Beautiful pink and purple curls tickled Azarai’s face as she leaned over him, smiling down. Azarai dared not blink; afraid to think he would miss one second of being with her. Her lips moved, but the only thing he could hear was a ringing in his ears. He was confused. It was not a beautiful sound. He blinked. Suddenly, the soft and pure creature in front of him was no more, replaced by a thin, sunken, and deathly pale body, hair no longer soft, but like straw, and her face was no longer smiling but…melting.

The image twitched and glitched before returning back to the beautiful creature from before, but it was too late. The spell was broken and Azarai was thoroughly shaken. Swiftly he tried to stand, but came to find he could not remember how. He got a strange feeling that it had been a long time since he stood, or even moved. He shook his head and tried to turn on his side, but she still sat on top of him. She really was so very beautiful. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to never move again…

NO!  

Somewhere in his head an angry voice had cried out. It was deep and grating like clanging metal and grinding gravel.

Azarai closed his eyes and shook his head to clear his mind. Everything felt so foggy. He couldn’t remember where he was or why he was there. He felt like he was forgetting something very important. He sat up and tried to push the creature off of him, but as soon as he made contact the horrifying image from before flashed before him, screaming and scratching at his arm. Terrified, Azarai scrambled to get up again, flinging himself from the bed.

When his body hit the floor, the soft carpet turned to warped wood, brittled and aged, for only a second before it returned to plush carpet. Something was definitely not right. That time, Azarai was for sure he was in trouble. He could feel the probe of anger and determination pounding at the back of his mind the way it did when he was in a matched fight. He gathered all of his mental strength and focused. Azarai took in a deep breath, slowly exhaled, and started with the basics: his name, his mother’s name, his father, his likes and strengths, etc. until he made his way to more recent memories. The camp, the demons, escaping, and then…then finding a strange town. That bed and breakfast!

Azarai stood straight up. The world around him swirled and then melted away, crumbling piece by piece. The luxurious room fell to rotted wood floors and crumbling walls. It took him a moment to collect himself and take in just what he was looking at. It felt like some sort of nightmare, except it was the opposite. It was reality. Around him stood four concrete walls enclosing a small square room that looked like it had been abandoned for many years. In the room stood one thin, dirty cot after another barely leaving room to stand or walk.

Azarai was standing where his cot had previously been. It was now broken and on its side, allowing him room to stand like he was. To his right and left lay Sehun, Tao, Kyungsoo, and Kai all completely knocked out with bliss splayed across their faces. Every now and then one of them would twitch or murmur or clench in pain. Azarai looked around and noticed that every single cot was filled with a body, some young, some old, and some long since deteriorated to a pile of rotted flesh and bone. The sight and smell had him stumbling between cots and out the room door.

Looking to his right and left only offered the same faded view of abandonment. It was a long hallway lined with door after door and even turning at the end to go on for who knew how long. Azarai decided to chance the door right across from him, immediately confirming his thoughts as soon as he opened it. It was an identical room, just as ty, filled with just as many cots and people. In fact, every room on the hall was exactly the same. The bad feeling worsened as he made his way back to his original room.

Azarai had to wake the others up. He had absolutely no idea what was going on but he knew he had to get them out of there before they starved themselves to death, or slept themselves to death. No doubt they were in similar “dreams” as he was and likely had no desire to leave. It would probably be tough, but if all else failed he could always drag them out and hopefully they would wake after leaving the place.

He stood over Kyungsoo and gently grasped the boy’s arm trying to shake him awake. “Kyungsoo,” he whispered, “Kyungsoo can you hear me?”

Kyungsoo’s eyes rolled open and fluttered but Azarai could tell they weren’t really seeing anything. He tried again, picking up Kyungsoo’s head in order to get him more upright, but the only thing that happened was a gasp and a soft mutter of Kai’s name. Azarai couldn’t deny the slight flush of embarrassment he felt, because yeah he was pretty sure they were having similar dreams, but he didn’t think it’d be with each other. That meant he was definitely going to have to do damage control, especially if they were all dreaming of different people.

Azarai shook his head; there wasn’t time to think about that now, he’d think up a solution later. “Kyungsoo,” he whispered again, but closer to his ear. “Kyungsoo, I need you to wake up. Listen to my voice and wake up.”

That time Kyungsoo stirred, clearly having had his fantasy disturbed, and made a disgruntled noise. Seeing his opening, Azarai shifted him in an upright position, patted his face, and shook him to bring him back to reality. It wasn’t an easy transition, but soon enough Kyungsoo’s fantasy world had melted into reality. He blinked, more confused than ever.

“What….? What is this?” Kyungsoo turned to look at Azarai, “A-Azarai?”

