Yixing felt like he couldn’t breathe; panic clogging up his chest and fear chilling his blood. One moment Iola was there, in front of him. She was in pain and hurting, but she was there. Then she just shimmered and faded into thin air, no trace of her behind.

“Where did she go?” Baekhyun bellowed, looking left to right in panic. Besides him Remus and Romulus whimpered and whined as they paced around between the Guardians’ legs, paws scratching the ground and heads lifted up to sniff the air.

Chanyeol fell to his knees, hands grappling the soil as if searching for someone. “She…she was just here! Where is she?!”

Yixing wanted to tear his hair in frustration. She was just there and again he let her disappear. His hands reached blindly in front of him, trying to feel anything that might tell him her whereabouts.

“How can she….” Luhan’s mouth was slightly open in a gape, paleness creeping on his visage. “How can she just disappear like that?!”

“Do you think it’s the Teimans again?” Minseok questioned, face dark as he tried to find someone to blame.

Joonmyun shook his head as his eyes locked with Wufan’s. “I don’t think so. They would use a dimensional portal, like they did last time. But this….there was no portal anywhere near us before!”

“Then…” Kyungsoo voiced the question on Yixing’s mind, the one burning in all of their minds. “Where is she?!?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The darkness was suffocating. It held her tight in it’s embrace and refused to let her go.

At first, she couldn’t seem to form coherent thought. She was nothing and the nothingness stretched out both in front and behind her. A painful emptiness throbbed through her body, a heavy weight pulling her down to the ground and she curled around it, too tired to do anything.

Slowly, a voice low and gentle, crept into her mind, soothing the aching.

‘Hush child, it is not time yet. Let it go and fall into me.’

She knew that voice. She had only heard it once but she trusted it, knowing that the voice won’t lead her astray. So she held on to it, clinging to the comfort it offered.

‘Very good. Now let go, I can still hold on for some time. Let only your soul come to me.’

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The darkness didn’t abate, but far ahead there was a pinprick of light and she walked toward it, feeling light and airy, leaving an unidentified weight behind her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yixing still had his arms in front of him, grappling around in thin air, when suddenly he could feel something cold brushed the tip of his fingers. The surprised gasp he let out turned the attention of the other Guardians and they watched, mouths opened in shocks as a blurry shape of a body began to shimmer back into existence, the edge fuzzy and unclear yet slowly and surely it solidified. It began to materialize more and more, the shimmer finally stopped when the body was solid and on the ground, as if it never disappear in the first place.

“Iola!”

Yixing wasted no time to frantically clutch her to him, feeling the surge of relief crashing through his chest at the feel of her body against him. The feeling ended abruptly, though, when his hand hovered above her, stopping at her heart.

“No…..”

The Guardians crowded around them, every hands reached out to grab a small part of Iola they could reach, her wrist, ankle, elbows, even grabbing at her tunic; as if afraid she would disappear again. Even the drachensteins mimicked their actions, each had a grip of her pants in their jaws.

“Yixing? What is it?” Jongdae looked up at the other’s horrified exclamation, wide anxious eyes roving between him and the still limp figure.

Yixing’s heart dropped painfully down to his stomach. “She’s not breathing.” Hand trembling now, he ran it again over Iola’s chest. “I…I can’t feel her heartbeat.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Iola walked on towards the light, now getting bigger and bigger with every step she took. Then suddenly it was all over her, warm and soothing and comforting, like drinking a cup of hot chocolate after a long hard day out in the cold. It travelled through her body, against her skin and thrumming inside her blood.

She closed her eyes when the light first blinded her, opening them slowly when the soft voice from before called out to her.

In front of her a young man hovered in mid air, platinum white hair blowing gracefully around his face, framing a pair of kind, green bluish eyes. He smiled and opened his arms wide.

“Welcome, Iola.”

Iola stared at the man, his name at the tip of her tongue. “Admon….”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yixing had known many fear in his lifetime, had known it was part of the package when he took the oath to become a Guardian. But never had he faced this kind of fear, not this paralyzing terror that gripped his heart in a tight vice and turned his blood to ice.

“I can’t feel her heartbeat,” he murmured again, voice cracking as he ran his hand again frantically over Iola’s chest.

“What do you mean you can’t feel her heartbeat?” Sehun sounded furious, but Yixing heard the hint of panic in his voice. He could felt the same feeling began to close in on his own heart, its thin fingers wrapping themselves around his neck, choking him almost completely.

“I don’t know!” He barked loudly, trying hard to keep his hands from trembling as he ran his hand again and again over Iola, while blocking the sound of Tao’s sobs from somewhere beside him.

Baekhyun’s voice was so soft and trembled too much he almost didn’t hear him. “Is …is she…”

“NO!” Yixing snapped, feeling the last thread that kept him sane and grounded unraveling fast. “She isn’t….she’s not!”

He couldn’t say the word, couldn’t even whisper it in his own mind. Grabbing Iola from Wufan’s lap he gently cradled her in his arms, ignoring how her face was so pale and cold and how she seemed still, too still.

“We should bring her back to her room.” He stood up, careful to not jostle her. “Jongin, can you-?”

Before he could finish his words Jongin already grabbed his shoulder; icy, black smoke engulfed them and a second later they were back in Iola’s room, where Yixing quickly laid her gently on the bed.

