As if in a limbo, light faded in and out, it was misty and blur but Hyukjae did feel his eyes open, no sounds, no smells, just the blurred white above him. It lasted a few seconds and soon darkness spread around him.

The next time he felt his eyes open there were sounds, distant and oddly familiar. A scent lingered and he thought he heard Donghae, for a moment Donghae seemed like he was getting loud and that made Hyukjae’s head hurt. That bastard, he thought drowsily, always being a loud-mouth.

A giant serpent hissed at him, he found himself on a higher level than the humongous thing, casting a look below him where everything else looked so tiny, like ants.

He was in pain, he could feel it and then he saw the serpent diving for him.

He heard himself scream.

“Hyuk, Hyuk! Open your eyes!”

“Hyukjae!”

Head-splitting pain. The first thing he felt as his eyes fluttered open, grimacing he moaned, feeling weak all over. He blinked rapidly, disoriented and heavy-headed. He felt hands on him, gently pressing down, that’s when he realized he might have tried to get up. His glassy brown eyes shifted to meet unblinking and wide chocolate orbs.

“Dongh-“

“I’m here.” The other responded in a hushed manner. Hyukjae’s eyes raked all over Donghae’s face. He looked awful.

“You look awful.” Hyukjae’s voice was too weak, donghae had to lean in to get it, once he did he managed a small broken smile which fell instantly. “How are you feeling?”

“Head hurts. Where am I?”

“Hospital. Don’t think, just relax. I got you.”

Hyukjae felt troubled at that, what was Donghae talking about? What about Gain? What about everyone else? Were they fighting still? Why was he away in a hospital while everyone else was risking their lives?

“We need to get back.” He gasped as it all began to slowly come back. All Donghae did was slowly run his fingers through Hyukjae’s hair, it felt so blissfully comforting.

“Just rest Hyuk.” Hyukjae felt annoyance creeping in. Why was Donghae being like this? What was that teary-eyed smile for? He wanted to argue but all Donghae did was lean in and press his lips to Hyukjae’s forehead, he felt donghae’s lips move against his skin.

“I got you Hyuk.”

--

“In today’s highlights we will be looking into the rumors of this so called ‘cure’ being introduced by a group of human scientists, declaring it is the key to the equality that the Shape-Shifters have been looking for. However it was decided by the majority of the parliament which consisted of Shape-shifter representative that this ‘cure’ is an all-out insult to their very existence, they are not diseased, hence require no cure. That it is the human mind that needs to open up and accept.

Moreover one of the prominent Shifter figure, Gain, was brought in to custody this early morning. Accused of plotting to overtake the government and planning assassinations of certain prominent politicians. It was also reported that once a section of Shiftes got to know of her plans they revolted and battled it out till Gain was forced into submission. Siwon Choi spoke as representative, mentioning how he stood against any sort of harm, may it be towards humans or shifters and that he seeked justice, equality and peace.

“We want to show Felondor that we Shifters and not just Shifters but Werewolves, Fae and all others are certainly not beasts, we have a sense of propriety. We are simply different but in no sense less than the human kind.”

After the incident was reported to the P.M he instantly ordered the project of ‘cure’ to be shut down, all samples and machinery to be destroyed so that such a thing never happens again. He continued with making a formal apology to the land of Felondor and promised that a change would surely come, one where no one is discriminated on the standards of species.”

Leeteuk’s tired eyes slowly blinked at the screen, intently listening to the bulletin as he sat in the couch in Hyukjae’s hospital room. He cast a side glance to the man that rested in bed, the beeping of the heart monitor and the voice of the news caster filling the air. His eyes returned to the screen where they showed snippets of Siwon’s interview with the channel’s anchor. Siwon had turned out to be a great spokesperson for them. Leeteuk winced a little as the bandaged area of his head hurt a little. He had not been one of those with serious injuries.

