Nothing made sense for a long time.  Everything jumbled together and the images simply weren’t clear, running into each other, lying on top, blending until there was no order or anything between them.  Lost in the assault, feeling both his thoughts and those of the creature he was partially connected with, Kangin drifted for a long time; his sense of self ebbed and flowed in turn, threatening to get lost in the creature until he wasn’t sure of who or what he was anymore.

                But then something sparked and he flinched when he saw a werewolf lunging at him.  He raised his hand, electricity crackling in his palm, and blasted the beast in the nose, sending it reeling back with a pained yowl.  Daehyun.

                It was the first time he’d met him.  The memory linked to another.  They had been fighting outside of Lehman Caves.  The humans had attacked and the free-for-all that followed brought him close to the wolf who may or may not have recognized him for a vampire at the time.  It wasn’t much of a memory really, but it gave Kangin something to hold onto, to ground himself with and remember from.

                Like a latticework of spider webs, he could build off of it, making sense of memories as they came to him in the maelstrom of their raging thoughts.  Little by little, he took bits and pieces here and there, compartmentalizing the ones that were his and the others he didn’t know yet, pushing them into a semblance of order to be sorted later.  The creature was there with him, watching what he did, mimicking his actions.

                With false starts and awkward stops, Kangin felt it trying to organize the storm between them.  So many thoughts were not his own; it was almost overwhelming.  But even as he worked, using the skills he’d been meticulously taught by Kyuhyun as a Cho, he could also sense the creature watching his memories.  It… touched them, turned them around in its mind and held them up to other ones, trying to lay them out in order.  Compare, contrast, analyze…

                Working separately but in tandem, they built a knowledge and memory ladder together, like a hanging bridge over a never ending chasm where each rope was a marker in the timeline, some considerably larger than others.  Beneath, a veritable storm continued to brew, unsorted thoughts and memories, all tentatively linked to the bridge itself but with no placement yet.  It seemed impossible that they could sort and organize that much information so Kangin pushed away from it in favor of checking what they had managed to accomplish.

                It was impressive for sure, but there was no end in sight in one direction and Kangin shied away for fear of the madness that might come if he followed.  So he worked towards the consciousness that was the creature until they met in the middle, standing on the bridge and investigating where they were now.  The formless presence before him looked towards the beginning – a pale reflection of Kangin standing with the creature gleamed brightly, indicating the most recent events.

                Inching closer to the beginning, he looked at one particularly large rope and inhaled to see a world of Daehyun: him with his pack, with Sunhwa, hunting, protecting, growing up from a pup to an adult…  All of his memories and experiences were there.  Even the one where Kangin had burnt his nose, but from the wolf’s perspective.  And as he looked at it, he realized that while none of the threads connecting the bridge together extended beyond that point for him, many of them extended back to other points in time, further down the bridge.

                Memories, Kangin thought, his voice gone in this realm but the sound echoed clearly in his mind.

                You show me?

                The question startled Kangin.  He hadn’t thought the thing could talk at all, much less ask a coherent question.  Show you what? he asked in a knee-jerk response.

                It did not answer but it did turn to point, the sensation felt more than seen, towards the other end of the bridge.  Confusing, it stated, a frown obvious in the tone.

                No kidding, Kangin snorted, annoyed when the thought floated in the open between them.  He hadn’t meant to say… er think… oh whatever.

                Want to know.  To understand, it explained, hovering close to the bridge as if inspecting closely.

                Intrigued, Kangin did so too, coming to a startling realization.  The point that they were standing in now was almost devoid of the creature itself; at least on one side of the bridge.  They were Kangin’s thoughts at this point in the timeline: their fight with the plant monster that nearly killed Jinki; the rest of the vampires he traveled with; their flight back to the cave…  That memory was interrupted by the creature’s thoughts on the other timeline.  Connected by the woven beams that they stood upon, a flash of pain and fright appeared, rearing up to claw at his awareness as it was attacked.

                Confused, hurting, it reacted, thrashing out and trying to protect itself.  Anger all around.  The earth nearby gave in, rock crumbling into the cave.  Claws and fangs ripped and tore.  It lost a limb and part of its body was pulled at.  Something landed on it and it reacted.  Grabbing onto one of them it drew the body into it, holding tight.  Crunching.  Liquid warmth seeped through.

                Protect!

