[title song: borderz - zayn]
[9k words]

chapter 24;

Hyemi feels a tug at her gut, like a string is attached to her insides and someone is trying to drag her forward by it, to a place Hyemi really doesn’t want to get dragged off to.

After the visit to Soshi City, she can’t help but feel off, somehow. First, she notices it in their surroundings. The forest around them is beginning to thin out, the gap between each barren, ash-grey tree trunk continues to widen, until at some point (Hyemi has no idea when) they’re only surrounded by a handful of trees here and there, dark brown, brittle grass filling the empty spaces.

Second, she notices it in the sky. It hasn’t changed color since they left Soshi City. Every morning, since Hyemi arrived at this planet, the sky had always been an ever-changing palette of colors, never once keeping the same color scheme. Now the sky is pale, pastel pink, the sun so bright that it comes off as a bright white. Clouds sprinkle the sky, here and there, but they’re hard to make out unless Hyemi looks closely, since the clouds are the same exact color as the sky, that same pastel pink color.

Third, she swears she’s beginning to hear voices in her head, like the time she visited the tree and the dead spoke to her, from below the roots of the tree. She doesn’t know what that means but it’s terribly distracting when there’s a constant stream of voices in her head, asking her questions that range from What’s for dinner? to Why did they have to die?

“Concentrate.” Baekhyun’s voice cuts through her thoughts and she jumps, eyes snapping upwards. Baekhyun sits across from her, legs crossed beneath him, one eye open and the other one closed as he frowns at her. “Or at least close your eyes and pretend to concentrate.”

She hears Sehun snicker at her from somewhere behind them and she grimaces over her shoulder, earning another snort of amusement.

“Focus on your breathing. You need to work on using your powers whenever you want, not just as a result of it exploding out of you because of a panic attack.” Baekhyun mumbles, his nose wrinkling cutely as he peers at her through one open eye.

She stares at his face for a long moment, distracted once again, as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling at a steady pace.

“I know I’m attractive, but staring at me won’t do you any good.” Baekhyun adds, without ever opening his eyes. He claps his hands, murmuring hurry up and Hyemi glares at him. He gives her a brief, cheeky smirk, and she throws a handful of dead grass at him, blushing immediately when both Jongdae and Sehun laugh in the background. Baekhyun’s smirk just grows.

Then Hyemi slumps in her spot, sighing loudly. “I can’t concentrate.”

Baekhyun opens his eyes, then, dark eyes boring into hers. They flicker for a moment. She expects him to make a joke about himself, but he’s surprisingly serious. “Why not?”

“There’s something about this place that’s making…it’s making my head all fuzzy.” Hyemi says, stumbling over her words.

It’s quiet between them for a moment, Hyemi frowning at her hands while Baekhyun just stares at her. And then Baekhyun leans forward and wraps his pretty fingers around hers, his hands engulfing hers. His hands are still cold, but it’s strangely soothing. She watches as he lifts their wrapped fingers to her chin, bumping her lightly. She looks up, lips quirking up the tiniest bit and he smiles. God, the fondness in his smile is enough to melt her right then and there.

Do you think he’ll bring me flowers to my grave? Do you think he will remember? An old woman’s voice whispers in her head, sorrow twisting her words into something crushing.

“Learning to concentrate will help you stop the fuzziness. Trust me.” Baekhyun mumbles, squeezing her fingers in reassurance.

A voice in her head screams, right then, a sharp sound filled with so much pain that it brings pain to her own head. Hyemi feels like she’s the one being stabbed over and over again, torn in two by an unknown force. Her expression twists and Baekhyun leans closer, crawling on his knees until he’s sitting right in front of her. He kisses her cheek, a fluttering gentle press of his lips against her skin, and she looks up.

He smiles and murmurs, “Concentrate on my voice and you can make it go away.” Her breathing hitches, his lips hovering centimeters from hers, the warmth radiating off his body, despite his cold fingers. “Trust me.”

Why? Why should I trust you? They’re all dead because of you. A low voice growls in her head and Hyemi shivers at the tone, at the hostility of the voice, at how it feels like the words are being whispered directly into her ear. She bites the inside of her cheek.

She trusts him, however, focusing on him, much the same way she focuses on his ball of light whenever he asks her to create her own ball of energy. She forces herself to listen to his voice, listen as he hums a sweet tune, hovering over her, and one by one every extra voice in her head falls away, the screaming is the last to go and when it does disappear, she slumps forward, resting her cheek against his chest as she tries to breathe.

He kisses the top of her head, murmuring a “You did well.” and butterflies tumble through the pit of her stomach, somersaulting into , making it hard to speak. She just nods her thanks and he continues to circles along the inside of her wrist, touch soothing.

~.~.~.~.~

“Honey Byunny, why don’t you ever cuddle me the way you cuddle Hyemi?” Jongdae asks, abruptly, while they’re trudging through a large meadow, the gray trees long behind them. There are tall stone-like structures up ahead and Hyemi wonders if they’re supposed to be mountains or something. They’re strange towers of rock that seem to soar up into the sky, like a million pillars all pushed close together, forming a kind of mountainous structure. Jongdae throws an arm around Baekhyun, repeating Honey Byunny repeatedly while Baekhyun turns pink right up to the tip of his ears, swatting at Jongdae repeatedly in response, though he doesn’t hide his grin.

“You’re all bones, Jongbabe. I’d rather cuddle a cactus.” Baekhyun coos eventually, pinching at Jongdae’s cheeks in a way that actually looks sort of painful. This time Jongdae swats at Baekhyun, laughing despite himself.

Hyemi and Sehun exchange a look, watching as Baekhyun and Jongdae fall into a mess of cheesy backhanded compliments, giggling at any compliment that happens to be especially cheesy.

“This is embarrassing.” Sehun mumbles, grimacing in Jongdae and Baekhyun’s general direction.

Hyemi nods in agreement and Sehun laughs at her expression. “I wish I could say they don’t do this often, but they used to do this pretty much every day. It’s awful.”

