[title song: bollywood medley 5 - zack knight and fake love (rocking vibe mix) - bts]
[17k]

chapter 30;

“You are not—this isn’t you. Listen to me, please, please, God, please listen to me. This isn’t you. This isn’t—”

Pain shoots through her head and she winces, groaning.

A faint, familiar voice echoes so so close to her ear, as if it’s hovering just there. She can almost feel a warm breath against the shell of her ear. The voice is low and commanding, “I’d shut up if I were you. You only have so long now, before I have no more use for you.”

The voice grows distant and—and her voice, though detached, echoing in her own head, grows distant, too, as if she’s hearing herself shout from across a huge field. She hears, “You can’t kill me. Even after—after everything—you can’t kill me. The tree will die.”

“Maybe, you’re right, and I can’t kill you. I just need your brain alive and your heart beating. No one said anything about that annoying mouth of yours, though.” The voice booms and shivers run down her spine at the tone, the vindictive, dark, terrifying tone that slithers into her veins, curls up under her skin. She shivers and jerks when she distinctly feels a cold finger against her cheek, sliding along until it pauses at the corner of . She hates the shiver that runs down her spine because it feels too intense, too minute as it creeps down each nook of her spine. Then the person laughs. They laugh nonstop, and she knows that it’s a laugh, but she can’t quite make out the sound of it, the details. It’s like watching a shrouded person laugh on mute, but somehow only catching the feel of it, not quite seeing it. “So close, sweetheart. You’re so close.”

~.~.~.~.~

Hyemi jolts awake, in cold sweat, and nearly knocks her forehead against Amber’s. Amber shrieks at Hyemi’s sudden jolt to consciousness, falling back out of her crouch and onto her . She blinks at Hyemi, surprised, and after a moment of silence where they both collect themselves, she says, nonchalant as ever, “Oh, you’re not dead. Good.”

She says it like she’s offhandedly mentioning the weather and Hyemi finds herself blinking at Amber in disbelief while Amber just grins. “‘Good.’ Is that all you have to say?”

“Do you prefer fantastic? Amazing? Yee-haw?”

Hyemi snorts then, she can’t help it, even if her head is pounding and she swears she’s hearing a constant buzzing in her ears, as if a bee is hanging out next to both her ears. “Did you really just say yee-haw?”

“Those cowboys really knew how to articulate their feelings into a single word, didn’t they?”

“Can you stop?” Soojung rolls her regular eye, grimacing at Amber, “You’re so weird and you’re not Clint Eastwood.”

“Does Clint Eastwood really exist here?” Hyemi mumbles, frowning between them.

Amber eyes her like that’s a dumb question and Hyemi’s genuinely curious. She also thinks it’s a perfectly valid question. Soojung rolls her eyes at Hyemi, this time, “Is that really the right question to be asking? The castle’s currently under attack.”

Hyemi blinks, rubbing her head, and for a moment the buzzing gets louder. She reaches a hand up to her ears before she pulls away, frowning, “Oh yeah.” She mumbles, distracted.

Amber watches her hand movements. “It’s the memories.”

Hyemi’s eyes snap up from the floor, from her trying to cautiously sort out the noises in her head without actually diving straight into them. “The memories?” Hyemi repeats, blinking at Amber owlishly. Then realization hits her and drops open into a little ‘o’ shape. “Oh, you mean the connections? Does that mean—” Hyemi can feel her eyes getting wider, “Does that mean I can enter their…their heads whenever I want? It wasn’t just a onetime thing?”

Amber nods.

Hyemi blinks, tries to sort through that new information, wonders about the logistics of it all. Then she says, eyes curious as she blinks at Amber. “Why them, though?”

(She thinks she knows why because they are the twelve, but she wants to know why they’re the twelve in the first place. Why the twelve of them? Why the twelve people she’s been around most since coming here? She wants to know more. She wants to know the deeper reason behind why.)

Amber shakes her head and there’s a sort of solemnity there, in the way her smile is subdued, the way her always-twinkling eyes dim a bit. Soojung is the one to speak and Hyemi watches as Soojung drops into a seated position beside her, rather than squatting. After a moment, Amber does the same thing, and the three of them are sitting in a terribly lopsided triangle shape in the middle of a strange, disheveled, magical room, tile floors strangely warm against the palms of her hands. Hyemi thinks it’s intimate, somehow, the way Soojung lets down her guard right then, the way Amber follows suit. Hyemi allows her shoulders to slump, too. The room feels so, so big and Hyemi feels like she’s floating in the middle of the ocean, the few lanterns still floating above them drifting away, dimming the spot they’re sitting in. It feels nice to have the two of them there with her, in the empty ocean of a room.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you already have a connection to them. That’s how mine works. I’m connected to people Soojung and I are—were—close to.”

“Were?” Hyemi repeats.

Soojung looks away, out and beyond where the white floor fades into more white, never-ending. Hyemi studies her face and she sees something familiar there, in her features. Then it clicks, after a few seconds of staring, and her brain reminds her: Jessica. She thinks of the magic eye churning, of Amber’s connection to Jessica, of the monster speaking of a sister. Then she remembers Taeyeon’s memories, Jessica shouting about her sister being taken away, sword in hand, the word monster, and drunken confessions.

“Oh.” Hyemi says, very softly. She thinks it should have been obvious.

“Yeah.” Soojung replies, just as softly.

“Maybe the tree knows you need those twelve. Maybe that’s why you met them in the first place.” Amber says, after a moment, answering Hyemi’s question with the answer Hyemi knew she’d get, the answer rooted in fate and destiny. Amber looks at her though, and something in her eyes tells her Amber doesn’t know the real answer as to why it’s the twelve of them specifically, either. Perhaps, Hyemi is asking the wrong person.

The ground trembles like the beginnings of an earthquake and it jolts Hyemi into action. She pushes herself to her feet, nodding as she switches gears, dislodges herself from the languid intimacy that they’ve just had, throws herself headfirst into a task she’s frankly terrified of. Her chest feels numb somehow, unfeeling. Hyemi stares back at the shimmering door, seemingly leagues away at that moment. Slowly, Hyemi murmurs into the oceanic space around them, “I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

(She feels weak at the confession, like every other time she thinks it, but she also feels numb.)

“Head to the temple.” Soojung says, her unnatural, blue eye swirling all over the place. “You need all twelve with you and, technically, you do have them all.”

Hyemi blinks, rapidly, because now that she can be in their heads then—“Oh. Oh, you’re right.” Hyemi frowns, “But, then—is that why Jinri said I’d be alone?”

She pales at the thought of knocking on literal death’s door all alone. She pales and her fingers tremble and she doesn’t think she can do it. She wants someone to tell her she doesn’t have to do it alone.

“The things Jinri sees isn’t always definite.” Soojung says, quietly.

Amber shakes her head, quickly, and all sense of humor is gone when she adds, “And do not go alone.”

She flickers as she says it and Hyemi stares. Hyemi senses a wave of anger, distant but not quite there in the plane they are all existing in. It’s hard to explain because Hyemi feels like she’s sensing the anger through layers she can’t peel back, like she’s in a glass bubble and the anger is outside of the bubble, elsewhere, but still a part of her and her world.

Hyemi is taken aback by the sharpness in Amber’s tone, though, the slight furrow between her brows, the momentary look of pain. Slowly, Hyemi responds, “Then come with me.”

(Hyemi wonders if she sounds a bit desperate. She can’t seem to find it in herself to care.)

“I—we can’t.” Amber looks around the room, at the broken orbs and the toppled furniture. “I can’t really leave this room.” She must see the questioning look in Hyemi’s eyes because she says, “It’s punishment. For what my past Oracle did. For your mother.”

(For a moment, she is angry. Hyemi thinks it’s ridiculous that people here are expected to pay for the mistakes of their parents, of their past ancestors, of anyone who isn’t them. It’s unfair.)

“That’s ed up.” Hyemi whispers. She looks at Soojung and she thinks of Jessica fighting through blood and sweat and tears to get to Soojung, how Soojung probably can’t even leave the room to see her sister, either, how she must rely on that strange, swirling eye just to catch glimpses of her sister, just to make sure she’s okay.

Hyemi takes a deep breath, expecting her heart to break some more. She expects parts of heart to latch onto Amber and Soojung, but there is no pain in her chest and she has no urge to cry. She just feels numb. Her heart does not break the way she expects it to, perhaps because it’s broken apart with all the ghosts she’s had to go through to get to this moment.

Soojung looks at her, gaze knowing, and says, “I know it’s—it’s tempting to shut it all off, but don’t, Hyemi. Don’t let that happen.”

Hyemi nods, absentmindedly, but she doesn’t listen. It feels better, she thinks, to shut it all off. Too late, a small voice at the back of head whispers, somehow noticeable despite the faint buzzing. Hyemi swivels on her heels, looks beyond the broken room, towards the shimmering door.

She glances back over her shoulder, at Amber and Soojung, and she says, tries to explain, “The problem is I don’t think I can get through this if I don’t shut it off.”

Amber frowns and Soojung sighs.

Hyemi takes a deep, deep staggering breath, “It’s for the best, isn’t it?”

They don’t say anything, for a long long time. It’s not, she knows this, but for now, it’s the best thing she can do for herself, to protect herself.

Then Amber smiles, gently, and breaks the silence, her low voice floating between the three of them the same way the lanterns had, “Go get ‘em, boo.”

Hyemi snorts a little and Soojung rolls her eyes and Hyemi gets this sudden, distinct feeling that this may be the last time she ever sees these girls. She finds that she’ll miss them and their quirks, if Hyemi can even call it that. She’ll miss them, strangely enough. Her skin prickles.

Hyemi can’t help but smile as she murmurs, “Bye.”

Soojung gives her a tiny, genuine little smile, “Bye.”

Amber waves, shooing her forward with a toothy grin.

