March 18, 2015 – London 14:36

For the fourth time today Jongin’s phone rings violently in his coat pocket, but this time he clicks the volume button with his thumb to settle the noise and it switches to vibrate. He lets it ring out before he checks who’s called.

He’s no longer surprised.

It’s the same number as the other three times. Or at least he assumes so. It’s blocked, and the first two times he’d answered the call he’d only been met with silence and a faint static and ticking in the background that had caused him to call out hello in vain. The third time he’d simply listened for a minute or two in silence, but the only thing that seemed to come from the other end was a quiet electrical hum, as if from a machine.

So this time he’d let it ring through to voicemail and ponders whether four calls is enough to warrant a complaint for harassment.

But then again who could he complain to when he was alone?

So he shoves his fists deeper into his coat and tucks his chin into his turtleneck, fighting the tail-end of a brisk London winter, and he continues to wander the square. He sits for a minute at a fountain, the water turned off for the season, and removes a small camera from his pocket, snapping a few choice pictures of people who interest him. No one minds another “tourist” in their midst.

People don’t see Jongin. But Jongin sees them, and he smiles to himself when he captures their expressions, frozen in time in black and white in his photographs.

He’s scrolling back and forth between two relatively similar photos - a man’s expression as he approaches his girlfriend - when his spine tingles and he’s forced to turn around so quickly that he almost drops the small camera.

As if something had been thrown at him, he is suddenly aware that he is being watched, and he stands up and heads for the station. He hears the sound of a shutter click, as if from a camera, but the noise is eerie when the source is unseen. It causes him to pick up his pace.

All the way inside the Underground the feeling continues, but among the masses of people moving about at this hour he can’t pin point a specific violator. But he knows. He knows that he’s being watched, followed. And what’s more is that he can’t understand how he knows. He just does. He feels it.

A few trains come and go, but Jongin waits on the platform. He waits for the feeling to disappear and he thinks of nothing in particular, but goes back and forth between the dreams he’s been having this week, the dreams of the boy who tells him to run.

But then he hears the sound of the shutter again.

He opens his eyes and walks into the car, taking the train two stations over to stop at Piccadilly Circus, and he steps off. He knows by intuition that it’s better for him to be amongst crowds, but even as he weaves among the masses of tourists and Londoners he feels alone. Singled out and backed into a corner.

That sickening tingling sensation is spreading throughout his body, and he’s startled by his phone once again vibrating. The caller ID withholds the number yet again and suddenly it means something. Something clicks in his head between the shutter noises and the vibrating in his hand and the boy who keeps appearing in his dreams. Suddenly he needs to run.

So he takes off through the crowd, weaving and dodging people and cars as he darts across the streets and through alleys, running till he’s out of breath and standing on the roof of an unfamiliar apartment building. He’s hiding.

But he swears he hears the shutter snap once more and he looks out over the city, familiar landmarks along the skyline. He is alone up here, but he doesn’t feel it.

And when his phone vibrates again it’s only once. It’s a text. They’re coming, it reads.

The roof door creaks behind him.

And so for the first time of his own willpower, Jongin pulls and tears at the unseen void in front of him and steps out into the open air, slipping between spaces and vanishing in a wisp of black matter.

March 18, 2015 – London 15:01

 

 

 

 

March 19, 2015 – Barcelona 09:54

Zitao orders an espresso from the counter and sits at the corner booth just as he always does Thursday mornings before going to university, leaving the chair in front of him open to the cafe.

He is an early riser that likes to take his time embracing the morning atmosphere, flipping through the paper and watching those who come and go from the small café. The waiter brings his drink and he sips the dark liquid slowly, skimming the front page for interesting articles.

A small article in the corner denotes a supposed UFO sighting over the capital city two days ago and reports of flashing lights. He notes absentmindedly that it seems like something Junmyeon would like to read about, would blink his eyes in excitement until someone agreed with his theory, and then realizes it’s been some time since he’s spoken to the man.

His information on the elder nowadays seems to come through Sehun mostly, and then again they never talk about that much. That is when they do talk.

It’s when he’s thinking about the others that the light above his table flickers suddenly. He loses his train of thought when his heart starts hammering.

At first he notices the blood rushing and pounding in his eardrums, a dull thud that he at first can’t identify. He then notices the pain in his chest as his heart hammers against his ribcage. He has only a brief second to vaguely wonder if this is a side effect from too much espresso before the light flickers again and shatters, raining down glass from above.

In a fraction of a second he raises his hand to shield himself. Only, the glass doesn’t fall. It freezes in mid-air.

In fact, everything freezes.

Zitao stares at the shards hovering above him in wonder for a long time before he notices anything else is wrong. The café has become utterly silent. He turns his head to find figures frozen in place. The waitress paused as she wipes the counter, a man paused mid sip of coffee, another in the middle of typing into his laptop. Even the food the chef has flipped has frozen, hovering just above the pan.

And Zitao stares in amazement and confusion because he knows that this is his doing, that he has done this, but he has never done this before – his abilities had never reached such an extent - and he does not remember doing this.

