One… I knew I forgot something…

Two… Why can’t I ever remember what I forget?

Three… I guess that’s part of forgetting.

Four… If only I had Sehun to help remind me…

Five… It might be important…

Wait a minute.

“Um… guys?” Lay croaks with wide eyes. Everyone stops to turn towards him with curiosity as the sickening feeling grows in his gut. “Where’s Sehun?”

Everyone exchanges glances as they realize Sehun is nowhere to be seen.

“Oh my god! Where the hell is he?” “Does he have to do this now?!” “I didn’t see him fight off any hunters now that you mention it…” “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t there when we first saw the wolves either.” The group’s panic rises as they try to recount the previous events.

“Well wasn’t he here when we set up camp? I remember seeing him then,” Kyungsoo claimed.

“Yeah, me too. I was flicking ants instead of getting firewood,” Jongdae added.

“Well, if you didn’t go for firewood, WHO did?” Baekhyun challenged. When no one answers, Baekhyun pinches the bridge of his nose. “You guys are idiots.” Lay tries to hide his hurt from the harsh words. Why is leader so mean? he silently wonders while the group backtracks for Sehun’s scent.

“I hope he didn’t go too far. My feet are hurting,” Jongdae griped.

“Yeah, and I’m hungry,” complained Tao.

“Stop whining, we are getting closer to the Lee river and,” Baekhyun inhales a deep breath, “his scent is getting stronger. Keep moving, I can already hear running water.”

Once across the river, the group moves in unison. Soon they can clearly see pink hair sticking out among the natural green of the forest. Lay is the first to shout out to him from only twenty feet away.

“Sehunnie! I found him!” He smiles triumphantly. “Sehunnie!”

The maknae turns to the clan as they rush towards him, but quickly returns his gaze to the other direction. Why isn’t he greeting us? The group is hushed rapidly by the leader who resumes his position at the front. While Sehun scans the clearing, he’s says nothing,and Baekhyun’s patience snaps.

“What the hell were you thinking?! You could have been killed! This is not our territory yet, you can’t just go where ever you want! As if that’s not enough, we just figured out that there’s a hunting party going out right now, and where there’s one, there are more! God, you are so stupid! If you don’t shape up, I will have you grounded forever! Kyungsoo will watch your every move like a child for the rest of your miserable life, understand?!”

Sehun remains unresponsive to Baekhyun’s words, then Lay swore he could almost see a pout on the maknae’s face.

“Your cute aegyo won’t work this time, and don’t you even think about begging me later because I swear to the high heavens that I will not let this pass!!! Are you listening? I won’t let this drop for as long as we will live, and you absolutely know that that’s a VERY long time!”

Baekhyun’s warnings vanish in the silent forest air.

“Well then, I guess that’s that,” Baekhyun begins walking to Kyungsoo to pass on instructions when the maknae finally speaks.

“I found another one,” Sehun whispers.

Baekhyun spins on his heel and peers at the maknae questioningly.  “Another what?”

“A non-human. He’s blessed.”

“God, Sehun, not every strange human you find in the forest is blessed,” Baekhyun said rolling his eyes.

“NOOO, he really was! He smelled like.… Look I don’t really know ok? His scent was all weird,”

Narrowing his eyes, Baekhyun steps closer, the anger from before had completely disappeared. “What exactly do you mean?”

“Well, he was blessed for sure, but his scent isn’t something I’ve encountered before.  At first, I didn’t even realize he was near me until I heard him make a noise. I couldn’t pick up his scent in human form, so I morphed. I thought he was one of us, but then he gave off the stench of a werewolf. I honestly don’t know what he was and didn’t get a chance to ask. I guess he heard you guys calling me and ran away.” Sehun said breathlessly.

Lay blushes lightly as he realizes it was his shouts that were heard.

“That’s not possible, is it?” Chen injects. “A blessed-being with fused werewolf and vampire blood… Doesn’t the being always die right after birth if the fetus doesn’t die in the womb?”

“Where exactly did you see this ….thing?” Baekhyun, avoiding Chen’s question, glances back to Sehun with watchful eyes.

“Here actually…,” Sehun replies slowly but firmly.

“Are you positive it wasn’t your hallucinations?” Tao teases while glancing around the meadow.

“Yes, I’m sure, you little-” Sehun defends but stops himself abruptly.

