Chapter 26

They were running for about two hours now. Baekhyun was sure that those creatures wouldn’t follow them anymore but still something in them kept them running. The blonde became breathless but still he managed to take all his strength to keep running. It felt like fleeing from an invisible monster when you were a child.

Luhan was guiding their way, because he and Sehun were the only ones who’d read the diary. And Luhan kept guiding. They weren’t talking much nor looking back. Baekhyun new he would want to turn around to help his friends, but on the other hand he knew every help would be to late for them. Today, not only Yixing but also Kyungsoo, Xiumin and Jongdae had left them, also they could be sure now, that they’d lost Kris long time ago.

Baekhyun fought the tears coming up to his eyes again when suddenly Luhan stopped. “What happened?”, he asked but saw the problem at the same time. In front of them was a huge wild river. “Isn’t there any bridge?”

Luhan shook his head. “I don’t see any. What to do now?”

“We have to go through.” Kai said and made a step into the water but immediately pulled his foot back. “Tzzz!” the brown-haired held his foot.

Baekhyun who’d run to Kai to check his foot gasped. “The water, it’s…”

“…corrosive…”, said Chanyeol who’d seen Kais red root.

“Isn’t there another way?”, Jongin asked and tried to put weight on his injured foot again.

“We don’t know. It’s not like there’s a map inside the diary.”, Luhan sighed and looked around. “This is really bad.”

“It’s not. I think…”, Junmyeon mumbled and went to the river. He sat down und mumbled something while concentrating. While he did that he touched the river with a hand. “I think I can help.”, he said after testing it. “I can dilute the water with my power. It’s still corrosive but you can make your way save through the river.”

Baekhyun nodded. “Then let’s do this!” He was about to go into the water when Suho stopped him.

“Don’t. You have to go with the stream. When I’m going to dilute the water at this place you have to step in over there that you won’t get in touch with the corrosive water.”

“Hm…as expected. You’re thinking of everything.”, Baekhyun grinned and went to the point where they were save to cross the river. He had to wait for the rest to follow him. Chanyeol was last because he talked for a long time with Suho. When he reached then Baekhyun smiled. “You’ve taken time. We should hurry.”

Chanyeol nodded. “Right. Let’s go.” He took Baekhyuns hand and made a first careful step into the river. Baekhyun had to hold on tight to Chanyeol because the flow was so strong that it hit him out of his feet a few times. Like this they were crossing the river.

“Tao!” Baekhyun heard Jongin screaming. When he turned around he saw that Jongin was diving. When he popped up again, he pulled Tao out of the water. “Be careful!”

“Sorry…”, the kid coughed and clang onto Kai. Both hurried to follow the others to the other side of the river.

Baekhyun helped Tao to come on land and Chanyeol pulled Kai out of the water. “We made it…!”, Baekhyun smiled and looked to Suho. “We’re all well! Now it’s your turn!”

Although the river was quite huge, Baekhyun could see the changing on Suhos face. “Try to find the tree!”, he screamed. “You can do this, I know you can!”

“What…”, Baekhyun asked, looking to Chanyeol. “What does that mean?”

“It means, we should hurry…”, Chanyeol said, took Baekhyuns hand and wanted to continue walking, but Baekhyun refused to.

“We have to wait for Junmyeon!”

“He can’t cross the river, Baek. There is no one way up the stream who can dilute the water. Like this he’s not going to make it.”

“But…”

“He knew what he was doing. He even told me that we-“

“He told you that he wouldn’t be able to follow us, and you still agreed?!”

“Baek…”

“No! No Baek this time! We are lost so many friends today, why did we choose losing another good friend?!”

“Because he insisted. Our first goal must be to protect the tree. We are guardians and that’s what we’re for. Not for being friends and dying with each other.”

Baekhyun was appalled by Chanyeols way of looking at things. Upset he followed Luhan, who asked them to follow him.

“He said he will look for another way across the river… he promised me to do so!”, Chanyeol said, following Baekhyun. “Do you really think this was an easy decision?” Again, he tried to take Baekhyuns hand, but he pulled it away.

“Don’t!”

