Byun Baekhyun, day seventy seven 01:13

Jongdae’s gonna be okay. At least I hope he will. I don’t know if Yixing helped, they’ve both been out for hours. The atmosphere isn’t helping either. Junmyeon’s twitchy, he wants to keep moving, I can tell. Jongin hasn’t said a word to anyone who isn’t Sehun, they stay away from all of us. Maybe it’s for the best, I can’t imagine what it was like. Sometimes Jongin wakes us up, screaming in his sleep, on the worst nights he cries too. None of us dare wake him up, who knows what might happen. His powers might go haywire, he already fades during the worst of it. If we wake him up he might disappear, maybe even for good. We can’t risk that, we can’t risk losing anyone.

Jongdae… He’s breathing, sometimes he wakes up. I’m thankful for Junmyeon. His powers keep us alive, we haven’t found a water source anywhere but it’s out there. Junmyeon says he can sense it. We’ve walked for miles and never once spotted it though we’re not looking for it. Junmyeon says it’s almost like it’s following us or at least parallel to our path. Perhaps Junmyeon’s subconsciously following it, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen to us.

But all in all, our powers are keeping us alive. Chanyeol lights a campfire every night, he’s also been trying to help Minseok’s leg now that Yixing can’t seem to muster up the energy to even walk with us, let alone help someone like he has helped Jongdae. Chanyeol has probably been trying to keep us all together, I’m almost afraid that he’s overexerting himself. He doesn’t complain, he barely spares a word. He just wants to keep us moving, keep us alive, I guess.

Kyungsoo, where would you even start. He doesn’t sleep, not to my knowledge. He’s always the one telling us to keep quiet and not move when Jongin’s episodes wake us up. Always in the same position he’s in when I fall asleep. In the morning I’ve seen him and Chanyeol sitting over a fire, cooking something or the other. Big enough to last the 9 of us for a couple of days. I don’t know how he did it, we never see any animal around. Maybe it has something to do with his powers, none of us really know what they are. Sometimes he’ll slip his hand into mine and maybe it’s the physical contact or maybe it’s just him but it reenergizes me. He always offers to help Yixing walk, maybe it’s for the same reason.

Minseok’s leg doesn’t seem to be healing quickly but he walks, it looks less stiff than it did when we escaped. He’s always freezing cold but he says he can’t feel it. It probably works the same way as Chanyeol’s powers keep him at an almost burning temperature. Neither of them notices it. Minseok is the only one who talks to me, properly. The others are so preoccupied. I can’t blame them, not when the thing they’re preoccupied with is our survival.

Earlier today… some strange things happened. I’ve been wanting to tell you this but this is the first time I’ve been able to sit down and update, I wanted to tell you about the others and how they’re doing first. Though, I’m not sure who this ‘you’ is. Maybe you’re one of the people who kept us captive, maybe I’ll get to tell my story, maybe you’re just someone in my head and I’m not writing this down and I’m still in that white room with white furniture and white walls.

Around noon, Junmyeon came up to me. We stopped to rest and eat and drink and to give those carrying people some time to recover. Junmyeon sat down next to me, the grass was prickly underneath us but it was softer than sitting directly on the ground. It was obvious he wanted to say something but instead we just looked at Chanyeol helping Kyungsoo lay Yixing down next to Jongdae. Yixing looked conscious but he didn’t say anything, his eyes were just fluttering open and closed.

“How are you doing?” Junmyeon asked me quietly. The question wasn’t the best one to ask in this group.

“Could be better, I suppose.” I answered, he let out a somewhat dry chuckle.

“I guess that goes for all of us, huh?” I looked over to Yixing and Jongdae.
“I guess it does.”

“Listen, Baekhyun, I think I know where we need to go.” The statement made me turn my head to him. He looked back at me, the picture of innocence but with bags under his eyes. I couldn’t have looked much better at that point. “We need to go to Seoul.”
“Seoul? What’s that?” Junmyeon shook his head lightly.
“I’m-I’m not sure. Something in the back of my head tells me that we need to go there.” He admitted. I nodded.
“Are you sure it’s your thoughts and not something planted into you by Them?” I questioned.