The maknae seems to be having an internal war with his demons again. Lay silently prays that Sehun doesn’t morph, Baekhyun would be furious with anyone in his clan losing control over their shift. Discipline in Baekhyun’s eyes is the highest virtue. It is obviously something that the werewolves lack, it is expected of everyone. Even if Sehun is the youngest and can’t completely control it yet. Though my memory isn't that great, I can not forget when Baekhyun engraved the value into my brain. Lay shivers at the thought.

“Interesting, well, let’s hope it stays put. We don’t need any more problems than what we have at hand,” Baekhyun’s face was stern but the worry in his eyes told everyone he was troubled more than he let on.

“Wait, what do you mean by other problems?” Sehun questions.

Lay studies a flower where a butterfly with a torn wing rested while Baekhyun explains the encounter with the hunters to Sehun. Wasn't maknae's hair brighter? Lay turns his attention back to the butterfly's wound. Aww, poor butterfly… He outstretches his long delicate fingers over the butterfly and then removes them to reveal both wings fully intact. In the time that it took Lay to heal the butterfly, Baekhyun had filled Sehun in on the attack. Butterfly and hair color changing forgotten, Lay follows behind Sehun silently as they start the journey home.

Five hours later…

As Lay mindlessly admires the midnight moon, he abruptly bumps into the maknae’s back. Dazed, the healer looks to the other vampires questionably. As quickly as they had stopped, each member crouched in the bushes just beyond their permanent residence. Lay follows suit before hearing soft shouts from the direction of their house.

“What’s going on?” he whispers close to Sehun’s ear.

“Baekhyun thinks they’re hunters, haven’t you been listening?” Sehun accuses.

Lay heats up with embarrassment instantly. “Watch your mouth, Maknae,” he threatens weakly.

Sehun focuses his attention ahead of him, while Lay attempts to pick up Baekhyun’s whispers.

“Anybody have any idea how many there are?” the leader urged.

“There’s at least eight of them, but I can't pick up any more because of the smoke from the fires,” Kyungsoo reported.  

“I left my pink Playstation in there!” Chen whispered with a whine.

“And I left my new designer clothes in there! You know it took centuries to get that clothing line together!” Tao cries gently.

My guitars… Lay remembered mournfully.

“None of that matters now, we no longer have a home. We’re vulnerable, which is dangerous since apparently the humans are hunting us now-” Baekhyun was cut off by the yell of a hunter who had discovered their presence.

“Run!” Tao shouts. They turn tail and run as swiftly as they can diagonally to the edge of the forest near the mountainside. Once at the edge, they continue running south along the base of the steep mountains and don’t stop until they are all out of breath.

Why are we in such a hurry again? Can’t remember…  Lay mentally facepalms as he pants heavily.

“Keep running,” Baekhyun says hoarsely after a moment of rest. “Now that they know we are out here, they’re going to come after us,” he rasps shortly after taking a deep breath.

“Why did they attack our home? We’ve done nothing to the humans!” an angry Chen mused. “It’s not like we were picking off their littles for dinner.”

“All I wanted was designer clothing! Is that really too much to ask?” Tao weeps.

“Nobody cares about your stupid clothes, Tao! It’s my kitchen we should be worried about!” Kyungsoo screams. “The stainless steel appliances were brand new!” he adds with a sob.

“Ok! I get that you are all feeling hurt over what you lost, but if we don't get our asses moving, we’re all going to be sorry!” shouts Baekhyun over the others effectively shutting them up. “Now keep running! I can see the hunters' torches in the distance!”

The vampires revert to silence as they continue to run in the early hours of the morning.

It is nearly daybreak when the vampires stumble upon what appears to be a small den. The exhausted vampires walk slowly but cautiously inside to rest. Sehun was the first to break the silence. “It smells like that thing in here…”

“What thing?” Baekhyun asks annoyed.

“The blessed being,” the maknae retorts, equally irritated. The vampires poke around the den to find that the place had been trashed with items thrown everywhere.

”I smell human in here,” Chen snarls. “They must have gotten your blessed being, Sehun.”

"I never said he was mine!” Sehun snaps, with a flashback of the blonde boy’s face.

“Ah so it’s a ‘he’,” Chen taunts with a smirk. “Are you sure?”

“Shut up, Chen, before I beat you,” Kyungsoo blankly stated while poking through what seemed to be the pantry. “All that’s in here is berries…whoever lived here must be a vegetarian.”

“What is a ‘Luhan’?” Tao quietly asks from the other room.

