“You are not Hyungwon”, Minhyuk shouted at the voice with his still shut tightly.

“Please believe me, Minhyuk”, he heard the answer and it seemed like the speaker was on the verge of tears. “Save me. Please…”

The desperation in Hyungwon's voice broke something inside him and slowly he opened his eyes, looking back into the darkness. And it really was just darkness. The path they had been on had dissolved into absolute darkness, only pierced by glowing red eyes focused on him. Minhyuk realized his mistake immediately. How could he have been so dumb to let them trick him? Hadn't Hyungwon warned him? Did he not trust Hyungwon enough? Hastily he turned around but there was nothing anymore either. Just the same darkness with glowing eyes like stars in a night sky. Had he even turned around? He turned again but nothing changed. It was as if he wasn't even moving, wherever he looked the image was the same. He groaned in frustration, a groan which sounded more like a deep growl. Something changed at that. It took him a moment to figure out that before there had been whispers, quiet barely audible but consistent whispers, which now had been silenced. And now there was only silence, a deafening silence in which he couldn't hear anything beside his own rapid breathing and the beat of his heart.

Nothing.

Nothing was so much more worse than the worst Something. He growled again, just to produce a sound that would make the silence more bearable. At that he saw how the eyes moved backwards. Were they really moving away from him? He pushed one of his feet over the ground forward, trying to feel if there was still ground beneath it even though he couldn't see it. There wasn't. But there wasn't any ground either where he was standing now. He was standing on nothing. Maybe he was falling? Or flying? Or drowning without noticing? He took an insecure step forward. Was he falling? Was he? He couldn't feel it. So maybe he wasn't?

Minhyuk sighed in defeat. There was not much more that he could do than to just put one foot in front of the other in the emptiness hoping that it would lead somewhere. But the constant unchanging darkness with the glowing red eyes of creatures watching him made him feel uneasy and frustrated. Maybe he was just wasting his energy? Maybe he wasn't moving forward but was just stuck in one spot?

“Stop staring at me”, he growled and a few eyes disappeared for a moment only to reappear somewhere else after only a second.

“Disappear! Go away! LEAVE ME ALONE”, he yelled in frustration and he felt his anger rush through his body in waves, making his hands clench into fists and his growls sounded a little more animal-like than before. The whispers started again, too faint to make out any words but loud enough to fill the silence with a disturbing humming sound. Minhyuk was sure that he preferred the silence. He took a few more steps and started to pull at his hair.

Why couldn't there be normal sounds? Like the sound of his steps? But there was only the whisper mixed with his breaths which slowly drove him mad. Why couldn't he feel something underneath his feet? And why couldn't he see if there was anything around him. The uncertainty of what he was doing, if he was really doing anything made him angry. Once again he growled.

And then suddenly he fell forwards when his foot hit something which gave in under his weight and pulled him down and under. Minhyuk gasped when he finally managed to break through the surface of the water and coughed a little. He looked around.

The darkness and nothingness had disappeared and made way for a river flowing through a big cave. Diamonds in the walls of it reflected some sparkling ghostly light which should not exist but as weird as this seemed to Minhyuk right now he was mostly just glad that he could see something again. This lasted until he looked at the water around him, reaching up to his chin as he swam in the middle of the lazily moving river under the surface of which he could make out giant silhouettes of its inhabitants. For a moment he tried to stay as still as possible without drowning, hoping that the creatures hadn't noticed him yet. But then he felt something on his leg. It was colder than the water and when he looked down he saw grey fingers slinging themselves around his thigh, trying to pull him down. In his rising panic he kicked around in the water aimlessly, feeling that he had hit something and how the grip on his leg loosened until he could pull out of it.

“Oh ”, he murmured as he saw other shadows in the water change their directions, moving closer to him and he swam with strong movements. But the faster he tried to swim, the slower he seemed to move. It reminded him of a nightmare where he wanted to escape but wasn't able to. Was this what the underworld was like? Just an endless nightmare that one couldn't escape from? He tried to scream in anger but instead only a long howling sound left his throat followed by a growl.

“Come over here! Quickly!”

Minhyuk turned his head into the direction from where he had heard the high pitched voice. He thought that he saw a smallish creature at the banks of the river but there was too much water in his eyes for him to be sure about that. Nonetheless he followed the sound, mostly because there was not much else he could do.

When he finally managed to pull himself out of the water, crawling onto the slippery banks of the river he was panting loudly and allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes for a brief second.

“Are you okay?”, the high pitched voice asked suddenly from right beside his face but instead of jerking back in surprise he just growled and coughed up some water.

“You are a nice dog. You look so cuddly.”

Minhyuk ripped his eyes open. “DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME A DOG!”, he yelled but instead of his own voice he only heard a string of harsh barks echo back at him. He looked down at the ground where he saw paws covered in grey fur where his hands should have been and somewhere below his eyes in front of him he could catch a glimpse of his long snout ending in a pitch black nose. How could he have shifted into a werewolf without even noticing it?

