[title song: don't watch me cry - jorja smith & red lie - btob & it's cold - lee hi + epik high]
[~8k; this is the SHORTEST chapter ever omg]

chapter 31;

“Are you afraid?”

Luhan’s voice echoes, the way thunder reverberates long after it hits, tumbling through the open sky until it fades off into thin air.

The sadness she feels, the sadness that is both hers and theirs, pulses deep in her chest. She doesn’t allow it to manifest into something more substantial.

She speaks, through the funnel forming in her mind, Jongin, bring him down here. She says, out loud, “ no.”

Jongin doesn’t waste time asking questions or even throwing her a questioning look, doesn't allow Luhan the chance to process what he's no doubt heard. He disappears in the blink of an eye, even as the rest of them are stepping back from the army of dead, necks craned as they try to catch a glimpse of Luhan, try to figure out how the Luhan they know could possibly be the Luhan floating up above them. In the blink of an eye, Jongin is clinging to Luhan’s back and Luhan’s concentration breaks. Luhan screams, his voice sounding as if there’s a million voices intermingling with his, all of them screeching angrily, the sound earth-shatteringly high pitched. Jongin doesn’t let him turn his powers on him, disappearing only to reappear on the ground, right in the middle of his army of dead. Unfortunately, Luhan's dead keep walking, baring their rotting teeth as they surge forward. She can't tell what species they used to be. Junmyeon forms a water cyclone, blasting some of the dead pile of bones into the dead ones with entrails trailing behind them. Luhan lifts his hands into the air and Jongin is thrown off. He disappears just before he flies into one of the dead’s open claws, landing in a heap behind them, gasping for air as he clutches his head, “He—he got in my head. He's trying to stay there.”

There’s something so very haunting about the way Jongin looks at them. Luhan, their Luhan, wouldn't purposely violate their privacy that way. He is gone. They can’t say anything in response because the dead are lunging at them and they need to keep them away. But every time they do, the dead just reform, the crawling limbs a gruesome, horrifying sight to behold.

She steadies her churning stomach, steps back right as one of the hunters, Irene, appears at her side, bow at eye level as she lets loose a flock of arrows, each of them lodging into the dead further down the clearing, the explosions following shortly after. Her scowl is directed at Hyemi, though, and Hyemi blinks at her, smile wry as she says, “Sorry about Wendy, by the way.”

Irene’s brows furrow together, “Who?”

Hyemi frowns. Her bracelet glows against her wrist. Irene glances down at it before she looks back up, confusion still coloring her features. Before Hyemi can respond, there’s a snarl right in front of her.

Hyemi shrieks when one of the dead dives for her, teeth snapping inches from her face. She stumbles back and Irene spins, pushing her behind her and jabs an arrow straight through the rotting flesh of its barely-there jaw, kicking it back and away. Irene heaves, her chest rising and falling as she turns to look at Hyemi and says, “If you’re going to be that useless, I might as well kill you, too.”

Then Irene spins, drops her bow and pulls out two long blades that were sheathed in an X shape along her back. She takes a moment to blow hair out of her face before she starts slicing. Hyemi blinks, unsure whether she should be so utterly in awe of her.

“You should be afraid.” This time the voice is not Luhan’s. She can’t make out whose it is, but it’s distinct and sounds as if it’s floating in her head, being whispered right up against her ear.

She can’t stop wondering why Irene had looked at her like that at the mention of Wendy. Alarms go off in the back of her head and she is acutely aware that something is off. She distinctly remembers the emotions the Hunters had displayed at the mere thought of Wendy betraying them. They wouldn’t just forget her like this.

It’s just like how Sehun had responded to her.

It’s just like how Wendy had disappeared so suddenly.

(For a moment, a brief, clandestine moment, the world seems to fall away to this horrible feeling of dread, this moment of clarity that is so strong, but she isn’t quite sure why. The only thing, only emotion, that feels so utterly, relentlessly clear is fear.

Suddenly, she is incredibly afraid.)

Sehun blasts bodies back, drives them into each other and through trees, the echoes of screams, of the dead gurgling in anger is so loud and so utterly haunting. Baekhyun directs bright streams of light so bright, it burns off flesh, blinds them painfully, but they keep coming back for more, a new figure taking the place of the one they’ve just defeated, and she doesn’t know how the hell they’re supposed to get through this.

“We need to stick together.” Her voice is steely, loud, even as she reaches out and Jongin grasps her fingers. She tugs him to his feet and there is that same steely determination in his eyes that matches how she feels.

“That’s easier said than done.” Seulgi calls out as she knocks more arrows and let them fly, one after the other, explosions clouding the atmosphere, a pink fog hazing their vision, the smell sweet, almost fruity.

Some of the dead creatures drop, limbs twitching.

Junmyeon raises a wall of water, straight down the field of dead flowers, like Moses himself parting the Red Sea, and he grins, though there is sweat dripping from his brow.

The hunter with the green hair lets out a low whistle of appreciation, “Damn.”

But then Luhan appears, right in her mind’s eye, and there’s a sharp pain at her head. Junmyeon drops to his knees, clutching his head, and the water walls collapse. Sehun blinks, distracted from where he had been tossing the creatures into the air and into the trees, their bodies crumbling, curling up like dead cockroaches. Sehun spins, “Junmyeon!”

