The darkness wasn’t inviting, not at all. It was unpleasant, cold, actually terrifying because of its wholesomeness and the silence was so bothersome: the way it kept your thoughts running into every crevice of your mind, like poison, spreading and leaving tiny seeds of doubts, hate and fear when it happen.

At least, that was his definition of darkness.

That was Yixing’s definition.

He felt as if he had opened his eyes several time in the past few minutes but they never seemed to completely open until he managed to have enough strength to literally yanking them open. He breathed harshly for the first couple of minutes, inhaling the sweet fresh air, concentrating only on the scents of the Nature, like grass and rain and iron.

‘Iron’ he thought to himself, finding it extremely odd to be smelling that particularly scent.

Then, he remembered! Everything came to his memory as flashes of Jaebeom and Baekhyun and Mina came to him. He remembered how Baekhyun had forgave him for everything, although he didn’t exactly spoke much, he remembered how he had killed Mina while Baekhyun fought Jaebeom and he remembered Jaebeom’s frantic cries when he understood that Mina had been killed, and then he remembered no more. Not after the wizard had shot a spell on his way.

A shaky, yet sharp, breath left his lungs and he bolted upright, his mind focusing on something of importance:

“Baekhyun.” He gasped.

However, his body suddenly registered pain, a huge quantity of it, and he weakly gasped, straining to breathe properly before careful hands helped him back onto the soft bed he was in.

“Don’t move much, you are hurt enough.” Stated a tired voice, gruff and clearly masculine.

Turning his head to the left, Yixing was met with the sight of the wolf that Sehun and Baekhyun had run after, Luhan if he remembered correctly. The wolf looked completely haggard, as if he hadn’t slept properly in a very long while, big black bags beneath his eyes beginning to look like bruises

“What happened? Where’s…? What…?”

“You are in the village’s medical center.” Replied Luhan, getting up and inspecting the bandages covering the whole left side of Yixing’s body, something that he was now noting.

“What happened?” he asked again, looking thoroughly disorientated, more so when Luhan’s eyes flickered to his briefly before looking somewhere else, looking uncomfortable at the topic.

The action made the alarms in Yixing’s mind, no matter how groggy he was; ring in alarm, his sixth sense telling him that something had definitely gone wrong and that Luhan was not wishing to tell him.

“What happened?” he asked again, a little more forcefully, wincing a little when it strained whatever it was that ailed his side.

Luhan shook his head, begging him in silence not to ask any more questions, before weakly stating that he shouldn’t stress himself, explaining that a wound like his, especially on his side, shouldn’t be jostled much. He also explained that he had suffered a laceration had his side that damaged his internal organs, alongside with the blood loss that had caused, mentioning that while he was now stable, he was still a high risk patient.

“Stop avoiding the question.”

The tone had been sharp and Yixing didn’t give two damns about his near fatal injury, as Luhan added before he had interrupted him. Yixing knew that something was going on and he wanted to know.

“I am not avoiding anything.” Luhan told him with a resigned voice. “But, being your healer, it’s in my medical opinion that you should rest and concentrate into recovering instead of worrying with other things; things that you can do nothing about by the way.”

“Tell me…”

“I really don’t thing…” began Luhan, really reluctant into retelling what happened to Yixing, fearing that hearing some of the things would really be detrimental to his recovery.

“If you don’t tell me, I will get up from this bed and will smash you head into the floor until you do.” Growled the alpha, fully intending in keeping the promise if the other didn’t tell him what he wanted to know. “Something happened and I want to know what before I get up from here and to hell with your treatment or my health.”

Luhan didn’t look that much fazed with the threat: braver wolves had told him far worse when he was treating them and he was immune to it; however, Luhan didn’t want the other to do anything stupid, the male was temperamental and he would do something dumb, that would possibly lead him to his death, not after he had worked so hard to bring him from the brink of death.