Hyemi takes a deep breath, squares back her shoulders, and steps forward, her hair whipping against her face as the exit suddenly zips up right in front of her, despite her taking only one step forward. She looks back and Amber and Soojung seem to be little specks of debris amongst the rest of the broken room, though there’s movement, as if Amber is still waving. The room and all its etherealness disappear and now she swears it flickers like a faulty television screen. They’re trapped in this crumbling otherworld and all they can do is watch as everything falls apart. Hyemi feels a surge of sadness at that, but it’s quickly suppressed, shoved far far away. Hyemi doesn’t think about that. Instead, she steps through the shimmering curtain and the buzzing in her head only gets louder from there. She tries her best to not focus on it.

~.~.~.~.~

She stumbles into the corridor and the first thing she notices is that it’s cold. The buzzing in her head grows louder for a moment, and she looks up and—

“Baek.” She breathes out, her rapid, panicked heartbeat settling for just at a moment at the sight of him. He’s standing right where she had seen him in her vision thing.

He looks up from his pretty hands and his expression softens significantly as he blinks at her, a rapid movement, before he’s suddenly surging forward.

The ground shakes, but not even that deters him from surging forward until he’s a hairsbreadth away from her. His eyes—seemingly melting as he takes in her appearance—appear to glow. She blinks up at him and she’s surprised because she feels something, beneath all the numbness, a gentle tug of her heart and a moment of fondness that’s almost overwhelming compared to all the emptiness from earlier. It’s such a small feeling, but it feels so huge, so overwhelmingly gigantic. Baekhyun reaches out, his hands cold against her skin, and cups both her cheeks.

He looks worried almost, as he observes her expression. “Hyemi.” He whispers, his voice low, soft, feather-like.

“Hey.”

“You were gone for so long.” He breathes out, his eyes flickering upwards for a moment as he blinks rapidly. His palms press against her cheeks and it feels like he’s holding her tight to remind himself that she’s actually truly there. “And then I saw you, for just a moment, you were there and then you weren’t and you—your chest—” He leans back, looks down, surveys her, checking for injuries. He lets out a deep breath then, as if he hadn’t exhaled since she saw him in the hallway earlier. She reaches up and curls her fingers through his navy-blue shirt, fingers digging in. His gaze drops to her hands before they land on her face. His chest rises and falls, up and down, up and down, and she can hear his breathing, ragged, worried. He says, “I didn’t think you were coming back out.”

The way he says the last sentence, with such a soft, vulnerable tone, makes her stomach flip and she moves without thinking. She leans up on her tip-toes and presses a kiss to his soft, pink lips. His lips are cold. She pulls him closer, fingers curling against his chest, around his t-shirt, and then he finally reacts, kissing her deeply, and her whole body seems to relax at his touch, at the way his pretty fingers slide to the back of her head, fingers curling through strands of tangled hair. She’s breathless and overwhelmed by him and she feels something other than numbness or fear or anxiety and it’s just—she pulls away panting, watching the way his tongue darts out and he his lips, his eyes dark, filled with yearning. They’re still so close, their foreheads knock against each other, tips of their noses brushing. A light in the hallway flickers and she looks up at it, over her shoulder.

Quietly, so as not to break the tension between them, she whispers, “Thank you for waiting for me.”

(She wonders how she’s supposed to tell him that they have to go back to that cliff, that temple, now. That the end is coming and she can feel it.)

His voice is lower than before, a soothing rumble that melts like honey and makes her knees weak. Slowly, he reaches over and drags a cool finger from her temple down to the curve of her cheek, tracing the planes of her face with a sort of gentleness that leaves her more breathless than ever, “I told you I’d be here for you, didn’t I? I’ll be by your side every step of the way, Hyemi.”

There’s a pause, where he gently curls a piece of her tangled hair behind her ear, his brown eyes softer than the Earth after summer rains. He sighs as he observes her face and she wonders if maybe he can tell that something’s changed. The buzzing in her head lingers, but it’s less somehow, in his presence everything is so much less. He closes his eyes, as if he’s bracing himself, before he opens them and murmurs, “It’s really Luhan, isn’t it? Yeonma’s master?”

She nods, she nods and nods and her knees really do buckle this time, and she allows herself a moment to cling to him, to wrap her arms around his torso and breathe in his scent, trembling in his grip, her cheek pressed against his chest. He doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her and forgotten characters along the curve of her spine. She truly feels so secure, so safe, right then and there, wrapped up in his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head as his fingers curl in her messy hair, untangling the strands gently with his pretty fingers, the circular motions he carries out so soothing her eyes close. She feels like crying, though, despite how soft and relaxed and pliable he makes her. She feels an overwhelming rush of emotions and her grip tightens around the back of his shirt. But the tears don’t come; they don’t quite fall. He kisses the top of her head and her grip only tightens. She just keeps nodding, eyes squeezed shut.

He just hums, “Oh, Hyemi, baby.” He sways with her in his arms, rocking the two of them back and forth at a steady, calming rhythm, before he continues, voice a sweet lullaby that settles over her, lulling her further into security and warmth and Baekhyun, “Baby, you can do this. You can do this.”

(She really believes him, believes the genuine sincerity that’s dripping with his honey voice. She thinks, maybe, he can make her believe anything if he tried. He can make her believe that everything will be fine, that the dreadful feeling at the pit of her stomach, prickling at the corners of her eyes, are nothing.)

She’s nodding, still, filled to the brim with tears and emotions that won’t come out. She clutches the back of his shirt and they stay like that for another minute, him her back with his thumb and her clutching onto him for dear life. Until she fully steels herself, until she stops shaking and she feels calmer, somehow, when she unlatches herself from him, looking up.

He gently brushes at the stray tears dotting her cheeks, lingering at the corner of her eyes, lights flickering over his shoulder as he does it. His brows are furrowed, and his lips are pursed, concentrating intently on the task at hand.

She watches his scrunched-up face and she’s overwhelmed with fondness again, even as she admits, “I’m scared.”

His fingers still at her cheeks before he leans forward and pecks her forehead, right along her hairline, lingering there, his proximity comforting. His voice is very very quiet, “Me, too, Hyemi.”

She closes her eyes, the buzzing growing a bit louder, and Baekhyun’s the one to curl his fingers through his, holding her hand so tight she wonders who’s holding onto who, who’s the anchor for who right now? He leads her away from the Oracle room, down the hall, and eventually she rubs the remaining wetness from her eyes and stumbles forward, matching his strides. She takes a deep, deep breath and she says, “Please, just—just don’t leave me alone. I…I’m going to need you.”

She means it in every sense of the word, from his supposed role as one of the twelve to just being an anchor for her. It’s funny, how easy it is for her to admit that she needs him, now, after everything. She doesn’t want Jinri’s words to be true. She doesn’t want to face the temple and Yeonma’s master alone.

Baekhyun looks over at her, his fingers twining through hers, palm cool but so so secure. He nods, a brisk pointed thing that’s filled with promise. His gaze flutters over her face and there’s a determined look that flickers through his eyes. She watches the fondness and determination intermingle, before there’s a sudden soft pop and a light behind them burns out.

She blinks, rapidly, her gaze landing on the light.

Then she drags her gaze back on him, even as his grip on her tightens, his thumb tracing circles along the back of her hand. Before she can ask, before she can say a word, they’re stepping into a room and Kris’s voice interrupts her before she can start saying anything.

“You sure know how to take your sweet time.” Kris’s tone is disparaging, but there’s also an edge of desperation there.

She turns to look at him. He’s standing at the end of the hall, near his quarters, without a single hair out of place. Chanyeol throws an apologetic frown in Baekhyun and Hyemi’s direction. Baekhyun just scowls at Kris. Hyemi makes a face at him as she says, “And you look like your servants just dressed you.”

Kris moves his mouth in a mocking way and Hyemi does it back, the both of them scowling at each other until Chanyeol steps in between them and says, “Stop, now is not the time.”

“Are you giving me orders?” Kris mutters, his disparaging tone only growing more disdained by the minute.

Chanyeol glances at Kris and Hyemi sees the way the mark on his arm glows a soft silver, barely noticeable if she weren’t so attuned to everything around her and hadn’t felt the tinge of burning at her forearm, curiously enough. Chanyeol says, “Yes.”

Funnily enough, Kris has nothing to say back. His frown just deepens before he turns his narrow eyes on Hyemi and lets his robes flurry all around him as he stomps past Chanyeol, seemingly intent on not asking them to follow him.

“He’s so stupid.” Hyemi mutters after him, loud enough for Kris to hear.

“So are you.” Kris hisses over his shoulder.

Chanyeol almost smiles, despite the brief smile fluttering across his face. Baekhyun just looks slightly annoyed, but mostly exasperated. Zitao seems entirely too amused by the entire scene in front of him, despite the situation and circumstances they are all currently in.

Hyemi begrudgingly follows him, though, they all do.

Kris doesn’t walk that far, stepping into the Great Hall where Junmyeon, Jongin, Sehun, Yixing, and Jongdae are all standing, murmuring in hushed whispers. The doors to the castle are thrown open and Hyemi can see soldiers running about, people being hauled into white, floating tents hovering right in front of the castle, drifting languidly, vibrating almost as if it’ll zip off at any moment. Perhaps, the tents move around on their own. Hyemi finds that convenient, at least. And then there’s Kyungsoo standing in the distance, head tilted back as he peers up at the reddening sky, just barely visible over the walls he’s pried out of the ground. There are long shadows cast over the field in front of the castle, darkening the space around them, adding to the eerie effect already casted by the reddening skies speckled with navy blue. She half expects Luhan, but he is not there. Instead, Hyemi can hear screeches, the sounds echoing at such high frequencies that it sounds like a microphone when it’s been dropped in an auditorium, the sound sharp and stilted and painful enough to make her want to put her hands over her ears.

Kyungsoo stands alone, his feet planted and his palms upturned as he opens and closes his fingers, forming fists. The movements are strong and appear as if they require a substantial amount of energy, as if he is shaping the ground and stabilizing the walls with his bare hands alone. Perhaps, that’s exactly how it feels to him. Hyemi certainly feels a sense of exhaustion as she watches him, deep in her bones, and the buzzing in her head explodes momentarily. Hyemi wonders how long he can hold out—how long can she hold out? The walls tremble, she can see it from all the way over here. Or, perhaps, she is seeing it from his perspective, all the way over there.

The buzzing quiets when she finally manages to tear her eyes away.

