(10) NO MAN'S LAND

Tao wakes up early the next day with a nervous feeling in his gut. It’s not the normal kind of nervousness, either. Rather, he’s a bit scared, and he doesn’t know why. It just felt as though he woke up from a really long dream and now he felt sick. He glances at the window behind the couch and peeks through the closed blinds where very faint and grey light peers through. Everything is completely still and quiet, but there’s still that warning in the back of his mind that tells him to do one thing: Run.

Very hesitantly, he crawls off the couch and tiptoes over the mass of sleeping bodies until he reaches the front of the room. He leans over Suho and nudges him with his foot. When he gets nothing out of it, he crouches and shakes his shoulder, whispering, “Suho... Suho, wake up!”

Suho does indeed wake up, very groggily at that, and he has to rub his eyes and squint to get a good look at who was bothering him. When he finds only Tao, he hums questioningly, still trying to fully focus.

“I feel weird.” Tao manages to speak softly. His words have Suho sitting up straighter, eyes analyzing every inch of the younger's body.

“Are you sick?” He asks, but Tao shakes his head. “Then why do you feel weird?”

Tao blinks a few times, arms clenching his stomach anxiously. He looks around at the sleeping bodies before he looks back at Suho. “I’m nervous. I think we need to leave. Soon.”

Right as Suho stands up, there’s a chilling knock on the front door that makes him freeze in his spot. It’s a bit soft, but he’s still scared, because no one knocks on the door. No one should know about this place.

The two stand in their places for a good minute before the knock returns- only this time, it’s much more fierce and demanding. The pounds have Suho and Tao flinching, and some of the boys even shoot up from their sleep. They all exchanged nervous glances to each other before they got right into action, waking up the remaining members as quickly and quietly as possible.

There’s not enough time. The door bursts open with a kick, and everyone stares in shock at the mob of not police officers, but rather military personnel who look ready to start a war.

“All of you! Put your hands up and don’t move.”

The guns being pointed at them were pretty persuasive and almost everyone had their hands raised except for Luhan, his eyes still closed as he slept in the comfort of his futon. He didn’t go unnoticed by the task force, though, and one of the men walked forward to find him curling up under the blankets. He used the point of his assault rifle to nudge at Luhan’s head experimentally before the boy brushed him off, slapping the gun away to the horror of the other boys. Suho swears he nearly faints.

After a few failed tries of trying to get the boy to wake up, the man finally had lost his temper and used his foot to kick at Luhan’s back, successfully startling him as he jolted up with a yelp. The officer took a few steps back and pointed his gun right at Luhan’s face as the latter rubbed his eyes, letting out a yawn before everyone was able to see his face clearly.

The dark circles under his eyes and downward tilt of his head seemed almost demonic as the officer took another step back. “You! Stand up with your hands in the air!” His voice bellowed unnecessarily, startling Luhan whose frown creased deeper as his ears ached from the sudden boom.

“Do you know how early it is right now?” Suho felt the lump in his throat rise as Luhan chose right now out of all times to be disobedient. He took a step forward to place a hand on his shoulder, watching as the guards followed his movements with their guns.

“Luhan, don’t be like this now...” He murmured, getting even more anxious as the boy brushed him off.

“No. I act however I want because this is our house, not theirs. It’s because of them that we’re stuck in this mess!” Luhan kicked the blankets away from his feet and began to pace back and forth in between the boys and the task force, their guys confused as they didn’t know where to point their weapons.

“Do you see the sky out there? No? Exactly. The sky is so dark that I can still hear people snoring outside! Do you guys even have lives? Why are you spending your time hunting us down when you could be spending time with your families? We’re just a bunch of kids!”

Luhan continued to ramble on to everyone’s dismay, but he showed no signs of stopping. “And you see that kid over there? The one that can’t even stand because he was hurt last night while YOU all were shooting at us? He was crushed by a bunch of beams from the shipyard and you’re still pointing guns at us? Are you ing kidding me?”

The pull in his stomach grew each time he asked a question, becoming infuriated by the fact that they were still pointing their weapons at them. “So now, you’re walking into my house, pointing a gun at my face because of what exactly?”

The officer that had made the mistake of waking Luhan shifted nervously in his place, eyes wavering as his gun began to droop down to the ground. “We had gotten reports of a bunch of dangerous kids that were shoplifting in the area and-”

“That was a rhetorical question, you moron! I didn’t ask to get my ing powers because I wanted them, it just happened, okay? You really think that I wanted this? That I wanted to be woken up at god knows what time in the morning, with a ing gun pointed at my face, because some idiot doesn’t know how to use a ing doorbell?!”