He stands from his seat cautiously and taps a man on the shoulder as if hoping that the touch would reanimate him, but he remains in his seat, eyes staring off unknowingly.

It’s then as Zitao wades through the shattered glass that he sees the full extent of the problem. Outside the large window-like doors nothing is moving. No cars pass, people do not walk and birds don’t fly. Everything is stuck in its last moment and the silence is deafening. He panics.

Zitao pushes open the door and runs.

March 19, 2015 – Barcelona 10:10

 

 

 

 

March 19, 2015 – Arizona 15:22

Chanyeol wakes up under his old red fleece blanket on the couch in his living room, but he doesn’t remember having dozed off in the first place. The house is eerily silent with his roommates gone except for the quiet hum of the television in the background, a global news caster reading a grave report.

[BREAKING] Barcelona is still under lockdown after a massive bio-terrorist attack at around 10 AM this morning. The military set the entire city under quarantine just earlier today after it appeared that people seemed to have stopped in place – frozen in what the state says can only have been caused by a bio-chemical agent. First responders to this crisis were said to have entered the city only to freeze in place one minute later just within the perimeter. The police have now secured the area. There have been no official statements regarding the attack and no organizations are stepping up to claim this tragedy, but Spain and the surrounding nations remain on high terrorist alert in the coming hours.

Chanyeol tunes out the rest to concentrate on wiping his forehead as it drips in sweat.

It’s not hard to sweat in Tucson, where even in March temperatures can sometimes reach the low 90s in the afternoon. But Chanyeol’s had the air conditioning running all afternoon – much to the chagrin of his roommates – and the thermometer shows a steady 68 degrees inside the small home. So why is he so goddamn hot lately?

He thinks that maybe this has something to do with his fingers.

In the past couple weeks Chanyeol has noted something - well - strange that happens every once in a while. It all began on the 8^th, and he remembers it specifically because that was the same day his manager had pulled him off his shift so a man in a dark suit could speak to him about a job. Instead the interview had been nothing more than the man running his mouth and spouting nonsense about the coming end of the world. Chanyeol had excused himself as quickly as possible.

That had marked the day when he’d first burned himself.

When he’d returned to the grill he’d been agitated by the man. Chanyeol had always been a lover of peace and to hear that the world was going to end in a coming war upset him enough that he became clumsy – that is clumsier than usual.

He accidentally sloshed some grease around in his agitation and it ended up meeting the flame of the burner and roaring to life, engulfing the pan and more shockingly, his left hand.

He’d yelled out of shock and run to the sink to douse the wound in water, only to find that there was no pain, no burn, and no wound of any sort. He’d kept quiet the rest of his shift and left it at that.

Or that’s what he thought at least until a few days later when he’d accidentally created a spark by snapping his fingers.

From then on it was just experiments, holding his hand to a candle, snapping until the spark became a flame, engulfing his hands in the fireplace when no one was looking. He didn’t know what any of this meant or how he was doing it, but it always ended with him feeling flushed, hot, and then the feeling dissipating with a drop of sweat.

Only, in the past 24 hours the feeling hasn’t left, and Chanyeol feels like he’s fighting the worst fever of all time.

He gets off the couch and goes to the medicine cabinet where they keep a thermometer – one of those old-timey vials with the mercury inside - and he sticks it in his mouth. He watches the little red line rise to the top of the glass, where it builds and then suddenly explodes out the other end, dripping bits of glass and mercury onto the bathroom tile. He spits the remainder of the glass into the sink.

And suddenly Chanyeol decides he needs to go out – he feels that he has to right now - so he grabs his hat and heads outside, trudging through the thin strip of forest in his backyard that leads to the big empty lot with the old ruined house. Perhaps the fresh air will do him good.

The walk is only about a mile, but by the time he gets there he feels like the heat from his own body is going to kill him. The ground beneath him starts to spin and up is down as he falls on his back, passing out.

When he awakens his watch reads a little after 5 and the sun is low in the sky, the heat of the day is gone. But Chanyeol feels hotter than ever. As he sits up his heart thuds against his chest, hammering away painfully until he is sure he is going to die.

The heat builds and all Chanyeol knows is that he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want this thing to kill him. So he runs back the way he came, back into the forest in an attempt to reach civilization, to call for help, when he collapses onto the forest floor.

The heat is consuming him, and he is just wishing that he knew how to get it out when it’s gone. It’s suddenly out and there and tangible. The heat springs from his body in flames and alights everything it touches. Bushes and trees are consumed in flame all around him, their tongues lapping at his body but he feels nothing.

He feels nothing.

March 19, 2015 – Arizona 17:12

 

 

 

 

March 20, 2015 – Berlin 04:23

Minseok hasn’t been truly cold in a long time.

When he feels that icy-hot sensation begin to burn in his chest he lets it out a little at a time. But it only happens every so often now that he’s gotten older. He remembers when he was younger, back when he was still around the other children, the thing inside him was much stronger. The doctors at the school used to take him to a special room – training, they called it – where he did nothing more than release that pent up energy, sometimes freezing the entire room.

