“Horse,” Sehun spat, the itch in his throat doubling him over his knees, gasping for breaths between guttural hacks. Minhyun and his brother took a step back, Ren peeking from over Minhyun’s shoulder. Something like disgust poked out from under any concern expressed on their faces.

Taeyong ran his tongue over his teeth, bags under his eyes heavy and dark. “Why would I make that up? Did you know them differently than me? Cuz I’d sure love to be standing where you are now.”

“So you’re a necromancer like your father. That how you survived here these past few months?” Kai asked, unmoving.

“Brilliant deduction.”

“What about food?” D.O. asked.

“The undead will do a lot for the right person.”

“Bathroom?”

“Well I can’t ing get up and walk to the ter, can I?”

“I thought it smelled like piss in here. Not looking forward to finding out what your britches look like,” Sehun said, mouth snarled, tears still puddled in his eyes from his coughing fit.

“ you, . Must be nice to go through life with heroes and some fairytale reality where everyone is good and kind and just and all that other . Your heroes tore my father apart and smashed my ribcage in because they were threatened by my very existence, just because the Tree gifted me with the wrong Force, huh? Your heroes were cowards.” Taeyong fell back against the desk, limp fingers twitching as the cuff rubbed against the raw sores at his wrist. His eyes drooped, free arm laid across his belly. “I wasn’t given the same protections as you. They gave you a family. They took mine away.”

Sehun still had fire in his eyes, corner of his mouth twitching with every scrape from the ghostly claws at the back of his throat. “You had a lot of time to come up with that sob story, didn’t you piss-pants?”

Luhan placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sehun, stop.”

“Why should we trust him, huh?”

“Why shouldn’t we?” Tao said from the back of the group, “You said yourself that Jaejoong brought us here to find something as useful as he would be alive. We found a necromancer, one who claims to be his son. Nothing deceiving yet.” He kept his gaze on the cuffed boy, “You trust everyone far too easily until someone tells you to think critically. You’re still a child.”

“ off, Tao!”

“He’s right,” Luhan replied, squeezing tighter onto his brother’s shoulder. Sehun turned to face him, brows furrowed, mouth agape. “There’s more to everything than we know.”

“I tried speaking with Sir Grand Master Soo Man about it once before,” Suho began, “I could always tell he didn’t want to talk about Jaejoong or his brothers. He ran away from the topic and I always had a bad feeling about it. There’s no reason we can’t entertain Taeyong’s side of the story. We don’t have that many options, not with everyone around us dying, Sehun.”

Lay shouldered his way through the few standing in front of him. “Let me take a look at your wrists.”

Taeyong shifted uncomfortably, eyes fixed on Lay’s every move. He was still as he could be, ignoring the stings pulsating through his sore muscles and infected wounds. His eyes winced, toes curled up. “Watch it,” he hissed, head shivering. Lay gently covered the swollen cuts on Taeyong’s free wrist, directing the blood to the wound and healing it swiftly.

“Better?” Lay asked.

Taeyong nodded, staring at his clean, healthy wrist.

“So what’s up with you two?” D.O. said, the others matching his gaze on Minhyun and Ren at the back of the group. Ren stepped behind his brother, lips curling up.

“We don’t want trouble,” Minhyun answered.

“We found them in the library. The blonde one is a Force, I’m sure,” Tao added, the tone in his voice turning up just enough so that Minhyun and Ren knew he was directing them to answer.

Minhyun remained calm, though Chen could feel the static emanating from Ren’s body. “Something wrong with that?”

“You’re surrounded by Legends, what would the problem be?” Suho asked.

Minhyun glanced at Taeyong, still laying on the floor with one hand cuffed. “Apparently certain Forces aren’t looked at too kindly, right?” Minhyun’s brows raised, serene look on his face. “Should we really put our safety on the line for a bunch of strangers? Legends or not?”

“We haven’t hurt the Necromancer, now have we?” Sehun grumbled.

“Uncuff my other hand,” Taeyong demanded. Lay turned to Suho who hesitated before nodding his head. Lay removed the cuff, taking Taeyong’s wrist in his hand gently to heal it as he had the other. “So, my father sent for you?”

“Apparently,” D.O. replied.

“Must mean there’s something only I can do.”

“Or he just wanted us to come rescue his kid and he had the perfect pitch for it,” Sehun said, Luhan giving him a look yet again.

Taeyong didn’t respond. Minhyun looked to his brother, the two of them seeming to speak without words. The light had grown dim in the train station, the sun already setting beyond the horizon.