The beta healer gave a little sigh, rubbing at his eyes tiredly, and opening his mouth a couple of times, probably thinking about what to say before he actually begun talking.

“Look, understand that all that I know was told to me by someone else so don’t ask about many details because I don’t know them.” He warned Yixing, gazing at him straightly in the eye. “What I know was retold by people we both know and by Jeongyeon and Yoojung, whom I think either you or Baekhyun helped, or something like that at some point.”

Yixing nodded, understanding that Luhan hadn’t been there and that this speech had been a slight warning for him to keep his temper in check.

“I believe that you remember everything until some witch dropped dead, killed, and that probably a lover or family member of hers was mourning her death and kind of flipped and, well, he sent you a spell. Neither you nor Baekhyun were prepared, I guess, because he spell hit you and it damaged your body pretty good. The spell imploded and left you bleeding unconscious on the floor and, as you may imagine, Baekhyun was not happy in the slightest. He let out a roar and morphed into his wolf form on the spot, launching himself at the wizard. People told me he looked like a possessed being, so angry and violent that he ripped that wizard apart. Literally! He tore s out and killed him on the spot. Jeongyeon told me he was pretty strong, the wizard I mean, but that Baekhyun just made it seem effortless.”

Yixing winced a little, imagining his little brother doing said stuff. It was kind of mind blowing to him how a simple omega wolf could chance so much since being a berserker. Baekhyun would never manage something like that if he had remained an omega. It would also save him a lot of trouble too.

“Well, Baekhyun transforming caused an uproar, since it’s not common to see a wolf with this enormous proportions, also, being a berserk only made it worse, since his eyes were in clear display for everyone to see.” Continued Luhan, a hand coming to rub at his forehead, a little uncomfortable and retelling all of this to Yixing. “A lot of wolves saw it, including the wolves belonging to the Council. Obviously, they associated Baekhyun’s status with the existence of an Oracle. That wouldn’t have been much of a problem by itself because, I mean, if Baekhyun defeated that wizard, he could easily defeat a couple of wolves that were sent to capture him by the Council’s orders. However, Jongin, the Oracle, must’ve predicted or …see, what happened to you or something because Sehun, Minseok and Chanyeol arrived at the scene. I am not sure of what happened but someone reacted so intensely to the other’s presence, that Sehun ended up being used as a hostage but the Council in order to get Baekhyun. And they did… Baekhyun is locked up along with Chanyeol and Sehun, Minseok managed to get away discreetly, and they are being tortured and interrogated, being asked by the location of the Oracle. They are planning to kill Baekhyun and Chanyeol in three days, in the morning, if they don’t get any information about what they want.”

Yixing was silent, deadly silent if Luhan would dare to say so. Silent to the point that Luhan doubted that he was awake, expecting him to be fully sleeping now, thanks to the high dosage of pain medicine that he was forced to take.

The beta wolf turned his head to look over to where Yixing was laying, he wouldn’t be moving out of there very soon, and found the blank stare of the alpha.

“Yixing?” he called lowly, scared, for a second of pure irrationality, that the other was feeling ill. He felt slightly better when the other’s hands twitched slightly, showing that the male was listening and he was seemingly fine. “Did you hear me?”

“Oh, I heard you.”

The voice was so hard, harsh and so poisonous that Luhan was startled; he really didn’t understand why the male was talking to him like that. There didn’t seem to be a reason for him to be that aggressive, not one that Luhan could think of that was, therefore he decided to bite the bullet and ask the man why he was behaving that way.

“Why are you talking to me like that?”

“I am really glad that you asked!” began Yixing, his voice rising, before he launched himself in a myriad of accusations that left Luhan speechless. “This is your fault! This is entirely your fault! If it wasn’t you, sticking your nose where it didn’t belong and snooping around people’s house, the existence of my brother, Chanyeol and Jongin wouldn’t be publicly known. It was you who screeched like an animal when you saw them and led Sehun to run after you, which in turn made my brother follow you!”