“H-hyung.” It was the faintest of whispers; Leeteuk looked over to check whether Hyukjae really had called him. Grabbing the remote he powered of the T.V and instantly walked over to the bed to peer into bright brown orbs. “Hi Hyukjae, how are you feeling?”

“Not bad actually, how is everyone? You? Donghae?” Leeteuk’s smiled gently as he placed a comforting hand on his chest “Everyone is alive and well out of danger.”

“How long have I been out for?”

Leeteuk averted his gaze “It’s over a week now.”

Hyukjae brows shot up “ That long? Wait—Donghae, his leg, Gain had it coiled up, I swear I heard it snap right before I fainted like a wimp.” Leeteuk detected tones of bitterness in there, he hushed the boy

“Hyukjae, are you really feeling alright? I can’t unload the kind of information you’re asking me for it might give you a headache.”

“I swear I’m all good hyung.” Hyukjae insisted as he tried to get up, only to be pushed down by a gentle hand. Hyukjae sure did look fine, his facial expressions at least were clear and fresh.

“Okay okay, here let me help sit you up.”

Hyukjae winced as he finally did sit, feeling just how sore his felt. Leeteuk meanwhile dragged a chair over, placing his hand on Hyukjae’s as squeezed it “ You need to promise you will keep a cool mind, alright?”

Hyukjae nodded sincerely, unblinking brown eyes peering into Leeteuk’s tired ones.

 “You had not fainted, that was just you morphing into something that would put ogres and big-foots to shame. You went into demon mode….apparently the liquid Gain had tipped in your mouth was not the average syrum…”Leeteuk trailed off, a careful eye on Hyukjae’s expressions “You…turned into a callous, pissed off beast..” Leeteuk took a deep breath and began narrating exactly what had happened

“Hyukjae!” Leeteuk yelled and screamed and then he was tackled out of the way, he landed on the hard ground with an oof, wincing at his throbbing arm. Shoving off the person who had tackled him he scrambled to get up only to be shouted at

“Stay down!! Are you crazy?! He would have swallowed you up!”

“I need to get to him! He’s hurting Donghae!”

“Let him handle it, you’re injured you can’t-“

A loud booming growled ripped through the night, they had to cover their years because it sounded like bombs going off. Leeteuk looked around, breathing heavily, face scrunched due to stress and blood trickling down his temple. He could not just sit here! His enlarged eyes darted around frantically. The woods surrounding the Manson now seemed to have been gone through a savage cyclone, the place was a wreck, trees uprooted and strewn, or gnawed off, ruble and rocks everywhere, and the grassy land looked like it had been hit by meteoroids. It was also littered with bodies of the dead; those alive were keeping a distance from a certain area. He could not imagine just how wide scale was all this damage. He could only hope donghae cold hold on.

“He’s not alone! The Fae’s have magic, so don’t worry.” Leeteuk nodded to the person slowly, eyes travelling up ahead to a scene which could very well be a nightmare.

Donghae stood there in his demon-mode. The large brown wolf had gained heights and weight, standing as tall as mountain, his bristled tail up and waving aggressively as he stood facing something that one had to see to believe.

A much larger and broader wolf, the red tints in it’s black fur were the only familiar sight. Nothing else about that wolf was even close to familiar. The large dilated pupils were a burning red, the rippled muzzle revealing elongated fangs that snapped in the air. A mindless mass  of pure destruction. It whipped and lashed out it’s large paw, claws like hooks ripping apart wood, flesh and stone. The beast growled and attacked furiously, unmindful of who it was attacking, all it needed  was blood and flesh.

That beast was Hyukjae.

And at that moment donghae had deicded to somehow put a stop to him, without hurting him. One of Donghae’s legs were fractured, he didn’t get time to check how bad. Because the next thing he knew was seeing Hyukjae blackout for a moment only. As soon as Gain thought she had broken Donghae’s leg and seen Hyukjae ‘faint’ she had slithered over, large moth open to swallow Hyukjae before anything else happened.

