Chapter 4: The Escape Plan (P3)

Minjun felt a jab to his stomach the strength of a punch from a grown man the moment they teleported into the room. If he had not received the training that he did, he would have doubled over in pain. Instead, he blinked a few times as the hit had caught him off guard. Beside him, Chansung mirrored his expression.

“What’s the deal??” Wooyoung whined.

Unlike Minjun and Chansung, Wooyoung was crouching on the floor with both arms hugging his middle. The hit had managed to do damage to him as he was spared the gruelling training that was forced upon the other two.  Minjun decided to ignore him and focus his attention towards the cage they were currently standing in front of. In it, a petulant child of about five years old stood backed to a corner with a little bundle in his arms. The way he was cradling the baby clearly showed how protective he was of it.

“Owwww!” Wooyoung groaned as another bout of telekinesis hit the three of them. “Ask him to stop…” he half-begged as he dropped to his knees, one arm still around his stomach while the other fisted on the ground to support his body up.

Chansung raised a brow at the kid in the cage when he figured that he was the source of the attacks. A smirk followed not long after, reflecting how impressed he was by the kid’s telekinetic strength and control. However, the kid was not out to impress anyone; he was merely trying to defend himself and the baby in his arms.

“I am not going with you. I will only go with Minjun,” the kid voiced out. He raised his chin defiantly with that declaration but his hands tightening around the little bundle in his arms betrayed his nervousness. He had never met Minjun even while telepathing the latter and hence had no idea how Minjun looked like. His only way of identifying the man was a code that the man had given him whenever he contacted him.

Keeping his eyes on the kid, Minjun went into the mental plane and knocked on the kid’s mental barrier with the code that he had previously shared with him. “JInyoung, it’s me,” he introduced himself.

Jinyoung turned his gaze towards Minjun, his eyes bellying a wisdom too old for his age. After appraising him for a few seconds, he nodded as if to confirm his decision to himself.

“He’s coming with us,” he telepathed in answer, looking pointedly across the room.

Minjun turned towards said corner to find a mutt in a cage, looking all but ready to pounce. Wooyoung and Chansung followed his gaze when they noticed it travelling away from the boy. When the mutt noticed their collective attentions on him, he bared his teeth and growled low in his throat.

“No,” Chansung stated.

The mutt snarled at the same time Jinyoung’s frown deepened.

“We have no time for a pet,” Minjun offered as form of explanation.

“He is not a pet and we are not leaving without him,” Jinyoung insisted before putting up a wall of telekinetic barrier behind the bars of the cage.

Chansung frowned as he easily broke down the barrier and the bars.

“We have no time for this. There’s only three minutes left,” Chansung reminded.

Hearing that, Minjun quickly telepathed their other comrades instructing them to make their way towards the meeting point.

“This is no ordinary mutt,” Wooyoung suddenly voiced out, “we need to bring him with us.”

Chansung huffed in exasperation before freeing the mutt by blasting away the bars caging it in. He then carried it using his telekinesis and placed it beside the other kids, the mutt’s growls of displeasure traveling with him the whole way.

“Right,” Minjun started, “Chansung here,” he thumped Chansung’s chest as he addressed the boy and the mutt, which he now noticed had intelligent eyes, “will teleport us out. So make sure you keep physical contact- “

“Get down!” Chansung’s  sudden warning cut him off unexpectedly.

Minjun lunged to cover the boy, baby and mutt with his body as a blast hit them from above. Instantly, a barrage of pain assailed Minjun’s mind causing him to slump to the ground. He felt blood trickling from his ears and nose as he coughed out blood. When he opened his eyes, his vision was filled with red.

“Minjun! Minjun!”

He heard Chansung’s shouts but could not find the strength to answer. He then felt a hand on his back followed by a warmth that flowed from his spine to his brain.

“The children?” He croaked when the pain in his brain lessened by a tiny fraction.

“They’re fine. Hold still, Wooyoung is fixing you.”

Minjun closed his eyes in relief. Opening them again, he gave what he thought would be his last order.

“Leave. Find any means necessary. Go as far as you can.” He telepathed to the links that were still alive.

A second later another blast could be heard not too far off followed by more pain assailing his mind.

“Stop using your telepathy, you’re making your injuries worse,” Wooyoung reprimanded, his voice sounding strained.

“Leave,” this time Minjun said it aloud, “make sure the kids are safe.”

He felt the hand on his back retracted and heard everyone around him shuffled to a stand. He closed his eyes again, half to lessen the pain in his head, half to prepare himself for his end. Instead he felt himself being carried and slumped over a shoulder.

“Chansung,” he sighed, “I will slow you down.”

“We won’t be able to track the others without you,” he replied flatly.

Minjun simply clenched a fist around the cloth on Chansung’s back in acknowledgment.

As they teleported out of the room, the barrier that protected them disappeared, letting the fallen ceiling from the blasts land on the ground where they had been mere seconds before.

I wrote this chapter while in the train, hence it is quite a short one.

I rushed through this cos I wanted to make someone's day, considering recent events... #RIPJonghyun :(

So I hope whoever it is, is cheered up by this update and enjoyed reading this :)

Also, is the story moving too slow? I'm still new at writing so some constructive feedback is very much welcome so that I can improve myself ^^,

Lastly, thank you for reading!!