(A/N: Just as a heads up, this whole chapter is a mess of perspectives. Pay close attention to who is narrating, please >.<)

Tao's POV

I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry, Tao.

I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

This is all my fault.

Who was it that kept apologizing? The never-ending stream of sorry after sorry was all I could hear, all I could feel. It was familiar, but I couldn't understand why just yet.

There was something red closing in on me from the edges of my mind and I was trying to focus on keeping it at bay. The red carried with it something cold and sharp and I wanted nothing to do with it.

I latched onto the voice in my head and asked that it save me from the pain, the misery, the torture that I knew was coming.

I'll protect you. I'll heal you properly and protect you and nothing will ever hurt you like that again.

I promise.

I promise, so please...

Please wake up for me.

Please.

I'm so sorry...

***

Kai's POV

“So... you healed him and just knocked him out straight afterwards?” asked Kyungsoo, unfazed at all by Lay's lips pressed to Tao's hand. But then again, why would he be? Whether or not I had more competition for Tao had nothing to do with him.

Lay didn't respond to the question, keeping silent and still in his position.

“Hello?” called Kyungsoo. “Earth to healer guy.”

“Lay?” I asked, moving in closer. He wasn't deaf now, was he? Was he frozen in time? Could Tao control time even in his sleep?

Upon closer inspection, Lay's shoulders and chest still moved with his deep breathing. Thoroughly confused, I poked his arm to get his attention and instead heard a voice. Heard isn't even the right word. No, I felt a voice; it filled my entire body in that brief second that I touched his skin.

Please, save me-

That's all it said.

That's all Tao said.

It was Tao's voice!

What just happened? Why was I hearing Tao's voice from Lay?

Ignoring Kyungsoo's questioning look, I lay a hand on the shoulder of the healer and was instantly drowned in a weightless sensation where I could barely feel anything from the outside world. It felt like I was dreaming. I could tell that Kyungsoo had just tried to smack me awake, but I didn't care and didn't feel like I was any closer to being torn away from whatever was happening to me.

This was all so strange.

There was a beat, a rhythm that jumped erratically from several different places at once.

Please-

There. This beat over here spoke and I knew it was Tao. It had a unique feel to it, as if I could almost taste the image of his cat-like smile and something like a memory or a series of memories that I had never seen before were peeking out through the middle.

Save me, please! I'm scared...

Don't worry, Tao; I'm here now.

***

Kyungsoo's POV

Why was I even here? This Tao looked like a corpse, the healer looked like he was sleeping, and now even Jongin was off in dreamland, murmuring weird things about rhythms and voices and some sort of rescue. I was brought here for no reason. Was I just supposed to babysit these three?

I closed the door and found a chair over by the closet door, dragging it over until I was across from the two sleepers. From here, I could watch everyone comfortably. There was even a nice potted plant over here with plenty of dirt to play with while I waited. Chucking aside the useless flowers, I drew the vibrant soil into my palms and molded it into a few mildly interesting shapes. Eiffel Tower, Roman statue, transformer; the usual.

As much fun it is to push around dirt for half an hour straight, I was getting really bored and when a phone by the bed started to ring, I dived for it, dropping my load of dirt onto the floor.

“Where are you? Are you safe? Did he find you? Why is there blood and glass on my floor? Huang Zitao, you better answer me right this second!”

I wasn't expecting this onrush of loud questions and held the cellphone a good arm's length away before deeming it safe to bring to my ear.

“-go out for a couple hours after work and I come back to this? Where are you-”

“Hey, hey! I'm not Tao!” I half-yelled into the phone, glad when the screeching voice stopped to listen. “Uhm, Tao's kind of unconscious right now-”

“Kind of unconscious?”

The voice went on another series of shrieked questions and I hung up, losing interest.

With a sigh, I brought the soil back in my hands and messed with it until it resembled Kai's face. I'd accidentally made the lips too big, but it looked enough like him to me (he certainly had the same dumb smile painted all over his face). Setting this hard-packed dirt figure on the ground, I was maybe half a second from stomping it to bits when the door opened and two people I didn't recognize came in.

One of them looked at the flowers in distress and picked up the wilted things with careful fingers. “This was his favorite...”

“Who are you?” asked the other. He'd obviously cried not long ago and his red-rimmed eyes sharpened in distaste when I told him my name. “So, it was you!” he shouted, lunging for my throat. In defense, I threw my little Kai sculpture into his chest, knocking him back and breaking the soft dirt into a mound on the floor. Rich soil never could get packed down hard enough.

With a snarl, his eyes shifted from a dull brown to a yellow that glowed brighter and brighter and suddenly all I could see was this bright yellow, searing white hot behind my eyelids.

I could sense the dirt staining his clothes and used that to help me aim my punch, landing on something solid that groaned in pain.