However when Hyukjae’s eyes snapped open, a blank stare directed at Gain he growled and latched onto Gain’s throat.

And then he jumped out the broken window.

Donghae was left gapping as he scrambled towards the window, hefting himself up and keeping his damaged leg from touching the ground he stared down as Hyukjae’s body began to morph and gain height. At first it seemed as if he was turning to his demon-mode but then he kept growing, almost double the size. Donghae gulped as he saw Gain’s Python form increase in size too, it looked like it was changing into a war of giant beasts.

“donghae!”

Kanging darted in with Jiyeon right after him, she began to promptly check on donghae’s leg as Donghae narrated what had happened to Hyukjae. “It was some purple liquid” he huffed, tensed.

Kangin’s eyes grew big as he stared out at the humongous beast. “Then…that’s not Hyukjae anymore..”

Donghae frowned “what do you mean?! What was that shi—“

“It was something that causes everything to go extreme, look, Hyukjae’s didn’t change into the usual size of the demon-mode, mountains would look small in front of him and right now he’s just a killing machine.”

“Hyung no, we need to help him-“ donghae watched Kangin’s face in horror

“Donghae, the Hyukjae you knew is as good as gone. Hyukjae is not himself right now, what you see now is a large hungry and pissed off monster.”

That’s when donghae had decided that no, Hyukjae was still in there somewhere under the roaring, towering figure. He had to look for Hyukjae. So even with a leg held in the air he had brought on his own demon-mode, smaller compared to hyukjae, but still. By then Hyukjae had clawed and bit into every inch of Gain’s serpent body, the python had put up a great fight, her fangs had been able to slice through Hyukjae’s ear tip, which had aggravated the enraged beast more and he had let his wrath loose upon Gain. Joon had stepped in to support but the Fae’s magic casted a forecefield around him. Fae had not been happy about not being allowed to kill him or Gain off, it was said the Shifters had a separate plan for them; hence the Fae had created forecefields and savage winds to backup Hyukjae while he wrestled with Joon. Gain by then had shrunk to a normal size, too weak and beaten. Leeteuk had order her to be taken into custody and chained properly. For now Hyukjae was on their side.

So after having done away with Joon and most of the enemy fleeing off after having seen the horrifying giant wolf, Hyukjae’s attention turned to his own comrades, but the way he was now, he could not differentiate in a friend and a foe. Snarling he had launched in the direction of the werewolves and Shifters, that’s when Donghae had come out sprinting in his demon-mode and slammed his body into Hyukjae’s from the side, causing the large thing to lose balance and topple onto his side. Donghae growled at Leeteuk to fall back with everyone else.

Hyukjae hissed and snapped in Donghae’s direction, donghae had dodged but stood his ground, only three legs at his disposal while he remained on the defense. Constantly calling out Hyukjae’s name. Leeteuk had seen no good coming out of it, he had instantly asked Heechul to prepare something large enough to hold Hyukjae down.

Hyukjae was too dangerous now. Even if they did manage to calm Hyukjae down there were high chances that the after effects would be fatal. Leeteuk clenched his teeth as he gazed up forlornly; donghae was not being able to match Hyukjae’s size and speed. Heechul in the meanwhile had appeared on the spot and personally used his sorcery to build air pressure around Hyukjae, attempting to force him down. Heechul was straining and giving it his all as Donghae took a heavy blow, he whimpered as he landed on his side, only for his front paw to be gnawed upon by Hyukjae. He howled as sheer pain shot through and Leeteuk screamed at every shifter who had the capability of going demon-mode to back Donghae up.

“In the end…” Leeteuk took a break to breathe, Hyukjae’s face displayed utter horror and sorrow “In the end you ended up damaging Donghae…alot, he stood in front of you till he could stand no more…”

Hyukjae felt dread wash all over him, mouth gaped and throat suddenly too dry. He recalled seeing and talking to Donghae, he had felt his lips on his own forehead. had he dreamt that?

“Where is he?”