Everything inside of here is yours, and nobody else's."

Renjun was perplexed.

"So there is no one else here?"

"No, there is nobody else here, but yourself," she answered.

That was the best news that Renjun could've ever received at the time.

She went on to explain how everything worked in the dorm, and that he was to choose anything and everything to his liking. But she also explained his new schooling, and how he was to go about it. He would receive slightly longer sessions, and rise in the grade levels, and difficulty levels.

Renjun let all of this information set in, allowing himself to understand. After she had finished, she excused herself, and once again, Renjun took her to the door to send her off well.

Before fully leaving, she turned to tell Renjun one more thing.

"Renjun, in the next couple of years, we may not see each other too much, but you know you can always contact Capital to reach me anytime of the day, or night," she asked, smiling sadly at Renjun.

Renjun nodded, becoming sad at her words, but he knew she had a job to do, and that he was taking her time from her job.

He looked up at her, and smiled softly back at her.

"You have to do your job. Don't worry, I understand. If I ever truly need your help, I won't hesitate to call you," he answered, smiling brightly as she reached to hold his face.

"Goodbye, Renjun," she said lastly.

He finally frowned as her back turned to him, and he watched her get back into the van, before he closed the door, the action feeling like déjà vu.

He swallowed the lump forming in his throat as he faced the solid door.

This was his future, he said after turning towards the barren living area.

There were no other people surrounding the area, and no other noises other than his own.

He smiled, finally able to live as he wanted.

He quickly grabbed his things from sitting beside the 'L' shaped couch, and went into the mysterious hallway leading away from the main area.

He looked in each door, greeted with empty rooms, until he reached the last door. Silently, he opened it, and saw the biggest bed he could ever imagine.

Smiling brightly at it, the kid in him already coveting it to be his own.

Leaving his bags at the entrance, he quickly ran and jumped onto the bed, already loving the comfortable blankets as they surrounded his body.

He didn't stay up much longer, the too soft blankets and pillows lightly urging him to go to sleep after his long day.

So he fell asleep.

The days continued as a regular student's would. He went to his new school, and found another Chinese friend, who he didn't try to get too close to, but still talked to.

He hadn't heard from Ms. Abigail in a while, his time going surprisingly fast, except when it came to bed time at his dorm.

The empty rooms he was so happy to have when he moved turned into a taunting reminder that he was to be alone for the rest of his life. No one was going to be there for him, because he wasn't there for anybody.

He spent his time in the middle of the night, curled into himself as he would cry himself to sleep, only to repeat the same routine every day.

But it wasn't until about fourteen that he had his first attack, and that's when Ms. Abigail decided to show up.

He remembered the excruciating pain in the cafeteria, and Chenle being worried. That's when he got a Person, and was able to get out of the place.

But instead of going to a medical facility, he was instead put into another electric vehicle, and sent to a different building.

His head still throbbed as he held it, being forced into the building and directed to a conference which seemed to be deep inside the twisted hallways of the building.

He still felt distorted when Ms. Abigail showed up with a tight smile directed towards him, and told him the news that he had a Maximum Capacity Memory, and that that was going to change his life.

Renjun was then given some medicine, which subsided the pain, but he still looked at Renjun with a tight face, emotions coming off in fake relation.

He never realized until now how fake she turned out, face stoic, movements stiff, and words artificial.

He guessed it was only under the haze of the childhood fantasy that he had looked up to her as a mother figure, but since he hadn't been in her controlling presence for a little over four years and now that he had learned more, he could see the insincerity in her actions.

But he decided to look into it after this little 'meeting' she decided to have.

By the way she had been acting, it was almost as if she were expecting him to be happy to see her.

But Renjun couldn't be happy to see her. She was the reason he was alone. He might've wanted to be by himself, but who listens to a ten year old in the heat of their emotions?

She was no mother. Especially not to Renjun.

Renjun was told that he were to have different schedules than the rest of the students, and would have to move to the high school building for his new lessons.

That was all the information that he was given, so he simply nodded, and left without a word.

He was escorted out of the building, and was left to walk to his home.

The walk was long, but it gave him a chance to think of what Ms. Abigail's intentions could really be.