Baekhyun shouts, “Sehun, watch out!”

A creature reaches out, fingers clawing at Sehun’s skin, and it draws blood, right at his ribs. Sehun gasps, spins, thrashing out, and the creature bursts, rotting flesh and purplish blood splattering all over them. Baekhyun directs light into the creatures faces and they fall to their knees, collapse to the ground, their screaming piercing the air, so loud, so terrifying, so shrill. Hyemi winces at the sound as they clutch their burning faces. They burn under the power of Baekhyun’s light as if someone’s holding a magnifying glass over their faces and they are a couple of insignificant ants. Her heart skips a beat at the way Baekhyun’s expression twists, his fingers curling over his flattened palms.

“Who’s doing that?” Irene murmurs, her eyes wide, frightened almost.

Hyemi frowns at the question.

Luhan laughs, his laughter loud, all-encompassing, and the creatures all turn their faces up, as if they are peering up at God Himself.

“Die, die, die.” Luhan shrieks and the words reverberate loudly, bouncing in her head, piercing, painful.

Jongin clutches the side of his head with one hand, his other hand squeezing Hyemi’s to get her attention.

She turns to him and he says, “The arrows. Maybe we can shoot him down.”

Sehun is clutching the wound at his ribs, wind whipping at his hair, his eyes flickering constantly to Junmyeon. “Luhan is in our heads. It’s impossible.”

Still, Hyemi turns to the hunters, to Seulgi, Irene, the Green Haired Girl, and the Blonde. “The Velvet or the Red or whatever the hell it was. Do you guys have it?”

“Of course.” Irene rolls her eyes, snorting, her pretty face curling up into a look of disbelief, as if she can’t believe Hyemi’s asking her such a stupid question. “What about it?”

Seulgi’s mouth drops a little in realization as Hyemi rolls her eyes at the attitude. “You want us to use it on him?”

“Depends. How good are you with moving targets?” Hyemi raises a brow, gaze and grin challenging.

The girls all give her varying looks of annoyance. “Are you doubting our skill?” Seulgi asks.

Hyemi opens to say something when Baekhyun interrupts, his breathing heavy, ragged. “Now is really not the time to be arguing.”

Seulgi blinks, confused for a moment as she looks at Baekhyun, before the confusion suddenly clears and she crosses her arms over her chest as she nods in the blonde’s direction, “Okay, good point. It's just...Yeri’s our best shot. She just needs cover.”

“We can give her that.” Junmyeon says, nodding quickly.

The blonde in question, Yeri, who looks so young right then and slightly terrified in the midst of everything that’s happening, blinks between them all. The green haired girl places a hand on her shoulder, murmurs, “I can help you.”

Yeri squeaks, nodding gratefully, “Thanks, Joy.”

The green haired girl—Joy—smiles and Hyemi understands why that is her name, her smile is full of joy. Despite what the hunters had put her and her friends through, Hyemi hopes nothing happens to wipe that kind, happy smile off the girl’s face (because she looks just as young as Yeri now that she truly looks and she hates it, hates how they are barely adults; they are just kids). Irene and Seulgi’s brows furrow slightly, concern coloring their features as they glance at each other, but they nod to each other after a moment, a brisk thing, before Irene mutters, “If there’s a single scratch on her, it’s on you. And I’ll make sure to return it tenfold after all this is over.”

Hyemi makes a face, “You guys are the worst.”

“Coming from a freak like you?” Seulgi jumps in, even as she lets an arrow loose into a creature that had been looming right behind Hyemi, about to yank her back by the hair. Hyemi gasps when the arrow whizzes past her ear, stumbling forward in surprise as blood spatters all over the side of face.

Hyemi scowls at Seulgi.

Before she can say anything, Sehun shouts, “Stop arguing. Please.”

A voice in her head, a voice that definitely belongs to Jongdae whispers, amusement dripping from each syllable, “They’re not arguing. They’re totally flirting.”

Hyemi’s scowl deepens. Junmyeon lets out a bark of laughter. Jongin and Sehun wear matching grins. Baekhyun snorts, a tiny smile playing on his lips. She can even sense Kyungsoo, Yixing, Zitao, Chanyeol, and even Kris’s amusement in her head and it’s the strangest, most dissociative sort of feeling ever, like an out-of-body dream she can’t make sense of. Still, there’s comfort in it, in the fact that they’re all there. Irene, Seulgi, Yeri, and Joy all eye them strangely.

Despite it all, she feels a sense of calm at the joke, a newly found strength in their unlikely allies (though ally is definitely a strong word for the hunters), and a grounded sensation as she focuses her attention on the living dead creatures and imagines that ball of light. It’s not hard when the bracelet at her wrist is warm against her skin, its glow dim but so there. She can feel her powers, the power of destruction, thrumming in her veins. She imagines it concentrated in her palms, pictures her hands covered in destruction. Everything she touches will be destroyed.

(It’s not such a scary thought anymore.)

A creature tears her way, head shifting side to side, white-blind eyes pinned on her as it snarls. Her heart races in her chest, but she stands her ground, reaches out, and grabs the creature by its dripping flesh, right at the jaw. It dissolves in her hands, crumbles to dust, screeching all the while, and she watches it happen. She does not look away.