                Ripped apart, it died and Kangin jerked back with a gasp, shaken by the memory.  I didn’t know, it admitted, tapping the thread of memory that jumped to Daehyun’s thread of conscious which then branched out into more memories of the creature.

                Understanding started to connect in Kangin’s mind and he blinked in befuddled wonder.  Shaking his head, he sank back down to the bridge once more.  Where are you?

                Here, it pointed out simply, floating over the thread that extended from the beginning of the bridge to Daehyun’s memories to abreast of where Kangin’s memories were of the same time frame.  Two ropes parallel to each other.  Two time lines that were separate but connected.  And the ones of the creature weren’t just its memories.

                Holy , Kangin mumbled in wonderstruck awe.  This damn thing had memories from other creatures too.  Different locations and different people wound tightly about the thicker threads where he was able to see that the creature took root.  It was talking to the others… learning from them and sharing the information it had.  As he realized that, more threads tightened from the maelstrom below and shifted into the bridge itself, finding their place with a little guidance.

                It took him a moment to realize that the creature was still working on it, even as it observed him.  The power and control it had in sifting through and organizing the history was almost frightening. But he’d seen Kyuhyun do something similar several times over.  Never this directly but still…  And yet, as it worked, he felt a strange desire to follow it as the creature wove understanding together from the scattered bits of both their minds.

                The bridge underfoot glowed softly and it hummed with power.  We go? it asked, seeming both frightened and curious.  Kangin couldn’t blame it.  He was too.

                Yeah… he whispered, staring at the living, changing organization of history that he himself barely understood.  With a startled gasp, he briefly lost himself when they were both submerged in the flow of time, riding down the ladder like some sort of raft over white water.

                Focusing on any given memory was hard.  Kangin could pick out his own with relative ease but other pictures and names pushed into him, becoming part of him whether he wanted them too or not.

                The blood.  That was what it had to be.  He was gaining memories from the blood like when he’d first been turned.  There was no time to be afraid of the sheer amount of information such a merger would open him too.  There was only the now and the history they moved across, seeing time in reverse.

                Humans in shelters; nuclear storage units destroyed; creatures filled to the brim with radioactive energy; half-turneds entombed in creatures but alive – changing.  He saw trees growing at exponential rates; oceans teeming with altered beings that combed out the filth saturated in the waters; felt others walking the earth, breathing in the poisoned atmosphere and exhaling cleansed air.  Names came to him just as quickly: Satoru, Hyoyeon, Boa, Wonshik, Kims, Parks, Bang, and others that were familiar but not.

                Too many names.  Too many people.  Too much happening.

                And then they reached a point where he stopped understanding because it was too snarled and confusing to understand at first; like a massive knot in a tangled skein of yarn.  The creature stopped with him, helping to sort out the jumble of confused memories, emotions, and energies it apparently hadn’t been able to separate itself.  Little by little, the knot came free.  Smoothed out, the information was still confusing but something he could wrap his head around.

                Death, death, and more death.  So many dead and dying, their blood soaking into the ground like so much water when it rained.  Pain.  Anger.  The world burned.  Humans died.  Werewolves died.  Vampires died.  No one was safe.  Poison was set free, seeping into everything.  It clogged the earth with its noxious smell, turned the air toxic, and was absorbed by the plants, creatures, and people still living.  They died and it soaked into earth more.  The earth cried out.

                Rivers ran to the seas like veins filled by poison, further spreading it across the land and dumping it into the waters.

                Too much.  Too much.  Everything would die.

                Something had to be done.  Something needed to stop it.

                An unstoppable will rose up to defy the reality.  Blood and the energy of the world – magic – answered, further changed by the poison mixing with it: vampire, werewolf, human, half-turned, and everything else that had died.

                Consciousness appeared within the midst of such gathering points: in the sea and on the land.

                Help.  Heal.  Protect.

                A jumbled array of confusing thoughts – fractured memories of the dead – combined with the unstoppable need to do something pushed giants to rise.  Lumbering towers of plants and wreckage, fueled by poisoned, magicked blood.

                Heal.

                The poison had to be neutralized first.  It was bad.  It smelled wrong.  But it had to be pulled from the earth so new life could grow back.  Into their bodies the wrongness went, stored until such time that it could be made harmless again.

                Help.

                Bring back the life that had been burned.  Restore the destroyed land.  Regrow.  Reverse the destruction.

                Protect.

                Keep the creatures alive.  Find them.  Guard them.  No more anger and death.