As he walked, he couldn't help but think of the time he was leaving his old dorm. He knew something had felt off at the time, so he brought up the whole memory and decided to evaluate and notice everything from his memory.

He had been thinking everything was fine until he remembered looking at the clock briefly as he had been heading into the living area that night.

00:09.

It had been midnight, way past the bedtime for the others, so they were sleeping.

Ms. Abigail had planned to pick him up after the others in order to make him want to be isolated.

Renjun knew it was aware of the long stretch for that scenario, but he needed more information on her to confirm his suspicions.

He knew he couldn't do anything on the internet, due to the fact that Ms. Abigail and the Capital had the access to watch what he could be doing.

He continued walking, trying to figure out how to uncover Ms. Abigail's true intentions without being obvious about it.

He scuffed his shoe on the pavement as he walked, trying to come up with something, or anything.

Then it hit him.

He was an M.C.M.

That meant that he would be seeing a lot more of Ms. Abigail.

That night, he made a vow to keep all of his intentions under lock and key, making sure that he would never be caught.

Although later than he imagined, he was contacted in the middle of his fifteenth year.

He had received an email, with the subject name of 'WARP.'

Renjun was confused, but the message told him that he was to stay at the laboratory for an unknown period of time.

And that the beginning period started as soon as possible, but that didn't dawn on him until there was a loud knock on his door, resounding in the silence.

He had answered the door, met with two men clad in black, while Ms. Abigail stood between them with a smile on her face.

Renjun didn't like that.

In the span of about two hours, Renjun found himself on the bottom bunk of an empty metal bunk bed, with no other person in the small room that he was to stay in for the next couples of months.

He stared at the bottom of the bed above him, trying to console himself from allowing himself be taken from his dorm.

He suddenly sat up, refusing to let himself be down for this change. Now was the time to spy closer on Ms. Abigail, since he was going to be working with her for a while.

But as he laid back down, he was still stumped as to what they wanted from Renjun from this project 'WARP.'

A program to find a cure for Defects?

Why were they so curious? Defects hadn't been seen for years.

Renjun received that answer the next morning in a briefing meeting that they had.

Defects weren't declining, but actually multiplying. Which was terrifying the officials and leaders of the Inside.

And they wanted to find an antidote for them.

Renjun unfortunately got to see the Defects that were detained at the laboratory, at least a hundred, hunkered down in cages, all dirty and quarantined from the rest of the world.

Renjun had to force himself to keep a straight face as he observed them, as he passed them.

He ended up crying himself to sleep that night, his silent sobs only heard by his own ears.

Renjun felt a twinge on his unconscious, but ignored it anyway, only feeling the dampness that seemed to be on his face as he slipped back into his personal hell.

He had continued working side by side with Ms. Abigail for the next six months, his sixteenth birthday smoothly passing by as he worked.

He had learned all intel on Defects, and their genetic makeup, but he had also learned on the side of another project that didn't have too much information on it, only his identification as the project name.

00-00-01.

Of course he was confused on why he'd be a project, but couldn't dwell on it too long since all that seemed to fill his mind was WARP.

The whole intel on the project was only the fact that they were trying to separate the Defects and their genes that identified Defects as Defects.

They had run tests, using electrocution on several Defects to activate their 'power' and then tried to attack the genes that had changed, but since that included almost all of the genes but in the end the Defects ended up dying a crucial death.

Those were the times that Renjun ended up crying himself to sleep, which seemed to happen more often or not.

It wasn't until Renjun ended up on the operation table was when he seriously started questioning things, although not out loud.

He remembers the pain of each test and operation as if each puncture was still fresh.

He learned what Project 00-00-01 was firsthand, and he had screamed his complaints whenever they had strapped him down to the cold metallic table.

But the strong stiff hands that held him down were persistent, and he could never forget the feeling of a long syringe that they pierced into his neck every time, and how when he saw Ms. Abigail looking down at him coldly at the edge of consciousness before going under.

After he'd wake up, he'd feel completely numb but simultaneously in complete pain.

He was never able to move at all for about two hours after the surgery they would complete, and they never offered post-surgery care, so he was left there, in a cold room, always feeling open to vulnerability and the thought that he'd never be able to survive the next one.

