Chen jumped out of the car, and was sprinting toward the hotel almost before the vehicle had come to a complete stop. Tao stayed behind to help Kris and Xiumin, but it wasn’t very long before he himself was rushing up after the older man. Upstairs, he found Chen tugging at Baekhyun’s sleeve, trying to pull their friend out of what looked like yet another nap.

“Ugh! What?” Baekhyun’s eyes opened with resistance even as he instinctively tried to pull the blankets over his head. “Oh, Jongdae.” He blinked twice. “What’s going on? Luhan’s phone cut out and I haven’t been able to reach you guys.”

“Come on!” urged Chen, still trying to tug Baekhyun out the door. “Where are the others? We all have to get to the hospital - right now.”

D.O., who was sleeping on the other bed, pushed the covers off and stood up with a series of sleepy mumbles. Chanyeol, who had apparently been awake, came tumbling into the room, followed by the rest of the group.

“What’s going on here?” boomed the tall man.

His deep voice took on a tone of uncertainty and nervousness. His eyes shifted from Chen - still trying to get Baekhyun to stand up - to Sehun - who was supposed to be at the hospital - and finally to Kris’ grotesquely injured leg.

Luhan tried to explain the situation to them as concisely as possible, and Tao presented the worn book to further illustrate their claims.

“So you see, we have to get to the hospital so we can warn them that Lay is turning into one of these… these monsters,” he finished, nearly out of breath. “And we need to all stick together, because-”

“Because any one of us could be the Skinwalker,” D.O. concluded softly.

“I still think it’s Sehun,” Kai piped up from beside the aforementioned man, whom he was still guarding closely.

“I told you it’s not me,” Sehun retorted with a scowl.

“I’m not so sure…” said Kai skeptically.

“More important than that,” Chen interjected, “is that Kris and Xiumin both need medical attention, and Suho is in danger, so let’s get going already.”

«««

The boys split up into two vehicles - five to each car - and made their way to the hospital in a sort of miniature caravan formation. The rain was a downpour at this point, and the swirling droplets carried by harsh winds made it hard for D.O. to see the taillights of Luhan’s car as he drove behind the older man.

“I guess our week of camping would have been destined to even without all this shape shifter nonsense,” sighed Chen from the backseat as he watched the rain slam against the windshield. He was sitting between Sehun and Kai, who were still on questionable terms, and Kris was in the passenger’s seat.

“At least you’re not still stranded out there,” replied D.O. tiredly.

“Always look on the bright side, I guess,” chuckled Chen optimistically.

«««

In the other car, Tao was sitting next to Xiumin, trying to get the older man to speak. The still quite shaken up man had said barely two words since leaving the woods, and Tao was nervous that he would never snap out of it.

“Come on,” he tried to persuade Xiumin. “Say something! Please?”

“Zitao, stop bothering him,” Luhan said sternly from behind the driver’s wheel. “He’ll talk when he wants to talk.”

“I… saw it,” whispered Xiumin.

“What?” Tao leaned in closer to hear his friend’s soft, shaky words.

“I saw the Skinwalker,” repeated Xiumin, just a bit louder.

From Xiumin’s other side, Chanyeol perked up and brought his own ear to rest by the shorter man’s mouth.

“Go on, Hyung,” he encouraged. “You can tell us.”

“I saw it while we were playing Hide and Seek,” Xiumin continued. “In the woods. I saw it transform from behind a tree, and I hid. It… morphed from Tao into some kind of horrible dog creature and then it - it turned into me.” He paused to inhale briefly. “I saw it walking towards camp but I couldn’t move and then - when I got back to the campsite everyone was gone. You were all gone and I tried to yell for you to wait but you wouldn’t listen and you were gone and that thing was gone and you left me - you left me in the woods and it was with you and I couldn’t - couldn’t find you and-”

By this point, Xiumin’s voice had escalated into a rapid, breathless yell, and all ears were on him as he continued to spill out words, his sentences becoming more and more incoherent until he finally fell silent again. Tao could do nothing but hold on tightly to his friend as he calmed down, his breathing once again reaching a steady pace.

“I’m so sorry, Xiumin,” he sobbed. “But you’re safe. You’re safe now.”

A few minutes later, both cars pulled into the hospital parking lot ,and an emergency nurse came out to meet them.

“Ah, you’re friends of Mr. Zhang,” she realized after Luhan had introduced them. “Yes, he’s, uh… quite sick I’m afraid.” She ushered the whole group inside and out of the pelting rain before continuing. “My, it looks like quite a few of you are beaten up,” she observed. “Must have been a pretty bad camping trip.”

«««

After the group had spent a few minutes milling about inside the hospital’s foyer, a couple nurses appeared with wheelchairs for Xiumin and Kris, who was especially grateful to finally be off his feet.

“Why doesn’t anyone who needs patching up go with Nurses Miyoung and Eunji here, and the rest of you can follow me to your friend’s room?” suggested the nurse who had greeted them.

