| Chapter 1 |

Luhan lay on a field of tall grass. The wind blew a constant breeze, making the grass dance all around him. It looked like he was floating on a sea of green.

Someone approaches him.

“Hey?” The stranger slowly walks in circles around the unconscious Luhan. He has a stick with him and he prods Luhan lightly on the side.

“Are you… okay?” He prods Luhan a second time, a little bit harder on the ribs.

Luhan’s eyes darts open and a laugh escapes his mouth. The stranger jumps back, startled, and drops his stick. Luhan was surprised by his own laugh and he touches his side where the stranger poked him.

“Ow…” he gingerly rubs his ribs. “Chen," he says groggily. "I told you never to tickle me awake again!” he pushes himself up to his feet. The feel of the grass and the ground just registering in his head. He feels dazed.

The stranger doesn’t make a sound and keeps his distance, warily eyeing Luhan, his stick back in his hands.

“Hey, where are we…?” Luhan looks around, still not realizing it wasn’t his friend he was talking to. “Chen?”

The stranger keeps backing away, swiftly but steadily, making sure he doesn't make a sound. His eyes were glued on to the other boy. Luhan turns around and to finally see that he had been talking to a stranger. “You’re not Chen…”

With a good distance between them, the stranger finally spoke.

“Who are you…?” he raises his stick in front of him as if to defend himself.

Luhan raises his hands up and backs away slowly. “Whoa, I don’t mean any harm!”

The wind starts to blow a little stronger. If he wasn’t in this kind of a situation, Luhan would have loved to just sit down, relax and feel the wind in his face. The stranger grips his stick tighter. Luhan could see his knuckles turn white from the grip.

“Have you seen my friends?” Luhan asks. It was a very slight action but he saw the stranger shake his head. “Okay… do you have anyone else with you?” Another shake of the head. Luhan sighs.

“Where are we?” the stranger asks.

“I don’t know.” Luhan looks around once more, his hands still above his head. His shoulders started to feel sore. “I was hoping you knew.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay. So, umm, let’s put our hands down for a start. Is that okay? I won’t hurt you. I’ll stay way over here.” Luhan proposed, slowly lowering his hands. The stranger looks at him, his expression unreadable, and lowered the stick with the same pace Luhan was lowering his hands. “Alright, so, since we’re both stuck here together, we might as well try and help each other out.”

A gust of wind blows towards him, messing up his hair. Then as suddenly as it came, the wind died down.

“Are you okay?” Luhan asks, seeing the troubled expression on the younger boy in front of him.

The stranger doesn’t answer but looks down at the ground instead. Then Luhan began to hear him speak, it was barely audible but he heard it.

I was at the roof of my house… I wanted to see the planetary alignment… the wind was so strong… then Kai appeared… everything went dark… What did I do...?

Luhan blinks a couple of times. “Who’s Kai?”

The stranger immediately looks up and brings the stick up in front of him.

“How do you know Kai? What did you do to him?” His voice shook as he said the words.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Luhan jumps back, his hands back in the air. “I didn’t do anything! I don’t even know him! I just heard you say his name!”

“But I wasn’t saying anything!”

“Yes, you were! You said you were at the roof and that the wind was strong and then Kai appeared!” Luhan repeated what he heard.

“I didn’t say that! I was… I was thinking it.” the stranger said. “What are you, some kind of psychic freak!?” The stranger starts backing away again, giving Luhan a look of utter distrust.

Luhan closes his eyes and tries to remember what happened before he found himself waking up here.

Chen discharging electricity. Xiumin freezing half the wall of Kris’ condo unit. Kris floating up towards the ceiling. And that voice. That voice he heard in his head.

“Weird things happened before you woke me up.” Luhan said to himself.

“What?”

“Weird things happened! We were at my friend’s place and then these weird things started happening!

“So, it happened to you, too, huh?” the stranger said, slightly lowering his stick.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was on our roof ‘coz I wanted to see that planetary alignment thing I heard from the news…” he began to say.