Hyemi laughs and Sehun gives her a serious look, as if he’s not kidding at all. In the midst of the bickering and Sehun rolling his eyes, Hyemi notices that the large meadow around them is growing more narrow with each step, trickling down onto a narrow path ahead. Hyemi squints, frowning as she examines the path ahead.

And then Sehun groans and Hyemi knew she should have expected something like this.

~.~.~.~.~

Hyemi leans over the side of the cliff a bit, her hair whipping all about due to the gust of wind shooting up from the gaping hole beyond the cliff. There’s no end in sight and all Hyemi can do is gape, even as Baekhyun reaches out and grabs the back of her shirt, his other hand on her waist as he holds her steady. She throws him a questioning look over her shoulder and he returns her look with a frown.

“Just making sure you don’t plummet to your death.” Baekhyun says, in an incredibly casual voice, despite the fact that his grip on her waist is tight, careful.

“Thanks.” Hyemi responds, returning her gaze to the rickety bridge in front of her. More than a few planks are missing or dangling off the bridge, ready to plummet into the darkness below. For some awful reason, she feels a peculiar tug at her chest, like downwards is the best way to go. She isn’t even entirely sure how far the ravine goes, the ends of her hair whipping into the inside of , her lips drying out due to the high winds.

Baekhyun must have glared then, because Jongdae cackles, the sound of it bouncing off into the open, empty air ahead.

Baekhyun tugs on the back of her shirt, “Another step and you’re going to have the best and worst cliff-diving experience in your life, Hye.” He tugs at her shirt once more and Hyemi leans back, though she still stands at the edge of the cliff, right in front of the bridge.

Hyemi points ahead. Beyond the long, rickety bridge lays land and Hyemi feels an overwhelming need to cross that bridge. “I think there’s something up there.” Hyemi murmurs, looking back at Jongdae, Baekhyun, and Sehun. Baekhyun’s hand crawls from the middle of her back to her waist, fingers secure against her waist, as if he’s worried she’ll tip over the cliff at any moment. “I need to go there.”

She speaks with so much conviction that Sehun raises a brow and mutters an incredulous, “Of course you do.”

Perhaps, a few days ago, Hyemi would never have allowed herself to say those words. She doesn’t know when or how but she’s somehow come to terms with these strange visions, with these strange feelings that seem to dictate her decisions and her movements. But now, all she feels is an overwhelming presence, one that seems to cut off all her other thoughts, nearly choking the words out of her. All she knows and senses and feels is the need to cross that bridge, to get to the other side of the ravine.

(Her head feels fuzzy and her vision funnels, twisting and turning, and Hyemi understands, then, that a vision is coming on, and for some odd reason, she doesn’t fight it. She lets it consume her, her eyes focused on the bridge as she takes a deep breath, a chill running up and down her spine. The voices in her head, the ones she’s managed to suffocate at the furthest, deepest parts of her head, resurface almost instantly.

They speak in different languages, not of Earth, ones she shouldn’t understand, but she does. She can feel the vision piercing through her before it spreads out, trickling into her limbs, encompassing her in this sort of paralyzing anticipation.

She feels her body tip forward and she vaguely hopes Baekhyun will keep her from tipping over the edge of the cliff.

She welcomes her vision, she welcomes the voices, and, for once, it doesn’t scare her.

She knows her visions won’t hurt her, but she isn’t sure how or why she knows that.)

~.~.~.~.~

“You’re finally here.” Hyemi’s eyes snap up and her mother stares back at her, familiar eyes dancing in the firelight.

This isn’t the image of her mother Hyemi remembers from her very first vision, when her mother had dropped all this on her, burns marring her face, this is the image of her mother as Asha, young, beautiful, and filled with a peculiar sadness, the fire dancing in her eyes dull from the last few decades of her existence.

“M—mom?” Despite everything, Hyemi still stumbles forward. She still feels tears prickle at her eyes, because this time she knows her mother more than she had ever known her before. This time, Hyemi’s lived through her mother’s memories and the ghosts of what was left behind and Hyemi wishes that she could save her, somehow, that she could have stopped everything and given her mother a redo, showering her in nothing but happiness. Hyemi doesn’t say any of that, clamping shut before words can slip out, because now is not the time nor the place and her mother’s serious expression makes Hyemi pull back, reigning in her emotions, stepping back before she reaches for her mother and has to feel the pain, the horror, of her fingers sliding through nothing but air and a mirage fabricated by the memories in the Tree.

“Why are you here?” Hyemi asks, her voice unsteady. She looks around, peering at the dimmed room they’re standing in.

“I may be dead, but the Tree will always harbor a piece of me in its roots, just as it does with the vessels before me.” Her mother murmurs, gaze piercing. She’s wearing a long, black dress, torn up the leg and muddied at the hem, her bare feet covered in dirt and mud. “I get lost in there sometimes, very lost, but I am here now. I am here, even if I am different and younger than you remember. I am here, Hyemi.”

Her voice echoes in Hyemi’s head and Hyemi feels warmth seep into her limbs, her heart lodged in when her mother smiles at her, almost tentatively, a delicate smile held up by a tendril of worry that makes Hyemi’s heart feel heavy in her chest.

Hyemi allows herself a moment to return the smile, to return the moment, her eyes stinging as emotion floods her entire being, before she reigns it all in, returning to business, “Why?”

And Asha’s expression morphs into exhaustion mixed with seriousness, an awful combination that has Hyemi’s blood running cold.

