Day 791 - March 06, 2032, 04:22

  BOOM!!!

  The whole LAB shook violently as Seohwa (Age 12) woke up startled.

  She stood up from her bunk bed and immediately ran out of the D6-06 dorm.

  She saw various agents running towards the explosion. When she saw Hawk flying, she used her wind to catch up to him.

  “Hawk! What’s going on?”

  “An explosion occurred in the surface levels… 8-33, go back and regroup with the cadets to the training hall. Now!”

  Hawk flew fast as Seohwa returned back to the dorm.

  Over the past year and a half, new cadets came in. Of course, the newer cadets still took a few more months than Seohwa and her group.

  As a result, Seohwa and her group became seniors in the cadet program.

  Seohwa began to lead newer cadets to the training hall for evacuation.

  Taeseok (Age 16) who arrived belatedly, yawned.

  “What took you so long, Squad Leader?”

  “…I don’t wake up early…”

  “Even when an explosion occurred?”

  “…Sleep is important.”

  Seohwa was flabbergasted as she said, “We need to split up. You go to the East dorms, I’ll take the West.”

  She and Taeseok split up. On the way to the dorm, she saw Jiho (Age 12) running around frantically lost.

  She frowned as she smacked his head, “What are you doing here? You have to evacuate to the cadet hall!”

  Jiho groaned as he rubbed the spot she hit, “I was, ok? I got pulled in by the crowd and ended up here! And I’m still getting used to these new dorms…”

  “You’ve been here for almost 2 years… just follow me and help me evacuate the juniors.” Seohwa sighed.

  Jiho nodded as he helped her evacuate the cadets in the West dorms.

  Once they got everyone, they headed to the cadet hall.

  Seohwa landed gently as she placed her hands on her hips, “Everyone here?”

  Taeseok gave a thumbs up, “Everyone in East dorms are here.”

  “Same with the West.” Jiho chuckled as he placed his hands on his back.

  “Hey, Jiho!” Yerin (Age 13) yelled, “We lost you and were looking for you, you buffoon!”

  Yerin headbutted him as she was followed by Hwayeon (Age 15) who was trying to appease her, “Now, now, don’t fight…”

  “That hurt, Yerin!” Jiho pouted, “The crowd took me, ok?!!”

  “I told you to call me ‘noona’!” They began to pull each other’s hair as Jiho yelled, “I will when you actually grow up to be a noona!”

  As they fought, Minggu (Age 14) yawned and fixed his bed hair. Taeseok fed him a chocolate bar, “Minggu-ah~ you shouldn’t stay up too late studying…”

  “…I couldn’t help it… I read an interesting research subject.” Minggu gratefully chewed the chocolate bar.

  Hwayeon chuckled, “Right! Now that I think about it, you’re turning 15 in four days.”

  Taeseok gasped, “Yeah that’s true… I’ll give you my favourite munchie edition.”

  “…Hyung, when will you stop feeding me?”

  “Hmm, when you grow taller?”

  “!!!” Minggu huffed as he held back his anger, “I have grown.”

  Taeseok tilted his head, “Is that so? Why are you still smaller than me?”

  “…Hyung, please consider the fact you’ve grown to 6 feet now.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Hwayeon chuckled, “That’s right, Taeseok… Minggu has grown taller than me already. It felt like only yesterday when he was the same height as Jiho.”

  Jiho, who overheard her comment, yelled, “I’ve grown tall too!”

  “Pfft,” Yerin scoffed incredulously, “You’re still a midget.”

  “…You’ve only grown 3 cm from last year!” Jiho crossed his arms.

  “!!! Ladies tend to grow slower than boys!” Yerin defended as she turned away.

  Seohwa, who was watching their shenanigans, sighed and was slightly relieved that they were so relaxed despite the fact an emergency occurred.

  Seohwa felt drained having woken up instantly and began to lead cadets down to the hall. She decided to sit down as Jiho noticed and sat with her.

  Jiho went underneath his pjs and gave her the journal she’s been writing on since they first became awakeners, “You forgot this.”

  !!!

  “Thanks…” Seohwa smiled gently as she hugged her journal.

  “…Oh and I also made sure to keep Stretch’s reports about Seoyong in there.” Jiho pointed to the journal.

  Seohwa leaned on his shoulders, “Thank you… and sorry for hitting you back then…”

  “Don’t be. It was an emergency and knowing you, you would be focusing on rescuing everyone else over yourself.” Jiho chuckled.

  After time had passed, Rhino came in and yelled, “Is everyone ok?!”

  Taeseok being the Squad Leader reported, “Everyone has been accounted for thanks to 8-33 and I’s quick action.”

  “Good.” Rhino patted his shoulder, noticing how he was practically even height with him now, “…Have you grown even more since the last time I saw you?”

  “Well yeah…” Taeseok flinched when he realised he talked casually in front of Rhino, “I mean, yes, sir.”

  As of half a year ago, Rhino started going back on missions, leaving Hawk and Goldie to be the current mentors for the cadet program. Apparently, Ox called him back due to the shortage of staff and he just recently returned.

  Rhino began checking up on each cadet as he sighed in relief, “…Thank goodness.” He then yelled imposingly, “Good work, everyone. As expected of our cadets. You may now return to your dorms and head back to sleep. Training shall start at 9:30 today. Breakfast will also be extended to 09:00. Dismissed!”

  Rhino watched the rows of cadets yawning as they headed back to their respective dorms. Rhino then saw Seohwa as he stopped her, “8-33, stay back and convene to Ox’s office.”

  “…Yes sir.” Seohwa saluted as she noticed Rhino had a new wound on his arm.

  Rhino didn’t look good as he hesitantly patted her shoulders, “…Stretch is waiting for you.”