(The power she feels is indescribable. It is somehow euphoric.)

She spins as the creature curls into nothing but dust and ash and grabs another creature by the shoulder, it’s joints disappearing and its arm hanging off by a thread of skin and ligaments. Her stomach churns at the sight but she doesn't stop. She can't stop now; she is finally in control. She imagines pushing her power out of her from her palms and it runs straight through into one of the walking dead, the whole creature bursting into a plume of blood and ash.

She blinks, locks eyes with Baekhyun. His eyes are wide, dark.

Sehun stares in awe.

Irene blinks and there is fear there, in her eyes. She kind of likes that; the fear.

But then they all focus on Joy and Yeri, and she joins the circle, covering all their sides so they can take aim of Luhan with their arrows. Luhan, she notices, had just been floating, staring, and not doing anything. It’s strange, the way he hangs there in the air, the way his limbs jolt as if he’s a puppet on strings. The arrow, a smoking arrow with plumes of red smoke wafting out from it, flies right by Luhan’s head and he jolts, springing backwards and away. They create a circle around Yeri and Joy and they silently decide they will make their way down the field, through the army of the undead if they must.

They will make it out of this field alive and together. They need to.

(She can’t cross that bridge alone.)

~.~.~.~.~

It’s disconcerting when Luhan stops drifting listlessly and faces them, the fire in his eyes—the sheer anger—radiating off him in waves. Something seems to awaken in him as he sees them tearing through his army and one of Joy’s arrows flies too close, nicking him in the leg.

His voice is a thousand voices molded into one, echoing in their heads and all around him, when he shouts, Die.

She’s never really thought about what exactly his powers entail. Telepathy. Telekinesis. Junmyeon’s expression—she will never forget the pure terror in his eyes when Luhan lifts his hands, pointer fingers raised in the air, like he’s gesturing the number one. Luhan is drifting backwards, avoiding the onslaught of arrows Yeri’s shooting with her crossbow and Joy’s launching with her bow, the two alternating shots, the red plume of smoke emitting from the arrows reminding her horribly of the time they used it against them. She can almost feel the effects of their weapons, maybe a placebo or maybe even an effect from being too close in proximity to the weapons. The movement of his fingers is microscopic, but she’s staring at him so intently, covered by a sweating Baekhyun and Jongin (who is incredibly skilled at hand-to-hand combat, even with a creature intent to tear off a chunk of his flesh), she catches the movement.

He bends his pointer fingers, drops them the tiniest bit, a mere crook of his fingers, and then there’s an earsplitting scream, a gasp for air.

Luhan cackles as Hyemi spins to face the source of the sound. It's Irene. She's clutching her arm and it is bent at an unnatural angle.

Luhan does it again.

Her arm twists, the cracking sound resounding all around them, even over the growling of the dead. Hyemi’s heart pounds so hard against her chest. Seulgi shouts Irene’s name, dropping to her side.

Junmyeon whispers, “Lu, no. No.”

She hears the faintest whisper, the faintest, “I didn’t mean t—”

Her head snaps back up and Luhan’s eyes are wide. His tears are glistening so brightly, but his lips are twisted into a snarl.

The words drip from his lip like poison. Die, die, die, die, die, di—

Irene screams again, the sound shattering her ear drums, nearly shattering her heart. She punches one of the creatures that is lunging for Irene, mouth wide open in an attempt to tear a chunk of her flesh out with it's mouth. It almost does. That seems to jerk them all out of their horror. Jongin teleports, lands on Luhan’s back, and his face twists in agony as Luhan lifts his hands, clearly attempting to pull Jongin off him with his powers while attacking his mind. Jongin teleports with Luhan in tow and it must shake Luhan’s focus just enough, because Irene’s arm falls limp at her side and she is gasping for air, gritting her teeth, but she isn't screaming.

“Keep going.” Irene’s voice is gruff, rough around the edges. She stumbles to her feet, her broken, ruined arm hanging at her side. She grabs one of her sharp blades, brandishing it with determination. Despite everything, Hyemi’s respect for Irene grows infinitesimally.

But still, she says, “You don’t even know why we’re fighting him. We can’t—”

Irene cuts her off with a look alone, “Our job is to hunt freaks like you—like him—and put them down.” Her sharp gaze skitters to Yeri, whose chin is trembling ever-so-slightly, to Joy, lingering on Seulgi. “Kill him, okay?”

Hyemi can feel the apprehension in her head from the boys. She can feel Luhan’s anger, jabbing at her brain, painfully there.

She doesn’t want that. She knows she doesn’t want that. She can’t face that reality; killing Luhan.

(But they may have to.)

(Kyungsoo bristles, his voice sharp, no we will not.)

Irene spins, facing the creatures, and says, “I’ll slow them down.”

She sees Jongin slams a fist into Luhan’s face and he falters, falls, but then Luhan lifts Jongin off his body without ever lifting a finger and Jongin is tossed aside like a rag doll. He disappears in a cloud of smoke, reappearing next to Joy. Jongin looks at Irene with both annoyance and awe before he turns to them and says, “We have to keep going.”

(Irene stays behind. They keep going. The numbness grows and grows.)