Chen, Kris, and Xiumin left with the two nurses while the friendly woman led the rest of the group to the elevator.

“I’m afraid the carriage is a bit small, so we’ll have to go up in two groups,” the nurse explained as the doors to the elevator opened. “Your friend is on floor seventeen; just press the button and we’ll wait for you up there.”

With that, the doors closed, and half of the group was taken up, along with the nurse. Luhan waited on the ground floor with Tao, Chanyeol, and D.O. - who was nervously tapping his foot against the tile floor in anticipation. It was a few minutes before the elevator returned, and Luhan was just about to step aboard when a hand grabbed his shoulder lightly, causing him to turn around.

A petite nurse stood with her arm outstretched and an apologetic look on her face.

“Excuse me sir,” she smiled. “I’m sorry to bother you, but are you a friend of Mr. Zhang?”

“Yes,” confirmed Luhan. “I am.”

“Well then, if it’s not too much trouble, there’s a police officer here who says he’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Oh, sure,” Luhan agreed. “No problem.”

He was anxious to see Lay - although he had the sinking feeling that there probably wasn’t much that he was going to be able to do for his unfortunate friend at this point. Chanyeol volunteered to stay behind with Luhan as the rest of their friends went upstairs to join the others, and the young nurse whisked the two of them them away and into a small back room on the ground floor. She told them to wait there and make themselves comfortable while she got the officer.

«««

Luhan sat almost on the edge of his chair, decidedly uncomfortable, as he anxiously awaited the policeman’s arrival. He was eager to get the questioning over with so that he could see Lay again, if only to say his final goodbyes. Chanyeol seemed to sense that he was stressed, and brought his face close to Luhan’s tensed shoulder, his lips mumbling against the fabric of the older man’s tee-shirt.

“Don’t worry, Luhan hyung,” he soothed.

“How can I not?” sighed Luhan. “Lay is dying and there’s nothing we can do about it. Soon he’ll be a danger to everyone in this hospital, and there’s no way for us to tell them without sounding absolutely crazy.” He groaned as he lowered his forehead to meet the cold metal table. “Not to mention the fact that the shape shifter that bit him in the first place could be literally anywhere.” He threw his hands up before crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. “Hopefully we’ll at least be able to convince this police officer…”

At that moment, a uniformed, middle-aged man stepped through the door, making Luhan sit abruptly upright and Chanyeol pull his hands off of the other man’s shoulders.

“Evening, boys,” saluted the officer gruffly, although not unpleasantly. He hefted his belt up as he took a seat across from the younger men. “My name is Officer Kim.”

Both boys stood and bowed respectfully before taking their seats again.

“I have a few questions about what happened to your friend while you were out camping,” the policeman continued, shuffling through some papers in the file he held. “We’ve already taken a statement from Mr... Joonmyeon,” he explained, referencing his notes, “but we’d still like to speak with someone who was actually there when the incident occurred.”

“That would be me, I guess,” said Luhan, raising his hand. “Although I don’t know how much I’ll be able to tell you about the… uh, incident, since we were all asleep when it happened.”

Despite this they spent the next several minutes going back and forth, the officer questioning Luhan’s claims that they had found the mysterious bite on Lay’s leg the morning after their first night in the woods. Chanyeol stayed mostly quiet, but nodded at several points that seemed especially pertinent. When Luhan had finished, the officer leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh.

“So you all really believe that your friend got this bite from some sort of… mythical shape shifting creature?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes,” nodded Luhan. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s the only explanation.”

“Son, there’s no such thing as monsters.” The officer eyed him with an odd mixture of caution and pity.

“I know, but… there… is,” insisted Luhan dumbly. “And whatever that thing is, it’s still on the loose. It’s probably here in this hospital right now.”

The officer did nothing but shake his head at the inane, babbling man in front of him. Luhan himself felt defeated, and knew that the officer would never believe him before it was too late. Suddenly, however, an idea occurred to him.

“Wait; will you find my friend, Tao? He has a book we found that talks about some other guy that got bitten by a Skinwalker and transformed into some sort of horrific dog creature.”

“Alright,” agreed the old man reluctantly. “If it will put your mind at ease, then I suppose it’s the least I can do. You certainly seem pretty shaken up about this.” He gave Luhan one more sideways glance before leaving the room. “I’ll be right back; don’t go anywhere.”

«««

D.O. continued tapping his foot in the elevator as the carriage slowly ascended, stopping on the fifth floor to let some other passengers on, and again at the eleventh to let them off.

“What do you make of all this?” he asked Tao as the doors closed behind the small family that had just exited.

“It’s creepy as heck,” replied Tao. “There’s probably a shapeshifter running around this hospital right now, but how can we even be sure? How can we tell who it is? Maybe it’s you.” He looked at the shorter man suspiciously.

“Calm down, Tao; I wasn’t asking just so you could go all conspiracy theorist on me.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Tao apologized halfheartedly, instead choosing to focus on swinging one of his feet back and forth across the paneling.