“Up ahead, past the bridge, are the old temple ruins. The Temple of Dreams.” Hyemi watches as Asha sighs, crossing her arms. And then she snaps her fingers and Hyemi watches, in awe, as images flash through her mind, Asha’s words interspersed by images portraying her words. “A long, long time ago, there used to be millions of Life Trees, as they were once called, growing throughout the planet. They used to be as common as houseplants. The Wolf people, the natives of this planet, used to cultivate them, spreading them from village to village, city to city, until the entire planet would glow with the power of the Trees. Rumor has it, some of the Life Trees found their way onto Earth, which is why there are certain places on Earth that now have strong traces of magic. Peace reigned and the Golden Age, as our history books call it, stretched on for an entire millennia. Some say that a lot of humans accidentally fell into magic back on Earth, in places where the Trees grew, and ended up sent back here, with no way back home. Our race has traces of Earth genes in it, as well as traces of the Wolf people. That’s how we came about. And that’s how we destroyed Exo Planet.”

Hyemi watches as Exo Planet, filled with a natural sort of beauty she has never seen before, morphs into smoke and fire, of rivers of blood and spears jutting out from the ground, severed heads displayed over top, a horrific, jarring juxtaposition to the beauty of what the planet once was.

“There was war, centuries filled with violence and death. Not only were entire species and races wiped out of existence, but the Trees began to disappear. One by one until we were left with just a handful.” Asha raises her hands and Hyemi watches as the images of the death and destruction (Hyemi’s heart constricts because that is exactly what Hyemi is made of, that is Hyemi’s power, for God’s sakes) dissolve into a temple jutting out of the base of the pillar-like mountains Hyemi had seen beyond the bridge. Hyemi stands in front of the temple, eyes wide at the sight. Its reddish brown bricks blend into the pillars, sloping in and out between the pillars, intertwining at the base in a way that makes it seem like it’s just a trick of the eye to a passerby.

Flowers, beautiful flowers that are six feet tall and just as wide, bloom over the roof. They spill off the temple walls, spinning and curling and falling, delicate crowns adorning the pillars and walls, despite their size, as they glint, light reflecting off them in a strange way. There’s a serene bliss to the building in front of her, the front doors made of wood, though there’s gold sparkling off them, when the light hits them just right. There’s no door handle, just a large circle in front of the door, another red flower swaying back and forth in the center of the circle. The only difference between this single flower and the flowers dripping off the red-brown temple walls and curling up and along the pillar-mountains piercing through the building and soaring into the sky, is the fact that the flower has not bloomed yet. The other flowers have a span that’s longer than Hyemi’s body, fluttering in the wind, swaying as if they’re alive, softly dancing in the breeze. This particular flower is curled up, petals shut tight, shutting the world all around them away.

Asha crouches beside the timid little flower, the red petals with the smallest smile on her face. The flower sways, clinging to Asha’s hand, tendrils of green vines slowly begin to tumble up and out of the soft dirt, twisting around Asha’s ankles before they start crawling up her leg, along her side, until they twist around her fingers. Asha just smiles, even as the tiniest of flowers begin to bloom along the vines, along Asha’s limbs, each of them emitting a soft glow. Hyemi watches, filled with awe, as he mother’s powers slowly coerce the flower in front of the door into complacency, its petals opening up with each of Asha’s hand.

(Hyemi watches with a sinking feeling in her chest as her mother’s powers create, thus doing the exact opposite of what Hyemi’s powers do. Hyemi’s mother is construction and Hyemi is destruction and Hyemi feels her blood run cold as she watches her mother perform.)

When the flower fully blooms, the deep red color reminding Hyemi of blood, the door of the temple opens and Hyemi exchanges a look with her mother.

“The remaining trees were kept alive in the Temple of Dreams by the last remaining First Moon Children.” Asha murmurs, her hair tumbling off her shoulders as she tilts her head back, staring up at the doors, the darkness looming ahead of them. Asha holds a torch, the flickering fire creating long, terrifying shadows.

Hyemi blinks, “The First Moon Children?”

“The Wolf people.” Asha clarifies, her footsteps echoing as they walk into the dark building. “Both of the moons do strange things to the people on this planet. The First Moon used to turn people into wolves. Unfortunately, the First Moon Children are extinct. The kingdom makes sure of it.”

There’s sadness in Asha’s voice and Hyemi wonders if the Tree had shown her mother the extinction, the genocide, of the First Moon Children, too. Since Exo Planet history keeps repeating itself, Hyemi wonders if the Second Moon Children will go extinct as well. It’s either them, or the people that live beyond the wall, and Hyemi shudders at both possibilities.

Hyemi stares at the room, the cold air making her shiver. “They couldn’t keep them alive, could they?” Hyemi asks, “The Trees?”

Asha shakes her head, the vines curling around arms slowly trail up her neck, tiny white flowers blooming all along the vine, decorating her skin with glowing flowers, beautiful in their fragility. Hyemi watches as they slowly crawl along her limbs, tangling in her hair until her dark hair is spotted with white flowers, some in bloom while others are not. There’s something unsettling about the way the plants engulf her mother, Asha seemingly unperturbed by it all the while.

“The planet was dying, withering into a toxic wasteland, and eventually the early monarchy made a trade. They would plant the tree the First Moon Children seemed so adamant on protecting, if and only if the last Wolf would surrender body and soul to the new order and the new monarch. The agreement was made without hesitation.”

The ground begins to shake and tremble, the walls cracking right up to the ceiling. Hyemi gasps, trying to steady herself, while Asha just stands as still as ever, her eyes trailing up and along the wall, along the ceiling, around the temple, and the flowers blooming along the plane of her body begins to close up, one by one, the flowers no longer blooming. The temple falls apart around them and Hyemi panics, though she knows the rocks won’t crush her. Or at least she hopes.

Asha’s voice echoes all around Hyemi, even as the temple is torn to the ground, piece by piece. “The last Wolf, the last remaining Child of the First Moon, became the first vessel of the tree. They were neither a he nor a she, but they became both the last and the first. They planted the tree where it is today and they bonded the vessel’s souls to the Tree. They created the vessel’s lineage and they enlisted an oracle when their servant and caretaker, appointed by the King to kill them if they ever showed signs of treason, began to warm them of the many events that was to come, one of which was the King’s plan to execute the last remaining Wolf publicly, as both a message and an indication of his power. Instead of following the King’s orders, the oracle became the Wolf’s best friend. The oracle also predicted who the next vessel and oracle would be, thus beginning a new era in our planet’s history. The Wolf was murdered, of course the King succeeded in that, and the Tree of Life became tethered to the kingdom in an unbreakable bond. Sometimes I wonder if that was the Wolf’s revenge, to remind the King and his future lineage that he will never have as much power as the vessel will, because the kingdom will always be bound to the vessel, the oracle, and the tree.”

