I was being avoided like a plague. 

No one dared even breathe wrong in front of me, their fear of Chen doing anything but dissipating despite his continued efforts to keep Sector E out of the dark. While it’s the last emotion I want to pull from them, it’s better than the naturally discontented and loathing stares I received upon first arriving.

Which means there’s been progress. 

I just have to continue on, persevering, until my title is no longer seen as a threat to their well-being. I’d keep working to figure out how to ease them of their troubles. I’d make everyday life a little better for all of us.

“You look exhausted,” were Luna’s first words to me, her tray of food clattering down as she took a seat. 

Out of all chairs within the large room that served as a mess hall to the Boards, she chose to sit right in front of me. Forgoing the sideways glances she was getting to be anywhere but, she began to chomp down into her morning ration’s bread. 

I’ve been up and about since yesterday, the vision I can’t remember ceasing its assault on my body long enough for me to recover. Now, I was enjoying breakfast, the table I sat at along with all the chairs in its vicinity empty. Except, of course, for the one right in front of me. 

“I don’t see why,” Luna continued her train of thought, speaking with full, “as those Protectors, Guardians, or what have you of yours sat at your bedside all night. Scared the dinner right out of everybody’s trigger fingers. Don’t know what Henry was thinking allowing them to do that.”

Her tone was slurred, her voice stuttering — an explanation as to why her words weren’t flowing as well as they usually did.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, waiting for her verbal response.

She didn’t give one right away, contemplating as to whether she should give one at all or not. But, with a grumble, she resigned as she mumbled out, “Seeing them like that reminded me of my family back in Sector C.”

Luna was wearing that same expression. That same one she’d showed me the nights before this morning. One that was burned into my mind for the all of the following nights to come. Only appearing at the mention of her family — our conversation having led to the topic more than just once. 

They were Rank 2. Her mother, her father, and her younger brother lived normally. In a normal apartment. With normal jobs: a bank teller and an architect. Comfortably, as she used to before. Before she made friends, by pure coincidence, with a girl from Sector E ten years ago. 

Despite her family’s wishes, she would frequent her friend’s house there. Even then, the Council had taken precautions to stop the spread of the Boards’ ideals. Thus, her friend’s lifestyle differed greatly from her own.

And Luna said it made her sick, eating normally at the dinner table, where she couldn’t ask for more, when others were struggling to last until their next supply of food was sprinkled across barren grocery aisles. 

So, when she turned eighteen, four years ago, she moved to an apartment in Sector E. 

Not because she didn’t love her family. Not because they had done anything to cause her to run away from them. With the goal of making sure everyone had the right to a reliable source of food, a means to live, she joined the Boards she heard whispered about in the back of her university politics class — censored heavily by the Council. 

Henry took to her immediately, along with her friend who had been transferred out of the city over nine months ago. Back when I wasn’t thinking twice about the “Protectors of EXO” and their “Seeress,” Luna was chasing after the heels of her ideals. And it made me respect her more than I already did for her honest words and even more honest thoughts.

“And, you know,” Luna spoke up, letting her sentences flow without hesitation as always, “I get why romance isn’t the first thing you look for in them. In those stares they watched you sleep with. Like if they were anywhere else, anyplace else but by your side, they wouldn’t be nearly as happy.”

“Like family.” I read her mind.

I had never thought about it before. The definition of the word didn’t fit, but is there one true definition for it anyway? For the feeling of knowing someone’s always there to support you? To point out your mistakes but always be devoted to helping you fix them? I had always taken it for granted before. 

The Guardians are not just my, the Seeress of EXO’s, Guardians. They’re more than just friends. They’re my family. The one that mattered more to me than the planet over — and there’s something innately frightening about that. 

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to fall in love.” She declared, a shine taking to her eyes the same way I had taken to her, “They’re not blood-related family, after all. The past Seeress’s affair be damned, everyone deserves to be with the person they care about the most.” Gesturing behind me, she redirected my gaze towards the figures of Tao, Lay, Xiumin, and Kris who had entered the mess hall, “What I’m trying to say is: redefine your definition of love, because it’s both frustrating and disturbing watching all that unbridled flit about.”

I laughed at her words; my body’s innate reaction to the uncomfortable feeling swirling at the pit of my stomach. 

“Anyway, now that the calvary’s arrived, I’ll take my leave.” She stood up, but I stopped her. 

I stopped her as that earlier expression of hers rose to the forefront of my mind once more, seared there like a burn whose cause I couldn’t pinpoint accurately. 

