They traveled in silence, heads downturned and voices somewhere lost deep inside themselves. Some of them replayed the fire in their heads over and over again while others were haunted by the visions of ghosts, a creature that never existed in their world before. Sehun looked over his shoulder several times, waiting for one to appear to him, torn. Though he knew he shouldn’t, he so desperately wished that one would show themselves to him.

The remaining eleven of them were headed southward, not too many miles from Revelle, the village built over marshland. Lay’s home. He hadn’t been there in years, could barely remember what his childhood home looked like. Lay never imagined he’d be so afraid to come back.

Sehun looked down at his shaking hands, suddenly realizing how exhausted he was, having fallen over into Luhan with dizzy eyes.

“You doin’ alright?” Luhan asked, holding his little brother up by the waist.

Sehun had his arms over Luhan’s shoulder now, trying to find his voice lost deep down in the back of his scratchy throat. “Just feelin’ real sick… like before.”

He wanted to respond, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, his voice seemed to fall into the pit of his stomach and churn around like a dense weight. Swallowing, Luhan managed to spit out a response. “When was the last time you drank any of that stuff Lay gave you?”

“Probably last night.”

“Drink some more. How much is left?”

Lay pulled a vial from his cape pocket. “Not much. I only have enough to last him another week.”

Sehun took the vial, taking the whole thing in one gulp with face contorted at the awful taste before returning it to Lay’s possession.

“It’s only relieving symptoms for a shorter and shorter time. Hasn’t stopped the infection from spreading.” Lay pointed to Sehun’s neck, a black bruise climbing up the veins in his neck like spiderwebs and smog. “See there? The marks have spread significantly, and if you look at his eyes, they’re getting darker.”

Without a breath, Luhan snapped his attention to look his younger brother in the eyes, Kris having listened in to the conversation and watching horrified from a short distance. “Tree of Life…” Luhan muttered, seeing the whites of Sehun’s eyes up close. They were hardly white at all anymore, now more like a weak black.

With a weak and shaky voice, Sehun looked at the Healer, eyes pleading. “How long? How much longer?”

“Stop it,” Luhan turned Sehun back towards the direction of Revelle, desperate to change the subject already. Kris, on the other hand, half wanted to hear an answer.

Suho stood at the front of the group, his usual place among them. He turned to face the others, thoughts someplace ahead of them. “Revelle is only a few more miles ahead. We’ll be able to sleep under a roof tonight, probably.”

“Should have just taken a train,” Kris muttered, and suddenly realized just how long it had been since he last flew.

Kai rolled his eyes by Chen and Baekhyun’s side, mumbling to himself in response. “Not like anyone is running them right now, you in’ dip.”

Xiumin and D.O. pulled in the back of the group, the two of them more silent than the others. Especially Xiumin, though, who kept his eyes on the ground and drug his feet through the dirt, frost built up around his hands.

“Wonder if we’ll meet anybody in Revelle? If anyone survived like in Suju?” D.O. asked, letting his eyes wander around the bodies of the group. Chen suddenly looked horrified, and Lay only became more silent.

“Aw, it’s my favorite little man!” Her voice was always so sweet and gentle, and somehow her face could light up a room even with the dark circles around her eyes and the frailty of her small, sick little body. “You know, you coming to visit me is my favorite thing about every day!”

He was a curly headed little thing, optimistic and curious. The four-year-old little boy hopped up on the end of her bed, barely able to on his own with his short legs.

“Re-re-Irene,” he always struggled to get her name out of his mouth, “Look, look what I can do now! Look!”

Irene leaned in, ruffling his hair and watching his hands open up. Laying on his palms was a withered flower, inches from total death, the roots hanging with the smallest clumps of dirt still threaded between them. The little boy focused hard, eyes staring at the flower in his hands until it began to plump up before Irene’s eyes. Before a minute had passed, the flower was thriving as if it were the first blossom of Spring.

“Forces align, Lay, that was amazing! You’re getting so good, just look at you!” Irene’s smile was so bright, he thought there would be no dark corners hiding anywhere in the room. She was the whole reason he worked so hard at his Force. Lay was sure Irene was an angel.