“That’s…” Hyemi trails off, her eyes wide as she stares at her surroundings, taking in the rubble and debris, the flowers a dried up, wilted mess scattered between broken rocks.

“Awful?” Hyemi’s mother finishes for her, raising a brow.

“I was going to say morbid but that works, too.” Hyemi notices the way Asha’s flowers have all wilted on their vines, hanging off her skin limply. “Is there…is there a reason why I feel drawn to the Temple of Dreams, then? It’s in ruins now. There’s nothing here, but when I was on that bridge I felt like…I felt like I needed to cross the bridge.”

Hyemi gestures to their surroundings, grateful, so so grateful, because her mother isn’t withholding information and it’s refreshing.

“You will have to make a choice, Hyemi.” Hyemi’s mother steps towards her, scanning her face carefully. Hyemi opens to respond, but Asha keeps speaking, her eyes softening, saddening in that peculiar way of hers. “You can save yourself, you can save the tree, you can save your friends, but you will have to make a choice and it will determine what’s saved and what is not saved. You can even choose to destroy everything. Either way, you will have to go through Hell itself to get to the temple and make that choice in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

Asha steps close, hovering over Hyemi and Hyemi looks up at her mother, at her swirling, familiar eyes, and Hyemi feels her heart twist in her chest at the way her mother expression hardens, searching Hyemi’s eyes with a sort of resignation that only seems to bring out the exhaustion in Hyemi’s mother’s face. “Before you go to the temple, you need to gather all your forces. You remember your visions, right? The number twelve? You need to rally the twelve to help you through the most important trials you’ll ever face. You need to gather everyone and everything you can and you need to prepare to fight whatever comes your way, do you understand me?”

“Is it…Is it Yeonma?” Hyemi asks, her eyes widening.

“He’s the least of your problems, Hyemi. The God of Death is just a…” Hyemi watches as Asha’s eyes shine in the dim light, filling with pity of all things. Pity that is directed towards her, Hyemi realizes. "The God of Death is nothing but an illusion, a distraction from the real enemy, the one controlling the God of Death’s every action.”

“Who?” Hyemi’s heart beats in her chest, pounding against her ribcage, “Who is it?”

“I don’t…I can’t tell you. He’s more powerful than you can imagine. He…We can’t say his name. None of us can, not the vessel’s past lives nor the Oracle.” Asha shakes her head, waving her hand, frustration and pity flooding her expression, “It doesn’t matter. He will reveal himself soon, the villains always do. But you need to stop the God of Death and then you’ll need to stop…stop him, the monster behind all this.”

“You know what they’re planning, don’t you?”

Asha looks at Hyemi real carefully, her eyes filled with age old sadness, ancient in its depth. Her mother has seen things, she’s been through more than Hyemi could ever imagine, and Hyemi wonders what Asha could possibly know, what Asha thinks will happen, that could create so much pity, so much concern and worry in her eyes. “The magic in the ruins is still very much alive and it's possible to gather and use it. With a price, it's completely possible."

"What kind of price?" Hyemi asks slowly, her eyes widening.

Asha shakes her head, "Magic of that caliber always has a price, whether it’s death or love or something else entirely. It always involves an overwhelming amount of emotion and sacrifice of equal value. That’s how magic works. It requires vulnerability and trust and betrayal and everything else you can imagine. Magic that powerful requires one to give up their entire self, so the magic can feed off of it and grow.” Hyemi stares at her mother, the images of magic as real living thing that’s almost parasitic in nature making her shiver involuntarily. Her mother gives her a tight smile, “Won’t you ask what they want that kind of magic for?”

“Something powerful and dangerous. Something that’ll change the entire game.” Hyemi murmurs. Her brain reels over the possibilities until realization dawns over her, her mother’s smile tightening into a thin line at Hyemi’s change in expression. “Something to do with the Tree of Life?”

Asha nods, “With enough magic, it’s possible to restore the seeds that had been destroyed in the ruins so long ago. Some even believe that some of the seeds were never destroyed in the first place.”

“Some believe that?” Hyemi asks, “Or you believe that?”

“You’re pretty perceptive, huh?” Her mother murmurs, smiling gently, “You’re right. I think…I think the Wolf wanted to see our kingdom destroyed. I think they wanted this very thing to happen in the future. I think they wanted revenge, even if they wouldn’t be alive to see it happen.”

“So what? Yeonma’s going to plant a damn tree, and then what? It has power, sure, but I doubt that new tree’s going to be as strong as the kingdom’s Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is old. That has to count for something.” Hyemi shakes her head, “Nothing can be that powerful. That’s ridiculous.”

“You don’t understand, Hyemi.” Her mother’s voice echoes all around her, “The Tree of Life is dying. And. And I admit it’s my fault. But the Tree of Life is not strong anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. You saw it, didn’t you? The God of Death and his master won’t harvest the Tree of Life to sustain life, no, his domain is Death. He will cultivate the Tree to destroy life as we know it. He will turn it into a parasite that will leach on to the Tree of Life and create darkness and destruction, worse than what Exo Planet has already seen. The Trees have enough magic to create portals, to sustain entire planets, Hyemi, and if it’s in the wrong hands, it could become something unfathomable. The God of Death will make his way from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy, starting with Earth. He will plant more Trees, like leeches, until he becomes unstoppable. He’ll be able to monitor every bit of life on the planet and he’ll be able to control the planets themselves. Revolution? Fighting back? That won’t work. Not when he can turn the very planet against anyone who tries to deny him. The Tree of Life will die and in its place, the Tree of Death will thrive.”

