Suho was the first one to wake up.

The sun wasn’t even close to being up. Earlier, the moon had illuminated the area, but it was gone now, and he couldn’t make out a single thing in the pitch darkness. He fumbled for his cellphone and the flashlight.

The first thing he saw was the closest person to him: Xiumin, his face buried dangerously close to too fully in the very watery mud around their feet. It was only then that he noticed that both Xiumin and himself were soaking wet; it must have rained while they were out. With every slow breath Xiumin took in, water rattled in through his mouth.

Suho flipped him onto his back, his heart dropping as he realized that anyone who passed out fully face-down in a puddle would be dead.

Chen was still slumped in his metal restraint system, free from any danger. D.O. was fine as well, and Sehun, if his holding had worked as intended, was not in any danger. That is, if D.O. had made airholes.

Baekhyun, he saw, was face-down, but the small hill he was on had saved him from danger. Suho ran back to the steel skeleton to see that Chanyeol and Lay were safe, and finally to the igloo for a final count of ten (nine?) men still alive.

At that point he finally allowed himself to cry.

He wasn’t sure what he was crying about, but he was exhausted, soaking wet, a bit cold, ravenous, and he was going to have to lead the reconciliation effort when everyone awoke, when he had no idea what to do. He wasn’t even sure if he could stand watch until everyone else woke up.

He realized that that was a good enough reason to cry, and what he would have to do.

“Hello?”

“Yifan…?”

“Junmyeon? Uh… hey… is everything alright?”

They hadn’t exactly talked since Kris went his separate way.

“…No. No, actually… How long would it take you to get to the outer limits of Seoul?”

“…Excuse me?”

“It’s an emergency. Power-related.”

“…Why do you need me? Can’t someone else-“

“If someone else could help, do you think I’d be calling you? Everyone else is out cold. Every single one of use has used up all of our powers, and in case Chen or Sehun try to escape, I need you to-“

“Woah woah woah, ‘Chen and Sehun’ do what now?”

Suho groaned loudly. “I’ll tell you when you get here, so please just come! I’ll text you coordinates. And bring Luhan.”

It took about an hour and a half, and Suho was starting to wonder if Kris had just chosen to ignore him, but eventually he did arrive. Suho was sitting at the exact coordinate location he’d given Kris, which just so happened to be about ten yards away from Chen in the direction of the building. He’d been able to remove all of the water from his clothes and the ground around him, but none of the mud, and Kris eyed the weary-eyed Korean strangely as he landed and Luhan’s flashlight beam fell upon Suho.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” Suho said, squinting and covering his eyes at the sudden. bright light.

“You asked us to come, so we’re here,” Kris said curtly.

“What do you need?” Luhan asked, starting to point his flashlight around.

He stopped when it caught something of interest.

“What the hell… is that Chen?”

“Sit down. It’s kind of a long story.”

By the time he finished explaining, his eyes were almost too heavy to keep open, and eventually Kris stopped him mid-sentence.

“We’ve got it,” he said, the same dark look that had been living in D.O.’s eyes recently coming up in his. “You go sleep with the rest of them. Neither of them are getting away from here.”

“Thanks-“

The word ‘hyungs’ caught on his throat. He cleared it before speaking again.

“Thank you.”

By the time Lay awoke, the sky was just bright enough for silhouettes to be distinguished from their backdrop.

He blinked once to clear his vision before propping himself to see where he was and why he was laying on a forest floor instead of his bed. When he saw nine other sleeping bodies lying around him, he remembered the reason.

“I guess Chen lost, then?” he thought, scratching the back of his head before deciding that going to see whether or not that was the case was the best plan of action.

As he approached the tree-line, his breath caught in his chest as he saw two silhouettes walking around in the clearing. He pressed himself flush against the pine tree he’d been clutching onto, and gathered his thoughts. “Did they not get them…?”

His eyes opened wide when he thought again, then peeked every-so-slightly around the trunk to confirm that the silhouettes did not belong to Chen and Sehun. “But then who-“

The familiarities he felt finally came into his conscious mind and he realized that he was looking at Kris and Luhan.

“What are they doing here!? Are they with…?” He observed a little longer and was able to make out the fact that the structure with which Chen was being held looked like it had been crudely reinforced with more of the steel girders from the building, a job that would have been Luhan’s work rather than D.O.’s. He realized that someone must have called them in.