“Re-Rene,” he’d totally forgotten the “I” in her name now, “Are you still sick?” he asked, now sitting between her legs under the covers of her bed, hands on his knees and looking directly back at her in the eye. He was such an intimate little thing, Irene always imagined he’d grow up to be an affectionate little ladies’ man.

She tucked some of her thin, blonde hair behind her ear, taking one of his little hands in hers. “Yes, Lay, I’m still real sick.”

Concern struck his eyes, though his little four-year-old mind couldn’t quite grasp the reality of what she was saying. Lay used this opportunity to ask her about someone he’d heard about from some of the adults around the village. “Are you sick like Ten was?”

Irene flinched at the sound of his name, ruffling Lay’s hair again as she tried to approach the situation delicately. “Yes, I am. How do you know about Ten? He died before you were even born.”

“I heard ur Ma and Dad talkin’ about him. Was he your brother?”

She nodded. “Yup, my little brother. He would be eighteen right now. We were hardly a year apart,” Irene smiled at Lay, suddenly caught up in memories. “You remind me a lot of Ten, you know that?”

“Really?” Lay asked, still with the flower in his hands, the clumps of dirt crumbling onto Irene’s bed.

“Oh, hey, sweetheart, why don’t you get a vase for that. Poor thing is just gonna wither away again if you dry it out like that. Here, hand it to me and go ask for a vase from my mom, alright?” Irene instructed, already taking the flower from his hands and helping him down from the bed in her place before sending him through the door. Without another word, he did just as Irene asked him to.

The sun was nearly set by the time they reached the marshland village of Revelle. Lay distinctly remembered the sound of fog-frogs croaking from the marshes under the bridges connecting the roads, but there was only a silence that greeted them. The marsh water flooding the city that was once a pretty clear green was now a thick, dark muck almost like a tar. The peace that settled over this small village, the calm that it was known for, now seemed to be eaten up by darkness.

Lay was now leading the group, not having been appointed but leading nonetheless. The Forces had heard lovely stories from Lay and Lully about how serene this place was, but the Red Force had pulled any light from out of the village. They couldn’t imagine it looking like anything other than what nightmares are made of now.

Silently, they looked each of the buildings up and down, Lay’s heart sinking the farther they made their way through the streets.

“You doin’ okay?” Suho asked, a hand on Lay’s shoulder.

The Healer nodded, not returning eye-contact. “It’s just… kind of hard to see my home like this, ya know?”

“Yeah…”

“What do we expect to find here?” Luhan asked, eyes fixed on the mucky waters beneath the bridges and flooding onto the streets from the overflow.

Suho took a breath before answering. “Ideas… Survivors… whatever is out here. We’re still fighting blind.”

Without anyone else noticing, Baekhyun’s eyes flicked and he turned away from the others, looking for a shadow to hide his expression in. D.O. might have been the only one in the group that noticed Baekhyun’s uncomfortable shift from Suho’s words.

“This might sound a little weird, but can we not stay at my old place?” Lay muttered to Suho, his usual optimism and light-heartedness washed out of him. Before he’d always seemed so distant from the dark reality of their world, but now it seems it had suddenly smacked him directly in the face.

Suho looked to Lay, trying to read his expression. Still confused, he replied, “Sure, that’s fine. Have any place in mind then?”

“There’s a hotel across the street from the old hospital. I don’t really want to stay there either, but I know we’ll need to access it. Especially for Sehun,” Lay answered, shifting his backpack on his shoulders and eyes glancing around them, unable to keep them focused on one place for more than a few seconds.

The Water Force nodded slightly, voice soft. “Alright, man, that sounds good. Lead the way.”

The eleven of them went deeper into the village, weeping willows hanging down onto the streets like curtains. As they made their way to the other end of the willow tree tunnel, Luhan couldn’t help but notice that Chen’s expression reminded him a lot of Sehun’s in Suju, and considering the little episode he had there, this could have meant a sign of trouble.

There was a clear view of the hospital across the street from their new campout in the hotel, especially since the entire front wall of the second floor in the main lobby had been blown out, lighting up the dark room. The dim light even stretched out into the hallways stretching from east to west.

Baekhyun and Kai made their way into a room with two beds, the door to the bathroom hanging on the hinges and the television screen shattered. Vines had grown up on the window, only allowing minimal light to enter.