“Welcome back to the real world,” Azarai said grimly.

Kyungsoo took a minute to process his words. “The real world?” he looked around the room, hardly able to believe his eyes. Then it hit him that all of that must have been some sort of dream. A really realistic dream, but fake nonetheless. To be honest, he was kind of disappointed.

Azarai nodded and stood up. “Yeah, I don’t really have time to explain, but we need to wake the others up and get out of here.”

“What is going on….?” Jongin’s voice sounded hoarse as he tried to blink away the lingering haze.

Azarai figured that they must have been, uh, paired together seeing as one waking also woke the other. At least there was that. It would be awkward, but not as awkward as it could have been if Kyungsoo was dreaming about Kai and Kai was dreaming about someone else. Azarai walked over to Jongin’s cot and helped him sit up.

“There’s not much time to explain. I’ve got a real bad feeling about this place and we need to get out, like, right now,” Azarai whispered to Jongin.

Jongin nodded only half listening. He had caught Kyungsoo’s eye when he sat up, and he knew instantly that they had shared that “dream” or whatever it was. Kyungsoo was doing his best not to blush, but the reality of their very strange and sketchy situation had not fully hit him or Jongin so he could only think about what had happened in the “dream”. It wasn’t until Azarai snapped them out of it that they started to pay attention to their surroundings.

It was like a switch was flipped as soon as Azarai called out Sehun’s name. Jongin immediately went into protective brother mode, noting the awful room, dirty cots, and dead bodies littering the place. Quickly, he scrambled over to Sehun and Tao’s cots. For some reason their cots were pressed all the way together and they lay almost touching.

“Something’s weird,” Azarai said, “I can’t get any sort of response out of him.”

Sehun and Tao’s eyes were open, but they were completely still, half-lidded, and staring off blankly at one another. Trying to sit them up was like trying to pick up dead weight. Jongin began to panic. All the signs of life were just not there. He leaned down and put his ear close to Sehun’s mouth. There was a slight tremor of breath, but not much else.

“What’s wrong with them?” Jongin asked, trying to keep his voice down in his panic.

Azarai shrugged and shook his head. “I’m not sure. Kyungsoo wasn’t like this at all. I mean, he was at least responsive to sensory stimulation. Its almost like they’re…too far gone, but that’s impossible! They weren’t here any longer than us.”

“Tao’s barely breathing and he feels cold,” Kyungsoo says. He was terrified and confused and worried and just what in the hell had happened to them? How did they end up in that situation?

Azarai shook his head. “We don’t have time for this. We’ll just have to carry them out.”

“You know how to get out?” Jongin asked with hope.

But Azarai just shrugged and shook his head again. “I have no idea, but there has to be a way and I’d rather take our chances out there than in here,” he said giving some of the decomposing bodies a wary look. The room itself had a dreary feeling that made him tired and want to lie down. He had a feeling that wasn’t just by chance.

Jongin nodded. “You’re right. I’ll take Sehun and you take Tao. Kyungsoo you go ahead and make sure we can get through.”

Kyungsoo nodded, swallowing down his fears. That place scared him more than anything, because whatever got them there was able to get past Kyungsoo’s Shadows. Even then he could feel how weak their presence was, but he lead the group to the door of the room, peeking out into a long hallway before going through. He looked to his right and left, but only saw more hallway with more doors.

“All of those doors lead into similar rooms,” Azarai said, “I checked them before I woke you guys up. We need to find one an exit somewhere.”

“Let’s just try this way first,” Kyungsoo said as he turned right.

The hallway was much longer than it had seemed. Just when they thought they had reached the end, suddenly more hallway appeared before them, similar doors lined up along the walls. There were no windows, only dull concrete walls and tattered doors. Behind Kyungsoo, Jongin and Azarai were panting.

“Let’s, uh, let’s take a break for a minute,” Jongin said as he gently slid Sehun off his back to prop him up against the wall.

Azarai did the same and leaned against the wall. “We shouldn’t, huh, shouldn’t sit down. We might not get back up,” he breathed heavily, “This is strange. I feel like I just ran twice the length we walked. My head his pounding.”

Jongin nodded and took in a deep breath. “I think we might be dehydrated… How long were we in there?”

Azarai shrugged. “I just woke up too, but now that you mention it I’m starving and I definitely feel dehydrated.”

Kyungsoo nodded too. “We had to have been here for days,” he said. It didn’t feel that long but then again it didn’t feel short either. It felt…absent of time completely.

The hallway was eerily quiet, no white noise just the deep intake and exhale of breath as the three rested. Kai and Azarai took in air, but it felt as though it stuck to the walls of their throats, sliping only a small gush of oxygen to their lungs with each push. The air felt damp and stagnant, even Kyungsoo could feel it cling to him. Their clothes seemed to welcome the thickness of the air and stuck to their frames, willing them to just accept it. 