She stares at the nine boys standing in front of her, faces streaked with dirt, their cuts and obvious injuries making her nervous. They stare back. For a long, long moment, no one says a word and Hyemi feels like that silence speaks volumes. Her visions in that room of each of these boys wasn’t a one-way thing. The buzzing in her head only gets louder—like when her father would be tuning the car radio, searching for another station, and accidentally land on a channel that’s all white noise, loud and distracting and constant, except this time she’s hearing nine different channels at once, and three more that are muted but still there, so obviously there, but at varying distances—and she, for a brief moment, she wishes she was back home in her little apartment with Mina. She wishes for a bottle of wine and a peaceful night in. Instead, she has nine boys staring back at her with these gazes, some awed, some wary, some waiting, some all three and then some, and she feels an overwhelming sense of both unease and familiarity.

Finally, finally, Sehun speaks, “So…you can get in our heads?”

The way he raises a brow at her, tilting his head and frowning, makes her lip twitch, she can’t help it. She looks him over for a moment before she says, “Kind of.”

Sehun blinks. And then he succinctly mutters, “Weird.”

She laughs. They look startled for a moment. She figures she sounds half-hysterical by now, but then there’s a crack in the strange looks. There’s a flicker, a break in the image of the boys around her, and she wonders if maybe she’s started crying and her vision is blurring.

For a moment, Yixing is staring right at her and his eyes seem to be screaming at her.

But then it goes away and the buzzing is faint and Sehun is grinning at her, but he looks tired. Jongdae smiles kindly, Junmyeon looks slightly concerned, same as Chanyeol and Zitao. Jongin raises a brow. Kris rolls his eyes. Baekhyun just rubs her back, gently, his eyes strangely sharp, defined, as if just his eyes are set on high definition but nothing else is. Yixing looks on, eyes blank as a slate, but watchful.

She speaks into the silence, bracing herself as she does it, “I spoke to Minseok.”

It’s quiet for a moment, a contemplative kind of thing, and suddenly, she is so so tired. She suppresses the guilt that bubbles up.

She can feel the hurt, the pain, before she even looks into their eyes.

Jongdae is the one to speak up, then, his smile disappearing, “He’s always had a one-track mind.”

Jongdae says it quietly and she expects her heart to break at his tone, at the sheer defeat, the disappointment, and the exhaustion apparent there. But, her heart remains steady. It doesn’t break. Instead, she feels number than ever.

~.~.~.~.~

They all look at her so expectantly and Hyemi feels so utterly useless right then. She feels useless and numb and she’s sure it’s written all over her face. Yixing’s eyes twitch and she’s sure he can feel the turmoil inside of her—there’s pity swimming in his eyes as he looks at her.

But then, Baekhyun presses a hand to her back, soothing and warm, steadying like an anchor. That’s what he is—an emotional anchor for her, and she wonders if that’s bad, if relying on someone so heavily like this is not a good thing. What harm could he bring her, though? Their relationship has gone through so much already and she doubts he could bring anything else to the table that’ll make it worse. They’re about to go through a war together. She needs him and he had said that he needs her, too. She trusts him, for better or for worse, and she thinks so does he. He’s—he’s here and he said he’ll stay by her side until the end, yet here she is, with no idea what to do. She needs to step it up.

She needs to bring these boys out of this in one piece, if it’s the last thing she does, emotions be damned.

Something in her changes, then, as if someone’s flipped a switch deep inside her.

She takes a deep, deep breath and she closes her eyes for a moment before she opens them. She says, “We need as many people as possible at the castle to keep it from getting overrun. But,” She glances around the room, “I need to go back to that temple. I don’t—I can’t go alone, I think.”

“Obviously.” Jongin snorts, then, the loud noise cutting through the tension in the room. Jongin eyes her like she’s being an idiot, “You’ve trained for, what, three weeks total? If we sent you to Yeonma alone, we might as well stick a bow on your head while we’re at it. Chosen one be damned, you’re not going out there alone. We all know this, don’t we?”

There’s a collective nod around the room (even Kris nods, however subtle the movement) and Hyemi grimaces, “Thanks. That’s encouraging.”

Sehun frowns, “Are we really calling her the chosen one now? That’s cheesy.”

“It is.” Hyemi nods, the tension in her neck relaxing as she grimaces, “Don’t call me that ever again. Please.”

Junmyeon rolls his eyes, then, speaking before Jongin can respond, “That’s beside the point!” Junmyeon looks at Hyemi, gaze steady, a little sad. There’s always sadness in his eyes and Hyemi wonders why she’s just noticing it. “Hyemi’s right. We can’t let this castle get overrun. Once the castle falls, so does the rest of the Kingdom.” Junmyeon turns to Kris. “This is your jurisdiction, isn’t it?”

“It’s not my job to protect it.” Kris states.

There’s a look in his eyes, steely, hard, and Junmyeon’s eyes copy that look. “Kris, this—”

“Look.” Kris interjects, rolling his eyes as he reaches up, gesturing at the crown on his head, “My job is to protect this. The crown. That’s what my father taught me and that’s what his father’s father taught him. I am supposed to put myself on the front line, if and only if, there is no one else left standing. And the King’s Guard should be coming with me.”

Chanyeol frowns at Kris, “Kris, dude, you can’t—”

“I can and I will. And I can always make you, too.” Kris cuts Chanyeol off, looking pointedly at Chanyeol’s wrist as it glows a soft green. Chanyeol visibly winces, his hand covering the mark.

Baekhyun stiffens beside Hyemi, his hand on her back curling into a fist, “If you want to run, then fine. But don’t take Chanyeol’s choice away, too.”

Kris snorts, “ off, Byun. You have no idea what my duties are like and—”

“Shut up.” Hyemi interrupts Kris, reaching out to place a hand over Baekhyun’s wrist, tugging him back to call him down. She scowls at Kris who scowls right back.

“Excuse me?”

“Shut up.” Hyemi repeats, louder this time. “Do whatever you want. We don’t have time for your—your daddy issues or whatever the this all is.”

Zitao’s eyes widen and Jongin lets out a loud cough that barely hides his laugh. Jongdae glances from Kris to Hyemi with wide, wide eyes. Baekhyun blinks, absolutely surprised. Hyemi feels like an idiot, especially when the aura around Kris shifts, the faintest image of black ghosting up behind him, almost like a creature is there, hovering. But, she’s stubborn and sick and tired of Kris’s issues, all camaraderie she had with him earlier on their way to the Oracle Room gone.

Yixing immediately steps up, washing calm over all of them, “Okay, everyone please take a step back and calm down.”

Hyemi still scowls at Kris, ignoring the ever-growing sense of calm that Yixing is blasting her with. She shoulders past Baekhyun just to get a clear view of Kris, “I don’t understand why you need to please your father so badly, Kris. He’s a piece of .”

Chanyeol turns his frown on Hyemi, “Uh, Hyemi, we talked about this, remember? No bashi—”

“I don’t understand why you talk about me and my relationship with my father as if you know any of it.” Kris ignores Chanyeol, throwing his hand off him as he downright glares at Hyemi, all sense of whatever almost-brotherly-sisterly-sort-of-companionship they had formed earlier dissipating just like the air around them seems to lose all its moisture, leaving it dry, itching a little. Hyemi can feel the blood under her veins churning, her fingertips tingling, and Baekhyun immediately steps away from her, wincing as he shakes his hand before his hands go up in a calm down gesture. Jongin eyes her warily.

(The numbness has been overrun by this innate sense of anger and Hyemi wonders if its ever going to go away.)

“Come on.” Sehun speaks, this time, his voice loud, “Now is really not the time for a fight, you guys.”

The faint outline of a creature behind Kris seems to grow darker and darker, and she can just make out a huge beast perched on Kris’s shoulders, black with fiery eyes, reminding her of the dragon she had seen in her first vision with the tree so, so long ago. She blinks because holy , even as Chanyeol steps back, shaking his head. The moisture in the air has been zapped thoroughly and her lips feel dry, even as the beast, with its fiery red eyes and sharp rows of teeth, still faint, translucent almost, as if its slowly materializing from thin air.

It throws its head back and Kris is angry, she can feel the anger. But then—

Hyemi gets thrown off her feet, landing on her , though arms wind around her immediately after, keeping her from knocking her head against the floor. She blinks, vision bleary, the tingling sensation in her fingertips disappearing and Yixing’s calm, serene emotions completely drowning her, making her feel languid and slow. She looks up and Baekhyun’s face is right there. The ground beneath her is crumbled and jagged, clearly the reason why she was thrown nearly halfway across the room.

“ing idiots.”

She blinks, recognizing the voice echoing through the room, after a second of dazed confusion.

Kyungsoo stands there, arms crossed, large eyes narrowed into slits, the clear source of the cracks in the ground. Kris looks like he’s in the same state as her, on the other side of the room. There’s sweat dripping down Kyungsoo’s face and he looks slightly distracted, meaning he’s probably still preoccupied with the wall and the monsters beyond it.

Jongin breaks the silence by falling into a fit of laughter, clapping Kyungsoo on the back, and Kyungsoo just looks like he’s totally over everything and everyone.

Kris glowers at Kyungsoo but it’s only half-hearted, his crown sitting haphazardly on his head and his robes covered in dust. The entity—the beast, the dragon—that had been forming at his back is all but gone, a wisp of black still ominously lingering before it disappears completely.

Baekhyun helps her sit up and she feels momentarily dizzy before she catches her bearings. She meets Baekhyun’s gaze and he rolls his eyes at her. She smiles, a little sheepishly, and he grins, ever-so-slightly, making her heart flutter.

“Seriously, I’m trying my damned hardest to keep these things out and allow everyone a little time to recover, and you’re back here fighting?” Kyungsoo’s voice raises as he scowls between Kris and Hyemi.

Hyemi cringes a little and even Kris looks properly chastised, even as he stands, chin up in the air.

Sehun is hiding a grin behind his hand. Kyungsoo has his hands on his hips. The silence stretches on and on until Kyungsoo adds, “Do I have to make you guys hug?”

That’s when both Kris and Hyemi scowl and shake their heads simultaneously, protesting loudly, and even Junmyeon is smiling.