Suho sighed heavily, “Why don’t we all go find a place to camp together, get our stories straight. This is a lot to take in, huh?” He made his way past the group and into the train station lobby before turning back to face them. “If you have injuries, have Lay take a look at them,” he said more to Minhyun, Ren, and Taeyong than anyone else. With a few last glances, Suho made his way back outside of the train station and into the main street of Ruk.

~  ~

They’d gathered around a fire in the middle of a yard across the street from the library, Minhyun and Ren gathered near to each other, Taeyong hunched over in his place, glaring holes in everyone’s heads. Lay had found him a clean pair of clothes, found a place to gather water so he could wash up and get out of his dirty, bacteria-infested clothes. Sehun stared hard into the flames, staring into them like he saw the face of some hideous demon inside that he wanted dead.

“Are there others?” Kai asked, voice fighting to push through the phlegm that had gathered in the back of his throat.

Minhyun looked up, Ren mimicking the motion. “Hm? Other survivors?”

Kai nodded, the others looking at Minhyun expectantly.

The brunette hesitated, looking back into the fire before shaking his head. “Far as I know? No one else. Just be me and my brother… and him over there, apparently,” he motioned to Taeyong at the other side of the circle.

“What’s your story?”Chen asked, not even looking at them.

Minhyun turned to his brother, who was still being just as silent as he was when Tao and Chen found them in the library earlier. Chen didn’t think Ren had said a single word the entire time. “It’s always just been the two of us. Dad was on his way to the Capitol for business, Mom died from illness a long time ago. She died in Revelle, actually, since they had the best doctors. So it’s just been me and Ren ever since before it happened. The Wraiths came first, destroyed everything. The bodies turned into more Wraiths, usually. We took up residence in the library and we only leave for food and water. Lucky for us, the librarian’s home was in the back, and they had plenty of food for a while. Only recently did we have to leave to gather more.”

“You still don’t wanna tell us what Force your brother has?” Kai asked.

“You’ll find out on your own if you’re still around.”

“What did my dad say about finding me?” Taeyong asked suddenly.

Everyone turned to Sehun. “Just said you’d be helpful. Nothing else, really.”

“Must be saving the world involves fighting from his side,” Taeyong mumbled, barely audible to the others.

“Do you know what’s been going on on the other side?” Suho asked. Chen turned his attention to Taeyong and Suho, Sehun’s expression suddenly interested as well. Slowly, one by one, the rest of them started listening as intently as they could.

Taeyong took a deep breath. “It’s hard to say, I’m still not that in tune with it. I just feel a lot of pain, a lot of chaos. There’s darkness on that side, too. Like the Wraiths.”

“Looks like you don’t get peace even in death,” Baekhyun whispered.

“The Tree operates from both sides of the Spectrum, both sides of Life,” Suho stated, looking into his hands, tracing the lines in his palms. “The Masters taught us about all this stuff, what they understood of it, at least. The Forces exist as an extension of that Spectrum, to protect the Tree of Life…” he trailed off, brows furrowing.

“This is just too much,” Sehun sighed, shaking his head, coughs bubbling up from the pit of his stomach. “We still don’t even know what the Red Force is.”

“There’s still a lot we don’t know about our own planet, Sehun,” Xiumin said. “There’s still stuff uncharted on Caschaea.”

“That’s where I’m from,” Taeyong added. The others turned their attention to him.

“Tao, too,” Luhan said, voice soft.

Taeyong shot Tao a crooked smile. “I had a feeling. Everyone from Caschaea had that look. Like you’re covered in darkness. Everyone on the mainland treats the islanders like monsters. Isn’t that right, Tao?”

Tao didn’t respond, just stared back at him.

“But the Capitol protected you, so you still don’t even know the half of it. Lucky you, you must have a Force they really find worthwhile.”

The group fell quiet again for a moment. “Maybe we should go to Caschaea next?” Luhan asked, eyes still in the fire.

Tao shot up, turned his attention to Luhan immediately, mouth agape. Suho nodded his head. “That’s probably our best bet.” Tao turned to face Suho directly, now.

“Should we head that way tomorrow, then?” Lay asked, leaning closer to the fire.

“In a day or so,” Suho said softly. “Let’s just rest up a bit, gather some more food.” He paused. “It’ll be good for Sehun.”

“He’s infected, isn’t he?” Minhyun asked. Luhan twitched.

Kai stood up, heading across the street towards the library. “I’m gonna get some sleep. Chen,” Chen flinched, Kai stopped halfway, turned to face him, “you should come, too.”

Sehun stood next. “I’ll come, too.”

