“God, it’s hot,” Minho mumbled under his breath, his hands clawing at the rock walls, digging like everyone else.

Minho had no idea what the place was, but it was best guessed to be some kind of mining hole. He couldn’t see the ceiling—the farther up, the darker it got. The walls were hard and crusted dirt, currently being dug at by the various creatures on chains to make the area larger.

He didn’t know what the objective or goal was, just to dig. Was he supposed to find something?

  “What is this even for?” Minho growled, his black and white vision rumbling as he got himself wound up, just ready to set fire to the whole wall.

  “It’s not worth getting upset over,” someone sneered, “Stop crying about it.”

  “Oh, shut up, Teddy,” someone else growled, “At least he’s willing to destroy this place, unlike you.”

Minho sighed in irritation. He just had to say something and start something so petty. He clawed at the wall again, digging deeper and evening out the surface. He needed to get out of here now before he’d snap on both of them.

The male snapped his head to the voice and hissed, “You sound so wise for an ancient Ritro. Why don’t you just burn the place down since you’re agreeing with him?”

When Ritro was mentioned, Minho’s attention was caught, his head snapping to the one who was defending him, finding the one with two fangs on both sides of his front teeth, his hair black and shaved oddly, gloves over his hands and white in his eyes.

Was that . . . the one who bit Onew?

He averted his gaze, telling himself to shut up and keep working as the two argued. No, he shouldn’t fight with that creature. It would be too much of an issue and that’ll circulate to SangJung and SangJung will use that against him—that could also put Onew at risk.

Everything just had to be so complicated to the point he screw the system, but he couldn’t. No way could he mess up again and let distrust fly from him.

He had to be careful.

  “She’s on the loose!”

Minho, like everyone else, snapped their head towards the voice, intrigued by the problem.

But Minho was no longer intrigued when he saw who was on the loose. Today of all days, she just had to PMS. It was too hot to deal with her drama.

The feline hopped on top of the guards, forcing them to drop all their weapons as she made her way to Minho, her sharp eyes set on him.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Minho growled, shaking his shackles around his wrists, “Why today?”

She growled lowly and jumped for him, blue sparks emitting from her body as she opened her jaw and gave a warm yet cold welcoming gesture.

Minho flicked his wrists to shake the dirt off, grumbling under his breath. He could go a day without a fight—physically or verbally—and just move on, waiting for the opportunity to break out.

But Jessica just couldn’t let her pride drown and let him be.

She pounced on Minho, dragging him away from his wall and throwing him. Minho could only be glad the area was too big for him to reach the other side. But that didn’t lessen the irritation one bit.

Her humane voice was lost in her body, a cat screech escaping as she came at him again, electricity bolting from her claws.

Minho got on his feet quickly, getting out of her way and looking at every creature around. Some stared, some took bets, some continued working, others debated on inserting themselves in the situation. If only one of them had the decency to actually do it, would Minho feel grateful.

The Ritro sneered at Jessica, eyes meeting Minho’s and tilting his chin up at the feline in disgust, “Kill her.”

Minho tore his eyes away, rejecting the suggestion at once, eyes meeting with a pissed cat. He jumped back to avoid injury as the claw swiped past his face.

  “Will you just fight?” the Ritro yelled, clearly unamused with Minho’s choice to keep his fists down.

Minho grunted at him—if he waited for human back up, he’d be in a lot less of trouble.

With Jessica’s persistence, Minho was leaving himself helpless, weaving himself out of harm’s way as best as he could. Creatures growled at him, demanding Minho move far from them instead of leading Jessica to them, disrupting their work.

  “Stop moving,” she hissed at him, swiping a paw on his leg, letting him fall over so she could stand on top of him.

  “Jessica—”

  “I don’t give a you’re a Daegrent—a royal for that matter. You’re nothing in here. You’re supposed to kneel. You’re never going to win!”

Minho was almost at his peak of irritation with her needless ranting, manipulating his strength and finally pushing her off, “You’ve got some letting go issues.”

He shifted himself away from human, seeing nothing but black and white, feeling heat rush throughout his body, setting fire to his skin.

She growled, rushing for him, only to be met with a forceful white wing flapping her in the face and forcing her back. Minho wasn’t particularly going to play; wasn’t going to try hard—it’d only fuel her further.

They brawled it out as Minho tried to keep away from other creatures, or else they’d join in against Minho.

Jessica may have been this ‘Queen’ everyone spoke of, but Minho had no idea what made her queen. She couldn’t fight for nor talk the talk. It was all just useless PMSing that backed up Minho’s statement when he said that’s why he wouldn’t fancy a girlfriend.

Jessica pulled her claw down on Minho’s left wing, ripping her claws through the feathers and Minho screamed out as she pinned the wing to the ground.

  “!” Minho swore, feeling his wing dampen with what could only be his blood. A splitting pain shot from his wing all the way to his left arm, forbidding him from allowing it to move.

