Warning: This prequel spoils a little of the rest of the story so I'd recommend reading this after reading the preceding chapters =3=)~ (But if you don't care--I'm not gonna stop ya haha). Hope ya like~

???, ???, April 29 (Evening)

---

"We're close," Luhan says while walking side-by-side with Kris.

"Mhm."

Kris looks behind himself and sees that their other ten friends are still way behind--walking slowly and chatting amongst themselves. He then turns back around and looks at the sky with twinkling eyes while Luhan and him continue to walk mostly in silence.

It's evening time and Kris has been anticipating this solar eclipse for weeks now. By some of luck, he and his friends have been living in an area near where a sighting for the eclipse will take place so all they have to do is walk through a forest to get to a clearing near the mountainside and then bam--instant viewing.

Somehow he and Luhan ended up being the ones leading the way together but Kris doesn't mind. Even if they don't always have the longest conversations, he's always felt comfortable being around his cousin.

---

As they pass by a few more trees, Luhan furrows his eyebrows at the sounds around them. Or the lack, thereof. Besides his and Kris' footsteps and breathing, he realizes that he hasn't heard another sound from any animals or bugs nearby since that one jagged rock that they passed by about two minutes ago. So he turns to Kris, who looks preoccupied by the sky, and slows down his own walking as he sees a break in the trees just up ahead. Kris slows down too while continuing to watch the sky and groans in excitement when he sees Earth's moon moving closer and closer to block out the sight of the sun.

"Shh," Luhan suddenly whispers while crouching down.

Kris stops walking too and turns to him--about to ask what he's doing when Luhan yanks the hem of his jacket and pulls him to his height.

"Don't you hear that?" Luhan whispers harshly with wide eyes.

He then lets go of Kris' jacket though after Kris glares at his hand before Kris lifts his gaze and asks him what he means. "I can't even hear anything 'cause you're breathing like a in' locomotive," he replies.

Luhan just ignores that comment in favor of frantically looking around at their surroundings and Kris watches him with furrowed eyebrows before Luhan finally looks back at him and whispers, "It's just--it's too quiet. I haven't heard any bugs or birds or anything."

Kris' eyes widen slightly as he takes in this new information. Because now that he thinks about it, it is pretty silent right now. ", don't animals leave when something bad's about to happen?"

Luhan gives a scared nod. "We should head back--"

Suddenly, they hear footsteps rapidly approaching them from behind and Luhan cuts himself off while Kris grabs onto his hand by fearful instinct. They quickly turn their heads to look behind themselves and Kris lets out a heavy sigh when it turns out to only be their friend Suho.

Suho lets out a few pants once he's caught up to them and takes a glance at their intertwined hands before lifting an eyebrow curiously. "Uh...?"

Luhan immediately shakes his hand loose from Kris' tight grip and closes his eyes for a second to try and stop his rapidly beating heart. He can't believe it was just Suho.

"ing --you scared us," Luhan whispers, letting out a huff.

Suho frowns and moves closer to them before crouching down as well. "Why are you whispering?" he whispers.

Luhan quickly explains about the eerie silence to him--effectively getting Suho to stay crouched with them and look around with wide, frightened eyes. Then, he and Kris lock eyes and he stares at him for a moment before they hear the sounds of their friends conversing. The three of them look up in fear, seeing their noisy friends approaching, and Suho's breathing shortens as he internally panics.

"Shh!" Luhan whispers loudly.

The majority of their friends look at the three of them in confusion while the other few ignore him and instead ask why they're crouching like that.

"There's something here," Luhan answers in a hushed tone. "Something bad."

The friends' eyes widen and Kai quickly closes his eyes and focuses on projecting himself on a pop-up map of their surroundings. His projection quickly moves around past the whited out forms of his friends towards the clearing. He passes by whited out trees upon trees, rocks and logs and when he steps out of the clearing, his projection's and his actual self's jaw drops.

A small airborne vehicle of some kind and two white to grey forms are standing stationary in front of what he assumes is the entrance of the vehicle while two more white to grey forms are inside the vehicle. Now, random people around whatever it is--that isn't what shocks him. No, what shocks him is the fact that everytime he so much as blinks, the four forms rapidly change color.

White then grey then back to white. Now back to grey. Unsafe to port to--safe to port to--unsafe--safe--

"Kai!"

Kai opens his eyes and his projection and the pop-up map of his mind disintegrates into nothingness. His eyes then flit towards the source of his caller and his heart beats faster when he locks eyes with a worried-looking Kyungsoo.

"You alright?" Kyungsoo asks, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah," Kai says softly, shaking his head to wake himself up more. "I--"

"What'd ya see?"

Kai jumps at Baekhyun's sudden intrusion to their conversation and turns to look at him with wide eyes. Then, he notices that his other friends are actually looking at him too with curious expressions on their faces, and runs a hand through his hair before he looks down and tells his friends about what he saw. When he's done, a sense of confusion gets added to the group atmosphere (on top of the fear and curiosity). Xiumin looks up at the sky while some of his friends chat about coming up with a plan of action and notices with a frown how the moon's mid-way between the sun now.

"D'ya think they're from home?" Sehun asks Kai.

Kai shrugs. "I dunno. They were--were here and then not and...then they were and then not and then--"

"Okay, we get it, dude," Chen cuts in.

Kai pouts and Xiumin turns to look at Luhan who's arguing in a hushed tone with Kris over who should go check out the clearing.

"I'm not going--" Luhan points to Kris. "--You go."

"Wha--why me?!" Kris whispers back while glaring.

"'Cause you can freakin' fly. It doesn't even make sense for me to go."

" you."

"Aw, come on, Kris."

"Just scissors, rock, paper it then," Chen states and the two turn to look at him. "Someone's gotta go, right?"

They both sigh at that and then reluctantly agree after no one else volunteers to check out the clearing first. Tao just crosses his arms over his chest and watches them count down with a scowl on his face.

So stupid, he thinks.

And at the count of Paper!, Kris throws scissors while Luhan throws rock--leading to Luhan fist-pumping the air since he's the winner. With a deep sigh, Kris stands up to his usual height and flips his middle finger at Luhan before slowly lifting himself up into the air. His friends who were chatting in their own worlds gape up at him and ask Luhan and the others what's going on.

"Kris! What are you doing, man?" Chanyeol calls out.

"What--" Lay says.

Kris can't hear the rest though as he passes by numerous tree branches and stops right before the highest leaf on a nearby tree. He then floats tree to tree towards the clearing before stopping at a tree right on the outskirts between the woods and the clearing. Then, he squints as the sun's light continues to fade away and gapes when he sees that Kai was right.

There are beings and a space-ship there...but also so much red. Too much.

---

Kris quickly floats back down towards his friends and stumbles over his words as he tries to explain about what he just saw. His friends only catch words of a ship and something red and look at him in confusion.

...Pirates? Xiumin thinks.

Kyungsoo seems to get what Kris meant though because his already wide eyes w