Now that he’s aged though the power has dissipated somewhat and sometimes he’s barely able to manage to freeze anything more than a few cubes of water for a glass of whiskey.

But yesterday had been different.

Yesterday the feeling had come on a bit stronger than it had in most recent years. He wondered if it meant something. He’d had to sit outside his apartment early in the morning and get rid of the power building up in him by methodically freezing the water flowing down the street and into the gutter.

This morning he’d forgotten all about it as he bounced along to the rhythm of the club, EDM music pounding through his chest and people enough to forget briefly that he was alone. People ask him throughout the night how he could possibly wear shorts in such weather, but even a temperature of negative fifteen Celsius doesn’t faze him anymore.

By about 4:30 the clubs begin to shut down and people start heading home, and Minseok drunkenly stumbles back through the streets towards his apartment. Once inside he climbs the stairs lazily, swinging around as he struggles to put one foot in front of the other, until he’s thrown off balance when a stranger – probably a neighbor – bumps into his shoulder and send him reeling against the wall of the stairwell. He feels a small sharp pinch in his arm that disappears almost instantly, and then continues climbing.

When he finally fumbles his keys into the lock and gets inside, he is exhausted yet finds himself wide awake. His attention turns briefly to the small metal top lying on the floor, a remnant of his childhood, and he gives it a small but calculated kick to send it spinning around the room.

He flops down onto the sofa, worn from years of constant abuse, and finally discards his headphones to the side, too lazy and too tired to think of shutting them off. But he does flip on the TV, and he groans when all that comes across the screen is static and clips of audio.

…Barce-…no new news…everything at a standstill today-….terrorist attack-…..Yesterday-…. Massive wildfire in Ari-….70 homes and 10,000 acres destroyed-… firefighters are still-…

He punches at the buttons of the remote but the other channels only make the static sound louder until it rings through the apartment and his ears.

The whiskey he drank before going out earlier is still sitting on the table, a sip or more left, and he takes the glass rim to his mouth slowly. But before the liquid even hits his lips that icy-hot sensation returns to his chest and fills his body in a way the drink never could. His body practically burns from the cold and he shivers feeling his heart race suddenly in his chest.

Suddenly the static of the TV is louder than ever and the image of a face flashes through the black and white snow. The glass in his hand begins to frost over and he drops the drink to the floor with a loud clang.

He springs from the couch and runs, the adrenaline over-taking his intoxication and allowing him to see clearly for the first time that night. The windows in the hallway outside are suddenly clouded with white and he knows that something has gone very wrong.

And when he forces open the door on the first floor it is to a wall of white - snow and ice rage down from dark grey clouds in sheets, covering everything and everyone.

March 20, 2015 – Berlin 05:07

 

 

 

 

March 21, 2015 – Edinburgh 15:11

Sehun is lost.

Edinburgh is still like unfamiliar territory to the student. Although he’s lived in the area the past three years for school, he’s never explored this particular borough. The house he’s looking for is somewhere on the streets around him, but his phone’s been messed up since a few days ago and navigating manually via paper map has never been his strong point.

He’s already late, and so he doubts that he’ll be hired to babysit again by this particular couple – they’d seemed pretty strict over the phone when they’d hired him.

He’s stepping off the curb to cross the street for what he hopes is the final time when he gets a call from Junmyeon.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Hun,” Junmyeon says steadily, but from the tone of his voice Sehun already senses that something is amiss. “I’m just-… How are you feeling these days?”

Sehun answers with a snort. “How am I feeling? …Well, fine I guess. Pretty lost, but I’ll manage.”

“So nothing’s wrong?” Junmyeon asks, and his voice wavers now. “There’s nothing different with you… or your ability?”

Sehun scratches the back of his head, looking back and forth between the house numbers in front of him. “No? Everything’s fine with me… Is something the matter with you? You’re being weird again.”

“No, no!” he rushes out quickly. “I just-… this guy came and interviewed me yesterday about my new book and ever since he left I’ve been feeling a bit sick. I think it might be just a bad feeling. Listen, have you heard from Tao lately?”

“No, why?”

“Well, you heard about Barcelona right?”

“Yeah, what’s that got to do with Tao? …You don’t think?”

“I’m not sure what I think. That guy brought it up with me yesterday and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Tao would tell us if something was wrong, right?”

“Duh, you know how whiny he can be. Plus, when has Tao ever had the ability to turn time past 30 seconds - let alone freeze an entire city for a few days? You worry too much, Junmyeon.”

“Maybe you’re right. I just-“

A man brushes past Sehun on the sidewalk in a hurry, bumping into his arm and causing his cellphone to crash to the ground with a crack.

Sehun curses and picks the phone back up, muttering about how this can’t possibly help the device, and notices that the house he’d been looking for is right next door.