The silence stretches between them, Hyemi’s ears ringing in the silence. Hyemi wants to find the cheesiness of the name, the absurdity of it all, as something hilarious, something straight out of those old sci-fi movies her dad (ironically, now that she thinks about it) loved to have her watch with him all the time. But all she feels is dread and horror and a heavy weight falling upon her shoulders.

She feels a throbbing in her head and she has a feeling that it’s almost time for her to wake up from her vision (and hopefully she won’t find herself at the bottom of the ravine). “You know.” Hyemi’s voice echoes in her own head, “I don’t blame you for running from all this. I don’t think anyone should.”

Hyemi’s mother’s expression morphs into a tentative one, as if she’s never had anyone say those words to her, her lips twitching upwards in amusement. “I’m sure you do blame me for something. You wouldn’t be you’re your father’s daughter, my daughter, if you didn’t resent me at least a little.” Hyemi’s mother snorts, darkly, and Hyemi can’t help but crack a smile.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right. I’m still pissed that you threw me into all this without any kind of warning. But, other than the whole winging-it-thing I've been stuck doing, I’m glad you escaped. I’m glad you got out of this place. I’m glad you met Dad.” Hyemi murmurs, tone genuine and heart heavy with a sort of longing she’s felt as a child, when she’d see her friends talking to their mothers. She rubs her arms, when a sudden draft of cold air makes goosebumps trail up and down her arms, and Asha’s smile twists with warmth and nostalgia, a soft sigh falling from her lips.

“It wasn’t all that bad here.” Asha murmurs, peering at her surroundings. She looks sad. “I had some good times, too, and I made some friends that I wish I could have seen one last time.” Hyemi’s head begins to throb, like a drum is going off in her head, pounding away at a steady beat, calling her back to reality, away from her mother. “I’m sorry for everything, Hyemi. I’m sorry about the choices you’ll have to make. I’m sorry about everything.”

“Do you…do you know what kind of choice I have to make?” Hyemi blinks, startled, even as Asha begins to fade, even as Hyemi’s surroundings begin to disappear, fading to black slowly but surely.

“I’m sorry.” Asha’s voice echoes and Hyemi shakes her head, stepping forward.

“Wait...wait!" Hyemi's voice echoes all around her. "Mom?”

That echoes in her head, the phrase I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry and Hyemi doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the chills that those words bring her, at that moment and later on, as well.

~.~.~.~.~

Hyemi blinks awake, before she sits up so fast, she knocks her head into Baekhyun’s chin, gasping in pain at the sudden impact.

“Ow.” Baekhyun mumbles, rubbing his already reddening chin. Hyemi rubs her forehead, groaning, before she looks over her shoulder, to the cliff a few meters away. The bridge sways back and forth, creaking loudly, and Hyemi still feels that pull, that urge to cross the bridge and enter the ruins.

But she can’t go there just yet.

It’s quiet and Hyemi turns back to Baekhyun, Sehun, and Jongdae, surprised to see them staring at her with both apprehension and anticipation, their eyes following her movements.

“Uh.” She blinks, “What?”

Sehun, Jongdae, and Baekhyun exchange a glance, as if they’re silently speaking to each other, but Hyemi notices the way Sehun’s eyes dart to the ground, next to Hyemi’s head. Hyemi looks down and can barely contain her surprise. “Where did that come from?” She murmurs, hand over .

There are symbols across the ground in the dried up dirt. When Hyemi looks at her own hands, she sees dirt caked under her finger nails. Sehun speaks up, then, his entire demeanor uncharacteristically subdued. “How do you know about our insignias?” Sehun looks at her and there’s an inkling of hesitancy in his eyes, worry, concern, fear.

“Your what?”

Jongdae reaches out, his pointer finger hovering over the symbols she drew into the dirt. She examines the symbols and writing, frowning. The number 12 is written in the center, surrounded by intricate symbols, like a clock. There’s one shaped like an hourglass,  another shaped like a horse with a horn jutting out of its head (a unicorn, she realizes in brief amusement), another strangely familiar star shaped one, dots lining the edges, and even the one Jongdae gestures towards, a tear shaped symbol sitting at the top of the circle. “Those are our family insignias. Only our comrades, the people who studied with us at the Academy and the ones we fight beside can remember them long enough to draw them out, but only if we want them to. They’re sacred.” Jongdae pauses, watching Hyemi carefully. “They aren’t well known because they hold power.”

Hyemi continues staring at Jongdae, dumbfounded.

Jongdae makes a face and adds heavy emphasis to his next words, frowning at her. “They’re supposed to be a secret.”

“Oh.” Hyemi stares at the symbols, trying to make sense of them, the way lines connect all the symbols, encircling the giant number twelve. Then she processes his words, the looks Sehun, Jongdae, and Baekhyun are giving her, and she immediately looks back up at them, panic in her eyes. “Oh. Oh, no. No, no, no. I have no idea how I drew those symbols. I know this seems suspicious but I swear I didn’t steal them or anything.”

“There are hundreds of insignias you could have drawn. So why did you end up drawing ours?” Sehun asks, frowning at the drawing in the dirt. He purses his lips, bottom lip jutting out, “I recognize every one of these.”

“You do?” Hyemi asks, watching as Sehun’s fingers hover over the symbol, tracing them almost methodically.

Sehun looks at Jongdae who looks at Baekhyun who glances between the two of them, as if they’re having some kind of silent conversation. Jongdae raises his brows a lot and Sehun wrinkles his nose, while Baekhyun grimaces, and Hyemi wonders how exactly someone can communicate so much with just a twitch of a facial muscle.

“You all do?” Hyemi raises a brow in speculation. "What are the odds of that?"

"Unusually high." Baekhyun replies, his brows furrowed. Jongdae and Sehun nod in agreement.