  !!!

  That could only mean one thing: news about Seoyong!

  Seohwa began to run towards Ox’s office urgently, feeling something was amiss.

  Jiho watched her go as Rhino faced him, “… I’m… counting on you.”

  Jiho nodded, feeling the dread in his voice.

  On the other hand, Taeseok and Hwayeon walked together with Yerin and Minggu back to their dorm, D6-06.

  Minggu yawned as Yerin supported him, “Oppa, studying is good but there isn’t any point if you don’t take care of your health.”

  “You sound like Goldie.”

  “…Honestly, she’s my role model. She was able to control both Sir Hawk and Sir Rhino, after all.” Yerin smiled.

  While they talked, Taeseok was glancing at Hwayeon. Hwayeon noticed his blatant staring as she asked with a warm smile, “What is it?”

  “Just…” He reached out to a new scar on her arm, “…There’s another one.”

  “…Ah, this came because I was making Minggu’s specialty needles…”

  “… Can’t you be more careful?”

  “I am carefu—!”

  “Even more than that.” Taeseok pouted.

  Hwayeon froze as she had never seen him so agitated. Taeseok realised he let his temper out as he sighed and rubbed his head, whispering shyly, “…your hands are for me…” for my food.

  Taeseok quickly strode away leaving Hwayeon flustered and blushing.

  ***

  Ox’s office.

  Seohwa knocked as Ox commanded, “Come in…” Ox turned to face her, “You’re here. Tea?”

  Seohwa shook her head as she saw Stretch who was pale and messy as if she came out of debris. “Stretch… are you ok?”

  Stretch chuckled reassuringly, “I’m fine.”

  Seohwa sat down, “Why did you call for me?”

  Stretch sipped on some tea as she hesitantly opened her mouth and closed it. She breathed in and calmly faced her, “This will be hard… but 8-32 has been deemed a failure. He was about to be disposed of per say.”

  Seohwa’s breath hitched, “Then…”

  “But due to a gas pipe leakage, the whole of WOW-LAB and surrounding areas got destroyed… this would mean, 8-32 had passed away in the explosion… we’ve also confirmed that Gen4-10’s chambers have been destroyed… the children there also…” Stretch closed her eyes as she couldn’t utter the next few words.

  Seohwa knew what she wanted to say but what mattered more to her was the fact Seoyong… her Seoyong-oppa was now gone.

  She felt like everything she did to meet him again started to crumble.

  She didn’t know how or when she came back to D6-06. She merely lay in her bed as she closed her eyes shut.

  Jiho noticed this as with everyone else as Yerin nudged him to do something.

  Jiho sat beside her and asked, “Hey… you good?”

  “…No.” Seohwa’s voice choked. “I feel like everything is coming down at this point.”

  Jiho held her hand, “…Want to talk about it?”

  “…Yeah.”

  Jiho signalled everyone else to quickly leave the room. Minggu hurriedly tried to get as many research papers as he could to which Taeseok snapped his fingers and lifted his whole desk outside by using his gravity powers.

  Once they were alone, Seohwa sat up, teary-eyed, “I thought… I would be used to this by now… about loss…”

  Jiho hugged her as she leaned to his embrace. Jiho circled her back to try to console her, “No one can ever get used to loss… people just have different types of grieving.”

  “…Seoyong-oppa…” Seohwa bit her lips, “…is gone.”

  Jiho froze as he then firmly held her and whispered, “I’m… sorry… I’m sorry.” Jiho listened to her wail for a long, long time.

  When she had finished, she slowly pulled away as she asked hoarsely, “…I… don’t know what I should do… I thought that by escaping, I could see him again…”

  Jiho pondered before answering, “Seohwa… look at me.”

  Seohwa glanced into his yellow eyes. Then, Jiho asked her, “Are we… not family to you too? Sure not by blood… but, we’ve been together the past 2 years almost.”

  “…”

  “…Since you can’t meet…” Jiho paused, realising the words were pretty inconsiderate. He then continued, “What if… you live for us? What if we escape together and live our lives like how we wanted? We want you to be happy and I’m sure Seoyong wanted that for you too.”

  “…” Seohwa knew he had a point as she wiped her tears.

  That’s right… even without Seoyong-oppa, I have them… we need to escape out of this LAB and live our normal lives again…

  Seohwa looked determined as she said, “To do that, we need to get rid of these nanobombs in our necks… I have been tirelessly searching for ways to remove the nanobombs safely out of our system but found nothing… and we have another problem.”

  “… The brainwasher, right?” Jiho added.

  “Right. We don’t know who has the ability to brainwash all the adults and agents to stay in this LAB… I just hope that we could have one clue…” Seohwa sighed, “Especially since our cadet program is almost over… we have at most 4 months left.”

  The doors opened as Taeseok entered with the rest, “Why not split the roles?”

  “…To do what?”

  Taeseok yawned, “You know, you’re pretty smart Seohwa, but sometimes you’re dumb as well… you try to take on too much burden by yourself.”

  Hwayeon smiled, “He’s right. We’re a team. What type of team are we if we just leave it all to one person?”

  Minggu nodded, “I didn’t study so much to be considered a burden. I want to help as much as I can.”

  Yerin then added, “And besides, it’s faster that we do things together than not… I mean no offense but look at you. You’ve been searching for the past year by yourself and it has led to no results… Taeseok-oppa said to leave you alone until you ask us… but with the deadline coming up, I think it's safe to say, you really need us right now.”

  Jiho chuckled, “See? You’re not alone.”

  Seohwa looked at her Squad’s determined gazes as she chuckled, feeling foolish all this time.

  “Right. We’re a team.” Seohwa smiled softly before standing up, “But first, we need a plan.”