[Year 19 of Exile]

[Kris]

“Yifan?”

I glanced up, reluctantly tearing my eyes away from the sleeping girl within my embrace to rest them on a cherubic face. His eyes were large, his brows slightly furrowed.

“What.” I replied unwillingly, my tone displaying my displeasure of being called my Chinese name instead of my English one. “What do you want, Luhan.”

He held his hands up in mock surrender, his thin legs fitting under him as he settled next to me. My mother pointedly excused herself as she hobbled over to join the other adults in another corner of the attic. I scowled.

“Stop frowning.” His voice snapped me back to reality. “You’ll get wrinkles when you grow up.”

“If we ever grow up, that is.” The words slipped out of my lips before I could think them through and I earned myself a hard knock on the head. “What was that for!”

The small girl nestled in my arms fidgeted and in that instant, the both of us froze. His eyes flitted to her, pupils dilating in worry as she turned herself, soft whimpers emitting from her. It was only when she finally stopped, having decided to nuzzle her face into my chest, did I exhale. A similar loud breath came from beside me and I sneaked a glance at him.

The corners of his lips were tugged upwards slightly and his face was arranged to that of relief and an emotion I couldn’t quite place. The emotion remained as he looked at her, his eyes fondly resting on her as his hand ruffled her hair gently.

I was intrigued.

I was intrigued by Luhan, the boy who was only seven months older than I was. I’m certain Xiumin was much more mysterious than this boy was, but at the moment, I was fascinated by him. By his affection for the girl he hadn’t once met before.

“You…”

His eyes darted to me, sending warmth surging through my body as he stared at me. He was a handsome boy, even with the numerous bruises and cuts that adorned his face and neck.

“Do you want to carry her?”

At my question, his lips curved upwards, forming the first smile I had ever seen on him.

“Of course I do, Kris.”

As the gunshot rang out, sending Luhan’s father on his way after his son, I could no longer control myself.

A little of my sanity was robbed from me the moment I watched Suho drown right in front of me. And gradually, as I continued to affix my eyes on the boys who were dragged out onto the battlefield, my sanity would seep away with every punch, with every flamethrower, with every ice blade, with every object being directed at them. My brothers.

And right now, as my eyes refused to budge from my last living– dead same-aged friend’s unmoving body, I could feel the remnants of my normality leave me.

Luhan.

He was the first of the eleven to speak to me. To smile at me. To call both my English and Chinese names.

He was my first friend.

“-yung! Kris-hyung, NO!” Zitao’s high-pitched shriek pierced my eardrums, alerting me to my actions. I had one arm out of the cage, my fingers extending towards the two bodies piled atop one another on the floor in the middle of the basement. “Don’t put your arm out! H-He might take you n-next!”

His words registered with me but I continued to leave my hand out, my common sense having disappeared with the life of the seven-months-older boy. I wanted to go out. I wanted to be next.

I wanted to die already.

But something gnawed at the back of my mind and instinctively, my head turned to the cage next to ours.

Her dilated eyes greeted me. The fear, the worry, the panic, the loss reflected so crystal clear in them. To see her feeling those emotions pained me, driving a stake further into my already-shattered heart.

I have to protect her.

I have to get her out of here.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel like dying so soon.

Regretting my foolish action, I hurriedly retracted my arm, my fingers almost making it back into the confines of the cage when the door swung open and my fingers were grasped. Several pairs of arms instantly wrapped themselves around me, pulling me back while the hand that gripped tightly onto mine pulled me forward.

I left behind loud whimpers and pained sobs as I stumbled forward, my palms meeting the cold, hard floor that I’ve been dreading to feel since they brought us here. With injuries sustained from the fight that crippled us, we were thrown into the large cage. A little later, Kai joined us while they flung Jen into the adjacent, small cage. She wasn’t moving, she seemed so… dead, that it frightened us.

We had our eyes on her until Suho’s father stepped onto the scene, his body swaying and eyes distant. Jongdae immediately corresponded the symptoms to