Chapter Four: The Gathering

They needed to take a train to get to the Northern Sanctuary. For Tao and Kris, it was their first time on a train. Lay and Lu Han took one to get to the Southern Sanctuary, and Tao and Kris bombard them with questions.

“Does it go any faster?”

“What makes it run?”

“What if it went off the track?”

They couldn’t answer most of the questions, but the four of them had fun making up their own answers. It distracted them from how terrified they all were.

They’d heard that the North was very different from the South. For one thing it was much colder, and for another it was a great deal more sophisticated. The South was where all the farms were, since it was more suitable for growing foods. The North was where the largest cities were, with buildings that extended into the sky and noisy crowds—not that they’d get to see any of that, since the Sanctuaries were secluded, but the other Guardians would have grown up in that environment. How would they be welcomed, if at all?

They were all terrified anyway when they got off the train, and the first thing the realized was that the books weren’t kidding when they said the North was cold. It was the first time any of them had ever seen snow, but they didn’t enjoy it at all. Even with extra cloaks and fur-lined boots the four of them were shivering. The Matrons who came to fetch them from the train were sympathetic and promised them that the sanctuary would be much warmer, but the carriage ride there was agonizingly slow, as the horses couldn’t move as fast when the ground was covered in ice and slush. By the end of it Tao and Lay were near tears because they felt so miserable, and Kris and Lu Han weren’t holding up very well either.

“I wish we didn’t have to come here,” Tao whined. He’d thrown himself into Kris’ lap the moment they’d gotten in the stupid carriage, and Kris could feel him shivering. “Why can’t everyone just come to the South? It’s warmer and nicer and we have food that doesn’t have to be preserved and brought in on trains and in cans!”

Kris didn’t bother to try and shush him. He was wondering the same thing himself.

They practically raced in the Sanctuary, which was warmer—though they kept their heavy sweaters on anyway because it was still colder than what they were used to. They were told that the other boys were still in their lessons, which Kris found just rude. Whenever they had important guests at the South, they had been required to greet them even if they arrived during class time. Would a thirty minute break really have been such a horrible thing for the learning process? But this wasn’t exactly the most polite thing to say when just walking in someone’s front door.

They were taken to a dining hall and given warm drinks and some kind of bread, but it all tasted different and they were so nervous that they could only force down a few bites. Then they were taken to meet the Master of the Sanctuary…only it turned out that he wasn’t alone.

“Good afternoon, boys,” the Master greeted in a gravelly voice, and eight heads whipped around at once to stare at them.

“Well, that’s nice,” Lu Han muttered sarcastically. Kris also thought a bit of warning would have been nice—even just a casual “Oh yeah and the rest of your generation of Guardians are gathered there too.” They were standing against the wall on the right of the room, and they were all blatantly staring at the four of them. Kris squared his shoulders and stared right back, easily identifying the leader—he didn’t seem to be the oldest, but his body language was completely different from the others. He held himself in such a way that he seemed to be ready to fling himself in front of the other boys if he needed too. He’d clearly been a leader a lot longer than Kris had. The youngest was also easily identifiable, and he seemed even younger than Tao. He still had a round baby-face and an innocent look about him, and he was holding hands with the two boys on either side of him.

The Master cleared his throat and everyone directed their attention back to him.

“Don’t worry, you’ll all have time to get to know each other later.”

Though his voice was rough with age, the Master spoke in a clear manner, which Kris hoped the other boys possessed. Technically there was supposed to be only one language on their planet, but the North and South had vastly different dialects. They’d studied the Northern in lessons, but they were nowhere near fluent in it. For Kris it had been especially hard, since in his village they’d spoken two languages—the Southern dialect and a language that wasn’t even close to anything spoken on the planet. It had evolved several hundred years ago and was supposedly similar to a language found on a planet in another galaxy. Either way, none of the kids from this side of the planet spoke it, and as the leader he was at a severe disadvantage.

The Master continued, “You’ve all been given three days off from lessons to get acquainted.”

The other boys looked ecstatic at this news. Kris and Lay exchanged looks of disbelief. Three days? That was nothing.

