“Excuse me miss, are you alright?”

 

Her eyes fluttered open to see a boy with wide eyes that contained concern, worry, and curiosity. Behind the boy stood five others, all containing the same emotions within their eyes.

 

“Miss?”

 

Her eyes widened, almost to the extent of the boy’s in front of her. Compared to the last time she woke up this welcome was much friendlier and less intimidating. Getting lost in her thoughts and observing her surroundings, she failed to respond to the boy once again.

 

Everything is dark. But the people are light. They look so pure and innocent. They also seem kind and welcoming and accepting. Maybe this is that other realm the boys were talking about. In that case they can’t technically be mean to me. If they are the Blessed Ones, then I don’t really like them, they seem to be nicely rude. They use the cover of a positive emotion to do bad things. I wonder if they even know that—

 

“Miss?”

 

Her head snapped back to the boy, eyes refocusing, and realized that she still had yet to say anything to them.

 

“Sorry, I was thinking about something.”

 

“Oh, that’s okay. But, I have to ask, are you all right? You just kind of appeared out of nowhere.”

 

“Oh, yes, I’m perfectly fine. I think I’m actually starting to get used to this.”

 

The last part of her sentence was a murmur, only meant for her to hear.

 

“Ah, well that’s good, but I’m afraid I have to ask, why is it you are gray?”

 

“Huh? Oh, umm, it’s a complicated story that in the end won’t answer your question.”

 

The boys looked at her confusedly, not understanding what she meant. However, deciding not to push any further the wide-eyed boy introduced himself.

 

“I’m Kyungsoo by the way, and this is—“

 

“I’m Joonmyun, but everyone calls me Suho, it’s very nice to make your acquaintance.”

 

The boy that Kyungsoo was gesturing to interrupted him and instead introduced himself, the others following suit.

 

“Hello, I’m Baekhyun!”

 

“Chanyeol!”

 

“Just call me Kai.”

 

She absently noted that he is a slightly darker shade of white than everyone else.

 

“I’m Sehun.”

 

After taking a moment to commit the names and faces to memory, she responded with an introduction of her own, already growing accustomed to her self-given name.

 

“Ah, it’s a pleasure to meet you all as well, I am Eve.”

 

“Well, Eve, how about we go somewhere more suitable for a conversation?”

 

Hearing Suho’s words, Eve realized that she was currently seated on the ground in the middle of nowhere. She offered him a sheepish smile when she answered.

 

“Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.”

 

“Well then, follow me!”

 

The group turned to leave as she attempted to rise from the ground. However, her legs were still too weak to support the weight of her body and she stumbled, collapsing to the ground, when she tried. Seeing this, Baekhyun managed to catch her before she made contact with the ground, naturally placing her arm around his neck and his around her waist, helping her stand.

 

“Here, I’ll help you.”

 

Despite the embarrassment that she felt, she knew that she would not be able to walk on her own at this moment in time, so she offered him a thankful smile instead.

 

“Thank you, I appreciate it.”

 

“It’s not a problem at all.”

 

The others, having halted their retreat at the realization of her weakness, continued their movements once it was confirmed that she had the ability to follow them with the aid of their friend.

 

It only took ten minutes to reach their destination, a house that was much more extravagant than the one she had been in while she was in the other realm. Despite her protests that had begun about three minutes into the walk Baekhyun was still supporting her as she walked, leading her through several rooms and hallways before finally reaching the main living area. He carefully guided her into taking a seat on one of the seats scattered throughout the room, promptly taking the seat next to her.

 

Sinking into the cushion, she glanced around to see a room eerily similar to the one that was occupied by the last group of boys she had interacted with, the only difference being that this one was much darker. Yet, despite the darkness this house made her feel much more welcome than the light house had. Before she could dwell on this thought however, she reminded herself that the others could not help but be negative; therefore she couldn’t blame them for the tense atmosphere that had surrounded the entire interaction.

 

Returning her focus to the present, she noticed that the rest of the boys had also taken their seats, each one of them looking at her in anticipation. A nervous feeling grew within her at the approaching conversation.

 

“So, umm, what is it you want to know?”

 

“Well, if it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, I think we would like to know where it is you are from.”

 

Turning to face Suho, she contemplated how to answer this question. In the end she decided to just explain it the best that she could, like she had done with the others.

 

“Well I don’t really know much about it, where I come from that is, but it was gray. No matter what direction you looked in it was all gray, there was nothing there; it was absolutely empty. It didn’t matter what direction I walked in or how long I walked, there was never anything but the empty expanse of gray.”

 

Following her explanation, the boys remained silent. She could tell that they were thinking about what she had said and decided to let them be, sinking into her own thoughts of light, dark, and gray. After a while of everyone wallowing in their thoughts, Baekhyun spoke up.

 

“That sounds terrible! You must have been so lonely!”

 

The rest of the boys nodded in agreement, giving her looks of pity.

 

“It wasn’t too bad, I got used to it after a while.”

 

She showed them a smile in the hopes of making them feel better, but it didn’t work.

---

 

I want to apologize for the lack of updates, an unexpected health problem came up and I had to deal with it, but I should be okay for at least a little while now. Anyways, I just wanted to say that the reason Kai is a slightly darker shade of white than the others actually has nothing to do with his skin tone, it just happened to work out that way. I'm sorry for any mistakes throughout the chapter, I hope you'll point hem out to me so I can improve. I'm still not very good at English so I hope you'll bear with me. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!