                Smoothed out, compartmentalized, the creature understood its beginning as Kangin did.  And yet it was almost incomprehensible to him.  Fueled by blood, the will of the sick and dying earth had given birth to these things?  He was given no time to absorb this truth though.

                We go.

                Where? he asked automatically, dazed and drifting, pulled along by the insatiable curiosity of the thing beside him.

                You tell me.

                Kangin didn’t know.  His memories only went back a few decades after all.  But they moved along anyway, further and further down the stream of history writ in the blood that coursed through their veins.  With a start, Kangin recognized when they came to the end of his timeline, seeing himself as an infant in his mothers arms and from his own strange sight while looking up at her.  It was disorienting and disconcerting to know that this thing could read traces of his history from other blood lines too, making the moment more whole, more complete and therefore more frightening in its own way.

                That was me, he pointed out numbly, drawn on further as the bridge itself began to change, the threads of him – Kangin – falling away until he simply didn’t exist anymore.  The ropes holding the bridge up began to converge, drawing closer together the further back they went: until nothing was directly familiar to him.

                I know, was all the creature said while it pulled him along, like a dog following a scent it needed to find the source for.

                Unable to think clearly, Kangin knew he was reaching the limitations of his form.  Or maybe he’d just run out of energy or something, but his ability to manipulate memories or even look into the thoughts simply failed him.  Why he didn’t pass out and just fall away, he didn’t know, but he watched with dulled senses as he became little more than a passenger while the creature followed the stronger thread of his bloodline parallel to the one it was made of.

                Countless generations of vampires.  That was what he was now.  Strange.  That was all in his blood?

                The converging thread flared first though, drawing Kangin’s attention to a snarled knot of information the creature stopped to unravel.  As if in a dream, the vampire watched, floating and present but only by the barest of margins.

                Dour men and women gathered around a small room; they smelled of fear and desperation, anger and hatred.  Dim lighting and shadows dominated.  Incense and strange reagents burned.  Ancient, now obscure words were spoken by a trembling, female voice.  The body of a wolf – no, werewolf, laid nearby.  As did a vampire, weak and bound, but alive.  Three arcane circles on the ground glowed, sickly and foul in their energy.

                Magic crackled and the lights went out but it did not fall dark.  The seals glowed with dark red energies, illuminating those within: inhuman creatures of shadow bearing claws and fangs and leering mouths.

                A summoning.

                Offerings.

                Two bodies present but three were demanded.  Those gathered conferred.

                The gypsy caster was shoved forward, battered and beaten already – another thread hummed, jutting out and resonating shrilly further down the line: a family struck down as they rested.  Denounced as witches and charged with consorting with devils, all were killed, save one.  Their names flashed, bubbling from memory and Kangin knew them.  The puppets…

                A deal was struck.  The gypsy woman – their kin – was taken by the demon.  The three bodies were devoured in moments.  The crowd looked away but didn’t stop it.  Finished, three men stepped forward.  Bang.  Kim.  Park.

                One is given the strength of a werewolf.

                One is given the speed of a vampire.

                One is given the gift of illusion and trickery from the blood offering of a ravaged gypsy.

                Hunters.

                Kangin’s mind reeled.  He never suspected…

                I see.  Saddened but satisfied, curiosity there sated, the creature moved on, dragging the vampire with it.  Flailing, falling in the ever extending line of memories he saw but did not register or recognize, Kangin wasn’t sure how he was still conscious but he clung to the moment with all the tenacity of a Cho.  There was more.  Another snarled tangle ahead where the lines nearly converged together.

                They stopped and Kangin watched with heavy-eyed determination.  The creature worked tirelessly, ever patient as it teased the threads free, letting them fall back into place as understanding was gained.  A howl echoed in Kangin’s mind and he realized it was from the knot.

                Looking closer, he saw a tribesman of some kind wearing a loincloth and fur boots.  His chest and face were painted in blood, dark hair covered by a wolf head and pelt, giving him an animalist appearance.  The forest was dark, a full moon overhead with a backdrop of a sea of stars.  A fire burned in the back.  Around it, many tribesmen gathered: warriors, women, children.  All were present and all chanted with the same plea: Help!

                Four men and two women – symbolic of a wolf litter – stood closest to the roaring flames: all painted and wearing a wolf’s skin.  All six raised their heads to the moon and howled.  Their kinsmen cried with them, voices blending into a single, unified sound.  Though Kangin could not understand the language, he understood their song all the same.