~.~.~.~.~

Jongin keeps disappearing into the void and she can feel the exhaustion from him when he reappears, panting and bruised, anger glinting in his eyes. It adds to the exhaustion and pain, the anger, she feels exuding from the deep depths of her mind, from the boys’ consciences that dwell there. It adds to the exhaustion of her power of destruction. She feels as if she’s in the middle of running a marathon. is dry, her limbs hurt, and she’s sweating buckets, but there’s a blissful haze settling over her, as well, just like a runner’s high. She hasn't trained long enough to sustain the use of her powers like this.

Jongin is trying to keep Luhan from breaking their more major bones. Junmyeon is trying to make them go faster. Yeri and Joy are faltering. Baekhyun is flickering, glitching, and she thinks it’s from exhaustion. Sehun is pale and the scarlet red spot on his white t-shirt is growing. There are more scratches up and down his arm. Seulgi looks pissed.

Luhan still manages to get to them. He lifts Seulgi into the air, tosses her into the middle of a group of deteriorating, rotting dead like she’s nothing, and Sehun tries to use his wind to pull her back while Junmyeon tries to cushion her fall. There is a deep pain that blooms at the back of her head, then, and Junmyeon clutches the back of his head. His hand comes away with blood. She can hear Irene in the distance. The reality of it feels so far away, as if she is watching from outside her body, like she’s in another vision. But she’s not. She’s just tired and trying not to process what is happening around her.

She focuses too damn much on the blood covering Junmyeon’s hand. It matches the blood that wets what was once dry dirt and flowers beneath their feet.

Luhan throws his head back.

He is halfway through a bellowing laugh before an arrow finally, finally, lodges in his ribs. The dusty pink smoke engulfs Luhan’s glitching form. One moment he is still, floating in the air, the next his limbs twist and jerk.

His mouth opens but no sound comes out.

His eyes are a pure white, sending chills down her spine. The chills only worsen when nothing comes out of his mouth. And then he plummets.

He collapses in the air and Jongin surges forward to catch him just as he—

A wall of ice stops Jongin in his tracks. It spikes through the ground, glittering brightly, some of the ice needles piercing through the bodies of the undead. The dead themselves have all come to a stand still and a pillar of ice shoots up, catching Luhan’s plummeting form, turning to slush to soften the impact. She knows exactly who it is. They all do. But she can’t stop watching as the ice creeps up Luhan’s skin, his paralyzed form, and curls around the arrow, digging into Luhan’s skin where it’s pierced through him. The tinkling sound of ice moving, creeping, fills the clearing. The dead are quiet, standing so so still, and the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. She can see the bridge, just past all this, swaying in the breeze over a dark, endless ravine. That urge to cross the bridge tugs at her stomach, a painful feeling that leaves her queasy.

She tears her gaze from there, from the faint familiar figure that appears at the foot of the bridge, dress billowing around her petite, frail form.

It’s Jinri. She knows it.

“What the .” Minseok’s voice carries through the clearing, cracking slightly with ice cold rage that is more terrifying than if he had just started screaming and raging.

Minseok steps into the clearing and with each step the ground beneath him freezes over. She notices, then, that all the living dead have rings of ice clinging to their feet, making it hard for them to move. They still sway. One of them allows it’s leg to tear off and stumbles to the ground. It crawls on its elbows to get to them, until Minseok’s ice traps it's  forearms down.

She looks back over her shoulder, a quick glance, and she can see Seulgi kneeling beside a familiar figure, her dark hair and neon ends spread out in a bed of wilting flowers. Minseok takes three more steps, flicks his fingers after the second, the iced arrow dislodging itself from Luhan’s ribs, ice covering his wound to stop any bleeding. Another snap of his fingers and the arrow cracks in half, dropping to the ground with a dull thud.

“You’re trying to kill him.” Minseok’s hostility crawls into her head, lodges itself there.

Another snap of his fingers and Yeri’s crossbow breaks in two in her hands. Joy steps in front of her.

Junmyeon, with blood on his hands, blood trickling down the back of his head, steps in front of the two of them, hands up, placating, “Minseok, Minseok, please. He’s not—”

“Don't give me that bull. Can’t you see he’s being controlled?” Minseok’s voice rises, just an octave, and it's somehow worse than him yelling. There’s doubt etched across Minseok’s features, coloring it with grief, and Hyemi wonders if he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince them. “He’d never—he’d never hurt someone like—”

Joy’s speaks then, her voice hoarse, thick with emotion, “He hurt Irene.” She jabs a fist in Irene and Seulgi’s direction and there are tears threatening to spill from her big eyes. Yeri grabs her shoulder but Joy shakes it off as she steps past Junmyeon. Joy points at Junmyeon’s head, at Sehun’s injuries, at all of them really, gesturing wildly, “He’s hurt all of us!”

She watches the grief on Minseok’s face spread, making his expression crumple and his icy eyes glisten beautifully. He’s still shaking his head, tiny movements that cause little ice flecks to drip off his full cheeks and chin, the ice shards hitting the ground and spreading. She knows he doesn’t want to believe it. He can’t. She’s been in his head, lived his thoughts, and she knows that out of the two of them, Minseok always thought himself the monster, not Luhan. His mother shaped him into the monster he is. He’s supposed to hurt people.