After a couple minutes Azarai's mind wandered back to the "dream" and then to Kyungsoo and Kai. He psyched himself up to ask the question. He didn’t exactly want to get into what was going on in their heads, especially if it was what he thought it was, but it could help them figure out what the place was. If they knew what they were dealing with, it’d be easier to get out, so he cleared his throat to get their attention.

“So, uhm, we don’t really know what we’re dealing with here, but I mean something happened to us in there. I know, me personally, I experienced a sort of dream-like thing with a very beautiful...creature. It was, uh, of a ual nature…” he paused to examine Kyungsoo’s and Kai’s reactions to see if they could figure out what he was asking without actually having to ask it. The atmosphere had turned awkward and Kyungsoo’s face seemed a bit flushed, but they didn’t say anything. Azarai sighed. “So, I need to ask what you guys “dreamed” about. Was it similar or…?”

Kai coughed and straightened up like he was trying to recompose himself. “Uhm, yeah. It was…similar.” Kyungsoo just nodded, staring at the floor.

“I think, maybe we should talk about it?” Azarai said cautiously. Kyungsoo looked like he was about to bolt any minute.

Kai nodded in agreement. They both looked at Kyungsoo who was still staring at the ground. “I guess…since it would help…we should,” Kyungsoo said and then he looked up and pointed at Azarai, “but you go first!”.

Azarai nodded. “Well, what I remember is just how beautiful and amazing this really stunning, otherworldly gorgeous woman was. It was like I had forgotten where I was or why, but none of it mattered. I just wanted to be with. To have her, hold her, touch her. I needed her. It was so intense, but it wasn’t love. I didn’t love her. I didn’t want to know about her likes or dislikes or anything like that. It was just, just passion, fiery passion,” Azarai creased his brow trying to think of the word that would describe his feeling, but he couldn’t quiet grasp it.

“Lust,” Jongin said, giving Azarai the answer he was looking for.

Azarai nodded his head. “Yeah, lust. Really, really intense lust. Which is unusual for me,” he shook his head, confused. “I’ve never really been that way, you know? My main priority has always been training and fighting. Weapons are my love and I only ever “lust” for a good fight.”

Jongin nodded his head. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Mine, my “dream”, was along the same lines. I’ve always been more dedicated, responsible I guess you could say, not one to get distracted by things of such nature. I mean, of course I’ve felt it before, but never that strong, and certainly never to the point of compromising my safety and the safety of others. It is definitely strange…” his eyes subconsciously travel up Kyungsoo’s frame, unable to fully displace the memories of the “dream”.

As Jongin’s eyes reached Kyungsoo’s, they locked and Kyungsoo felt as though he had swallowed a wad of raw cotton. Azarai’s eyes flitted between the both of them, noting the heavy atmosphere that had settled.

“Okay,” Azarai said rather loudly in an attempt to break the tension that was forming, “I’m just going be blunt about this because I feel like it’s going cause problems in the future,” Kyungsoo and Kai both looked at him with surprised eyes and he took a deep breath. “Look, I think it’s pretty obvious you guys had a “dream” about each other or together or something like that, and I just need to know what went down. Like, I think we need to talk about it and get it all out in the open. I mean I told you guys already that I had amazing with a beautiful creature-woman I’ve never seen before, not outright of course, but you guys got the gist. So…” he gestured to Kai and Kyungsoo and looked at them expectantly.

Kyungsoo suddenly got the feeling he was about to have the "birds and the bees” talk with his mom. Nothing could have been more awkward than that moment. The three of them standing in an endless hallway of some probably evil magical place with two of their friends knocked out on the floor, probably having mental just like he and Kai were. Never in his whole life had Kyungsoo ever thought he’d end up in that kind of bizarre situation, and yet there he was.

Kai coughed awkwardly and stared at the wall. “Well, yeah. Yeah, that happened. I mean, at least..uhm, at least for me?” he looked at Kyungsoo with a curious and slightly terrified expression until Kyungsoo nodded.

Kyungsoo felt like he was going to die. There were so many emotions hitting him all at once, but mostly he felt embarrassed. Sure he talked big a lot, but when it really came down to it he was a lot shyer than he’d like to admit. At least there wasn’t a window he could fling himself out of, as much as he wanted there to be.

“Okay, could you guys maybe elaborate a bit?” Azarai said, “I don’t want to be rude, but if we’re talking you guys had this “dream” together, then there is some serious juju happening around here.”

