a/n: Sorry. Only one more character. But there will be more! It's only the beginning. Also, I'll try to follow someone else besides Ren (he's an easy character XD) in the next chapter.

The train was fast approaching a closed gate in the long, underwater tunnel. Ren spotted it and began to wonder if it was even going to open, and the train seemed to have no intentions of slowing down. His heart raced as they continued to approach it. Then, suddenly, the gates started to creak open, thin streams of water spraying out in a mist from the thin cracks around the gates. The train pulled closer and the gates slowly opened. Just as the train was only yards from the gates, they opened completely, a metalic clang! locking them in place. The train sped forward through them, a strange, sickening sensation sweeping over the train’s passengers, and once the train was all the way passed them, they creaked back into their previous position.

Light-headed and heart racing, Ren glanced back at the gates then turned back forward and sighed in relief. Then, he noticed that the train wasn’t underwater anymore. In fact, they were speeding down the track through a huge, open, green plain, wild flowers racing along the green grass in the wind. Trees lined the outer edge of the plain, indicating a lush forest. Other trees dotted the plain in splotches of pine green and bark brown. It was the most breathtaking and peaceful view Ren had ever seen.

Ren leaned forward and slid the window open. Fresh meadow air saturated with the scent of flowers and pine and tree sap rushed in and tousled his hair. He stood up and leaned out the window, enjoying the rush of air as they raced along the plains. He felt the others behind him look out the window as well. The first thing he noticed was that the white electric train they had boarded was now a gray and white steam train wit old-fashioned passenger cars. He glanced around. He looked back where they had came from. A metal gate standing in the middle of nowhere became smaller and smaller as they went farther and farther. He looked towards the front of the train far off in the distance and over the plains he spotted civilization; old-fashioned buildings, houses, towns and villages peeked out from beyond the hills and slowly revealed themselves as they grew closer and closer. It was like something out of a fantasy book; a place with endless forests, plains, and meadows and small, quaint little villages with kind villagers and merchants and, further off, large, great cities with castles and palaces at the center and everyone selling something, anything, and everything. It was a place where everyone was welcome, the normal and the strange alike, the human and the not-so-human. Ren’s heart continued to race, but not from fear, from excitement.

“Wow,” Key said above him. “So that’s what they meant by that.”

They all pulled their heads in and sat down. Ren turned to Key. “What do you mean?”

“‘Sumgida Kyegok’. That’s what I was told this place is called. It means ‘Hidden Valley’.” Key smiled an amused, excited smile. “We’re in another realm. The realm of monsters and magic. That gate we passed, it was a portal here. That’s why we felt that sickish feeling. We were moving out of the human world and into some place that you can’t get to just by taking a train, even though that’s what they made it seem like. They must have cast a spell-a big one-on the trains to make them look like modern, electric run ones, but in reality they were steam trains like back in the day. Also, they just used the excuse of imitating Japan’s Seikan Tunnel and saying that they could make one that could actually travel underwater instead of just under the seabed to create a portal that was inconspicuous and away from human eyes. Quite smart, I have to say.”

“Wow. So you mean that we’re in a world where nearly everyone is like us?” Taemin asked.

“That’s right,” Key nodded.

“Daebak!” Minhyun cheered. He turned to Ren. “See, Ren? It’s not going to be bad at all! You’ll feel right at home here!”

Ren smiled truly for the first time in a long while. “Yeah. You’re right. I like it here already. But I’m still nervous about our school.”

“I’m sure you’ll like it there, Ren,” Taemin encouraged.

Ren nodded and turned to lean on the window to enjoy the fresh breeze.

Alright, so maybe being here won’t be so bad.But I still can’t shake the feeling that we could get into a lot of dangerous situations here…

They finally reached their destination; another train station, only this one was more old-fashioned and fit for the scenery surrounding it. In the distance, a large school that seemed modernized and slightly out of place stretched across the distance. Ren gazed at it, a nervous knot forming in his stomach.

“Mystic Institute, High School District!” a conductor cried out from somewhere outside the train.

“High School District?” Taemin said confused. “Looks like you and Minhyun are the only ones getting off, Ren.”

“Yeah,” Ren sighed.

Taemin stood up and hugged his friend tightly. “It’s going to be okay Ren. You’ll do amazing here! I know it! Besides, since you’re a student you can ride the train anywhere for free during the school year. You can come and see me at the College District anytime you want!”

Ren didn’t say anything; just hugged Taemin back and turned to get his luggage.

“See you around maknaes!” Key called as they exited the booth and decended the stairs off the train.

Fifteen minutes after everyone who needed to deboard at the High School District had gotten off the train took off for it’s next stop and disappeared into the distance. Ren stared at it for a while before Minhyun grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the school in the distance.

