when in time, nct dream

chapter forty-six

Jiyoung woke up to screams.

Scared, prettified really, she attempted to move, childhood horror memories coming back as she squinted her eyes in hopes to quieten the noises around her. And to her despair, it didn't work.

She couldn't move without feeling pain shoot through her body. All she could do was close her eyes, keep them closed until her inner thoughts could distract her. Again, it didn't work.

Twenty minutes pass, twenty painful minutes of listening to her friend's agonizing screams echo throughout whatever cell she was being held in.

"So sorry about that, hadn't realized you'd woken up already," Hyuna smiled, staring at her sister from the other side of the cell bars.

Jiyoung's eyes began to roll to the back of her head as she gritted her teeth, her arm feeling as if it was numbing.

Her eyes began to glow white as she focused in on her power, her jaw clenching as she tried to access anything from within her.

"Your powers don't work in here," Hyuna pointed out. "As long as that IV is in your arm your bending abilities have been taken away. And even if you try to take it out, you would be so weak you wouldn't be able to fight back."

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Jiyoung asking, taking in a deep breath as she pressed her lips together into a thin line.

Hyuna laughed, covering her mouth as her eyes crinkled. "What makes you so sure you can escape? We have multiple mastered staff working around the clock with multiple different medical pieces of equipment ready at the hand if anything happens."

Jiyoung's lips parted halfway through Hyuna's speech as she realized something, an anxiety quiver going down her back. "How long have I been here?"

Hyuna sighed, looking to the side as another medical staff joined her, holding out a brown clipboard. The teenager looked at the sheet of paper, signing something before turning back to Jiyoung.

"Only a day and a half."

Jiyoung scoffed, "only."

"Yes, only. And I can keep you here as long as I want until I simply discard you, finding you and the rest of your friends useless for my research."

"And what research is that? Easiest torching techniques to kill someone? What do you find so important about us that you think kidnapping is a good idea?"

Hyuna shrugged, "simply, your techniques and abilities. You see, when we were born, I was a prodigy as well. I was a prodigy until the age of eight when I got my third element, earth. By then I had mastered air and water. But when my mother got greedy and my body began to adapt once again, my prodigy abilities were also stripped."

"What does this have to do with us?"

"You, my dearest twin sister, still have your prodigy abilities intact. So we are performing experiments on you and your friends. For you, we are trying to see if something just went wrong with our prior experiments or if the prodigy body cannot adapt to three elements."

"Experiments? You've done this before?"

Hyuna nodded, "I have. And none of them turned out too... let's just say, their bodies gave out before we could do much more. And those friends of yours? Each of them having the ability to master their elements and Nayeon, the non-bender mastering every non-bender form of fighting, all useful. We will experiment to see what patterns in their brains help them with this, what about them is so special?"

"Wait," Jiyoung said, trying to shake her head before stopping per request of the pain in her neck. "We... we, you keep saying we. Minji, is here too isn't she?"

Hyuna smiled, turning to the left as a woman approached. "It seems you've figured it out, haven't you?"

omg

i don't know if i want to be kinda basic and just change the covers again to the new album teaser photos but we'll see 🏃🏽‍♀️