His back is rigid with tension, worsening at her thoughts. They’re all so damn focused on Minseok, that they don’t notice Luhan stir, don’t notice until he jerks up into a sitting position, the movement so sudden and fast, it looks almost back-breaking. His eyes roll back before they roll forward, white eyes flipping to black, his pupils blown out, his unwavering, unblinking gaze settling on them.

Luhan’s face is bruised and he has a split lip. His face glitches, the image of him flickering for just a moment, and then his tense expression softens into the kind, sweet one she remembers from when she first spoke to him. It’s like someone’s flipped a switch.

Luhan is soft when he breathes, “Minseok?”

He sounds so confused, so broken, so pained, and Hyemi can see the way it affects Minseok, would have known even without the stupid mind link. Minseok’s expression shatters at his tone as he spins. There’s a deep protectiveness in the way Minseok responds, “Lu, are you...are you okay?”

She’s never known the extent to which Luhan’s powers can go. Junmyeon, however, does.

Junmyeon is shaking his head, suddenly panicked, frantic. “Minseok, please, that’s not him. I’m s—sorry, but he’s gone and can't let him in.”

Where telekinesis can manipulate objects with one’s mind, telepathy can manipulate the mind itself.

She hears Yixing speak into their collective funnel of thoughts, his voice calm but riddled with fear, anxiety, “Don’t let him in.”

It’s a strange thing to feel someone else’s mind succumb to the will of another’s, especially the mind of someone she is inexplicably connected to. There’s already a vulnerability there, in Minseok’s mind, to anything relating to Luhan. Luhan knows that. He takes advantage of it. Minseok’s grief makes his mind hazy and she can sense the inability to resist. Luhan whispers, in such a loving tone, Minseok, you came back for me. Minseok can see it, she knows he can see it. He lives in their heads and he can hear everything they’re projecting, everything they’ve felt and seen up until this point. He just can’t fathom that Luhan, the Luhan that is Yeonma’s master, capable of ruthlessly breaking bones without blinking an eye, to his Luhan. The Luhan who is gentle and apologizes so profusely for accidentally peeking into their thoughts. The Luhan who understands his trauma, understands that he cannot properly love someone, but stays nonetheless, knows he has other ways of caring about someone. The Luhan who never quite forgave himself for being the reason why Minseok and his sister became estranged, though Minseok could never properly explain that that was all him and his decisions, not Luhan. Minseok can see it but he doesn’t want to believe it and that is his downfall.

Luhan’s mind, his thoughts that make her head throb, claws inch by inch into Minseok’s consciousness, taking over until there is nothing left. Minseok gives up long before Luhan is done and the resignation from Minseok is a thousand times more tragic than the deep anguish they can all feel. Minseok lets Luhan take over his mind, him, because he cannot fathom fighting him, hurting him, even when his Luhan and this Luhan are not the same.

Minseok’s icy eyes turn glassier somehow, more ice-like.

He snaps his fingers and Joy’s bow cracks in half. Joy yelps, clutching her fingers to her chest. The ice begins to ebb away, freeing the swaying creatures. Joy and Yeri are weaponless. Minseok is now a weapon.

He flicks a wrist and sharp icicles form a circle above them. She cranes her neck upwards, to look at them. Sehun’s movements are graceful, big, as he yanks at the air and Yeri and Joy stumble back. Then he grabs at the air again, just as Minseok brings his hand down in a fluid movement. Sehun’s wind manages to redirect the icicles and they spear into the muddy dirt, cracking into icy splinters, breaking apart instantly. Junmyeon ignores the wound on his head and gathers the melting ice water, turning it into a whip that he slices at Minseok with.

Hyemi wants to help; she wants to stop this fight from happening, from Junmyeon having to fight his own friend, a brother.

But Junmyeon is the one to say, out loud, “Hyemi, go! Cross the bridge!”

She’s shaking her head, a rapid movement, “I can’t leave you.”

Jongin’s the one to grab her elbow, pushing her forward as he looks her in the eye with an intense sincerity, a sort of trust she never expected from Jongin. He says, “Yes, you can. The sooner you fix this, the sooner we can end all of this.”

Hyemi looks Jongin in the eye before she nods, the movement rigid and jerky. Jongin’s eyes flicker over her shoulder for a moment. Baekhyun grabs her hand. Hyemi glances at Yeri and Joy, “Don’t let them die.” She says, because despite everything, they’re just kids.

Jongin nods, quickly, squeezing her elbow in reassurance before he swivels. She grasps Baekhyun’s hand and she runs, Sehun joining them, his stride longer than theirs.

They’re there, right there at the edge of the cliff, and she can see the figure even better. Jinri.

Sehun raises a huge gust of wind, so strong that the wind makes her hair whip painfully against her face, her eyes watering at the intensity as she squints.

Sehun’s voice carries in the breeze, “Go! I’ll hold them off!”

Baekhyun yanks her forward, a rough movement that makes her stumble onto the rickety bridge, the bridge swaying dangerously under her feet. She turns, and she can see them all in her mind’s eye. Sehun gets too tired and the wind collapses, just long enough for the creatures to break through and she inhales sharply at the sharp sting at her torso. She sees bloody teeth and claws, purple skin, and feels too much weight on her chest—Sehun’s chest. Junmyeon’s fighting and fighting, his fluid movements on par with Minseok’s powerful ones and she doesn’t know who will win and who will lose. Jongin’s clawing at his throat, hanging midair, and Luhan is laughing, the familiarity of the sound tearing at her insides, his hand outstretched.

