#74:Go Wherever You Go Part 3

“How did you live down here for all this time?” Suho asked President Park as they began walking around the lake.

“Our ancestors planned for everything,” President Park explained. “When the pollution first started getting bad, a small group of people got together and started writing up plans, the first blueprints for an underground population. Those people didn’t end up needing the plans, but they passed their research down to their children and grandchildren, and eventually the world got bad enough where action needed to be taken.”

“Wasn’t it expensive, building all this?” Kyungsoo asked.

“It was, indeed,” President Park sad. She lead the group down a corridor from which several hallways sprouted. “And it was dangerous, because many people thought that our ancestors were out of their minds, or forming a cult. The government kept an eye on them, but all they were doing was digging a hole in the ground, so they didn’t interfere. Several people in the group had a lot of money, and they bought the equipment needed to dig this place out, as well as hire engineers who could make sure it would be safe. As I’m sure you can imagine, there was fear of collapse. But they discovered this underground lake and bought the land above it, and the caverns and tunnels that already existed were enough that there was room to excavate.”

President Park took them down one corridor which lead to a room full of monitors. “Scientists were the first people to realize that the earth was dying. When our ancestors began building this place they knew they needed professionals from all kinds of fields. The first people to live here were doctors, chemists, biologists, climatologists, and so on. There were also plumbers, teachers, engineers, artists, electricians, dentists, law enforcement…I could go on and on. All of these people made sure that humanity could survive underground. They took machinery, tools of their respective trades, and brought them down here. Then they left us instructions that we could follow should something go wrong, and advice on how to keep things running smoothly.”

President Park went up to one of the monitors. “We have a water filtration system and an air filtration system. We take some air and water from outside through a filter, but most of our air and water is recycled. Dirty water from the septic system is cleaned of toxins and then used to fertilize plants. These monitors allow us to keep an eye on those systems. They are mostly self-sufficient and can even repair themselves to a point, but our professionals keep several spare models on hand and use them to practice repairs.”

“How do you stay healthy?” Suho asked.

President Park lead them across the hall to a room full of medical equipment. “We employ most of the same medical technology our ancestors used. We have living strains of the same viruses they vaccinated against and we use them to make vaccines. The living strains are kept under lock and key, only doctors have access to them. We were also very careful to keep the people who were born down here from adapting to life underground. It’s important that we keep the electricity going to allow temperature and light fluctuation. Plus there is a cavern with holes cut to the surface and covered in a thick layer of glass, which keeps pollution out but allows sunlight in. From age one week and for the rest of their life, each person spends half an hour each day in direct sunlight. This ensures that once we go back up, we’re not too sensitive to exposure. And since we can in fact grow plants and keep animals, very few people have such severe allergies that they can’t stand being outside. Those that do have more severe allergies take medicines for it.”

“And you said you tried to save a lot of the culture of your ancestors?” Kris asked.

President Park grinned and lead them down an even longer hallway to a room full of computers. “Here we have tapes of all spoken and dead languages in the world. We also have books and music, and computerized scans of paintings, statues, and cultural objects. Much of it was collected from museums and historical libraries from across the world. The internet of the past is no longer functioning above ground, but we have our own internet that we can bring above ground with us.”

“So you can work a computer?” Chen blurted. “We never figured them out!”

“Yes,” President Park said eagerly, “We can manufacture and repair computers. They’re key to archiving and remembering our past and recording our present.” She paused, lost in thought. “I never imagined I would see our people return above ground in my lifetime. One of the things we were most worried about was having a population large enough to repopulate the planet. To keep generations from developing adaptations to living underground we had to limit the number of children born. We’ve also become quite homogenous, since the movement for this underground living began in Asia. There were more races among us but as time went on many of the physical traits that marked other races were simply too recessive. We couldn’t tell people to keep marrying within their own race, not when they fell in love with other people. One thing we all vowed to do was never interfere with love.”

“What about same couples?” Tao asked.

