A broken wail sounded in Chen’s ears, vision blurry and body in vertigo. It was Kai’s voice, gasping and crying out in hoarse sobs. Blinking, desperate to clear his sight, he searched for Kai’s body. He was clutching his arm, blood spilling from his hands, thick and a deep red.

Kneeling down beside his writhing body, Chen tried to force his shaky voice into a still calm. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong? Were you bitten?”

Kai shook his head, eyes shut tight, growls and sobs of pain escaping from clenched teeth. His body was shaking, his lips quivering and eyes tearing up. He couldn’t answer Chen, he was in shock. Chen looked him over, finally seeing the horror that had befallen him. Moving Kai’s hand away from his arm, he finally realized. His entire left forearm was gone.

He swept him up in his arms, kicking down the door of the manor. “Clear the table!” Kris shoved everything onto the floor, a glass shattering at their feet, and Chen laid Kai down on top of the table. Sehun and Luhan raced down the stairs, the sound of Kai’s cries unnerving them.

“What’s going on?” Luhan asked, voice lost when he saw Kai shaking in pain, his blood smeared all over Chen’s clothes. Sehun could only swear under his breath.

Lay immediately stepped into action, instructing Kris to grab a vial of Moon Rose Extract and some towels. Suho, without order, filled a tub with water and brought it to Lay’s side.

“Was he bitten? Did a Wraith take his arm?” Lay asked, taking the Moon Rose Extract from Kris and applying it to the open laceration.

Chen shook his head, looking over his now vague memories of what happened. “I don’t know, I didn’t see anything.”

The cries got softer and softer, Kai’s eyes rolling around in his head.

“He’s losing too much blood.” Lay drenched the towels in the tub, ringing them out quickly and washing the wound. Between dabs, he observed the muscle, bone, and surrounding skin. “I don’t see any signs of infection. He wasn’t bitten.”

Suho brought more towels. “He was in a hurry.”

The others looked at him, waiting for an explanation. He continued on as Lay began to help the flesh heal over the open wound. “Kai needs total concentration when he teleports. If he loses his focus, he might not get all of him from one place to the other. Guaranteed, his arm is wherever you two came from. Or somewhere in-between.”

“Where’d you guys come from? Didn’t Tao leave with you?” Luhan asked, his expression disturbed.

Chen pulled his fingers through his sweaty hair, taking a shaky breath. “We took him to the Tree.”

The others were in immediate uproar.

“You left him?”

“Is he dead?” Baekhyun asked, offering an orb of light to Lay.

Chen shook his head again, brows furrowed and eyes wide. “I dunno.”

~  ~

Stretching up towards the sky, a fire burned bright, tall as trees just on the outskirts of town in the training grounds. Drums rumbled a beat that urged a racing pulse, dancers caressed by the vibrations in the air. The smell of roasted meat wafted through the air and laughter echoed through the crowds. The people had the souls of children, drinking the poison of sky jellies to influence their judgement.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun had a crowd in uproarious laughter, performing their own skit complete with ridiculous voices and unruly, exaggerated acting. It was a skit they performed for the past three years for this festival, and it was a town favorite. They wrote it themselves, a story about the Elephae who fell in love with the woman. By now, everyone in the Capital knew every punchline, yet still laughed as though it were the first time they’d ever heard it.

Baekhyun had tied his cape around his waist, face painted to look especially effeminate, Chanyeol with body paint on his torso, arms and face to represent a brown Elephae. The raven-haired boy made lady cried and whined loudly over the laughter of the audience, the red-headed beast overdramatic and huffy.

“I’m the God of this Land! What more could you ask for, you silly female? Now dance with me before the people question my authority!” Chanyeol bellowed, lips curled into a smile.

But Baekhyun had grown bored of the same old story. The devil had jumped into his bones and planned to throw Chanyeol for a loop. “I’m sick of dancing with hairy beasts! Let the people question! I care not for ugly man-animals with god-complexes!”

The crowd laughed as Chanyeol’s mouth fell agape, face consumed with outrage and very real confusion. Baekhyun couldn’t help but laugh either, doubling over and waiting for his co-actor to improvise.

He stumbled over his words, “W-well, who needs a haughty woman like you, anyways? And now that I think about it, you look especially masculine!”

Baekhyun feigned offense, laughing with the audience who knew very well that he was a man and not a woman at all.

“Is there any other fair maiden who would dance with the God of this Land? With the, incredibly handsome Elephae?”