“W-Well, there wasn’t any doorbell to ring so we had to knock.” The man was practically cowering under Luhan’s wrath and the other officers behind him were just watching helplessly as their captain was getting lectured by a kid half his age.

“What part of rhetorical do. You. Not. Understand?” Luhan had brought his hands up in front of his face as his fingers curled from how pissed he was, anger seeping out from every pore in his body. “Do you even know how much it hurts to get shot? Or burned by a ing forest fire? Or buried under a ton of metal beams? No, because you all are too busy kissing to your superiors to use any common sense!” His foot slammed down against the wooden floor with every question, feeling the rage build in him until it was at its peak. “Just leave us alone!”

His voice finally gave out as he screamed for the men to leave them be, his eyes flashing purple before all of the men let out confused gasps and garbled. Their arms shook from the amount of force being pushed towards them as Luhan’s powers broke loose. Some losing their balance and toppling over while others let out pained groans from their own weapons being used against them, tips of the assault rifles bending until they were no longer of use. Luhan was having fun as his mouth curved into an evil grin, willing his powers to take their guns to whack and beat the officers that tried their best to shield themselves from the onslaught of hits.

“Hurry. Let’s leave before they’re occupied.” Luhan hissed under his breath, ing his palm forward to knock all of the men off their feet as they made their escape through the window near the kitchen.

They had no time to pack anything, all rushing out of the house and running through the forest in hopes that the men weren’t chasing them anymore. It was hard for Luhan to keep up since his energy was used to give the military a piece of his mind, the boy barely able to keep up as he lagged behind. Kyungsoo wasn’t in any better condition as Kai and Sehun tried their best to drag him along, his arms over their shoulders as he tripped over his own two feet.

“Kris! Take Kyungsoo and I’ll get Luhan.” Xiumin ran over to the back of the group to hoist Luhan onto his back before running again, growing anxious as Luhan’s uneven wheezes blew into his ear.

Kris went over to where Kai and Sehun were before scooping Kyungsoo into his arms, taking off to the sky as the two watched them speed away. The both of them were disappointed that they had to have been helped again despite getting their powers, Sehun letting out hot air as Kai just dashed forward to try and follow them.

The group kept going despite having discovered a new part of the forest, the burned portion long gone and somewhere the lake didn’t reach. As they kept running into the uncharted territory, they began to realize that they should have just taken a detour around the place, feet slowing down as their shoes sunk into the loose mud.

No man’s land.

That’s what ran through some of their minds as they tried their best to trudge through the mud that was now up to their waists. A thick fog began to form around the group, smoke screen blocking their vision if it weren’t for Sehun letting out angry huffs to push it all away. Distant cries of birds and crickets echoed overhead as the boys continued onward, pulling themselves along until arriving at the end. The minute their feet touched upon dry land, they collapsed. The trees in the area were so thick that they didn’t know what time it was and none of the boys had the time to grab a watch on the way out, too busy running for their lives.

Kris was the first one to get back up, struggling to lift Kyungsoo in his arms as he began to hover off the ground once more. His powers had given way as they were going through the swampy area, resulting in him having to carry the boy by foot. “We need to keep moving before they catch up.”

Nobody complained as they got back onto their feet, limbs aching but minds more fearful of what would happen if they got caught. The older ones did their best to hurry the younger boys along as they tried their best to hold tears back, cringing every few seconds from the mud clumping in their shoes and clothes. Plodding along towards what seemed to be the middle of nowhere, Tao’s squeal made the others turn back to find him racing forwards, leaving them behind.

“Guys, I think I see a house up ahead! Come on!” He was bouncing up and down excitedly before rushing onwards, the other boys all looking at one another with confused expressions. Though exhausted, his feet seemed to move on their own. Would there really be a house in such a dreary place?

Their suspicions were confirmed when Tao came running back, skin as pale as a sheet as he ushered everyone to go in the complete opposite direction. “T-There’s nothing that way, so we should just go somewhere else.”

“Let’s just go and see. It’s a house, right?” Chen skipped onward to see what had gotten Tao so spooked, delighted once coming across what he had seen.

The house seemed to sway the closer they got to it, the entire building threatening to topple over even from the smallest wind. It looked abandoned, which meant they could take refuge inside for now, and although the entire look of it was shady and unstable, they didn’t really have a choice. They all felt their knees begin to wobble, skin dripping in sweat from the hot muggy air. Xiumin moved first and tread up the porch steps, cautious when the wood under his feet creaked with old age. After managing to push open the door that wasn’t unlocked, he took a step in and felt his body drop as the floorboards below gave way.

