“It’s awesome that we all get two week breaks at the same time,” Sehun says. Chanyeol walks past him, handing him a bottle of wolfsbane-enhanced beer, and Sehun smiles up at him. “It’s a bit freaky, but really awesome.”

“Agreed,” Baekhyun says. “We should totally do something about it.”

“You,” Amber says, coming up to him from behind and tapping him on the head lightly with a book she’s reading, “should be doing some studying, mister. You barely—“

“Shh!” Baekhyun says, shutting with his hand. “Today is a day of joy! Stop saying sad things.”

“You don’t have to hide that from us, Baek,” Kyungsoo says and burps. He’s eating ramen. “There’s nothing wrong with having some school trouble.”

“I know best,” Tao says, raising his arm.

“Not to mention me,” you add. “Can I get a beer too?”

“What should we do?” Suho speaks up. “I mean, we have two weeks we can spend together. We should totally go on a trip or something.”

“You think?” Kai asks, humming. “A trip would be nice. We were supposed to go camping a while ago.”

“Ages ago,” Sehun corrects. “I’d love to go hitchhiking.”

“Let’s go to the mountains, then,” you say, shrugging. Chanyeol brings you a normal beer. “For a week. Then we can come back and you can study, or whatever. I’m sure Chanyeol and Suho would like to spend some time with Eun and Heejin. Alone.”

“We can stay,” Tao says. “It can be the original Moon Pack trip to the mountains. See, it even sounds cool.”

“The Originals,” Baekhyun says, making a swooshing motion with his hands, as if presenting everyone a title in the air. “I like it. Bonding time, and all.”

“I’m in,” Sehun says. “But I’m not sleeping next to Suho. He snuggles way too much for my own liking.”

“Pssh,” Amber says. “You love snuggles. We all love snuggles. Everyone loves snuggles!”

“Not with Suho,” Sehun snorts.

“Hey!” Suho shouts, offended.

“I love you, man, but you hug like an octopus,” Sehun explains. “And you tend to drool.”

“That’s true,” you lie, teasing.

“You’re lying,” Suho says, scoffing. He looks at you all, and it’s hard not to smile. “You’re lying, right?”

Kai pats him on the shoulder sympathetically.

*

You let your bag flop down onto the grass as you stare at the tiny, wooden house in front of you. The boys all stand on your sides, also staring, and then you look at Kyungsoo in unison.

“That’s the ‘room’ you booked?” Kai asks him. Kyungsoo flushes red suddenly.

“It looked slightly better on the photo,” he says quietly.

“Did it look like a room? Because this is a…a cottage.”

“More like a hut,” Suho mutters. “Or a cabin, maybe?”

You shrug. “It’s quite charming.” Then, after a beat, “Please, don’t start any Red Riding Hood jokes. I beg of you.”

“Hi! Hello!” someone says, and you all turn to look at a very enthusiastic and happy looking guy wearing shorts, climbing shoes, a tank-top, and a cap. You can see strands of ash brown hair sticking out of it. “You were the ones that booked this house?”

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo says, unsure. “On Do Kyungsoo.”

“You’re the one?” the boy asks, smiling widely. He has a row of very white, very nice teeth. His smile is really beautiful. You go blind. “My name is Vernon, by the way, it’s nice to meet you!”

He goes to shake everyone’s hands. You’re so dumbfounded you barely even make your introductions, and then Vernon goes to open your house for you.

He steps to the side to show you the inside, and you all lean a little to peek inside.

There’re three beds. Two double, one single.

“Shotgun!” Baekhyun all but shouts, throwing his bag at the single bed. Chanyeol gets the same idea, but his bag bounces off the doorframe and hits Baekhyun, who’s closest, in the face. Baekhyun staggers back, falling right into Kyungsoo’s open arms, and Kyungsoo promptly stumbles over nothing. You all jump away from the two as they hit the ground with gruff ‘oomphs’.

Silence fills the air. Then Vernon laughs.

