I had no idea where we were or if we were getting closer to finding the next mage on our list. Sehun walked ahead of us by a few feet and refused to give me the map when I asked him to, saying he knew better since he had the power of wind under his control.

Tao and Kai were walking directly behind Sehun and I was constantly staring at their backs as we walked ahead to find the place of my dream. We'd been walking since the second we left the house, and it had passed several hours. At first, I thought it'd be okay, but when the sun started to set I realized just how long we'd been walking for without a break for food or water. The mages might have been alright with walking for so long without using the bathroom or drinking water or eating something, but I obviously wasn't.

I wasn't a mage like them, and because I hadn't been given the time to train since finding Tao, my body was starting to reject the amount of exercise I was forcing it to do now. They kept walking, oblivious to my distress, but I eventually had enough of the stress placed on my body and had to stop moving completely. Tao had my backpack, so it wasn't like I could open my bag and pull out a bottle of water, and Kai was pretty quick at walking and probably wouldn't turn around to see if I were okay.

Sehun soon glanced over his shoulder as I took a break to calm myself down, and stopped walking all together. He almost caused for Tao and Kai to bump straight into him, but they successfully caught themselves and turned around to see if I were okay. Then, the three of them were laughing so hard that I was afraid they lost their sanity or something.

"W-what are you laughing at?" I couldn't help but sputter as I stared up at them, watching with hesitant curiosity as Tao pulled a water bottle out of the backpack and walked back towards me with it.

"Sometimes we forget you're only a human." Tao explained, the apology shining in his eyes as he offered the water to me. I took the bottle with a grateful smile and I swear I emptied the bottle within moments of grasping it in my hands, and I heard the mages chuckling at me in amusement.

"How do you do it?" I asked them, shaking my head as I thought about how energetic they were even after hours of no break.

"Well, we didn't eat for 300 years, so a day without food shouldn't be too hard." Sehun remarked before he reached into the backpack Tao was carrying before holding out a bag of food to me, "You on the other hand, have no reason to starve for even half a day."

I felt guilty eating and taking a break when the three of them weren't, but then they surprised me by taking seats on the ground where they stood, showing me how exhausted they actually were. With a smile, I let myself sit down on the ground with them and ate a portion of the food I'd been given in the bag, and when I was done, I ended up handing the rest of it to Sehun, who ate it without another word said about it. Tao and Kai ended up splitting a bag of food between them as well, though we all knew they'd be able to eat at least three bags each. I suppose they only did that to make me feel better about the small amount I was able to eat.

It was strange for me to eat this much of food, since I often ate a lot more than the amount I was only able to finish now. If Cook Park saw how much I was eating, she'd say I was finally learning how to be a girl, but be worried at the same time since it certainly wasn't very healthy to be eating so little. Then again, it's not like I had become stick thin or anything. I'd know because of the clothes I was wearing. We found a whole bunch of clothes in the house we were living in and thankfully, we were all able to fit into some of the clothes, or things would have become a little awkward. 

Anyway, the clothes I wore were a little big, but not enough to make me look like I was looking ill or anything of that nature. I just... didn't weigh as much as I had before this journey started, but perhaps that was a side effect of this journey.

When they all decided we had enough time to rest, Kai slowly crawled over to me and turned around, making me blink dumbly as I stared at his crouched back. Just what did he want me to- oh, I knew what he wanted me to do. It was an embarrassing thought, but I just knew that it'd be easier for me to just go along with what they wanted than slow our adventure down further. With a sigh of defeat, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and he pulled my legs up so that they were resting on either side of his waist, and then we were off again to continue our search for Chen.

Unfortunately, it took us until the sun started to rise again before the three of them stopped with frowns on their faces. I had dozed off as I was carried by Kai, but had woken in up due to the lack of movement, only to feel my heart constrict at the mass of storm clouds I saw ahead of us.

"Help me" As Kai hadn't actually called out to me to help him, I forgot that it was possible for the boxes to give me the hint that yes, they were close by; and yes, they wanted me to come and find it as quickly as possible.

"Why did we stop?" I asked Kai, who seemed to be surprised that I was now awake. His surprise quickly formed into a smirk I was slowly getting used to, and Kai let me down from his back before he turned his attention to the storm.

"That storm. Chen's using a lot of power to make a storm that large." Sehun informed me, waving a hand towards the storm as if it were obvious enough for me to understand.

"He's using so much of his power in a concentrated area that we're unable to use our own powers from even this much of a distance away." Tao on his teeth and then sent me a worried grin, "We can't take you in there."

"I have to go... alone?" I wasn't ever afraid of going somewhere alone before, but that was before I felt the terror that the streaks of light in the sky put me through. I wanted nothing more than to just turn back and return to the home we'd been staying in, but a gentle nudge given to me by Sehun was enough to snap me back to reality and nod before I left the trio and walked right into the storm.