That's how he felt every time, that there would always be a next time. And that he would never see another day after that next time.

He lived scared, until he found himself wide awake, after he had turned seventeen. That marked the time where he had been living and 'researching' in this lab.

He was tired, and significantly weaker than when he had first starting working there.

He knew what he had to do, and that was to leave.

As soon as they started focusing their tests onto him was when he should've stopped the whole collaboration project.

He had written a letter of resignation on a paper, and made sure to officially email one to the organization when he returned home.

Because that was where he was going. Home.

He refused to live like this, so, after pressing the code he memorized to let himself out of his 'room,' he calmly walked down the empty halls, passing each door as he walked, one step at a time.

He continued his path until he had finally made it outside, something he hadn't seen in about a year in a half.

But getting out of the lab was only half of the battle. The second part was him getting himself home.

He remembered that walk, as it was ingrained into his mind.

By the time he was scuffling to his entrance, he could barely walk. He was taking deep breaths, the air not filling his lungs fast enough.

He quickly scanned his finger, and stumbled into the entrance of his dorm, barely able to close the door.

He remembers his vision going cloudy as he fell onto the wall in his hallway. He remembers struggling to get himself back up, holding his side, where he had just gotten surgery on hours before.

His wince echoed as he had finally collapsed on his bed.

It was cold like it always had been, the old familiarity of it becoming strange.

He had been gone for such a long time, and his return had been due for that long.

He let himself drift into a more content darkness, finally feeling safe.

. . . .

Renjun was jerked back into reality as he still felt Taeyong's fingers still on his temples.

He looked up at the older, who returned his gaze with teary eyes. Immediately seeing Renjun out of his recall of memories, the older grabbed his face, before pulling him in for the tightest hug. That's when Renjun could feel the tears that had stained his cheeks.

"I-I'm-" Renjun suddenly found it difficult to talk in Taeyong's arms, clearing his voice weakly against the older, "sorry. I-I wasn't supposed to get emotional."

Taeyong just seemed to sob harder against the smaller, his hitches as he hiccupped between sobs making Renjun start to cry once more.

"H-hyung, stop it. See? I'm fine," he whispered, not trusting his voice to go to a higher decibel.

"Abigail," he said, pulling away from Renjun, "was the reason for all of those deaths? And the surgeries you endured?"

His eyes showed everything. His sincerity and his concern.

Renjun nodded slowly.

Taeyong seemed to let out one more choked sob as he bowed his head, sadness overflowing him.

"H-hyung. Come on, we need to head out, or people will get worried," Renjun said, voice cracking.

Taeyong nodded when Renjun stood, standing up as well.

The older had no words, and let the younger walk them out.

The door opened as soon as they approached, and they were greeted with all the boys in the living area, who all seems nervous. Even Dream was there.

One look at the twos' tear-stained faces made everyone worried.

Renjun looked at the surveillance monitors, and noticed it was light outside, which meant they had been in there all night.

Renjun could feel the heaviness of reliving his memories and staying up all night for Taeyong to learn.

He stumbled a bit, which caught Jaemin and Jeno's attention where they sat on the couch, flinching as they wanted to rush and help him, but Taeyong's slender hands held him up slightly. The older seemed as if he wanted to fall, needed to fall from the onslaught of emotions that seemed to hit every moment of that long night.

No one voiced anything out, but Taeyong could hear their questions.

He silently walked both himself and Renjun up the stairs one step at a time, and led Renjun to another room than what Renjun had been introduced as his own.

He gave Taeyong a weak questioning look, but followed him anyway.

Taeyong had led him to his own room, not wanting to leave the younger to an empty room that had seemed to haunt him for most of his life, and wouldn't let him leave.

Reluctantly Renjun laid down on the bed, getting under the covers as Taeyong did the same.

They laid there, not having to say anything, Taeyong holding the smaller Renjun in his arms, not ever wanting him to feel the pain of loneliness ever again.

Soon Taeyong could feel Renjun's small breaths of sleep against his arm that held the younger close.

He looked down at the Chinese boy, before running a hand through his hair.

"You are never going to be treated like that ever again. I won't allow it."

Tiredness enveloping his being, Taeyong too fell asleep in the embrace.