“I know. I read your mind, remember?” Luhan interrupted, earning him a look of disapproval from the stranger. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

“So I was on the roof," the boy cautiously started to say, still unsure whether telling this stranger his story would be wise, but he had no one else around him and he'd rather be with someone than be alone. So he continued. "I slipped and lost my balance. I was sure I was going to fall and hurt myself but a strange thing happened. A really strong gust of wind sort of caught me, you know? And brought me back up. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was extreme luck!” Luhan could see the stranger was starting to relax as he told his tale. “But then the wind didn’t stop. It just kept blowing and blowing. Then Kai appeared in front of me all of a sudden and then he disappeared in a puff of black smoke the next second. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The wind got really strong I had to close my eyes and hang on to the roof for dear life. Next thing I knew, I woke up here and found you lying on the ground.”

While he was telling his story, the stranger had let down his stick completely. Luhan sighed in relief as he put down his hands as well, alleviating the ache in his shoulders.

“Something similar happened to me and my friends, too.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, you know… The usual. One started floating up towards the ceiling, one of them started discharging electricity and the other one froze the wall of my friend’s apartment.” Luhan said sarcastically, in hopes that it would help the both of them relax. “Must have been puberty.”

The stranger giggled at this, which Luhan found extremely cute. He also thought it was weird that he thought it was cute but he didn't think too much about it.

“Hey, listen. I know you’re not supposed to trust strangers and all but maybe we can work together.” Luhan proposes.

“Work together to what?” the stranger his head to the side, eyebrows furrowed.

“To figure out where we are, for starters? How we got here? How I can, apparently, read minds?” Luhan said, “What do you say?” The stranger took a moment to reply. He looks around him, as if trying to find any other possible solution or way out of this. There was nothing around them but a seemingly endless expanse of tall grass and far off mountain ranges.

“Okay.” He replies with a nod.

“Great!” Luhan said, smiling. “I’m Luhan, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Luhan. I’m Sehun.”

It was dark and damp. All Kai could smell was rusting metal when he woke up. He got up on all fours and shook his head to clear it.

Where am I…?

He accidentally breathed in a large amount of air by accident and started coughing. He managed to sit upright and prop himself up on a wall behind him. He then took some time to look around him. The room was dark except for some light streaming down from holes on the ceiling. It was square, just a plain square. No signs of any doors or windows. The holes letting in the light were too small for him to squeeze through. Even if they were big enough, he would have no way of reaching them. There was nothing in this room except for him, sparse lighting, rust and…

“There’s no way out.” A voice came from the shadows on the other side of the room. Kai let out a cry of surprise and he immediately stood up and raised both his hands, balled up into fists, in front of him.

“Wh-who’s there?” His voice cracked as he said this and he cursed himself for sounding so pathetic.

“Don’t worry. If I had meant you any harm, I would have done it when you were unconscious.” The voice said.

Kai was doubtful, but the voice had a point. He lowered his hands and squinted, trying to see who it was lurking in the shadows.

“Where are my friends? Did you bring me here?” Kai said, moving sideways into the shadows to conceal himself.

“No, I didn’t. I’ve lost my friends, too.”

Kai didn’t respond. He couldn’t think straight. Images of what happened that night keeps popping into his mind.

“Look, we’re both in this predicament and we both have no way of escaping. I think it’s best if we both at least tried to help each other.” The other man says.

Kai thought about it for a moment and once again agreed that the voice was right. There was no possible way of escape. The man wouldn’t have stayed here if there was.

“Okay. I agree.” Kai responded anxiously. “But show yourself first.”

He heard a sigh and a shuffling noise and then footsteps. The figure stepped into the light and Kai finally saw his companion.

Tall and lissome, jet-black hair, slanted sharp eyes that were unusually penetrating. He reminded Kai of a crow, somehow. Physically, the other guy would be able to take him down easily. He gulped silently and stepped forward, allowing the other boy to see him.

“Now what?” The other boy said in an almost uninterested tone.

