“Woohoo!” Chanyeol was way ahead of Kris now. The smoke he was emitting was making it hard for Kris to follow him.

“Chanyeol! Slow down!” Kris shouted at him, but he doubts the other boy can hear him. In frustration, he wills himself to speed up and he did. He zoomed forward in an instant, passing Chanyeol in seconds.

“Whoa, Krees! Way to go!”

Kris, surprised, willed himself to slow down, and he did. Chanyeol catches up with him.

“You have to have more control!” Chanyeol says. He was flying in circles around Kris.

“How do I do that?” Kris asked, obviously irritated by what the younger boy was doing and his comment.

“Well, I can see you’re nervous and apprehensive. If you want control, let that go! You can’t fly high if you have all that in your heart and mind weighing you down!” Chanyeol smiles at Kris before zooming down, through a big white cloud, until Kris couldn’t see him anymore.

“He’s right.” And with a sigh, Kris focuses his mind and dives down, following Chanyeol’s trail of smoke. Inside the cloud, he tried a couple of loop-de-loops and for the first time since he took off from that mountaintop, he was embracing his new power.

He dives down to escape the cloud’s confines and finds Chanyeol hovering in one spot, staring down at the land below them. For the first time, Kris and Chanyeol saw the geography of the world they were in. It looked like Earth. Mountains, fields of grass, forests, rivers, lakes. Everything was there. Only, deep inside, they knew they were not on Earth.

Kris floats towards Chanyeol.

“I followed you advice. I think I’m getting the hang of this.” Kris says.

“Hey, Krees. What do you think that is?” Chanyeol points downward. Kris follows with his eyes.

In the middle of a stony terrain, what seemed like red clouds were forming. Just seeing it made Kris feel like something bad was going to happen.

“You feel it, too, huh?” Chanyeol asked. He wasn’t his usual happy self.

“Yeah. We’d better steer clear from it then.” Kris glances one more time at the ominous clouds when something weird happens. His eyesight became clear. Clearer than ever. . Around the clouds, he could see stone pillars. 12 of them. And in the center were two boys. He recognized one of them immediately. Chen.

“Someone’s in my head!” Kai clutches his head and shakes it.

“What do you mean?” Lay steps forward.

“He’s calling my name… He says his name is… Luhan…” Kai breathes out.

“Luhan!” Lay says, surprised. “He’s a friend of ours!”

Kai looks at Lay, a look of discomfort in his face.

“Your friend? Why is he talking to me?” Kai asks, then he hears Luhan speak more.

Kai. We need your help. I’m with your friend, Sehun. I don’t know how you’re supposed to help us. But I know, somehow, that you can. Sehun’s mentioned to me…

Kai calms down a little when he hears Sehun’s name. He remains still, concentrating on Luhan’s voice in his head.

…that you can teleport. I think that’s how we’re supposed to get out of here. Please, help us.

Kai exhales loudly.

“What is it?” Tao asks. “What did he say? Is Kris with him?”

“Kai?” Baekhyun rests a hand on Kai’s back. He looks at his friend with concern.

Kai shakes his head at Tao.

“No. He didn’t mention a Kris. He said.. that they need my help.” Kai says. Luhan’s voice is gone.

“They?” Suho asks.

Kai nods. “Sehun is with him.”

Suho and Baekhyun’s faces light up.

“So all you have to do is teleport to them and bring them back here!” Xiumin chimes in. “Problem solved!”

“I’m not sure how I can do that. I don’t know where they are!”

“How’d you teleport from down there,” Suho points at the holes on the floor. “to up here?”

“I don’t know. I just thought of you guys. I was kind of excited to see you, and it just happened. I teleported.”

“Well, maybe you can think of your friend! Sehun, was it? And maybe your powers will do everything else!” Xiumin suggests.

“I’ll try.” Kai closes his eyes and focuses on an image of Sehun. After a few seconds, he disappears in a puff of smoke.

“That was easy.” Suho comments.

“I hope he gets to them, though.” Baekhyun adds.

“Well? Did it work?” Sehun asked.

“I managed to send him a message telepathically. I just hope he knows how to get here.” Luhan sighs.

“Well, there’s no use worrying about it. Let’s just wait, alright?” Sehun holds out his hand.

“I guess you’re right.” Luhan looks at Sehun’s open hand then takes it. Sehun leads him to the mattress and makes him sit down. Sehun sits beside him.

A moment of silence.

“So…” Luhan breaks the silence.

“What’s on your mind?” Sehun asks.

“That image of my friend, Chen. He’s in trouble. I can’t calm down until I know he’s safe.”

“Ah, right. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I’m glad you’re here with me or I’d have lost it.”

“Hmm.” Sehun hums. “Do you think you can let me see the image? I remember you told me he was with someone.”

“Yeah. I’ll try.”

Luhan closes his eyes and remembers the image of Chen surrounded by the red clouds. Sehun receives the image in his mind a moment later. Sehun gasps.

“That’s D.O.!” Sehun opens his eyes and grabs Luhan’s arm.

“I hope Kai hurries up or else…”

A puff of black smoke appears in front of them. Sehun lets go of Luhan’s arm and falls back onto the mattress. Luhan let out a silent ‘oh!’ in surprise. Kai was standing in front of them.

“Krees, what’s wrong?” Chanyeol looks at Kris with a worried expression. Something was wrong with his friend. “Kris?”

“Chen. He’s in trouble.” And without warning, Kris dives down towards the 12 pillars and red clouds.