When Baekhyun looked back he saw Suho walking along the river, searching for another way to cross it. I just hope you will make it…and you will find us, won’t you…?

They were wandering around for a few hours. Baekhyun managed to stay silent the whole time. He still was more than angry about Chanyeols decision, although he understood it somehow. Anyway, he wouldn’t have chosen leaving Suho behind. He would have been chosen searching together for another way.

Suddenly many birds were flying over their heads. They were croaking loudly, and it seemed like they were afraid, they were fleeing of something. When Baekhyun looked back he couldn’t believe what he saw. A huge purple cloud was crawling into their direction. They still were save, because it wasn’t that fast, but the cloud reminded him of something.

“What is this again…?”, Luhan asked terrified. “Why won’t it end?”

“It’s near the river now…”, Jongin mumbled, pressing Tao, who he was carrying, tighter.

“Suho…”, Chanyeol whispered. “What have I done…?”

Baekhyun looked at Chanyeol. In his eyes he saw fear, guilt and all other kinds of negative feelings. The blonde sighed. Although he still was angry at Chanyeol, he couldn’t stand seeing him like this. When he took the hand of the redhead the other one looked at him in surprise.

“He…will have crossed the river by now…”, Baekhyun whispered and nodded to convince himself.

When Chanyeol nodded, he smiled lightly. “I’ve seen this before. When I met the tree of life in my dream. The fog that was chasing me…it was the same…”

“The red force…”

Baekhyun nodded. “Yes…”

“Nice that the red force is looking for us in a large scale.”, Tao sighed. “And even the birds are fleeing.”

Luhan investigated the sky. “There are many birds, don’t you think so?”

Sehun looked up as well. “There…aren’t many birds. It seems to be one volery.”

“What?”

They all looked up to the sky and Sehun was right. The birds stayed with them, there were only a few who left the swarm to give them a wide berth and to fly to them again, that it looked like there were always new birds coming.

The dark birds seemed to feel that they got caught. Their croaking got more aggressive and suddenly their eye color changed to red.

“He’s found us!”, Baekhyun said and wanted to run again, when Luhan screamed even louder than he was.

“Look! The fog is coming nearer even faster!”

“Run!”

All of them were running while protecting their heads from the birds that were picking at them. In all this chaos Luhan managed to guide them threw the landscape, always in mind that they might get injured badly by the birds or soon might be caught by the fog. But nobody of them thought that they would ran into a dead end.

They were standing in front of a cave but there was no way into it. It was barred with a huge stone. “This is the cave! It must be the cave!”, Luhan said furiously. “But why is it barred? How can we come in?!”

“Shht…”, Sehun said and hugged Luhan. “You’ve guided us well. We will see what to do next.”

The birds kept picking their heads and some of the guardians got bitten and scratched by them. “We should think of a solution fast.”, Baekhyun mumbled and tried to hide his face as good as he could.

Jongin shook his head. “This is for nothing.”, he said exhausted. “We keep fighting, we keep searching, running, we keep sacrifice ourselves. And for what? This is a dead end!” The brown-haired sank down on his knees.

Baekhyun was sure Jongin was still mourning over Kyungsoo. Who wouldn’t? He lost his soulmate. If somebody knows what this means, then it was Baekhyun. But he also knew that there wasn’t enough time to mourn. They needed to push their grief to the side. They had to think clear now.

Slowly he sat down next to Jongin and hugged him tight. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry, Jongin…”, he whispered, and it seemed with those words everything was said. Jongin began to cry in despair. “I will miss him, too.”, Baekhyun whispered and tried to comfort the man.

“It’s my fault…”

“No…no it’s not…”

“I couldn’t reach him. I tried…but I couldn’t…”

“No one of us could. I tried it as well…I’m sorry Jongin. Kyungsoo surely knows that you gave your best…”, he whispered. “And there will be time to mourn, but right now we have to concentrate on surviving…”

“…” Jongins chest still was quivering.

“Ksoo wouldn’t have want you to die here, Jongin…”

After a few seconds of overthinking Jongin nodded finally. “It’s still hard…I don’t know if I can be strong…”

Baekhyun smiled encouraging. “We will be strong together…”

“Guys…I’ve found something!”, Luhan screamed.