“You should go see your family, Luna.” The way her name mirrored mine brought a smile to my face, “Before we leave tomorrow.”

She nodded, and I like to think she was smiling as she left. 

I like to think she was happy, too.

“Hurry it up, will you?”

The guard and member of the Board called out, rephrasing the same statement he’d been reciting for over twenty minutes now. Twenty entire, blood-curdling, annoyance-fueling minutes that had Chen’s own patience running thinner than the nameless man that now rushed him. 

“We were supposed to be out of here over an hour ago.” The guard stated, beads of sweat visible above his brow as he looked around the building they were now in — red brick and concrete damaged beyond repair. It was here that one of many of Sector’s E’s electrical generators were housed. 

“As you’d expect, due to my rather sheltered life, I’m no electrician. So, no, I can’t fix a power line that looks like it’s been sliced in half in a proper, timely manner.” Chen jeered, tapping away at the console before him. He didn’t know much about the whirring hunk of metal, but he figured the red warning window that kept popping up wasn’t a good thing. 

Even if he fixed the line, even if he’d managed to fuse the wires together again, electrician or not, he could tell it was a mediocre job at best.

“Just turn the generator on.” The guard kicked at the ground, fingers impatiently tapping away at the hilt of the gun in his hand. “We need to get moving.”

“Somebody’s antsy, aren’t we?” Chen glanced over his shoulder, his own layer of sweat forming on his face. It was getting hotter the longer he stayed here, so it’s not as though he was taking his time on purpose.

Fixing generators wasn’t on his bucket list. 

He didn’t want to be here just as much as the finicky guard at his side.

“You think I can just conduct electricity at the snap of a single finger? I’d fry my own hands off if I didn’t give myself time to charge up. And, just like I would, this generator sprinting to full power after my makeshift repair of it’s source of electricity will have it combusting on itself. You know, boom!” 

“Just turn it on.” The guard boomed at him, turning his back on the doorway where his fellow Boards stood watch.

Chen deadpanned, “You can’t be that stupid.”

“Now.” He snarled, getting mad at insults to his intelligence seemingly the last thing on his mind right now.

“You know it’s your own problem if this thing ends up imploding right here, right now.” 

Chen stood up, whipping around to face the man fully, prepared to call it a day for now, because there was always tomorrow. He’d fix it, leave Sector E with her highness, and never be asked to fix another electrical cable again — he’d certainly never say he missed it. And while Chen was looking towards the future, both his mind and body too tired to worry about anything else, the present gave him a rude awakening. 

The entire building shook, bricks falling out of place as Chen was forced back down by the explosion that sounded like it went off right beside his ear. That rung from outside the flimsy, collapsing building he occupied, distant screams garbled as he stood up slowly, attempting to regain his balance. 

He coughed on the dust that filled the air, thick and dry.

His eyes stung as he struggled to see through it all, the sudden implosion, caused by anything but the generator that burned his fingertips as he grasped at his surroundings for support, reducing visibility to zero.

He felt a searing pain across his left temple — caused by the immediate fall he’d taken.

Electricity stung at his fingertips, his ability working to zap his muscles into full overdrive.

His head spun as the cackling continued, his entire world rolling, everything hundreds of shades of gray. Just gray and nothing else. No matter how many times he blinked, tears marring down dirt covered cheeks.

The guard’s yell the only thing he could make out above the gunfire.

“Now it’s your problem, too!” 

He didn’t need to be told twice, but the nameless Exotian did it anyway.

“Turn it on! Now!”

And Chen’s patience was a thing of the past. 

A puff of smoke rose high into the air, causing shockwaves that shook at the windows I stood a mere foot away from. The building quaked around me, causing me to cling to the windowsill just to keep standing. My tongue went dry in my mouth, the air too thick to breath, an awful feeling creeping, settling, into my mind.

“What was that?” I asked, my voice a whisper, my eyes trained on the blazing fire that quickly engulfed the building over the horizon. From behind the bars of the window pane, I was struck, stunned, by the sight. I called out mindlessly, demanding an explanation, “Henry.”

“He did it.” Henry spoke up from behind me, evening out the stack of papers he’d been showing me seconds prior with a clear and clean snap down onto the table, “That Lightning Guardian of yours’s got more balls than I thought.”

“What do you mean it’s time to high tail it and run?” I asked, reading his thoughts without meaning to — too fearful of the origin of the sirens that began to sound in the distance.

“Grab your bag and help yourself to my thoughts on the way out, your esteemed highness.” Henry gave my shoulder a quick pat, his own bag already on his own, “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before the Council solves the little problem we sent washing over them.”