Junmyeon is still talking somberly when he puts the phone back to his ear. “Junmyeon,” he interrupts. “I got to go. I’ll call you back in an hour or two after I’ve settled in with the kids.”

“Okay,” he barely has time to reply before Sehun is ending the call.

When he walks up to the front porch he’s rubbing his arm where the man hit him – it was sure to bruise – and he notices that the front door is slightly ajar. But when he goes to reach for the silver knob he sees double and it takes him a moment to grasp the thing in his hand.

By the time he steps over the threshold of the door, his heart is pounding and his head swims wondering why the door would have been left open with kids in the house. The floor beneath him seems to move as he calls out in a house he now suspects is empty, and his body swings from side to side in a rough attempt to steady himself.

When he turns the corner into the sitting room his head knocks into something – something that is floating. He sees two kids – or what he thinks are kids through his blurry eyes – sitting on the floor in front of him playing with toys, and toys… floating above him in mid-air.

He has no time to wonder what this means when a sharp whistling rings through his ears, causing his heart to pound loudly in his chest and that familiar feeling  of power to rise up within him. He hears a howling and brushes a hand against the windowpane as he looks outside.

In the distance he can see the dark clouds rolling and dirt picking up into the air and he knows with a sudden certainty that he must leave. He turns on his heel and almost trips on the hallucinations that sit on the floor.

He pushes through the front door with a wild lucidity and he runs into the raging wind.

March 21, 2015 – Edinburgh 15:25

 

 

 

 

March 23, 2015 – Marseille 07:30

Junmyeon’s alarm wakes him promptly at 7:30 AM like it always has, but for once he doesn’t want to get out of bed – or technically off the couch where he fell asleep last night. His body is sluggish, weighed down by a heavy weight that he recognizes as the manifestation of his abilities. The only problem is that ever since 3 days ago he hasn’t been able to manifest or move even a single drop of water.

And as usual, Junmyeon can’t stop thinking about the end of the world.

He thinks about the man who came to his house a few days ago and how strange that interview had been.

“Your newest novel is a thriller about the coming end of the world…Did these current events have anything to do with your inspiration for your new book?”

“…What do you mean?”

“I mean the forest fire, the terrorist attack in Spain, the massive blizzard in Germany…”

Junmyeon laughs awkwardly, “How could I have possibly written about that? Those things only happened a few days ago. No, I’ve just been really obsessed with that kind of thing since I was a kid. Well, I guess you can call it an obsession. It’s something that I’ve been unable to stop thinking about since elementary school.”

The reporter turns grave and leans forward, “Maybe in the back of your mind you always knew this day was coming?”

“…What?”

“So your main character will be—“

The rest of the interview went without any more strange questions, but the man seemed to be paying little attention to what Junmyeon actually said, and he made very little notes at all in his journal. When Junmyeon showed him out the door the man gripped his hand with both hands in a firm handshake that seemed to last just a bit too long for Junmyeon’s comfort. But other than that he really didn’t think much of the man.

What he did think about was what the man had said about the end of the world, or more specifically the terrorist attack in Barcelona.

There weren’t very many other freaks like he and the others in the world he supposed. And how many could possibly have the ability to control time? But Tao wouldn’t do something like that. No, Tao would call him – call Sehun if he was in trouble.

And so Junmyeon called Sehun for assurances, but now it has been two days and Sehun hasn’t called him back, and he’s only gotten through to voicemail when he’s tried to get a hold of the other.

And so Junmyeon is in a slump.

His powers to manipulate and form water had appeared many years ago, and as he’s grown older he’s gained steady control over his ability. So the sudden disappearance of it has him entirely at a loss. It’s not as if he used his ability on the daily, or that his abilities were strong enough to help other people like Yixing does. But they were his. And now he feels as if part of his soul is missing.

So he walks around his house in a slump, and explains away his tired body as depression akin to having a phantom limb, because he recognizes the feeling – the feeling of power building up inside him and the need to release it – but no matter how much he tries he just can’t do it.

It’s when he’s about to brush his teeth that something in him snaps.

He turns the knob on the sink but the water won’t run – it’s like a sign from the heavens. In frustration he slams the toothbrush back down on the counter and heads out his back door.

His yard isn’t closed off to the small forest behind his house, so he walks straight out into the shrubs that are dry and brown this time of year.

His house is on the edge of Marseille, really. Living in this rundown and abandoned part of town is all he can readily afford as a writer, but the country and its people are beautiful and it’s worth every penny to him.

He takes solace for a while in an abandoned factory before turning back and heading for home, completely lost in thought. He’s taking a shortcut behind a few houses and down an unfamiliar street when he comes across an old school – an elementary school by the looks of it. The old walls are dirty but underneath he can see the colorful chalk of children’s doodles and he reminisces back to a time when things were much simpler.

He walks around back to the old dried up pool and on a strange whim he jumps in. He thinks about life back in Los Angeles with his mother and the old bilingual elementary school he used to attend – the afterschool program where he would wait for his mother to get off work. If he thinks really hard he can remember playing with Sehun even though he was a bit younger than Junmyeon, and he knows in the back of his mind that Tao and Yixing were somewhere in that memory too.

