Yixing

“Xiumin isn’t answering his phone.” Suho said, stabbing his fingers at his Iphone with way too much force.

“Hey, Suho, be careful” I said, wary of the strength of the phone.

“I’ll try Baekhyun then.” Suho took a deep breath and began to punch in the numbers. He had barely reached the sixth digit when his phone began to ring.

“It’s Baekhyun...” Suho murmured. He answered the phone. “Baekhyun! I was just about to call you, we ha-“ his face creased as Baekhyun interrupted him. I wished to hear the other side of the conversation but I could only faintly head Baekhyun’s voice.

“So, why is she the Tree again?” Kris’s voice surprised me, I didn’t realise he was behind me. He had returned from his joyflight shortly after I dropped the big bombshell, and we quickly got him up to speed. He still had his towel in his hands, his hair half dried from the wet clouds. He had changed his saturated jeans but he still wore his black shirt, the wet fabric clinging to his skin like a model’s.

“Well, she just kind of turned up at our doorstep; she already knew my name and my power. If we were famous she could’ve been just a fangirl or something I guess. At first I didn’t realise she was the Tree, I thought she was just lost, but she didn’t have any phone numbers or even a parent’s name that I could look up. She kept on asking if we’d found the other six yet, and that she needs protection when the things attacked. We barely survived a minute before Luhan came home.”

“You know, when we were told we were in charge of protecting a tree, I expected… more leaves and stuff.”

“I think the change from her world into ours allowed her to change bodies.”

“Even so, why didn’t she pick something with a bit more, protection? Like a bodybuilder or a rhinoceros?”

“I’m not sure she had much of a say in it. Either way, she’s a little girl now, and until she wakes up there’s not much we can ask her about. “

Suho hung up his phone and looked at us.

“Baekhyun was attacked by more of those things. I told him to meet us down the street at that coffee place Luhan and Xiumin are always going to. We have to leave this apartment, now.”

At first I just sat in shock. They already got to Baekhyun? How quickly do these guys work? How long until they get here? It wasn’t until Kris started moving that I realised that we were racing against time.

“I’ll wrap her up in a blanket and fly her down the side of the building,” Kris said “Suho, can you pack anything we might need?”

We got to work immediately. Suho opened his computer and started downloading his files onto a hard drive, making sure he kept all the research on the other six members. Luhan took a large bag and stuffed it with anything he thought looked useful; chargers, clothes, money.

I went to work in helping Kris wrap up the girl. By tucking her limbs in tightly to her body, we would avoid her arms and legs getting in the way of Kris’s flight.

“If you need to take any difficult flying, protect her head at all costs. Remember that if she does get attacked, it’s better for her to lose her legs and sit in a wheelchair rather than losing her head.”

Kris took the girl and started flying out the window. Suho and Luhan were carrying large bags to the door, waiting for the elevator.  Just as Luhan entered the elevator, the two bags at his feet, Suho stalled the door and yelled to me.

“Yixing, can you get the hard drive? It’s still on the computer.”

I went to the desktop and checked the files.

“It’s still downloading. 73%.”

Suho got out of the elevator just before the doors closed and walked over to me.

“How much time is left?”

“About five minutes.”

“I’ll wait with you.”

I walked to the balcony and looked down. I could see Luhan making his way through the crowd on the street with two heavy bags, walking through people like he was fording a river. A dark van pulled up in front of the apartment building and stopped in the middle of the street, inducing a wave of angry car horns at the slow driver.

“Suho, there’s a dark van, that could be them.”

Five men wearing high collars and low caps climbed out of the back of the van and entered the building.

“Five of them, Suho, they’re coming!”

I rushed back inside as Suho pulled the hard drive from the computer and muttered something about buying a laptop next time. He chucked the hard drive to me.

“You look after it, I might get a bit wet.”

“I’ll check to see if they take the elevator or the stairs.” I took a peer out into the hallway and saw the elevator, stopped at level 1. Slowly, the needle above the elevator doors moved to level 2.

“They’re taking the elevator!”

Suho came out of the bathroom. I could hear the shower starting and the bathroom sink running. He rushed to the kitchen and turned the taps on full blast.

“Try to get Kris to come” Suho said, his voice rushed with panic.

“He’ll never carry us both”

“We have to try something!” Suho yelled, and I saw the fear in his eyes, badly masked by anger.

I rushed through the bedroom and onto the balcony and tried to wave my arms at Luhan walking away from us. Could we jump? I might be able to heal any broken bones… ridiculous, I’d never survive the fall, or heal in time to get away.

The ping of the elevator sounded as the door opened.

Five of the black men smashed through the door and stood in the living room. They had discarded their high collared jackets and caps, and stood completely in the … I think. It’s quite possibly that the skin we were seeing isn’t actually their skin but another layer of the beast. Their skin was a shiny black, rippling like goo. I watched as the black goo swirled and reformed into various weapons, dark claws and heavy fists. They may have looked soft, but my previous encounter with them had showed that their claws could be as difficult to break as steel.

Suho looked stunned as he saw the things for the first time. I nudged him awake and straight away he got into action. Scrunching up his face the water in the kitchen rose up with his arms, floating from the sink, the tap, the kettle, even the water spilled on the floor. With a sharp movement, Suho swung his arms in front of him, clapping them together with a snap, and the water rushed forward into the black monster in the middle.

In a flurry of white foam and water, the beast was thrown back with such a force that he was thrown backwards and smashed into the wall. The others didn’t even flinch. They swarmed in onto us, trapping us in the kitchen.

I ran to the counter and grabbed a kitchen knife. Throwing the knife at the closest guy, I tensed up, waiting for the spurt of blood, or black goo. Instead, the knife fell into his shoulder handle-first and clunked on the floor.