                Invaders had come.  They were dying, being killed like the herd beasts they hunted for food.  Their weapons could not match the new armies and they were losing.  Children of the land, they turned to the land for help.

                Who could they ask?  What would aid them?

                ‘Wolf’ she whispered back.

                So they beseeched the power of the wolf, wearing its skin, properly earned from an honorable hunt and profusely thanked for its sacrifice.  Power hummed in the clearing, growing ever stronger with every moment that passed.  Falling to all fours, the six ‘wolves’ ran around the flames, mimicking their would-be patron.  Crouching low, they sat back on their haunches and howled, their voices carrying on as the others stopped chanting.

                Silence fell as the cry echoed, interrupted only by the whispers of the dancing flames.  A new cry answered, sharp and understanding.  From the darkness, a black body leaped, fur absorbing the light as the obsidian wolf jumped into the flames of the fire.  It disappeared as if it was but an illusion and the six turned to bow towards the flames, backs hunched and heads dipped low, appearing almost as wolves themselves.

                Power – familiar power this time – hummed, seeping from the fire in warm strands to curl around the six figures.  Wolf skins stretched and moved as if alive.  Shadows flickered and in the shifting illumination, it appeared as if the men and women changed too.  After a moment, heads rose and six wolves howled at the moon, their throaty voices limned with power as furry bodies quivered.

                The fire light dimmed but did not die.  All were cast into shadow and the energy of those gathered shifted.  When the crowd parted this time, the wolves were human again.  No longer did they wear the coats of wolves, but the predator gazed out from their eyes, shining with a fierce gleam.

                Werewolves.

                We see.  Curious but satisfied, the creature nodded to itself after smoothing the final strand back into place.  We go.

                Kangin shook his head in tired denial.  No.  There was no more room in his head.  No more space to put thoughts.  He couldn’t even think anymore and again, he didn’t know how he was still conscious.

                It didn’t listen to him and moved inexorably down the rope.  Kangin felt as if he was drifting away, floating upwards as they progressed.  It was so hard to focus, but from his vantage, he could see a series of threads extending from the bridge, growing outward in a branching, connecting pattern that looked like the beginnings of more interconnecting bridges.  Eh…?  It was too hard to try and figure out at the moment, but he didn’t think the creature was doing it by itself, and he knew he wasn’t at all.

                Eventually, the creature finally approached the junction where the lines converged and with a gasp, Kangin was yanked back down by a visceral memory every Cho experienced upon turning.

                It was him.

                The Progenitor.

                The one who created them all.

                He didn’t even need to see the creature unraveling the crackling knot of anguish and vengeance.  It lived inside him.  Awakened anew, he saw it before the creature did.

                Born in the body of the seventh sacrifice on the fall of the seventh day that his enemies prayed to their bloodthirsty gods, the Progenitor rose up with all the power they could dream of.  He was the weapon they desired to destroy their foes.  Given undeath by their savage will and the blood magic they called upon, he was the perfect killer with one weakness: sunlight.  Cursed with wings to fly, uncanny senses, enhanced mental capacities with strange powers, and inhuman strength and abilities, he was more than a match for any human army.  Under the cover of darkness on the seventh night, he destroyed everyone that stood against his creators, feasting on their bodies.

                But when his task was completed and he was freed from their geas, he turned his savagery upon those who had made him.  By the night of the eighth day, both civilizations had been destroyed by his power… his unquenchable hunger.  And he cursed them for it.  Crackling with every gift the vampires now claimed, the Progenitor gazed down upon four bodies of those who had dared to command him. 

                He turned his will against them, focusing every bit of fury to make them pay for what they did to him.  For the lives they’d taken to create him; for the lives they’d commanded him to take in their name; for the lives he’d taken in vengeance, he cursed them all to free himself.

                One was given wings.

                One was given uncanny senses.

                One was given enhanced mental capacities with strange powers.

                One was given inhuman strength and abilities.

                All rose from death, like he had.  All were cursed to live with the insatiable thirst for life.  And when the sun crested the horizon on the ninth day, he burned in the sunlight while the newly risen fled, hiding from the rays.

