Sulli is trying to focus on finding whoever (or whatever) is currently causing mayhem in their city when she hears someone knock at the door. She opens her eyes, realizing that she’s out of breath, and then the door opens, revealing Siwon behind it.

It’s a bit odd, seeing as the two of them aren’t really close. Siwon did give Sulli some tips on how to use her powers a few times in the past, though; she feels like it’s time for another lesson, or something like that. Judging from Siwon’s serious face, it is.

What she doesn’t suspect is that he’s going to come with a mug of tea in his hand.

“Here,” the man says, entering the guest room that Sulli is currently occupying in Kai’s loft, and closes the door behind himself. Sulli just stares at him, a bit hazy after her session. Siwon stands in front of her, by the bed, and offers her the mug. “It’s a special tea. I’ve added some herbs to it; the mug has runes engraved on the inside. It’ll make your visions sharper and you won’t get tired as much.”

Sulli takes the mug a little hesitantly, her fingers twitching at the warmth.

“Thanks,” she says quietly, feeling her head swimming.

“You’ve been in here for a while now,” Siwon notes. “You should take a short break.”

Sulli looks at the clock on the wall as she takes the first sip of her bitter tea, and cringes at both the time and the taste of the thing Siwon just gave her. She then gives the man a look, and Siwon reacts with a snort.

“Yep,” he says. “Not so good on the tongue. Sorry about that.”

Sulli wants to say that it tastes like dirt, but she’s too busy cringing.

“Was it the first time you’ve had a vision like this?” Siwon asks her before she can comment on the fluid. Sulli nods, still trying to fight back the shivers she’s getting. “Must be all the training you’ve done with Father.”

“He told me they’re going to come sooner or later,” she admits, placing the mug between her legs. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed. Siwon takes her words as a cue to sit down on the edge of the said bed, too, and he’s looking at her carefully now. “He said that I might start getting vibrations, sensations, maybe even images of things that are going to happen.”

“Did he train you for it?”

“He told me how to handle it if it ever happens.”

“So you have it under control, then?”

“More or less.”

Siwon gives her a once-over. “You can go into shock when you’re having visions. You know that, right?”

Sulli nods and takes another sip of her tea.

“You should try to swallow it all in one go,” Siwon suggests. “Like medicine.”

Sulli shoots him a look that says ‘you’re telling me now?’ and Siwon cracks a smile.

An hour later Siwon is gone from Kai’s loft and Kyungsoo comes to check up on Sulli. She’s pale, and her breathing is shallow; he forces her to stop using her powers and come downstairs to take a nap. It’s dinner time, so Kyungsoo goes around to making some food, while the majority of the pack is scattered around the loft. Sulli settles on the couch, on the opposite of where Baekhyun is already sleeping. She feels anxious about going to sleep again.

“Called Dal,” says Kai, entering the kitchen where Kyungsoo is cutting some onions and already crying. Kai looks up at him from his phone, and nods. “Yeah, cry. She’s pissed.”

Kyungsoo sobs theatrically and wipes away the real tears from his cheek.

“Want some help?” Kai asks, putting his phone away onto the kitchen table.

“Sure,” Kyungsoo says. “Cut some tomatoes?”

They fall into the familiar feeling of making food together. They navigate around each other easily, doing all the work that needs to be done without interrupting each other. Sulli and Baekhyun are asleep, their legs tangled on the couch, and Amber is starting to doze off on the floor, too. Choco is already sleeping, his head laid on top of Amber’s thighs.

Chen and Yixing are talking in hushed tones by the table in the living room, playing cards and laughing quietly, and Xiumin is scrolling through some websites, looking for clues and checking the local news every now and then. People are going crazy about the student who jumped off the roof at school; Xiumin wonders how his friends from school feel right now, how hard it must be for his family, and how ridiculous the whole thing looks from outside. Hell, even to them it looks ridiculous.

