FIREFALL, OR IN EXO WONDERLAND ▷ COMPLETE

Ace of Shuffling Decks

CHAPTER 22: ACE OF SHUFFLING DECKS

"Are you sure that they're here, Five?"

"Yes, Three. Don't you know that they're really fast?"

One-two-one-two-one-two.

Decelerating footsteps echoed behind.

"So, they're here?"

"They must be somewhere near here. Those puny Wonderlanders can't run too far."

"They can't even fly!" the card-soldiers laughed in their poker-face.

"Let's find them!" a soldier began to smash the specimen jars one by one.

A jar of chicken liver fell to the ground.

Eun-soo felt her heart plunging down to her feet with a boom. Kind of. She tried her best to stifle a yelp.

"You fool! Breaking these jars won't help, Two! You should smash that jar with that giant floating thing!"

Bad luck.

Prang!

A card-soldier swung his club and smashed the mock-puppy jar. Green and milky goo and glass shards came flying out. Kris pushed Eun-soo forward and landed on the floor. He grimaced. He'd had enough pain for a day.

The mock-puppy foetus slithered limply through the shattered glass and dropped to the floor with a splat (the kind of splat when you drop a wet cloth to the ground). At first, nothing happened. Suddenly, the mock-puppy's moist eyes split open. Eun-soo felt the nape of her neck stricken with a sudden chill at how tightly its translucent skin was stretched over its malformed flesh and bones. Its taut red skin twitches as it crawled on its stumps of four limbs. The thought of it made her shudder, and she wasn't alone.

"Oh, in the name of the Great King Chanyeol, what is that? Five! Help me!"

The card-soldiers attempted to escape the room, but as they did so, the mock-puppy opened its toothless mouth wide and sucked them into it. They couldn't hide, let alone run. The unfortunate soldiers were stuck in the mock-puppy's body, twisted and warped together into grotesque shapes moving under its skin. Things that didn't belong were fused together in a moving lump of meat.

The mock-puppy later crawled out of the hallway and out of the Scientists' Domain. No enemies were left in the house. The burden and tension was lifted. Kris and Eun-soo exhaled in release. "They're gone... They're gone..." he whispered.

"At least they're gone from here." she smiled at him.

"I hope so." he smiled back.

For real? Eun-soo chuckled. The straight-faced Kris looked so adorable when he smiled.

Outside, the mock-puppy kept sucking more cards into its mouth. The more it suck, the bigger it got. The mangled cards under its skin clustered together to form bubbling lumps all over its back. Soon, less and less cards were around the Domain.

"Should we attack that... thing?" Kai asked.

"No. I knew it very well. The enemy of our enemy is our friend." D.O replied.

An awake Baekhyun rubbed his eyes and yawned out his question. "Are we safe yet?"

"Quite so," Chen answered, giving Baekhyun 'the look'. The thunderbolts in his hands spiked up like accusing fingers.

After sucking the Domain and its surroundings free of card-soldiers, the satisfied mock-puppy crawled back inside. It squeezed its body to get through. Its large size had nearly destroyed the Domain's door, stretching almost to the limit. Finally, it managed to get itself in. The scientists and resistance members followed behind the trail of milky goo and torn cards.