As it turns out, thanks to Henry’s lengthy explanation as we made our way through a series of halls I’d never seen before, Chen had been siphoning power to a reactor in the basement of the Boards headquarters. After all of the generators in the Sector had been reactivated, the reactor would release an electrical pulse on all sides, a handful of miles in radius. 

Thus, all technology within this circle of influence would be fried, experiencing malfunctions all at once.

This includes the weaponry the Council armed themselves with as they initiated a raid they’d been planning for over three weeks now. Before I had even arrived, once more. 

I was one step behind for the umpteenth time. 

Though it didn’t help that Henry had chosen to keep his plan hidden from any but a select few involved — though I’m guessing that didn’t include Chen. 

The Council’s got eyes and ears everywhere, so I don’t blame him for remaining secretive about how we’d both be fighting back against the Council’s attacks and escaping Sector E all at once. 

Still, that doesn’t help the situation he’s dragged others into without their knowledge. 

“As for lightning boy and your other Guardians, no worries.” He read my own thoughts right off my facial expression, “My guys’ve sworn to keep them safe.”

But I worried nevertheless as I followed him, the smile that bloomed on his face scaring me into a wordless stupor that would only get deeper as night fell upon us. 

It was dark outside. Too dark to tell this from that. To figure out exactly how far from the Capital’s walls we’d managed to get before we stopped. Here, in this small, abandoned Council outpost — the need to physically enforce their influence beyond the city limit’s no longer necessary since the People’s Riot.

Why?

I wasn’t at liberty to ask that question right now. Not when everyone was bundling up, preparing to brace themselves for the rough night ahead of us. In which sleep was the farthest from easily attained. The way we left Sector E messily, in a rush, and borderline frantically, as the Council’s forces flooded the area, left a residual, bad aftertaste in everyone’s mouth. 

But that wasn’t the only thing left behind.

Families were divided. Homes were abandoned. Preparations to be made as far as supplies were incomplete. No one was comfortable, but they all put in an effort to be. For the sake of those left behind, not a single one complained. 

Neither in spoken words nor in unspoken thoughts.

According to Henry, Victoria, and the voiceless Zhoumi, out of the two hundred Boards set to leave with us, only fifty-two made it out. Henry promised they were fine. That they were strong enough to figure things out. That the Board’s own influence spread so far into the center of the city there would be a fellow Exotian ready and willing to lend them a hand should they need it. So, I worried less than I should have.

With a bandaged-up Chen sitting at my right and a metaphorically frozen Xiumin to my left on the stiff, carpeted floor, we watched the muted Holovision that reported the day’s events, the bodies of Exotians curled under blankets around us, the Council’s Raid of the Boards’ Headquarters the headliner. The subtitles flashed at the screen rapidly, the reporters arguing with one another about the validity of it. The reasoning behind it. And, what they called, the “inevitability” of all of it. 

There was overwhelming agreement that the Boards deserved to be driven from their homes; their rebellious ways causing trouble for the everyday citizen.

A sign that the Council was once more doing what they did best: keeping anyone from finding their own truth regarding the situation. 

And it did anything but comfort me to know that the majority didn’t care enough to seek it out. Or, rather, wasn’t yet given the chance to care — never faced with the situation first-hand as Luna had. 

Luna, who wasn’t here right with us right now. 

And, once more, I worried a lot less than I should have. 

Because there she was, the screen nonchalantly and coldly, inhumanely, flashing the pictures of five Boards killed in the crossfire, the aftermath, of the Council’s raid. 

The subtitles faded away. I could no longer feel my legs that ached from the distance we’d traveled. My entire world fell apart despite the arms that bent and folded around me, attempting to keep me together. 

Nothing could have prepared me for that. 

For her smile captured in a single moment, snatched away by yet another. For the loss of a friendship I was never able to have. For the knowledge that hit me all at once: I had led Luna to her death. 

If she hadn’t left the Sector to visit her family, she would have been with us when Chen powered up that generator. She’d be with us right now. Speaking honestly. Hiding rare smiles. Fighting for what she believed in.

I had inadvertently led her to her death. 

And who’s to say I wouldn’t do it again?

It’s all so much easier when it’s not my own problem that needs fixing.

A/N: So, this happened. The vision that our Seeress had that caused her to sweat buckets and fall ill? A vision of the Council's Raid and Chen's own weakness in the face of it. The person she loses (that was referenced previously)? Luna. Yeah, so this quick fix (quicker update) to your Seeress of Exo needs happened. (sad click?)