The police still haven’t given an actual report on what caused the fire, because Maeng explicitly told them not to. Truth is, though, everyone knows it was arson. And then there’s the jumping boy. Everything points at him being the one who caused the fire, and only their pack know that it wasn’t done on purpose. Everyone else in town thinks that the boy who jumped was crazy, and committed suicide after endangering everyone at his school.

It doesn’t look good at all.

Kai hears Taemin coming, and he looks up the second his brother crosses the threshold. He looks fairly grim.

“I tried calling Jaejoong,” Taemin says. “No luck, as per usual. His phone is off, or…whatever. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if he was, like, in another universe right now, where he has no service.”

“I don’t want to be mean or into your family business,” Kyungsoo says, throwing some carrots into the frying pan and closing it, “but you need to talk to him.”

“Yeah,” Kai sighs. “It’s getting out of hand.”

“We should try getting Krystal and Father in one room,” Taemin proposes then. “Maybe she could look into his mind, see what’s up with that guy.”

“Dal said he’s covered himself with wards and charms, some of which she doesn’t even recognize,” Kai points out. “His braids and the weird beads he wears, even they’re charmed. She’s pretty sure at least one of these protects his thoughts from being read by anyone.”

“No way,” Taemin says, plopping down onto the nearest chair. Xiumin, Chen and Yixing have decided to leave their own seats and come to the kitchen to listen to them talking, too. “Is he for real?”

“Do we know what he does with all the magical people we catch?” Kyungsoo asks. “Does he own a magical prison or something?”

“Jaejoong says that he’s taking care of them,” Kai replies. “Whatever the hell that means.”

“You haven’t really talked to him in years,” Chen says. “Who knows, maybe his moralities changed?”

Kai shoots him a look that hides some anger behind it; Chen closes his mouth with a click. “Meaning?” Kai asks. Chen doesn’t reply at first, his eyes widening slightly at the tension he suddenly feels and sees on Kai.

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “I’m just saying.”

“Kai,” Taemin says, exasperated. “Chill. You know he’s right. We don’t really know the guy.”

“The guy is your brother,” Kai says, still staring at Chen. He slowly turns his eyes at Taemin, though. He’s about to finish what he was saying when his phone buzzes on the table, making everyone jump in surprise.

“Jesus,” Chen comments, startled with the sound. “Free it.”

Kyungsoo, Taemin and Yixing crack a smile. Kai rolls his eyes as he walks over to the phone. Daehyun’s name is flashing on the screen, together with some ridiculous selfie of his that you’ve set on Kai’s phone as his contact picture. Daehyun looks like a potato on it. Kai hasn’t even put his phone to his ear yet when Daehyun already starts talking.

 “Listen,” he says, a bit breathless. “So you know how Yunho can see images and stuff when he touches objects and people?”

“Hello to you to,” Kai says.

“Right, so, what if he touched that girl?”

Kai looks up at his friends, suddenly feeling very sharp and ready for some action. They all exchange knowing glances.

“Does it work when a person is dead?” Kai asks Daehyun. Yunho has the power of psychometry; when he touches an object, or a person, he can see certain memories of theirs, or memories involving the object in question. Kai never saw him do it in this universe, though, and he totally forgot it was a thing.

“We have yet to figure that one out,” Daehyun says, his voice a little excited. Kai hears Yunho’s voice in the background then.

“Jesus,” he says. “You sound like it’s Christmas.”

“Well, I’m not going to be the one touching a dead body,” Daehyun replies.

“I’m gonna kick your one day, I swear.”

*

“Mmm, you ready?” Heechul asks, putting on some white rubber gloves. Yunho is following his every move with a contorted face, and he’s not ready.

“No,” he says.

“Great, let’s get to work, then,” Heechul replies, smiling widely.

He grabs at the piece of material that’s covering the dead girl’s body and lifts it up, until her face is visible.

Yunho shuts his eyes, takes a step back and feels his head swim.

“Oh, God,” he says, turning away from the body. “Let’s—let’s—just the hand, please, God, thank you.”

He hears some rustling. Heechul clears his throat. Yunho turns back towards the girl, feeling tears well in his eyes. It’s one thing seeing a fake dead body on TV, another seeing a young girl who died of starvation right in front of him.

