Chapter Forty-Eight: In
A Crack in HistoryJongwoon advised that they move into the forests to make camp, and not to have a fire as the smoke would warn everyone of them being there. So instead, Ryeowook made a few dim globes of light using the beams of the moon. It wasn't ideal, but it was substantial. That's all it had to be really.
They had ventured deep into the trees, until they had been surrounded by darkness and they couldn't see the sky. None of them immediately went to sleep though, shifts hadn't been organised. So they all sat close, so their faces were huddled together with an orb of moonlight illuminating them. Besides, it was cold, the body heat helped them all. A lot of people were huddling up to Zhou Mi, Henry was practically snuggled in his lap. His graze had been treated, a large medical patch covering half his face.
"Okay... Hahaha... We're in North Korea... We're actually... In... North Korea... Hahahahahahaha..." Eunhyuk breathed out shakily, no one dared to speak any louder than a whisper. "... Words cannot express how scared I am right now... Jesus Christ, help me..."
"Eunhyuk!"
"Sorry Siwon, I'm scared okay?! Can't a guy have a moment?!"
"Okay... We'll let them have their moment," Han Geng ignored the two. "What are our plans for now...?"
Jongwoon raised his hand tentively. Han Geng rolled his eyes, but nodded at him so he would talk.
"Apart from the obvious?" Jongwoon inquired curiously.
"What do you mean by that?" Donghae frowned across the circle at him.
"Well, I would've thought that our next plan of action was perfectly blatant," Jongwoon looked at the Metal element innocently. "Head to Pyongyang. In which way or how to approach is unknown to me."
"We are heading to the massive lab where the Omniscience is," Kyuhyun shrugged. "Jongwoon's right, Pyongyang is in the right direction..."
"I know it's north of here," Heechul pointed out. "It's mainly flat if we head straight up. Used to be a whole lot of field crops, but they were destroyed and they built heaps of the prisons and camps over the land. That would be a couple of hundred kilometres from here. It's also really, really secure. And dangerous. So I don't think we should go that way..."
"However, if we head around the camps, it's more mountainous than you would expect," Heebum added on to his owner's words. "There's many cliffs and high faces. Although a major percentage of it is foliage and forest. Apart from being dangerous, not really being any path, it's near winter and not knowing what's up there, it's a suitable passage. And provides pretty good cover."
"Gee, you two would be great advertisers... I really am dying to get there now," Ryeowook said sarcastically, glaring at the cat. "Is there any other way?"
"The ocean?" Leeteuk meekly suggested. "We could go around the coast and then enter from-"
"NO."
Even Heebum agreed with that one.
"Well, you did want a suggestion, I just gave you one, you didn't want it," Leeteuk dismissed the protests. "So to answer your question Ryeowook, no, apart from the ways Heechul and Heebum have suggested, there's no other ways. We have two choices."
"We should think about this more than we did about heading out of Seoul," Sungmin warned the group seriously. "We're in a place that no one's ever gotten into, unless for prison, and never gotten out, since... God-knows-when... And more importantly, we have no idea what or where we're dealing with. We have to be careful."
The Darkness element began to raise his hand again, yet Sungmin yanked it down and looked at him incredulously.
"Look, no one cares about manners here, just talk."
"I have a map." He stated bluntly.
"Of North Korea?"
"Yes."
"Why on Earth do you have a map of North Korea on you?" Eunhyuk questioned sceptically. "And where the hell did you get it?"
"Eunhyuk!"
"I don't care Siwon!"
Jongwoon looked like was going to raise his hand again, but hesitated, and then lowered it before beginning to speak again.
"I found it attached to one of the shipping containers at the port," he rummaged through his backpack. "It's got all these rail and soldier track lines on it, and the different districts and cities. I think it might help a bit. It doesn't have anything to do with the geography of the land though. I apologise."
He placed the creased piece of paper in the centre of their circle, under the light orb. Each section was coded with a different number, the paths of trains and walking tracks indicated by multiple colours and dashes. Cities were marked by black dots and squares depending on where it was. The group peered down at it, twelve pairs of calculating eyes scanning the map.
"No, no, this is perfect!" Henry sat forwards from Zhou Mi's hold slightly. "This tells us where to avoid! So at least we'll have some way of knowing where to go!"