“Okay, then. What the hell is the plan? They’re trying to crawl up the walls as we speak and it’s getting harder to keep them out.” Kyungsoo asks, looking between each and every one of them.

Jongin says, “Taemin’s here so I guess the King called his guard. The King will be accounted for, so maybe half of us can go with her? While the other half can stay here and protect the castle?”

Junmyeon raises a hand, glancing at Hyemi, “I’ll go?”

He looks at her like he’s asking her, and she’s flustered as she nods. Jongdae points at Baekhyun, “You’re a given.” Then he gestures at himself, “No offense, though, but I’m sticking with Xing.”

“And I’m needed at the med tents.” Yixing murmurs, smiling sweetly at Jongdae all the while.

Jongin nods, “So, Yixing, Jongdae, Kris, Zitao, and Kyungsoo stay here? And…I guess Chanyeol, too?”

Everyone turns to Chanyeol and Kris, now. Kris is glaring and Chanyeol looks tired, his big palm hovering over his faintly glowing mark. Chanyeol peers at Kris for a long, long moment before he nods, slowly, “Yes. It’s my job to stick with the Crown Prince.”

Kris blinks, looks slightly hurt at the formality in Chanyeol’s tone. Baekhyun lets out a long sigh, expression twisting a bit.

Jongin just nods, though his eyes soften a bit when he peers at Chanyeol. Then, his piercing gaze turns on Hyemi. “Baekhyun, me, Sehun, and Junmyeon will be going with you. Is that ok, Dear Chosen One?”

“Not if you keep calling me Chosen One.” Hyemi answers.

Sehun pouts, “Why is no one asking for my opinion on this?”

Jongin rolls his eyes, “Because no one cares.”

Sehun kicks Jongin but Jongin teleports away before Sehun can land the kick. Junmyeon just sighs at the two of them, long and suffering.

Hyemi rolls her eyes at their antics, though she can’t help the smile. Still, she says, her voice sounding too loud despite Sehun and Jongin’s bickering, “We need to head out soon, though.”

Chanyeol turns to her, “How soon?”

“Um—”

“How about now?” Kyungsoo mutters.

Hyemi turns to him and Kyungsoo has his back turned to the group, eyes focused beyond the open doorway. Before Hyemi can ask anything, someone comes skidding past Kyungsoo, knocking shoulders, but Kyungsoo doesn’t even glare at them. He just takes a deep breath, barely sparing them a glance, and shouts, “Seriously. Now is the perfect time. Hurry up.”

Kyungsoo slips out the building just as Hyemi focuses on the man who had skidded into the castle. She blinks, eyes widening at the familiar head of black hair and round face. She had just seen him, though it had been through Amber’s visions and she never actually, officially met him, yet. It’s Taemin.

Taemin glances sideways at Jongin for a moment and Jongin smiles back, nodding good-naturedly. Then the moment is over and Taemin scans their group, lingering for a moment too long on her and then Baekhyun, before he turns to Kris and says, “The King?”

“He’s fine. For now.” There’s a loud boom as if a building’s exploded and Hyemi shrieks, automatically reaching for Baekhyun as the ground shakes. Kris blinks, staring between Taemin and Junmyeon for a moment before Kris seems to take a deep breath. “I’m just headed up there. Come with me.”

And then Kris is gone, in a flurry of robes, Chanyeol hesitantly trailing after him, Zitao nudging him with his elbow when he stills, glancing over his shoulder, big eyes filled with guilt. Baekhyun scoffs at that and Chanyeol purses his lips, frowning. Still, when Hyemi looks back at Baekhyun all she sees is sadness, hurt, and anger. Chanyeol must see it, too, because he looks regretful as he shoves long strands of his hair out of his face. Taemin glances back at them, his dark hair grazing his eyes, obscuring them, though his gaze does seem to linger a bit longer on Hyemi and Baekhyun, eyes widening significantly at the two of them, mouth twisting. She’s taken aback by the look on his face because his expression is almost scared, and she doesn’t understand that one bit. It looks out of place on his face, one that always seems to have a lazy, amused smile plastered there. But then he disappears around the corner and he and his strange expression are gone.

She has no time to think on it.

Not when there are roars and a deafening boom from beyond the castle doors, so thunderous that even the castle walls seem to tremble in its wake. Dust rises beyond the door, in the distance, obscuring her already minimal view of the castle grounds and her heart pounds against her skin when she hears a sort of distant clicking sound and a voice, a horribly familiar voice that instantly brings her back to her brief time on Earth, when Baekhyun had first returned, what feels like lifetimes ago, to when she was on a walk with Luhan and then something attacked Labyrinth City.

A sweet, tinkling voice murmurs, “Hyemi, come out, come out where you are. Let’s play a game~”

Her eyes widen as she swivels, her gaze locking with Baekhyun. He’s quick to grab her hand, squeeze her fingers between his, remind her that she is not alone, and she is safe.

Still her entire body seizes up in fear at the memories the voice brings back, the utter terror she had felt. Despite the numbness she has been feeling, due to her refusing to acknowledge the onslaught of emotions she can’t stop feeling, fear digs deep into her bones and festers, like an open wound.

The buzzing in her head sounds like drums, pounding away, boom boom boom.

She hears a faint, pointed, “Get the hell out of here, Hyemi.”

The voice cuts through the cloud of fear and she recognizes it instantly as Kyungsoo’s voice. He’s not in the room but she can hear him so distinctly in her head, and she thinks holy , this really is a two-way kind of connection. She doesn’t know what to make of that confirmation, but she finds that the fear is less paralyzing, despite the way she hears faint, faint laughter, echoing all around her, and she is reminded of a horrifying monster that wanted to eat her so ing badly. Somehow, it’s comforting knowing that she’s not alone.

She turns to Junmyeon. His face is paler than usual and he’s blinking at her in concern, though he seems to wait for her to speak.

(She thinks it’s strange, how they wait for her to tell them what to do, when not too long ago, they were making decisions about her without consulting her first all while dragging her around all over the place.)

Jongin is the one to speak up, when the ground quakes and she can see Kyungsoo raising both hands to the sky, pillars of rock following each path, Jongdae’s eyes filled with lightning, the smell of burning stark in the air around them, a cut to Kris sprinting towards the King’s chambers, Chanyeol on his heels, though his gaze is focused outside, beyond the windows, where she can see the mile high walls, the monster that is—it’s as if all the bug-like creatures, bent over backwards with splayed claws, have attached themselves to each other, uncaring of the way their limbs curl and break to fit into each other, red eyes dotting the black creature that only seems to grow and grow in size as more creatures emerge from the forest and attach themselves to the giant monster, sometimes falling away just to zip through the air and attempt to tear at the soldiers below. Some of them succeed. She—Chanyeol—watches in horror as some of them tear through soldiers—Chanyeol’s comrades—blood splattering everywhere as the monsters seems to rake at them, only stopping when someone knocks them away. Still, they are unfazed, turning around, swaying in such a lethargic way before it lunges for the rest of the soldiers, too. It’s a bloody massacre from up here, and she can’t tell which side has the upper hand. She—Chanyeol and Kris and Zitao—all look beyond the trees and there’s a sea of black, of shadows, melting into the forest and she can’t make sense of what’s just a shadow and what’s one of Yeonma’s creatures. She sees all this in her mind’s eye, playing simultaneously with the present, and the buzzing feels so painful then, like someone’s set a drill on her head, intent on piercing straight through her head. She wishes she couldn’t see this. It’s terrifying.

It’s so tremendous.

Jongin speaks, at the same time as she sees all this through the eyes of the others who live on in her head, “Let’s try the back?”

Hyemi shakes her head, steeling her nerves completely, succeeding somehow, surprisingly enough, her fingers so tight around Baekhyun’s she’s surprised he hasn’t complained of her cutting off his circulation yet. “The castle is surrounded.”

Sehun blinks, “Then how the hell do we get out?”

Junmyeon looks at Jongin, “Jongin.”

Jongin stares at Junmyeon, his brows furrowed, before he turns to Hyemi, his eyes deeply serious, “How far back does the army go?”

Hyemi closes her eyes, briefly, and feels the apprehension Kris is feeling. He turns away from the window before she can get a good look, spinning to look at his dying father, Sungyeol’s eyes glowing with the power of a thousand galaxies, his consciousness—some could even say his soul—destined to implode, settling into stardust only to reform again, over and over. Kris’s gaze turns to his mother’s photograph and she hears Kris’s thoughts, his distinct, that’s what you get, as well as sadness, so there that Hyemi has to leave before the numbness, the resolve within her succumbs to Kris’s emotions. Hyemi blinks and suddenly, she’s staring out the window again, Chanyeol is leaning against it, his expression pinched, she can feel it. His grip is tight on the windowsill. The army of monsters—she and Chanyeol can just make it out—blends so far back and she can’t figure out how far back it goes. Then, she hears Chanyeol’s low voice right in her ear, There are too many to cut through.

She blinks, thinks back, How can you tell?

Chanyeol’s tone is forlorn, tired, Taemin told us the same thing. The King’s Guard is taking the emergency air ship, the rest of them are already up there. Luhan isn’t out there so we should be good on evacuating.

We’ll…teleport or something, then. She pauses, feels the fear and apprehension, the anxiety seeping through Chanyeol’s bones, and she braces herself, forcing herself to ignore it, for her sanity, and she adds, We’ll be careful and we’ll see you soon, okay? Don’t worry about us or—or how you can't be here with us right now. You’re just doing your job and no one…no one hates you for it.

There’s a pause before Chanyeol just grunts, never once verbally (psychically?) acknowledging what she says though there’s a certain warmth in her—his—chest as soon as the words leave . Instead, he whispers, This is really weird, you know that.

Hyemi smiles, mumbles, Yeah, but it could be weirder and then she closes her eyes to Chanyeol chuckling, leaving Chanyeol be.

She says, out loud, “It’s going to be impossible to cut through it.”

Jongin eyes her strangely, eyes filled with awe, though he’s also clearly unsettled. “This mind-hopping trick is going to be your new thing now, isn’t it?”