When Baekhyun and Jongin looked up they saw that Luhan, Sehun and Tao hat freed the cave from al the scrub that had grown over the stone which locked the entrance.

“A Celtic knot.”, Chanyeol said in awe.

Luhan nodded. “It is. It’s a sign of an uninterrupted lifecycle. But with one little detail.” He showed to the right side. “It’s interrupted.”

“Like…you mean life is…interrupted?”, Baekhyun asked, still hugging Jongin.

“I looked it up in the diary. The red force wrote something about it.”, Tao said. “Oke, it’s more like there is standing a lot about this cave. This cave has something like an invisible shield around it that blocks the power of the half of this tree. So basically, when we reached the lost planet, we couldn’t hear the voice of the tree because of this. It works like a barrier.”

“The interrupted Celtic knot means that when the tree isn’t able to spread his power anymore, life itself can’t continue, because the circle got interrupted. Which means…without the tree, life can’t exist infinite. What means we must bring the tree back. No matter what.”, Sehun continued and sighed.

“And this is where I’m back into the game!”, Luhan said and grinned. He cracked his knuckles and began to concentrate. When he tried to move the stone with his power, the stone simply wiggled a little. Luhan wasn’t able to move it. “What…”

“Our powers aren’t as strong as they are at home…”, Baekhyun mumbled. “Jongin, can you…?”

The spoken shook his head. “In this world I can only teleport to places I can see. It wouldn’t be possible.”

“Wait, look. What is this??”, Tao said and began to read something written at the side of the cave.

“Come here my little dear,

From me you want to steal,

But I promise you soon it will be clear,

That it will be hurt what you will feel

This sounds promising.”

“What does it mean?”, Chanyeol asked, but got no answer.

“On the other side of the cave is another one.”, Tao said and hurried there to read it out loud.

“Covered with blaze,

You will fall, and that is clear,

Into my wicked maze

You can’t escape if you come near.”

“Okay this doesn’t sound any better, to be honest.”, Baekhyun said but coughed heavily right away. The purple fog was reaching them slowly and etched in their airways. He and Jongin stood up and came to the others in front of the cave. “What now?”, the blonde coughed.

“There is only one way…”, Sehun said and began to concentrate. He formed some sings with his hands and like this he asked the gods of wind for help. Baekhyun wasn’t sure if his ask would reach them here, but he hoped it will work. Soon Baekhyun felt that wind indeed must be somehow around them. He could feel that it was getting colder, but the wind wasn’t seen at all.

“This is for no need. We can’t see the find here, it’s moving nothing in this world.”, Chanyeol said through his shirt which he took as a filter to breath.

But Sehun kept mumbling and forming signs with his fingers. “What is he doing…?”, Baekhyun asked, not understanding.

“He is…no. No Sehun, you can’t do that!”, Luhan said and tried to budge him. “He is asking the gods of wind. But not only from our world but from the solar system.”

“What?”, Jongin asked flabbergasted. “I didn’t now that he can do something like this?!”

Luhan shook his head. “It’s because he can’t. He’s needing to much power if he continues it.” Luhan took Sehuns arm who kept conjuring. “Please, Sehun. You can’t do this. It will hurt you!”

When the guardian of wind opened his eyes again, they were of a light blue-green and when he moved his hand the stone flew across them into the fog. While this happened, they were all feeling strong wind around them and even the fog was blown a little bit away.

“Wow…this will give us a few more minutes!” Baekhyun was about to make his way into the cave when he saw Sehun sitting on the ground. “Sehun!”

“It’s okay…”, he mumbled weakly. “it’s okay. I practiced.” The guardian let Luhan help him stand up and together they entered the dark cave.

The whole walls of the cave were engraved with the Celtic knot. Deep lines were sculped into the stone to make it everlasting.

“What is this place…”, Baekhyun asked and sighed. “We will never know it, right?”

“No, I just want to find the tree and leave.”, Luhan said.

When they reached the end of the cave, they were finally able to see the other half of the tree. “Over there…”, Chanyeol said and hurried to it.

The leaves were about to fall out, because there was not more than a small light that