Chapter 1: Burning

Sehun

            I woke up to the blood-rich smell of something burning.

            Leaping out of bed – noticeably faster than I do most other mornings, might I add – I ran through the polished wood hallways, finding almost every door open, sunlight and silence pouring in from the empty rooms. Each man for himself, my father had always said.

            To what extent, I hadn’t known until now.

            Grabbing the railing at the top of the flight of stairs, I stepped on the banister and vaulted over the railing, landing on the section of the stairwell directly underneath me. If my father had been here, he would’ve pursed his lips thin and shook his head, the obvious disgust he felt for me rolling off him in waves – how could you be such a barbarian?

            I grimaced to myself at the memory. Truebloods had always wanted to be as ‘human’ as possible, denying any existence – or lack thereof – of their strange blood. Something I found extremely irritable. We didn’t even exist in human records; on their painfully narrow-minded maps and history textbooks, the town we lived in was a giant patch of forest bordering a weakling of a river. Why try to copy the style of a society completely unaware of our existence?

How did Yongguk put it? We’re all a bunch of ing frilly-sleeved posers.

I grinned. Precisely. Yongguk had never been very eloquent, of course, but he had a way of putting things that was brutally true – something no one else in our group of friends dared to do. Then again, none of us were quite as intimidating as he was.

Semi-consumed by my train of thought, I vaulted down the coil of stairs in the middle of the house, down the many – most of them unnecessary, really – floors until I reached the main foyer.

And was met by a barrier of flames.

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Haerin

            I woke up to the crisp smell of something burning.

            Unfolding myself from the rather uncomfortable and unnatural position I’d fallen asleep in on the couch, I shuffled stiffly into the kitchen. The fire alarm hadn’t gone off yet – it was rather untrustworthy, now that I thought of it – saving me from an otherwise inevitable headache as I turned off the oven, pinching my nose to prevent the smoke from infiltrating my lungs.

            The doorbell rang.

            Massaging a sore lump of muscle in my neck, I meandered over to the front foyer, nearly tripping over a pair of boots lying on the floor. As I approached the front door, my inner eleven-year-old told me dimly to check who it was first. I ignored it, relying once again on my dismal martial arts skills, and opened the door.

            “You skipped the therapy session.” Yunhyeong looked disappointed.

            Tendrils of guilt swirled in the pit of my stomach, but I ignored them as I raised an eyebrow at the obvious statement. “No, I’m projecting a holographic copy of myself there right now.”

            “You promised you’d try.” My best friend pressed, relentless. I supposed I deserved it.

            I racked my brain for an equally infuriating and shady statement as my previous one but came up empty-handed, left alone by my sarcasm to face the past that, no matter how fast or long I ran, always caug