“And I would like to take this time to personally introduce the two boys who will be joining the Southern Guardians.” The Master stood up and beckoned two of the boys forward. “Chen and Xiu Min will train specifically to work with the Southern group in their duties.”

Really the divide between the groups was a joke—it was mostly a time share thing. The Guardians were not only responsible for the Tree, but for the people of the planet. Mostly that meant that they heard Court cases which couldn’t be resolved by Village leaders and the like. Southern and Northern Guardians were supposed to take turns hearing cases and caring for the tree, but it wasn’t like the groups were ever really separated for long.

Lay kicked Kris in the shin and snapped into leader mode, bowing to the two. “It will be an honor to work with you,” he said, making sure to speak slowly and clearly. Then he turned to the other six. “It will be an honor to work with all of you.”

The Master smiled. “Flawlessly polite,” he proclaimed. “Maybe you can teach this bunch of ruffians a lesson.”

Kris knew that he, Tao, Lay and Lu Han were all thinking the same thing. Huh?

The Master stood up and waved his hand at them. “Alright boys, let’s all be good, yes? Suho, show them their rooms and then take the rest of the day for a tour. And be nice,” he warned as he walked over to a side door (probably leading to his personal room). For an elderly man he sure moved fast, and before Kris could even figure out what was happening, the Master was gone and the twelve of them were alone. There were a few seconds of the most awkward silence Kris had ever experienced before the leader—Suho?—cleared his throat.

“So…um…” he clearly struggled to hide his accent. “I guess we should…get going.”

They filtered out into the hallway and the youngest boy from the Northern group scurried over and grabbed hold of Lu Han’s hand, yelling something from which Kris only understood “Pretty.” Suho sputtered while the other Northerners seemed torn between amusement and embarrassment.

“What did you say?” Lu Han asked. The little one beamed up at him and said nothing. Kris looked at Suho, who was clearly flustered.

“Uh, that’s Sehun, he’s seven. And…he said ‘I want to walk with the pretty one.’”

There was a half second of stunned silence and then Lu Han gasped. “Really? He thinks I’m pretty?” He squealed. “Oh that is so cute! That’s totally precious!”

He spoke so fast that Kris barely understood him. When Suho looked at him for a translation, Kris just shook his head.

“Don’t worry,” he told Suho. “Lu Han thinks he’s adorable.”

Suho grinned. It seemed as if the ice had been, if not broken, at least cracked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kris grouped them all by age in his head. Xiu Min was 11, same as himself and Lu Han. Suho and Lay were both 10. Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Chen were 9. Kyungsoo and Tao were the same age-8, and Kai and Sehun were the babies, both 7 years old.

Over the first three days he learned that Kai and Sehun were attached at the hip, and for whatever reason Sehun thought Lu Han was the greatest person on earth and followed him around like a baby goose followed its mother (which Lu Han found unbearably sweet). Kai took to following Lu Han around by default since he never allowed Sehun out of his sight. Lu Han and Tao were supposed to share a room, but Sehun and Kai were in there so often that Tao offered to switch rooms with them. More often than not Tao wound up in Kris and Xiu Min’s room anyway, so it hardly mattered.

Xiu Min roomed with him and Chen roomed with Lay, as a way for them to learn to work together and hopefully establish stronger communication. Kris didn’t mind since Xiu Min was neat and quiet. Or at least, he was around Kris. Otherwise he was also very bubbly and cheerful. Chen was shy but smiled a lot, Chanyeol smiled at everything that moved, and Kai smiled and pouted like it was a sport and he was number one. Kyungsoo always looked like he had no idea why he was where he was, Suho acted like he had everything under control when it was obvious he was just as clueless as Kyungsoo, and Kris was still trying to work out what was going on with Baekhyun, who disappeared for hours at a time and nobody seemed to know where he went.

Once Kris got over how cold it was, he began to appreciate the Northern Sanctuary, if only for the vast library. Back in the South he’d practically lived in the library and he had read every single book they had. Kris was greatly interested in planets outside his own solar system, and the South had a very small collection of works about those other systems, but the North had thousands, and Kris was determined to read them all.