“We have many,” President Park said, “But those couple are able to have children through surrogacy, and even those who don’t want to be parents are willing to donate their eggs or cells so that others may have children, and so that we can keep the gene pool fairly wide. We actually mapped the gene pool and have a detailed family tree, would you all like to see it?”

The tour continued, but Lu Han had long ago stopped paying attention. He held Sehun’s hand and trusted his husband to lead him along and keep him from running into things and people, in the meantime he stayed lost in his own thoughts. They had discovered people, they had discovered the first Guardian, and she was his! Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that the first Guardian would be his to train, and now that the excitement had passed Lu Han found himself extremely worried. Noticing how his fellow guardians were all happy and eager, Lu Han kept his more melancholy thoughts to himself, at least until nighttime.

The people had all decided that they would leave. They decided very quickly to return to above ground living and agreed to come to Seoul, the old capital of South Korea where the Guardians had made their home, and live under their leadership. They would all set out first thing in the morning. In the meantime the Guardians were given several rooms to spend the night in and they quickly coupled off. As soon as they were alone, Sehun turned to Lu Han and said, “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Lu Han slumped to the floor, tears in his eyes. “Sehun, what if I can’t teach her? She’s just…so beautiful, and so whole. She has limitless possibilities, she could be so strong, but I’m so old and still so broken…”

“No you’re not,” Sehun said quickly, kneeling next to Lu Han. “You are still powerful and talented, and even if there are things you can’t do, you remember how to do them. you have experience, and wisdom, and that’s what you need to pass on to Amber. Half the things she’s going to learn, she’s going to figure them out on her own anyway, just like we did. And you know, since she’s the first that means we all can be there to help you teach her.”

Lu Han sighed. “I know all that, I do. But…it’s still so hard to think that I could be her mentor. We’ve been alone for so long that I almost forgot why we came here in the first place.” He gulped. “Someday amber is going to come home with us, and she’s going to come face to face with that…that thing, all of those girls will…we have to raise them to be warriors, we don’t even know what we have to do to beat this monster, I just feel like we’ll be sending them to be hurt or worse.”

Sehun shook his head. “You’re thinking of them as humans, and they’re not. They are warriors, we are warriors. Look at all that we’ve been through, look at everything that’s happened to us? We’ve been kicked around our whole lives, and now we’re here, we’re going to help a whole world rebuild itself. And our next Generation is going to help us defeat Mama, because that’s what they are born to do. Even if they haven’t faced it the way we have, the Tree can show them what it’s like and we can all, all twenty four of us, get together and make a plan. Once we have matured Guardians, we won’t be alone anymore, we won’t have to face everything by ourselves. Just like you won’t have to do this by yourself.”

Lu Han found himself smiling despite his concerns. “You could have been a true leader, you know. That or a write, you have a way with words.”

Sehun grinned smugly. “What can I say? I guess I’m just full of surprises.” He kissed Lu Han’s cheek and pulled him upright. “Now let’s go to sleep, we’re going to need our rest for tomorrow.”

The Guardians woke up early and gathered in Kris, Suho, and Tao’s room to discuss how they were going to transport all these people back to the Tree.

“They have cars, electric cars,” Xiumin pointed out, “They can drive.”

Suho shook his head. “But they’ll run out of energy, and even if Chen could zap them back to full charge…I mean we’re talking over a hundred vehicles, and I’m not sure that there simply are enough to carry everyone and all their belongings.”

“But they can’t all walk,” Yixing said, “They’re not used to outside conditions like heat and dry wind, that will take time. If we make them walk, it could take months to get back home.”

“Well, what other options do we have?” Kris asked.

Kyungsoo sighed. “We have me. I can…make things, out of the earth. Things like…like cars.”

Everyone stared at him. “What do you mean?” Tao asked.

Kyungsoo stood and stepped back a few feet. then he held his hands over the earth and formed a perfect replica of one of the cars they had seen in the garage, on a much smaller scale. Then as they all watched, the car began to move.