“Uhh, I don’t know.” Kai was still in a daze, his mind was foggy and he felt disoriented. He closed his eyes and the blackness engulfed him. In the darkness, his memories surfaced.

He was inside his room when suddenly everything started to blur, as if everything was being swallowed into one single point, and that point was him. The next second, he was in front of his friend, Chanyeol, and he watched as his friend was engulfed in flames. Shock hit him and a sudden rush of adrenaline propelled him forward, to help his friend when suddenly everything blurred again. He disappeared from Chanyeol and appeared in front of Kyungsoo. A quick look at his surroundings told him they were at the park near Kyungsoo’s house and it looked like an earthquake had just hit the place. The ground was uneven and there were cracks on the ground so large that he could have easily fallen into them. Kyungsoo was in the middle of it all, looking as frightened as he was, as frightened as Chanyeol was. Then for the third time, he was being moved to another place. This time, he was on top of a roof and Sehun stood there. The wind was so strong it threatened to throw them both into the air. The last thing he saw before he got transported away again was Sehun’s shocked expression. He reappeared in front of Suho. He recognized it as Suho’s family mansion’s kitchen. Suho was near the sink, surrounded by a stream of water flowing endlessly from the tap. And once more, he moved through space, somehow, to appear in front of Baekhyun. The moment he saw his friend, a blinding light engulfed them, then there was darkness.

Then he woke up in this metal box with a stranger across from him.

“Were you thinking of a way out?” the other boy asked. This snapped Kai out of his reverie and he now focused on the person in front of him.

“No,” he said, “No. I don’t know how to get out of here unless you have a ladder, a high-powered drill or some.. some dynamite! I don’t know!” he finished in a shout of frustration.

“Huh,” the other whispered. “Well, maybe this will help you more than it did me.” The boy pointed at the floor as he talked and Kai followed with his eyes.

There were symbols etched onto the metal floor. 12 symbols arranged in a circle. Kai noticed that the ray of lights from the ceiling hit each of the symbols, like little spotlights for each of them.

Kai checked them one by one, trying hard to make sense of what they could mean.

One looked like a head of a unicorn. Another looked like those scorpion tattoos people get on their arms. Another one looked like an hourglass. Another like a drop of water, or something. They were all different, and they all looked tribal to Kai.

“You think we were kidnapped by some freakish tribe and we’re being held captive to be later used as sacrifices for their god?” Kai said, laughing nervously in the end.

“That thought actually came to mind. But… I also thought about the events that happened before I found myself here.”

“Events?” Kai looked at the boy, curiosity obvious in his voice. “What events?”

“Well, the last thing I remember before I woke up here were these really weird things that happened to me and my friends.”

“Me, too!” Kai exclaimed. “I mean, me and my friends! The most bizarre things happened!”

“Tell me.”

So Kai told him, and the stranger relayed his own story afterwards. 

“So, I wasn’t, am not, dreaming and I’m not crazy!” Kai said, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Or we’re both dreaming and we’re both crazy.”

“Crazy or not, we have to get out of here.” Kai nodded in agreement.

The stranger looked at the symbols on the floor again.

“There are twelve symbols on the floor.” He says. “Twelve… twelve… There are six of you… and six of us.”

“What’re you getting at?” Kai said, looking at the symbols again. The stranger started to walk, following the path of the circle on the floor.

“Water…” he said, stopping at the symbol that looked like a drop of water. “Ice…? And, wind.”

Kai watched as the other boy walked around the circle, stopping at symbols and naming them.

“I think these symbols are somehow related to what happened to us.” The other boy said after identifying some of the symbols.

“How so…?” Kai asked, not quite getting the picture.

“Fire, earth, water, wind and light. Those are your friends.” he said. “Then there’s you. You say you appear before them in the blink of an eye, like you teleported or something.”

Kai nodded, the puzzle forming in his mind.

“And your friends have ice and, what, electricity? Floating? Floating’s kind of a lame power.” He said.