“Well you certainly look lively,” he says. “Here,” he adds, throwing the house key to Kai. He catches it mid-air. “You can buy beer and some snacks in the house over there,” he says, pointing at a slightly bigger wooden cabin a few yards away. “I’m afraid that you have to go to the city to eat dinner, though.”

“What about a shower?” Suho asks. “Toilet?”

“That cabin there,” Vernon answers, pointing to another, even smaller, cabin right in the middle of the field, with solar panels on its roof. “The water is warmed up with sun. So be economic and don’t use it all at once.”

At that, he smiles at you all, with the most charming, blinding smile, and he’s off.

You all look inside the cabin again. The roof is in a shape of a triangle, so the walls are slightly angled above the two beds that are on two opposite sides of the house. There’s a small, miserable-looking rug between the beds, and there’s one tiny shelf by the door. There’s a hatrack on the left side of the door, too, and Baekhyun’s bed, of course.

“That cabin looks miserable,” Kai sums up.

“I still think it’s quite charming,” you argue. “Good thing I brought some lamps. It doesn’t look like there’s actual electricity in here, does it?”

They all shake their heads ‘no’.

*

Chanyeol whistles at the view.

You’ve been walking for more than two hours now, climbing up using one of the easier mountains trails, and you finally reach the destination – the top of the mountain. The wind is blowing, the sun is shining, and it’s basically perfect for hiking, but you’re still a little breathless while the boys don’t seem to have broken a single sweat.

“Luhan would himself if he were here,” Kai mutters, looking down at the forest below your feet. The view is amazing; the forest is thick enough to remind you of the ocean, and the sun is high on the very clear sky. You can see the forest on your left, some cities in front of you, and even more mountains on your right.

“There’s a huge lake there,” Kyungsoo shouts from another place on the mountain. “Wow. It’s so blue!”

“We’re supposed to visit it tomorrow,” Suho says, taking off his backpack. He searches for a map for a few moments, then unfolds it, using Baekhyun’s back as a table to spread it on. Baek sighs a little but doesn’t make a move to get away. “Okay, so there’s a trail back from here,” Suho says. “It’s easier and shorter than the one we just made—and it leads through the forest, not through rocks and hills.”

“Awesome,” you say, plopping down onto the grass next to a huge rock. You lean on it and stretch out your limbs. “Who’s hungry?”

You unpack your food and water and you eat it while sitting around in a circle.

“This is quite nostalgic, isn’t it?” Kyungsoo says, interrupting the silence. It’s weird when the boys are silent. “I really do feel like we’ve just travelled in time.”

You all nod in unison, totally agreeing with him. You can’t quite imagine your life without Kris’s pack now. Without Sulli and Amber, Eun, and Min.

“I can’t quite remember how it was,” you admit. “Without the rest, that is.”

“Quiet,” Sehun mutters, nibbling on a sandwich.

“You’re never quiet,” Kai says with a roll of eyes.

“Okay, quieter,” Sehun replies with a sigh.

“Less cuddly,” Chanyeol adds.

“Hey, by the way,” Kyungsoo interrupts. “How are we gonna sleep tonight? Who sleeps with who? We need to divide into two threes.”

“I’m sleeping with Dal,” Kai says without a beat. The boys all groan.

“Nooo,” Chanyeol moans. “No, you’re not! It’s enough we have to see you all lovey-dovey on a daily basis, I do not want to be in one bed with you while you sleep, oh my God, ing ew!”

“Excuse me, you once said you were our biggest shipper!” you shout, throwing a balled-up paper at him. He catches it in his open palm.

“Doesn’t mean I want to hear you two dry-humping in the middle of the night. That one time in the locker room was plenty enough, thank you.”

The boys cackle. Suho chokes on his food. You and Kai both flush deep red.

“Geez,” you say. “Fine! I’m gonna sleep with Suho and Kyungsoo then!”

Kai whips his head at you, a betrayed puppy face expression on his face.

“But—“

“Shut it,” you say. “We’re not alone. We gotta take everyone’s opinions into account.”

