The Distant Land
Awoken in a Distant Land“There are only six students other than us left…” said Dongwoo, entering the room; his eyes were revealing his fear.
“We all should stay in here tonight…” said L.Joe, the bags under his eyes revealed that he had been up the past few nights because of nightmares.
“We should stay up too, it’s our last night here and I’m pretty sure none of us want to be taken away when we just have twelve hours left.” Said L, the others nodded.
Through that night the seven boys stayed in silence. The monsters who were roaming the other areas of the island stayed quiet, being sure not to alert any one of their location on the island as they took the last of the people who weren’t protected by magical stones.
While the other boys kept talking to each other, trying to keep themselves awake, L.Joe stayed silent, looking at the seven color changing stones that laid on the ground in the middle of their circle, the stone’s lights were brighter than usual and lit the room dimly. He sighed, fighting his drooping eyelids to stay awake.
“I should’ve known you’d be here…” said a feminine boy, smiling as he sat down beside his hyung, letting his feet hang off the end of the dock, “You know that Donghae and Eunhyuk will be angry if they catch us out here at night…”
“I know, but I’m worried, Niel still isn’t back yet…” said the other boy.
“Sungyeol, Sungjong!” called their hyung, running down the dock to them, “What are you two doing out here? You know that the mentors don’t like us out here at night, because the demons are roaming the lands again and they only do it at night…”
“We know Sunggyu-hyung,” Said the two.
“It’s just that Niel still isn’t back yet…” said Sungyeol.
“Chunji’s probably keeping him…” muttered the older boy, “I bet you he’ll be back tomorrow for training…”
“How can you be so sure hyung?” asked Sungyeol, “We all know that Chunji tends to go off on his own and in turn leaves other people behind…”
“I’m pretty sure Chunji is with Niel at the moment, so there is nothing to worry about, he’ll protect them both…” said Sunggyu, ruffling his brothers’ hair, “Don’t worry about him just yet…”
In the Miro Castle, Chunji sat in his room, looking out of the large floor to ceiling window, overlooking the small forest and lake where the temple with the door way to Earth in it sat. He sighed out, suddenly getting a transmission through the stone on his necklace.
“Chun-Chunji…help…”
Chunji shot out of his chair and onto his feet, creeping over to his door, opening it just a crack, only to hear his guardian’s voices drifting through the silent halls heading closer to his room, he quickly and quietly shut the door.
“Hang on Niel, I’m coming…”
“Hurry…”
Chunji glanced at his bed and smiled, he used his power over air to make it seem like he was sleeping on the bed. When he finally completed it, he grabbed ahold of the stone on his necklace, closing his eyes and focused all his powers into teleporting to the spring where Niel was.
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in the shallow spring, the rocks both in and around the spring had a faint white glow to them. They were healing stones, which gave the water healing properties; however, something was off about the spring today. The stones were dimmer; the normally clear water was stained with blood. He glanced around in a semi panic, seeing that the stones he had worked so hard to place in the spring were gone, however as he glanced around something moved out of the corner of his eye and he spun around to see a severely wounded and burnt Niel lying barely conscious on the ground.
He sprinted over to the younger boy, “Who did this? What happened?”
Niel’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“Niel, who did this please, speak…” whispered Chunji.
The younger boy shook his head weakly and gathered enough strength to raise his hand and point to the feminine figure that was standing right behind the prince, preparing to wound the boy so that he was easier to take the devil. As the younger boy fell unconscious, Chunji quickly spun around, only to come face to face with a masked demon, whose blood eyes shone brightly in the moon light.
“So, we finally meet, Prince Chunji …” said the feminine voice.
Chunji started at the woman in complete and utter horror, she was one of the people who Jaejoong warned him about days earlier.
“L.Joe?!”
“Huh?”
“I said the sun is up L.Joe…” said Woohyun, eyeing the boy suspiciously, “What was that trance about?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about…”
“Oh…It’s nothing…I was just day dreaming…” said L.Joe, scratching the back of his not so itchy neck.
“About what?” asked Woohyun.
“It’s nothing you should worry about…It didn’t concern you…”
“Guys, no one is here on the island,” Yelled L, busting down the door and rushing in.
Woohyun glanced at L.Joe who was still trembling as he thought about his past dreams, they all seemed to link together, other than the fact that a boy named Chunji was in each one. He ran out of the room and out of the inn, heading into the heart of the village that was normally buzzing with people.
He took a deep breath; it was like in his dreams. He took the crystal out of his pocket, however as he touched it he heard the warped voices again.
“Chunji, you are still weak…”
“Niel, I could care less right now…” said a weak voice, “Niel, all I know right now is that we have to summon them into our realm…It’s too dangerous to leave them in theirs. We need a sacred place to do the summoning in thought…this way the demons don’t interrupt it again…”
“Chunji, your health is more important than those mortals…”
“Niel, we can’t die.”
“Yes, you can, we can. However, we can only be killed by the Demons and the Devils, which are the things that are after you right now. That thing that attacked you and I the other day was a demon…Chunji, they are too strong…”
“I don’t care Niel, I accidently brought the seven into our mess and I’m going to do everything I can to protect them from the danger I put them in.”