“Yixing…” tried to interrupt Luhan, not really liking of being accused of such things.

“No! You let me finish and then you talk!” replied the male with angry eyes, almost shouting. “You made my brother go out there, following Sehun, because they are inseparable these days, and he stood behind to protect him. I just know it. My brother stood behind because you are a pathetic little who was scared of them and ran away like a scared child and now my brother is on the verge of being killed while you are here, healthy and ,,,”

The punch that he received surprised him; Yixing was not expecting Luhan to harm him, much less when he was already bed ridden, with a wound bigger than big on his side. However, it showed that Yixing didn’t know much about Luhan.

“You shut your mouth!” replied Luhan angrily, staring at the alpha with eyes blazing like two embers.

The beta moved back and only then Yixing could see that the man was sitting in a weird contraception: it looked like a regular chair but it had wheels on the side and Luhan was using the said wheels to move the chair to where he wanted to go.

“You don’t know a single thing, so please, refrain yourself from speaking more crap before I punch you again. You might be bed ridden but I am not above punching you because of that.”

Luhan pulled himself backwards, breathing in and out heavily, in order to calm himself down, hands trembling like leaves.

“You think you know everything, that you are the goddamn owner of truth? You aren’t Yixing and it’s about time you stop pushing your own guilt and mistakes into others. You think that it was really me who got him discovered? I’ll admit that I could’ve acted much better when I found about their existence! That I could’ve dealt with it better, but guess what? I was scared. All of my life, I thought that Oracles were omens of death, that they would bring chaos and misfortune for those who crossed paths with them. I panicked when I saw Jongin; I am not going to lie. My first thought was that everything I knew and loved was going to be threatened by his presence; that he would see everything that this failing and erroneous village, with a Council who doesn’t want the best for its population, would have to face and that everything that we have been so strongly denying so far, our own faults, would be blown into our faces and expose us. I was scared and I was a coward, I admit that! But my opinion changes when I saw how selfless Baekhyun was, when how brave Jongin was and how protective Chanyeol was. I admit that I was wrong; that in that moment, I forgot to be rational and decided that I should be like somebody else and ignore what they, as people, would be like. I apologized to every single one of them and I regret being so superfluous and stupid. I do! I was a horrible people who believed in the tales I was told and discriminated people without knowing them. I get that. But this wasn’t my fault! It’s not my fault that they were found. It was because of me that Baekhyun’s identity was discovered! I helped! I tried my best to make up for my mistakes and paid my dues already.”

“You paid your dues?” sneered Yixing, knowing, with a certain degree of guilt, that the other wasn’t to be blamed but refusing to give up, too proud to be defeated.

“Yes, I did.” Replied the other man blankly. “Do you think I enjoy being here? In this chair? Unable to walk? Well, that was what happened! I tried to protect them, to help them run and hide away, I almost got Sehun and Chanyeol out of the village too, when we came back here after you disappeared from the hideout. Guess what? The Council wasn’t happy! They beat me up to the point that it broke my spine and I can’t walk anymore… I am paralyzed.”

“What?” asked Yixing faintly, the words he heard making him uncomfortable and so much guiltier.

“You heard me.” Replied the other male with a snarl before allowing himself to breathe through his nose deeply, trying to calm himself down, before continuing in a calmer tone of voice. “When you left in search for Baekhyun, Jongin had a vision. He told us that he saw you laying on the floor, bleeding and we, me, Chanyeol, Minseok and Sehun, came back to help you, figure out what happened and bring you back so that you would be safe with us. However, when we arrived, the Council was already circling Baekhyun, trying to capture him. They understood very quickly his connection to Sehun and used him as bait, which went well for them, because they caught Baekhyun pretty fast. Chanyeol and Minseok tried to fight them, Chanyeol got caught and Minseok ran away. When they were locked, thrown into jails for interrogation, I sneaked in and tried to help them out…I was caught and brought to interrogation. I didn’t say anything that would compromise any of them; all I told them was that I was trying to help Sehun because I felt wrongly about him being in there…they didn’t believe me; of course they wouldn’t but they didn’t stop until they hurt my back in such a permanent way. They only let me go because I can’t go anywhere without being noticed since I am bound to this wheelchair for the rest of my life. I did what I could and since I cannot help them anymore, I cannot physically reach them, I am here helping you because that is all I can do at the moment. It’s all I can do!”