But thinking of the pool they used to swim in and teaching the younger how to swim makes him think nostalgically about his ability and his heart starts to palpitate.

Only, his heart doesn’t stop thumping, and when he puts a hand to his chest he can feel it beating. There’s a sudden rushing in his ears that sounds like water, and then suddenly it turns into a roar. And the sound isn’t in his head anymore but it’s tangible and it’s coming.

Then suddenly water rushes from the ground over the edge of the pool and it heads straight towards him. But it’s not flooding wildly, it’s heading directly to him in a straight line as if he called it to him.

Something clicks in his head and Junmyeon does the only thing he’s known how to do with certainty. He s his hands forward and he controls the water.

The water rises up as if flooding and filling behind an invisible wall, and Junmyeon is glad he’s alone right now because he turns one wrist and drags it slowly to the side, watching as the wall of water turns into a single thick stream and rises in the air.

He drags it around his body until the water has formed a solid circle around him and then he raises both his hands slowly, dragging it up into the air, before bringing the water down with a loud splash.

The water fills the pool up to his knees and soaks his shoes and pants, but all he can do is laugh. He laughs in relief, but his heart continues to thump wildly because he knows that even in his wildest dreams he could never have controlled a body of water that big before.

And somewhere not so deep down he suddenly knows that that wasn’t even the half of it.

March 23, 2015 – Marseille 07:30

 

 

 

March 24, 2015 – Almaty 18:41

Jongdae is fuming.

Just two days ago he and his professor were working off a research grant way out in the deserts of Kazakhstan. Not only was this the research and possible discovery of a life time where their anthropological findings could change the very line of evolutional thinking, but it was also the basis of his doctoral thesis. So to find that his research had to be put on hold while his professor went home was outrageous.

To be fair, they’d gone back to Almaty initially to reestablish their connections with the outside world after Dr. Ivan had heard about the blizzard over the radio. But once they’d gotten to the city he’d found that his wife and kids were okay even though they’d been snowed in.

However despite that he’d insisted on returning to Germany for at least a week, and had sent Jongdae off to live in a youth hostel while he was waiting. And Jongdae just didn’t understand the reasoning. For all he knew, his professor could be stuck in Germany now until the blizzard subsided. And Jongdae had never been very patient.

He’d been – by his own volition - stuck inside the past two days catching up on field documentation in the case that his professor would return right away. But after two days of no word he’d finally closed up his binders of paperwork and had gone venturing into the city.

His feet were tired and his back was sore from bending over in the dirt for the past several months, so he wasn’t in the best of moods when he was approached outside the hostel.

“Kim Jongdae,” the man greets him.

He raises his eyes from the ground in wonder. “And you are?”

The man doesn’t answer but instead diverts his question. “I’m actually looking for your professor Dr. Ivan. Is he around? We’re old friends.”

“No,” Jongdae answers, jaw locked uncomfortably around the word. Then he remembers his manners. “He’s gone back to Germany for the time being it seems.”

“Ah, that’s too bad,” the stranger replies. “Well it was nice to finally meet you, Jongdae.”

“Uh, you too,” he mutters back, an eyebrow raised in question. He has no idea who this man is supposed to be or if he should know him.

The stranger holds out his hand expectantly and so Jongdae shakes his hand firmly, but the man grasps their hands with his other and shakes it a bit more aggressively.

They part ways after the short encounter but Jongdae doesn’t think much of it other than the fact that the stranger’s sharp grip seemed to bring about a round of queasiness. But he attributes that to the kabobs he ate at lunch time, and he is forced to throw up for a bit in the small bathroom on the third floor where he currently lives.

By the time he’s finished heaving all he wants to do is relax, and he doesn’t even want to touch dinner. He needs fresh air and he takes a few books with him before heading up to the roof-access stairs of the building.

Outside, laundry is swaying in the evening breeze and birds fly over. He takes in the almost three hundred and sixty degree view of the city before settling down in a corner to flip through some text.

But almost as soon as he sits down the bell of the church next door tolls loudly on the hour, and he shoots to his feet in sudden alarm. His surprise makes his heart begin to race, but even after the initial shock wears off it doesn’t slowdown in pace at all.

The ground suddenly is dark beneath him and when he looks to the sky for explanation he can see that dark grey clouds have rolled out of nowhere to cover the city. Lightning flashes suddenly in the distance and the ensuing thunder booms off the building around him.

His feet are glued to the floor. It’s as if he’s frozen watching the spectacle as lightning flashes closer and closer to where he’s standing until finally-

A jolt streaks across the clouds and strikes Jongdae directly. But he isn’t swayed or moved or even surprised. The energy descends to his toes with an audible crackle and he feels warmth spread to the tips of his fingers. It stays there until he raises his hands to look at them in wonder, and then lighting shoots from his outstretched finger, aimed carelessly over the rooftops.