“Since when?”

*

You’re deep in the forest, walking downhill the whole time, and the trees here are taller and more beautiful than the ones in your forest. You feel a bit guilty to admit that. There’s also many more rocks and random stones sticking out of the ground, tree roots twisting around them in all kinds of weird places.

You go along the mountain you’ve been on the top of, so that this huge, tall stone wall is on your left almost all the time. You let your fingers touch it as you walk down; trace the cracks and wild ivy with your fingertips, let your magic senses run wild, so that you can feel the strong overflow of nature here.

You feel your batteries charge with every touch, every feel of the magic flowing around, all the life jumping around the trees, the grass, the flowers, and the air. It’s quite refreshing to feel a slightly different kind of nature’s influence from the one you know.

“Dal,” you hear then. You turn your head to the right. Kai is looking intently at you and he raises his brows. “Finally. Been calling you for the last—“

You yelp, your foot slumping down something. Your ankle bends away, making you lose balance, and a pile of rocks falls from under your feet, sending you to the side and then down a few meters. You see Kai’s arm as he tries to snatch you upright, but he misses by a mere inch. You land on your , heavily, and then even more rocks fall from under you.

“,” Baekhyun says. “You okay?”

“Dal?” Kai asks, concerned. He takes a step towards you, stretching his arms out.

“I’m fine,” you mutter, laughing. “I slipped. God, I thought I was gonna roll down the hill like a ball.”

“You’d be the cutest ball of them all,” Chanyeol says, standing next to Kai. He stretches his arms towards you as well, and you take both his and Kai’s hands so they can heave you up. You notice that they’re keeping their distance, still standing on the path, while you’re a few meters away on the left, sitting on a pile of small rocks. When you stand up straight, you see that there’s a gap between you and them, a cleft in the stone, not too deep, but still pretty intimidating.

“Wow,” you say. “I almost ended up there?” you ask, making a face at the dark gap. Kai places his hands on your hips and picks you up with a grunt, careful not to drop you, and then he pats you down, getting rid of the dirt (more or less) and checking for injuries.

“I’m fine,” you say, slapping his hand away.

“You’re stupid,” he answers, scowling. “You could’ve twisted your ankle.”

“So what? It’d heal.”

“Yeah, but it hurts?” Kai says in a ‘duh’ tone.

“You were the one that started talking to me and made me lose balance!”

“You lost your balance because you don’t pay attention! And women are supposed to be the ones able to multi-task. And here you are, as graceful as a newborn horse.”

“Colt,” Suho says, absent-mindedly.

“Wait, why are we suddenly talking about guns?” Chanyeol asks, confused.

“A newborn horse is a colt,” Suho says.

“Who gives a damn?” Baekhyun counters, making a face.

“I do, colts are cute,” Kyungsoo says, shrugging. Baekhyun’s sour face deepens. Kai’s scowl grows even more agitated.

“Jesus!” you shout, raising your arms. “I’m fine! I slipped on a rock! That happens! If Xiumin were here, he’d have fallen five times already!”

“Guys,” Sehun says, his tone weirdly serious in the midst of all the arguing, and much louder than necessary. “Look at this.”

You all turn a bit hesitantly, you and Kai especially, but once you spot the thing he’s trying to show you, curiosity wins.

There is some weird kind of sigils on the side of the stone gap. You haven’t seen them before. They’re forged into the stone. The boys automatically create a tiny path for you to walk through, and you crouch down to look at the sings.

“Huh,” you say. “Suho, come here.”

Suho crouches down next to you, frowning down at the letters.

“Definitely Arabic,” he says, reaching out to touch the carvings. “That’s weird. What are Arabic carvings doing in the middle of Korean mountains? If it’s some kind of a tourist attraction, they’d most probably go for Gaelic, or even runic, but not Arabic.”

“It can’t be an attraction,” you say, touching the letters as well.

“Don’t fall in,” Kai reminds you.