He wasn’t the only one who took to lurking in the library though. When Kai wasn’t with Sehun he was in the library, and he seemed drawn to all the medical books. For a seven year old, Kris found that very impressive. Chanyeol was another one who came to the library often, although Kris was beginning to wonder if that was more to do with the boy’s fascination with him than his desire to read. In the first week, when Kris wasn’t in lessons he was in the library trying to find places that Chanyeol couldn’t find. It’s not that he disliked the kid, it was just weird being followed like that.

Kris also found himself spending more and more time reading the biographies of the other Guardians who possessed the gift of Flight as he did, because it was the only way he learned anything about his gift. He knew that when his bones hollowed out it would hurt; he’d been living with a constant ache in his body for the last three years. Maybe it was because he missed the South so much, but the pain had gotten progressively worse since he’d arrived and he had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t supposed to be that bad. It went beyond an annoying ache, it was to the point where he couldn’t concentrate in his lessons because his body felt like it was being cleaved in two. He wanted answers, but he was never satisfied.

On the eighth day since their arrival at the North, Chanyeol tracked Kris down in the Medical section of the library. Kris was sitting on the floor with a book in his lap, holding his head in his hands and willing his eyes to focus.

“You look pale,” he heard. Kris looked up at his not-so-little shadow.

Chanyeol wasn’t smiling. It was the first time Kris had ever seen him look so serious. “Maybe you should go see the Healers.”

Kris shook his head but stopped quickly since it made pain shoot through his brain and down his neck. The feathers on his wings even seemed to hurt.

“I don’t need them,” Kris tried to assure him. He stood up and swayed on his feet. “It’ll go away just as soon as I…”

He never got to finish his sentence. He later found out that he’d dropped to the floor in a dead faint and Chanyeol had barely managed to keep him from cracking his skull open on the stone floor.

Kris woke up a few hours later in the Healer’s room with Suho and Chanyeol sitting next to his bed. He had one moment of clear thought before the pain came back to him. He squeezed his eyes shut and Suho stood up, saying something about getting a healer. Kris grabbed hold of his wrist and looked Suho dead in the eye.

“Don’t let anyone in here.”

Suho looked startled and Kris held on tighter. “I mean it,” he whispered, his voice already laced with pain. “I don’t want them to see this.”

Kris saw the look of understanding on Suho’s face as he realized what, or who, Kris was referring to.

“Don’t worry,” he assured, patting Kris’ hand. “I’ll tell them you’re asleep.”

Kris loosened his grip on Suho. “Don’t leave them alone, especially not Tao. He’ll try to sneak away.”

Suho nodded and stood up. “I’ll watch them for you.”

Kris let his arm fall back on the bed and he shut his eyes. The exchange had taken less than a minute but it had sapped his energy. He had a nagging thought that he’d forgotten something very important though…

Oh. Right.

He opened his eyes again. Yep, the shadow was still there.

“That includes you,” he muttered through clenched teeth. If he started crying or something he didn’t want any witnesses, but Chanyeol stubbornly grabbed the arms of his chair.

“I’m staying right here,” he said firmly.

Kris glared at him. Chanyeol held his gaze.

“Why? Who put you up to it?” Kris finally asked.

Chanyeol looked away. Kris shut his eyes, figuring he’d won, but a minute later he felt someone take his hand.

“Nobody put me up to it,” Chanyeol told him. “I’ve been where you are right now.”

Kris opened his eyes halfway. “What?”

Chanyeol wasn’t looking at him. “I have the gift of Fire,” he explained. “It’s made my body temperature sky rocket.” He looked up then, and Kris saw remnants of pain in his eyes. “Do you know how much it hurts when your body is literally burning?”

Kris’ bones felt like they were on fire. “I guess it feels like this,” he muttered. The pain flashed white hot and he bit down on his lip to stop a scream. When it faded he realized he was digging his fingers into Chanyeol’s hand.

“Sorry,” he said. Or tried to say, but came out more like a pained whimper. Chanyeol shook his head.

