Lay wandered the empty, foggy streets of Revelle one last time, haunted by the ghosts that lurked behind broken walls and shattered windows. A chilling wind swept through the village and the cold stung him between the holes apparently left in his cloak. He didn’t remember them being there, but he had hardly been aware of just how dire their situation was up until they arrived in his hometown.

The Legends would be headed to Ruk before nightfall as soon as they retrieved Chen from Lully’s house. He’d been flooded with memories of Irene all the while, yet today, a very specific memory played itself over and over again. The memory he had shoved away for so many years. The only other soul around the Capitol that knew of it was Li, and now she was gone. Lay never wanted to face it again, but when Taemin died, how Kai’s screams of anguish rang in his ears, the looks that Luhan sends his way when Sehun falls over or falls into a coughing fit, they all force the memory to bubble back up to the surface and squirm through his body. Violating.

~  ~

Everyone’s voices sounded like they were underwater. He almost wondered if he were going deaf, more and more so as his heart beat faster and faster. Doctors Max and Yuri pulled Lay through the halls, telling him over and over again to be brave. To try his hardest and do what he can. But he couldn’t understand. It was all too much rushing at him at once. She told him he had more time.

Max blasted the doors to Irene’s room open, Yuri lifting Lay up into her arms and making her way between her parents. Every cry from Irene’s mother, every tear that fell on Irene’s limp body shook him deep inside. Tears were already welled up in his eyes.

“You’ve been training for this Lay. It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright. Please, ma’am, I need you to step away from Irene’s body for a moment. Only a moment,” Doctor Max explained, Yuri now setting Lay near to Irene’s tiny, lifeless body in the bed. The place where all of their memories were. He could only glance, but he was taking in so much information. The blood was already pooling up underneath her body, her skin was growing paler and paler. Her blue eyes were even halfway open, mouth slightly agape. Her lips were nearly the same color as her skin and already chapped.

Irene’s mother stopped sobbing for a moment, tucking a curl behind Lay’s ear, eyes looking directly at him. “Lay, baby, please. Bring her back to us. Bring her back, bring Irene back to me. My baby, I can’t lose another baby!” It didn’t take much to push her back over the edge and into tears.

So many voices in the room talking to him, but he couldn’t stop focusing on anything else. Irene’s body, her lifeless, soulless body. He was so aware of it. So aware that the life, the warmth he remembered that emanated off of her, even if only faintly in her last few days, was now gone. Withered away. He couldn’t find it anywhere in that room and he didn’t even have time to cope. So many voices.

“Come on, Lay, focus. You can do this, sweetheart,” Doctor Yuri encouraged, taking his hands in hers and directing them to Irene’s body. It was cold and stiff. The tears welled up again, blinding him. She wasn’t there with him anymore and he was so scared.

He was yet still a baby, but he gathered what strength he had and searched desperately for that hint of life. That small part of her soul somewhere under all that death and sickness. He searched long and hard, but he couldn’t seem to find it. “Renee,” his little voice called out, barely above a whisper, “Renee, come back.” His voice began to crack under the pressure. He felt Irene’s mother and father staring at him, felt the doctors and their expectations. The only thing he didn’t feel was Irene’s soul reaching back to him. It simply wasn’t there. Her soul had long since departed.

“Try harder,” Irene’s mother began, clasping a hand on his shoulder. He could feel her nails digging into him. He sat, stiff, too frightened to truly move. “Try harder, Lay. Bring her back to me, I know you can!”

“Come on, son,” now Irene’s father was encouraging him on, “You’ve been practicing for a long time.”

But he never brought the flowers back from the grave. They were only wilted, just barely clinging to life. A wilted flower wasn’t the same as a lifeless person. Not even a little bit. Not at all.

Irene’s mother forced Lay’s hands harder onto Irene’s body. “Come on, Lay! Come on, bring her back! Please, Tree of Life, bring Irene back to me! Please!” She was hysterical, shaking and a sobbing mess. The more she went on, the less anyone could decipher the sounds coming out of .