It could be Krystal, or Jessica.

The thought makes him almost throw up.

“Listen, this is some heavy stuff—“ Heechul starts. He doesn’t finish because Yunho wordlessly takes the girl’s hand into his own, and images flash into his mind.

The girl’s family. Her dog. Some laughter. A song stuck in her head. Then smoke, fear, and whispers in a strange language that he faintly recognizes, but can’t exactly pinpoint.

He lets go with a startle, and the girl’s hand dangles from the metal table.

*

“What language was it?” Min asks. Yunho makes a weird sound and then motions at his head, pretending it’s blowing up.

“I wish I knew,” Yunho says. “I really do.”

“Could you recognize it if you heard it, though?” Yixing asks in return.

“I can try,” the man says. “I will try.”

“I’ll go look again, then,” Sulli says, standing up from the couch.

“No,” Kris interrupts. He’s still wearing his uniform. “You won’t find it, you’ll only get tired. We need you strong, just in case one of us gets lost, or something else happens.”

“I agree,” Kai says.

Yixing’s phone starts ringing then. Everyone looks at him. “Seon,” he says. He picks up. “Yeah?”

“There’s something weird happening at the shopping center,” comes her voice on the phone. Yixing sets it on speaker.

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know!” Seon says, her voice slightly raised. It’s probably the most nervous and hopeless any of them has heard her. “Everyone just started…arguing.”

Yixing looks up at his pack, frowning. Everyone is as confused as him, or so it seems.

“Arguing?” he asks to make sure.

“Arguing. Screaming, pushing each other, telling each other the things they hate, I don’t—I don’t even know, but I kinda feel angry just from being here. Also, I hate that stupid red snapback of yours.”

Yixing’s face goes from confused to blank, and he looks at Kris and Kai for some kind of help.

“What?” he says. Seon’s quiet on the other end.

“I don’t know where that came from,” she says in disbelief. “I—, Yixing, one guy just hit another.”

The whole pack stands up then. It’s almost all in sync, as if they practiced it.

(Well. They kinda do. Every day, almost. Which is sad.)

“They’re all civilians though, right?” Yixing asks. They’re already all going towards the door, like a swarm of crazy cows, or something. Yixing notices Taemin picking up a baseball bat. “Nothing magical there?”

“I’m so angry, Yixing,” Seon says suddenly. “I just—“

And then she disconnects.

“Amber,” Kris shoots, turning his head towards the girl. “Stay here, hack the cameras in the shopping center, and turn them all off. Pronto. Tao, Baek, Luhan, stay with her.”

“Should we go?” Daehyun asks, pointing at himself and Yunho.

“No,” Kris replies. Then they’re out of the door – Kris, Luhan, Kai, Xiumin, Chen, Yixing, Min, Taemin, and Kyungsoo. It looks a bit ridiculous when they all jump out at the same time, and the noise they make as they run down the stairs definitely wakes up a few neighbors, but it’s not like it’s anything new.

*

When they reach the shopping center, they don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Everything is normal outside. The real problem begins once they enter.

Already by the door, there’re people fighting and screaming.

It’s mostly just yanking on hair and punching, but there’s also some dragging, some scratching, and some screaming; Xiumin almost gets hit with a flying heel and Chen gets attacked by some random man who looks like he’s having a fit of rage. No one is calling the police because everyone is blind with anger; there’s not a single person who’s sane here at this point.

“What the hell,” Chen says. Then he dodges when some woman tries to attack him, and she ends up face first on the floor. “Why are they all going crazy?”

“I’m gonna go find Seon,” Yixing says, running off.

“Hey!” Xiumin screams, following him right away. Min clicks her tongue in annoyance, and follows the two as well.

“Okay,” Kris says. “I—what do we do?”

“We can’t just knock them all down, can we?” Luhan asks. “There’s too much of them.”