And then there are the others. She closes her eyes and opens them to Chanyeol shouting at Kris, the veins on his neck visible and his skin glowing, heat waves bouncing off him. Kris shakes his head and there is fear in his eyes, fear and concern. She senses the reasons, the fear of Chanyeol getting hurt, dying, and Kris not being there to protect him because of his duties. Kris doesn’t say all that, though. Chanyeol shouts I should be there helping them!

No, I won’t allow it.

Chanyeol’s King’s Mark glows brightly, searing his skin.

Zitao watches on from the corner, eyes wide, but not once interfering.

you. Chanyeol screams, his deep voice cracking halfway through with emotions. His eyes are alight with fire. I need to be there. I can’t—I can’t just watch them die like this.

Your duty is to the Kin—

No.

Chanyeol shakes his head and the King’s Mark burns at his skin. Hyemi can feel the searing pain through her connection. She flinches at the pain but Chanyeol takes it, looks Kris in the eye, and shakes his head, repeats, no, no, no, not anymore before he spins on his heels and he leaves.

She is yanked back to reality by a soft voice and a pretty ghost of a girl floating beside her. Jinri. It’s Jinri. She whispers, smile gentle, “I’ll go with you. You shouldn’t be alone.”

Baekhyun’s fingers curl at her back, a protective gesture that anchors her in the reality of now, away from the fear and pain she can feel escalating in her head, through her connection to these twelve other boys and her own repressed emotions. Still, she won’t let that dam break. She doesn’t have time to deal with all those emotions, the possibility that Sehun, Junmyeon, and Jongin could very well be dead back there. Even those hunters, those kids.

Baekhyun nudges her forward and she lifts her chin, frowning at Jinri's words. “But, I’m not alone.” She says, confused.

Jinri stares at her, her big eyes sad, pitiful almost. Her image fades for a moment, flickering in and out of existence. She doesn’t respond and that’s most unnerving of all.

She doesn’t notice she’s stopped walking until Baekhyun slides a pretty hand up the curve of her spine, fingers curling at her shoulder. “Hyemi, what are you waiting for?” He slides his hand up and down, up and down, the movement soothing. “Let’s go. You can do it.”

She looks back and his dark eyes are filled with sincerity. She can’t help but look past him. She can see glimpses of Sehun being overrun, blood staining the dead flowers they have trampled. Baekhyun draws circles between her shoulder blades and she shivers, even as he nudges her forward lightly, urging her to move. She does. The bridge before her shifts between an ancient, weathered down brown wood and a deep, polished charcoal black with each step she takes. Back and forth as the temperature drops the closer and closer she gets. She can see images flashing through her mind’s eye. Kris sprinting to the edge of the airship, the strong wind knocking his crown off his head, his grip tightening as he watches a horde of monsters, all melting together into this dark entity that is seemingly never-ending, claw its way up Kyungsoo’s walls and easily leap over, overtaking the castle grounds. Kyungsoo too drained to stand, staring up at his wall, his fingers trembling as the first stream of monsters clear the wall, darkening the sky for a moment and casting a shadow over the castle grounds. A river of blood beneath their feet. Chanyeol on fire, burning and broken. Jongdae reaching over to clutch Yixing’s hand as the sky momentarily darkens. A whispered I love you. Yixing nodding, I love you, too.

She is pulled back to the bridge by the sensation of Baekhyun’s cold hand.

She steps off the bridge and onto sturdy ground, turning to Baekhyun, and his dark gaze is pinned over her shoulder, filled with wonder. Her own gaze, however, is pinned over his.

Standing there, along the edge of the cliff, stands Luhan and his army of dead. She can see fighting which gives her hope, but Luhan just stands there and stares and stares. From this distance, she can just make out his eyes and she knows she has to be imagining the tears in his eyes.

~.~.~.~.~

The temple is beautiful, despite being more ruined than her visions had shown her. There is no door. It’s crumbled to ash and the flowers her mother had shown her are all wilted, blackened things that add to the image destruction surrounding her. That is her essence, she knows, destruction. She feels incredibly responsible for it all, especially now that she’s looking at it straight on. The red flower she had thought so lovley that was once there to open the door is a wilted sprig of a thing. The pillar mountains are not so majestic anymore. Everything looks so broken. There’s a chill in the air and she turns, blinking at Baekhyun.

His eyes are fixed on the darkened entrance, on whatever lies beyond those crumbled doors. She can still feel the power this place possesses, however, pulsing in the dead grass beneath her feet. It is so utterly alive that it seems to be trying to trickle through her skin and dig under it, manifesting itself there. The powers of the tree that lives in her hums in harmony with this energy that the ruins around her resonates. Her skin feels like it’s burning with the intensity of it all.

Baekhyun presses a cool hand to the small of her back and there’s a rush of energy coursing through her, making her toes curl with the electric touch. Something about his touch feels dangerous, feels like she will burn up alive from his fingers alone. She tears her eyes off the dead flowers and the cracks creeping up the sides of the temple walls, off the unnatural darkness beyond the crumbled doors, and she locks her gaze with Baekhyun’s.

