EXO: "EXOPLANETS"
26

One and a Half Years Later

We'll finally do it. After nearly two years of endless waiting, we would finally escape.

This time we are ready and we have a plan, which is good. All the puzzle pieces eventually fall into place to succeed and the timing is right.   

After two years of trial, torture and detention, it really made sense that my patience was running low. I'm not a saint and honestly, there's nothing left.

I was sick and tired of waiting, it made me feel useless. I'm ready to go, we're ready to go.                                                                                                 

However, the time we spent here was not in vain, we were not just sitting around twirling our thumbs. Instead, we train every day, for now.

The knowledge that we would one day escape was the only thing that kept me going. Motivation and determination are hard to maintain, but in the end I know everything will be for naught.

They get what they want, we become the weapons they planned to have in the first place. Now, I can do things I never imagined I would do. Things that you will see in action movies and will not believe it can be done in real life.                  

I can use any weapon given to me: a weapon, an axe, a knife, an arrow, a sword, anything. I can fire a buffalo at any target from a long distance and one thing for sure I never miss. The days and days at the end of target practice now make it easy.                                  

We are trained in combat: boxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, karate, whatever they teach we learn. Long gone are the days where we didn't know how to punch or hit. Now we can fight against the best and have a good chance of winning.                  

It was really a problem for our coaches because in the end we started beating them in every fight without any effort. They have to use to bring in the professionals, who also started us against. So instead of them turning to computers, virtual reality simulations because humans are not competing well enough. As always, they are ruthless and make sure programmers don't forget to add a pain factor to make virtual reality as real as possible.                                                                                       

Some of the skills they teach us are very unpredictable but necessary, driving being one of them. We were all young men who had just become adults and the only one who had a license was Xiumin.

So they first teach us how to drive and once we are competent, they then teach us how to float and race. They told us, in the future we don't know what situations we can go through so this is important.

Later, we learned more advanced skills such as flying jets, piloting boats, riding motorcycles, and even flying submarines. It was easy for them to teach us when they had simulations for almost anything.                                                                        

They trained us in hacking and programming as well, telling us that this is one of the most important skills and I agree. With our society increasingly becoming robotic and the internet filled with limitless information, I have no doubt about it when they say it will be useful.

Out of everything we learned, this was the most difficult skill for me. For me running the rounds for hours is much better than writing code. There was so much problem solving involved and it was completely foreign to me, someone who had never excelled in math or science even in school. Let's just say some of us are better than others. However, I now know the basics and I can manage myself, if I have to.                                                                                 

They were surprised by how quickly we developed, realizing the serum had more side effects than just activating the EXO gene. It makes us stronger, faster and smarter. Totally inhuman.                                                                                                                    

At first, when Doctor Choi told us, nine of us were 'full of infinite possibilities', I didn't believe him, but he was right. It became clear when I could do things that no one else in the world could. It's like running faster than the fastest man in the world and out of the three of us I'm not the fastest.

Of all the physical exercises, my body has become a well-built machine. I have muscles in places I've never done before and I really don't look like a boy anymore. I have learned an important lesson from the beginning, that in order to protect myself, my body must be in top shape. It was something I needed to rely on, it had to be a weapon I could use effectively.                    

But strangely, I did not grow tall and even with my newly conditioned muscles, my skeleton was still quite similar to before. Of course, I am bigger and no longer skinny but I do not look any different from an Asian youth who spends his time in the gym a few times a week. I look fit and slim, not too big and not too small, just average. However, I am strong. Stronger than a much bigger opponent than me and now I can even lift objects three times my own weight.