-

Someone is shaking Kai’s shoulder. He opens his eyes and finds himself looking into Sehun’s boyish face. “Time to go,” the boy blurts, before moving on to do the same thing to Taemin.

Kai sees that both of the girls are already awake. He gets a better look at the girls in broad daylight. The girl named Jessica seems older, and has fair hair falling below her shoulders. Her eyes are more feline than the dark haired girl’s sharp ones, and there are fresh tears welling up on her waterline. The dark haired girl tries to comfort her. They’re both much thinner and frail looking than Kai remembers from last night. Especially the dark haired one. By the looks of her, Kai would never believe that she could carry the other girl on her back and run from a mob of armed hunters.

As Kai gets up and stretches out, he unintentionally overhears a snip of the two girls’ conversation.

“We’re going together, right Jessica?” the dark haired girl asks. Her voice is full of reluctance, not like the firm, strong voice she’d had last night talking to Luhan.

Jessica looks into the dark haired girl’s eyes and gives a slow nod. “For Donghae…” she whispers, and the girls squeeze each other’s hands.

Kai is surprised to see the rail-train station outside district Lambda running. Just two years later, the station was run-down and abandoned, but in 2011, there are people, a small number, but still, people waiting, to board the next rail-train. And it makes Kai wonder where those people came from, too. They couldn’t be from the central district. When he and Taemin were being chased by armed men, no one seemed around.

Luhan and Sehun board them on a rail-train headed for district Eta. They retreat to an empty car and sit quietly, each of them with heavy, loaded backpacks in hand. A queasy feeling bothers Kai briefly as he feels the submachine gun inside his backpack. He tries not to think about how many guns Luhan and Sehun are carrying, each.

Taemin rubs his shoulders and swings his arm in small circles. “How’s it feeling?” Kai asks.

“Better,” Taemin responds. “Definitely better.” His friend gives him a smile, and Kai grins back sincerely.

The dark haired girl clears out loud. “So, what are the plans?” she demands. Next to her, Jessica is slunk down in the rail-train seat like a dying plant. She doesn’t even seem to be listening to her companion.

“We’re going to drop off the four of you at your next time jump location,” Luhan remarks. “Once we send you off, Sehun and I will just relocate and maybe group up with a few more helpers. We’ll keep doing what we do, wait for time travelers and send them off to their next location.” The thin smile on Luhan’s face severely contrasts with the almost frown etched on Sehun’s face. Kai finds himself staring at the odd duo.

“You’re… not coming with us?” the dark haired girl asks. The firmness in her tone has died down. She sneaks a glance in Kai and Taemin’s direction, as if she’s not satisfied being stuck with them.

Luhan shakes his head with startling brightness in his eyes. “Our place is here, in 2011.”

The dark haired girl opens to protest, but the back door of their rail car slides open loudly. A tall male in a long, black coat steps in, talking into a black phone.

“Find a way to speed up the tracking system,” the man says, weaving through Sehun, Jessica, and Taemin’s legs. “I don’t care if the technology isn’t invented until two years from now, we have use of it, and I need to find every single one of those backward time travelers, as fast as possible!”

The man is almost yelling into the phone. He passes Kai’s group and leaves their car, passing through to the next car. Kai watches as the man sits down in an empty bench, continuing to yell into the phone. Kai doesn’t realize his hands are clenched around his backpack.

“Holy … was that guy..?” Taemin mutters under his breath, but all six of them can hear him. Even Jessica is sitting up, alert, eyes darting from place to place in fear.

“A time traveler hunter,” Luhan says. There’s iciness in his voice that sends chills down Kai’s spine. They remain silent for the rest of the ride, the dark haired girl keeping her questions to herself. Kai notices that Luhan’s eyes never leave the tall man in the car in front of them.

The rail-train rumbles to a stop. Luhan is the first to get up and snake toward the exit. Sehun gestures for all of them to follow, quickly. Luhan is already gone, and it takes a moment for Kai to find the older boy’s bobbing head in the mass of people flooding the rail-train station.

Sehun motions for them to keep quiet and follow him. They trail several feet behind Luhan, who keeps disappearing out of Kai’s sight every other second. Kai doesn’t know why he’s in such a rush, but then, he sees the man.

The tall man in the black coat is still talking into his phone. He walks out of the station briskly and dodges through thicker crowds of people in the district streets of Eta. He heads into a huge, five-story parking deck, and Luhan’s stealthily slinks in, just behind him.

Sehun waits before leading the five of them inside. Immediately, they duck behind rows of cars parked against sturdy columns. The tall man’s footsteps echo heavily in the dimly lit parking deck. Luhan makes no noise.

Kai watches, holding his breath, as the tall man stops next to a shiny blue car. He begins yelling into the phone again, when suddenly, he sees Luhan appear out of the shadows. The tall man only has time to raise a questioning eyebrow before Luhan raises his arm and fires. The bullet finds its target right in the head.

