Chapter 22

The golden metal hang cold around his neck. The flower of life reflected the unregular light that shined on it. The temperature of the room had drop to minus grades that one could see his own breath. If this was the beginning of the end it could have been out of an Hollywood movie.

Shivering Baekhyun embraced his talisman with his shivering hand. The cold flower began to get warm slowly. Everyone was wearing his charm openly on his body. This was the only way for them to take the portal in front of them, having this was the only way to use the exology to come back. The talisman will only those take back who are guardians, only those who carry the flower of life with them to show that they’re directly bounded to the tree of life.

“If we’re through the portal, there’s no way back…”, Kyungsoo mumbled and took Jongins hand to squeeze it.

“It’s our destiny. What ever happens there, it is what we were born for…”, the taller said and smiled sincere.

Kai was right. This was their destiny. They are the guardians, they are the chosen ones to protect life itself. Baekhyun closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“It’s okay to be scared…” A hand laid on his shoulder and Baekhyun looked behind into Chanyeols caring eyes. “I’m with you. You don’t have to fear anything…”

“It’s just…I’m still not very confident with my power…”

The taller hugged him from behind and held him tight. “We all aren’t. We won’t be able to use it like we do it here. This fears us all. On the other side we’re equal when it comes to using our powers…” He placed an encouraging kiss on his temple before he let go off him to take his hand. “We will go through this together…”

Baekhyun looked at the honest face of his boyfriend and nodded with a light smile on his lips.

“Are you ready? We should go now.”, Junmyeon said and turned around to the portal the tree opened for them. Baekhyun wasn’t sure but he thought he’d heard their leaders voice tremble for the first time. When even Suho, who’d lived for a long time now, was afraid, what were they going to face?

Baekhyun shrugged when he felt something cold at his left hand. “Gosh!”, he said in relief as he saw Tao next to him.

“Sorry Baek…I just…I just wanted to ask if we could…” Zitao seemed to be ashamed of what question was running through his mind when he took Baekhyuns hand. “…this.” The man in the body of a child looked up to him. “It’s just, you know…those rides can be very shaky. There are working forces against each other and we’re right in between.” He sighed. “I just don’t want to get lost I think.”

Baekhyun blinked till he got what his friend wanted to ask. He smiled warmly. “I would love holding hands with the men I like the most.”

“Thank you…”

“Are you ready?”, Junmyeon asked and stepped closer to the portal.

Baekhyun nodded and followed with Chanyeol and Tao.

“Remember, same rules like every portal. We have to stay in group, you can’t diverge from the group without consequences. You have to stay with me, only the exology and our medals can guide our way.”, Kai remembered, when he took Kyungsoos hand. Both were the first to enter the portal and with a blink of an eye the rest of the guardians followed.

Baekhyun hadn’t traveled with a portal for a long time. As soon as he was in, the whole atmosphere around him started to blur and blink in loud colors. He began to feel dizzy because of his surroundings. Chanyeol must have noticed this, he held is hand tighter. “It’s soon over.”

“I know…” But they learned to be wrong.

Usually traveling with a portal took less than 30 seconds. Now Baekhyun could swear they were in it for over a minute. His stomach began to hurt and he saw that he wasn’t the only one who’d problems with this unusual ride.

Minseok was even more pale than he used to be and Jongdaes strong arms had problems to keep Minseok in his arms. They all had problems to stay in group.

“We should hold hands!”, Junmyeon suggested and took Kyungsoos hand. They couldn’t risk to lose anyone.

The travel began to get more like a ride in an amusement park. The guardians were hurled into every direction and they had trouble to not lose each other. If one of them lost the hand of a guardian, those who wouldn’t be connected with Kai would be doomed.

But holding on to the hands next to you wasn’t as easy as they’d thought. Baekhyun had trouble holding Zitao who was in great danger because of his small body. Even Baekhyun had problems to stand on his feet but Tao wasn’t even able to. His body was fluttering like a flag in the wind and he tried to hold on to Baekhyun with both hands and all his strength.

“I will hold on tight and not let go!”, Baekhyun screamed into Taos direction. The space around them was so loud they’d trouble understanding each other.

Tao nodded only and clinged more to his friend who’d problems himself. If it wasn’t for Chanyeol, Baekhyun would fly like is child-friend. The redhead was holding him and gave him strength to face this journey. In this moment Chanyeol had strength for three.

It took them almost five minutes to reach their destination. Baekhyuns knees were shaky and he sank down as soon as he felt solid ground under his feet. The sandy ground creaked under his weight. He gulped and tried to prevent the sick feeling crawling up his throat. Chanyeol went into a kneeling position next to him and patted his back. “it’s okay, you’re not used to it anymore and it was the longest ride we’d ever taken.”

Baekhyun nodded and sight. “But we made it…?”, he asked in a dry voice.

“I guess so.”

Baekhyun took a deep breath and glanced around. It was like he’d seen this somewhere. Everything was dipped into pink and purple colors. It was like a someone had put a filter over the whole dimension. When he tried to stand up he felt that the ground to his feet felt soft, too soft to run on it. “I’ve seen this somewhere before…”

“What?”, Chanyeol asked wondering where this could have been.

“When I was first chased by a demon at the campus. I think the demon had made the campus to this dimension? I don’t know. The whole campus looked and felt the same like this.”

“You might be right…”, Jongin said and sight. “Nonetheless, we need to hurry. Let’s not waste time.”

Kyungsoo grimaced. “He’s right. I don’t like this place…”

They stared to move and after a few minutes they passed a wooden bridge. “Something’s fishy here.”, Junmyeon mumbled. “No monsters, no trap. All we can see is a huge field of…nothing…”

And Suho was right. Wherever Baekhyun looked was nothing. It seemed like they could be happed to walk on ground, because this was the only thing that was there. Even the bridge they’d passed was useless because there wasn’t a river or a gorge to pass. “If this is all, then here wouldn’t be the other half of the tree.”

“We would have seen it by now, that’s right.” Jongin sighed. “What do we do now? There’s no reason to walk any further.”

“What? What if the tree is far away and we just can’t see it?”, Baekhyun asked. “We have to go.”

“Even if so, we can’t walk around a