Kai and Kyungsoo looked at each other and nodded. “Yeah,” Kai said, “I think so. We were in this really fancy room decorated in blue, and it kind of seemed like we were underwater, but somehow Kyungsoo was…I’m not sure how to explain it, but it was like he was or had or was emitting…fire?” Kai shook his head. It sounded like a bad trip the more he tried to describe it.

Kyungsoo nodded. “I remember that too, except for me it was like Kai had, like, water on him…or coming from his skin or something. But it had seemed normal then; it had seemed so real…”

“But at the end, before I woke up, I remember not being able to breath,” Kai said.

“It was like we were drowning so deep in the ocean that the pressure was crushing us,” Kyungsoo said, “but I don’t remember water, I just remember darkness.”

Azarai looked perplexed. He remembered getting lost in the sensation of lust and desire, but he hadn’t experienced anything like what they were describing. “Do you remember being scared or feeling any pain?” he asked. Azarai was beginning to form theories.

Kai scrunched his face up in memory. “Yes, but also no. I remember thinking that the pain wasn’t pain. Like, the pain didn’t matter or that it was okay. I wasn’t scared I was content? I think I remember thinking that everything was how it was supposed to be, was how I needed it to be.”

Azarai turned to look at Kyungsoo who nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I remember feeling the same. Like there was some goal we were trying to reach and that we’d do anything to reach it,” Kyungsoo said.

Azarai crossed his arms, thinking about an old myth his grandmother once told him. “Do you know what the goal was? Was it something like “to become one”?” he asked.

“I’m not really sure,” Kyungsoo said, “I don’t really remember what the specific goal would have been, just that we kept wanting and needing to be…”

“Closer,” Kai finished for Kyungsoo, his tone giving away that he had started to connect the dots. “I remember wanting to be impossibly close, like, no matter how close we were physically it wasn’t enough. Somehow we needed to break through that physical barrier,” he looked up at Azarai, “I think you’re right…I think we were trying to become the same existence.”

Azarai nodded, it was falling in line with his theory. “Break the barrier of physicality to bond spiritually using an intimate, physical act of connection. By using the human emotion of lust, which can override the brain’s function of rational and logical thought, the mind is mentally “broken”. There is no longer any perception of reality, but rather only the false truth of a fabricated fantasy. The mind is so deeply enfolded into itself and into the conceived goal “to be one”, that thought and function of individuality is no longer needed. “To be one” is to say that you must first give up your individuality, make a “clean slate” and start over new as not one whole person, but as part of a whole. Melding mentally and spiritually means no longer needing your body, as your body was for your past self as an individual. But this is, of course, all a fabricated fantasy, so the belief that you can leave your body and continue on in another realm as part of a whole is completely false. In the end, your body starves to death and the fantasy ends along with your life.”

Both Kyungsoo and Kai took a moment of silence to process what they had just heard. It made sense, and the more they thought about what happened the less appealing the “dream” seemed and the more scary it became. But still, that only explained what had happened, not how or why.

“How did we get in this situation in the first place?” Kai asked. He was beginning to feel frustrated. “I remember finding a town and trying to get a room to hold out the rain at a bed and breakfast, and then nothing. I don’t remember actually walking inside, I don’t remember what the bed and breakfast looked like, I don’t remember getting any rooms, I can’t remember anything!”

Kyungsoo looked at Kai worriedly. “Kai…”

Kai just turned to Azarai, his tone growing angrier the more he went on. “And if all of that was fabricated in our heads, who’s to say that this, right now, is not also in our heads? We could be piled up with unconscious and dead bodies in some backwoods cellar only thinking that we’ve woken up. Maybe that’s why there’s no windows and the hallway doesn’t end, and maybe that’s why Sehun won’t wake up!” he took in a deep breath and looked at Sehun’s body propped up against the dingy wall. “Maybe Sehun and Tao won’t wake up because they’re already dead, so only their bodies remain in our connected fabricated fantasy. There’s no mental or spiritual entity to occupy their bodies. We’ll be stuck here forever with their unconscious “bodies” or we’ll find out how to wake up and leave their dead bodies somewhere in an unmarked grave…”

“Shut up!” Kyungsoo yelled as he lashed out and shoved Kai hard enough to knock him to the ground. He trembled with anger and fear, terrified beyond belief at Kai’s words, but angry with him for saying something so awful. It was shocking, even to Azarai, how quickly Kai had given in to such dark thoughts. For a second Azarai had thought that maybe it was the place messing with Kai’s head, but there was a deep darkness in his eyes that left a sickening coil of disturbance in Azarai’s stomach. It was the first time Azarai’s trust for Kai wavered. 

what

in

the

world

is

going

on????

crazy yo its getting crazy 

and finally a real chapter for you guys ....heh sorry it took so long orz

but i hope you guys liked it :)