He approached cautiously at first, trying to sneak despite his muscles screaming with soreness, but was reinsured when Luhan and Kris greeted him with a wave. He dropped the trepid gait and approached normally. When he tried to speak a greeting, all that came out of his tired body was a nod, but he found himself being presented with a bottle of water and a bread snack from the closest convenience store. Before even exchanging words, he tore into it gratefully.

After forcefully swallowing the mass of food in his mouth, he gasped for air before saying, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Any trouble?” he asked, looking at the still unconscious form trapped in the steel.

“No,” Kris said. “We checked on Sehun and put him in metal restraints too. Not a peep from either of them, though. Junmyeon called us, by the way,” he said, correctly predicting that Lay was wondering how they’d known about the situation.

It was about half an hour before another figure appeared from behind the tree line, who was revealed to be D.O. once he came a little closer. Kai, Suho, and Xiumin followed before they all decided to go and gently rouse the rest of the group members. Tao, Baekhyun, and Chanyeol were difficult to wake, but they did get to their feet and come out to the field with the others.

By the time they came back, low moans could be heard coming from the earthen prison.

“He’s coming to. How do you wanna handle this?” Luhan asked. Before anyone could reply, he was already lifting a sharpened steel pipe.

“It seems like you already know,” D.O. replied, lifting his hand. The hardened mud began to crack.

Suddenly, he and Luhan were swarmed with guys frantically yelling at them to stop, that they should talk to them, and all manner of screaming and begging.

“Guys- G- GUYS!!!” D.O. shouted, stamping his foot to send a very localized tremor though the ground and shake off the swarm. Most of them stumbled backward, and Tao and Suho even fell to the ground. “Guys, calm your . We’re not gonna kill him; we need to take away some of this wall so we can talk to him.”

D.O. turned back to his work slowly, and this time no one interrupted as he removed a small enough chunk of mud so that they could communicate with Sehun while minimizing risk to themselves. He looked to where Tao was getting to his feet, and kept looking until they made eye contact. Tao’s eyes widened in surprise, but upon understanding why D.O. was looking at him he scurried over to his side.

“Careful,” D.O. said quietly. “Don’t stand directly in front of the hole.”

“Sehun?” Tao said warily. “Are you awake? Are you hurt?”

“Tao…?” the incredibly weak voice came. “…Am I dying?”

“No.” He dug his nails into his palm, hoping he was right. “Do you know where you are?”

“It’s dark…” The small voice inside was beginning to waver. “I don’t… No, I do. …Are you guys going to kill me now…?”

Tao met eyes with D.O. again, unsure of what to say.

“No,” Suho said definitively, moving forward and approaching the hole until he could see Sehun’s tired, timid, and guilty-looking eyes. “D.O., let him out. He’s hurt.”

“But-“

“When they was fighting us, Chen was out to kill us, but he couldn’t. Sehun could have, but didn’t. If Chen was controlling him, why didn’t Sehun fight to kill?”

“I gave him a concussion-“

“That wouldn’t have stopped him. He didn’t kill us because he was actively fighting Chen’s mind control. Let him out. His brain is swollen, isn’t it Lay?”

Lay looked around at the other eyes that were on him before he moved forward to examine Sehun as best as he could.

“Kyungsoo, let him go now,” he said again, voice going gravely low.

D.O. gave a look to the others that implored them to join Luhan in being on their guard, and did as he was told. When the shelter crumpled away, Lay rushed up and immediately began working on reducing the swelling in Sehun’s head.

“It’s bad,” he said as he probed further. “He’ll be okay, but I’m surprised he’s conscious at all. Any more swelling and he would have died for sure.”

“Yah, Chen!” Luhan shouted, turning his attention toward the not-yet-conscious perpetrator. “What the hell did you do this for!?”

“Chen’s… gonna wake up, right?” Kai murmured. Xiumin, Baekhyun, and Chanyeol looked on with conflicted faces.

“He’s fine,” Lay said. “I checked him out earlier. He’s just drained. He should come around within an hour or so.”

“You said you could measure some sort of darkness within him, right?” Kris asked. “How does it look now? Clear?”

Lay smiled without looking up from Sehun, whose expression was becoming much more alert and at-ease.

Next chapter will probably be the last, but I'm still planning on making a sequel to this story from Chen's point of view.

The more love you guys show this story, the more quickly I'll update! ;) If you like it, please upvote, subscribe, or especially: Comment! If you don't like it, still comment and offer some constructive critism! ^^