“It’s okay. You can squeeze harder if it gets really bad.”

Kris was pretty sure he heard Chanyeol’s fingers crack several times over the next few hours, and to his credit Chanyeol never pulled his hand away. Kris apologized whenever he thought it appropriate. After about the sixth time Chanyeol told him to cut it out, but Kris shook his head.

“It keeps me from getting too wrapped up in my own pain,” Kris told him. But he did stop apologizing after that.

As the night progressed it got even worse, with flashes of intense, black-out inducing pain becoming more and more frequent. The Healers were at a loss for what to do and all they could really do was give him crushed herbs that would reduce the pain, but the stuff tasted horrible on a normal day, and in Kris’ state he couldn’t keep it down. Finally they said that he’d just have to ride it out.

Kris kept expecting to wake up from the blackouts and find Chanyeol gone, but of course he was always there. The farthest he moved was from the chair onto the bed, and that was because Kris told him to lie down or he’d probably faint. After that he woke up to Chanyeol’s hair in his face, but really it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Around dawn Kris finally fell asleep—well it was either that or he fainted. He was knocked out for almost the whole day, and when he woke up the sun had set, pain was gone and Chanyeol was sitting next to him eating a plate of cookies.

“They were supposed to be for you,” he said. “But I got hungry.”

Kris stared at him in shock. “I can’t believe…” but he stopped. For some reason, he could actually believe that Chanyeol had stayed with him the whole time. That was just the kind of person he was, the kind of person they all were. What he felt for Tao, Lay and Lu Han—that was what all of them felt for each other.

Kris was informed that Suho had not left Tao’s side through the whole ordeal, and he even let Tao sleep in his bed. Apparently Tao had been quite the wreck—Kris was the closest thing to a brother—to a parent really—that Tao had, and knowing that Kris was suffering was a special kind of torture for him. For all of them, but Lay and Lu Han were much better at dealing with such things. Tao was sensitive, and he wore his heart on his sleeve, so he was the one who wound up bursting into tears at dinner. Kris was also informed that all of the other Guardians were so worried for Tao that they spent the whole day thinking of ways to distract him and keep him in a productive mood. That was where the cookies had come from.

“It worked both ways,” Chanyeol said, spraying crumbs all over the place. “It was a distraction for everyone and also a ‘Get Well Soon’ gift for you.”

Well after that, there was no going back to awkward glances and short conversations, for anyone. The event pulled them together in ways they couldn’t have imagined. They’d practically been hardwired to love each other; all Guardians were. When you were fated to live together for eternity, the Tree took extra care to make sure you’d all get along. Now the feeling had clicked between the two groups, and it was hard for any of them to imagine life apart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That wasn’t to say that there weren’t times that Kris questioned how the lot of them could have grown up on the same planet. The Master hadn’t been kidding when he’d called the Northern kids “a bunch of ruffians.” They were loud, hyperactive, snarky and disobedient. Only with each other though; never with the teachers or anyone else. The funniest thing had to be when they tried to meditate as a group for the first time. At one point Kris had felt like he was being watched and he opened his eyes a bit to find himself and the other three Southerners the subject of disbelieving stares.

“How do you do that?” Chen demanded.

“It’s easy,” Lay insisted.

“It’s not,” Kyungsoo retorted. “We’ve never been able to get through more than fifteen minutes of this!”

Meditation became more like teasing time then, with Kris, Tao, Lu Han and Lay bragging about how easy it was and how relaxed they all felt at the end of it, and everyone else muttering about “crazy Southerners and their hippie attitudes.” They had no idea what a hippie was, but it didn’t matter.

The times when they trained to use their gifts were much more fun. Kris especially enjoyed watching Chanyeol manipulate fire—it was fascinating to him. Similarly, Chanyeol was mesmerized by Kris’ wings.

“When the Matron came to test my affinity, I almost picked the Wings,” Chanyeol admitted once. “They were so pretty…I only picked the fire crystal after she told me to look at all the other things there.”

Kris was stunned. “I almost picked the fire crystal,” he confessed.