“It’ll be nice to finally sleep on a bed again. Like, a real bed,” Baekhyun stated, plopping down at the edge of the bed closest to the bathroom. Even in being the most talkative of the two of them, it was clear he was distracted.

Kai made his way over to the window, trying to look out towards the hospital between the threaded vines. “Yeah…”

Without looking up, Baekhyun spoke. “You’ve changed.”

The Teleporter turned slowly, glancing down at what was left of his left arm before placing his gaze on Baek. “We all have.”

“I guess you’re right… I have changed but… I don’t think I made the right changes. Not fast enough, anyways.”

Kai leaned up against the wall, hand in his pocket. “What are you going on about?”

Baekhyun didn’t respond at first, voice betraying him. He couldn’t seem to find the words to explain it. Ever since the moment when Chanyeol first went missing, there was so much on his mind that he didn’t dare admit to anyone, and now that Chanyeol was gone, it all struck him that much harder. “I’ve made so many mistakes. In the past… and now. How different could things have panned out if I just had done the right thing?”

“You can’t blame yourself for that―”

“But I do. I knew Chanyeol was having a hard time, I knew something was wrong. I knew Chanyeol better than anybody and I never should have left him alone. He gave up because no one could give him security. He died because I wasn’t there…” Baekhyun trailed off, the edge of his sentences weak and breaking in his throat.

He stood in the dark, looking for words of encouragement, something to give Baek some sort of closer, but he was in the same boat. It almost felt wrong to comfort Baek when he knew he wouldn’t take his own advice.

“And like, it’s not even just with Chanyeol, like… I’ve been thinking back to everything bad I’ve ever done. Did people know I really cared about them? When I hurt people, did they know it was on accident? That I didn’t mean to?” Baekhyun’s voice had become this breathy, cracking whisper as he strained to get the words out through tears. “Tree of Life, I didn’t even apologize for half the I did. It’s not an excuse but I really didn’t know how to, I’m not good at it. Kai, did the people I care about even know that I respected them and loved them? Did I really let all those people meet death without explicitly knowing that I truly loved them?”

It seemed so ironic, but even as Baekhyun sat hunched up on the bed crying, he glowed faintly in the darkness of the room. The faint glow seemed to grow brighter with each little sob, then faded as he took struggled breaths. He seemed so delicate like this.

Kai looked away and back out the window, still leaned up against the wall. “I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately, too.” He scoffed, a crooked smile with sad eyes, “Like, every day,” his voice cracked, “I think about the first day, you know? When Taemin died and I just think about all the things I said and it was all sostupid. The person I cared about more than anything else in my life, he may as well had the same blood as me and I didn’t even say anything meaningful. Nothing important I just… I got angry at him. The last thing I did was cuss at him and I think about that all the time.”

For the first time, Baek saw Kai cry and it only broke his heart worse. It may have been the first time the two of them had ever shared such intimate thoughts with each other, and somehow it felt so defeating.

“Not sure what a little glow fish like you is gonna do against me!” Sydney called, standing at the other end of the field in her sports bra and a pair of capri exercise shorts. The two of them were both wearing a pair of fingerless gloves, hers black and his white. It was purely coincidental that it matched their respective Forces.

Baek pulled his fingers through his hair, smirking at her. “You can’t have shadows without light anyways, Sydney! Light is far superior, I’ll prove it!”

“Prove it with your strategy not your mouths,” Leeteuk called, pulling out his stopwatch while he made sure the other Trainees were seated on the benches nearby. It would have been a competition regardless, but with their friends watching, this may as well have been a fight to the death.

Both Sydney and Baekhyun started stretching, making faces at each other from across the sparring field while Master Leeteuk fought with his stopwatch.

“Give him hell, Sydney!” Lully called, Nana screaming over her and drowning her little voice out with: “EAT DIRT, GLOW !” and Master Leeteuk sending a look of warning. Nana only responded with the most innocent smile she could muster up.

Master Leeteuk raised an arm now. “Alright. Forces Set… and… go!”

A large black cloud immediately plumed up around Sydney’s form, slowly engulfing the entire field, little Baekhyun glowing in the thick clouds.

“I always hate watching them spar because you can never see ,” Kris grumbled, kicking back on the bleachers with a disappointed expression.