“Oh, so the number is the problem, not the fact that they’re civilians?” Taemin asks. They all glance at him, hearing his heart going a little too fast, even for him. His face is a little red, and his fingers are tight around the bat he’s holding. “You and your logic. You’d step on anyone to get your way.”

Someone screams and throws themselves in their general direction. Kai and Kyungsoo just step out of the way to let them run through and attack someone else, because that’s what they’re all apparently doing – attacking each other – but then comes a loud swish and a bat flies through the air.

Taemin hits the man who just threw himself at Kai and Kris in the face.

The man falls onto the floor, growling in pain, deeply in shock. Kai looks up and barely manages to avoid getting hit by Taemin as well – the bat grazes his skin.

“Grab him!” Kris screams. Everyone throws themselves at Taemin, and before he can react, he’s trapped between strong werewolf arms and getting dragged away from the building. “Take him out of here!”

They literally push him outside, onto the pavement, and Taemin lands with a heavy grunt, his bat rolling away. The second he’s out of there, he looks up at them, confused.

“What the hell am I doing on the ground?” he asks. He hisses, feeling his hands sting from the heavy landing. “Did you just—“

“It’s the building,” Kyungsoo says. “Whoever is in the building starts behaving weirdly.”

“And it only works on humans,” Kai adds. They spot two young girls approaching the entrance, and Kai yells to get their attention. “Don’t go in there!”

The girls turn on their heels, freaked out. “Why?” one of them asks.

“This is not going to work,” Kris says, clapping Kai on the shoulder once. Then he looks at the rest of the pack. “There’s two entrances. Luhan, go check out the one on the other side of the building, and try to keep people from entering.”

Luhan nods once and is gone in a blink of an eye.

“Taemin, you’re going to stay here and keep them from going in,” Kris continues, nodding at Taemin.

“Sure,” Tae replies shortly.

“Kyungsoo, you’re going to find the keys to the entrances,” Kai butts in. “Ask Amber to help if you need to, and try to lock the door so that no one can get in.”

“In the meantime, we…” Kris says, but clicks his mouth closed. Another couple nears the entrance, but Taemin is already on it – he runs towards them and tells them that they can’t enter at the moment. Kris looks back at his back. “In the meantime, we’re going to get as many people out of there as we can.”

“Some kind of spell must be set on the building,” Kyungsoo points out. “It’s not doing things to people inside on its own.”

“Okay, let’s focus on getting the people out of there first,” Kris says, taking off.

*

Yixing follows Seon’s heartbeat, and her smell. Xiumin and Min are following shortly, trying to dodge people when they throw themselves at them; Yixing has to push some of them away more than five times, and it’s getting ridiculous. Everyone is either arguing or already fist-fighting, and there’s some blood. Most of the fights are just scuffles, though; worst thing is, even children are doing it. Trashing around the floor, trying to hurt other kids and adults.

“This is ridiculous,” Yixing says just before spotting Seon. The girl is currently wrestling with someone. Literally. She has them pinned to the floor and she’s punching them in the face, blood and spit flying around; it’s an awful sight. Yixing doesn’t hesitate at all; he jumps at her and snatches her off the man, and onto the floor. He pins her there and she trashes around, screaming like crazy.

Now, Yixing has sparred with Seon before, and this is not how she’d act if he pinned her to the floor. He’s gotten kicked in the crotch and in the stomach enough to know that. She’s acting like an animal, not like a human, not like someone who’s been taught how to fight since childhood.

“Calm down,” he says, trapping her arms and legs. Seon’s eyes are crazy, and there’s something akin to a growl coming from .

*

Taemin tells another group of teenagers that they can’t enter the building when he hears some commotion behind him and soon Chen comes out of the shopping center, dragging two fighting kids with him. Another two are following him blindly, looking ready to draw blood, and Chen stumbles when one of them accidentally puts his foot under Chen’s.

The teenagers Taemin just shooed away are staring at them all now, and the kids that Chen just got out of the building are gasping for air, shocked, and seemingly terrorized. They’re all bruised and scratched, and one of them even has his t-shirt torn up.