“Please, Irenee! Please, come back!” Lay cried, sobbing. He wasn’t even trying to bring her back for Irene’s parents anymore. He just wanted her back. Everything was okay when Irene was there. He was safe. He wasn’t afraid.

“You selfish little monster, bring her back! Cooperate, damn it!” Irene’s mother finally spurted out, limbs waving about frantically. Yuri and Max did their best to restrain her, and now Lay could hear Irene’s father sobbing like he’d never heard a grown man cry before. A ringing suddenly sounded in his ears and it drowned out everyone in the room. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Irene’s dead body.

She was gone.

~  ~

They left it up to Suho to gather Chen from Lully’s mother and sister. It was a job no one wanted to take, but knew it was necessary.

“Will he really be useful to us? I mean… you know, the way he is now?” Sehun asked Luhan, glancing across the group. Kris was a good few feet away from everyone. It struck Sehun as strange but not enough to question it. He really had become less and less talkative as the days passed.

Luhan looked to Sehun and then sighed, melancholy sweeping over his face. “We need Chen. He’s one of us. There’s no other Forces left and it’s our job to protect the Tree. I don’t know how he’ll help, but I know… I know we need him and that’s good enough reason to bring him along. Besides, we need to stick together. You saw what happens when we get separated.”

Not too far from Sehun and Luhan, Baekhyun flinched at what he’d overheard Luhan say, and he wondered if the memory would ever stop haunting him.

Shortly after, Suho walked through the hotel door with Chen right behind. Despite his optimistic expression, it was clear there was melancholy seeping from his eyes that mirrored Chen’s. It must have been hell pulling him away from that house.

“We leaving right away?” D.O. asked, voice caught in his throat as it had been a while since he last spoke up.

Suho nodded. “Yeah, we should. Could be come up by Wraiths and I’d like to make as much ground tonight as possible. Besides, there’s nothing here for us. If what Sehun told us is true, we’re better off heading to Ruk as soon as possible. Can’t pass up anything helpful, right?”

“Right,” a few of the others responded weakly, the group gathering their things. Tao made his way near Chen, still opting to keep an eye on him for the time being. Strange things were happening around that boy, and Tao meant to get to the bottom of it, especially if it had to do with the Tree and the spirit realm. Being the only other person in the group to have seen these ghostly figures, he felt more well versed on the matter than anyone else.

Luhan kept Sehun close, offering to carry his things for him. Sehun knew Luhan was only babying him more than usual because he was ill, but something about it was bothering him. There was an underlying reason beneath it all and it left an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. A twinge of something horrible that he knew he should ponder but didn’t have the motivation to. He’d worry about it later.

The group headed out the door and made their way West towards Ruk, the lot of them more silent than they’d ever been.

~  ~

He ran away as far as he could. Shut it all out and made his way fast towards the treeline. Everything looked the same but he knew it wasn’t. All the faces around him, his brothers and his mother, they were them but they weren’t. It was like he’d woken up in an alternate reality where everyone and everything was the same but it all felt wrong. Lines were crooked and nothing was soft. Colors were harsh and voices like knives in his ears. He had to get away. Get away and stay away.

This wasn’t real. He didn’t want it.

He flew between the trees in the forest, went in as deep as he could until he was covered in the shadows of the canopy. He wasn’t himself. He didn’t even know who he was anymore. Who is brothers were. His mother.

That wasn’t his family back there. It couldn’t be. Dad was gone.

~  ~

Night came early. They were nearing the middle of Autumn and the temperatures were getting colder and colder. With the parasite infecting the planet, the seasons were even more askew, distorted. Nothing was as it should be. There was no color in this place. It was but a land of desolation and despair.