"So you all know who these insignias belong to?" Hyemi leans forward, her cheek brushing against Baekhyun's shoulder, which prompts him to place a hand on her back, fingers spread out along the expanse of her back in a distracting sort of way.

They all nod and Hyemi claps her hands, grinning. "Then that makes this so much easier!" Hyemi exclaims. Her mother had mentioned twelve and there are twelve symbols so Hyemi figures that could only mean one thing. "I need all twelve of these families or people or whoever’s associated with these insignias to form an army thing with me as soon as possible."

"…An army thing?” Sehun blinks at her.

Hyemi makes a face, “I know it sounds weird, but it’s important.”

Jongdae and Sehun look at her disbelief while Baekhyun seems like he’s trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. So she takes a deep breath and recounts everything her mother had said to her in her vision, including the parts about how there’s someone worse than the God of Death out there, orchestrating everything.

“And you think we’re the twelve.” Jongdae states rather than questions, his eyes trained on the insignias Hyemi had drawn into the ground.

She nods. “It makes the most sense, doesn’t it?”

Slowly, Jongdae nods in agreement, is brows furrowing together.

She peers at the drawings in the dirt, “But who are they?” She points at each of the insignias, “Do I know these people?”

That’s when Baekhyun, Sehun, and Jongdae all exchange a careful look before they all glance back at her. “You’ve already met all of us.” Baekhyun pipes up first. He points at the first symbol; the tear shaped one, his long, thin fingers tracing the lines of it without touching. “That’s Suho’s insignia…that’s Yixing, Jongdae, Sehun, Jongin, Kyungsoo, Chanyeol, Luhan, Minseok, Kris, Tao, and me. Twelve.”

Hyemi blinks, astounded, because she really has met all twelve of them already and she wonders how that’s possible. “Seriously?”

Baekhyun nods. Jongdae looks between the three of them before he speaks, his words coming out slow as if he’s contemplating each word carefully before he throws them out there. “Isn’t it strange that you’ve already met all twelve of the people you needed to?”

“It’s just a really weird coincidence, probably.” Hyemi mumbles dismissively, eyeing the strange insignias with curiosity.

Baekhyun snorts, his fingers tightening against her waist, his tone taking on a playful quality. “Or it’s destiny.” He mumbles, voice lowering in pitch. Baekhyun knocks his shoulder against Hyemi’s, grinning suggestively.

Hyemi blushes and Sehun groans, loudly. He shoots a clump of dead grass at Baekhyun and Hyemi and speaks loudly,  “Okay, I think that’s our cue to start heading back.”

Hyemi’s blush deepens, trying in vain to duck away from the grass, even as Baekhyun laughs loudly and unabashedly, his voice carrying in the clearing. Baekhyun plucks a piece of brown grass out of Hyemi’s hair, making sure to tuck a stray strand behind her ear while he’s at it, and Jongdae makes a gagging motion, grimacing at both of them. Sehun snorts as he kicks at the marks she’s made on the ground, erasing them.

~.~.~.~.~

Hyemi stares across the clearing, where the bridge to the Temple sways back and forth on its ropes, dangling over the ravine insecurely. She still feels a powerful tug in her gut and the terrible urge to cross that bridge.

But she also feels something else, something she can’t quite place a finger on. Whatever it is, it feels powerful and familiar. A presence Hyemi knows.

But there’s also something off about it all, something wrong. It makes her skin crawl.

“Do you feel it?” Sehun murmurs, from next to her shoulder. He furrows his brows and she glances back at him.

“Is that…” There’s a sudden surge of energy, the kind that makes a chill run down her spine, “Is that Luhan?” She murmurs, her eyes widening at the sudden revelation.

She can feel his powers surging, like an erratic heartbeat pulsing dangerously at the very edge of her consciousness. It’s scary because Hyemi can feel an inkling of something else there too, something darker. There’s darkness over the bridge, apparent in even the clouds, a dark, dark murky purple that makes the sky look sick somehow.

Sehun nods, eyes filling with worry and concern, his body facing forward as if he’s prepared to run forward and save Luhan from whatever is happening.

“And someone else.” Baekhyun calls out, staring over the horizon with unreadable eyes as he shoulders his backpack.

“Maybe we should…” Sehun trails off, his expression torn. The wind whips at Hyemi’s hair, stronger than before, and Sehun’s fingers ball into fists, brows furrowing in distress.

Hyemi places a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “We will.” She glances at the rickety bridge, strands of hair whipping against her eyes and into the corners of . “We have to. But…” Hyemi takes a deep breath, her grip on Sehun’s shoulder tightening. “But I think we need to get him last. I’m—We’re not supposed to cross that bridge until we’re ready.”

Hyemi remembers her mother’s words, but she feels absolute guilt rush through her at the idea of just leaving Luhan out here when he was the reason why they had gone on this quest in the first place. She’s supposed to bring Luhan back.

She will, she thinks. She will bring him back if it’s the last thing she does. She made a promise to him.

(She owes Minseok that much, at least.)

“We’ll come back for him.” Hyemi murmurs, glancing sideways at Sehun. “I swear we will.”

Sehun stares at her for a long moment, his eyes widening slightly as if he’s surprised by the conviction in her tone.

Then he nods. “We’ll be back.” His eyes are focused on the rickety bridge and everything beyond it, as if he’s speaking to Luhan himself.

She nods, determined, even as Baekhyun tugs at her wrist, thumb dragging along the bare skin of her wrist gently, soothingly. Baekhyun pulls at Hyemi and Hyemi simultaneously tugs at Sehun’s backpack strap, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Jongdae is the one to speak up, his eyes trailing along the horizon, along the clouds, before they land on Baekhyun, Hyemi, and Sehun. “Let’s hurry.”

“We can’t go all the way back there.” Sehun says, spinning on his heels suddenly, his mouth set into a thin line. “We don’t have time to do that.”

He glances over at Hyemi, waiting for an answer. She feels incredibly inadequate right then, because she doesn’t have an exact timeline for them to follow. She doesn’t know how long they all have until their entire world gets turned upside down.