“I wouldn’t call if floating. Let’s call it flight.” The stranger corrected him. “There would be healing, too. I remember Chen’s wounds disappearing.”

“What’s yours, then?” Kai asked. The stranger doesn’t respond but looks down at the circle of symbols again. Matching the symbols to the events that happened, he somehow identified most of them.

“The only ones I haven’t figured out are these.” He points at a triangle symbol, a symbol with a bunch of circles, and one that looks like an hourglass. “One of these three is your symbol. One is mine. One would be Luhan’s. But I’m not too sure.”

“Hmm…” Kai contemplates on the three symbols. “I’m pretty sure that this symbol,” he points at the hourglass, “would represent...”

“Time.” The stranger finishes for him.

Endless fields of grass and mountain peaks, that’s all Luhan could see. He and Sehun have decided they should at least start walking. Where? They didn’t know. But they needed to go somewhere. They needed to find something aside from grass and dirt.

“Do you think there’s a town here somewhere? Or a village? Or some indigenous tribe?” Sehun said, lagging behind Luhan a little.

“I don’t think we’ll be finding any villages here. No towns, no cities… at least, not the ones we know of.” Luhan said, lost in thought. He stopped abruptly and Sehun almost bumped into him.

“What do you mean?” Sehun asked, walking around to face Luhan. The other boy looked up at the sky and pointed at the moon. “The moon? It’s normal for it to be out during the day. Although, I have to admit that it’s unusually bigger than normal…”

“Yes, I know but…” Luhan turned to his right and points at another globe in the sky. Heavy clouds made it difficult for it to be seen. But it was big enough to be noticeable. “There’s a second moon over there. I didn’t see it a while ago but after looking around, I caught sight of it and I’ve been trying to make sense of it all this time.”

“Two moons,” Sehun said. “Or maybe that’s a planet! Remember the planet alignment thing?”

“You’re right. It’s probably that.” Luhan assured him, but he wasn’t entirely convinced. Something in his gut was telling him something wasn’t right.

“We better continue walking. It’ll get dark soon, I think.” Sehun said as he started to walk again. He now used his stick as a walking stick.

“You’re right.” Luhan said silently. He looked at the two moons in the sky one more time before following after Sehun.

Someone was shaking him awake and whoever it was wasn’t being gentle about it. Annoyed, Kris opened his eyes and was greeted by the earthy taste of dirt in his mouth. He was lying down on the ground. What was he doing face down on the ground?

“Hey, wake up! Please!”

Kris pushed himself up, almost like a jump. He got to his feet and looked around quickly. All he could see were clouds and mountain peaks. A lot of mountain peaks. The wind was really strong it threatened to throw him off balance. And there was another boy with him. Same height. Same build. Auburn locks of hair. Unusually big and pointed ears. Equally unusual wide smile on his face.

“Who are you and where are we?” Kris said. He kept his expression neutral.

“Thank God, you’re awake. I thought you were dead! I didn’t like the thought of being alone here with a dead guy.” The other boy said. His voice was low, not the key you would expect to hear coming out of someone who looked like him. He talked really fast, too, Kris thought.

“Where is here, exactly?” Kris said, looking around. “And judging from what you said, I take it you’re not the one responsible for bringing me here.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t bring anyone here. When I woke up I was already here. And then I saw you and I tried to wake you up but you wouldn’t budge. I thought you were dead. So I looked around trying to find a way down but there aren’t any.”

He really talked fast.

“You said a whole bunch of things but only managed to answer one of my questions, so I'll ask again. Who are you?” Kris said, still looking around.

“Oh, right. I’m Chanyeol. Park, Chanyeol.” The other boy said.

“I’m Kris.” Kris replied, walking near the edge of the summit they were at.

“Kris…?” Chanyeol asked, following him.

“Just Kris.” Kris replied blankly. "Never give away everything to a stranger." Chanyeol blinked at this. Kris leaned over a bit to see what was below them but he quickly backed away when he saw nothing but white. They were above the clouds. “We’re… we’re way up.” Kris said, lost for words.