"There's a train located a few kilometres from here..." Zhou Mi looked away into the darkness of the trees.
"It leads from the port to Pyongyang," Leeteuk pressed a finger to the map. "But there are stations at each of the cities in between. At some, the rails even split off from this line to form new ones."
"So it's a interconnected network..." Kyuhyun mused thoughtfully. "That means everywhere we go, there's going to be a track with a train on it. With trains come soldiers..."
"... Except for the mountainous cities," Donghae spotted. "Look, we wouldn't even have to head up that high, we'd just need to stay in the lower parts of the mountains."
Everyone followed Donghae's gaze. He was right. Practically none of the trains headed in the mountains, there was only one, and that headed way up to the peaks. It was easy enough to see a possible path.
"We could head east, straight across, using the forests and scrub as cover," Donghae suggested swiping his finger across the map. "From there, we could just travel along the mountains... Or forests..."
"... And then head down when we see Pyongyang!" Kyuhyun gasped in realisation. "Donghae! You are brilliant! It would be a perfect vantage point to be able to see all the cities and camps, and it's only accessible by foot. We'd be the only ones there!"
"Did it ever occur to you that soldiers actually might think to guard those hills?" Sungmin narrowed his eyes at the excited Death element.
"No, they wouldn't," Zhou Mi shrugged nonchalantly, head rested atop Henry's. "If what I've heard is true, all the cities are well guarded, no one gets in or out, unless it's soldiers I suppose. If the cities are so 'well-guarded' as they say, they wouldn't have to send security to check the hills."
"We'd just have to make sure we didn't get too close to the towns and stuff," Siwon added softly. "The only thing is, how would we get across to the mountains? That area is practically flat, and it would take more than a couple of days to get to the base of the mountains. If you want a more accurate amount, I'd say three to four days at the least."
"Like Donghae said, there's parts of forests and scrub, I think," Heechul countered with a furrowed brow. "We'd make our way to those spots each day to make camp. Like a checkpoint."
"We need to talk about this more before we actually take action," Leeteuk considered. "Sungmin's right, we need to be careful with what we do. Any move could be our last. Now, I think we need a rest..."
"I'll take watch," Sungmin stood up, walking away to probably make himself comfortable somewhere. "Anyone going to help?"
"Yeah, I'll help," Heechul sighed, moving to join his opposite. "C'mon Heebum."
The small cat raced after his owner, scampering to his side quickly.
"I'll join you too," Jongwoon decided looking at Kyuhyun. "Make sure you sleep Master."
"Yeah, yeah, I will Jongwoon," Kyuhyun nodded with a bored expression. "Don't worry so-"
"Junha."
"Alright, I will," Kyuhyun gave in, standing up to find a place to sleep. "I'll sleep! Wake me in a couple of hours though, okay?"
"I will."
The rest of them dispersed after that, most sleeping, others looking out. They were all worrying, or wondering. Twelve minds filled of anxiety (Probably eleven because Jongwoon didn't 'worry'). Henry had made sure Zhou Mi stayed with him, because Zhou Mi was incredibly warm. And it was freezing out. Henry was wondering why it wasn't snowing yet. He was scared. Who wouldn't be? Twelve people facing a thousand, hundreds of thousands, maybe even million man army. He wondered if it were rational to be so freaked out.
"Zhou...?"
"Gotten to the level of nicknames have we?" Zhou Mi asked sleepily, eyes half-lidded as they gazed at Henry.
"If you want-wait, you're getting me distracted."
"Okay then, what is it, Henli?"
The Water element blushed at the mispronunciation of his name. He couldn't tell if was done on purpose or simply because Asians couldn't say 'r's properly. Whatever it was, it was kind of cute.
"Are you scared?"
"Of course I'm scared, aren't we all?" Zhou Mi murmured, shuffling around. "Are you scared?"
"I'm absolutely terrified," Henry admitted bitterly. "I just don't want to show it."
"Neither do I," Zhou Mi sighed softly. "We'll be fine Henli. We can do this."
"What if we can't though?" Henry mumbled.
"What do you meant what if we can't?" Zhou Mi snorted. "We're the Elemental Guardians. We were made to do this. This is our duty. We have to fulfil it. The only question is 'if' we can..."
"I sure hope you're right..."
"I'd like to believe so too..."