Hyemi makes a face at Jongin’s choice of words, “Yes, it’s helpful.”

“Sure is.” Jongin mumbles, before his expression returns to seriousness. He says, “If we don’t know how far back it goes, it’ll be dangerous for me to teleport. I can only go so far, especially with three people. And what if I accidentally drop us right into the middle of it.”

“Then, what if I showed you the field? Through the mind thing?”

“I—”

“Hyemi, Hyemi, Hyemi, Hyemi.” A bone-chilling voice curls all around them, the temperature in the room dropping immediately, and Hyemi jumps, her free hand curling around her torso, her eyes widening.

“Just do it.” Junmyeon snaps, spinning on his heels as tries to keep an eye out, even as the room itself seems to dim, temperature dropping so much, Hyemi can see her breath.

Hyemi takes a deep breath, eyeing Jongin intently, a dark foreboding figure appearing at the edge of her vision, near the doorway. Junmyeon’s movements are fluid, his gaze intent, as water forms between his fingertips. He holds the water whip and Baekhyun lets go of Hyemi, pushing her closer to Jongin, before joining Junmyeon, shouting, Don’t look! before there’s a flash of light at her peripheral vision and a cold, chilly voice screaming and screaming, the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end, freezing over, at how shrill and human-like the sound is.

She thinks of Jinri’s grave, of the field there, thinks long and hard, tries to imagine the cliff and the bridge that had been in the distance, and Jongin mumbles, tone reverent, full of awe she’s never heard from him before, “I see it.”

She sees Sehun join Baekhyun and Junmyein, hair whipping as he draws at the air, wind gusts thrashing all around them. She turns back to lock eyes with Jongin and asks, “Can you do it?”

Jongin purses his lips. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

Hyemi stares at him before she grips his elbow, “ it.”

Jongin gives her an amused smile, even as she practically drags him towards the boys, wind whipping all around her, ignoring the way the red eyes of the monster focuses entirely on her, teeth bared, though there is blood dripping down its eyes.

It says, “Sweet Hyemi, you’re here.”

She shouts, hand outstretched. “Grab my hand and hold on tight.”

The monster swipes at Baekhyun, screeching so loudly she thinks her eardrums will burst, but Baekhyun manages to duck, scrambling towards her. The moment they all grab each other’s arms, she squeezes Jongin’s hand reassuringly, murmurs in her head, You can do it.

Jongin throws her a strained smile.

She can feel the determination in Jongin as he concentrates so hard, she thinks both their heads will implode at the force of his will. He concentrates, she sees the field and the cliff, and his entire body trembles. She feels a slight tug at the pit of her stomach, hope welling up in , but then—

Nothing.

She blinks.

Sehun mumbles, “I don’t feel queasy.” The monster roars and Sehun whips his hands to the side, a gust of wind shoving the monster straight through the castle walls. He turns to look at Jongin, eyes wide, “Jongin, I don’t feel like I’m getting vacuumed through Satan’s . What’s going on? What happened?”

Jongin’s eyes are wide and his usual smug look is gone. “It’s not working.”

Baekhyun blinks, rapidly, “What?”

Jongin’s wide gaze flickers up to meet hers. Junmyeon jumps forward, waving his hands, water whipping at the monster once, twice, thrice, movements fluid, graceful in a way that’s similar to Sehun’s but not entirely. She always finds it fascinating how they manage to move like their elements, Junmyeon fluid like water and Sehun effortless like air. Junmyeon frowns.

Baekhyun blinks at Jongin, though there is clearly panic growing in his eyes, and says, “It’s okay, Jongin. You tried your best.”

Jongin groans, loudly, “But it’s not enough. I didn’t go through this whole journey to get here just to die in this ty castle.”

Hyemi grips Jongin’s elbow, tighter this time, and says, loudly, shouting over Sehun’s gusts of wind, her hair whipping all around her, the ends smacking her cheeks, stinging slightly. “Then on to plan B.” She turns to look at the boys, fighting this monster, struggling to protect themselves, her, and she feels useless. Still, she knows she’ll only get in the way if she interferes, since they’ve trained for decades together and she’s trained for barely a few weeks. She knows she should save her powers as a last resort, since she can barely control it. She tacks on, loud enough for each of them to hear, though she’s sure her connection to them makes it easier for them to hear it, in the first place, “The Oracle Room.”

Baekhyun blinks, expression twisting with surprise. His expression flickers, too, with something else she has no time to figure out, “What?”

“There’s a portal there that leads out to Soshi City.” Hyemi tells him.

Junmyeon turns on her, completely ignoring the fact that there’s a giant monster with bleeding eyes and a set of sharp teeth right behind him, expression taut, “We can’t enter that room, though.”

Junmyeon has his back turned, his full attention on her, and Baekhyun has to step in, making a face at Junmyeon, while he flicks his wrist and the monster screams as it watches it’s body begin to dissolve to dust. She knows it’s an illusion because that’s what Baekhyun’s powers are, but she never knew his illusion powers were that powerful. Sehun throws Junmyeon an exasperated expression as he swipes at the air, stopping a claw from piercing through Junmyeon. Junmyeon ignores it all, eyeing Hyemi seriously as he waits for a response from her.

“Not unless the Oracle gives you permission.” She says.

“Exactly my point.” Junmyeon makes a face, as if he already knows what Amber will decide, his lips pulled into a taut line. She blinks at his anxious expression.

“She will.” She turns to squeeze Jongin’s elbow once more before releasing him, gaze settling on his slightly disappointed, distraught eyes. She thinks maybe she should say something comforting. She thinks a long time ago, she would have. But this time, she just says, “Let’s go. Before we end up trapped in here.”

~.~.~.~.~

“Hyemi, Hyemi, you can’t run from us~” The monster coos, despite its bleeding eyes, its sharp teeth glinting so brightly whenever Baekhyun uses his powers. A chill runs up and down her spine.

They’re hurrying through the halls and its still following them, as if none of their attacks can stop it. Junmyeon and Sehun combine their powers, water and wind, to create a blast of water that drills at the monster, and it just breaks apart, allows itself to crumble, only to have its disjointed limbs slither back together, reforming as it continues on its hunt for Hyemi. It doesn’t seem to care about its bleeding eyes and Hyemi can feel the horrible fear she had felt so long ago back on Earth, in that bathroom stall, she can feel it blazing through her and she hates it so, so much.

“Save yourself the pain, sweetheart. We can end this right now. It’ll be painless, easier than what’s waiting for you up ahead~”

The Oracle Room is just down the hall and the monster slithers and drags its beaten body behind them, the walls and ceiling crumbling as it plows through so easily.

“Why won’t it stop?” Sehun mumbles, his chest heaving, obviously growing tired.

Hyemi blinks at him, turns to look at an equally exhausted Junmyeon, a concerned Jongin, and Baekhyun’s rigid determination and protective stance, his mouth twisted into a seemingly permanent frown. She stops dead in the middle of the hall and speaks slowly, perhaps inspired by the determination in Baekhyun, “I can make it stop. I can stop it.”

Lack of training, be damned, she needs to face this thing and she needs to know that she’s capable of controlling her powers. She needs to know she can keep it concentrated, channel at all towards a single end goal. She wants the residual fear lingering inside her, the fear that makes her want to curl into a ball and cry, to go away.

So, she pauses and Baekhyun, Junmyeon, Sehun, and Jongin notice a moment after they pass by her still form, their footsteps faltering.

Baekhyun calls out, “Are you sure?”

There is a tinge of fear, of concern, in his tone, and it spurs her into resolve, because she’s tired of hiding behind them, especially behind Baekhyun. It isn’t fair of her to step back all the time, especially when she’s leading them into a fight that she has a feeling will end in blood and death. It isn’t fair when they are her responsibility. This is her fight, isn’t it?

Hyemi thinks of that golden ball of light, the one that gives her so much comfort, and she imagines it bigger than it had been the first time. It glows, branches of yellow and white emitting from it like flowers blooming. She likes it, the growth of it, how it feels nothing like the destruction she is so capable of producing. But she knows what she has to do. She takes a deep breath, watches as the ball of light glitches, black and white bursting throughout the yellow, tiny at first before it grows, like spindly fireworks. Her breath is caught in her chest as the black and white seems to quickly overpower the soft yellow, the flower blooms she loves so much, and she gets an itch under her skin that feels like its trying to force its way into her bloodstream.

The monster stops a few feet in front of her. There’s a buzzing in her head and a buzzing under her skin, in her blood. For a moment, she thinks she might like this feeling, even as the floor beneath her begins to dissolve, crumbling slowly, a soft shhh sound echoing all around her. She takes a step forward and her footprint is carved into the floor, dissolving the ground, making her nearly lose her footing. The monster can’t truly see her, because of its bleeding eyes, but it can sense her. It freezes, tilting its head, as if it’s looking dead at her. The air smells of her favorite gardens back home, of a soft floral scent and a hint of mulch and grass.

It murmurs, “Lovely, pretty Hyemi, I’ve found youuu~”

There’s this overwhelming sensation at the pit of her stomach, as if she needs to allow something to release, and then suddenly she feels like she’s bursting apart at the seams, as if everything is exploding right out of her like she’s exactly the kind of ticking time bomb she never wanted to be in the first place. She vaguely registers shrieking, so high pitched, she gets the urge to cover her ears and curl up in a fetal position until it passes. She doesn’t, though. She just listens to it and she commits it to memory and she feels the extent to which her powers can hurt. The monster is dissolving, crumbling into dust, her hand pressed to its side. The floor and the ceiling are also crumbling, dust trickling all over her, and she thinks, turn it off, turn it off.

The shrieking, the overwhelming pulsing in her chest, goes on and on and a tiny part of her that is much too loud finds that she likes it, she likes the feeling. She watches the monster crumble, become this tiny, insignificant dash of black and white and bleeding eyes, and her fear turns into satisfaction and triumph.

“Hyemi.”

The monster glitches then, the image of it trembling, and for a brief moment, she sees a familiar, laughing face. Laughter echoes in her head. She blinks, rapidly, and it disappears. The monster is nothing but ash and limbs. The laughter has stopped, abruptly.