“How are you doing that?” Jongin asked.

Kyungsoo shrugged. “I just am. I guess as long as some part of it is on the ground, I can control it’s movement.”

“How long have you known about this?” Baekhyun asked.

Kyungsoo stared at the ground. “A long time. Remember back when we started finding out just how strong we were?”

“That long?!” Baekhyun yelped.

Kyungsoo nodded, looking uneasy. “Look…we know everything about each other, we have no privacy, and I just…I wanted something for myself, for a while. After everything I went through with my gift I wanted something that was special and just for me. I’ve barely used it, only when I was really bored or sad, and then I would just make little things and test what I could do with them. I didn’t keep it from you guys because I didn’t trust you or anything like that, I just…”

Baekhyun groaned and rubbed his temples. “Yeah, we get it. So you can like, do this for everyone, right? You can transport everyone like this?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo said.

“Fantastic,” Baekhyun said, not meeting Kyungsoo’s eyes, “Then this meeting is adjourned let’s go wake everybody up.”

Then he stood and stalked out of the room.

“What’s up with him?” Chanyeol asked.

Kyungsoo sighed. “I’ll go talk to him.”

He caught up to Baekhyun by the lake. Since it was so early there weren’t many people around, and those who were awake were too busy packing to pay attention to them. Baekhyun was facing the water, his back to Kyungsoo.

“Baekhyun, can I talk to you?”

Baekhyun snorted. “Oh, now you want to talk to me?” He asked without looking at Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo stared at him. “Why are you so upset about this?”

“I’m not upset,” Baekhyun said sarcastically, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were such a burden for you, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have no secrets and no privacy.”

Kyungsoo was shocked to see Baekhyun like this. “I wasn’t trying to slight you or anything, any of you. I really don’t understand why you’re so mad, it’s not even like it was really life changing, I brought my ability up when we needed it. What’s so wrong about it?”

Baekhyun finally looked at Kyungsoo, hurt all over his face. “Was it really so important that you couldn’t even tell me?! You even told me about…about your vision, which by the way is another thing you’re keeping secret. How many secrets do you have, exactly?”

“Why does it matter to you?” Kyungsoo asked.

“Why does it matter to me?” Baekhyun repeated incredulously, “Because I thought you trusted me! I thought you could at least tell me anything! How are we supposed to look out for you, and make sure you’re okay, if all you do hide things from us?” He wiped his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you.”

Kyungsoo shook his head. “Who made it your job? Why are you so worried about me?”

Baekhyun glared. “Are you this dense? Because you’re always alone. Even before, when you were having trouble with your gift, you suffered through it by yourself and then when we found out how hurt you had been…”

Kyungsoo was starting to get the picture. “Xiumin and Yixing are single too, you know.”

Baekhyun groaned and smacked himself in the forehead. “Oh my god. Yes, but they have other people. Each other, Lu Han, Kai…who do you go to?”

Kyungsoo opened his mouth, then closed it. ‘Oh. It’s you.’

Baekhyun looked like he was about to cry. “Now do you get it?”

Kyungsoo nodded. “But…just because I didn’t tell you this, that doesn’t mean it was hurting me. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t trust you, or that you’re not my best friend.”

Baekhyun lunged forward and hugged Kyungsoo so tightly that he couldn’t even draw in a breath. “B-Baekhyun…y-you’re choking me!”

Baekhyun sobbed into Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “Please don’t hide things from me,” he begged, “I don’t want to lose you. I’m so selfish but really, if something happened to you I’d never forgive myself. And I don’t want you to go through the bad things by yourself, because I’ve  tried to do that and it almost cost me everything, I just don’t want that to happen to you.”

Kyungsoo hugged Baekhyun and patted his back. “I can’t promise to tell you every single thing,” he said, still a little choked, “But I promise that if I ever start to feel like it’s too much, you’ll be the first person I come to.”

Baekhyun finally loosened his grip and pulled back, looking immensely relieved. “I’ll never push you away. Any time you need me, I don’t care what time it is or what I’m doing.”