“I don’t know.” She murmurs, pausing in her steps. Baekhyun’s fingers slip down from her wrist right then, his fingers pressing insistently against hers until he’s wrapping his fingers through hers and she’s staring back at the rickety bridge, frowning. Her grip tightens around Baekhyun’s fingers and he leans into her shoulder, the warmth, the familiar scent, of his comforting to her nerves. “I don’t know how much time we have.”

There’s silence all around her and she feels incredibly self-conscious with the fact that Jongdae, Sehun, and Baekhyun are staring at her, though there’s a sort of disbelief flickering through Sehun’s features, which only makes her cringe internally, glancing away.

“It’s okay.” Baekhyun murmurs, suddenly, throwing an arm around her shoulders before he tugs her closer, his body warm against hers. His smell, the smell of outside and mint and Baekhyun floods her senses and eases her tension the tiniest bit. “It’s okay.” He repeats, in a much lower tone, right in her ear, before he kisses her temple, and only then does she realize that she must look so incredibly pathetic. She feels incredibly pathetic because she has no idea what she’s supposed to do now.

They can’t go all the way back to the castle, not when they have no idea when they’re supposed to show up at the bridge, not when they have no idea how long Luhan can hold his own against Yeonma, in his field of flowers.

“Yeah, Hyemi.” Jongdae pipes up, his hand finding his hair as he smiles reassuringly, a tiny tilt gracing his curvy lips that makes her feel a bit better because it feels so genuine. “It’s okay. All the other information you gave us is important. At least we know who to bring with us.”

Baekhyun rubs her back gently, leaning away slightly to look at her, and she just frowns at him, his chin bumping against the side of her head as he looks down at her. He prods at the corner of her downturned lips with a pretty finger and she shakes off his hand, smiling slightly despite the disappointment in herself that just won’t stop nagging at her. Baekhyun just breaks into a sweet smile, one that nearly makes her heart stop.

Then Sehun speaks, making both Hyemi break eye contact with Baekhyun, though Baekhyun keeps staring at her, his fingers playing with her hair before he tucks it behind her ear. Sehun sighs, “We can’t go back, not when—”

“Not when you’re all about to die?” Another unfamiliar voice echoes all around them, firm and loud, and Hyemi jumps when an arrow whizzes inches from her nose, lodging itself into the dead, grey tree ten feet behind them. Hyemi lets out a little squeak, her head snapping to the side, while Sehun groans softly.

“Not again.” He mumbles, frowning.

The first thing Hyemi notices is the girl standing in the middle of the open clearing, a few feet ahead of where they’re standing. Hyemi wonders how they hadn’t noticed the girl in the midst of their talking. Especially since the girl has a giant bow and arrow fixed on her arm. Especially since the ends of the girl’s long black ponytail fades into a sudden shock of bright orange.

Slowly, Baekhyun takes his hand away from Hyemi’s shoulders, flexing his fingers, while Jongdae rolls up his sleeves, frowning at the girl as he does so. Sehun just straightens his stance, brows furrowing together.

Hyemi can’t help but notice that the girl looks around their age, give or take a few years. She doesn’t look perturbed at all by Jongdae, Sehun, or Baekhyun’s stepping into more offensive stances. In fact, she finally looks at them with interest.

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” She murmurs in a soft voice, though it still carries through the empty space between them. She shakes her head, the orange tips swinging back and forth. “I’ve got you surrounded.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes, stepping forward, even as Jongdae snorts. “Oh really—”

Hyemi yelps when an arrow lodges itself into the ground, centimeters in front of Baekhyun’s toes, whistling through the air in a blur of movement. Baekhyun blinks, surprised as he steps back, and the girl with the orange tips smiles.

Judging from the way the arrow is quivering in the dried dirt from a sideways angle, Hyemi realizes that the girl is not bluffing in any way. That arrow hadn’t come from the orange-haired girl. Hyemi’s eyes snap up to the trees to her left and she swears she sees a hint of hot pink hidden in the dark, sickly grey branches of the trees.

“Another step and next time we won’t miss.” She says.

Hyemi’s still staring at the quivering arrow, even when Jongdae says something that makes the girl laugh out loud, hand going over . Hyemi glances down from the girl and realizes that the arrow is smoking, faint pinkish-red smoke drifting up from the end that’s stuck in the dirt. “What is that?” She says, interrupting whatever Baekhyun’s about to snap back at the girl, his fingers flexing.

They all freeze, Baekhyun glancing over his shoulder to look at her.

The girl raises a brow at Hyemi, a challenging look in her eyes. Sehun and Jongdae both glance sideways at her too, eyes narrowed and bodies rigid with tension.

Slowly, Hyemi takes a step away from the smoking arrowhead, frowning at it, before she looks up at the girl.

Hyemi jabs a finger at the smoking arrow beside Baekhyun’s foot. “What is that? Why is it smoking?” Hyemi bites out the questions, staring at the orange haired girl with a hard gaze.

That’s when the girl smiles, rather daintily, stepping a bit closer. “It’s a specialty of ours.”

And then more arrows whoosh through the air, landing in the dirt centimeters from their feet. Sehun jumps, frowning at the arrows, at the faint pinkish-red gas coming out of them. Faint alarms go off in Hyemi’s head and she immediately reaches up to cover and nose because gassing arrows can’t be anything but bad news. Hyemi can’t smell anything but she’s seen enough movies to know that this isn’t good. Thankfully, Baekhyun copies her movements, both hands cupping his mouth and nose, his pretty fingers tightening around his skin. Jongdae and Sehun quickly follow suit.

The girl shakes her head, but Hyemi doesn’t wait for her to speak, turning to Sehun.

She glances sideways at Sehun, “Blow them away.” She murmurs, her voice muffled by her hand, and Sehun doesn’t even question her, nodding quickly instead. He instantly twists his wrists in a graceful sort of way. Hyemi expects a gust of wind. She expects the arrows to get dislodged from the earth somehow or for the backup this orange haired girl has to get blown out of the trees or for the orange haired girl to get blown back into the forest, or even for Sehun to place the four of them in some kind of protective oxygen bubble.