The girl named Jessica lets out a whimper when the man’s body falls to the ground and disappears behind his blue car. Sehun ushers the five out of the parking deck and into a nearby alley. Luhan joins them shortly after.

Next to Kai, Taemin runs both of his hands through his hair repeatedly. “That man was in charge of sending people out to kill us…” he mumbles off. Kai watches Luhan return and exchange silent words with Sehun, again. Sehun puts a hand on the older boy’s shoulder, and just like that, Luhan turns to the rest of them.

“Let’s go,” he says.

-

“Eight Years??” The dark haired girl exclaims, holding the old-fashioned headphones in her hands like they are going to strangle her any minute.

Luhan nods. “That’s what we have,” he remarks. His soft smile is completely gone. Kai doesn’t know if it’s because of the man he just killed, or if it’s because he has his own doubts about the time jump length.

“There are four of us. How can we jump back 8 years in time?” The dark haired girl argues.

They’re standing inside the biggest consumer center Kai has ever seen in his life. The place is crawling with people and filled with every kind of item anyone could ever need. Right next to Kai is a long shelf full of vacuum cleaners. A robot vacuum keeps beeping every other minute, tickling Kai’s nerves.

“There’s no established rule to how far a group of time travelers can travel. It’s still a very new discovery,” Luhan says, tapping his foot. “What we do know is, that the more time travelers there are, the more the travel length multiplies.”

“We’re not gonna guarantee anything,” Sehun jumps in with a shrug. “But the four of you should be enough, as long as you all are completely focused.”

The dark haired girl doesn’t seem convinced. “It’s not like we have any other choice, is it?” Taemin points out. The dark haired girl looks at Taemin with almost a glare, but Kai can see the wavering in her pupils.

“Fine,” she lets out. Without warning, she grabs Kai’s hand. Kai looks down, surprised, before he remembers the time traveling requirements.

Kai takes Taemin’s hand also, and the girl named Jessica takes the headphones from her companion and holds them in her free hand. Luhan nods at them firmly. “The populated district and the number of people out in the streets should give you guys an advantage,” he says. “The hunters don’t have the license to start shooting and killing right in the middle of people’s lives. Your best bet is to keep moving inside the district crowds, staying out of the hunters’ reach, and eventually, taking the train to your next location.”

“Good luck,” is all Sehun says. Even now, the boy’s face is as blank as ever.

Kai breathes out slowly. Beside him, the dark haired girl starts counting. “Alright… one, two… three,” she mutters, and Kai feels the rush, the incredible, high-speed contrivance of his body transporting through time.

He opens his eyes, as both the hands he’s holding let go carelessly. They’re still inside some store, but the place isn’t nearly as big and impressive as the consumer center in 2011. Where the shelf full of vacuum cleaners was eight years later, there is now an assortment of wall clocks.

“Well what do you know, we made it afterall,” Taemin says, pointing to a long electronic clock on the wall next to Kai that tells the time, date, year, and day of the week.

The dark haired girl helps her companion put the old-fashioned headphones into her backpack. “Now we need to get out of here,” the girl states, taking Jessica’s hand and starting off. Both girls turn around right as they step out of the clocks isle. “Are you two coming?” the dark haired one asks.

“Yeah, it’s just…” Taemin scrambles up behind them. Kai follows his friend, a strange thought coming to mind.

“We didn’t get your names,” says Taemin.

The dark haired girl blinks a couple of times before answering Taemin. “Krystal,” she blurts, then points to the fair haired girl. “And my sister Jessica.”

Taemin nods. “I’m Taemin, and this is Kai,” he remarks. “We’re just childhood friends,” he adds, which Kai thinks is unnecessary.

Jessica gives them a half nod, while the girl named Krystal looks at each of them for a brief second, as if memorizing their names and faces. Then, without another word, she turns and leads her sister away.

Kai’s mind buzzes from the strange thought. He realizes that this is the first time he and Taemin have shared their names with anyone they’ve met since they got on the run. It could just be because all of the people they met were so busy and so focused on sending them back in time, that they just forgot to ask. But Kai isn’t sure. He thinks back to the last thing Sehun said to the four of them before they left 2011. Good luck. But did the boy really mean it? Kai can’t help but wonder, if these time travelers he keeps meeting in these different years really think that he and Taemin and the girls have a chance of making it to 1983.

They are never given enough advice. They never completely know what to do. Even the guns they get ahold of, are so foreign and unusual to them, there’s a high chance of them being killed before they learn how to use them. Kai can’t imagine the girl named Jessica firing a gun at a hunter.

Krystal leads them out into the district streets in no time. The buildings and roads look like they come out of old photos. Even the waves of people walking by wear clothes that were in style way back when Kai was too young to care. This time, looking side to side at the outdated scene around him, Kai can’t even find comfort in the semi-automatic pistol at his belt.

-

Thank you all for reading! My present to you all~♥