“What the hell Lay! Are you ing crazy?”

 

Ignoring the surprise of the others as well as their angry stares Lay began walking towards a more suitable location.

 

“What? I’m curious, aren’t you?”

 

“It doesn’t matter if I’m curious or not, it’s none of my business!”

 

“That’s never stopped you before, has it Xiumin?”

 

With a huff the others gave up on convincing Lay to change his mind. The rest of the walk was spent in silence, a silence that, while she was used to it, drove Eve crazy. She wanted nothing more to end the silence, she was sick of it, however she refused to speak to the group walking several steps ahead of her for fear of what could have happened. After all, they weren’t the most sociable people.

 

They finally reached the decided destination, a plain house made of a slightly different shade of white than the surroundings. The house was average in size, not large, not small, just average. However, while it was average in the eyes of others, to Eve it was one of the most beautiful structures she had ever seen. There were no such buildings in the gray world she came from, so even this filled her with awe.

 

Her eyes widened in wonder as she gazed at the structure before following them inside, trying to stifle her amazement when she considered whom she was with and how they may react.

 

“Well, take a seat.”

 

Focusing once again on the boys that lead her here she realized they were all now sitting on couches and chairs scattered throughout the room. Looking around she was unsure of where to sit, and ended up just sitting on the floor where she was. Ignoring the strange glances thrown her way she decided to start the conversation that led them here.

 

“So, who are you? And where am I?”

 

Looking around at each other they were all trying to get someone else to answer her questions. Eventually the one boy who had already introduced himself, Chen, spoke up.

 

“Well Lay, you’re the one who wanted her here. You can answer her questions.”

 

“Fine. As you’ve probably already figured out, I am Lay. The panda is Tao, the freakishly tall one is Kris, the one who looks like a girl is Luhan—“

 

“Hey! What the hell?!”

 

“—and the one with the round face is Xiumin.”

 

She took her time looking around and trying to memorize each face and name. When she finally felt confident that she could distinguish one boy from another she brought up her other question.

 

“Okay, now where am I?”

 

“Not so fast,”

 

Tao spoke up,

 

“We answered one of your questions, now you answer one of ours.”

 

Gulping, she realized that it was a reasonable request. They did answer one of her questions; it would be unfair to make them answer all of her questions without answering any of theirs until the end, at which point she could easily refuse to answer the questions.

 

How am I supposed to answer questions I don’t know the answer to? If they’re disappointed with my answers they might not help me anymore. Why is life getting so complicated?

 

Gathering up her strength, she attempted to appear fearless whilst she silently prepared herself for what was to come.

 

“Alright… what’s your question?”

 

“Where are you from?”

 

The answer came almost immediately, hardly a beat of silence between the two questions.

 

Struggling to find the correct words to explain her situation Eve stammered through an impromptu response.

 

“Well, umm, I come from a place. Not this place but a different place, a place that isn’t this place. Umm, and—“

 

“Are you going to say anything useful, or are you just going to rephrase the same statement several times?”

 

Glaring back at Kris she huffed indignantly before attempting to continue her explanation.

 

“It’s complicated okay? I’m just trying to figure out how to describe it.”

 

She took a deep breath after a short pause, preparing to begin her explanation again.

 

“Okay, so the best way I can think of to explain this is that it was gray.”

 

“I’m confused.”

 

“Where I come from, it was all gray. I didn’t get to explore it much because most of the time I was in serious pa—never mind. Anyways, it was just all gray and seemed to stretch on indefinitely in all directions. It was completely empty, there weren’t any structures such as this.”

 

The boys remained silent, trying to make sense of what they had just heard. Feeling awkward, and once again wanting to get rid of the silence Eve tried to restart the conversation.

 

“Okay, I answered one of your questions. It’s your turn now, right?”

 

“Does that count as your question?”

 

“No! No, I have a different question that I hope you will answer.”

 

“Okay, so what is your question?”

 

She looked over to the boy who had spoken; recognizing him as the one called Lay. Seeing as though he was kinder to her than the others, not kind, but kinder, she promptly decided that he is her favorite.

 

“I want to know where I am.”

 

“Ah, well that is quite simple. You are in the realm of the shadows, the Broken as some call us.”

 

The others scowled at the sound of the name, however Eve just looked confused.

 

“The Broken? Why would anyone call you that?”

 

They all looked at her incredulously, shocked by what had come out of .

 

“Are you dumb?”

 

“Chen, stop.”

 

“You must be ing mental. How do you not know why they call us that?”

 

“Chen she doesn’t know, she’s not from here or there.”

 

“I don’t care where she’s from or who she is. It’s pretty damn obvious why we’re broken.”

 

The word rolled off his tongue like venom, making it seem as though it physically pained him to speak it. With a final glare in her direction he stormed out of the house, slamming the off-white door in the process.

 

“Sorry?”

 

The apology came out as more of a question than a statement because she didn’t actually know what it was she had done that had upset him.

 

“It’s fine, Chen is just bitter.”

 

“Aren’t we all?”

 

Lay sent a glare at Tao, who returned it without missing a beat. Not looking away from Tao, Lay continued his explanation.

 

“He’s upset because the others think they’re so much better than us. They call us the Broken, because that’s what we are.”

 

“And we call them the Blessed because that’s what they are.”

 

She transfered her gaze to Luhan, who had finished the statement instead of Lay.

 

“Them? Who are ‘Them’?”

 

“The ones who refer to us as the Broken, they live in the other realm. The realm of the Light.”

 

“Light? And you think these people in the other realm are blessed?”

 

“They are. To put it simply they are Heaven while we are Hell.”

 

If this other realm is Heaven and here is Hell, I wonder what the Gray would be considered.

 

“I don’t understand, how are the two realms so different?”

 

“They are happy, we are not.”

 

“Why aren’t you happy?”

 

Before Luhan could answer this question as well Kris stepped in.

 

“Because we can’t be.”

---

 

Another year of not celebrating my Birthday! Anyways, here's another chapter, I hope you find in interesting and entertaining in some way!