They asked the others if they’d had trouble picking out their affinity object during the test, but all of them said no, they went right to their respective objects. After that, Chanyeol and Kris came to a mutual decision not to talk about it again.

When the lot of them weren’t training, meditation or learning, they would go exploring in the forest behind the Sanctuary. The North may have been the industrial area, but there seemed to be one undisturbed mountain left, and the Sanctuary was built on it.

They had to avoid the woods during the coldest months, since the snow and ice made everything slippery, but once the snow melted and the runoff stopped, they would spend hours hiking. They always turned back at about the halfway point though; or at least they did for the first few years.

It was about two weeks after Kai’s tenth birthday, and it was the first nice day they’d had in a month. They had barely waited to be dismissed from their lessons before they were rushing out of the Sanctuary. The air smelled so fresh, and the woods were so alive that when they got to their usual stopping point they all agreed that it was too nice to go back and be cooped up inside studying, so they kept moving forward, Kris and Suho in the lead. They didn’t talk much, as it got steeper along the way and they needed to save their breath. The trees got thinner and the ground grew rocky, there weren’t as many birds up there, and it was quiet save for their heavy breathing.

After about an hour of intense climbing, the ground flattened. Suho was clutching his sides and everyone was winded.

“Let’s take a break,” Suho panted before he collapsed on the ground.

They all collapsed flat on their backs and stared at the clouds while they waited for their pulses to calm. They were sweaty and hot, but even lying flat they could feel a cool breeze. After a minute Kris felt his eyelids grow heavy, a glance to the side showed Tao already asleep. Kris shut his eyes and allowed himself to drift off. He thought it would be nice to stay here forever—it was so peaceful and nice, the breeze was cool and the sun was warm, and it was nice and quiet…

It was too quiet.

Kris was overwhelmed by a sudden sense of wrongness. This whole situation wasn’t right—it was too quiet, too cold and he felt a prickling on the back of his neck like he was being watched. He threw himself upright, across from him Suho did the same. Around them eight boys were out cold. Only eight.

“Where’s Kai?” Suho gasped, looking around wildly. Kris looked too and his blood ran cold when he realized who else was gone.

“Where’s Tao?!” He screamed, jumping to his feet. The others started to rouse, but Kris paid them no attention. His wings were twitching, the feathers ruffled up like they did when he was afraid. He turned in a circle.

“Tao! Kai!”

He saw them then. They were fifty feet away, off the path and walking into the trees. They didn’t turn around, they didn’t stop. Something was definitely wrong.

Kris ran to the edge of the path and teetered on the brink between the grass and the rocky path. He didn’t want to cross it, he had a bad feeling about crossing it.

“Both of you get back here now!” He hollered. They froze.

“Kai! Tao! I know you can hear me! You come over here!”

They turned to face him and he stumbled back. Even from this distance he could tell that their faces were totally blank. There was no sign of recognition, of any emotion at all…they almost didn’t even look alive. They looked like dolls.

Suho started yelling as well. “You need to come back! This isn’t right, we need to go!”

The two of turned around and started walking again. The moment seemed to freeze as they each prepared to put their foot down. Kris felt panic strangling him, stealing his breath.

“Don’t!” He and Suho screamed as they watched their friend’s feet touch the earth; or what had been earth and was now air. It took less than a second for the hole to appear and swallow the pair of them.

Kris flew into the woods, all thought of staying on the path gone. He heard Suho crashing through the shrubbery behind him, and part of Kris wondered if they too were in danger of being swallowed. Then he heard screams from the pit and forgot that fear too.

He skidded to a halt at the edge of the opening. Tao was clinging to a root about ten feet down, and he had grabbed Kai by the hand. Tao looked up and Kris saw the raw fear in his eyes.

“I can’t hold on!” Tao screamed up at him.

“It’s okay,” Kris called down, even though it was anything but okay, “I’ll get you out of there!”

Suho was next to him now. “What do we do?”

Kris surveyed the situation quickly. He couldn’t see the bottom of the pit- it was all a black mass, he had no idea how deep it was but if one or both of them fell, they would probably not survive. He needed to get Kai out first, since there was no way that he could pull them both out at the same time.