Luhan’s tone had been up and down for the entire speech, emotions making it fluctuate between angry, irate, sad and defeated, but the almost broken and whisper at the end of his monologue had hit Yixing with a force of a bull and he felt so crazily guilty for exploding into the male and allowing his temperament from getting the best of him.

“Luhan…” he began, not knowing what to say, especially when he saw the lone tear that made its way down Luhan’s cheek.

“Save it.” Replied the male softly, clearly not wanting to continue his conversation with Yixing. He was feeling too much drained do to so,

“Luhan!” called Yixing as the beta wheeled himself near the door of the medical hut he was on, struggling a little to handle the chair and maneuvering it like he wanted.

When he reached to the door, a handsome male, young looking with gentle eyes entered the building, talking to Luhan in a hushed murmur, looking slightly worried at the older male. The conversation didn’t last long and Luhan exited the hut while the male approached Yixing’s bed.

“Hello Yixing.” Called the male with a slight smile, voice deep but soft. “My name is Han Sanghyuk and I’ll be your healer for today since healer Luhan is feeling a little indisposed.”

“Where did he go to?” asked Yixing, surprising the young beta.

“I am not sure…” replied the male hesitantly. “But if I were to take a guess, I would say he went to his hut to rest. His hut wasn’t affected by the attack and I believe he needs the rest. He has been quite frantic with the whole ordeal and ever since his injury…well, ever since he learned that he wouldn’t be able to walk anymore, he has been here with you, guaranteeing you are perfectly wealthy.”

Yixing was taken aback by the comment and more so when he did some quick calculations on his head.

“Wait, how long have I been in this bed for?” he asked.

“A little over a week.” Said the male, shocking Yixing. “It was quite the wound you got and, truth to be told, we weren’t sure you would be able to survive. I guess that we have to thank to our wolf genes and the faster regeneration process. Your wound is looking much better than it was a few days ago, smaller too.”

“If I am able to regenerate so quickly, why isn’t Luhan?” asked Yixing, not comprehending why was he healing so fast, according to this young beta, while Luhan was stuck in a wheelchair.

“Because Luhan’s injury was on a nervous system level.” Replied the male, explaining further afterwards. “The spinal cord is vital to the process of transmitting nervous impulses to the brain, which decodes them and allows you to do what you want, in Luhan’s particular case to move. However, with his injury, that connection was broken and while the spine fracture healed pretty fast: again wolf’s fast healing process, the damage had already been made and the connection between the lower part of his body and his brain ceased to exist, for the lack of better explanation, and that is something that even us can’t fix. It was something internal, much like breaking a vase, in a sense: no matter how hard you try to glue it, it won’t be the same vase in the end. It’s the same with Luhan: his injury healed but the damage done to the area affected the transmission in an irreversible way and Luhan’s mobility was affected, which ended with him on a wheelchair.”

Yixing felt truly bad then. He hadn’t known any of these things and, yet again, he chose to lash out in anger, letting his mouth run, filtering nothing and that led him to hurt someone, someone who had some guilt, fact, but one that had tried and paid a great price: losing the ability to walk.

Wolves that couldn’t walk wasn’t something very common; it wasn’t unheard of, sometimes birth defects occurred and sometimes they got severely injured, but lose the ability to walk, as a wolf, was something dreaded. Not being able to run with your pack, not being to feel that sense of freedom was awful and it could be very depressing for a wolf. It was sad. Truly sad and Yixing couldn’t even imagine what the other was feeling,

He just wished things had to be like this.

