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It’s Tuesday, and your dreams have stopped.

And this sudden change of routine is causing you anxiety.

Last night was the first night that you didn’t have the dream. It had become so normal for you to have it that you now feel like it was your fault that it didn’t happen. Did I do something different? Did I accidently change something? You’ve spent the entire rest of the morning asking yourself these questions over and over, each time coming up without an answer.

And now you’re back in the school, pacing in the hallway. You’re deep in thought, channeling everything else out except for your own thoughts, and unintentionally, you walk right into a wall.

Er, not a wall… You glance up and take a step back, blushing. “Can’t you at least try to announce yourself when you show up instead of being all quiet like that?” Pouting, you rub your forehead where you’ve bumped into Kai’s chest, and he stands in the same spot he appeared in, smiling.

“Nah, it’s more fun this way.” He strolls over to the nearest wall and takes a seat at one of the benches.

You both spend a few uncomfortable minutes in silence while you continue pacing and Kai eyes you from a distance. His annoyance level is rising with each step you take, so he decides to speak up. “What are you doing?” Ignoring him, you wave one of your hands in his direction and give a quick “nothing,” in return.

He sighs and looks at the ground.

“They stopped, didn’t they?”

You halt dead in your tracks and narrow your eyes at the mysterious boy. He stares at your astonished face and rubs the nape of his neck. “Your dreams, I mean.” You shake your head. “How did you know?”

He stands, his back now towards you and his face looking away from you.

“Because I get them too.”

“What!” you yell, your voice echoing down the corridor. He’s lucky he’s facing the other way so I can’t hit him, you think to yourself.

You make your way around him so that you are standing face to face, and you stand with your arms folded in front of you. “Don’t you think you could have told me that before?”

“Well, I--“

“What the heck are you yelling about?” You lean to the side to see Sungji’s tiny figure, watching from only a few feet away from where you and Kai are standing. “Seriously though, I could hear you from the lunchroom. You should keep your domestic disputes outside of the school.” She walks closer to the both of you, and drops her bag onto the floor. You stand and stare at her with offense on your face. 

“Okay. Continue with… whatever this is that’s happening.” She nods and waves her hands indifferently at you. Surprisingly, Sungji’s presence causes the situation to ease a bit, and Kai finishes what he was saying.

“I was going to tell you, but I wasn’t sure about it at first. I thought it was only me. But then you called us into the library that day, and I read the journal, and it was the same dream that I was having.” Your stance softens a bit as you listen to his excuse and you keep your eyes firmly on him.

“The reason I left so quickly yesterday was because that exact reason. There’s no way this could be a coincidence.” This statement has you listening intently as you grip your backpack straps tighter.

Kai leans on his left leg and bites his lower lip. “I know why the dreams stopped. And I know what it means.” You feel your pulse pick up from excitement and you glance back and forth and your friends’ faces.

“So…” Sungji slowly leans forward and whispers, “Library?”

You and Kai give a simultaneous nod of your heads and you all grab your things and run to the library.

Once in the familiar silence and solitude of the back corner of the library, you are all seated at your usual table, anticipation rising as Kai pulls out the journal containing the original written down dream.

“I’ve written my own notes in here, according to the occurrences of the dream.”

He places the journal in front of you and you slide it forward to the middle of the table and open it, making sure it’s facing the right way so each of you can read it. “First,” Kai points to the scene in the dream about the tree. “This is the Tree of Life I told you about.”

You remember back to how beautiful the tree was in your dream, as if everything good in the world was radiating from it. “And of course, the twelve people around you are the Twelve Forces.” Kai then moves down to the section about the strange, tall boy. He’s pointing at the first note that’s scribbled on the page, and it’s just one word: Fire.

“It’s his individual power. He can control fire, and somehow can manage to summon a phoenix from it. I can’t even imagine how that’s possible.” He taps the table with his fingers. “I mean, you’d have to be pretty strong in order to summon something like that.”

“Do you think he’s fully awakened, then?” you question while scanning the page.

Kai nods his head. “Most likely. But the dream could just be a reflection of what the extent of his power is. For all we know, he