“What…what can I do to help?” Jongin asked, chewing his bottom lip in anxiety.

Yixing grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and quickly covered Iola with it. “I need some warmth.”

Jongin ran to the dresser, grabbing an armful of thick fleece quilt. Thundering footsteps was heard from outside the room before the door banged open and the rest of the Guardians burst in. Chanyeol quickly lit the fireplace, while the rest hovered unsurely.

Iola looked pale and still against the bed and again Yixing ran his hand over her, fear and dread crawling up his spine when he detected no change in her.

“Yixing…” Kyungsoo sounded like he was holding back tears. “Why…why isn’t she breathing?”

Yixing cursed as the light from his hand refused to diffuse and enter her body. He ran his hand over her again but there was nothing there. No spark of life, no beat of a pumping heart, nothing. It was as if she was just an empty shell and her soul, her life, was already gone.

“Yixing…” Luhan put a hand on his shoulder.

“Luhan, no,” said Yixing, shrugging him off. “No!” He ran his hand over her again and again and again, hoping to find something, anything, that might bring her back. “She’s going to be alright. She’s— it’s okay— she’s not dead so stop looking at me like that!”

Yixing felt his eyes stinging and he blinked hard, gulping down the terror that start to crawl up his throat. His hands trembled when he reached up to cup her face, his fingers burned from the coldness of her skin.

“Come on, Iola, you can’t do this to me.” He bent over and pressed his forehead on hers, the held-back tears finally spill out of his eyes, running scalding trails down his cheeks. “Come back to me. Please….”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Admon nodded as he hovered down, landing without a sound in front of her. “I am glad to see you, Iola, though I wish it was under any other circumstance than this.”

Now that she could see her surroundings clearly Iola saw that they were in some kind of meadow, the same one she saw in her dream. Just like before there was the huge tree in the background, its trunk bright copper with golden leaves across the branches. Yet she noticed with dismay that the trunk seemed to bend out of shape, cracks that weren’t there before now lining all over its body, the leaves much more sparse than she recalled.

Admon saw where she looked at and smiled sadly. “The Tree of Life is dying, and fast. Soon I will not have enough in me to keep it alive.”

He hovered up again, floating closer before leaning down, blowing warm breath on her forehead. A trickle of heat began to flow from the spot where his breath hit her skin and Iola stuttered and stumbled back, feeling as if a shadow had run through her.

Admon steadied her with a firm hand. “But at the very least I can still do this for you.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yixing let his tears wet her face, mumbling desperate pleas softly under his breath. “Please Iola, come back to me. Please….”

He’d lost count of how many times he’d repeated the same words over and over again, burning it into her skin in the hope that she might listen.

Then he felt it.

Just a gentle shift, a tiny shudder, a faint beat.

He quickly pulled back, his hand hovered over her heart. And it was there. Faint, slow, but her heart beat just the same. When Yixing looked closer he can see her chest rose up and down gently, almost unnoticed. He raised a shaky finger at her nose, hoping against hope, and could cry again in relief when the warm huff of air hit his finger.

His brothers crowded around the bed, obviously witnessing the same thing he saw. Tao’s eyes were red and puffy as he gingerly grabbed Iola’s hand, feeling the pulse on her wrist.

“She’s breathing….” he whispered in shocked awe.

Sehun kneeled down beside him, almost knocking the other sideway as he also grabbed Iola’s hand, confirming it for himself before his face broke into a wide smile with dried tear tracks still marring his cheeks.

“She’s alive.”

Yixing cupped his hands over Iola’s cheeks. Her skin was warmer now, he could feel the blood running through her veins. He took note again of the steady beats of her heart, the soft puff of air she breathed out, feeling almost giddy from relief. Suddenly feeling exhausted from the recent emotional trauma, he slumped down on her once again, burying his forehead on her shoulder.

 “Is she alright now?” Wufan’s deep voice spoke out, a slight crack at the end that is only noticeable to those who knew him best the only hint of the turmoil the leader felt inside. 

Yixing only nodded, not looking up, still relishing on the fact that the skin underneath his forehead was warm. There were murmurs of relief and joy at his gesture, though and he could feel the bed dip as the others began to crowd around her again.

He finally looked up, though not before pressing a hand to Iola’s cheek one more time. “She’s alright now; she’s just sleeping.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yixing would’ve hit himself hard if he knew back then just how wrong he was.

The sound of the door opening reached his ears but he didn’t turn, eyes still fixed on the prone figure lying on the bed in front of him.

“How is she?” Joonmyun’s soft voice spoke up.

Yixing could see Minseok shook his head from his peripheral vision. “Still the same; she’s still sleeping.”

Yixing didn’t have to turn around to see the disappointed and worried look that must be on Joonmyun’s face; he was sure it was the same expression etched on his own, though he haven’t look on a bronze mirror for days.

A hand settled on his shoulder and Yixing tensed, before relaxing again when he recognized the touch.

“Have you eaten today, Yixing?”

Yixing wanted to bark at the ridiculous question, but restrained himself at the last second. His brother meant well, he knew that, and it would be unfair to vent out his frustration on the other man.

“How can I, Luhan? Not when Iola is….” Yixing pau