Kyungsoo grinned. “Baekhyun, I can’t expect you to just drop everything for me.”

“Sure you can,” Baekhyun insisted.

Kyungsoo gaped at him. “What? But Chanyeol—”

“Can deal with it,” Baekhyun said firmly. “Please, he knows we’re friends. He’ll understand.”

“That’s a pretty serious promise,” Kyungsoo said.

“Well, that’s how much I care about you,” Baekhyun said. “And how much I value your friendship.”

Kyungsoo felt himself getting teary and he punched Baekhyun weakly in the arm. “You sap.”

Baekhyun grinned. “Guess we better head back, it looks like everyone’s waking up.”

The people didn’t have a whole lot of personal belongings. Clothing and furniture could be replaced, most of what the people took were family photos, heirlooms from the past, and their technology. They also had with them pillows and blankets, at Kyungsoo’s request. The Guardians still had the RV, but they decided that it would be used primarily for carrying the elderly, water, and food. Everything and everyone else would be carried on whatever it was Kyungsoo was going to create.

The walk out of the underground was as chaotic and wild as it was magical. The people were loud and excited, they had their rolling suitcases and pets, and farm animals walking alongside them. Children were laughing and chasing each other, several people were filming the event. Once the group reached the mouth of the tunnel, they all stopped. The Guardians were the first to step outside, and Amber was quick to follow. After several minutes, finally the entire population stood above ground for the first time in four hundred years. Though they could have come above ground, many had never done so until that moment, and they stared around themselves in awe.

“It’s so big,” one little boy said. “Is it really all for us?”

“Yes,” President Park said. “And that’s why we have to take care of it, and learn from the mistakes of our ancestors.”

After a few more minutes in which the people wandered around, taking in the world around them, the Guardians began to organize them into groups. The elderly were taken to the bus, and everyone else stood back to allow Kyungsoo to work.

Kyungsoo knelt and sunk his hands into the earth. There was a low rumbling sound, and then the ground began to shake. Shapes rose from the earth, huge boulders and slabs of earth that crumbled apart and then reformed, until finally a hundred stone vehicles stood in a neat line. They looked almost like cars, but very simple. Each one had four wheels and two long benches, and was covered by a slab of stone that extended several inches over the sides of the vehicle. The stone awning was held up by two thin supports that extended from each of the benches, in the center of the backs. The supports wouldn’t interfere with the people who sat on the benches, nor would the obscure the people’s view of each other. Now everyone began to understand why Kyungsoo had suggested the pillows and blankets.

Kyungsoo pointed to the front of one vehicle. “This piece of stone in the front will keep the people who sit in the front seats from getting covered in dust and mud. The awning should protect everyone from the rain and sun, but if need be I can extend the stone down to provide further protection. There’s empty space in the back where luggage can be stored and pets can sit.”

“That’s brilliant,” Suho said. “How long did it take you to come up with this design?”

Kyungsoo shrugged. “An hour, maybe? I got inspired by the golf carts that President Park showed us yesterday, but gave them more room in the back.”

Most families did not number more than four people, families with small children could fit as many as seven people in one vehicle. There were a few that were left empty, and those were used to carry the extra luggage, like medical supplies that weren’t sensitive to light and temperature. Farm animals would walk beside the vehicles, kept in line by dogs and the occasional person if the need arose. The Guardians would ride in a larger vehicle at the front of the group. Amber demanded to sit with them, and after making sure it was okay with her parents, they took her with them.

There were cheers from the people as the stone vehicles began to move, and the Guardians cheered with them. It was really happening, they were really going home.

Amber sat on Lu Han’s lap, playing with her stones. As the day wore on she became inquisitive, interrogating all the Guardians on their lives, and what her life would be like. The group stopped twice to eat and allow the people to eat and stretch. When the sun set, the Guardians decided to stop in a small town for the night. Once more Kyungsoo created a large stone structure, just walls and a roof, and everyone slept together. The next morning Kris and Suho warned the people that it would take a while to get back to the Tree, and their days would likely not include much variation.

