I got woken up by the first rays of sunlight of the day, even Momo had not woken up yet. I had won our silent competition of who-wakes-up-first this time. I tried to sit up straight and actually managed to do so. Somehow I had gotten worse the last few days, I suspected that I suffered from some kind of illness. It would probably be over in a few days. It wasn’t that bad actually, I only felt it during the morning, just after I’d waken up. I felt very weak and dizzy, but after the dizziness was gone, I was easily able to stand up. Late during the evening I felt it too, the dizziness came back in some sorts of attacks, sometimes paired up with the urge to vomit and sudden extreme tiredness. I tried to cover it up for Chanyeol and Momo, I didn’t want them to worry much more about me. Adding up to that, I wasn’t really worried either, I was sure it was just because of being in space for so long, or some after-effects of the crash. It would go away, I was sure of it. I waited till the dizziness faded away and stood up. I thought that maybe I should take care of breakfast today, instead of Momo. I went out and searched for the type of fruits Momo had brought me the other days.

After approximately half an hour, I decided to return with my fruity loot. Momo, being the good guard as he is, stood on top of the cave, having a perfect view over the whole valley, ensuring that he would alarm me right away if someone or something was coming closer. He was able to bark very loud, his barks would easily be able echo throughout the whole valley. I faintly smiled, it wasn’t that bad over here. Everywhere was better than being back at Earth at least. I walked up to Momo, he spotted me quickly, and thankfully barked when he saw that I was carrying lots of fruits. Breakfast could finally start. However,  suddenly Momo suspiciously looked in the distance. He spread his ears. Was someone coming closer? I hurried towards the cave, ready to hide in the dark. I was about to disappear in ‘The Perfect Hiding Spot’ as Chanyeol liked to call the almost invisible tunnel that was about knee height and led to another, smaller cave, next to this one. Then I heard Momo bark twice, the sign that meant that everything was okay, there was no danger. Chanyeol had made a whole ‘sudden-danger-system’ and since he was the only person that helped me out over here, I felt that it was smart to follow it. Also, I found it really cute how he cared so much about me. I crawled out of the tunnel and let out a sigh of relief when I saw Chanyeol’s smiling face approach from around the corner.

‘You’re here! You used The Perfect Hiding Spot!’ he yelled enthusiastically.

‘Of course, I did! I should listen very well to dictator Chanyeol, shouldn’t I?’ I grinned, I liked to a bit from time to time.

He gripped my hair and carefully pulled it so I would look up to him, he smiled evilly, ‘what did you say? Dictator? Pssh, I take care of you so well, and this is how you thank me?’

He pulled a little harder.

‘Ouch, okay, okay, stop it! I’m sorry!’ I laughed. ‘It’s not fair to make me say sorry like this!’

‘Well, life is unfair, isn’t it? Speaking of that, I’ve decided to start practising with my power again. My training will start today, so if you want to help me out, it’ll be great. Fire can’t harm you, right?’

Curiously I tilted my head, even Momo seemed shocked.

‘Why did you suddenly make that decision?’

‘Just because… I want to become a master too, it must be fun to become a master, and you’ll be safer too.’

Chanyeol wasn’t sure whether he could tell her the truth or not, but he had figured that Tao might not like it when he would tell everyone about why he needed Chanyeol to master his power. So for now he would go with this. It was not even a lie, it was another reason why starting his practise would be a good thing. He smiled at Cara.

‘And that’s really all I want, you to be safe.’

