“So we’re saying that the Xiumin who was with us all of last night and who also came home with us this morning was actually the shape shifter or Skinwalker or whatever-you-call-it this entire time?” Chen tried to wrap his head around what he himself was yelling as he paced back and forth. “Is that really what we’re saying here?”

“I think so,” agreed Luhan.

They were back in the parking lot, and the first drizzles of the storm that Luhan had predicted had just started to fall from the ever darkening sky. Xiumin was nestled safely in the backseat, wrapped in several layers of blankets. The only thing he had said as they carried him out of the woods was “Left me.” Luhan could only assume that what he meant by this was that he and the other boys had left Xiumin in the woods during the game of Hide and Seek. He hadn’t made it back to the campsite in time, which had allowed the shape shifter to transform into his likeness and leave with the rest of the group, while the real Xiumin was abandoned in the woods. Luhan explained as much to Chen while fiddling with his phone, trying to get a call through to Suho.

“So that means that the screams we heard last night… those were actually Xiumin’s?” Chen realized.

Luhan nodded with difficulty as he struggled to concentrate on dialing the numbers correctly. He had tried to call while they were still in the woods, but discovered that there was no longer any reception. Now, at the rest stop, he was still finding it hard to hold on to a signal; probably due to the heavy clouds brought on by the impending storm. Finally, the phone started ringing - only to cut out a minute later.

“Damn it.” Luhan slammed his fist down on the hood of the car.

«««

“We’re ready to go,” announced Kai as he strode up to the back door of the van.

He was followed by Sehun, who had been helping him fill up the car’s gas tank. The younger man got into the car ahead of Kai, who waited for Luhan’s response.

“Great; hang on just a minute,” Luhan told Kai as he stepped in. “I want to try calling one more time.”

Chen looked at Luhan soberly after the car door slammed shut.

“I know you want to warn them, but I think it’s best if we go as soon as we can,” he cautioned. “We might not be able to get a signal.”

“I know.”

But Luhan had already raised the phone to his ear. He had decided to try calling the group at the hotel, with the hope that the connection would be able to hold on a landline phone. To his surprise and elation, he heard a click as someone answered the call.

“Hello?” It was Baekhyun’s voice.

“Baek?” Luhan almost cried with relief. “Byun Baekhyun, is that you? I mean really you?”

“Uhhh, yes?” he answered, sounding genuinely confused. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Too hard to explain,” Luhan responded hastily. “Listen, is everyone okay over there?”

“Everyone is fine here, although I can’t exactly say the same for poor Yixing,” said Baekhyun solemnly. “Suho just called and said he’s getting worse. That the skin around the bite looks really badly infected, and it’s starting to rot away.”

Luhan looked at Chen with fear in his eyes, although the younger man couldn’t hear his conversation and so had no idea what he was worried about. He returned Luhan’s stare until his concentration drifted off toward something rustling in the bushes.

“How are you guys doing?” Baekhyun continued. “Any luck?”

“We found Xiumin and we’re on our way back,” Luhan said as he watched Chen investigate the noise.

“Xiumin? Don’t you mean Kris?” Baekhyun corrected him. “How could you ‘find’ Minseok? He’s been with you the entire time.”

Luhan’s eyes widened as he realized that for all Baekhyun knew, the Xiumin that had volunteered to stay behind at the hotel was really Xiumin. This realization was washed over by a deep confusion, however, as he then realized that this didn’t explain at all why Baekhyun thought the eldest man had left with them.

“What do you mean?” Luhan asked. “Xiumin wanted to stay with you at the hotel.”

From the bushes, Chen gave a shout and waved for someone to come help him. Tao stepped out of the car and hurried over, gasping when he caught a glimpse of the lump crawling on the ground.

Luhan realized with absolute shock that it was none other than Kris as the injured man struggled to stand with Chen and Tao’s assistance. The two men helped their leader to his feet - one of which was limp and unable to support any of Kris’ own weight - and began shuffling over to the car. Luhan opened the door for them before hurriedly getting behind the steering wheel.

“Yeah, he did originally say that he wanted to stay,” recounted Baekhyun. “But after you guys left, Xiumin and Sehun went downstairs to see if you had driven off yet. Only Sehun came back, and he said Minseok had changed his mind so I assumed that he left with you. It’s okay, though, because Chanyeol stayed behind, too, since there wasn’t enough room in the ambulance.”

Luhan was only half listening to the man as Chen and Tao loaded a very confused and in-pain Kris into the backseat, throwing the rest of the car into a panic.

“Wait, wait. Baekhyun, who exactly is where right now?”

Luhan was speeding down the highway at this point, practically pressing the gas pedal against the floor of the car as he kept the phone held to his ear.

“Well, you and Chen took Tao and Kai back into the woods with you. And Xiumin came along at the last minute, so that makes five of you,” Baekhyun recited the names of his friends almost cheerily. The phone was starting to break up. “You’re all trying to find Kris, who’s missing, so that’s six.” Luhan glanced at Kris, who was alert but looking quite battered, in the rearview mirror. “Right now I’m here with Chanyeol and D.O., because Sehun volunteered to switch out with him at the hospital. So he and Suho are there right now with Lay. That’s all twelve of us. So what’s the problem?” He sounded confused and concerned.