He doesn’t know how he did it or how to do it. But he knows by instinct that he can do it again. He raises his fist to the sky and watches as lightning encircles his arm out of seemingly nowhere and then shoots straight up, booming towards the heavens.

Jongdae has never felt so alive nor so powerful.

March 24, 2015 – Almaty 20:01

 

 

 

 

March 24, 2015 – Lyon 05:56

The time traveler was supposed to be here.

According to the information the doctors had given to him at the lab, Huang Zitao was still living in Lyon. But Baekhyun’s been to his house and his last known whereabouts and he hasn’t found him.

But it’s early this morning as he’s sneaking out of the public records office that he hears the news playing from the security guard’s booth – that the whole of Barcelona seems to be frozen in place. And he realizes that of course the lab would have given him false information. They knew he couldn’t be trusted – knew he had been trying to reach out for help.

But he also realizes that this means they’ve gotten to Zitao, that without the serum the time traveler could never have manifested his powers so strongly. And Baekhyun realizes that the serum he’d stolen is useless to him now that Zitao had been activated.

He’s been on the run from them for almost a week now, and he’s been out of touch with the lab’s activities. But he can tell from the news that they’ve activated a few more of the children, and now he’s running out of time.

As far as he can tell they haven’t found the most crucial component yet. But now Baekhyun has a decision to make. Zitao has been activated, so someone is sure to be watching the city for him. But he needs the time traveler, especially now that he’s activated. He needs him in order to go back, to stop this all before it began. But if he can’t get to Zitao there is another option, although more difficult. If he can just find the space traveler, if he can just protect him, then the world won’t have to end.

The only problem is that the space traveler can be literally anywhere right now and at a moment’s notice. And Baekhyun hasn’t been able to see him for days.

Of course, all his problems could be solved if that stupid bald man would just come back. He has the power to move back and forth through time – to warn Baekhyun of the coming events and even show him the future – but he refuses to be anything more than an observer. So that’s what Baekhyun’s been calling him – the Observer.

The Observer could tell him where the space traveler was if he so chose it. But Baekhyun doesn’t even begin to pretend to know where to look for him. And he’s sure he doesn’t have much time left before they find him again.

So he has to decide now - go after Zitao in Barcelona and risk capture, or look for the space traveler.

Baekhyun is thinking deeply on his way back to the room he’s staying in, and he doesn’t notice the quiet streets grow darker and darker until a lamp above him flickers and pops, sending him into blackness.

He knows immediately that something is wrong and he takes out his cheap cell phone – the disposable he purchased at the drug store. The screen shorts out and Baekhyun drops the device to the ground. He recognizes all the signs and his instinct turns him on his heal to run back toward the light.

His adrenaline is pumping out of control because he knows that somehow they have found him here. With his heart racing he can physically feel the serum in his blood activating and for once he is glad. The lights of the city shut off one by one by his command, and Baekhyun can feel their power flowing into his body.

His boots are clacking loudly against the cobbled streets and he slams into walls with force as he hurries around sharp turns, winding his way to the city center. If he can get away, just for a few more days, then maybe things will work out.

But Baekhyun knows he’s never been that lucky.

So he hopes he can find somebody, a single witness to his inevitable capture. But he finds himself suddenly at a dead end and the black-iron gate in front of him won’t budge an inch even when he shakes it. He hears slow footsteps clack loudly off the cobblestones behind him and echo off the walls, growing louder with each step.

He turns around slowly and sees him approach out of the darkness of the city. Even beneath the bandages on his face Baekhyun can tell he is smiling.

Baekhyun summons the powers inside of him with all he can muster. His ability isn’t truly meant for confrontation, but the perks of being trained by a madman is that you learn all sorts of different things.

He’s changed, he tells himself. He’s no longer the little boy that cowered from bullies and had to be protected by his friends.

Baekhyun decides for once in his life that he is going to fight.

March 24, 2015 – Lyon 06:27

 

 

 

 

March 26, 2015 – Yunnan 21:49

Yixing has left one of the nurses to close down the clinic for the evening, and he takes off early on his bicycle, riding dreamily along the streets of China at night under hundreds of bright neon signs.

A man jumps in front of his bike suddenly and falls to the ground, causing Yixing to swerve. He helps the man back to his feet and apologizes profusely. But after a gruff nod the man continues running down the street without a second look over his shoulder.

He heads back to the ground floor of his home where an old man pays him rent to keep his tea shop there, and the old man lets him into the main café even though its after hours. Yixing has always liked the old man – he likes everyone generally, but this old man in particular was special. He’s treated Yixing like a son since he returned to China a few years ago even though they aren’t bound by blood, and Yixing has welcomed his kindness after being separated from his parents. He’s kind of like an extension of his family.

He serves the young man some tea and returns to the kitchen, cleaning up so he can return home for the night. And Yixing sits quietly with his headphones plugged in, drafting an email to send out to the staff of the clinic.

He may only be 25 years old, but Yixing’s abilities have brought him into the top position of a small clinic that is slowly gaining fame around the country for his “miracle hands”. Yixing’s never had formal medical training so he can’t work as a doctor, but people report that his presence alone seems to heal grave illnesses and injuries.