“It’s the only thing we have, Baekhyun. If this Seoul is a dead end or whatever, it’s still the only lead we have.” Junmyeon’s tone became harder, more determined. A quick once-over helped me determine that he was tense, his fists clenched and body so rigid that he was practically vibrating from the intensity. I didn’t know why but my instincts told me to reach out and try to diffuse the tension in his hand.

“I trust you, I know–hope–that you wouldn’t trap us, any of us.” I said, not looking at his side profile but rather my thumb running over his clenched fist. “I think going to Seoul is a good idea if it’s what you think we should do. You’re our leader. Right now, we follow you.” Junmyeon nodded at my statement. He focused his attention away from our conversation for a bit but I noticed he was slowly relaxing. That was when a presence made itself known behind us. We both turned around, slight shock setting in at seeing Kyungsoo’s stare on Junmyeon.
“I can get us to Seoul.” He stated. Junmyeon and I shared a glance before he cleared his throat.
“How so?” He asked. Kyungsoo shrugged, eyes never leaving Junmyeon.
“I just have a feeling.” Junmyeon looked apprehensive. ‘Just a feeling’ was, however, as good as it seemed it was gonna get for us.
“Alright, we can trust you.” I said, finally shifting Kyungsoo’s attention. He smiled at me with closed lips. After that he wandered off again.

“Do you really think we can trust him?” Junmyeon asked in a hushed voice. I nodded before adding to my reply.

“He’s the reason we got out, Junmyeon, I don’t think he means us any harm.” It felt weird, talking about Kyungsoo like he was either a small kid or non-human even.
“Yeah, I guess so. But you have to admit that he’s suspicious.” Junmyeon confided.
“I think they really messed him up in there, he was there for so long he doesn’t even know when he arrived.” My voice was much lower than I intended but the information was, after all, for Junmyeon’s ears only. Like always, a silence fell over us. I took the chance to pick at some grass poking out from between my fingers.
“I do trust him, you know?” Junmyeon spoke up. I looked at him, diverting my attention from the blades of grass and focusing on following his gaze to where Kyungsoo had kneeled to hold Yixing’s hand. “I just don’t trust his sense of direction.”

“And you think yours is much better?” The comment caused a smile to tug at Junmyeon’s lips.

“I wouldn’t really say so, I don’t think any of us have a great sense of direction.” He said back. It was easy, forgetting the ty situation we were caught in while speaking to Junmyeon. He was calming and grounding and everything I needed to keep my mind from soaring out of my body.

“I wouldn’t expect us to.” Another bout of silence engulfed us but it was peaceful. Cicadas hummed in the surroundings somewhere as the sun lowered on the horizon. Rays of red-gold and soft orange burst in the sky overhead as our companions prepared to sleep and take watch respectfully. Junmyeon hummed lowly, having closed his eyes a while ago. I shook his shoulder a bit so he would open them. Something had brought back the memories of the time we spent together in the infirmary, talking about things we missed.

His eyes slowly opened, regarding me with a tired expression. I figured I should let him get some rest soon but not before showing him what he had missed for so long.

“Look,” I said, nodding towards the slowly setting sun, “colors.”

(A/N) Thank you all so much for your support, I know I took an unexpected hiatus for a few months and I'm really happy to see that you guys are still here and still reading.
I know this chapter is much shorter than the previous one but I hope it can still keep you all interested. I'm currently working on the next update and it's going really well. A special thanks to my smol, Jul, for helping me stay motivated and cheering me on. You have them to thank for these past 2 updates and probably every update to come. You can check out Jul's writing on AO3 and AFF under Julibun (though I doubt you'd enjoy it if you dislike Chansoo/Vkook) and I encourage you guys to!
Again, thank you all so much for staying by my side and being so supportive! I think this is the only A/N I won't delete when I finish this story, haha.