Kris felt a tug on his sleeve and saw Sehun standing next to him. “I’ll create a draft,” he said. Kris could see that he was afraid, but he was willing to do what he had to in order to save his brother.

Kris nodded. “Wait until I give you a signal that I’ve got them.” He looked around at the others who were now gathered around. “Only me, Suho and Sehun need to be here, the rest of you go back to the path and stay there.”

He didn’t even wait to see if his orders were followed before he leapt off the edge, his wings springing open and catching the air. He managed not to fall too fast; flying down was hard, but hovering was something he could barely do, and he was now trying to hover next to Kai, who was scared out of his mind and not keen on letting go.

“It’s alright,” Kris soothed as he held Kai’s arm, “I won’t drop you I promise.”

Kai was shaking and honestly Kris had no idea if he could carry him, even with Sehun’s help. Kai seemed to know that.

Kris flew closer. “Kai you have to let go,” he commanded. Kai shook his head.

 “Kai!” Sehun yelled. “It’s okay, I’ll help you!”

Kai shut his eyes and let go of Tao’s hand.

“Now!” Kris yelled to Sehun as he wrapped his arms around Kai’s torso. The draft came suddenly and shot the two of them out of the pit. Evidently Sehun was more powerful than they’d known. Kris literally threw Kai at Suho and then he jumped back into the pit to get Tao.

“Come on,” he urged, holding his arms out. “It’s your turn.”

Tao wasn’t looking at him. He was staring down into the pit.

“Tao, come on!” Kris pleaded.

Tao looked up at him and Kris felt the air leave his lungs. The fear in his eyes was something Kris had never seen before. It went beyond fear of falling, of even death.

“I can hear it,” Tao gasped. “It’s speaking.”

Even though every cell in his body was screaming at him not to do it, Kris looked down. The blackness that he’d thought was just shadow was moving. Whirling, twisting, coming closer to them.

And it was speaking.

Kris didn’t even think to signal to Sehun before he grabbed Tao off of the root and shot out of the pit himself. He didn’t think about the strain on his wings, he didn’t worry that the weight would be too much. All he knew was that they needed to get out of there, now—out of the pit, out of the woods, back to the Sanctuary.

Kris dropped Tao on his feet and immediately pushed him back towards the path.

“Run!” He screamed. He glanced around and started pushing everyone within his reach away from that thing in the pit. “Run, go! Get out of here!”

Suho grabbed Kai and Sehun and took off. Kris grabbed Tao’s hand and yanked; the two of them raced through the undergrowth. Back on the path the remaining boys were half turned towards the path back down.

“Go!” Kris screamed as they neared. “Get away from this place!”

They didn’t need to be told twice. Every one of them practically slid back down that mountain; they did not stop, they did not look back. Even so it seemed to take forever to get out of the woods, and Kris started to fear that they would be trapped with that thing. Just when he thought that it was hopeless to keep running, he burst through the trees and into the clearing behind the Sanctuary.

He heard thuds as eleven boys fell to their knees, panting and in some cases sobbing. Kris skidded to a halt and bent over, retching. The back of his throat burned, tears stung his eyes, and he could barely force himself to inhale because his chest hurt so much. He wondered if he was having a heart attack. Or maybe even a panic attack.

He felt a hand on his back and nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Easy, it’s just me,” Suho panted. Kris looked over at him and tried to say something, anything, but all that came out of his mouth was a weak wheeze.

Suho put his hands on Kris’ shoulders. “Breathe,” he commanded. “Inhale, count to three and then exhale.”

Kris forced himself to obey; Suho did the exercise with him. After a few minutes his pulse slowed and the ache in his lungs went away. Kris nearly collapsed against Suho’s chest.

“Is everyone here?” Kris asked. Suho nodded.

Kris looked over his shoulder. The other boys were still hunched on the ground. Or, well, eight of them were. Tao and Kai were clinging to each other and trying to stop crying.