“Oh hush,” you reply. “I’m not a child.”

“You almost fell into it just now,” Kai says, annoyed. “I’m not gonna take you out if you fall for real.”

“Well, I don’t need you taking me out, so I see no problem!”

“It was buried under all the rocks,” Suho says, completely ignoring the banter, still very focused on the letters. “And of course you had to knock them all over. Coincidence?”

“No such thing as coincidence,” Sehun says wisely.

“God dammit,” Kyungsoo sighs, his voice weak. “Something weird always has to happen to us. Always. I wonder what we’re gonna find next, a pot of gold? Maybe a unicorn?”

“That’s possible, seeing as you’re still a ,” Sehun teases, smirking. “You’d be his favorite.”

“Oh, shut up,” Kyungsoo replies. “I’m not the only here. I’m sure unicorns prefer more… prince-like victims.” He looks at Suho pointedly. Sehun, Chanyeol and Baekhyun all cackle. Suho tries not to blush too hard and ignores them.

“Watch out Suho, there’s a unicorn lurking around, thirsty for your virtue,” Baekhyun guffaws.

“How do you know I’m a ?” Suho asks then, glancing at them from the corner of his eye and raising his brows at them. The boys stop laughing abruptly, taken aback. Before they can call him out on a lie, Kai says, “Cut it out,” and they do.

“You know what, I’ll send a photo to Siwon,” you say, taking off your backpack to take out your phone. You take a few photos of the letters, peeking inside the gap, and you also use the lighter in your phone to see if the letters go all the way down until the gap closes.

They do.

“Freaky,” you mutter.

And then your phone becomes hot as burning, and you yelp, your palm reacting on its own; you throw the phone up and away from your aching hand, falling backwards onto your again, and Suho catches the phone mid-way, as it’s just about to disappear in the darkness of the cleft.

The boys seem mildly concerned about your mental health.

“It burned me!” you say, waving your hands around, trying to cool your skin down. When you look at your palms, there’s no sign of any kind of burn, even though it felt like you just touched a freaking stove.

“I don’t wike it,” Chanyeol says, using Chris Evans’s voice. Suho hands you your phone. You’re hesitant to take it at first, your hand flinching away at the first touch, but it’s normal. Nothing is burning. No fire involved.

“Ugh,” you say. “I’m gonna have bruises on my .”

*

“Please stop moving around,” Kai says, dejected.

“Then make some space!” Sehun says. Then Kai outward yells because of some reason, and you snap your eyes open in the darkness.

“Oh my God, just sleep already!” you shout. Kyungsoo jerks awake next to you, shocked, wide eyes shining in the darkness, and then he makes a very annoyed, but also kinda sad noise, letting his head fall back down onto the pillow.

“Let me sleep,” he moans. Chanyeol snores on the other bed.

“Stop kicking me!” Kai hisses. You hear them trashing around, grunting and puffing out angry breaths, and it’s really starting to get on your nerves.

“Guys,” Suho says.

“Get your foot off my face.”

“Move, then!”

“We’re sharing a double bed!”

“Yeah, sharing, so move!”

“I don’t have any space left to move, you ing .”

Then there’s a whiff of air, a super loud thud, and Kai’s ‘oomph’ echoes through the cabin as he ends up on the floor. When you squint at their bed, sticking your head out so that you can see above Suho’s shoulder, you see Sehun’s pale feet sticking out from the bed and Kai’s red eyes glowing in the complete darkness.

“I’m gonna throw you both out if you don’t stop fighting!” you shout, sitting up angrily, and trying to stare them into submission in complete darkness. The only thing you see are Kai’s and Sehun’s eyes, red and blue, and you can see the exact moment they look at each other, vexed.

Sehun lets out an offended ‘hmpf’ and turns away from Kai, making sure to wriggle around the bed for a few seconds more.

Kai goes back to bed, turning his back to Sehun’s, and you can literally hear him fuming. Then it’s quiet for a few moments. You begin to doze off when Sehun’s voice pierces the silence.