“The problem is that we left with Sehun, not Xiumin,” said Luhan breathlessly. In the car, the other passengers’ eyes widened as they caught on to what was happening. “And we just found the real Minseok huddled in a pile of leaves. There can’t be a Sehun here and at the hospital. That means that one of us is the shape shifter.”

There was no response from the other end of the line.

“Baek?! Answer me!” pleaded Luhan. “You’re not safe! One of us is the shape shifter!”

«««

The car plunged into absolute commotion as Luhan tried to concentrate on driving through the ever intensifying rain while still yelling into the phone.

“Baek! Baekhyun!” he cried.

Looking at the screen, he realized that the call had been dropped. He couldn’t be sure how much of his warning Baekhyun had been able to hear - or if that even had been the real Baekhyun, for that matter.

“See if you can call him back,” he said as he tossed the phone onto Chen’s lap. “We need to let them know.”

The car was barreling down the slick road at a dangerous speed, and Luhan thought it would be a miracle if they didn’t get pulled over or - worse - wrecked on the side of the road. He was making record time.

“Lu-ge, what is going on?” demanded Tao, his eyes wide and shiny with terror.

“Baekhyun thinks that Xiumin - the fake Xiumin - left with us,” explained Luhan, his eyes narrowing as they glued to the highway. “And he thinks Sehun is at the hospital.”

In the backseat, Kai threw himself roughly across Sehun, who yelped in surprise.

“That means you’re the fake, doesn’t it?!” he yelled into the younger man’s face.

Sehun blinked at him.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I-I… I’m not the shapeshifter,” Sehun stammered nervously, unsure of how to prove his own innocence. “Xiumin is.”

“But this is the real Xiumin,” Tao argued, pointing at the wide-eyed man next to him. “We’ve already established that. And Baekhyun thinks he’s with us right now, which he is.”

“Baekhyun thinks the fake Xiumin is with us.” Chen turned around in his seat to join the conversation. “Except he doesn’t know that there even is a fake Xiumin.” He continued fiddling with the cellphone, trying to get a signal to come though.

“There’s is no fake Xiumin,” Tao groaned in frustration. “Everyone knows he’s with us.”

“Which means Sehun is obviously the Skinwalker!” yelled Kai as he pressed Sehun’s shoulders back further into the cloth seat.

“Guys!” screeched Luhan. “Calm down.”

He had the absurd thought that he was like some kind of angry father on a road trip with his misbehaving children all arguing in the backseat - although it would have taken a hell of a lot for him to want to so much as threaten to turn the car around. The only thing on his mind was getting back to the hotel as quickly as possible so that they could warn Baekhyun and the others, and then get to the bottom of who was really the shape shifter.

“Everyone just stop accusing each other - please! Let me think.”

“Would anyone mind telling me what the hell is going on here?!” Kris’ voice cut through the car, surprisingly strong and clear even against the pounding droplets of rain. Everyone was a bit shocked by his sudden outburst “Skinwalkers, shape shifters, two Xiumins? What in the world are you all talking about?”

“We think we figured out what bit Lay while you guys were camping.” Tao handed the thick, leather book over to Kris, and opened it to the page he had bookmarked. “Also, that definitely wasn’t me at the campsite with you the other day.”

Kris’ pupils dilated noticeably as he studied the drawing and read the passages. The car continued to race back to the hotel as he finished looking over the yellowed pages and stared blankly back up at Tao, who was sitting next to him.

“So that… thing was… w-was this thing? A Skinwalker?” he clarified, pointing at the full body drawing. “Not you?”

Tao nodded his head. “Did you really think I would walk through the woods by myself at night, Gege?” he joked.

Kris started to laugh, but stopped when a sharp, excruciating pain shot through his leg, causing him to gasp. He shifted to look at the molted, blue-purple skin that covered his leg like a cobweb.

“What the hell happened to me, then?” he moaned.

“We think you got lost after you left to bring back help,” explained Luhan, not taking his eyes off the wet road. “We figured out that something was wrong with ‘Tao’ when the real Tao started texting us, so we left. But then we got lost and we ran into you last night.”

“Ah, yeah… I remember,” Kris mumbled. “I wasn’t sure which way to go, so I picked a random direction at that fork in the road.” He stopped to chuckle. “Guess I chose wrong…” His expression hardened as he continued. “I remember that someone hit me pretty goddamn hard on the head, too.”

“Sorry about that,” apologized Chen. “I thought you were the Skinwalker.”

“Well… I guess I can’t blame you for that if what I’m reading here is true,” accepted Kris. “Though I have to admit, I’m finding it pretty hard to believe.”

“Well, there’s no other way to explain how there are two Sehuns floating around right now, is there?” argued Chen. “And Lay’s symptoms match the ones described in that diary so far.”

“So as hard as it is to fathom, it’s really all we can believe at this point,” sighed Luhan as he to the road that lead into town. There was a brief moment of silence.

“And that means that Yixing…” Kris realized quietly. “Is turning into one of these things.”