“Hyemi.”

Hyemi spins, her head feeling light, the buzzing in her head surprisingly quiet.

Baekhyun is a couple steps ahead of Jongin, Sehun, and Junmyeon. His hands are up in the air in an almost placating gesture. She blinks at him, confused. He says, very quietly, very very softly, as if she is some fragile thing, though there is urgency there, “Turn it off, Hye, love, turn it off.”

Jongin is staring at her with dark, unreadable eyes, his lips pressed into a thin line. Sehun is blinking at her. And Junmyeon looks at her with something akin to fear. She looks down and her stomach churns. She is standing on the remnants of the hallway floor, everything around her and above her gone, skeletal remains that she’s destroyed. She looks over her shoulder and there’s nothing left of the monster except—except—

“Oh, my God.” She whispers, her eyes wide. The satisfaction lingers, but it is overpowered by an acute sense of horror because lying in the ash and dust of what was once a terrible creature is a mangled body and blood, bloodied eyes and half-dissolved limbs. And among the remnants of body parts, of blood and ash, is the perfectly intact head and a familiar face, a face that makes her heart drop to the pit of her stomach. She can feel her hands shaking as she covers , goosebumps trailing up her arms. “R—Rin?”

Rin—her friend from so long ago, the cute, bubbly second year with a thing for experimenting with hair dye, the one that worked at the bubble tea shop with Minah and the one that had morphed into a terrifying monster that she thought Jongdae had destroyed, but, apparently not. Rin.

This—this thing that she tore apart so easily was no monster, but it was Rin, deep deep down, which means all those other creatures in Yeonma’s army really are innocent beings living beyond the wall that have been morphed into something worse. Killing these monsters kills them. She stares at Rin’s pale, round face and her mind wanders instantly to that NCT hunter she had turned to dust when her emotions were running so damn high, thinks of Baekhyun’s family and what Jongdae had walked in on, and the terror only grows. Her fingers tingle and she blinks down at her own hands, hands that have killed and—for a moment, she is not terrified of these monsters, no, she is terrified of herself and what she is capable of.

She takes a deep, deep breath, then, and she squashes her emotions, the guilt, the horrible feelings, right then and there, the buzzing in her head growing louder. She focuses on that, squeezing her eyes shut, willing her hands to stop tingling, her powers to stop surging the way they are before she opens them, her eyes falling on Rin’s face, the hint of pink hair. Her vision blurs for just a moment, the image of Rin’s body flickering a bit, before she blinks rapidly, takes another deep breath, and swivels on her heels to face Baekhyun again. She can’t meet his eyes. She can’t stand to see the kindness there because she thinks the dam she’s hastily built will crumble immediately the moment she does.

(She shoves the fear of herself, a new thing she can’t quite wrap her head around, far, far away. Now is not the time to dwell on it. Now is not the time.)

“Hyemi.” Baekhyun’s voice is soft, feathery. “Baby, come here, please.” She looks up, before glancing down at the gaping hole where the hallway floor once was. She vaguely wonders how Kris will feel about her doing this to his precious castle. That thought and the subsequent image of his annoyance and his comical eyebrows gets her to move, to nod back up at Baekhyun, who gives her a gentle smile, eyes widening as he nods and murmurs, in a low voice, “I think you’ll have to jump, but be careful. I’m—” He meets her gaze and there’s something so reassuring there, something that reminds her that he is here by her side for everything, that he promised, and her heart flutters. The dam she’s built in her head almost comes crashing down and she nods, distracting herself from the gentleness in his expression, even as he finishes, voice breathy, “I’m right here.”

(She still notices that his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.)

She does as he says, without ever uttering a word, because what is she supposed to say?

She has to jump from the tiny square of floor she’s standing on to where Baekhyun, Jongin, Sehun, and Junmyeon are standing, waiting for her, a foot long gaping hole the width of the hallway (and including the walls and ceiling up above) separating them. She knows the entire hallway behind her his gone, perhaps even that entire section of the castle, for all she knows. Still, she jumps, and she topples forward, her knee buckling when her foot hits the floor and Baekhyun immediately grabs her around the waist, squeezing as if to tell her I’m here, before he reaches up and fusses over her, brushing debris off her. The whole time, he doesn’t say a word and she doesn’t meet his eyes again. Her hands are still shaking, and he doesn’t say anything. She’s so grateful for him; that’s all she can think of when she looks down at his fussing hands

For a moment, no one says a word, the silence between them deafening. Until, finally, Sehun says, very very quietly, his eyes filled with concern that she finds sweet, “Are you okay, Hyemi?”

She blinks, rapidly, at the question because it catches her off guard. But, then, she nods, plastering an easy smile across her face that has Junmyeon turning away, eyes landing on the heap of ash behind them. Jongin just stares at her. It takes her a moment too long to find her voice when she says, voice too cheery, too easy-going, “I’m fine. It’s fine. Let’s go.”

Baekhyun rubs a hand down her back, the touch making her shiver a bit because his hands are cold, even through the material of her shirt. But, still, she relishes in the comforting touch, decides she’s not going to talk about it, feel it, or think about it, about Rin and the ashes and that acute sense of horror and fear she felt towards her own damn self. She doesn’t want to acknowledge it. She doesn’t have the time or the emotional capacity to do so.

She doesn’t have the emotional capacity to do anything but build the dam higher, forcing her emotions far, far away. For a moment, she thinks of Soojung’s warning and she swears she’ll address it later, after she saves the universe and these boy that the universe seems to have entrusted her with.

She grabs Baekhyun’s hands, gently prying him off her, and smiles with as much reassurance as she can, though she’s sure she just looks constipated. He raises a brow. She nods and gestures for him to walk. After a moment where he shakes his head and she nods, crossing her arms over her chest, he finally complies, sighing as he pushes off her and steps past Jongin, Junmyeon, and Sehun’s still frozen forms, grabbing Sehun by the elbow as he does so, earning a grunt from Sehun. Baekhyun elbows Jongin in the ribs. Jongin finally, finally, tears his gaze off of Hyemi and the sight behind her.

She steps forward just as Junmyeon purses his lips, but swivels on his heels as well.

They stare at the door she’s stepped out of not too long ago and it shimmers silver, now, instead of gold. The change in color is disconcerting, almost.

She is going to address it later, she knows she will, but for now, she needs to focus.

(She thinks, for a moment, the door flickers into a deep, dark black abyss and she hears cold, familiar laughter ringing deep in her head, beyond the emotions she’s buried away.)

~.~.~.~.~

Baekhyun steps forward first, his pretty fingers hesitant before he reaches up and pushes the silver curtain out of the way, his fingers disappearing through the shimmering substance. Then he steps in.

Sehun frowns, glancing between where Baekhyun disappeared and back at them, “Every time I go somewhere with you guys, we end up in a really bad situation. Maybe, I can keep watch or something. Or go last. Or just, like, fly there and meet you—”

Jongin shoves Sehun through the door, head first, Sehun’s scream echoing before it cuts off, and Jongin glances back over his shoulder, at Hyemi and Junmyeon, grinning his usual -eating grin, though it’s a bit subdued. “Is that how you guys feel before I teleport you places?”

Hyemi nods. Junmyeon just rolls his eyes and shoos at Jongin, which makes Jongin let out a small giggle. It’s a nice thing to hear, especially after everything. His eyes land on Hyemi for a moment, observant and unreadable, before Jongin disappears through the silver curtain. It ripples the same way clear lakes ripple when someone cannonballs into it or throws rocks.

She steps forward next, but then Junmyeon wraps a hand around her elbow. She pauses, whipping her head to the side, gaze flickering down to his hand before she focuses on his expression, on the sincerity and solemnity there.

Junmyeon murmurs, “Don’t let the tree’s power consume you. Be careful and—payattentiontothedetails—I trust you to get us out of—here—there in one piece. I really do.”

Hyemi frowns at the way Junmyeon’s words seem to distort, like radio static, seemingly echoing in her head. She frowns, “Sorry? What did—what?”

Junmyeon just stares at her. For a moment, she sees his mouth move, but nothing comes out, as if he’s been set on mute. Her frown only deepens and then Junmyeon is smiling, his expression polite and encouraging.

She blinks at him, frowning harder, when suddenly his voice booms, echoing in her head a little, “You go first, Hyemi. I’ll be right behind you.”

He’s nudging her forward and she’s pushed through the silver curtain before she can ask what the hell just happened. For a moment, when she looks back over her shoulder, the silver curtain morphs into rock walls and she catches a glimpse of chains hanging there, glinting in dim lighting. Her heartrate picks up.

But then, someone grabs her elbow, and she jumps.

She swivels and Baekhyun is hovering over her, his open expression filled with blatant concern. “Hyemi, you okay? Was it another vision?”

Slowly, she shakes her head. The sound of feet stumbling, the dull thuds of Junmyeon’s feet hitting the floor, echo all around them, and when she looks over her shoulder, Junmyeon is peering at their surroundings, wide-eyed.

Baekhyun’s cold fingers trail down her hand, catching on her wrist, and for a moment, she feels a tug, a slight sensation of coolness, like when she’d wear a necklace and it’d slip under her shirt and rest against her skin. She looks down, at her wrist, but nothing is there, despite it feeling like there is in fact something there, latched to her wrist. Baekhyun’s fingers tangle in hers, his pretty fingers filling the gaps between hers, and she finds comfort in his touch, though her mind is reeling with intense confusion. Is…Was something supposed to be there? On her wrist?

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Jongin’s murmur echoes all around the room, bouncing in and out until it starts to fade away into a distant whisper.

Hyemi tears her eyes off her wrist, off Baekhyun’s grip on her hand, eyes landing on the Oracle Room and she’s taken aback by how different it looks. How could it have changed so much since she was here last?

The room is just…empty. It’s empty and white and there are no upturned couch cushions or broken lamps floating about aimlessly. There is nothing but empty whiteness that seem to run on in all directions endlessly.

Her heart drops to her stomach at the feeling, at how the room doesn’t hold a sense of whimsicality anymore, how the familiar cushions and homeliness Amber and Soojung had added are gone, leaving the room bare and terrifying, cold, so cold.