“This is not me! THIS IS NOT ME!” Another few barks and he cursed himself. He cursed everything because he hated everything. He hated himself for the way he was, a monster. And he hated Hyungwon for getting him into this mess. How could he have let that boy fool him this much that he had dropped his entire life so easily just to save him from that damn sect?

“HYUNGWON! I HATE YOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” Still it was just barks and he cursed the others too. How had they just gone along with this? Why had they not stopped him? He hated them. His life was ruined now because of them, because of Hyungwon. It was all Hyungwon's fault. And he hated him for that.

“I'm sorry. Don't be scared”, the high pitched voice cooed and when he turned his head slightly Minhyuk saw the owner of it, a small ball of pink fur wobbling slowly towards him on three smallish paws. The thing had roughly the size of a human head and its front side seemed to only consist of two huge eyes, a pointy nose with a small mouth underneath it and four ears that were nervously flicking into every direction.

Minhyuk already felt aggravated by it. It's high voice and cute appearance being plain annoying to him at this point and he felt irritated by it calling him a dog.

“What do you want, ball of fur?”, he asked in a growl while he tried to remember if Jackson had taught him how to willingly change back into human form but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of anything.

“Are you a hell hound? Wow, this is so cool. I've never met one of your kind”, the pink ball said and wobbled closer with its eyes getting even bigger as before when it looked at Minhyuk. He took a step back, confused and still mad at the pink thing and he shivered as a cold breeze came through the cavern.

“I am not a hell hound”, Minhyuk coughed and it took him a moment to realize that it was his own voice again and not a growl.

“WOAH!”, the small thing exclaimed in its helium voice, “this is so cool. You can just go from a wolf to a human form. Woah! How do you do that? It's amazing.”

It waddled even closer, eyeing Minhyuk up and down and suddenly he was very happy about the fact that he didn't loose his clothes in the transformation process.

“Stop looking at me like that. We are not at a zoo”, he complained and once he stood upright again he kicked the little thing away. It flew through the air and crashed against one of the rock walls with a whimpered “ow” and then fell to the ground.

Minhyuk hissed and turned away, eyeing the canyon for an exit. He saw one not far from the curve of the river but before he could even take one step into that direction the pink thing was at his feet again.

“That wasn't a very nice thing to do”, it complained and its big eyes seemed to be more wet than before.

“I don't intend to be nice to you. I hate you so get lost”, Minhyuk snapped and started walking towards the small opening in the rocks.

“Well, that is not a surprise”, it replied and Minhyuk cut if off.

“At least we agree on something”, he said and rolled his eyes in annoyance as he heard the sound of the small feet following him.

“You fell into the river Styx.”

“I don't care, thank you”, Minhyuk hissed. All he cared about was getting out of this situation that ing Hyungwon had gotten him into. He hated that guy. And he hated all the others. And himself. And most of all that freaking pink thing that kept talking to him.

“Styx is the river of hatred. If you drink from its water it will make you full of hate. That's why you think you hate everyone even though you actually don't.”

“What are you trying to do here, huh? Talk me to death?”

“I'm trying to help you. Don't go that way. It leads to Tartarus and trust me, you don't wanna go there.”

Minhyuk sighed loudly and turned around to it. “Then were do you suggest I go?”, he asked aggressively which the thing didn't seem to mind instead it just turned around around.

“Follow me”, it said and waddled off into the opposite direction alongside the river. For a moment Minhyuk stood there contemplating on whether or not to follow it but just before the pink ball of fur disappeared in the distant darkness he gave himself a nudge and followed it. What harm could it do? Hadn't Hyungwon done most of the harm already? There was no way to ruin his life even more so he might as well just follow the creature.

With only a few quick steps he had caught up to it and then walked beside it. It was rather quiet again with the sound of the river and the quick breaths of the creature being the only sounds he heard.

“What are you?”, he asked after a while, trying to push his unjustified hatred aside.

“Uhm, I'm a schna”, it replied as if it was the most common thing in the universe.

“And what is that exactly?”, he asked in a little more aggressive tone again.

“It's uhm well, hm… Where are you from? The normal world? Schnas are beings that live in the Magic World. Or at least we used to. It's been a while since I died. Maybe we went extinct. Ow… that would be so sad.”

The schna kept talking to itself and Minhyuk was unsure if he should try to comfort it. But then again, he didn't care. Even if his hatred was just because of the river he id hate that thing so it should rather be happy that he hadn't kicked it into another wall.

“Where are we going?”, Minhyuk asked as soon as the thought hit him.

“I don't really know. I was just going to lead you away from the river. Hm, is there anywhere in particular where you want to go?”

“Yes. Home!”, Minhyuk snapped, “So that I can kill the guy who got me into this stupid mess.”

“You… you know that these are not your actual thoughts right? It's just because of the river.”

“I don't give a damn! He ruined my life. My entire life. Because of him I became a werewolf, a freaking monster. And now I'm trapped here in the underworld. My life is over because of him.”

“Did you think like this before, too?”, the schna asked and Minhyuk suddenly