My vision was back! The first thing I saw was a large hand weighing down heavily on my shoulder and second hand matching this on the guy covered in weird angry lights. Following the arm up with my eyes brought a handsome, yet terribly annoyed face in view.

“Apologize and replant this,” he said, handing me the flowers. His tone left no room for argument and I took the stupid thing from him only to get him to stop glaring at me. The roots got tangled in my fingers and I watched him wince as a couple were torn out while I freed the digits. He rounded on my attacker with equal irritation. “Baekhyun, you can't just rip someone's throat out without telling them why first.”

“Yeah, why?” I asked, making a new figure of this Baekhyun to smash.

“I said to replant this,” said the other, picking up and shoving the abandoned, very pitiful-looking flower bunch in my hands again.

“These are dead already.” I said shaking them in front of his face - or at least, somewhere close to his face (he was gigantic). “They'd look much nicer as dirt.” I got ready to rip them to shreds so I could make them so, but this giant shouted that he'd replant them instead.

***

Tao's POV

Tao, I'm right here for you.

Kai? How?

No, don't tell me. Just get me out of here.

I could feel the red cracking it's way even closer. It wouldn't be long until it found me.

What is that?

You can feel it too?

Faintly, yes. Is this... is this a memory of yours? Tao, I'm so sorry; it feels really-

Scary. Yeah, yeah. Kai, take me out of here or something because that thing is coming for me!

I can't take you out of here. I'm not even supposed to be here. I think this is your soul I'm looking at here, Tao.

My soul? I let myself feel this place out just slightly, the red coming at me at an alarming rate when I did. In that short moment, I heard the musical pulse thrumming like a giant metronome, in tune with two other pulses. I found Kai, but who was the other, the one who apologized? Why couldn't I hear his voice anymore?

A streak of red reached me and the sound of my own screaming replaced the music.

And then everything stopped.

Everything.

Because I willed it to.

There was nothing here. No music, no voices, no screams.

Nothing.

***

Kyungsoo's POV

I explained to this Baekhyun that no, I was not interested in his Chanyeol and no, I was not lying when I said he's extremely annoying yet again. He just didn't seem to get that not everyone thought his boyfriend (or rather, ex-boyfriend) was a perfect Prince Charming.

The giant on the other hand, was busy trying to scoop all the dirt back into the plant pot around the ragged flowers. He wasn't doing a very good job. I took up all the rest that was left (including some from my noisy attacker's shirt) and made a perfect little sphere to toss up and down. He snatched this up when I barely even got play with it, crumbling the ball of soil in with the rest of the salvaged dirt.

A sudden intake of breath had us all looking at the healer, who had woken from his silent position by Tao's side. I was sad to see Kai still slumped over the edge of the bed where he'd fallen in the same weird sleep.

“Lay,” called the giant, rushing up to his side immediately. I took this opportunity to take a small handful of dirt again. That stupid plant was already dead anyways; it certainly wouldn't need it. “What happened?”

The healer who must be Lay, ignored this and pressed shaking fingers to Tao's temple. “Can you bring those flowers over here for me, Kris?” he asked reaching out a hand without looking away from the sleeping boy's face. Kris- actually, I like Giant better... The giant handed the poorly potted thing over without question before taking in the dirt level with a glare at me. I heaved a sigh and gave back what I'd stolen.

Coaxing the flowers back to life and raising them up to be brighter than before, Lay seemed to breathe a little easier. I couldn't see the point of this though. How important could a bunch of pretty weeds be when they imprisoned all that nice dirt?

“What's wrong with your eyes?” asked Giant Kris, and I noticed that Lay was avoiding looking at anything but Tao, even as he brought life back into the plant. Lay shrugged him off with a barely audible “nothing”.

“Baekhyun, can you go get some water? You- who are you?” Lay asked, finally looking up to direct the question at me. It was a little weird. Was he looking at me or through me?

“That's Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun supplied with a growl.

“Kyungsoo, go with him.”

Kris made sure Lay's request was met, throwing us out himself. The door closed on Lay desperately asking if Tao could hear him and if so, to please, wake up.

***

Tao's POV

Is this what peace felt like? Complete peace without any distraction? It wasn't so bad here in the silence.

My brain supplied images for everything that was happening, since there was nothing else to do here. Here was a soul, a lumpy ball of memories (that for some reason glowed a light blue) struck through with red electricity burning both hot and cold. It was frozen in time, the lightning red like a beautiful work of art amongst the blue. An image of me stood before it, a tendril of red wrapped around my elbow and here in front stood another figure.

Kai?

I can help.

Kai's image didn't move and neither did mine. We were frozen along with everything else. His voice simply spoke to me in the silence, quiet, but confident.