“Chunji…don’t be stupid.”
“Niel, I’m not being stupid…I’m taking responsibility for the things I did.”
L.Joe suddenly dropped his crystal as it felt like it was burning his hand, however when he dropped it, it didn’t fall to the ground; it in fact, didn’t even hit the ground it hovered in the air. L.Joe went to reach for it; however, the crystal began to move away at a rather quick speed, forcing L.Joe to run to it. The crystal made him run deep into the forest and to a temple that was hidden deep in the woods. The temple’s stain glass windows were shattered, the marble on the outside was chipped and the roof looked like it was caved in. Moss and vines were growing up the side of the building. He took a deep breath as he stepped to the door of the ancient temple. He paused for a second, hearing something in the woods behind him, he turned around to see six other crystals heading right towards his head, he ducked down and the six pass through the door and into the temple. He looked at the door and then back at the six other boys who were standing beside him, all looking at the temple, amazed at the still beautiful place.
“Should we go inside?” asked Woohyun.
L.Joe shrugged, “I don’t know…but it seems familiar.”
“You’ve seen it before?” said CAP.
L.Joe nodded, “Not in person but in a dream…however the temple wasn’t like this…it was more, well kept.”
“Should we go inside?” asked L, repeating Woohyun’s question.
“I don’t know…” repeated L.Joe, “If the stones led us here, then I guess it’s safe to follow, right?”
The others shrugged.
L.Joe sighed and took it as a yes, he inhaled deeply, pushing the heavy marble doors open, walking into the temple that was lit from the light of the sun outside. The seven stones were circling above the door way in the middle of the room which looked like it lead to a different room.
“What is this place?” asked Donghyun, glancing around, moving closer to the walls to get a closer look at the marble statues that were placed along the walls.
“It’s some sort of temple…” said L, “Obviously…”
L.Joe sneezed as the dust on the statues invaded his nose, “This place probably hasn’t been touched in ages…”
“Obviously,” Repeated L, rolling his eyes.
“These statues look mean…” muttered Donghyun, examining the black marble half of the temple.
The others walked over to him looking at the statues closely; they noticed there were one humongous one and a lot of smaller ones. They all then moved back to the white half, which only had five large statues and fifteen medium statues, and then it also had eight small statues, one of which shocked L.Joe.
“I’ve seen him in my dreams recently, well, except they were more like nightmares…” said L.Joe.
The others all looked at him like he was crazy, however they all just shrugged, moving onto the door where the seven crystals were circling around.
“I wonder what lies beyond that door…” muttered CAP.
The others nodded, wanting to know too.
CAP walked to the door, pushing on it, only to see that it wouldn’t budge, the others pushed onto it too, however it still wouldn’t budge, they ended up exhausting themselves out and laying on the cool marble floors as the sun slowly disappeared behind the tree tops.
L.Joe, who hadn’t gotten any sleep with in the past 48 hours closed his eyes and feel into a somewhat peaceful sleep.
“Chunji…” muttered a shaggy, brown haired boy, walking up to the boy who set seven color changing crystals on the ground in a circle with him in the middle.
The wounded boy look up, a majority of his body was wrapped up in gauze, in some places he was bleeding through the bandages, “Niel, I understand you are against this, but I asked Jaejoong and Yunho, they approved of this…I asked my parents, they approved of it, they knew this is my way of taking responsibility. Niel it’s like how I took responsibility for getting you hurt…”
“But what if it ends up like last time? After all, the Devil’s sword is still stuck in the door…” said Niel, “which means the demons will come back for it.”
“Niel, the only person who can touch that sword now are the gods and the Devil himself…the demons won’t be coming for it any time soon…”
“But the Devil might…”
“Niel, according to how wounded he was after the Great War, he still has a little ways to go before he comes out of hell…”
“But the demons…”
“Will be held off by the guardians who are securing this temple…”
The boy sighed, “Hyung, what are you going to do with the boys once they’re here?”
“I’ve already got a mortal family who has promised me that they’ll take good care of them, also they live near the castle, so, just in case danger does strike I’ll be able to get to the boys.” Said the older boy, “Now, Niel…back away…”
The younger nodded, backing away.
The boys all gasped and sat up at the same time, however they all were in separate rooms so they didn’t know where the others were and if they had the same dream, the one thing they did know was that they weren’t in the temple, but in a house.
L.Joe stood up on trembling legs, making his way to the room’s window, he took a deep breath and drew back the drapes, seeing a foreign land below his window, this house was carved from the rock from the mountain, and all the houses he could see were. The streets below were buzzing with cheerful people who were walking through the market street below.
He looked past the building below and to the lands he could see thanks to the high elevation, to the east he saw the horrific sight of ten of hundreds of volcanoes erupting, emitting thick black smoke into the otherwise clear skies. To the west there sat five mountain’s towering over the land, their peaks hidden by the thick white clouds around them.
“Where am I?” muttered L.Joe, knowing that he was not in Maiki anymore.
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