#56:Made of Stardust
Kyungsoo-centric
Continuity: Sometime after #47.
Hmm, you think this sounds cute, eh? WRONG-O.

Kyungsoo wanted to disappear for a little while and come back when everything had calmed down. He couldn’t blame everyone for being shaken, he’d given them quite a fright—but then he’d had a good reason to be afraid himself. He’d never encountered a bridge like that before, not one that tall, or so high over water.

They had to cross the bridge to get to their next destination, and they were all slightly nervous. Was it safe? Would it collapse in the middle?

“Even if it’s not quite structurally sound,” Kris said, trying to sound braver than Kyungsoo knew he felt, “It can handle twelve people and two dogs. It used to hold hundreds trucks all at once, it’ll be okay.”

Any other time they would have asked Kyungsoo to strengthen the bridge for them, but none of them wanted to use their gifts at the moment—there had been a bad storm the night before and they were all tired and frazzled. Maybe that was one reason that Kyungsoo had reacted the way he did.

It wasn’t so bad at first, walking over the bridge—Kyungsoo made it a good fifty yards before it happened. He was walking normally, lost in thought about what they would see in the next city, and he had just put his foot down. He didn’t even know when he was using his gift anymore, it just happened that he would walk and feel the earth, and he didn’t even realize he had been doing it again until he put his foot down and felt nothing.

It was worse than having dead earth, because at least then Kyungsoo felt something, but this was a thousand times worse. Kyungsoo could feel the thickness of the concrete, but that was basically dead earth, and then through the thick, dead ground he felt…nothing. It ended, it was gone. There was nothing under him, nothing to support him, just one flimsy layer of earth separating him from that yawning gap between the water and the surface of the bridge.

Kyungsoo froze, confused for a half second before what he was feeling registered.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Kyungsoo had no control over his reaction, it was instinct, primal, fight or flight. Fear pierced him and froze him to the spot even when he wanted nothing more than to run as far away as he could, and since he couldn’t move, he screamed.

No, he didn’t scream—he shrieked. A long, unbroken, terrified sound that made everyone as scared as he was. Suho was the first one to react, to run over to Kyungsoo and try to snap him out of it.

“Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo! What happened? Kyungsoo, stop! Are you hurt? By the Tree, say something!”

Past hysterical, Kyungsoo barely registered that he was crying as well as screaming. He tried to form words, but they wouldn’t come, not the way he wanted them to.

“Nothing! There’s nothing! It’s gone, it’s all gone!”

“What are you talking about?” Suho yelled, and Kyungsoo didn’t know at the time but Suho was panicking, his eyes were wide with it. “Kyungsoo please!”

“The ground!” Kyungsoo screamed, and he flung his hands up to latch onto Suho’s arms, digging his nails into the skin. He didn’t realize it, but he would leave crescent shaped scars on Suho’s arms by the end of it. “It’s gone, the ground is gone!”

Kai was the one who got it, and he started yelling too. “Get him back, take him back to the end of the bridge, go!”

Kris jolted into motion, he ran over and picked Kyungsoo up—Kyungsoo thrashed in his grip, screaming his head off—and ran to the other end of the bridge, Suho hot on his heels. When they got back to solid ground, Kris tried to put Kyungsoo down gently, but he couldn’t stand. His legs were totally limp and unsupportive, and his knees buckled at once. He went down hard, Kris barely able to hold him up as much as he was. If Kyungsoo’s upper body had not been so rigid, Kris might have dropped him entirely. He was still screaming and crying.

“It’s okay!” Kris shouted over Kyungsoo’s hysterical shrieks. “We’re back, we’re okay, you’re okay! Kyungsoo!”

It took a moment, but eventually the solidness of the earth registered with Kyungsoo and he realized that he was back on solid ground. His screams cut off with a ragged gasp, and his vision went dark as he fainted. Kris barely managed to hold up his now entirely dead weight so that he wouldn’t face-plant into the dirt.

Kris and Suho together managed to turn Kyungsoo on his side and lay him down. The rest of the group approached slowly, and before they could take a moment to recover, Kyungsoo shot up once more. He pitched forward onto his hands and knees and promptly vomited, tears hot on his cheeks once more.

It was disgusting—possibly the worst thing that had ever happened to Kyungsoo in his entire life, and he’s thrown up before but it was never this bad. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t stop gagging, from fear or the smell, he didn’t know, and even when there was nothing left in his stomach his body continued to heave. Kris and Suho had been holding him up, talking to him an effort to keep him calm, and sensing what was happening they grabbed him by his arms and hauled him away from the stench of the vomit. Suho took a water bottle from his pack and coaxed Kyungsoo into drinking some, but he merely swished it around in his mouth and spit it out. He didn’t want to swallow it, his stomach was still rolling with nausea and he knew he’d just throw it up again. Suho then poured some water out onto a rag and wiped sweat and tears from Kyungsoo’s face and neck. Kris held Kyungsoo in his lap, keeping him upright and still, or as still as he could, because by that time Kyungsoo had started to shake, violently.