He just wished that Luhan didn’t feel so hurt.

He just wished he wasn’t him that made him feel this way.

Sehun appreciated the darkness. In the darkness all of his thoughts aligned themselves and he could properly think, he could make sense of everything around him and, more importantly, his mind could rest and he was at peace.

It had been a while since he was incarcerated in this place, this miserable place that smelled like despair, sadness and pain. It was overwhelming and suffocating and he truly just wanted to get out of there but he couldn’t, not when heavy iron cuff held him up from, well, almost every possible part of his body.

Of course that he knew very well that he was being held as a prisoner to keep Baekhyun with them; if Sehun was to be let go in freedom, Baekhyun would be more than gone, using his heightened senses to escape and Chanyeol would follow promptly. With Sehun there, it wasn’t happening.

Sehun had taken some beating but there hadn’t been one that was truly hard on him, as they knew, it was more for the show than anything else, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt; he had big bruises on his body, a few cuts here and there and he was pretty sure that his ankle was badly twist.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol were another altogether: black and blue wasn’t enough of an expression to cover how they look, Chanyeol had to be broken ribs and his hand looked truly horrible while Baekhyun had more viewable gashes than skin. They had just brought them from an interrogation and he was all wet and there was a long gash on his neck that seemed too red not to be infected. He was also unconscious but Sehun wasn’t sure that if it was from the pain, from the hunger, since they weren’t allowed to have food, or simply exhaustion.

Chanyeol had his eyes closed when they brought Baekhyun over, depositing him, or throwing him more accurately, inside the cell on the far right corner of the place they were in. Sehun wasn’t sure if the man had been sleeping a little, trying to save some energy but he opened them when he heard the sound of footsteps, closing them right afterwards, when he saw the hurt form of his brother falling harshly on the ground, completely immobile and twisted at an awkward angle.

Sehun managed to crawl a little, straining his body the best he could in order to reach as near as he could to Baekhyun’s cell. He felt a sense of despair when the chains holding him to the wall kept him from going further.

“Baekhyun?” he called in a whisper, hoping that the man would reply to him and assure him he was okay but he didn’t receive any kind of answer.

“He’s not going to answer you.” Commented Chanyeol quite nonchalantly from the other cell. “It is going to take him a while to wake up. He’s in bad shape.”

“He looks weakened.”

“He is. As much as I don’t like to admit it, his body is starting to shut itself off: he fought before he came here and was injured already and he is now getting beaten up day in and day out. They are not being tough on you, we know that’s not you they want; they want to get Jongin through us but, clearly that is not going to happen, and they are focusing on us.”

“Baekhyun told me that Seungwan told us to hold on until Yifan and Junmyeon got here. She told him that once they got here, everything would be okay, or something along those lines.”

“But how long will they take to get here? Even if it a little longer, it might not be enough. Baekhyun is getting weaker and weaker. I am afraid that he won’t hold much longer. My brother is strong but even strong people have limits.”

Sehun looked down at his hands, cursing himself for being so powerless in this situation. He was fast but not strong, he wouldn’t stand a chance against the alphas of the Council who had been trained to fight all of his life. He was a beta, trained to heal people, to make them better. And now Baekhyun, his …

He didn’t know. He didn’t know how to label Baekhyun. Baekhyun was is something but what? He couldn’t figure it out, he just knew he was important and it killed him to see him like this.

“Don’t beat yourself over this Sehun.” Said Chanyeol softly. “Baekhyun doesn’t want you to do that. He knows what he is doing and he is doing this to protect both you and Jongin.”

“I don’t want him to protect me if it means that he gets hurt.” Protested Sehun.

Chanyeol chuckled slightly at Sehun’s protest before giving the man an amused smile that left Sehun baffled.

“You couldn’t stop him if you try. You’re Sehun and you are important to him and that is more than enough for him to move mountains in your name.”