They camped near the clearing of the woods. They were nearly halfway to Ruk by now, so the trip wouldn’t be too long the next day if only they would wake early in the morning and leave immediately. Suho and Lay built a fire a few feet away from where they would sleep, Tao, Chen, Baekhyun, and Kai closer to the edge of the woods. Chen and Baekhyun because they couldn’t stand to be near the fire. Kai because he didn’t want to be near anyone else. Tao because he needed to keep an eye on Chen.

But Xiumin stared into the fire. Became hypnotized by it. He thought he should’ve hated it, too. Like Baekhyun and Chen did. He lost someone to flames as well, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of it. He saw Sulli’s smile in that fire, felt her warmth on his skin. The flames replayed memories they had together at the bonfires in Suju. There was a moment he could have sworn he heard her smile and laugh again. As if she were right next to him. Xiumin wondered if her ghost were haunting him. It may have been a comforting thought, actually.

Kris stood up and made his way away from the fire, walking out into the open fields alone. He wouldn’t go near Sehun or Luhan, and finally Sehun had to wonder what on earth was eating him so restlessly from within. He wanted to go after him, see if he was alright, but they weren’t that close. Not like he was to Luhan. And Sehun was never good at that sort of thing. “Maybe you should go talk to him?” he pointed in Kris’ direction, looking to his elder brother with concern.

The eldest looked up from the fire, glancing at Sehun before turning his focus to Kris who was still making his way into the fields. “You know he doesn’t like to talk about this sort of thing, Sehun. He just needs time alone, I’m sure. Let him be.”

“You sure?” Sehun pressed, but Luhan only nodded and shrugged the matter off. Sehun could see that his older brother was distracted by something. Both of them were, actually, but he couldn’t quite figure it out. He had a hunch it was about him, though. “Hey,” he began again, trying to find his voice, “don’t worry about me, either. I’ll be fine.”

Luhan stared at him for a moment, then smiled sadly. “You’re right. You’ll be okay. You’re a fighter, right?”

Sehun chuckled weakly. “Sure.”

~  ~

Something like a sniffling and hitched breathing roused Kai from his sleep. He opened his eyes and found nothing but blackness surrounding him, but the sounds continued and grew more and more intense. He tried to remember who had been sleeping near him once they put the fire out.

Forced cries came from the man now. Struggling. Pain. Whatever was happening, Kai was sure they were having a nightmare. He tried to sit himself upright, as best as he could with one arm, groping around for a bag with matches in it. Kai struggled to light the match, but once it was lit, he saw whom it was.

Tao was laid up against a tree only a few feet from him and Chen, tears streaming down his face and brows nearly meeting between his eyes. His skin glowed in the fire light; he’d been sweating profusely. His whole body was shaking and he continued to cry out, hyperventilating now.

Kai made his way over towards Tao on his knees. “Tao!” he shouted, though he still had his voice low in a whisper. “Tao, wake up! Tao!”

With a jolt, Tao’s eyes shot open wide and bloodshot. He looked directly into Kai’s gaze, some sort of savage animosity in them. And beneath that, horror. It had been a long time since Kai had any reason to actually fear Tao, but he sat frozen in place as they stared at each other.

“What do you want?” Tao finally hissed back, eyes still wide and staring. Glaring.

Kai took a breath. “You were having a nightmare. Just wanted to make sure you were alright, it seemed pretty bad. You woke me up.”

“Sorry for waking you up. Go back to your place, I’m fine.”

Doing just as he was told, Kai rolled his eyes and made his way back to his sleeping space on his knees, blowing out the match just before the flame met with his fingers. As hard and harsh as Tao was, always had been, it struck Kai as odd that he would have such intense nightmares. The others always knew him to be fearless. Unfeeling. Yet Kai supposed that as much as they’d all been through, even the hardest people could be made frail. Even Tao was human.

Author's Note: Hey guys! Thanks for reading! This fanfiction is my baby, so if you like it, don't forget to upvote and comment! Also, for more goodies, visit the tumblr blog: exoplanet-treeoflife.tumblr.com!

~Lully