“Shh,” Suho crooned, fanning his hand near Kyungsoo’s face, “It’s okay, you’re alright now, you’re okay…”

Kyungsoo’s teeth were chattering, and he kept his mouth shut for fear that he’d throw up again if he opened it. He could barely understand what Suho was saying, he heard it but it wouldn’t register until later.

“He’s going into shock,” Kris muttered.

“No, he’s having a panic attack,” Suho countered. “Or…well, maybe both.”

“Panic attack from…the bridge, shock from being so violently sick,” Kris decided. “What a combination, poor baby. This just isn’t your day.”

Suho settled down, pulling a thin book from his bag and using it to fan Kyungsoo. “Nothing to do but ride it out I guess…oh god, no…”

Kyungsoo went totally limp and passed out a second time. This time he stayed out for longer, and it took him a while to come around. Dimly, he registered voices.

“…of us, we shouldn’t have tried to cross the bridge,” Suho whispered.

“I know, I’m kicking myself for it, believe me,” Kris sighed.

“Poor kid, what do we do?” Suho again.

“Yixing’s digging around in the first aid kit,” came Kai’s voice. “He’s got some kind of herbal thing that’s good for nerves. That’s all it was, a bad case of nerves, Kyungsoo will be fine, he always bounces back.”

Not this time, Kyungsoo thought to himself. One of his hands was flopped carelessly on the ground, and he dug his fingers into the ground, reassuring himself that it was there and it was solid, there was no huge gap that threatened to open under him…he started to shake again.

“Kyungsoo, honey,” Suho cooed, taking Kyungsoo’s other hand. “Can you hear me?”

Kyungsoo opened his eyes and took in the concerned expression on his older brother’s face, and then he looked down at their clasped hands and noticed the blood on Suho’s sleeves, and realized that he’d done that. Suho followed his gaze and quickly tried to reassure him.

“It’s nothing, sweetie, it doesn’t bother me at all, it’s you I’m concerned about. Do you want to try to drink something now?”

Kyungsoo shook his head and clamped his lips shut when the motion made his head spin. His stomach continued to churn.

Kris was his hair, trying to calm him down. “It’s okay, Kyungsoo, we’re getting you something to help with the nausea. How’s your stomach, does it hurt? You can tap my hand for yes or no.”

That was a system they had devised back when they used to get sore throats in the winter—one tap for yes and two for no. Kyungsoo tapped Kris’ hand once.

Kris sighed. “I’m sorry, little bro. We should have known better than to take you over that thing, what were we thinking?”

Kyungsoo felt tears sting his eyes. “No,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Suho said immediately. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I don’t know what happened to me,” Kyungsoo went on, even though he felt more and more sick with each word. “I scared you both, I hurt Suho, I scared everyone…I’m sorry.” And then he was forced to clamp his mouth shut as he gagged, but everyone knew he wouldn’t throw up anymore—he couldn’t.

“We forgive you,” Kris told him, and Suho looked ready to hit Kris.

“There’s—”

“He’s not going to believe you,” Kris cut Suho off. “Just say you forgive him, we can talk more about this when he feels better.”

That had been a week ago. It had taken hours for Kyungsoo to stop feeling nauseous, and then Kai had teleported him back to the hotel they’d stayed in the previous night. Kyungsoo wished they could go back to the compound, but it was too far away. They had to explore their new territory, and though they agreed that to move forward while Kyungsoo was ill was dumb, it was too far to go home. It took three days for Kyungsoo to fully recover—more mentally than physically—before they could move on. Once they got back to travelling, Kai teleported Kyungsoo over the bridge and they waited for the others to cross on foot.

It had also been a week since Kyungsoo had talked—really talked, beyond simple sentences. He didn’t know what to say to his friends to explain himself. It was easy to look back and say that he was stupid, that he shouldn’t have been so afraid, but then again they all knew how sensitive Kyungsoo’s gift was, they’d seen him nearly ruined by it once before. Kyungsoo wondered why it was just him that seemed to have a problem with his gift, everyone else seemed to be doing just fine.

They were wandering through another museum, taking note of some older things, breaking open cases and packing up the sturdier items that looked like they could handle being brought to a safer place. there was an entire hall in this museum dedicated to clothing, but most of it was in shambles. One piece had crumbled almost entirely into dust.