Jessica pulled her claw up, forcing a scream of pain from Minho as she lifted up the injured wing roughly, bringing Minho’s face to hers with a wicked smile.

  “I win,” she taunted, dangling him in the air, “Angel lost his wing.”

Minho’s eyes flashed and taking the pain from his mind, he kicked Jessica in the face, forcing her to rip through his entire wing as the both pushed at each other, hitting until they both flew back opposite ways.

Minho was blinded by pain, but hadn’t lasted long until he flew for into a wall, going right through it and seeing nothing but black.

The never ending weight kept Minho down, dirt smeared all over his face. He could barely breathe; the loose ground filling his nostrils.

He woke up, a dull pain through the entire left of his body. He didn’t feel like a Daegrent, but human. He would’ve tried to look at himself, but he was being crushed by an entire wall of dirt.

He struggled to move, not just because of the weight, but his body wasn’t responding. Minho thought the damage Jessica did with his wing probably spread throughout his body as human.

But if Minho was going to get anywhere, he needed to dig his way out.

With a tight grimace on his face, he tensed as he forced his body to follow his orders.

He forced his wings to contract and stay inside his back or else the pain could’ve been spread. He kept his eyes shut as he vigorously clawed through the dirt with one hand, the other dragging him forward.

It wasn’t going quite as planned as the dirt above continued to weigh down on him instead of keeping in place; like the movies would. That made reality a nuisance.

Minho coughed out hoarsely, digging faster to get himself at least somewhere.

He hissed in pain when the dirt wasn’t there anymore and fell forward to a compact ground. He held his left arm and curled up, breathing as slowly as he could to wait out the strike of pain.

He squinted one eye open, getting a decent look around the best he could.

What surprised him was that he wasn’t back in the digging zone.

There were maps. Everywhere.

Minho struggled to stand, relying on his right side to hold him up, his entire left drowning in pain.

  “I’m so pathetic,” Minho sighed to himself in dismay, “I can’t even keep a girl off me.”

He leaned on a table, fixating his eyes on the papers—scrolls filling the table surface.

With more of a struggle, he managed one open, eyes widening as if he found Taemin.

The whole outline of the floor below the first floor laid before his eyes. Every detail, every wall, every kind of label.

He scrambled around for more, finding the same thing with different floors.

If Minho took these . . . planning would be so much easier for escape. He could be able to plan properly, see where he could go and where he couldn’t; what he should do and what he shouldn’t. This could be potentially a huge bingo to getting out.

But if he grabbed any, surely someone would notice. But then again, it was their fault they put this room in an area that if a creature goes through the wall, they’d find it.

Even though that was a stretch, he was still obligated to take them.

As best he could, he tried finding the maps he needed, replacing them with others. Minho knew the humans would notice, but hey, think like a movie.

He painfully pulled up his pant legs, rolling the scrolls around his calves. He focused on the titles of the maps, figuring whatever he’d get would benefit as long as he’d have to go to it.

He didn’t count how many he had, but figured it was enough when he was almost stiffly waddling. He pulled his pant legs down again, sighing as he eyed the hole he come from.

  “I really don’t want to . . .”

Like he had a choice.

He had no clue how to get back in, but if he was going to be innocent, it was the way to go.

Minho took a big breath, forcing himself in and using the one arm to dig the opposite way; they way he came from. It had collapsed after he fell out, to gravity’s logic. He was suffocating even worse from the new dirt, trying to be as swift as he could.

But his arm was getting tired of clawing after so long, and the other rose in pain—even the small bits of dirt weighed his arm down too much for any comfort at all.

He gritted his teeth, trying to forget the dirt in his nostrils, the dirt trying to make it past his closed lids. Why’d he have to be so far underground?!

It wasn’t much further until he stopped in exhaustion, feeling at least a little accomplished before he decided to go no more.

The accomplishment wasn’t enough to keep Minho from second guessing, by then. He was feeling all sort of negative and his brain was soon growing accustomed to the feeling and letting him drown.

Would it really matter if they found him? It’d be less of a hassle.

Would he ever get out? He seemed too far in to even be found.

Will his wing heal? Not if he’s dead.

Will he live to see Taemin?

May as well not.

----Note~----

I know, I know.

I find this chapter a bit lacking too. >.>

Suddenly Minho goes from "OOOOH I FOUND MAPS" to "OOOOH I'M GONNA DIE I'M THE SADDEST MOST DEPRESS THING ON EARTH" without detail.

Goddamn it. xD

It's been a long while, I know. But even though it's summer, I tend to other things.

Man, I thought I'd be good at updating. >.>

It's also gonna be another while for the chapter. I've got less than a month to do this five-part AP English work and three-part US History AP work and it's biting me on the buuuuuuuuttttt.

But anyway, thanks for keeping with me. <3

Thank you to any views, subs, or comments. <3333333333333333

~FlaMinhoe