                This time, Kangin fell and he could not stop.  He thought he heard the creature speak again.  I see.  But he did not see himself.  He simply fell, never ending into the maelstrom of thoughts that swirled below them.  Down and down and down…

                With an exhausted cry, a faintly sparking Youngjae collapsed to the ground.  Kangin fell with him, breaking the connection he’d shared with the Guardian.  “Youngjae!” Zhou cried, rushing to cradle the unresponsive vampire in his arms as he looked around, eyes focusing on the Guardian nearby first, his expression defensive.

                Ren dashed in to provide a defensive front for Kangin, hovering over the other vampire with unblinking eyes on the other creature.  “Are they alive?”              he asked first, glancing worriedly at the tendrils of dark, steaming blood seeping from Kangin and Youngjae’s noses.

                “I’m not sure,” Zhou admitted while the camp started to react around them, alerted by their shouts and Youngjae’s cry.

                The Guardian, still in the vague form of a wolf, stepped back uncertainly, as if coming out of a dream.  Sunhwa and Sunny were long since gone from its side, having retreated to help other pack members or the ailing vampires.  Hastily erected shelters held sleeping humans and half-turneds just rising from their early morning slumber, though a couple wolf-kin were missing.  The Possessed slept on, clustered in one shelter together, exhausted beyond waking from a mere cry.

                New trees and thicker foliage provided cover for the vampires as the sun rose over the horizon, allowing them to remain outside during the day.  Werewolves in lupine or human form walked around with varying degrees of comfort, or slept on, recovering from feeding the vampires so that their nonhuman kin might live another day.  Sleeping nearly nose to nose with her heavily bandaged brother Karam, Luna rested in another shelter with Minsoo continuing to watch over her.  On her other side, Junhong in wolf form kept her company, pressed against her smaller body so she would know someone was still there.

                And all around the camp, Guardians stood watch, their many roots burrowing into the ground like strange flora.  Towering behemoths of plant growth and debris, flowering vines and rocks, seaweed and detritus, they stood as silent sentries, drawn over the past two days like moths to a flame.

                Sitting beside an unconscious but slowly healing Changjo, Changmin held the younger vampire’s hand and watched, concern making his brows dip slightly.  To his right, Sungmin played silent sentry to a still unconscious but somehow still living Jinki.  The sitting vampire met his gaze and shrugged, turning his attention back to the camp and the general shift they were all starting to feel.  A whisper of sound to his left made him look over where he could see N, Himchan, Hyosung, and Kiseop clustered around Kyuhyun and Ryeowook.

                “Wookie?” N asked softly, brushing the backs of his fingers against the vampire’s face, trying to coax him into consciousness.

                Eyes scrunched slightly and then creased open oh so slowly.  Unfocused, dark orbs peered out, tired and disoriented.  “Kyu…?” he whispered, automatically reaching for the vampire still lying right beside him.

                “Still sleeping,” N reassured gently, cradling Ryeowook’s head so he could see better.

                A weak smile pulled at the corner of his mouth and he squeezed Kyuhyun’s hand gently.  They hadn’t been able to wake him to eat, but they were able to feed him all the same; the change was slight but Ryeowook could just see the beginnings of it around the least of his injuries.  “Is something happening?” he asked sluggishly, the words taking time to form in his mind and then his mouth.  

                “Kangin finally moved,” Himchan added before the other Cha could speak.  The redhead glared at him half-heartedly, but Ryeowook missed it as he tried to look for himself.

                “Easy,” N stopped him, holding him still.  The wounds were still fresh and while Ryeowook had been able to feed, healing would take some time yet.  “We don’t know what it means,” he explained, holding the younger vampire’s gaze.

                “But the Guardians are moving again,” Hyosung pointed out, her attention shifting to the one nearest them.

                Bearing foliage akin to a fern, the Guardian unfurled the long, green fronds to reveal Henry within.  Looking surprisingly awake and with an otherworldly gleam in his eyes, he stepped out with a couple vines trailing behind him, and smiled.

                “They see,” he murmured, looking down at Ryeowook with an expression that spoke of hope and understanding.  “Wookie.  They see.”

(a/n: I hope that helped to clear up any final confusion we might have had about the nonhumans and their origins.  ^_^  Took me a while to get there, I know, but we did it!  lol  And now, if my calculations are correct, we should have three more chapters (and maybe an epilogue if one sneaks in).  If you think I'm missing anything or if you still have questions, please let me know!  I'd love to make sure I have as many bases covered as I can.  :D  Thank you for reading and I hope you've enjoyed this latest update!  You guys are awesome.  <3)