“Yeah.” Chanyeol nodded. “I’ve combed the whole area and there’s nothing. Well, not nothing…” he trailed off.

“What? Tell me.” Kris said, facing Chanyeol.

“I’m sure these wouldn’t help but I found them half buried in the ground. I tripped on them.” He took two small stone slabs from his pocket and showed them to Kris. Kris took them and was surprised with what he saw.

“This symbol…” He said. On each stone was a symbol. Both looked like winged animals. “This symbol, I know this.” He said, taking the stone that had the symbol he recognized. 

“Yeah? I think they’re some sort of birds. Like, a phoenix or something.” Chanyeol said. He took the other stone from Kris, the one with the symbol that Kris didn’t recognize.

“No, no. This one’s not a phoenix. This is a dragon.” Kris said. An instant later, the stone did something wholly unexpected. 

It began to glow.

“What did you do!?” Chanyeol said, backing away from the stone.

“I didn’t do anything!” Kris dropped the stone and backed away as well.

The stone glowed brighter and brighter until it was just a circle of white. Then it shot a ray of light into the sky. After a few seconds, the light died down and the stone returned to its original state.

Dragon.

They both heard it. In their heads, like a faint whisper.

“Dragon,” Chanyeol said. “Did you hear that?” Kris nodded slowly, looking confused. “You think a fire-breathing dra… hey!” The stone Chanyeol was holding also started glowing. He dropped it, like Kris did, and backed away. They both watched it glow white and shoot a ray into the sky. Then, like the first one, the light died down. They both looked at each other, then at the stones on the ground.

Fire.

“There it is again! In my head!” Chanyeol exclaimed. “This is getting really weird. First I burst into flames and then I find myself on top of a mountain and now these glowing stone thingies that make you hear weird whispers in your head.”

“Wait, say that again.” Kris said, walking towards Chanyeol.

“What? Glowing stone thingies?” Chanyeol blinked as Kris drew closer to him.

“No, no! The other one. You burst into flames?” Kris asked. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, yeah. Umm. Before I found myself here I, well… I burst into flames. I swear I didn’t do anything and I just found myself somehow.. producing fire… or something. It took me a little while to realize I wasn’t getting burnt at all.”

“So it wasn’t a dream…” Kris said to himself.

“What? You saw me burst into flames?” Chanyeol said, confused.

“No, no! Some weird things happened to me and my friends as well. Chen was discharging electricity and Xiumin was freezing my condo and I was… I was floating.” Kris remembered the events in his living room. The feeling of suddenly being so light and free. The panic he felt when his feet started to leave the ground.

“Kris…” his thoughts were disrupted by Chanyeol’s shocked voice.

“What?” He looked at Chanyeol as the other boy pointed at him. He looked down and saw himself floating a few inches off the ground. And that feeling of panic came rushing back to him.

It was starting to get dark. Luhan and Sehun had walked for miles and when it looked like there was no hope, they found a small clearing in the middle of the grasslands.

“Sehun, over there! A tree!” Luhan pointed. “It looks like a clearing!” Sehun looked up and smiled weakly. The pair used the last bits of their strength to reach the clearing. Once they did, they found the most unexpected things.

“A table…” Luhan said as they approached. Sehun hurried over to it and began checking the things on top of it.

“There’s a map here! And a notebook, a pen, a kite and a telescope…” Sehun picked up the telescope and began looking through it. “These things will help us, Luhan!”

“They most definitely will. Look, there’s a futon behind this tree! Blankets… jackets… and a wooly aviator hat?”

“I call dibs on the hat!” Sehun bounded towards him, snatched the hat and put it on. “How do I look?”

Ah, Luhan thought, there’s that smile again. During the time they spent walking the endless plain, he had seen that smile quite a few times and every time he did, his heart would trip and he had to mentally slap himself to get back to reality. He gazed at the other boy for a few seconds before answering:

“You look great.”