The three of them made their way away from the firelight and into the darkness, their footsteps crunching in the dirt and rocks that had littered the streets. Minhyun glanced back at Luhan, watching the blonde as he shifted in his seat.

“He’s not gonna die. I’m not gonna let it happen,” he muttered, eyes fixed on Lay.

~  ~

“The Tree of Life is a Force itself. The Legends, we’re sub-Forces that protect the Tree of Life, we protect Life,” Master Changmin explained, illustrating his lecture on the blackboard at the front of the classroom.

Suho sat at the front of the class, head in his hands, studying the chalk-illustrations. Focused. Changmin faced the class before continuing.

“The Tree is a vessel, a living, conscious vessel that is a link between both the physical realm and the spiritual realm. As Forces, we are even more closely a part of this Spectrum than regular humans on Exo. We act as the fingers and toes to the body, the body being the Tree.”

Suho raised his hand, though spoke before being called on. “So, is the Tree like… God then? How does this all work? What’s the extent of our knowledge of the Tree?”

Master Changmin glanced around the room, thinking. “Well, that’s a good question. We, as a people, we treat the Tree as our god, correct? Of course, the Tree is all we know, the giver of Life, the protector of Life and this planet and all which inhabits it. The long answer? The Tree could be a plethora of things, which powers that go further than the imagination could take us. The Tree could be God, but maybe something else put the Tree here and we’re all smaller pawns in a greater game. The short answer? We have no clue.”

“So, you’re saying the extent of our knowledge in terms of the Spectrum is limited?”

“To a crippling degree, yes.”

Suho fell silent, turning the information, or lack thereof, over in his head. Changmin continued, “This is all fairly new information, we’ve discovered. There’s many things we don’t know. Ask your classmate, Tao, we still have little to no knowledge for how Time works nor what it’s true limitations or potential use is. Most of the rare Forces are undocumented, unmeasured, uncharted. There’s so much we still don’t know.”

Li raised her hand next, “But I thought the Tree had linked all Forces with knowledge of the spiritual world, we only had to tap into that part of our psyche’s?”

Changmin fiddled with the chalk in his hands, pacing at the front of the class. “Well, the Tree has linked us all with knowledge, but see,” he laughed under his breath, “but that’s been incredibly romanticized over the media and in churches and the like. It’s not… it’s not as grand as that. The knowledge, Li, the knowledge is just your Force. It’s like having a second body. There’s no extra magic to it, that’s all it is.”

“So, how do we discover more of this knowledge?” Xiumin asked. The rest of the class had become interested in the subject matter, when more than half of them had practically been falling asleep.

Changmin stopped pacing, facing his classroom. “In discovery of what’s here in the land and in the waters. It’s the best way we have to measure the extent of the power of this world, what’s it’s capable of. There’s no real way of understanding the spirit world if we don’t understand the physical world.”

“What about Necromancers or Mediums? Couldn’t Jaejoong and his brothers have helped us?” Suho asked.

Changmin froze momentarily. “Necromancers and Mediums are… dangerous. They offset the balance. They deal in the opposite of Life; Death. When… when, when Forces dealing in dark matters such as that… bad things tend to happen. We keep a close eye on those kinds of Forces popping up. Luckily they’re rare but… I’d prefer if you didn’t bring them up again, alright?”

The class had fallen silent, everyone keeping their breaths hushed. Changmin and his class stared at each other, the students glancing back and forth at one another.

“Alright then, open your textbooks to page 257. There’s a lovely diagram there I think you should all take a look at, and read from the first paragraph to,” he flipped through the pages, “all the way to page 312. Read all of it, foot-notes and all. We’ll have a quiz on the material tomorrow, okay?”

~  ~

Tao was the last one around the campfire. The flames had simmered down into embers, not even hot enough to emanate any warmth. He had barely moved since talk of venturing to Caschaea came up. He hadn’t realized that Taeyong had stayed behind, too.

“You don’t want to go, do you?”

Tao flinched, piercing eyes finding the outline of Taeyong’s figure in the darkness.

“What’s your reason?”

“I have no reason to tell you. Just keep those questions to yourself, I have my own personal feelings about the place that I’d prefer never surfaced.”

“I saw them kill my father there. I don’t really wanna go back either.”

Tao didn’t respond, just turned his attention back to the dying embers.

“Bad things happen on that island. If you can get away, you never wanna go back, huh? There’s a reason Dragon’s Mouth guards it. There’s a lot of ed up there.”

Tao remained silent, Taeyong finally standing to join the others at the library, leaving the Force of Time to sit alone in the dark.