The school was huge, and if he hadn’t heard the conductor say where they were, he would have believed that this was the college part instead of the high school part. It was more like a college campus than a high school one. There were white and light blue and dark gray buildings planted here, there, and everywhere. There were roads and sidewalks paved throughout the campus and where there weren’t there were patches of lush, green grass and small trees. Minhyun and Ren followed the crowd to the biggest building centered in the middle of the campus and entered.

It was apparent even from the front of building that the inside was huge and maze-like. The crowd flowed through the school all the way to the gymnasium which was on in the back left corner of the building on the first floor. It was huge, about the size of a large courtyard. One side was lined with blue bleachers. The other side was lined with tables littered with papers, folders, pamphlets, yellow envelopes, binders, and money boxes. Behind the tables sat some of the staff and teachers.

A very pretty woman who looked about in her late twenties dressed in a gray suit with a skirt and black heeled shoes picked up a microphone from one of the tables and moved to the front. “Hello, everyone. If you could all set your luggage aside and sit at the bleachers. Quickly and orderly please.”

She had such authority in her voice that the extremely large crowd of students unhesitantly and obediantely complied with her request. They did as she said and within a few minutes they all were seated quietly on the bleachers.

The woman smiled an attractive yet authoritive smile. “Thank you. Now. I’m not much for long, boring lectures, especially at the beginning of the year, so I’ll make this short and sweet. Welcome to Mystic Institute. I am Young Chansun, the Headmistress for you all, the high school students, and I expect nothing less than responsibility, respect, integrity, diligence, and productiveness. I aim to keep this school an organized, sophisticated, safe and well run learning environment, and I assure you it will turn out that way. However to do that I need your help and compliance. Again, however, that does not mean that I am some mean, evil, headmistress as described in fiction novels. If anyone of you have a problem you may come and seek me out. Respect and help me and I will respect and help you. That’s all there is to it.

“Now, at this time, you all will come up to the tables here and go down the line one-by-one in an orderly fashion and collect the information and papers and do whatever you need to do at each station. After you have visited every one, you may grab your luggage again and go to your assigned dorm room-for which the key will be given to you at one of the stations-and get yourselves settled. Classes will be starting late this morning, since it is the first day, and to compensate will end a little later. Classes will start at nine-thirdy today, but will normally start at seven-fifty or no later than eight. Today, classes end at four-thirdy, but normally end at three. Everything else you need to know will be explained both by the staff and teachers here and in the papers and pamphlets given. That is all. You may proceed.”

With that, Ms. Young set down the microphone and left the gymnasium to head off somewhere else. The students got up and formed a line at one end of the line of tables, going down towards the end at a moderate pace. Minhyun and Ren were lucky enough to grab a spot fairly close to the beginning of the line. Soon they made it to the first station. First up was their dorm keys. They signed them out and grabbed a list of things they could and couldn’t have and do with their room. One point on the paper regarding the dorms made Ren gulp. They were co-ed dorms. Meaning he could either get a male roommate or a female one. Ren was praying for the former.

They went down half the line with ease, grabbing a newsletter, signing up for an account on the school’s website, grabbing info on sports and extracurricular activities, and doing several other things. In the middle, Ren got caught at a station on keeping medicines at school and during class times. He turned to Minhyun who was still traveling down with ease. Minhyun turned to see him as well.

“I’ll meet you later on before classes start!” he called.

Ren bit his lip and turned back to the nurse sitting behind the table.

“Mr. Choi Minki? It says here that you applied to keep a bottle of pain pills with you for frequent headaches. Is this true?”

“Um…yeah,” Ren fidgetted. “They’re in my backpack.”

“Could you get them please? We need to register them in our records.”

Ren turned to the other side of the line. Students were getting huffy about he hold up. He waved for them to go around then rushed over to his luggage where he sat down his backpack and pulled out a medium sized bottle of pills then rushed back and handed them to the nurse. She scribbled something on a page in a binder and handed them back to him. She slid a sheet of paper to him.

“This is a contract, saying that you are only allowed to take four a day; two in the morning and two in the afternoon or one spaced out through the day as needed. Also, it allows you to take two extra a day if needed. It also allows us to treat you but not be responsible for your actions if you were to intentionally or accidentally overdose. This is good for the whole year and you renew it every year. Understand?” He nodded, wringing his hands around the bottle, trying not to provoke a headache right as he was about to sign the paper allowing him to take the pills. “Sign here please, and you’re good to go.”