Her heart feels tights as she spins, breaking out of Baekhyun’s hold, and takes in the entire room. “Amber? Soojung?” She calls out, her voice sounding so, so tiny in the vastness that is this room.

(It reminds her, for a moment, of that room she found Yixing in during those horrifying visions, right before Baekhyun’s supposed funeral. Her heartrate speeds up and she forces her palms to remain still and her voice to remain steady and even.)

“Amber!” She calls out and there’s a distinct tinge of desperation there, in her tone, “Soojung!”

(Despite the fact that coming to this Oracle Room had always left her a mess, she still feels a sort of attachment to them. Especially after the last meeting. She had felt that maybe, she could call the two of them her friends. They treated her as such, at least, and she didn’t realize just how much she depended on them, how secure she felt with them in this room, despite the wild things they threw her into, until this very moment, as she stands in this empty room and tries to keep that stupid dam of emotions from breaking apart.)

Someone puts a hand on her shoulder. Surprisingly, it’s Junmyeon, not Baekhyun. “They’re not here.” Junmyeon says, gently, quietly.

“Yeah.” She breathes. She forces the tension to loosen, forces herself to take a deep breath. “I guess we’ll have to find the portal ourselves.”

Sehun blinks, looking around, his eyes widening owlishly, “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

Her brain is on overdrive as she scans the empty white ocean that seems to go on forever and ever. They could search for it, but she isn’t sure which way they’re supposed to go and how big this room is. Or—or—

“I’m an idiot.” She mumbles, eyes lighting up.

Jongin nods, “We already knew that.”

Hyemi scowls, but she turns to Baekhyun, Junmyeon, and Sehun’s confused expressions and she explains, pointedly ignoring Jongin, “Amber’s a part of the tree. She’s not actually gone, but if she is, her memories are there. Including the location of the portal.”

“So,” Junmyeon peers at her, narrowing his eyes, “You need to go into a vision?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Sehun says, waving a hand dismissively, “Then, do it.”

Hyemi blinks, frowns, before she takes a deep breath, decides she’s not going to tell them she has no ing idea how to do that, and then she drops to the floor, sitting cross-legged, and closes her eyes.

It’s quiet for at least three minutes before Jongin’s whispering, “Is she doing it?”

Baekhyun mumbles back, “I have no idea.”

“This is boring.” Sehun sighs.

“Can you all shut up, please? I need to concentrate.” She says, without opening her eyes, and then she hears Sehun shushing Jongin and Baekhyun laughing a little too loudly and Junmyeon muttering, children.

She’s smiling as she thinks, Um, Tree? Mr. Tree? Ms. Tree? Do you even have a gender? Anyway, if you’re out there, please put me in vision mode?

She thinks it’s ridiculous when nothing happens, because the tree never has a problem with bombarding her with visions when she’s busy and unprepared, but now it’s suddenly run out of everything? Still, she takes a deep breath, tries to clear her mind (she’s never been good at it), and she focuses on that golden ball of light she was trained to focus on during those horribly boring meditation lessons from long ago. She tries to just focus, tries not to think about how Amber and Soojung have disappeared, how she’s murdered Rin, how she’s so close to having to come face to face with Yeonma and its master, with Luhan. She tries not to think.

But it’s hard.

“Is it?”

She blinks, her eyes flying open at the voice, and drops open at the sight of Minah standing before her, smiling sweetly the same way she always has, except—except—

“Holy .”

It slips from and she briefly wonders if that’s disrespectful or something. But then again, the tree has taken on the form of her best friend, the one she found so much comfort in after Baekhyun left her in pieces, the girl she’s left to worry at home, the girl she may never end up coming back home to, now that she really truly dwells on it. This isn’t really Minah, though, because there’s a strange quality to her and she can sense the absolute power radiating off her.

Then the image of Minah dissolves into an image of her father, his rugged features and his kind, sad eyes. She used to hate the sadness in them because he used to direct them at her all the time after Baekhyun left, never once believing her. Now that she thinks back on it, it’s strange because of who her mother was, but maybe her mother never told her father about it. Still the sight of her father makes the backs of her eyes prickle a bit, smiling despite the situation, despite everything.

(The tree is taking the form of people it thinks she will find comfort in. For some reason, that gesture, in and of itself, comforts her. It’s strangely reassuring.)

Her father gestures for her to stand up.

She does, watching as the he spins on his heel and starts to walk, the movement fluid, graceful, and nothing like the way her actual father would walk. For a moment, she wonders how he’s doing and whether he’s tried to call her yet. Despite never listening to her and constantly sending her to psychiatrist after psychiatrist to deal with what he believed to be hallucinations, despite her father being preoccupied with his new fiancé, he’d always make the time to call her, text her, or visit her, especially after she left for university. They’re not close—they never really were, not after everything—but she knows he loves her a lot, that she is all he has left of her mother, and he genuinely believed he was doing right by her.

She feels a tug against the back of her shirt, though when she looks back, no one is there. Still, she follows her father, watches as his limbs seem to dissolve into another image, an image this time of Pretty Hyemi from her visions so long ago, her beautiful face pleasant, red lips dripping with a small smile that’s lacking the attitude from earlier, and her strange eyes the same as Hyemi’s and her mother’s. They walk and walk and Hyemi mutters, “Do you speak?”

Pretty Hyemi doesn’t answer, just continues smiling pleasantly, and Hyemi mumbles, “I guess not.”

Finally, finally, they get to a black door, tiny at first, but the further they walk through the endless sea of white, the bigger it gets until suddenly she’s standing right in front of it and it’s looming over her, so high she has to crane her neck back to see the top.

Pretty Hyemi turns, tossing her hair over her shoulder and smiles sweetly. Hyemi blinks at her expression, taken aback by the lack of snide comments or an eye roll she’s come to expect from this version of her from the few times she’s seen her.

Pretty Hyemi lifts her hand, a familiar golden bracelet glinting at her wrist, and then she locks eyes with Pretty Hyemi, her blood red lips quirking up into an ominous smirk, the tilt of her lips suddenly so pointed somehow. Her other hand moves, then, and she taps the golden bracelet with a perfectly manicured fingertip.

Hyemi doesn’t understand what any of this means. She doesn’t understand. The bracelet is incredibly familiar though she can’t quite put her finger on why. It bothers her.

Pretty Hyemi then disappears, vanishing into thin air, and the next time she blinks, she knows she’s not in a vision any longer. The lighting in the room is brighter, but there’s still a dark door looming over her. There’s a hand at her back and she allows herself a slow, cursory glance of her surroundings. Junmyeon, Sehun, Jongin, and Baekhyun are surrounding her at her sides, all of them ogling the giant door in awe.

After a moment of catching her bearings, she murmurs, “Let’s go.”

They nod simultaneously, and she steps through the black doors first. There’s a weight at her wrist and she glances down, her eyes widening because there’s a golden bracelet there, the same as Pretty Hyemi’s.

She stares at it, frowning, before it hits her and she remembers that this is the bracelet Baekhyun had given her, the one that he said would help with the headaches, the one she had completely forgotten about. Where did it go? Why did it suddenly appear on her wrist? Why was that version of Hyemi, the one who had dropped into a grave, worn it? She fingers the golden bracelet, thinks about how it had glowed so brightly when they were trapped in Baekhyun’s family’s house, allowing them reprieve from those terrifying creatures, how it had truly helped her, protected her even, up until the point it had just…disappeared, right after the run-in with Baekhyun’s family. What the hell does this mean?

“I thought I told you to wait for my people to call yours.” A voice cuts through her thoughts and her head snaps up at the familiar voice.

Kim Taeyeon’s smile is dazzling, her nearly white-blonde hair woven into two long plaits resting on her shoulder. She isn’t wearing a flowy white dress, this time, but rather a set of what looks to be armor, though it’s a bright white and seems to make her look tinier than she already is. There’s a long cannon-like gun, however, strapped to her back and Hyemi is afraid to even think about how tiny she looks around Taeyeon, afraid Taeyeon’s good mood might switch and she’ll shoot her point blank in the face.

Taeyeon continues to grin as she says, “I see you have found the portal.” Taeyeon glances to her side, opposite of where Tiffany stands in a crisp black suit, her hair tied back into a tight ponytail and a giant curved, scythe-like knife—the kind farmers use to harvest wheat—strapped to her back. The strange lighting in the room, dim because of how lowly lit the floating lanterns strewn throughout are, along with the four giant pillars holding dim orange light up above, makes them look eerie, casting long shadows that draw out their features, hiding their eyes and accentuating their smiles. “I told you she’d find it.”

Hyemi glances to her right, where Taeyeon is looking—Tiffany is on her left—and there’s no one there. But Taeyeon is smiling and Hyemi’s first reaction is worry, but then she remembers Amber.

Hyemi blinks, eyes widening, “Is Amber there?”

Taeyeon turns then, to look at her, her black eyes dilated to the point where she can barely see the whites in them. Her smile is long, foreboding, as she murmurs, “Yes. She was in that room, too. But he kept her hidden from you.”

“Who? Luhan?” Hyemi asks.

Taeyeon just stares at her with dark, almost black eyes, before her gaze flickers to the boys, over Jongin, Sehun, Junmyeon, and Baekhyun. She doesn’t freak out. She barely even looks at them. She just turns back to Hyemi and says, “I refused to join Yeonma and now he wants to wipe out my city. He is giving me one day to reconsider. You should go now. There is an exit through the springs in the library.”

Taeyeon waves her arms, dismissive, and Tiffany is at their sides, ready to them out.

Hyemi blinks at Taeyeon for a long moment, observes her in her white armor and the soft glow that emanates from her. Taeyeon stares right back, her gaze flickering over the boys, dancing over them. For a split second, Taeyeon’s almost black eyes flip to a bright, colorless white. Her heart stops at the sight, even as Taeyeon just gives her a smile, calls out, “She says to go see Jinri. Before.”

But the change in color sticks with her. She turns and Junmyeon’s black shirt—no, it’s blue—now, it’s green—flickers and Hyemi’s chest feels so tight suddenly, as if she can’t breathe.