“I don’t want him to do that. It pains me to see him this hurt. Nobody is worth you getting hurt over them.”

“That’s not true and you know it.” Replied Chanyeol, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the wall, sighing briefly, before opening just one eye and looking over at the younger beta. “Some people are worth bending the world for.”

“You have a mate, it’s different!” protested Sehun.

Chanyeol laughed. It was a low sound, filled with amusement and Sehun was lost. He must’ve missed something since he didn’t understand how Chanyeol could find anything funny in their conversation; well, he didn’t really think something could be considered funny at the moment.

“What?” he found himself asking the other.

“It’s funny that you ask that…especially you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When you figure things out, you tell me.” Replied Chanyeol with a final laugh of amusement before closing his eyes and falling into a tired sleep.

Sehun was still immensely confused by all of that had just transpired. He couldn’t understand what was that talk about and he didn’t like how Chanyeol was being so cryptic, he didn’t like cryptic people, he had discovered that pretty early on his life, especially considering that he spent a lot of his time as Luhan’s apprentice.

He looked over at Chanyeol, trying to take something more from him, and instead of pondering over what he had just talked with Chanyeol, he realized how tired the older male looked. He had talked about Baekhyun withering away but he, himself, was beginning to crumble and Sehun realized that it was the lack of his mate. While Chanyeol and Jongdae hadn’t properly mated, marking and claiming one another, they had established a connection and the lack of the other’s presence was beginning to manifesting itself.

Sehun had definitely seen the lack of the characteristic spark on Chanyeol’s eyes but it was only now that he was putting the puzzle pieces together. Briefly, he wandered how strong was their connection for them to be physically affected so soon. He also questioned if Jongdae was feeling the same and if his best friend was okay.

He thought about those who had managed to leave were okay: Jongdae, Luhan, Minseok, Kyungsoo and Jongin. He just really wished he knew.

The dungeons doors opened with a loud noise and Sehun was startled as it was Chanyeol, whose eyes snapped open. The sudden amount of light coming from the doorway was nearly blinding and not welcomed: they didn’t really want to see each other’s awful state.

Hyunseung strode inside, followed by two other wolves, with a very bad smile, one that predicted all of the horrible things one could imagine, playing on his lips. He approached the bars of their cells, walking in front of them, from side to side, rattling them and creating a lot of unnecessary noise.

“Rise and shine.” He said obnoxiously. “It’s time for more fun… fun for me that is.”

Sehun felt a sense of dread taking over his body at the other’s words, not really liking where this was going. He could tell that Chanyeol was very apprehensive as well, since he could see the man struggling to move forward from the corner of his eyes. Baekhyun was still out for the time being.

He found that his assumptions were correct when Hyunseung approached his cell, looking at him with a predatory smile.

“Sehunnie, it’s time for you and I to play.”

A/N: Hello everyone! How have you been doing? I, myself, have been a lazy person! I am almost on vacations (only a week and a day away) and I am suffering from the 'almost ending' syndrome, which means I am getting lazier an lazier by the day! In all honestly, I only have vacations in August, so I am waiting 11 months for this... I think you understand my struggle.
Anyways, this chapter babies have been caugh and things hit the proverbial fan. They are being held on by the Council, some of them at least, and things are getting worse and worse by the minute. However, fear not because things will settle themselves! 
What did you think of this chapter? Were you expecting this to happen? What will you think it will happen next? And about Sehun? What's happening to him? If you want to know don't miss the next chapter! In order not to miss it, please subscribe this story (and check other stories I've written so far, maybe you'll like them!). Also, please comment or leave me a message, I alwasy reply and I promise I am super nice! Upvote the story if you are enjoying it.
At least, and more importantly, don't forget: be healthy and be safe, love yourself, love others and allow them to love you as well and be ALWAYS HAPPY!
Have a magnificent week and don't stress too much!
Lots of love to all of you,
<3