He scribbled down his signature, she filed the paper, and he scrambled down the rest of the line, taking in only half of what the people were saying and reminding himself to get the rest by reading the given papers. The last papers to pick up were maps of each building on campus and a map of the entire campus. He took them, bowed to the man he found out was the grounds keeper, grabbed his luggage and skittered out of the gymnasium. He quickly strode down the hallway and around the corner before stopping to lean against a wall to calm his speeding heart. He trailed a hand down his face and closed his eyes for a bit. When he opened them he rose the papers to study the maps he was given. He flipped through them, analyzing them, trying to plot his course to the dormatories. But it was no good. All he could make out were rectangles and abnormal geometric figures meant to be buildings.

He sighed and closed his eyes again. He knew what he was about to do would give him a headache in a little while, as the effects would take an hour or two to wear off and calm down. But he was not about to roam around a brand new school aimlessly and he wasn’t good at asking for directions.

When he opened his eyes bright, vivid colors flared up, covering everything; the walls, the floor, his luggage beside him, the papers in his hand, the floor, the ceiling, everything was ablaze in every color in the visible spectrum and then some. Whisps of color flicked around off the walls, floor and the papers in his hand. Some of them trailed back towards the gym, others floated back to the front of the building or somewhere else, and a few just flitted around aimlessly. He felt a twinge beneath his skull, but ignored it and raised the papers back up to his face.

Now, he looked at them with a new perspective. Now it was as if he were looking at the school campus and all its buildings from a bird’s eye view via the maps in his hand. It was also as if the pictures on the maps had leaped off the papers and materialized as a three dimentional model of the school. Now the school’s layout made sense and embedded solidly in his mind. He was able to successfully find the way to the dorms and even to his own room with in the massive building. He only had to travel passed the sciences building next to this one-the main one-and travel up to the third story of the dorm building. He smiled, ordering the model of the school back upon the page. He stuffed he papers into his backpack and picked his stuff back up.

He had almost made it to the front of the main building again (ignoring all the blazing colors and flaming auras of the people passing by, as well as their stares) when he was instantly aware of tromping footsteps behind him. He stopped to listen to where they were coming from. He turned around but was met only by a silver and aqua colored figure as big as himself raming into him, sending in back onto the floor and the papers scattering about. As hard as an impact as that was, it wasn’t enough to knock the color out of his eyes. In fact, it made them scramble and mix together for a solid half a minute.

He sat there on the ground, rubbing his head and eyes. He heard groaning from in front of him. He opened his eyes and focused on putting the colors back into their rightful places. He blinked and up popped the silver and aqua figure that had knocked him down. It was a boy, not much older than himself, maybe months. His hair was cut short save for a part in the front that folded over his face and was streaked with…pink? (The colors were compromising his normal sense of vision.) From what he could make out underneath the swirl of silver and aqua, he was wearing a white iconic t-shirt, a black jacket, black jeans with a white belt and silver chains, and white high tops with pink laces that matched his hair. He was really good looking.

The boy looked up at him. “Oh man, that really . Sorry. I was in a rush and I didn’t see you in time to slow down.” He stood up and held a hand out. “Are you okay?” 

“Yes, I’m fine,” Ren said quietly, ignoring the hand and moving to pick up the papers, cursing all the colors.

He felt the boy’s confusion. He just shrugged and knelt down next to Ren and began picking up papers. Once they were done, they stood up. The boy handed the papers to Ren with a smile. Taking them, he noticed the warm golden orange tint swirling around the boy’s silver-aqua aura, indicating his good feelings and of helping Ren out and hoping that Ren forgave him.

“I do,” he said on impulse.

A cloudy gray replaced the golden orange. Confusion. The boy tilted his head. “What?”

Ren cursed himself. “I mean, I forgive you for running into me.”

The gray disappeared and the boy smiled, a peach color floating around him symbolizing his relief. “Oh. Thanks! I was afraid you were mad or irritated at me or something. I’m Kim Jonghyun, but you can call me JR.”

Ren bowed to the boy. “I’m Choi Minki. Call me Ren. Thank you for helping me pick up my papers, JR-ssi.”

JR was still smiling when another boy, similarly dressed as JR with sandy blonde dyed hair that was more of a light grayish color cut into a mowhawk, ran up behind him, his reckless cloudy pine colored aura whiping around him like fire. “Hey, JR! Come on! I wanna see our room and grab breakfast before we have to start classes!”

“Right. Well, I’ll be seeing you Ren-ssi!” JR waved at him as the other boy dragged him off, their auras mingling into a strange silvery mint and pine color.

Ren just waved and watched them go. He turned to his amiss belongings, grabbed them again and continued on his trip to the dorms. A dull ache formed in the back of his head.

This was going to be a long day….

a/n: There's more to Ren's power than just colors and that cool map thing, by the way. I got the basis for it from this awesome and cute story right here ( One Million Colors by Amybell ). Also, my version is a bit different, but mostly the same. Can't wait to reveal more characters and powers!!! XD