But nothing happens.

“Sehun.” Hyemi hisses, Baekhyun glancing back at Sehun with wide, worried eyes.

Sehun’s eye twitches and his lips slowly turn downwards, even as he removes his other hand from his mouth and uses both hands to attempt something, anything.

“Any time now, Sehun.” Baekhyun mumbles, watching as the girl steps closer, cocking her bow with an easy smile.

Sehun just drops his hands to the sides and gives them a horribly helpless look.

“It’s not working.” There’s a tinge of desperation in his tone and Hyemi wonders if this is the first time in his life his powers haven’t worked for him. His fingers twitch at his side, red gas floating between them, billowing and disappearing into the air around them, as if it’s being dissolved. 

The pinkish-red gas, she realizes then, eyes growing wide. She whips her head up but Jongdae is already squatting in front of one of the arrows, eyes dark as he studies it, square jaw locked.

“What did you do?” Jongdae asks before Hyemi or Sehun can. Jongdae’s flexing his fingers, as if he’s attempting to conjure up tiny lightning bolts, but it isn’t working.

Their powers aren’t working.

That means her powers won’t work either.

“You’re a Hunter, aren’t you?” Baekhyun’s voice cuts through the silence, echoing in the clearing, his whole back going rigid and tense as the question spills from his lips. Jongdae grows tense, too, from where he’s squatting, rolling the feathery end of an arrow between his forefinger and thumb.

Sehun’s glare just deepens.

Hyemi feels a chill run down her spine because the term hunter can’t mean anything good.

Clearly, this girl isn’t out here in search of wild bunnies and deer. Hyemi just prays that they’re not a bunch of flesh-eaters or something because she seriously cannot handle that on top of everything else.

The girl smiles again, shooting Baekhyun a finger gun with her pointer finger, “Bingo.” She keeps smiling as she continues, “Our technician calls that baby The Red. It suppresses your freaky little powers for a while and makes our lives three thousand times easier.”

Hyemi tries to walk forward, but her head feels light and her legs feel heavy and she wonders why they always end up in situations like this, where they’re ambushed and they have to fight their way out of impossible situations. She watches Jongdae’s legs give out first, collapsing from his squat down to his knees, his expression filling with surprise and staying that way.

The orange haired girl’s grin grows wider, “Unfortunately for you, our technician’s been fusing that little creation with another one she calls The Velvet. It takes so smoothly, you won’t even feel it until it’s in your system and messing with your nerves.” She taps her wrist, “Which should be kicking in right…about…now.”

“Paralysis…” Baekhyun murmurs, or at least tries to, his fingers twitching in Hyemi’s direction as he collapses onto his back, his legs completely giving out on him. His voice gives out on him as his lips freeze in place, a small grunt leaving his lips as he drops. Hyemi watches it happen with absolute horror, because just as she sees it happening to Baekhyun, concern in his eyes that’s directed towards her stuck on his face, her body starts to go numb.

Hyemi feels helpless right then, because she can’t control her body at all. It feels like one of her visions, like her body’s controlled by another person and she’s just trapped in that head, watching as her body does things she can’t control. She’s losing control and it’s the worst feeling she’s ever had. She panics, the pressure bubbling up in her chest, but this time, her powers don’t explode out from inside her in that ironically comforting way it usually does, protecting her from situations like this.

Instead she topples on to her knees, before she collapses onto her stomach, her face hitting the ground hard, cheek no doubt bruising. It hurts. She can feel the pain and it’s a sudden thing, but she can’t even a move a muscle. She just sees the ground coming up to her face and she can’t do anything to stop the impact, watching it happen while she’s completely frozen in place. She can’t even close her eyes. Her heart beats faster, pumping with panic at the loss of control in her limbs, of the danger her body knows it’s in, but her chest doesn’t rise and fall at the same rate as her heart beats. It rises and falls like she’s not currently panicking and it feels so damn strange, like she’s experiencing death at its earliest stages. It feels like her body is shutting down and she can’t do a thing about it, like her body doesn’t even realize that it’s shutting down but her mind does. Her body is a cage and she’s trapped in it for God knows how long.

Then she’s flipped over onto her back and a girl with long black hair fading into electric blue peers down at her face. She can hear what they’re saying, though it sounds like it’s coming from the other side of a tunnel, and she can barely feel the girl’s fingers pressing into her chin, examining her face carefully before she easily hauls her up. There’s a carriage in the middle of the clearing and Hyemi wonders where the hell that came from.

“It looks like three of them are registered freaks.” A voice drifts into her hazy mind and she frowns (internally) at the word choice. “But this one—” Someone shakes her by the arm and if Hyemi could, she’d glare at the rough way she’s being handled. “I think she’s normal.”

“Who cares? She’s traveling with those freaks so clearly she’s just—” Hyemi wishes she could fight back, especially when they practically toss her into the back of the carriage, her body skidding across the wooden carriage floor before she hits the side, a scrape on her face stinging painfully. The girl’s words get cut off by the slam of doors. She can see Sehun’s arm next to her, pale and covered in goosebumps, still clenched into a fist. Then the carriage starts to move and Hyemi thinks they’re in for a long ride, especially when something heavy lands on her back and stays there and Hyemi can’t do a thing about the crushing weight against her spine and left arm, her gaze perpetually fixed on the cold floor in front of her.

~.~.~.~.~

a/n: sorry there's been a lack of fluffy moments between baekmi (?? HyeBaek??) in favor of the plot omg but I promise next chapter is going to go back to being more focused on hyemi/baekhyun!!! I hope you guys find the plotty bits interesting though it's pretty important to how this whole thing is going to wrap up!

thank you thank you thank you to everybody who's been reading and commenting and subscribing I love you all!!! as usual, let me know your thoughts below! <3

xoxo