Help how? I'm already caught. If I let time move again, I'll be taken over. I don't want that to happen; I want to be free of this pain.

Trust me, Tao. I can help. All you have to do is let time run it's course.

I promise I won't let this thing hurt you. Not anymore.

You promise?

***

Lay's POV

I just wanted to help.

I just wanted to heal this broken soul. It was beautiful and kind and didn't deserve any of this.

“Tao, please.” I begged, finding his still hand. There was no heartbeat. There hadn't been one since I woke up. It was because he was lost outside of time's grip, dragging Kai, who had somehow jumped in on the link I'd formed between us, with him. Both boys were stuck where I couldn't reach them and it was all my fault.

The door closed on Baekhyun's protests at being stuck with a dirty boyfriend-stealer and I heard, but didn't care about the footsteps going my way until my chin was jerked up at a strange angle.

“Why won't you look at me?” asked Kris, breathing in my face.

I focused on the blood and life force running through him and found where his eyes were. “Here, now I'm looking at you.”

“No, you aren't.” he disagreed, clearly angry at me. “Lay, you're looking at my eyes, not me.”

So then I couldn't lie my way out of this. That was too bad; I fooled Jongin with no problem. I tried to pull my chin out his grip, but only succeeded in him grabbing me more firmly. I couldn't pull away like this.

With a deep breath and a hopeful thought that maybe he won't get mad at me for this, I explained, “There was an accident with Baekhyun's light.”

“He told me. He also said you were better, so what's wrong?”

“Kris, this hurts.” I said, trying to pry off his fingers.

He dug his fingers in harder. “Lay, what's wrong?”

“Kris, I'm serious. I can't heal myself and I can feel my capillaries breaking-”

“You can handle a small bruise. Tell me what is wrong.”

“Everything-” I groaned in frustration and tore at his fingers. He was sure to overreact, especially since I wanted this to be secret. “Everything is dark!” I cried and wrenched away his hand at last. “It's not getting better and it's not getting worse. Kris, there is only blackness and it hasn't changed in the slightest.”

“Why would you lie about this? You can't trust me to take care of you?”

“I don't need to be taken care of.” Keeping my voice low was difficult, but I managed. Maybe I could still keep this from the others. “You know I can feel the plants and people all around me. I know where everything is. I won't bump into anything or hurt myself with so much life flowing all around.”

Knuckles rapped on top of my head. “Idiot. What about when you have to go somewhere, like school, and you're surrounded by fast-moving cars? You'll get hit and you'll die because you were too proud to ask for help.”

“It's not pride. I won't burden you when I'm fully capable of taking care of myself.”

“This is not what capability looks like, Lay. You need to see a doctor.” I cringed as his voice raised in volume. The others were sure to know now.

“And what, have them tell me what I already know?” I asked calmly, refusing to let myself prove a point by force when I didn't have to. If only he could do the same. “I'm blind, Kris, and nothing can change that.”

“We can- we can fix this. There are surgeries for this-”

I shook my head, looking in his direction in the void. “It's hard enough to get a transplant like that. It doesn't make sense for a pair of eyes to go to me when someone out there actually needs them. I don't need new eyes, Kris. I can make do like this; I have an advantage that others don't. Besides,” There's a silver lining to this rain cloud and I wasn't about to give it up just yet. “I think my power has improved considerably. It's like when your senses get stronger after one goes out-”

“And that's worth it to you?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes.” Of course it was worth it. Why couldn't he see this? The logic in everything I said was completely sound, so why wasn't his opinion changing?

We were interrupted by a ringing near Tao's arm and I heard Kris answer a phone. If I focused on his ears, I could even hear what he could. Being more receptive to the life buzzing around me was so fascinating. I could get used to this. Baekhyun had done me and the world a favor by blinding me. My power would do great things in the future like this.

“Where is my son?” said a female voice in Kris' ear. “What have you done to him? Why is he unconscious?”

“Unconscious? Who told you that? No, ma'am, Tao is simply sleeping. He's with friends. Why, did something happen?”

“There is blood and glass on my floor- where is he?” she shrieked, not believing him at all. “If he isn't here in an hour, I am calling the cops.” she warned, hanging up on a speechless Kris.

“Why is there blood on Tao's floor?” asked Kris, just as Kyungsoo and Baekhyun made it back, heartbeats faster and lungs working harder than usual. There were new scratches and a couple mild bruises on them and a lot of older ones covering the new guy.

“Kyungsoo, I'll heal those for you.” I offered, since I couldn't help Tao and was feeling pretty good about my power. I think I'd be able to do it without hurting him. I was just so surprised when I started healing Tao's scars without even trying to that I hadn't had time to really do it right.

He understood what I meant and began walking over when Kai started to yell out in pain.