Tao took a tentative sip from his coffee before placing it back onto it’s coaster, the bitter taste hardly enough to keep him awake. He’d been feeling tired for days now, no matter how much sleep he seemed to get his headache would never ease. He looked around the cafe tiredly before he finally straightened out his newspaper, although he had never really cared for human antics he’d observed that reading the paper was of benefit to him. However, his brow creased as he read the headline on the first page;

             ‘Extraterrestrials sighted…’ 

    He frowned and folded the paper in half to get a better view of the article, a familiar sense of anxiety washing over him. This article was about him. About them. He stared intently at the picture provided; ten white lights surrounded by the night sky. ’Only ten of us… but there were twelve before.’ 

    Tao unfurled the paper to see if there had been anything further written about the lights spotted in the sky, but he was distracted by the hum of a light destined to break. He recoiled at the sound of the glass bulb shattering - his concentration completely broken. His eyes found the light, but it wasn’t shattering any more. It was frozen - the shards held still by time. Tao stood slowly, hoping that he would wake from the nightmare soon. With a desperate expression he looked to the man that had been sitting at the table beside him, only to find that he was also frozen with his coffee pressed to his lips. ‘Please, no,’ Tao begged, ‘Tell me this isn’t real.’ Tao slowly walked to the next man, inspecting the lifeless, silver watch the man adorned. 

    ‘Why? I made it through the maze,’ Tao pondered as the anxiety he had felt before exponentially increased within him. It didn’t make sense; they were supposed to be free. ‘Maybe I really am dreaming,’ He reasoned as he walked towards the door, making his way through the shards of glass time refused to let go of. He had hoped that as he walked through the glass he would have woken up - like pain tends to do in dreams. Instead the glass bounced off of him as he walked through it; ‘This is real.’ 

    The realisation that he had his powers back crushed him; what happened to the change they were promised? He ran towards the door, unable to breathe. As he stood on the step outside the cafe he felt the hollow click of time beginning to move again. He couldn’t control his powers at all anymore. ‘Is it the same for the others?’ He wondered as he watched the people of Barcelona spring back to life as if nothing had ever happened, as if time had never stopped, as if they weren’t all in danger beyond what they could ever imagine. Mama was on the move again.

                        …

    Chanyeol could feel the cold of the air around him as he lay on an unfamiliar patch of Earth. He removed his hat from his eyes and sat up, confused as to how he ended up in such a baron land. Surely he would have remembered falling asleep in a desert. He pulled a watch out of the inner pocket of his coat and sighed as he watched the seconds’ hand dance back and forth; broken.

    As the man walked across the expanse of desert he tried to figure out a solution as to how he ended up where he was; but the only means he could think of were ones he wasn’t prepared to accept. “Stranger things have happened,” He mumbled to himself as he forced a smile onto his face, a smile which only seemed to fade more and more as he took each step. “It feels like I'm looking for something,” Chanyeol whispered as he rubbed his temples patiently, “but what?” 

    Slowly the desert landscape began to change, the harsh scrub replaced with soft fallen debris, and lonely trees stood between winding fingers of mist. Chanyeol walked through the trees, an eerie and wonted feeling settling within him; lost. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he scanned the woods with scared and untrusting eyes. ‘Where are you?’ His thoughts asked bitterly. This was Mama’s way of telling him he was still lost. He was still trapped within her maze. The freedom she had with was nothing more than a painful hoax; a good dream he couldn’t come back to. ‘Lies. You’re full of lies!’ He seethed as anger began to consume him, pounding within his skull as if it were desperate to be set free.

    Then it clicked. The headache he had been ignoring for far too long had indeed been something trying to escape. He shut his eyes tight and cautiously raised a hand into the air. ‘I should have figured it out sooner.’

    His world went black as the flames he had been suppressing seemingly set fire to oxygen. He listened to the familiar sound of forest fire; the crackling of flame consuming wood. He inhaled the smoke and felt his headache begin to lift, like it were a drug. He hadn’t missed this. Chanyeol had hoped he’d kicked the habit.

    But sometimes the things we hate about ourselves the most are the things we can never change…

    Not even with all the empty promises in the world.