Kris hauled himself to his feet and made his way over to them. He crouched down in front of them and put one hand on each of their shoulders. Like he had, they flinched away from the initial contact.

“Are you guys okay?” He demanded. “Did you get hurt?”

Kai shook his head. Kris looked him in the eye.

“What’s your name?”

Kai jumped. “Kai,” he said.

“And how old are you?”

“Ten.”

“What is your gift?”

“Teleportation.”

Kris repeated these questions to Tao, and he answered them all correctly. Then he made them stand up, and he checked their arms, legs and backs. He didn’t feel and breaks, and they said they felt no pain. Suho went around checking the other boys over. Once they established that everyone was in good physical condition, Kris allowed himself to think about what had just happened.

First, there was an initial flash of fury—directed at himself. Why didn’t he make everyone turn around at the halfway point like usual? Why did he have to fall asleep? Why did the two of them wander off of the path?

Then the fury was directed at Kai and Tao—how could the pair of them have been so stupid as to wander away by themselves? The anger then faded as quickly as it had come when he remembered the blank looks on their faces. Then, bit by bit, he went over what had happened and was left feeling totally confused. Why had he fallen asleep? He’d been tired, yes, but not that tired. And wasn’t it strange that every one of them had been asleep at the same time? Why had it been so damn quiet up there? What had compelled them to go to the top? And what was that thing at the bottom of the pit?

The whole thought process took maybe fifteen second, and Kris wasn’t able to dwell on any of it for long because Tao started sobbing in earnest.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered, clinging to Kris’ sleeve. “I-I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry, I don’t know…”

Kris’ initial anger returned and for the first time in his life, he wanted nothing more than to slap Tao across the face. He’d nearly died. He could have died.

Kris grabbed Tao’s arms and shook him as hard as he could.

“If you ever scare me like that again!” He yelled, but he didn’t even finish the threat. Instead he pulled Tao against him and hugged him as tightly as he could.

“I thought—By the Tree, Tao, I have no idea what I thought,” he cried, his voice thick with unshed tears. From the corner of his eye he could see Suho having a similar conversation with Kai.

“What were you thinking?!” Suho screamed as he clutched Kai tighter.

“I don’t know!” Kai hollered back, his voice slightly muffled by the embrace. “I just remember being really tired, and then the next thing I knew I was falling and that thing was coming towards me…” He choked and started to cry. “I thought I was going to die,” he sobbed. The two of them fell to the ground; Kai’s legs seemed to have given out and Suho couldn’t hold him up.

Kris felt Tao clutch him tighter and looked down into his brother’s teary eyes. “It was the same for me,” he whispered. “I don’t know how we got there. But I think…” the blood drained from his face. “Kris…was the pit…moving? And talking?”

Kris felt the panic threaten to choke him again.

“It was.”

Around them eight boys clutched at each other and shivered. They may not have been near the pit for very long but even they knew that something beyond sinister had been lurking in it.

“I heard it too,” Sehun said in a small voice. They all looked at him.

“Did you hear what it was saying?” Suho asked.

Sehun was shaking; Lu Han wrapped his arm around his shoulders. “You don’t have to say it,” he assured Sehun. “It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it.”

Sehun shook his head and took a deep breath. “It…it sounded like ‘Mama.’”

Kris felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped on him. Tao buried his face in Kris’ shirt.

“Yeah,” Kris managed. “That was it.”

“What…what does it mean?” Xiu Min wondered.

Kris looked at the shaking boy in his arms and then around at all of his brothers. It could have been anyone of them dangling over that thing; hell, it could have been all of them.

“It means,” Suho said, echoing Kris’ exact thoughts, “That we are done going into the woods for a long time.”

/~/~/~/~/

This is where the action culminates. Basically everything that has happened and will happen in this story goes back to this chapter. It's kind of fitting, since this is exactly the middle of the story (I swear I didn't plan it that way) and I've been DYING to post this part from day one.

I hope you're all enjoying this so far, and if you are please tell me!

PS- Chapters five and six will have some more HunHan interaction and in 5 you'll also get a peek inside Lu Han's mind :)