Nana reached back and smacked him in the face. “Shut up, Kris, nobody asked you,” she lowered her voice to mutter to herself, “But yeah, this .”

“You’re always such a coward, Sydney! Really, is this the best move you’ve got?” Baekhyun called out into the blackness, expelling white, glowing orbs from his hands and letting them float around his body. “Why don’t you come out of hiding, huh?”

Likely on cue, a dark figure formed between the clouds like some enormous monster. It was double in size compared to Baekhyun, dwarfing him in that darkness. For a moment, he was frightened before he remembered the tricks shadows could play on one if they didn’t keep their wits about them.

Baekhyun pulled forth more of his light energy, glowing brighter and brighter in the darkness, some of the clouds dispelling, shrinking the space of shadow that took up the field. “Sooner or later, I’m gonna spot you and you’re going to regret ever calling me a glow fish!”

“Unlikely!” Sydney called out, a swooping fog of shadow quickly coming up behind Baekhyun and blinding him like a black blanket in the dark.

The Light Force ducked beneath the shadow energy, transmitting more light from his body and sending forth orbs deeper into the  darkness to light up the way. “Hardly counts as an attack when you keep trying to get me from behind, Syd!”

“It’s called a strategy, numb nuts!” Another concentrated form of shadow energy swooped in from behind Baekhyun, now totally surrounding him and drowning out much of his light energy. “How much more energy can you use up from yourself, huh? Gotta be getting a little tired, right?”

Baekhyun sat in the darkness, totally blind now. She was right, he was getting tired using up much of his own energies to create the light. Sydney had made the dark fog so thick, it was hard for him to reach the light the surrounded them. He figured she had probably filled the entire field with darkness, and he wasn’t allowed to pull resources from beyond the field, either.

“Just means I’ll have to make my last his count then, right?” he called back, trying to get a feel of the energies circulating in the darkness. Shadow might not have been his forte, but it was a sister Force to Light and shared a lot of characteristics, giving him some pull in battle.

Deep in the darkness, there was an energy stronger than all the others. A living energy where all the shadow was coming from. Left with only his sense of touch, he let his fingertips survey the area around him, gathering up the little bit of his energy he had left to build up a strong attack.

“Looks like I win, huh?” Sydney sniggered from in the darkness, but Baekhyun would not be defeated.

“Not quite.” He zeroed in on her position, sending the brightest orb of light in her direction. The shadows dispersed immediately, and the light shot directly at her eyes. Her pupils shrunk down to the size of pinholes and she fell to her knees, the shadows around her dissipating as she lost control.

There was cheering from the bleachers, but it was cut short when they realized something was certainly wrong.

Sydney was rubbing her eyes over and over again, not responding to anyone around her. The other Trainees had already made their way by her side, trying to get her to say something.

“Syd, what’s going on? You alright?” Suho asked, a hand on her shoulder. Master Leeteuk had made his way over by now, asking the other Trainees to take a step back. Baekhyun stood in his place, a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Her voice was quiet, which was very odd for Sydney. She never sounded so faraway before. “I can’t see,” she practically whispered in distress, “I can’t see anything.”

“What do you mean you can’t see?” Sehun asked, trying to get a good look at her eyes. “Stop rubbing them, that’s probably not helping.”

Leeteuk knelt down beside her, holding her chin up to look him in the eye. “Is it totally dark? Blurry?”

Sydney shook her head, breathing heavy now. “No, uhm… I don’t know, it’s weird. Everything is white like I’m staring into the sun or something. I’m scared.” She was so calm for someone who’d been rendered blind, yet the fear and distress in her voice seemed so evident to the lot of them. She never sounded so frail―ever.

Baekhyun was still in his place, almost in a panic now. “What?” he muttered to himself, horrified.

“It’s not permanent is it?” she asked, Kris and Sehun helping her up to her feet.

“I dunno,” Master Leeteuk said, “You’ll have to go to the nursing wing to know for sure. Hopefully not.”

“Lay, will you come with me?” Sydney asked, which was something else genuinely rare for her to do. Even without tears, she seemed so vulnerable and delicate now.

He nodded, making his way to her side in an instant. “Yeah, of course.”

Everyone followed her to the nursing wing, but Baekhyun stayed behind. He had never felt so ashamed, so afraid, or so guilty in all his life.