“I’m gonna fart into your back the whole night.”

“Try and I’ll strangle you,” Kai whispers.

You open the door to the cabin with pure will and some magic, letting it hit the outside of the cabin forcefully, and you hear them squealing, surprised at the sound and at the sudden wind. Kyungsoo wakes up again, shouts, and hits the wall with his head.

“Okay, okay!” Sehun screams. You shut the door. “Jesus , Dal!”

“One more word,” you threaten.

“He just shivered,” Kai informs you with a giggle.

“Shut. Up.”

“Yes ma’am.”

*

“Dal, look at this,” Chanyeol says. “It’s the Arabic signs again. On a tree this time.”

You take your backpack off, throwing it next to Baekhyun. You’re by the lake you saw yesterday from the mountain (it’s green and turquoise and so beautiful), lying on a blanket by the trees, hiding from the sun, and Chanyeol is a few meters away, deeper into the forest.

You stand by his side and look up at the row of lean letters.

“Did Siwon write back?” Chanyeol asks you.

“No,” you shake your head. “I recognize this sign, though,” you add, pointing at a letter in the lowest row. “Means ‘fire’, I think.”

“It’s pretty,” Chanyeol mutters. “Show me that photo from yesterday, would you?”

You take your phone out of your pocket, opening the gallery and then the photo of the carvings from yesterday. You zoom in, raising your arm up so that your phone is right next to the row of the carvings on the tree.

You stare at it for a while.

“It’s the same,” Chanyeol says. “Same signs. Do you think it’s anything magical?”

“I’m not getting any weird magic waves or anything, though,” you shake your head. “Just a slight buzz, but I think it’s coming from the forest itself.”

Chanyeol shrugs then. “Maybe it is a tourist thing, after all. Or maybe someone just decided to carve the signs in random places. Not everything has to be suspicious and evil, right?”

“Well, sorry for being suspicious,” you say with a sigh, not to anyone in particular. “But my spider senses are still tingling.”

“We shall never ignore your spider senses.”

*

You’re taking a shower that evening. The water is either cold or hot, there’s no in-between, and you struggle for a while before deciding to just use some magic and make it lukewarm. You’re washing your hair when the water becomes incredibly hot, all of a sudden, and you jump away, hot steam bursting out, burning your skin, droplets of water hitting your face like chunks of hot ash.

“What the,” you say, twisting your fingers a little to turn off the tap with telekinesis, because you obviously can’t lean over and get yourself under that boiling water. You gasp out for a while, skin red and raw, and you just really want to leave.

You exit the shower wrapped in a towel, cold air hitting you. Kai is outside, looking at you, worried, and he frowns at your red skin.

“You alright?” he asks. You take a step towards him and you see your skin healing faster the closer you are to him. Once it’s healed, the pain comes, shooting a wave of electricity down your spine. You tense for a few seconds, then you shiver once it passes.

“I tried to make the water normal,” you say, “but then it became boiling hot.”

“You think it’s the shower malfunctioning?” Kai asks you, taking the shower gel and sponge from you. “Or does it have something to do with the weird letters, burning phones, and fire symbols on trees?”

You shrug, sighing.

“See, that what happens when we try to go on vacation!”

*

“Heyah!” someone says, making you jump. You look over your shoulder. You’ve only woken up and you’re washing your mug in the water outside your cabin, by this tiny stone tap in the middle of a freaking field. Vernon is grinning at you. “Slept well? How are you guys doing?”

“Good,” you say, going back to washing the mug. “We went climbing two days ago, and to see that lake yesterday—“

“The Green Eye?” Vernon asks, circling the tap to stand on the other side of it and look at you. You nod at him.

“Yeah. It’s lovely.”

“One of your friends told me something about a bonfire?” Vernon prompts. “You want to do it today?”

“Sure,” you shrug. “We’ll be back around six, probably. Think you can get some wood for us by then?”

“Sure thing,” Vernon says, grinning. He takes a step back, ready to walk away with a smile.