---
Getting there, slowly... I've kicked myself up the to get this fic up and running again. So I hope to be a lot more active as the year goes on (except for exams. Always go into binge study for exams).
Who haven't we done...? Character analysis wise... I'm not quite sure. Let's make a list hm...?
- Han Geng
- Henry
Huh... Okay, let's do Han Geng. He's pretty chill most of the time. Just like Leeteuk, funnily enough. However, whenever it comes to anything concerning said Life element, Hang Geng goes into panic mode. But only because he's worried, which I sort of think is his way of being affectionate (too bad Leeteuk doesn't like it). I have also mentioned that Han Geng is the one whose personality coincides with his element, Air, the most. This means it's reflected in him- you can tell why he's the Air element. He's really cruisy, able to easy adapt and manoeurve his way through sticky situations. He doesn't really care about things, willing to take on tasks and missions with ease. He also doesn't get angry easily. Yet when he does, he gets really angry (like, 'I-will-destroy-everything-you-love-and-throw-you-all-the-way-to-America' angry.). This in turn activates his powers and causes him to create immense hurricanes, tornadoes, and storms.
Quick reminder if you didn’t memorise what was written in the previous chapter (Don’t worry, I haven’t either, just using the copy and paste technique and adding a few alternations, haha): Each sentence has a person’s name next to it. The person whose name is there, is the person that Han Geng is ‘talking’ about (He’s talking in a way that it sounds like he’s immediately talking to them, but he actually would never say these word to them). RED means a hostile relationship, BLUE means a positive one, and GREEN means an unsure or unsteady one. Underlined means Cognate (Friend, similar element) and bold & italicised means opposite (completely contrasting, opposite powers, e.g. Water and Fire). Any name that's got both colours in it means the relationship between those two people is kind of teetering between the two statuses. Parentheses (Brackets) with any text in them are what a person thinks about them, but doesn't directly express (e.g. Sungmin -> Kyuhyun: "One step closer, and I'll gut you like a fish, sew you back together, and do it again. (You killed my brother you... You... You demon... Why?!)" <- This bracketed part is what Sungmin doesn't clearly express towards Kyuhyun. If there are a set of parentheses (brackets) that have "..." like this -> (...) or have incoherent words (... You... why... I can... No...) <- like that, then the person has hidden or obscure thoughts about the other person (basically, if I didn't make them dots or random words, I'd be giving huge spoilers)
Han Geng
-> Leeteuk: "You're an idiot. Why are you my best friend. You're such an egg sometimes..." (I love you so, so much, Jungsoo... Really... If only you would look after yourself more...)
-> Eunhyuk: "You're an idiot." (Don't worry so much, Hyuk, Teuk and I are here for you. We're going to all be fine and you'll never have to worry.)
-> Donghae: "Are you just scared of me or of everyone or what...???" (He doesn't really talk to... Anyone...)
-> Ryeowook: "... You are one badass man... Your pistols and all..." (But I feel like that before we met everyone else, before you met Jongwoon... You were a lot calmer... Less... Bitter, and resentful... Have you met Jongwoon before or something...? Does he remind you of Yesung?)
-> Jongwoon: "... I'm going away now..." (God, you freak me out...)
-> Kyuhyun: "Just so you know, I don't really care if you're the Death element." (So defensive.)
-> Sungmin: "Let's not get you angry. I'll make an extra effort to get you away from Kyuhyun." (What the hell did that Devil do to him to evoke this kind of reaction?"
-> Zhou Mi: "... So... You come from China too?" (... I really don't know what to do)
-> Henry: "Okay, kid, you're pretty cool. Just stop pestering me abuot Jungsoo. He gives me a hard enough time already."
-> Heechul: "... Are you okay?" (Seriously, you look like you want to run away.)
-> Siwon: "Sup buddy, let's chat sometime." (You're too quiet. Everyone in this damn joint is too quiet.)
Han Geng is probably the one who notices Heechul's actual personality towards the group. He's not just being mean because he wants to or hates the others. He's also the one who has a brotherly type relationship towards Siwon. But this is due to their 'sworn brothers' pact, still, their elements are complimentary. Ah! Only Henry left!!!
See you whenever.
Are there any artists here on AFF? I'm just curious, because I have seen some pretty cool fanarts on Tumblr and stuff ^_^
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