“Really?” Sehun adjusted the hat with a smile and returned to the table. Meanwhile, Luhan checked if there was anything else under the blankets and jackets. He found nothing else. So he began setting up the futon and blankets before it got too dark.

“Do you know how to start a fire?” Luhan said after he finished his work with the futon. Sehun shook his head. “Good thing I do, then.” Luhan smiled and Sehun felt his cheeks go red at the sight of it. He was surprised by his reaction and immediately put his hands on his cheeks a little too hard.

“Ow!”

“What?” Luhan spun around.

“Umm… bugs…” Sehun said, rubbing his cheeks that were even more red from the slap and the rubbing.

The sky was painted a dark purple hue and the two moons hanging in the sky grew brighter every minute. Sehun retrieved the map from the table and returned to sit by Luhan’s side, who was busy rubbing sticks together.

“I think I got it!” Luhan vigorously rubbed but Sehun couldn’t really see any progress. Sehun looked at the other boy, who had his tongue slightly peeking out of his pressed lips, a look of pure concentration on his face, and he giggled. Luhan gave im a confused look.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Sehun quickly answered. “Try that again, I’ll help.” Sehun put his hands out, blocking the wind as Luhan returned to rubbing. This time, it worked and they made a little fire. Luhan broke off a few more branches and twigs from the tree in case they needed more for later.

“I hope this keeps the animals away.” Luhan said, sitting back down beside Sehun.

“You still think there are animals out here after walking that distance and not seeing a single living creature?” Sehun said.

“Well, there was that bug on your cheek. I think it left a bit of a stain…” Luhan put his thumb on Sehun’s cheek and rubbed lightly. “There.”

Sehun felt his heart skip a beat as Luhan did what he did, and Luhan noticed the slight rose buds of color blooming in Sehun’s cheeks. He immediately withdrew his hand and averted his gaze, concentrating on the dancing flames of the bonfire. Sehun did the same.

After what felt like an hour of silence, Sehun broke it.

“Ehem… I think we should, uh, check out that map.” He got up and walked towards the table. He seized the map and returned to Luhan’s side, handing him the piece of paper.

“Okay,” Luhan ran his eyes over the piece of paper. “I can’t see very well.” He said, squinting.

“Bad eyesight for someone so young.” Sehun commented.

“Hey, it’s the fire’s fault,” Luhan said, laughing. “Besides, I’m older than you.”

“What do you mean older? I’m 17!” Sehun said, looking at Luhan. Luhan looked up at him, still laughing.

“Well, I’m 22.” Luhan said. Sehun looked stunned.

“You’re kidding.” Sehun said. Luhan shook his head with a smile. “You’re kidding!” Sehun couldn’t help but smile himself.

“I’m not! I was born 1990!” Luhan looked Sehun in the eyes as he said this, trying to look as serious as he can. Sehun stared back, taking the challenge. He scanned the baby face in front of him. His eyes, his button nose, his lips. Luhan was doing the exact same thing. In the silence, they took each other in with their eyes, drinking in the image of the other. Then Luhan blinked.

“You lose.” Sehun said almost immediately. Luhan smiled but he had purposely blinked. If he had stared at Sehun a second more, he didn’t think his chest could contain his heart.

“Okay, I believe you.” Sehun said, taking the map away from Luhan.

“You do?” Luhan brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them.

“Yeah, I saw age lines.” Sehun teased. Luhan scoffed.

“I do not have age lines!” But Sehun just laughed.

And so, with their barriers completely down, they momentarily forgot about the map and they talked until the sky was pitch black and specked with stars.

Sehun yawned.

“Sleepy?” Luhan said, catching the yawn himself. Sehun nodded and stood up. He made his way towards the futon silently and plopped himself down on one half of the futon. Luhan giggled. “Out like a light.”

He stood up and took one of the blankets and put it over Sehun. He normally didn’t like anyone else on his bed but tonight he’d make an exception. He put out the fire with some dirt, went back to their self-made bed and lay down beside Sehun.

“Good night.” He whispered into the dark.

| Strangers and Symbols |