Without taking many steps ahead, I found myself in part of the area that was covered by the storm clouds, though they did stretch on for miles. Being in the presence of the storm clouds was much more terrifying now that I knew what they were and what they could do, and I felt myself take a shaky gasp; I was really not ready to look for this box after all.

I glanced down at myself to try and calm myself down when I realized something. The grass blades beneath my feet didn't look burnt. In fact, they looked much like the ones from the wind turbine field; thriving and swaying under the wind provided by the brewing storm. I felt the desire to just stand there and take in the beauty around me, yet I knew I couldn't afford to do so. I had come here for a reason and now wasn't the time to delay.

My eyes were restlessly searching the area around me, and I knew what I was looking for now; the forest in which the box was resting.

Suddenly, I saw a strand of light flash in the sky and I closed my eyes as I flinched, hoping to escape from the danger. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the forest, and looked up to make sure I was still in the area covered by the storm clouds.

"Help me." Hearing the sharp voice in the air was enough to snap me back to reality and I remembered again that I was there for a reason. I had to find that box, and looked around me to see if there was a way for me to go that looked similar to what I saw in my dream. It was then that a strand of light came down and struck a tree, making it burst into flames. I wanted to cry because that was exactly as it went in my dream, and panic filled me. Who cared about the box, if the box was going to get me killed anyway?!

I didn't wait for the rest of the trees to catch on fire, and ran off as quickly as I could so that I would actually be able to find the next box before turning into barbecue. I was still panicking, of course, but I knew that the mage was waiting for me to wake him up and that was enough to keep me from stopping wherever I was. I threw determined glances over my shoulder to dare the fire to give me everything it got; I wouldn't go down until I had the next box safely in my hands.

But of course, like in my dream, glancing back so often only ended up being my downfall and I yelped as my foot got caught on some tree's root before I started to roll down a hill. How a hill made it to the middle of a forest, I didn't know, and whoever designed the landscape was crazy, but it wasn't like I could change much about it since I was too busy feeling my body get bruised and battered by my own clumsiness. 

When I found myself still, I almost wanted to cry in relief because at least I wasn't getting hurt by the forest anymore. Unfortunately, when I stopped rolling, I ended up grasping onto whatever I rolled onto, and looked up to see Kai's unamused face perfectly. How the three of them got into the forest when they couldn't get passed Chen's powers was beyond me, but I was more relieved to see them before I died. I wanted to thank them for coming for me, but their gazes were elsewhere; on the trees that surrounded us that were covered in flames yet somehow stopped from coming any closer to us by some sort of invisible force.

"He's using too much power." Sehun muttered in annoyance, shaking his head.

"Kris is going to kill him." Tao continued with a shake of his own head, his arms crossed over his chest.

Suddenly, I remembered what I was there for and jumped off of the ground, leaving the trio dumbfounded as I searched the ground desperately for a sign of the box; and there it was in the crevice I saw in my dream. I ran over to it and crouched before it, grinning at the familiar black velvet box with silver letters imprinted on it's surface. The only difference between this box and the others was that this one was covered in soil and I cringed like I did in my dream before I glanced at myself and sighed in horror at the mess I was currently in. Though that was a tragedy in itself, there were more pressing matters at hand and I reached my hand into the crevice the box was in and wrapped my hand around the box, tugging at it with all the strength I could muster for it to pull out of the small space.

Again, perhaps that wasn't the wisest move, because I used so much force to pull the box out that I ended up losing balance when it was finally freed.

Thee box flew out of my hand as I fell backwards and I heard a gasp as I turned my head quickly to see if it'd be okay. It ended up falling right into Tao's outstretched hands, with the tall male sighing in relief and dusting off the sides as I slowly stood and walked back to him. Wordlessly, Tao handed the box over to me. I didn't want to delay their time to reunite any further, so I quickly opened the box and studied the ring in my hands. It was silver like the others, and had the same silver gems as well. The only difference was the symbol, as it was different for each of the mages. This symbol reminded me of a scorpion, though what a scorpion had in relation to the strands of light in the sky, I didn't know.

"Hurry up." Kai was sounding impatient, and though I didn't like the tone he was using to speak to me, I understood perfectly how desperate the three of them were to find another one of their friends.

So, I took the ring out of the box, and without me even wishing for it to change size, it did, and I slipped it onto the third finger on my right hand, right next to Tao's ring. Then, before the bright light could blind me, I ducked my head and waited for the three of them to start their excited greetings toward the new mage.

And, it was as expected.

"Chen!" the three of them practically pounced on him, though Tao was first to hug the male and the other two quickly grabbed hold of the pair. I watched on in amusement because of how adorable the three of them tended to be without meaning to.

The one named Chen just stood there, and the other three slowly pulled back to look at him with furrowed eyebrows. Apparently, his behavior was odd to them, or else they probably wouldn't be looking at him like he was crazy.

"Who are you?" Chen asked. At first, I thought he was talking to me and I started to open my mouth before I realized something.

He wasn't looking at me as he spoke; but at the other three mages.