The elevator doors slid silently open when they reached their destination, and the cubicle was filled with white, artificial light from the fluorescents shining in the hallway. Taken off guard, D.O. squinted as he stepped into the hallway.

“Wasn’t that nurse supposed to meet us here?” he asked, wandering a bit down the hallway to his left.

“Yeah; so let’s just stay here and wait for her,” reasoned Tao. “She probably left to take the others to Lay’s room while we were in the elevator.”

“Stupid other people,” muttered D.O. as he lightly kicked the wall with his sneaker. “Visiting their sick relatives. Delaying us.”

Tao giggled at his friend’s somewhat uncharacteristically dramatic attitude just as the nurse from before rounded the corner and came into view.

“Ah, there you are,” she said cheerily. “Please follow me to Mr. Zhang’s room.”

«««

After thanking the nurse and assuring her that there wasn’t anything else that they needed, D.O. and Tao stepped into the already packed room and tried to force their way through the crowd of doctors, beeping machines, and their own groupmates. Tao stopped when he got close to the bed, and would have run straight out of the room had it not been for D.O. inadvertently blocking the path directly behind him.

Lay - or at least something that almost looked like him - was thrashing against the stained white sheets of the hospital bed. His face was twisted into a mixed expression of pain, anger, and malice even underneath the oxygen mask covering his mouth, and his unnaturally dark eyes appeared to stare straight into Tao’s soul. The sick man’s skin looked saggy and loose in the places where it hadn’t completely rotted away to reveal patchy black fur. A monitor to the right of the bed beeped frantically to keep up with Lay’s rapidly changing heartbeat, which would be through the roof one second and barely there the next. Tao watched, fascinated and mortified, for several minutes as an orderly tried to get close enough to put a pillow under Lay’s neck without getting her arm torn off.

Lay’s oxygen mask suddenly slipped off, allowing him to fully open his mouth. Tao saw with terror that a second row of teeth appeared to have sprouted inside Lay’s gaping jaw - not unlike the teeth that made up the bite mark that was still barely visible on his decaying thigh.

“Dr. Nam!” gasped the orderly as she stumbled backwards, nearly knocking into Tao.

A man in a white lab coat stepped forward and swiftly injected something into Lay’s arm with a syringe. The medicine seemed to do little to numb his anger, although it did stop him from moving around so much. The doctor carefully replaced the oxygen mask before stepping back to the opposite side of the room, where he had been conversing with a few other members of the medical staff.

Tao watched again as the orderly resumed her task of propping Lay’s head up, made easier this time by his relative immobility. He turned to see Suho tittering nervously next to Chanyeol, who was asleep in a chair by the foot of the bed. He then looked at Baekhyun and the others, who were all positioned closer to the door - each member obviously worried about their ill friend. Kai gave him a sad smile.

It was then that Tao realized that Chanyeol had stayed behind with Luhan to answer the officer’s questions, and did a double take to ascertain that it really was the former who was sleeping in a chair in this very room. It certainly appeared to be, and the sleeping giant stirred just as Tao walked over and grabbed his wrist.

“Whoa there,” Chanyeol laughed off his surprise as he looked at Tao’s hand on his arm. “What’s up, Zitao?”

“You should know,” Tao spit at him.

“I should know…?” Chanyeol repeated in a questioning tone.

“Skinwalker,” Tao hissed in accusation.

“What? Skinwalker?” Chanyeol said confusedly, still foggy from sleep.

“Tao, what has gotten into you?” Suho asked, stepping forward as he attempted to gently remove Tao’s hand. The younger man remained firmly clamped. “Calm down and tell us what’s going on.”

“He’s right!” Kai yelled suddenly from across the room. “Chanyeol hyung was just downstairs with Luhan. This is it! This is the shape shifter!”

From across the room, the group of doctors ceased their whispered conferencing, and Dr. Nam looked at the boys with a raised eyebrow.

“What?! That’s ridiculous,” insisted Chanyeol, standing up. I’ve been right in this room the whole time. I took the bus straight here while D.O. got a ride back to the hotel with one of the paramedics. Suho, tell them this is crazy.”

“It’s not! There are two Chanyeols in this hospital right now,” cried Tao. “One is downstairs with Luhan!”

“That’s crazy,” insisted Chanyeol, unwilling to believe what Tao was saying.

“If you don’t believe me, then come look,” growled Tao.

Before he and Kai could drag anyone out of the room, however, the same police officer from downstairs popped his head in through the door with a polite knock.

“Sorry to disturb you folks, but my name is Officer Kim. I was wondering if one of you had some sort of book that your friend downstairs mentioned? I’d like to take a look at - oh my God!” The officer stopped mid-sentence as he caught sight of Lay, still squirming on the bed. “He really wasn’t kidding about something being wrong with your friend there.” Officer Kim’s eyes drifted over to Chanyeol, whose wrist was still trapped in Tao’s hand. “Say, tall fella - weren’t you just downstairs?”