(She doesn’t know how to explain it, but she feels so ing alive here, as if she is somehow at home.)

There’s a sort of intensity to Baekhyun’s dark gaze that makes her knees weak. She blinks, slowly, suddenly unable to breathe properly, her heart pumping in her chest. His pink tongue darts out, wetting his lips, and she can’t help but follow that movement with her eyes. His brows furrow, ever so slightly, and she wants to smooth out the crinkles with her fingers. She wants to reach out and hold his hand and sit with him in this place that feels so much like home, a place she has longed for since she left Earth, and she kind of sort of really wants to kiss him.

Her heart thrums loudly against her ribcage.

He looks at her like he can sense it, like he can sense the way the dam in her head is beginning to collapse, the emotions rising and rising, overwhelming her.

He reaches out then, wraps his cold hands around hers, squeezing and squeezing, anchoring her to her resolve. She can’t—she refuses to allow herself to succumb to her emotions. A huge part of her wants the dam of emotions to just disappear forever. She doesn’t think she ever wants to deal with it, with the intensity of it, with the pain and fear that will inevitably suffocate her.

She wants her emotions gone. what Soojung said.

Baekhyun’s squeezes her fingers, his gaze pinned on her face. He reaches out, hesitant almost, before he allows the very tips of his fingertips to brush along her jaw. His touch is feather-light, as if she is as fragile as glass, and the ghost of his touch alone makes a shiver run right up her spine. She lets out a soft, soft breath, and he murmurs, so quietly, his voice low and rough, “Are you ready for this?”

She wants to nod, wants to say yes I am, of course I am. But she isn’t. She’s on edge and she’s mentally exhausted. She is terrified.

She shakes her head a bit, a tiny minuscule movement, and Baekhyun closes his eyes, briefly, his jaw clenching slightly, before he opens his eyes and his dark eyes bears witness to her soul. She clings to the steadiness of his gaze, melts against his ghost touch, leans forward into it, all while he whispers, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just—” She exhales, the sound ragged. How does she tell him that she is terrified? That she is feeling too much and she’s afraid that it will paralyze her into submission, stop her from keeping Yeonma and Luhan from destroying everything. How does she tell him that a small part of her wants to walk back over that bridge and let the world burn? How does she— “I’m so ing terrified, Baek.”

Her voice trembles.

Baekhyun’s movements are slow, teeny tiny. His fingers brush at her skin, flitting over the loose strands of her hair as he leans in and brushes his cold lips against hers. Her fingers tighten around the hem of his shirt as he pecks her lips, leans up and then presses another kiss to her forehead, lips moving against her skin as he tells her, tone pained, filled with obvious concern, “It’s okay to let it go, Hyemi.”

Her fingers gather at his chest, clutching his black shirt as she leans back slightly, her eyes meeting his dark gaze. His eyes melt as he looks at her, softening significantly. He brushes a thumb along her jaw, down to the corner of her lips, even as she speaks, her heart pumping in her chest, fluttering wildly at the way he touches her and looks at her, “Let what go?”

“Your fear, your pain, your emotions. It’s okay to let it all go.” Baekhyun murmurs, still absentmindedly her cheek.

“What if I—I lose control?” Her voice sounds tiny, even to her own ears.

“You won’t.” She blinks at him and he cups her cheek so very gently, leaning forward a little so he can maintain eye contact, his voice steady, so sure of himself, “You won’t lose control.”

The way he says it is so confident. She thinks he could make her believe cows can fly if he really wanted to. It’s not good, she knows it’s not, but she can’t help but believe in the intensity of him, believe in how much he seems to believe in her.

Slowly, carefully, she nods, “Okay.”

He nods back, still holding her cheek, his eyes dark, “Just let it all go. I’ll be right here the whole time, okay.”

And, so, she does.

She can feel it, the buzzing under her skin, and she allows that dam of emotions to break, allows it all to just leave her, ignoring the way it twists at her heart, the way it tries to crawl under skin and burrow itself a home in the crevices of her thoughts. It’s euphoric.

For a brief moment, she feels so ing free. She feels pain, heartbreak, anger, painpainpain, loss, Luhan betrayed them all and there is such an acute sense of loss, the other boys are there and all their thoughts and feelings seem to burst from deep inside her, nearly suffocating her, her breath caught in and she tries and tries to ignore the way it makes her feel, the way Luhan’s betrayal, Minseok, Kris, the way her heart aches so deeply for them—she gasps, keeling over as she hacks out a cough, tries and tries and tries to catch her breath. But, she can’t. She can’t.

She falls to her knees and her vision swims and this isn’t what she wanted. This is too much. Her emotions, the powers always thrumming under her skin, seems to ebb away somehow and that gentle humming she had felt earlier from the ruins around her suddenly morphs into a different sort of energy, an energy that sends needles of pain through her head, her fingertips, her nerves.

She can’t breathe. Her chest feels tight, the way it did when panic would build and build, gathering up at one point, just where her heart is, and it’d hurt so ing bad. She feels like she is dying, like her insides are seizing up, and she wonders why she’s panicking like this. She can feel the ghost of a hand sliding up and down her back and her fingers dig into the dirt as she heaves for air that is not coming. The energy around her feels like a vacuum, the way the air around her does when Jongin teleports her, the life out of her.