Nana stood right up, not a shy bone in her body. “I’ll dance with you, Elephae! I can dance much better than this tar-headed creep anyways!” Giving Baekhyun a ‘judgemental’ look, she grabbed Chanyeol’s hands before he could say a word in response, swinging him all around the campfire in a nonsensical fashion. Quickly, the skit ended with the three of them dancing like fools, the audience joining in and their fellow trainees laughing in the glow of the fire.

At another campfire, Kai and Lay were dancing with Taemin and a few others to the rumbling drums, the movements tribal, spiritual. They danced like they’d been intoxicated, seduced by the music, their eyes possessed and bare feet stomping in the dirt. It was a powerful dance that told the story of the Forces, the Legends and their connection to the Tree of Life. Li and Suho, who was more than a little drunk on the sky jelly poison, watched them perform, their heads subtly swaying with the music.

This was one of the rare events where Li could be a part of the group. The beating drums helped keep her head clear, organizing the noise. Only a slight ache at the top of her head bothered her today, but it was mild enough that she could ignore it.

The drumming song stopped and their hold over the dancers was broken, their faces now relaxed and smiling. Li waved for them to come sit beside her and Suho, scooching to make room. Suho put a heavy arm over Taemin’s shoulder who laughed at his drunken state.

“You guys danced so hard! Every year you guys amaze me, that dance is a religious experience,” Li said, Kai becoming shy, never one to receive compliments coolly.

She looked down at his dusty feet, suddenly questioning her eye-sight. “Kai, how many toes do you have?” She counted over and over again, still counting two short.

He looked down at his feet and then back to her expression, which was one of bewilderment, laughing silently behind amused eyes. “Eight.”

“Eight?” she repeated.

Kai nodded. “Eight.”

She pulled her hair behind her ear, trying to think of the best way to get answers without letting her curiosity tread where it was impolite to. “Is it okay if I… I mean, what…”

He laughed, more than comfortable with the topic of discussion. “It’s fine, you can ask. How come I only have eight toes?” He was grinning like it were a fond childhood memory, and Li was growing more and more confused. “Well, he started, I played around with my power a lot before I really knew how to control it. One day I was playing hide and seek with Taemin—”

“Oh, are you telling that story again?” Taemin laughed, interrupting.

“Yeah. Anyways, I was playing hide and seek with Taemin and well,” he laughed again, “I thought I was being clever when I kept changing rooms on him,” he imitated snapping his fingers rapidly, “but I got too ahead of myself and wound up leaving my shoe and a couple toes behind.”

Li gasped. “Oh my god, Kai!”

Taemin was laughing over his knees. “Your mom hated me for the longest time after that. Like it was my fault!”

“I know!” They both hunched over, rocking back and forth in laughter, Suho joining in, though it was obvious he’d missed the entire conversation. “She was so mad at you for not ‘foreseeing this happening, Taemin, you wanted him to lose his toes! I always knew you were a bad influence!’”

“It happened too fast, how was I supposed to see anything?” He laughed. The rest of their conversation was lost between cackles and barks.

“So, wait, did it hurt? Did it scare you?” Li could only imagine what it was like losing parts of your body, though she wasn’t sure what sort of dismembering leaving behind body parts was. Was it like ripping the flesh? Was it a cut? What happened, how did it work?

Kai’s eyes grew twice as big and he nodded, “Oh, yeah. Hurt like hell. And it was a bloody mess, too. Didn’t keep me from teleporting again for too long, though. It was just my toes, it wasn’t like I lost an arm or a leg or anything.”

Li chuckled, shaking her head. “I guess I can admire that way of thinking.”

~  ~

He was still and yet his heart was beating against his chest furiously. The ground was rumbling under his feet. Before the largest in the pack could pounce on him, he extended his fingers out and the beast froze in place.

Dodging the remaining seven, Tao made his way towards the Tree, stopping the creatures in place. It wouldn’t last forever, but he just needed them away from him long enough to get to the Tree. Just long enough so that he could leave this time still in one piece.

The black vines were smothering the Tree of Life, it dry of all life-energy. It used to glow, standing strong. Now it was withered and gray.

“How long ago did it happen?” Tao asked himself aloud. A month? Had it really been a month of this hell? He took a deep breath, slowly raising his arms and closing his eyes. Though he stood like a statue, currents around him flowed in every which direction. Moments past replayed themselves like ghosts and every noise that had ever been uttered in the area became a jargled mess in his ears. When the air became calm again, he opened his eyes and saw a world around him that was now only a memory.

The sky was a crystallin blue, crisp and clear. Singing flowers danced in the breeze, cooing the citizens of the Capital and visitors to the Tree. It was the same haven he remembered from before the Minute War and absolute destruction of the Capital. The same haven from before the Red Force the planet dry of vegetation and life.