Three months passed in much the same way, and when the city of Seoul came into sight there was a palpable sense of excitement in the air. The people had been so accommodating with the travel, they had never complained or shown their weariness. They were a strong, resilient population, from the oldest to the youngest. They were fighters, and dreamers. Upon arrival in Seoul, each family set out to explore the city and look for houses. The plumbers and electricians marveled at the good condition of the old systems and vowed to find ways to make them strong enough to support a larger population. President Park humbly requested to be a liaison between the Guardians and the people, helping the Guardians to adjust to the needs of more than twelve. They accepted her offer right away, and then they made an announcement to the people. The night was theirs, to use to sleep or settle in, or explore the city, but in the morning they wanted everyone to come to the first gate of the Palace, so they could take the people to the Tree of Life. Amber spent one last night with her parents—her training would begin the very next day.

Inside the first gate of the Palace, nothing had changed. Farm animals roamed the grass, and cats and dogs lounged in the sun. When the Guardians entered the second gate of the Palace, they were somehow not surprised to find the Tree of Life, firmly planted in a new garden of flowers and birds.

“This is not at all where we left the Tree, is it?” Yixing asked.

“No,” Suho agreed, “But the Tree always did have a mind of its own.”

And inside the third gate, their home remained untouched. The Guardians slept in their own beds that night for the first time in years, finally feeling like they were home at last.

The next day four hundred people came face to face with the Tree of life. They went into the second gate in groups of ten, and each person sat before the Tree and touched it. they all left the same way—happy, but crying from how touched they were to meet a being that loved them unconditionally, and showed them how their earth was healing.

The last person to meet the Tree was a special little girl. Five years old, precocious, and strong. The first member of a new Generation. The Guardians took Amber to the Tree and sat beside her, telling her to close her eyes.

The Guardians knew exactly how it would greet her.

‘Hello, my precious child. My little Guardian.’

Badly drawn example of the not-cars that Kyungsoo made. I’m not an artist.

The sequel's foreword is up, it's called Out of the Darkness

So in early 2012 I started getting the idea for an EXO Mama AU story. It was the first EXO story I really wanted to write, though it ended up preceded by another Nu’Est crossover fic. Even though I had the idea for this story floating around in my head I really never intended to write it, because I knew it was going to be really, really long, and I didn’t have an endgame in mind for it anyway. But then on April 4^th my partner in my college dance class didn’t show up on the day we were supposed to start brainstorming ideas for our paper. At a loss and with over an hour of time to spare, I took out my laptop and started to write the story down. And that’s how At World’s end started. I didn’t even have a title for it until the moment I decided to post the foreword, and then I quickly came up with something. To this day I think the title is pretty lame. I’m not even sure how I feel about the title of the sequel but I think it’s fitting.

Now remember, the sequel is going to take some time. I still haven’t actually written anything for it so there’s that. When I write a multi-chapter story I usually wait until I’ve got a couple of chapters written before I start posting, this way if there’s things I need to change I can do that. So when will I update it? Honestly who knows.

To those of you who had to go back to school this week and/or will go back soon, I hope this update and promise of a sequel brightened your day. I’m a college grad now and let me just say job hunting is 100% less fun than going to school, I would almost rather go back to school.

Anyway I would like to take this moment to thank each and every person who’s ever read this story. I would also like to thank every single person who’s ever commented on this fic. I’m a bad person and lately I haven’t been replying much but honest to god, I love and appreciate you all, from the people who’s usernames I recognize right away to the people who are more shy and maybe have only commented once, you all rock. To those who haven’t commented yet, please talk to me I promise I love you and I don’t bite!

I hope you enjoyed this update, and don’t worry I’ll come back to this story and update it again, this isn’t the last you’ve seen of this fic. I’m just going to focus more on the sequel now. I hope you’ll all like what I have planned.