Before walking out of the tunnel, we took a detailed look at the wilderness: sun position, shadow dispersions, and path finding. The sun wasn’t at the top, so it must have been less than midday. There were pretty big shadows scattered across the land separated by fair distances: distances we could jump. And the path, well there wasn’t a trail to follow, but there was only one way out of this area…

MJ: Um… Kai? Where are we going? This valley is surrounded by hills… how are we going to cross over them?

Kai just stared and shrugged while biting on a finger.

O..M..G…HOW CUTE WAS THAT!!!...ujum...anyways...

MJ: You can’t be seriously expecting me to climb a hill and then go down it again!?!? You guys shouldn’t even do that!! Your injuries are still recent and might open with so much force. I think we should look for another way around…

Kai looked at me and signaled to his wrist… Suddenly one of my favorite songs popped into my head: “We’re running out of TIME man~”. I’m guessing it would be more convenient and quick to just climb the mountains…I looked up at them and got nervous just thinking what would happen if we fell from up there. I shiver at the thought. I composed myself and took the initiative.

MJ: Well in that case, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to those mountains ASAP!

We began to walk through the prairie, jumping from shadow to shadow, making sure to calculate every move; we didn’t want to have an unnecessary encounter. I remembered Kai what had happened yesterday when we failed to take cover right at the strike of 12pm, when the shadows became narrow and we had to fight against a small mob of Exotics. Well… I’m actually glad it all happened since we got the opportunity to take Lay in. Kai then began to step a little faster, just going in front of us to make sure there were still enough shadows awaiting us. Being a newbie at this, I was falling behind. HaeRi saw me and waited for me to reach her. She took my hand and we continued together. Lay was already way up front, and upon seeing us somewhat behind decided to wait for us. Once we were reunited I took the time to dialogue certain things with him regarding our protection strategy.

MJ: Lay Oppa~ Since you’ve been working as a decoy, you must know a few things about the Exotics and their way of fighting. Any pointers you could give out on how we could protect ourselves from the weirdoes?

Lay thank it through for a few minutes, finally gesturing and mouthing a few things. In between movements he unconsciously started using his “exo” hand language, and I somewhat understood it. I guess I’m getting the hang of the sign language thingy. This is what Lay told me…

The Exotics were all placed in specific areas of Exotica. They always hide in the shadows, hence the name of the game, the meaning behind it all, and the reason why they wear black hooded cloaks. Their weaponry is made of the finest materials, so they hit right on target. They use bow and arrows, lancets, guns, axes, and swords, almost like in medieval times. Their fighting strategy: they send a few of them out first, then when the player is occupied and least expects it, the rest of the Exotics attack from behind. They like to play dirty. Once they capture you it’s hard to get freed. And if they take you all the way to the prison, its game over. You need to free yourself before they throw you in the dungeons. When attacking, the always start out with long range weapons. If the battle extends itself or isn’t favoring any side, they begin to attack with short range weapons and hand-to-hand combat. They are trained specialists; spent many years perfecting theirs skill, besides the fact that they practice every day.

Okay…so it was going to be a tough call fighting with these guys, even though I already know by experience that all that Lay said was true. Now I’m even more concerned about our safety. Now is the time to plan a defense or fighting strategy, because maybe later will be too late.

The sun had started to move faster towards its peek. We needed to look for shelter. I called Kai and told him to start looking for a safe spot. I myself began to look at all sides to see if there was somewhere we could hide for a few hours.

MJ: Okay Lay. I think we need to sort out a battle strategy. You pretty much saw how disorganized Kai and I were back there yesterday…which reminds me…MIANHEYO FOR HURTING YOU!! I …will…NEVER forgive myself!

Lay laughed at me and then stared to shake his hands in front of his face while shaking his head sideways. I gave him a sideway hug and he kindly responded back: Lay really did feel like an oppa…just like LuHan…I found myself comfortable in his arms.

We separated and began to discuss our Plan of War. After some minute we were interrupted by a far away sound. Like a rustling in between the distanced pine forest. Then another sound came for the same direction, this time it was a sharp noise…like a gun. And then, it came: a horrible shriek. We all stopped in our tracks; hairs on my arms rising, goosebumps all over my body. HaeRi quickly held my hand, and I held Lay’s. Kai started to walk toward us and the 4of us were together again on the same shadow.

MJ: What was that?...It sounded like a gun… And that shriek…was it even human?

Nobody answered…nobody knew. I told Lay to hold HaeRi, while I stood close to Kai. Whatever it was, it was far away, and we still needed to find shelter, so we couldn’t stop to diddle-daddle: it might even be a trap to divert us.