What the people don’t know, cannot know, is that Yixing actually does have the power to heal people. Ever since he was 5 or 6 years old Yixing’s hands have had the power to save a life, even raise those from the dead.

But with age Yixing has become wise, and he knows what his powers could be capable of. So to take responsibility for them he decides to help people – but to only help those who had no other way of living. In secret he heals the dying, but he no longer brings the dead back to life. He believes that god alone should have that type of power.

But he loves doing what he does. He loves to see their faces light up when they are healed. He loves to see families become happy again when their loved one’s illness disappears. He loves making a difference.

But Yixing has to step away from the clinic for a few days - maybe even a week.

Junmyeon had called him frantically a few days ago screaming almost excitedly about the coming end of the world. And Yixing would have just taken it kindly as another one of his friends rants had Sehun not also been there to explain his side of the story. And so they’d asked Yixing to meet them there, in Marseille, before setting off to find Tao.

Yixing has all but clicked send on his email when the lights above him flicker and die and his phone skyrockets in volume, blasting music and momentarily deafening his ears. He rips his headphones out as the screen of his phone flashes disturbingly with blinding colors and then dies. He stands from his chair, mouth hanging open in shock and slowly sets his tea cup back on the tray.

The restaurant is dark and Yixing calls out to the old man to see if he is okay but he gets no answer.

When he walks to the back of the store he can see a figure slumped down on the ground and he immediately drops to the floor, shaking the old man and yelling at him. When he doesn’t move Yixing doesn’t think, he simply places a hand over his chest and forces his power down through it.

But the heart stays still and Yixing is panting from wasted exertion.

So he jumps off the floor in a hurry and runs outside.

“Help! Please, somebody call an ambulance! He’s-!”

Yixing freezes. A woman lays sprawled across the sidewalk in front of him, eyes wide open and mouth slack. A few feet away a man has collapsed on top of his bicycle as if he’d simply died in the middle of riding.

Everywhere Yixing looks it’s like a horror film. People lie dead covering the ground. Even the grass that’s broken through the concrete sidewalk has turned brown and withered.

He starts to panic – hyperventilating. He can’t stop looking at his hands because he knows with certainty that he has done this horrible deed. He doesn’t know how many have died because of his hand, and he doesn’t want any more to die. He has to get away from here, away from people.

He gets back on his bicycle and goes far away.

March 26, 2015 – Yunnan 22:11

 

 

 

 

 

March 27, 2015 – Colorado 04:32

Kyungsoo knows implicitly that the time has finally come.

As soon as news of Barcelona’s “attack” had hit American cable a few days ago he had sensed that something was amiss. He knew that his dream had been more than a nightmare.

He had gotten up directly from where he’d been sitting on the couch and had gotten into his car, driving exactly 100 miles south into the great deep red rock canyons and then getting out amongst the cliffs.

The area is particularly off limits to those not of the Park Ranger service, but he knew no one would find him there – he’d make sure of it.

He rolled his head across his shoulders and felt the power of the earth below him even through the soles of his shoes, sensing the small vibrations of the rock almost as if it were living. Then taking a deep breath, he’d lifted the palm of his right hand upward and watched as rock rose from the ground, following his motion and essentially forming a total rock barrier around his car.

The formation looked a bit odd, but it certainly wouldn’t be noticed by plane or thought out of place if Rangers happened to pass by in a Jeep.

From there he’d descended into the canyon on foot with nothing but his person, spending the passing days in a rock formation he’d created by his own hand. And he thought about how simple it was, how easy creating it had been – just as the man had said.

The man had appeared out of nowhere in his kitchen one day a few weeks ago.

Kyungsoo had seen his reflection in the window in front of him, but he wasn’t afraid. He turned around slowly and fiound that the man was simply staring at him, watching him, with his head cocked to the side like he was thinking about something. Only his face told another story.

He was bald – maybe hairless if Kyungsoo judged by the fact that he had no eyebrows or eyelashes to speak of – and his skin was pasty white. He wore a fedora and a dark grey suit with a skinny tie, like someone who’d never left the 50s, and he talked so slowly it was almost painful.

His voice was monotone and soft, driven by practicality rather than emotion.

And he’d said that they needed Kyungsoo.

He’d taken a moment to respond. “Who needs me?” he’d asked, voice steady but fingernails gripping the counter behind him.

“I think… that you already know,” the man answered simply and Kyungsoo had gulped, because he did know. “They will not know how to find you…nor can they find each other, and this is… a mistake. I have seen every possible future… and I could see none that existed that did not involve you… So you must… find them first… to help them find the others. You must be…together.”

“And how will I find them?”

The man didn’t answer his question directly. “I cannot stop their activation… but I can control… yours,” he reached into a pocket hidden inside his jacket and pulled out a small black case, setting it on the counter beside him. “Use this…it will enhance your powers… It will make things…easy…And when the time comes… you must go to them.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes had followed the black case as he set it on the counter. “How will I know when the time is right?”