He hollered out for the others to stay put until he got the situation under control, not wanting them to fall through the floor like he had. Luckily he had stepped further into the house to fall onto his arms instead of straight downwards, wincing as the broken flooring scratched at his muddy legs and lightly punctured his hips and stomach.

“Uhh, okay, so... The flooring in here is really bad and I almost fell and I need Lay to heal me up before it gets infected. Other than that, it seems pretty...” He trailed off.

Lay had been quick to run into the house after hearing of an injury, jumping right over the hole by the entrance to stop and squint at the sight. It was still scary, if not scarier, and the lack of furniture and the way the cracks oozed haunted mist made it difficult to think otherwise.

Letting out a sigh, Xiumin proceeded to pull off his outer shirt and began to lay it over the hole once he was all healed up. “Okay, you guys can come in, but step around my shirt because there’s a hole under there.”

One by one they all began to flow into the house, Kyungsoo muttering under his breath about how careless Xiumin was. “Just putting something over the broken floor doesn’t really do anything...” But despite his efforts to convince Xiumin to fix the problem, the latter ignored him while squinting at something on the other end of the house.

What really made the boys confused was the lone door on the other side of the room. When Kai had jogged up to the oddly painted piece of wood, he brushed a hand across it until he found the door knob. “I think this leads somewhere?” He says questioningly, shaking and turning it slowly. Everyone piles up behind him when it starts to open, revealing stairs that lead down into a dark room.

At the bottom, Suho feels the walls for a light switch, and when he flicks it on, what he sees leaves him completely baffled.

The exterior of the place might’ve looked like a witch house, but the inside was so nicely refurbished that it was like it had been just waiting for them to arrive. There were large, leather couches big enough to easily accommodate all of them along with a kitchen and even a pool table.

Xiumin wanders over to the pool table, and he and Kris are already beginning to challenge one another with their eyes as they set up the game. Kyungsoo says something about the whole situation being a bit creepy, but everyone just ignores his muttering.

Kai saw Kyungsoo’s irritation and brought him over towards the kitchen in hopes that he would calm down, not liking the look of displeasure plastered on his face. As Kyungsoo looked up at Kai, he couldn’t say no to his rosy cheeks as he gave a soft smile, leading the boy as he followed behind silently.

Before wandering off to explore the place, Chen stalked along the sides of the room, finding it peculiar how empty the walls were. The interior was completely redone so that it was a perfect haven for kids their age. An extravagant pool table fully decked with brand new cue sticks occupied the north wall, and the other half of the room had one of the new 3D LED tvs hooked up, cable fully functioning along with all seven hundred and forty eight channels streaming in high definition. The boy wasn’t a genius, but the fact that both appliances were covered in shiny red mahogany wood once again had him questioning why anyone wouldn’t use some of that money to fix up the outside part of the house, or at least repaint the walls.

Looking over the entire room, he could only shake his head with distaste at how bland it made it look. The only thing that had attempted to spice up the dreary landscape was the awkwardly placed painting on the side by the kitchen. The picture was odd enough, but the two bright colored mountains looked like some kid had just splattered green and blue paint all over the canvas. Either that, or the job was done by a very abstract artist.

“Hey, Chen! You should come over here and watch tv with us!” Baekhyun called, ruining his train of thought as some cat chased a small, tricky mouse around the house.

As Kai and Sehun misused the pool cues as swords to play fight, Suho kept glancing outside the door, the fear eating away at him that they would be caught again. The situation was too dangerous for them to be staying in one spot, yet somehow they all were here in this dream house, goofing off while a bunch of men were trying to kill them. What they should be doing is trying to get more distance between them and the men to broaden their chances of escaping together without any casualties, not playing around. He refused to do anything and just sat with his arms folded as Kyungsoo explored the kitchen, he and Lay finding the cabinets and the fridge stocked to the brim with food that could last them months.

It was too good to be true.

Taking a glance at Kris who was too busy screaming at Xiumin to stop cheating, Suho finally began to speak his mind. “Don’t you guys think that this place is kind of weird?”

“Uh, yeah, I mean... These Christmas cookies are only made in the winter for the holidays and yet, here they are with the expiration date still valid. Is this even possible?” Kyungsoo murmured. He ripped off the cap of the container and shook out a couple of Santa themed sugar cookies, offering one to Suho who refused him with a small grimace on his face.

“These cans are empty…” Lay mutters, tapping a few closed fruit cans on the counter. When he fiddles with the knob on the sto