My heart skipped a beat, the cave got a bit blurry in front of my eyes and the only thing I could do was shyly smile, helplessly really. Chanyeol seemed so genuine, it had been a long time since a guy had tried to protect me this well. My previous boyfriend, Custos, who also happened to be my fiancé, was the last person that ever came to care a freaking lot about me. Custos was a strong, tall, modest and smart man, extremely protective and honesty was something he found very important. He died in a fire. The same one as in which I had been. I still remember that time very well, it was midnight and we woke up due to a strange smell. He decided to check it out, while he told me that I should wait upstairs. No matter what happened, I should wait till he got back. I insisted, but he again told me to wait because then I would be safe. At that time, he spoke the exact same words as Chanyeol had just told me, ‘and that’s really all I want, you to be safe’. So I sighed and waited in the warm and cosy bed. I waited for a minute, five minutes, seven and half a minute, the temperature started to rise quickly. Just as I realized the weird smell must come from a fire, I saw that the fire deliberately reached our bedroom. The flames were slowly devouring the stairs, but were held back by the stuff that’s between a ceiling and a floor, it would still take the flames some time till they would be able to reach me. The real problem was, there was no way to escape for me now. The stairs were blocked by the fire and there isn’t a big chance of survival if you decide to jump down from the 107^th floor, yes, flats were very high to make more people able to live on the same area. I started to scream Custos’ name, but there was no response. I feared that the worst had happened to him, but through the flames, I could distinguish a figure trying to crawl up the barely demolished stairs, cringing of the pain. I ran towards it, without thinking I ran into the fire and pulled the figure out, I pulled Custos out. I burned myself badly, but I didn’t care. Custos needed to be safe. I pulled him as far away from the fire as I could. Custos, he appeared to be just a big third degree burn. His clothes had scorched of his body, his limbs were showing bones at some places. I cried. He was still laying at the ground, face down. With all his remaining strength, he looked up at me. He somehow managed to move his arm and I was able to hold on to his hand, which had lost basically all of its skin. He coughed, blood seeped from his mouth, it dripped onto the ground.

‘It’s… The government…’ he said, his voice was very weak.

‘The government?’ I replied shocked, not because of the words he said, but because of those he didn’t say. There was no ‘help me’, ‘it hurts’, or anything like that.

‘Yes, not… An accident… Government… They burn down… This flat complex…’ He coughed again and blood oozed from his mouth.

‘Sweetie, please calm down, how do you know?’

‘I… Saw uniforms… They shot… Me…’

‘What? They shot you?! Sweetie, please hold on, they’re not getting away with this!’

‘I… Love you… I always will… I shall… Protect you… Forever… You’ll… Live…’

‘What are you saying? Custos? Custos! Don’t die, please, don’t die. Hold on, you’re still alive. You’ll survive this too, we will leave together. CUSTOS!’

‘No… Use… Too hurt… Go…’

‘I’M NOT GOING.’ I lied down next to him.

An almost inaudible and weak please was the last word I heard him say. I sat up and cried, I don’t think I’d ever cried this much before. The flames found its way through the floor and were quickly coming closer, but I couldn’t care less. I didn’t care about dying. In fact, the only thing I wanted was to die with him. The flames drew nearer and nearer.

‘This is it,’ I told myself softly. ‘Now my life is finished.’

I closed my eyes, I didn’t want to see this. I waited for the pain to strike. I waited for about ten minutes, or at least, it felt like ten minutes, and then opened an eye. The next thing I saw was so unreal, I didn’t believe it at first. The flames seemed to go around me, not even one touched me. I stood up and pulled up one leg. I tried to kick the fire, but the fire backed off immediately, leaving room for my leg. As if it was trying not to touch it. I started to laugh, it looked like I was dreaming back then. Or, well, rather having a nightmare. I was very sure I would wake up soon. But I didn’t, of course. I carried Custos’ remains to the exit of the building, I walked right through the fire. I didn’t feel any pain, I didn’t catch fire, I didn’t burn myself. When I was out of the flat complex, I cried nonstop for at least twelve hours, on the pavement. People just walked on, it was not a rare sight these days, a person crying over a dead and burned body. Custos was right about the fire being turned into an accident. The newspapers featured headlines like ‘Major fire’, ‘Biggest flat complex completely down’ and ‘Biggest fire of the century’. They all spoke of the same thing, a natural fire, started because of the heat. Many know that this was not an accident. I still do believe that Custos was shot and saw persons in the uniform of the government. Since there’s a severe case of overpopulation, governments all over the world try to kill as many people as possible with ‘unfortunate accidents’. Some people don’t believe this, but many do. It’s the truth, there’s too much proof. Me and Custos supported anti-government organizations, but we never got too much involved in them. It was dangerous, and besides, there was nothing to do against it either. I agree that overpopulation is really a difficult problem to deal with, but this was not the right way.