But his question had fallen upon empty air, because when he looked back up the bald man had vanished.

Inside the case was a syringe, and next to it was a vial of dark red liquid that looked as though it would just barely fill it. His heart was pounding as he drew the needle to his forearm.

There was no way Kyungsoo could trust the word of a man who had seemingly broke into his house to deliver some sort of drug. But inexplicably he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment. He’d always known he’d had a purpose, ever since he was small. It had been drilled into his head long, long ago.

When the serum entered his body seemingly nothing happened, at least for a few days. But then he’d had a nightmare, and as he ran in his dream his adrenaline pumped and coursed through his body, carrying the serum with it.

He awoke to loud rumbling as his house was almost torn apart as his powers surged out of control. But the years had given Kyungsoo mastery over his ability, and though somehow it was now different he managed to control the tremors.

He felt stronger than ever, and it was with a latent understanding that he knew he was. But something else ebbed on the back of his consciousness in the days that followed. It was like nine distinct little headaches and nudges that all had a feel, a flavor, to them. Nine, nine, nine, he never stopped thinking, like he was suddenly obsessed with the number. But another thought came to him, a memory of long ago.

It was ten that he’d always dreamed of. Ten that he’d been obsessed with since elementary school. He’d never known why until now, but he’d known it was important. It was as if someone had told him long ago and it was a memory he’d been trying hard till now to make sense of. If he included himself, then there were ten.

A few days ago he’d had the first dream of the others. He’d been running through the streets of London, chased by an unknown enemy, until he’d torn open the veil in front of him and slipped into blackness.

He hadn’t thought much of it until he’d had the dream about the coffee shop – the glass raining in slow motion from the ceiling – and then awoken to news of Barcelona the next day.

From then on he didn’t need the news.

In the canyon he tapped into the conscious sides of his dreams and watched as the forests burned down, the blizzard raged on, typhoons overtook suburban streets. He watched as a lonely man who looked strangely familiar controlled the water with his fists, and he watched as a student shot lightning back into the sky with a laugh and wild look on his face. He watched in horror as a young man ran through the streets from his captors and tried to fight back, only to be dragged away like a whimpering dog. And he watched as a man who wanted nothing more than to save people bring death with his very presence.

Then he wakes up.

He watches the sun rise above the canyon this morning with peace. He has watched nine lives and through it he has seen ten futures colliding. He returns home later that morning with a single purpose.

The nine headaches are throbbing in the back of his brain with more intensity than he’s ever felt them, and he knows without explanation the time has come.

When he gets home he rips the world map from his living room wall and throws it to the floor. He slides to the ground as well, his concentration aimed at the feel of those things nudging the back of his brain. His hands dig into the pockets of his pants, and he feels ten cool metal objects – small balls that he’s kept as a sort of token from the elementary school he used to attend. According to his mother he could never put them down, and he hasn’t been able to since that time, carrying them around like a strange reminder of something - but now he knows.

The balls are made from earth metals, and since he always has them on his person Kyungsoo knows them – feels them – like an extension of his body. As they roll from his hand over the map he consciously pores his energy into them, feeling as they shift and move according to the ten nudges, spreading over the world and stopping over certain countries.

Curiously, one of the balls rolls over the Atlantic, stopping in the middle and circling around continuously.

Kyungsoo ignores it for now, because two of the balls roll onto the United States, one landing in Colorado and the other stopping and circling the vicinity of Arizona. A quick search of news on his phone tells him that the fire from his dreams occurred just outside of Tucson.

He closes his eyes and he pictures the fire from his dream, and on the edge of his consciousness one of the nudges sticks out a little farther than the rest. He focuses on that nudge and it’s almost like he’s daydreaming, except that Kyungsoo knows he can’t make up this sort of thing.

It’s like he’s in another body the way he sees things, trudging slowly around a dimly lit room that has all the bland furnishings of a cheap motel. His perspective is higher than usual and his head turns to glance in the mirror over the dresser. His hair is brown with orange hues and his ears and his eyes are too large for their own good – this is not his own face. But beneath his eyes are dark circles of purple that indicate he hasn’t been sleeping, and he sighs before turning back to the door.

Kyungsoo watches his feet trudge towards the knocking on his door, and watches as his hand extends towards the knob. The door is pulled open slowly and Kyungsoo wants so badly to make this man turn his face upward so he can see but all he manages to glimpse is a pair of sleek black boots before his vision is abruptly cut off.

Kyungsoo is pulled back to reality with such force that his head reels for a moment.

He tries to find that particular nudge in his conscience, but it won’t step forward amongst the others. And the ball that originally sat on the edge of the US border over Tucson has started to circle wildly just like the one over the Atlantic.

There is no time to waste.

The balls fly back into his hands and Kyungsoo races his car out of the canyons and to the nearest big city with an airport. He must find the others before it is too late. It is his duty.

He must.

March 27, 2015 – Colorado 09:01