“Hey, wait, wait,” you say in a haste. He stops walking, quirking a brow at you. “Are there any legends about fire here, or something?”

Vernon frowns then, the smile gone from his lips. “A fire?” he asks, surprised. “Uh. Not that I recall. Why?”

“It’s just that, uh,” you start, turning the tap off and waving your arms awkwardly, trying to dry them. “Well, we’ve seen some Arabic…carvings. In a stone, and a tree… And one of our friends studies history, so he knows a few symbols, and there’s something about fire in there, so, I just thought, you know. Maybe some local legends or something.”

Vernon thinks about it for a while longer.

“Nope,” he says. “No fire legends. There is a legend about a winged creature living underground, though.”

You feel the blood drain from your face.

“Oh. Is it good? Or is it evil?”

Vernon laughs. “It’s just a legend,” he says. “And I’m trying to scare you.”

And at that, he walks away, leaving you alone with your fear.

You go back to the cabin, the boys still in their beds, and you shut the door with a thud.

“We’re leaving this place,” you announce. “We can camp outside my house.”

*

You don’t leave because Kyungsoo really wants to go see some temple in the woods, and he’s so passionate about it you can’t say no. You still feel pretty twitchy and weird, and suddenly all the trees around you seem a little bit less peaceful than they did on the first day. They’re looming above you now.

“Of course they’re looming,” Kai says. “They’re trees.”

“Well, they’re hostile trees. Especially here.”

“Here where? This forest?”

“This particular chunk of forest.”

“Dal, are you picking up some magic vibes?’

“Not yet.”

Kai sighs.

You get to the temple. There’re a few people around, taking photos of half-destroyed columns and stone stairs broke in half in the middle of a room that used to be a ball room (at least that’s what the plate on the wall says). The place looks like ruins, with ivy growing all over the marble walls and stray chunks of walls thrown randomly around the floor that looks like it’s been made from pieces of glass.

Suho scoffs next to you.

“Those are not ruins,” he says. “It was probably built, like, a few years ago for tourists.”

“It’s a temple, it’s a magic temple, you simpleton!” Kyungsoo argues. “I can’t believe I’m friends with you.”

“It’s a new building,” Suho says, crossing his arms defensively on his chest.

“You just have to destroy my dreams, don’t you?”

“Dal,” Sehun says, grabbing your wrist and yanking you to the side. You yelp, stumbling a little. He practically pushes you towards a wall and you’d scold him, if it wasn’t for another set of identical Arabic letters right there, carved into the marble wall of the ‘temple’.

“Wow, okay, this is getting creepy,” you say, taking out your phone to take another photo. Only then you notice that you got a message from Siwon. You open it up and Sehun peeks at your phone as well.

From Siwon:
[Received 15:03]

Apparently it’s about enormous winged creatures of fire.

“Oh my God,” you whisper, looking up at Sehun. “Dragons. No, not dragons, they're Greek. Ifrits!”

“If what?”

A few tiny rocks fall from the roof of the temple suddenly. Well, a roof is too big of a word; it’s a chunk of a roof, what’s left of it, at least.

They land next to your feet. You and Sehun squint at them; they’re weird-looking, transparent. Like rocks made of glass. Really small, too.

As you stare at them, they combust spontaneously, making snapping sounds and forcing both you and Sehun to jump away from them.

You swallow hard. If the rocks fell from the roof—

You look up very, very slowly, in unison with Sehun. You see a long, grey tail curled around one of the columns, and the further you go, the more you see. You see a black body, four paws with long claws, an animal-like torso, and an almost human face with long, spiky ears, and a pair of antlers.

The animal goes rigid, screeches, opening its huge mouth and presenting you all a row of sharp teeth, and then it shakes a little. Just as you think that it can’t be worse than that, its head and paws literally set on fire, and it turns out to have wings, too.

It opens them up. They’re bigger than the monster itself, and they cast a huge shadow down on you and Sehun.

“.”

haha oops