Tao walked up to the Tree. Children were climbing its trunk, dancing and laughing. Chasing each other around and around. They paid no attention to Tao, however. In fact, they didn’t acknowledge his existence at all. He was a ghost in this time. He wasn’t a part of this moment, at all. Not really.

“I came back a little too early,” he murmured, still scanning the Tree for any signs of suspicious activity, any signs of an early infection. He put his ear up to the trunk, listening to the heartbeat of the Tree. It sounded normal.

He looked up to the sky, squinting in the light coming from the hot sun. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt warmth like this, been showered in sunlight like this. Exo was now a place devoid of all life and light.

Then, far away, almost unnoticed, Tao saw it.

~  ~

They were all still in shock. Zombies of their former selves, wandering in the aftermath of the horror, the absolute hell that had just invaded their lives. Bodies of their loved ones were scattered in the rubble and ruins of their Capital, flowers destroyed and homes burning all around them. They were amazed they were still alive.

Wandering through the streets, they were in disbelief. They searched for survivors, for anyone who was still clinging to life. The Legends had to still be alive, they told themselves. The Masters and the Legends couldn’t have been defeated.

Scanning the bodies, dismembered, bloodied, bruised and unrecognizable, Kai finally saw someone so familiar to him. Someone he thought of as a brother. “Taemin!” He raced over to his side, the others watching him race through the ruins and towards the long-haired brunette who was barely gasping for air.

Kai knelt down beside his friend, hands shaking. “Taemin, are you okay?”

Taemin smiled, pain reflected in his eyes. He coughed, “Not really.”

The others gathered around Taemin and Kai, wanting to speak but at a loss for words. Chanyeol looked at Lay. “Can you do something for him?”

Lay looked at Taemin’s bruised body, blood soaking the belly of his shirt. “I really don’t know,” he muttered, kneeling down beside them and looking over his wounds. There was a deep gash in his stomach, deep enough for Lay to see his insides. And they didn’t look normal, either. They looked like they were rotting, already decomposing, even.

Taemin looked at Kai, an ironic smile across his lips. “The planet’s gonna die, Kai. I saw it. It’s gonna die.” He swallowed the blood that was coming up through his mouth. “And I’m gonna die, too.”

Kai shook his head. “Shut the up, that’s bull.”

He laughed. “No, no, it’s not bull, it’s the truth. I already saw it. The girls died too, didn’t they?”

Everyone was silent, though some of them felt tears finally build up in their eyes. The adrenalin from the fight earlier had worn off and the reality of things was starting to set in. Taemin’s words made it all the more real.

“Guess that makes you guys the new Legends. Congratulations.” He coughed some more, spitting up blood. “Sorry if I don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

Kai looked directly at Lay, pleading with him. “Lay!”

He nodded his head, desperately trying to get Taemin’s system to work with him. But it wasn’t responding. It wouldn’t do anything.

“It’s okay, Kai. I’m gonna die. I saw the planet die, but I hope that doesn’t mean you guys will, too.” His eyes started to roll towards the back of his head. “At least I don’t have to die alone.”

Kai bit on his bottom lip, tears welling in his eyes. “Taemin, stop it. It’s not funny, goddammit, it’s not!”

Taemin’s lips curled into a smile, his eyes only half open. “I’ll take care of your toes for you, alright?” A weak, almost silent laugh. And then he went limp.

“Taemin, what the ! Stop it, stop it! This is the worst joke you’ve ever—you ing bastard, stop it!” Kai’s voice was a mixture of rage and resisted sobs. He glared at Lay, tears streaming down his face and lips trembling. “What are you ing doing? Bring him back, goddamit! God, ing damn it! Lay, bring him back! I know you can, I know you ing can!”

He felt so hopeless, and tears came to his eyes, too. “I’m sorry, Kai, I’m sorry!”

“No you’re not! Stop acting like you can’t bring him back! This is so ed up,” Kai cried, still screaming at Lay, hunched over Taemin’s now lifeless body.

Chanyeol reached out towards Kai, “Kai, man... He can’t do anything…”

“He can ing heal people, of course he can do something! He was alive just two seconds ago, why didn’t you heal him then? Why, Lay? Why did you let him die?”

“I didn’t…” Lay was trembling, unable to breathe. He didn’t even know if he could believe himself.

The remains of the Capital were filled with Kai’s anguished screams, unnerving the rest of them. And together, they all broke down. Everyone they had ever cared about was gone, and they were powerless to protect them...