MJ: Listen up guys. Lay and I talked it over and we developed a somewhat efficient plan to keep eachother safe. We have to stick together, but if by any chance we have to separate, Lay goes with HaeRi and I stay with Kai. If we encounter someone we have 2 options: fight or flee. If we choose to fight is because we’re all in good conditions; anyone gets hurt we run away. But apparently these people don’t let you off so easily, so the best thing is just to kick their asses and finish the job. As for battle formations, we….

I got interrupted by Kai. He pointed at the shadow we were standing on and it was way smaller than I remember, and it kept closing in on us. I looked around and the shadows were all becoming more separated and smaller. WAE! NOT AGAIN!

I had seen some pronounced rock indentations in the nearby cliff that we were walking along side, and so decided to pick one and just get in. I pointed at it and told everyone to get there before the shadows disappeared. At that moment, another gunshot was heard and with even more energy we started moving toward our shelter.

These guys were pros at jumping and running, but I was a total failure at this. Kai was pulling on me to hurry, but I wasn’t like him: he just jumped; I had to prepare myself first before doing such long jumps. Lay and HaeRi had already passed by us. Kai was getting kind of nervous; I think he was worried for our well being. He helped me here and there, until we finally reached the small groove. A few minutes later the shadows had disappeared and only some fine lines remained near every object and plant in view: it was 12pm.

The shelter was an open area, but it had it protected us from the sun. We just sat down, taking a breather. From inside the indentation we could see the prairie with more detailed viewing. And it was true: the only way to get out of this area was over the mountain. But how were we going to do that? It would take some time to go across it, plus we had two injured members that couldn’t do certain movements. And we hadn’t had a descent meal or rest, so we were all exhausted and in bad shape; not meant to be rock climbing.

Now that we were all together and pretty much not doing anything, I decided to continue my earlier conversation.

MJ: Okay guys, as I was saying… If we encounter any enemies we need to cover eachother’s backs, you know what I’m saying? We have to do like a circle and make our backs collide with eachother, so we’re looking in all directions toward the Exotics while protecting one another from sneaky back attacks. But like Lay told me, these guys start out with long range attacks so we can’t just stay there like statues. That’s when we split up: KaiMin group goes to the left, while LayRi group goes to the right…

Everybody looked at me and arched an eyebrow while suppressing a giggle.

MJ… what!?! Can’t our sub units have names?! It’s not like we’re shipping K-pop idols, this is the real deal! Anyways, after we split up it will be better to move while protecting eahcother’s backs. So we mainly try to dodge anything flying towards us, and once in contacts with the weirdoes we just go berserk on them!

Lay made a scared face; maybe he remembered when I went berserk on him. He then tried to modify what I had said. He “explained” that it would be better if we could at least defeat one of them and take away their weapon. With that advantage we could move on to the rest of the enemies until we defeated them all. After that we could take all their belongings; who knows, maybe they would come in handy at some point.

Then Kai gave out this awesome idea. He expressed that it would be an even bigger advantage to take an Exotic as a hostage. That way, the others wouldn’t fire at us because they’d be hurting one of their own. These people are senseless, but they can’t be completely heartless, right?

MJ: You guys...are…HITLER’S SONS!! You have awesome battle strategies!! GOD! THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME MEET THEM! After we bust about of here, I’m going to make sure you two get accepted at the finest universities for the mentally excelled! I KNOW! I’ll send you both to an Ivy Club University… You’ll see…

They both started to laugh hysterically. HaeRi joined in with her cute little giggle, and I just had to let the laughter out…

But all our happiness disappeared when we heard something approach us. We heard the sound of metal banging against itself. We grew afraid and started to move towards eachother until we were all hugging one another. The boys positioned themselves in front, their backs towards us, arms spread to the sides. The sound was too near. What could it be… a wild animal? An Exotic? Whatever it was sounded dangerous, and with those gun shots earlier, I doubted anything good was gonna come out of this encounter. Seconds seemed to last hours. All of our heartbeats getting faster….it finally arrived.

I wanted to protect all of my friend… I wanted to go on and save LuHan… but at that moment I couldn’t do anything. Whatever it was, there were 2 outcomes: fight it or let it kill us. And #2 wasn’t in my option list.

It finally came into view: cheesy smile from side to side gave me a shiver. Tall structure made me quiver. But range was dominating my senses… The guys tensed up upon seeing such a figure; they became mad. I pushed Kai and walked straight to the man. Kai grabbed my wrist but I got loose form it. It was one of those moment where Park MinJeong was another person.

MJ: KRIIIIIISS!!!

KS: Nice to meet you again sweetheart. Miss me?