“I’m calling the police,” one of the teenagers says to his friends, and Chen catches that.

“Don’t,” he says loudly, making the teenagers startle. Taemin looks to where Chen’s looking, notices a phone in the kid’s grip, and does something he probably shouldn’t, which is throw his baseball bat at the guy’s hand. It hits jackpot, and the phone drops to the ground, evoking even more terror in their already scared group.

“What’s going on?” one of the kids Chen pulled out asks. “Where am I?”

“Tae! Chen!” they hear suddenly. They both turn to see you running towards them.

*

One second Kai is pushing a child off his back, and the next everyone goes still and quiet. Then there’s some surprised screams, some weird gasps, and then everyone goes still again.

All around the building, people stop to look around in pure confusion. Seon stops trashing around in Yixing’s grip, and her eyes become all sharp and hers again, and she looks at Yixing like he’s offended her somehow.

“What are you doing on top of me?” she asks, frowning.

Yixing stares at her, long and hard, before breathing out with relief and just collapsing on top of her.

*

Silence fills your ears. Just a second ago, there’d been shouts coming from the center, and now it all goes quiet. You’re crouching by the entrance, a silver knife in hand.

You’re ing it into the building’s wall, where there’s a tiny symbol engraved in the stone.

Taemin and Chen are both looking over your shoulders, and when everyone suddenly goes silent, they both look up, surprised.

You pull out your phone to take a photo of the weird symbol, which apparently caused all the commotion in the building. And then something weird happens; you feel a wave of magic, and it sweeps you off your feet. You actually fall onto your back, yelping in surprise. Chen helps you up.

“What was that?” he asks. You can only shrug.

“Where are we?” Taemin asks all of a sudden. You and Chen look at him, eyes widening. At first you think that he might be joking; you actually crack a smile. Taemin looks panicked at that. “I’m not joking, guys, what happened?”

“What do you mean ‘what happened’?” Chen asks him, suddenly taking a step closer towards you. “You were here.”

You glance to the side, spotting some movement, and your breath hitches in your lungs when you see that the boy who had his t-shirt ripped is now walking away, his clothes completely intact. He looks chirpy.

You look to your left, where stood a girl with a bruise on her temple; she’s laughing, and the bruise is gone from her head.

“I think I’m going crazy,” you whisper.

“You and me both,” Chen says even quieter.

“You are going crazy?” Taemin says, waving his arms around. “I just lost a chunk of memory!”

A woman exits the building. She looks normal, a bit bored, and has some shopping bags with her. She walks past them like nothing’s out of ordinary and heads for her car. You look at Chen, then at Tae, then you quickly enter the center.

You come face to face with Kai.

“It’s all gone,” he says. “They’re all healed and they have no idea anything happened.”

“But Taemin knows he lost his memory,” you say, pointing at Taemin over your shoulder. Taemin looks freaked out.

“This is scaring the out of me, Dal,” he says.

The rest of the pack joins. Kyungsoo apologizes for not finding the keys, and Seon looks like she hasn’t slept in three days.

“You dumb chickens,” you say. “Should’ve called me sooner.”

“Is Sehun with you?” Kris asks.

“He’s with Sulli and the rest,” you say. “They told us where you were and what was happening.”

“You made it in record time, then,” Kyungsoo comments.

“Dude, I think I broke all possible traffic regulations.” 

Hiya guys, I'm back! Sorry for the long wait.

I'm still in the middle of writing the next chapters, so I can't promise a double update this week, but this chapter is pretty damn long, so I hope I could at least satisfy your cravings for RALF (if you had these, of course). I know I've only arised more questions, but you love me anyways so joke's on you.

Btw, if you follow me on snapchat or instagram you'll know that we adopted a cat! My mom called her Florence and she's the cutest. We call her Fifi and Florcia and she sleeps with me and she's the loveliest?? She's actually sleeping on my thigh rn lol I love her so much :'( I'VE ALWAYS WANTED A CAT I'M SO HAPPY

Also I touched jellyfish!!!!