“What, Tao?” Sehun questioned, moving over to stand with Tao in what seemed to be a bed room.

“It’s on this soccer ball and this book over here.” Tao absently mindedly wanders over to the closet.

“It must be the name of the blessed being,” Sehun reasons. “Luuuhan,” Sehun slowly drew out the first syllable. As it rolls off his tongue, he matches it with the blonde’s face.

“Oohh, so you like his name, huh?” Chen baited.

“Shut up!” Sehun quickly scowles with a blush.

“Well, this Luhan person obviously has no taste in clothes,” Tao wickedly sneers.

“He looked just fine when I saw him in person!” Sehun yells louder than he expects. Everyone grows quiet by Sehun’s sudden outburst. Tao and Chen high five in victory.

“I don’t care what he was wearing!” Baekhyun interrupts. “If what the brat says is true, the hunters must’ve known his value to even seek him out in the first place. For whatever reason, the hunters seem to have chased him away and he could be hurt. We need to find and heal him.”

Lay’s ears perk up at the mention of his power "If we are going to do this, we need to hurry because I can’t revive people.” He says over his shoulder as he inspects a yellow butterfly on the door knob. Having had the butterfly crawl onto his hand, the healer walks outside to wait for the others.

As the group prepares to leave, Lay notices that Sehun was unsuccessfully trying to maintain his poker face. He chuckles at the sight and allows the butterfly to flutter away. Well, if there’s one thing I can’t heal, it’s lovesickness.

Sometime around midnight that same morning

Luhan shakes awake to the sound of something banging on the front door. How did they find me?  He quickly snatches up his napsack and runs to the closet across from his bed. Having shut the door as quietly as he could, Luhan shuffles out of the line of sight created by the space between the door and the hedge.

Crash! They broke down the door! Luhan shivers as pulls on his sneakers. With loud rustlings just outside his bedroom, Luhan becomes aware that they are actually looking for him. That ! The vampires followed me from the meadow!  The blessed being pulls on his red sweater over his black shirt before peering through the crack. It is by sheer luck that Luhan sees the gun barrel ahead of the hunter enabling him to shift out of sight. Guns?!? I need to get out of here!

Trembling, Luhan draws a silent breath as he squints through the gap once more. I’ll knock him over; that should keep him from chasing me. Luhan waits for the hunter to fully turn his back to the closet before swinging the door open. With a hard shove, the hunter groans after he face planted into the ground next to the bed while Luhan flees out of the room.

Having not heard voices while in the closet, the blessed being is shocked to find three more humans blocking his way out. Holy cow, they all have guns! Apparently the other hunters had not expected to see him either since they stare back at Luhan in disbelief. Their trances are broken as the hunter in the bedroom yells, and the hunter on the left raises his rifle to Luhan’s head. He’s gonna shoot me! With a sharp gasp, the hybrid shuts his eyes and swings both arms in front his head protectively. When he hears a crash instead of a gunshot, Luhan opens his eyes to see that the humans had been slammed against the wall. Huh?

The thought is lost as the first deerstalker chose that moment to burst in. Oh , he looks mad! Time to go! Bolting out the front door, Luhan wastes no time running towards the forest. The blessed being almost clears the tree line when he trips over a rock. Luhan’s clumsiness could not have picked a better time to act up because a second after he hit the ground, a tree trunk ahead of him is blasted into splitters. That was meant for my head!  He scrambles to his feet with wide eyes, not daring to look back as he sprints into the darkness.

An hour later, the hybrid slows his pace, but only after he is certain no humans followed him. It seems like the humans are after the blessed beings now. But for what? Either way, I’m lucky I got out of there alive. Now that the moment of danger had passed, Luhan can’t help but let his thoughts drift to a certain pink haired jerk. There didn't seem to be any blessed beings cooperating with the humans. So the vampires must've not had anything to do with the people who ambushed me. But how did they know where I lived? Luhan foresaw the threats of being on his own, therefore had taken extra precautions when disguising his den. He even did his best to disguise his scent in the surrounding area. But the vampire didn’t look threatening when I first encountered him. In fact, pink head was confused that he even found me at the strawberry meadow. Luhan chuckles at the memory of the vampire’s angry bewilderment.

Maybe the vampire isn’t as bad as I thought, in comparison to the hostile humans at least. In the moonlight, Luhan feels a pang of sadness as he trudges southward along the steep wall of the mountains.