“Quick, Yixing, get back to the bathroom!”

I ran back through the kitchen, further away from the doorway and the elevator, into the bedroom. Suho stood in the doorway between the ensuite and the bedroom, swirling his hands as more water flowed from the bathtub to mass at his feet.

Suho raised his arms once again in a fluid movement and the water rose up to eye level. Pushing the water forward, the water rushed towards our attackers and another got thrown back into the living room.

With no large amounts of water at his side, Suho focused on smaller attacks, whipping at the monsters with water found from the many puddles on the floor.

I looked around me for a weapon. There was none, unless the monsters didn’t like either shampoo or pillows.

I lifted the bedside table so it stood in front of my torso and head and ran full speed towards the monsters, aiming to use the table as a battering ram. I managed to bash my way through to the kitchen before a solid punch left my battering ram in splinters.

I drop onto the floor as another burst of water saved me from being skewered by black claws.

I fumbled on the floor until my hands grasped around the kitchen knife I dropped. Of course, I picked up the knife blade first, but I could heal my hand later. As I switched my grip to hold the handle, my hand already automatically glowing green to seal up my cuts, a heavy blow from a fist lands into my stomach. Winded, I upwards with the knife and I feel the blade sink into the goo until my hands were wet with black slime. I waited for the monster to die, but it never did. Another blow landed higher up and I felt some of my ribs crack. I slid the knife sideways and the blade moved through the monster’s chest until it exited the body through the shoulder. The monster reeled back in pain and slowly, I watched as the black slime converged on the large gash I created, attempting to seal up the wound but I cut too deep. The slime became inanimate as the monster died, and it melted in a thick liquid along the floor.

I was exhausted but there were still more monsters in the living room. Suho clambered into the kitchen and took my hand, dragging me back into the bedroom.

“Quick, I managed to dial Kris’s number.”

We rushed onto the balcony together, and in the distance I can see Kris’s dark spot flying towards us through the street. The monsters were walking through their dead comrade towards us, their feet forming dark claws to grip the floor through the deceased slime.

“When I say jump, we jump.” I nodded at Suho.

Together we climbed onto the railing and held hands. Kris was rapidly approaching.

“Three, two, JUMP!”

my feet left the railing and we started to drop to the ground. Kris thudded into us and I winced as he hit my cracked ribs. Fumbling to hold onto each other, we continued to fall, just slower with Kris’s help.

We landed together on the dark van parked outside, leaving a Suho-Kris-Yixing sized dent on the roof. Quickly, Kris dragged us off and we disappeared into the crowd.

_________________

We all met up in the back corner of the coffee shop. Baekhyun was there, dishevelled and confused. Luhan had already ordered a cup of coffee and was explaining all the details over the table. I sat in silence, one glowing hand on my rib cage, the other on the girl.

“Hey,” Suho said “You did well back there.”

“Yeah you too. I never knew you could move so much water.”

Suho looked down at his hands.

“Me either, none of the monsters even got close enough to touch me. I just, I trapped them in the doorframes and kept hitting them. It must’ve been difficult for you. You’re power is all about healing, not about fighting.”

“I managed. When… when I stabbed the monster, it kept moving. It wasn’t until I made a big cut that the thing started dying. Do you think it’s possible I cut through something important? Like a heart?”

“I don’t know. It’s all quite new to me.” Suho looked down into his coffee. He had barely drunk anything, and it was getting cold now.

Kris piped up.

“We need a plan, somewhere to go. Also we need to find the other six. Does anyone have any plans on where to find them? And has anyone gotten in touch with Xiumin?”

Nobody answered. We haven’t heard from Xiumin for at least two weeks.

“I think I’ve found a kid, the one with the martial arts from the newspapers,” Kris said, “and I can track him down and get him.”

Baekhyun added to the conversation “I stumbled upon another guy while I was looking for the tree; I was going to email you guys to look in on him. I think he has some sort of fire power. He punched out a man for stealing his lighter, and on the news I thought I saw his mark behind his ear.”

“Right, so you two go get those people.” Suho said, taking charge. “What else have we got?”

“I heard of a rogue police a little further south down here,” Said Luhan “I overheard it on the police channel. Some kind of vigilate it sounded like. That could be someone.”

“This is good guys, we should right this down on a list.” Suho pulled a crinkled notepad from his pocket and started jotting down each possible person.

“Someone keeps disappearing from schools.” I said “Like, not going away and never returning, but actually disappearing in front of the kid’s eyes like a magic trick. But I don’t know how we’ll find him.”

“Okay, so any ideas to find this guy?” Suho asked, making eye contact with each of us around the table.

“We could…. Go undercover and catch him before he disappears again?”

“We could appeal to his greater good and make him save someone and catch him then?”

“Post more online? Do something public to get his attention?”

“Well… someone get on that. Any others?”

“There was another unexplained lightning storm, I think it could be that lighting guy who disappeared a year ago.”

“Great. Any others?”

There was silence around the table. Suho checked the list, dotting each one with the end of his pencil.

“Well, that makes five possibilities. So we still have to look for at least one more, if the other five turn out to be them. Someone needs to look after the … the Tree.”

“That should be me. She needs healing still.” I said, my hand still glowing on her chest.

“So we all split up and find these people? And we need a new base. We can’t camp out in a coffee house.”

“Rent a new place?” Baekhyun offered

“Abandoned warehouse?” Luhan said

“What about Xiumin and Luhan’s place?” Offered Kris

“I don’t know, they all sound pretty dangerous. We’ll try the warehouse? We can look for a new place online.”

So we had our new missions. Find the other six. Find a place. Protect the Tree. Survive.