“That might have happened before we even got here,” Xiumin told them, examining what was left. “It looks like it was a pretty old piece to begin with, and I doubt people were paying much attention to costumes at the end of the world.”

The thing was totally ruined—all scraps and dust. Kyungsoo stopped in front of the display case and took in what was left of what must have once been a beautiful costume. Somebody had spent hours making it, and for it to be in a museum…it must have been very important.

Kyungsoo just started crying. Slowly at first and then harder, until finally he realized that it was just him, alone in the room, and he sobbed out loud. It was just so sad, how this entire race of people was wiped out. They hadn’t seen any living human in years and…he was so lonely.

He wondered why he seemed to feel the whole loss more than everyone else—at any rate nobody else had broken down in a museum before. He chalked it up to his gift and being so connected to the earth. He was starting to realize that he could feel what the previous inhabitants did to the earth and how they affected it, and it was like he knew he should feel something else, he knew he should be able to feel crowds and traffic and urbanization, but he just doesn’t.

And then he wonders if that was happening on their planet. How much of their history had been lost already?

Kyungsoo looked down at himself and saw a stranger. These weren’t his clothes, this thing called a t-shirt and these tight jeans. He suddenly missed his robes—he used to hate the heavy black Guardian’s robes but now he wondered what’s become of them. Where did he leave them? When did his clothing change? When did Kyungsoo change? Where did he go? This isn’t what he pictured he would be, growing up the sanctuary. And after all, nobody could predict the future, so how could he say with any certainty that he would be this way in another one hundred years? What would happen to him in that time? Who would he become, and if the Kyungsoo from right now met the Kyungsoo from 100 years in the future, would they recognize each other? Kyungsoo thought that if he could meet his nine year old self…the younger self wouldn’t recognize him.

Kyungsoo knew that this was a called a derealization moment—he’d had them a few times before, but this felt different. He almost wanted to laugh, though he continued to cry. How weird was it that the universe had been created so many billions of years ago, exploding into existence, stardust forming planets, suns, humans; and now all that creation, destruction, and stardust had culminated in this moment, in one small boy who stood in front of a glass case and cried over the loss of an old outfit.

At some point Kyungsoo had fallen to his knees, but he didn’t realize it until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Kyungsoo?” It was Tao. “What’s wrong?”

Kyungsoo wiped his face on his sleeve and sniffled. “It’s just so sad,” he mumbled. “Everything’s changing, here and at home and we have no idea what it will become, what we’ll find when we go home, who we’ll find. We don’t know anything and we can’t stop it from changing and growing old, we can’t keep ourselves from changing…” he hiccupped and forced himself to calm down.

“I know.”

Kyungsoo looked up at Tao in shock, and then he remembered that this was Tao he was talking to—Tao controlled time, if anyone could understand it was him.

“I can feel time passing,” Tao confessed quietly, kneeling down next to Kyungsoo and looking at the ruined outfit. “You know it seems like every day is the same here. It feels like time has stopped, or that’s what everyone tells me, but I know it’s a lie. I know exactly how much time has gone by, and it’s so long. I see all the things that are changing on this world and I also wonder…what we’ll find when we go back. If we can find anything.”

Kyungsoo was shocked. “You seem so…unbothered,” he said hesitantly. “I’m a wreck.”

Tao smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re not a wreck. You had a bad week and you’re not in great shape, and I get that too. You weren’t there the first time I tried to use my gift after…after what happened on the mountain.”

Kyungsoo side-eyed him. “Was it as bad as how I reacted?”

Tao shrugged. “I was a child. I was convinced there were monsters under my bed, I thought I was seeing them come to life before my own eyes in the shadows. I couldn’t sleep by myself after that. Even now I…I know monsters aren’t real, and the shadows don’t move, I know it…but it doesn’t help.” Tao put an arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulders. “I know what it’s like to hate your gift sometimes.”

“All the time,” Kyungsoo corrected darkly. “I wish I had anything but Earth.” At Tao’s raised eyebrow, he corrected himself. “Earth or Time.”

Tao shook his head. “I could give you some big speech about how it’ll change, it’ll get better, and all that jazz, but that’s a job for Suho or Kris and I may be dating them but I’m not like them. so how about instead I just tell you that I’m here for you if it ever gets to be too much, okay?”

It was like a weight lifted off Kyungsoo’s chest. He wasn’t alone, there was someone who understood what it was like for him.

“Okay,” he said with a genuine smile. “Thanks, Tao.”

Tao got to his feet and offered Kyungsoo a hand up. “No problem.”

I'm back to tormenting Kyungsoo again! forheart, this is the one I was telling you about in our comment relay. Do you hate me now? XD

But I think for the next chapter I'm going to back to the kid's childhood, so it'll be much happier.