After his death, I found it very hard to get back on the right track again. I was depressive, I wanted to die, I wanted someone to take care of me, but I was quite a quiet person, no one seemed to understand my silent screams for help. Ultimately I decided I couldn’t live with this government anymore and therefore joined the ‘Aurora-program’, without being sure that Aurora actually existed at all. What was there to lose? I wanted to die anyway, and if I didn’t die I could try to live at another world, under the conditions of another regime. And that’s how I ended up in this cave. Now I’m stuck on this planet, this is not what the government promised at all. I bet that the whole Aurora idea was just another way of getting rid of people as fast as possible, and I just happened to be lucky enough to crash.

Anyway, now you all know my story, it’s quite easy to understand that I wasn’t able to get into another relationship. So why was my heart skipping beats over Chanyeol? I figured it was just because this whole situation was getting on my nerves and maybe my illness set in from time to time too. There was no way I was in love with him. I mean, yes he was extremely sweet, funny, caring, handsome and very cute, but boyfriend material? I wasn’t even sure if he and I would be able to produce kids. All of this went through my head after Chanyeol had said these words. I managed to get a hold of myself and turned my helpless smile into a faint one.

‘That’s very sweet of you.’

‘Will you help me, Cara?’

Cara smiled, ‘Yes, of course I will.’

To become a master of your power, you need to be able to master a set of movements. These are written down on one of the so called ‘Holy Scrolls’. Every year, after the youngest Exo member passed the age of 30, one of the leaders has to climb up the ‘Mons Sanctus’(the Holy Mountain). There, the leader has to look for new scrolls at the end of the river. When a scroll is found, it means that a new Exo member has born. This scroll will include all information about his power, and what he has to do to become a master and get his master-symbol. Chanyeol had to do the same thing. After Cara had set up the perfect training-program, Chanyeol started practising. Chanyeol would start with easy doable movements and they would try something new every five days. It would take a long time to master his power this way, the scroll seemed to be endlessly long. But Cara stated it was for the best, since fire is such a mighty power. Chanyeol practised every day, Cara supported him every day. When something went wrong, she was there to tell him that it would definitely work out the next time. When Chanyeol burned himself, she was there to take care of his wounds. When Chanyeol gave up all together, she was there to cheer him up and motivate him again. She was his trainer and coach, but also his greatest motivation. Obviously, now that Chanyeol needed to practise all day, there was no one who took care of the food for the other Exo members. Nevertheless, it was still Chanyeol’s job, the other members were too busy saving the world. Therefore, Cara had decided that she would search for food every day, while Chanyeol was practising. It didn’t take her very long since Momo helped her too, so if she finished in time, she often came inside the cave to take a look and ensure that Chanyeol was doing the exercises she had told him to do. She observed him. Sometimes, when he wasn’t able to do the movements well enough, she liked to take his hands and do the movement again, together with him, trying to make it perfect. Every now and then, even Chen passed by to help and search food with Cara or to give Chanyeol helpful advice. Weeks and weeks of work, sweat, tears and painful wounds passed away like this.

‘It’s been weeks now. Weeks. This is all going way too slow. They’ll catch me when it takes this long. It takes way too much time. Make sure it’ll go faster. How long can it take to possess a freaking power, make him sweat.’

‘I’m doing as well as I can, I swear! I’m not sure if I can make him work harder and faster for you. It takes a lot of time to…’

‘I don’t care. It has to go faster. I guess you need to work harder too. I know what might work...’

‘No, no, please don’t! Don’t, please! I will do what you want me to do! Please, don’t hurt me!’

'Hahaha, what are you talking about? I won't hurt you. How could I possibly hurt you? If you mess this up, I'm not sure what will happen to us, though. Actually I was talking about hurting him.'

'Hurting him...'

'Yes, him. It’s not like you care, right? Now stop crying and get out of here, for god's sake!’ 

Hello, hello!

It took me some time, I'm sorry, but hey, another background story! ^^ So this is why Cara decided to take the trip..

Anyone knows who the sudden, blue storyline-people are? Weren't it two stories? Hmm, I wonder who they are..

Any idea? Please leave a comment! I love reading them, and I promise I won't bite! ^^

See you next time! (Which will be in two, maybe three weeks, sorry, I need to study hard and survive two weeks of exams.. :( )

Anyway, thank you very, very much for reading, I hope you enjoy the story so far, and I hope I make things clear enough for you all! :)

Love,

CNBlueBird