“Hey!” Chanyeol shouts at him but he doesn’t slow down or stop. Cursing, Chanyeol follows Kris downwards.

Seconds passed before Kris was hovering above the 12 pillars, the red ominous clouds were all around him.

“CHEN!” Kris shouts down at his friend.

Chen and D.O. look up. They were both standing with their backs to each other.

“Kris, watch out!” Chen shouts his warning but it was too late.

Kris looks behind him and sees that a mechanical arm was heading straight for him. Before he could dodge it, it had wrapped itself around him. He realizes the arm had come from the red clouds. He felt his power was being drained. He tried to fly further up but was slowly floating downwards instead.

“Kris!” Chanyeol swoops down and fires a ball of fire at the arm, cutting it in half. Kris feels his power come back and flies upward, shaking off the bit of the arm that had grabbed him.

“Chanyeol?” D.O. exclaims as he sees his friend zooming around above them. He and Chen duck for cover as the fire ball made contact and exploded.

“Dee! Are you okay?” Chanyeol lands beside his friend and D.O. immediately puts his arms around Chanyeol. “Am I glad to see you!”

“Me, too, Dee!” Chanyeol gives his friend his usual smile, exposing most of his teeth.

“I’ve missed that!” D.O. exclaims.

“Really? Back home you always said you hated my smile!” Chanyeol says. Kris lands beside Chen and puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” Kris asks.

“Luckily, no. They haven’t made a move on me or D.O. so far. This was the first time they’ve shown any aggressiveness.”

The four of them stood in a circle, backs to each other, each one keeping an eye on the clouds of red around them. The clouds stirred but none of them attacked.

“Have you guys activated your powers yet?” Chanyeol whispers.

“Powers?” D.O. asks.

“Yes. Each one of us is supposed to have one.” Kris replies.

“You find your symbol, touch it, and say your power. That's how me and Krees activated ours.”

“How’d you know about all this?” Chen asks.

“Luck. It looks like we’ve all had our fair share of luck.” The four of them haven’t moved. “Have you seen any stone tablets with symbols on them?” Kris asks.

“No.” Chen shakes his head slightly. “We haven’t had much time to stray from these pillars. After we woke up, we sort of took our time trying to figure out what happened. After we decided we couldn’t ,we tried to explore a little bit, checking out the pillars, trying to look for clues.”

“The pillars had symbols on them.” D.O. adds.

“They do?” Chanyeol looks at his friend. The moment he did, a mechanical arm shot out of the clouds in front of him. With a quick move, Chanyeol shot another ball of fire. Collision then explosion. All four raised their arms in cover.

“Chen. You have to get to your symbol! I remember clearly you had the power of lightning. Back in my flat!”

“You were floating! That’s why you can fly now!” Chen adds everything up in his head and is slowly understanding now. It’s like a video game, he thinks.

“Dee, anything weird happen before you got here?” Chanyeol asked. His hands were covered in flames.

“Yes. The earth, it started to move. There were mini tremors and the earth started breaking up.”

“Earth, huh. Not bad. I’m fire!” Chanyeol says.

“I can see that, Dr. Obvious!” D.O. says with a laugh.

“We need to find your symbols.” Kris looks at the pillars surrounding them. With his improved eyesight he spotted an hourglass symbol on one pillar. A snowflake symbol on one pillar. A scorpion like symbol on one pillar.

“There! The one to my right. There’s a scorpion on it. It must be for Earth!” Kris exclaims.

“How am I supposed to get up there!?” D.O.’s eyes turn into big circles as he looks at the pillar, spotting the tiny symbol of a scorpion near the top.

“I can hoist you up there.” Kris proposes. “Chanyeol can be backup.”

“And me?” Chen asks.

“Crap. This is going to be difficult.” Kris’ brows furrow. How were they going to get out of here unscratched?

A puff of black smoke appeared in front of Chen, surprising him and making him jump back, pushing the other three back as well.

“Whoa!” Chen exclaims. Kris, Chanyeol and D.O. look at the puff of smoke. The smoke disappears to reveal three boys.

“Luhan!” Kris and Chen exclaim at the same time.

“Kai!” D.O. exclaims.

“Sehun!” Chanyeol adds.

“No time for a friendly get together guys!” Sehun says, turning around to face the red clouds and sending a strong gust of wind towards them. Half of the clouds were blown a few feet away. The wind blew away the red clouds and revealed that hidden inside the red cloud-like substance were mechanical spheres. Luhan stands in front of Chanyeol and raises his hands. Four of the spheres were lifted off the ground. Chanyeol steps in and shoots flames at them, disintegrating them to bits.

“Thanks.” Luhan says with a smile.

“No problem.” Chanyeol blows on his finger, pretending it was a gun.

Kris looks around and assesses the situation. There were more or less 10 more spheres. The ones that were blown away by the wind had started to recover. He took this chance and grabbed D.O. from the back and flew towards the pillar with the scorpion symbol.

“Hey!” D.O. exclaims.

“Luhan, Chanyeol! Cover me!” Kris says, zooming overhead them.

“What’re you doing! We have to get out of here!” Luhan shouts at Kris, then returns his attention to the shrouded spheres. Two had fired their mechanical arms at Kris. Chanyeol shoots at one of the arms, stopping it. Luhan creates a psychic wall between Kris and the arm, blocking its path.

“Hurry! Touch the symbol and say your power!” Kris instructs, hovering in front of the scorpion like symbol.

D.O. reaches out his hand and covers the symbol with his hand.

“Earth!”

He removes his hand. Nothing happens.

D.O.’s eyes turn into wide circles once again.