This is dread, she realizes, stuffed deep down within her, buried under all the other emotions she’s been shoving behind her hastily built dam in her head.

This is dread.

Baekhyun touches her hand and it’s colder than ever.

She looks up at him and he smiles, soft and sweet, and the dread lessens somehow, but it’s also still there, so prominently there.

Tiffany walks briskly, the dark hallways around them echoing with sounds from people or things she can’t quite make out in the shadows. They step into a vast library that is tinged with blue lighting, the gentle tinkling of rushing water echoing throughout the library, relaxing her instantly. Junmyeon’s mouth drops as he spins on his heels, taking in their surroundings.

“Wow.” He murmurs.

The ceilings are high, so high she can’t see the end of it, the rock walls curving upwards into dark shadows, the darkness filled with floating lanterns that flit all about lazily, like tiny fireflies. There are cushions that look exactly like the ones that had been in the Oracle Room strewn about, which makes her wonder if Taeyeon maybe gifted those cushions to Amber. There are shelves lining the walls, ladders leaning against them, the cases looming so, so high, scarily so. The further they walk, the louder the crashing water is, until they pass a stream that trickles between bookshelves, a few rectangular cushions drifting along the water. The stream disappears between the bookshelves and she think it’s lovely, the idea of a sort of lazy river that trickles through the library. It sounds so nice. And then there’s the waterfall, attached to the springs, glowing flowers that emit light just as soft as the floating lanterns fluttering throughout the vast library, line the rocks, springing to life in a way that makes her think of her favorite gardens back home and how they’d look in the spring.

Tiffany points at the waterfall, “There’s a cave back there and it leads out into the forest.”

She nods. Baekhyun says, “Good luck.”

Tiffany stares at him for a long, long moment. “If anyone needs luck, it’s you all.”

And then she swivels on her heels and walks away, the sounds of her heels hitting stone echoing all around them.

Junmyeon raises a hand, separates the waterfall like he’s pulling back a curtain, and they all stare at each other.

Sehun finally says, “I was expecting…more from her.”

“Maybe she’s nervous.” Hyemi mumbles.

After a moment of silence, of the sound of water rushing and splattering against the rocks, Jongin says, very very quietly, “She looked scared.”

“Let’s just—let’s go.” Hyemi manages to whisper, ignoring the urge to reassure, to feel that statement to the fullest. Jongin blinks at her, as if he’s surprised, but he listens. They all do.

~.~.~.~.~

Her bracelet glows the closer they get to that cliff, the more the trees around them begin to thin out into a clearing. They’re walking fast, practically jogging now, and she thinks it’s strange that there’s no one there waiting to stop them from advancing any further.

Her bracelet glows and glows, feeling so, so warm against her skin.

Baekhyun peers down at her bracelet and his voice is loud, strangely too loud, in her head, next to her, as if it’s extra-present, extra-real. “Where did you get that?”

Her eyes snap down to the bracelet before snapping up to meet Baekhyun’s gaze. There’s hesitation in his eyes, then, but perhaps, she’s imagining it because it disappears entirely too fast.

“I don’t like the feeling of this.” Sehun’s voice drifts between them. She looks up and Sehun is pursing his lips at the clearing ahead of them, the field of dead flowers where Jinri’s ghost lives on visible though not close enough yet, the cliff just beyond that, the Temple of Dreams and Yeonma right past that. “No offense, but you’re a beacon for bad times, Hyemi. We should have gotten attacked at least once already.”

Jongin laughs, “Our Chosen One is the Harbinger of Anxiety for Sehun, is she?”

“Yes.”

Junmyeon grins, too, at that, and Hyemi finds herself snorting in amusement. Baekhyun giggles, a sweet, soft sound that’s so lovely, one of her most favorite sounds of his.

Still, Hyemi notices the distraction, watches Junmyeon’s shirt change to a dust-covered white shirt with the acute sense of dread again.

(The field is much closer now, just a couple hundred feet away.)

She turns to look up at Baekhyun and she says, “You gave it to me.”

(It’s so close.)

Baekhyun’s expression changes to both relief and anger and its disconcerting, that sudden change in emotions and how contradictory they are, as if they are separate expression from separate entities. The buzzing in her head feels like banging drums, boom boom boom.

“I did.” Baekhyun says, slowly. Her glowing bracelet flickers, disappearing for just a short moment before it returns, though it is not glowing brightly anymore.

And then the ground beneath them trembles, just as an arrow rushes right between Hyemi and Baekhyun’s heads, the resounding thud of it hitting a tree so jarring, it makes all five of them jump up in surprise. The arrow’s tail end jolts from side to side, a distinct crack forming down the length of the dried tree trunk. Hyemi twists away from Baekhyun, eyes wide as she takes in the sight of those damn hunters, with their neon hair and angry scowls. She doesn’t spot Minho or Jonghyun, but there’s Seulgi, Irene, a girl with black hair morphing into neon green, and a younger girl with soft blonde hair—the one she vaguely remembers from her time in that room with the bathtub. She notices Wendy isn’t there. All of them have bows or crossbows in their hands, cocked and ready.

“I told you.” Sehun exclaims, loudly, groaning as he settles into a fighting stance.

Seulgi calls out, “Bold of you all to come back here after everything you’ve done.”

The ground continues to tremble, shaking so hard she thinks of Kyungsoo’s powers. Irene loses her footing, frowning as she shouts, “Which one of you freaks are doing this?”

Before Hyemi can kindly tell her to off, Jongin shouts back, “Who the are you, anyway?”

She hears one of the girls curse, seething as she shouts something back at Jongin, but it’s lost in a sudden sound from behind her, behind all of them. The young girl with the blonde hair’s eyes widen exponentially. Hyemi spins on her heels and her knees nearly buckle at the sight in front of her. The field of dead flowers are splitting, the ground rupturing as ghastly skeletal hands, pale and spindly, claw at the sky, one at a time until one becomes two becomes ten becomes dozens and dozens and her heart starts to pump hard in her chest at the sight.

(She hears a voice in her head that sounds distinctly like Jongdae whispering, I can feel how freaked you guys are, are you okay? She can’t even answer.)

The ground splits apart and claws seem to dig and dig as these creatures, whatever the hell they are, emerge from the depths of the planet itself, from hell maybe, limbs cracking as they twist and turn, tearing their way through dust and dead dirt, through the carcasses of flowers. She wonders, for a moment, if this field of dead flowers was once a graveyard. She wonders how the hell she hadn’t guessed that Yeonma, the God of Death, would be able to raise the dead. What else could this be?

Hyemi steps back, fear crawling along under her skin.

She hears one of the Hunters shout, though there’s an edge to it, alarm and fright ringing clear as day, “This—This isn’t one of you, is it?”

There’s a low, guttural sound coming from the creatures as they emerge, their eyes white and colorless, the bones of their faces hanging off, little bugs crawling in and own of the open crevices. Some still have dead skin, green or brown or caramel or even purple, hanging off by a thread, some of it decomposing, some of it entirely intact, some have organs spilling, left behind in the hole they crawled out from, some have eyeballs hanging out, swinging back and forth. Their limbs ark unnaturally as they land on the ground, the cracking of bones echoing all around them. She thinks she’s going to be sick.

Jongin says, “You spoke too soon, Sehun.”

Sehun nods, gulping in horror.

Junmyeon whispers, quite succinctly, “Holy .”

Then an arrow whooshes right past Hyemi’s head, startling her, her heart pounding against her ribs, and the arrow lodges into the eye socket of one of the creatures right in front of Hyemi, the creature’s white eyes bursting, making her jump back.

Hyemi looks over her shoulder and the young blonde girl is knocking another arrow into her crossbow, her eyes wide, frightened, but her movements calm, practiced.

Her gaze flickers to Seulgi and Irene and the girl with the green hair and, after a beat of silence, after a high-pitched screeching sound fills the clearing and the creatures start to crumple and trudge forward, Irene calls out, “Eight is better than four, isn’t it?”

Hyemi exchanges a look with Junmyeon, Sehun, Baekhyun, and Jongin, just as she feels an intense presence up above. Her gaze flickers up, to the unchanging sky in this place, and she instantly finds Luhan floating there, arms outstretched. She can feel his presence in her head, despite who he is.

Slowly, carefully, she nods to the girls, despite everything they’ve done to them, to Yixing, she knows that they’re right. And they’re not running away, so she might as well agree and utilize them. So she nods and they let loose a round of arrows a moment later, each of them lodging into the spaces between ribs, into half decomposed bodies, exploding instantly.

“Luhan’s here.” She whispers, to no one in particular. Or, perhaps, to all of them, to the eleven other boys buzzing about and residing in the confines of her head that is not Luhan. “He’s here.”

There’s a solemnity there. In her head. A collective sadness. She doesn’t dwell on it. She can’t. Her golden bracelet stays dark. She looks up, at Baekhyun, and he nods at her, a vigorous, reassuring thing. For a moment, his gaze flickers down to her wrist and there is both confusion and apprehension in his eyes.

His shirt changes to a dark, forest green just as Luhan calls out, voice filled with a thousand different voices, all angry, so piercing it cuts through right to her head, making her flinch. Everyone else flinches, too, at the sheer amount of power radiating from his voice alone. Luhan says, tone vicious, “You’ll never make it past this field, Hyemi. Just give up now.”

Hyemi shakes her head, “No.”

Luhan laughs, “So much determination for somehow who is so weak. Die, then.”

That’s when the creatures that the Hunters had used their exploding arrows on suddenly reattach their limbs, the body parts skittering across the dirt. Instead of the creatures in front of them trudging towards them almost comically, they straighten up, their movements suddenly graceful and quick, and their heads lock onto each of them, dark gazes so sentient, so focused, Hyemi knows they won't stop until they're all dead. 

---

a/n: Uh yall it's coming to an end soon ksnfkd everything is finally coming together and I'm so excited. Anyways thank you everyone for the support and reading this, your comments are always so amazing to read and it's really encouraging and lovely, I always try to respond, but if I don't or forget, please know that I appreciate each and every one of you so much and I'm so happy to be sharing this story with you guys!! You're all so incredible I love you guys so much!!! ALSO happy pride month !! <3

xoxo