It takes her a minute to get a gist of what is happening.

The gentle humming around her becomes a loud buzz. It becomes parasitic, almost, and it seems to be latching onto her, her dry of everything. It is taking something from her.

She is being pulled up then; she is vaguely aware of the familiar touch. She leans into his touch, murmurs in desperation, “Baek.”

She’s moving, but with each step, pinpricks of pain engulf her very nerves and she can feel everything leaving her. The emotions ebb away, her powers, always so volatile, living so loudly right under skin, seems to quiet. The constant pounding in her head is so, so quiet, too quiet, and she is not grateful for that quietness. It’s wrong, somehow.

She still can’t breathe either. She clings to Baekhyun’s cold hand.

Clutches and claws and gasps, until—

She gasps for air, swallowing it up, her lungs burning as if she’s been drowning.

Her limbs feel weak and although she can breathe, it hurts. Everything hurts.

It takes her a moment to notice, but the intense, overwhelming emotions are gone—they’re gone.

She looks up at her surroundings. 

She’s standing inside the temple. It’s freezing, so cold she’s shivering, her teeth chattering.

She swivels on her heels, her eyes wide, and Baekhyun is there, hand pressed to her lower back falling away when she turns.

His dark eyes are big, glassy, glowing slightly in the dim lighting. He’s not looking at her, not really, and she gets this distinct feeling that he is looking right through her.

“Bae—Baekhyun.” She wonders, briefly, if this is another dream-vision.

But everything is so utterly clear, clearer she thinks than it has been in a long while, and her emotions are not overwhelmingly painful. Her heart isn’t breaking in two. The pulse of destruction does not thrive in her veins, not like it had been doing for so long now.

Suddenly, she is incredibly scared.

This is wrong.

This is all wrong.

Baekhyun’s pink lips turn up into a gentle smile, soft, beautiful, everything she’s always loved about him. He steps forward and she involuntarily steps back.

She doesn’t know why she’s stepping away. The golden bracelet on her wrist glows so, so bright.

So bright, in fact, that it lights up the dark temple ruins, illuminating their surroundings, and Baekhyun’s beautiful brown eyes flash a stark white that makes her heartbeat quicken. Her eyes dart around the ruins and her heart slams against her ribs, as if it wants to tear itself out of her chest because—because right at the center of the empty temple ruins sits a tombstone, the familiarity of the sight unsettling.

Her breathing picks up and the ruins seem to feed on that, as if it is vacuuming up her very being, taking and taking, making her feel too exposed, too open, vulnerable.

Tears prick at her eyes and she doesn’t know why it’s there. She doesn’t feel sad or pained, but she knows she is.

Her eyes adjust to the bright light of her bracelet and the words crudely carved through the tombstone. It takes a moment for her eyes to focus on the words and then her brain to process it fully.

Here lies Byun Baekhyun, beloved brother, son, and friend, may he find peace among the moon and stars, it says.

It takes her a moment too long to process the exact meaning of those words. It’s like she can’t fathom it being real, can’t fathom that those words could hold any true meaning, but—but it feels real.

Her heart is breaking into a million ing pieces and she knows, deep deep down, that it is real. Her knees can’t quite hold her weight and it takes so much effort to keep from collapsing in a heap. She stumbles closer to it, to the grave, to Baekhyun’s grave.

Byun Baekhyun is dead.

Baekhyun speaks from behind her, tone sharp, careful, still so utterly gentle, but slightly convoluted, an echo to it that is eerie and unsettling, “You were supposed to let all your feelings go. You don’t need them, sweetheart, it’ll only keep us from our goals.”

Her vision flickers and, for a moment, she catches sight of herself chained to the wall, Baekhyun looming over her in black hooded robes. The image flickers between that and what she sees of him now, the fond smile, the gentleness. It flickers, almost like a glitch, and her heart stops.

She can’t stop the tears from spilling and the pain and fear from escalating. 

The ruins around her continue to it up, feeding off her pain, the humming around her morphing into an angry buzzing, powerful and more volatile than even the emotions she felt from Yixing.

A slow grin creeps onto Baekhyun’s pink lips, stretching across his pretty face, an ugly caricature of the smile she loves. She can’t stop the onslaught of tears no matter how hard she swipes at her cheeks. The ruin’s magic thrives off it, off her and her emotions.

(Her mother’s words echo in her head, then, her stomach dropping, "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.”)

“No.” She gasps. Baekhyun’s grin stretches out, on and on and on.

“No.” She cries, clutching the dirt at her feet, her vision swimming with the sight of his sickly sweet smile and the tombstone carved out just for him.

The dead flowers dangling from the walls begin to bloom once again, tendrils of white and red coming to life.

Baekhyun laughs and laughs, the sound loud and the sight beautiful, and she cannot stand it. She can't breathe.

a/n: lol

also thank you so much for the feature you guys are INCREDIBLe kfnsjkdnj i love you all so so much and this chapter turned out much more climactic in my head, but it's okay kfdnskj. anyways the finale is next chapter, this FIVE year journey is almost over I'm crying in the club rn, I REALLY LOVE YOU ALL THE MOON AND BACK!!!!

xoxo

wanna yell at me? here's my curiouscat https://curiouscat.me/fs1919