Chapter 9 (1/1)

--CHAPTER 9The blue consumed him—it swallowed his body whole. At first, Baekhyun felt strangled and completely fearful for his life. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. As he raised his hand toward his neck in order to remove that invisible hand that had been choking him, Baekhyun suddenly felt a wave of calm wash over him. It was unreal and it soothed him so that he started to lapse into a half conscious state. He was falling, but he had no idea where.Everything that surrounded Baekhyun was a swirl of blues and purples with flecks of white like his body had been surfing through some sort of universe and its many components. When Baekhyun was falling, for the longest time he thought about nothing and his eyes hung half way open, but then—just barely—he heard a small sound flow through his ear. The sound caused Baekhyun to turn his head and in the distance he saw something being played before his eyes—it was a vision. It wasn’t just any vision, though. It was one of Baekhyun’s memories.Just beyond, Baekhyun saw his parents and he saw in his mother’s arms a baby—a baby she held carefully in a light blue blanket—and over his mother’s shoulder was his father watching the baby inquisitively.“He’s mute,” Baekhyun heard his mother say.“Maybe he’ll grow out of it,” his father mumbled in a way that was not confident.The sight flew past Baekhyun’s range of vision and his eyes were met with the blue once again. Not long after that, though, he saw another one of his memories being displayed in front of him. This time it was of Baekhyun at a young age. He had been reading a book under the willow tree in his front yard and then the image wavered for a moment like an antenna TV struggling to keep a picture in and it showed a slightly older Baekhyun—still reading and being quiet. Then just as the vision disappeared, a small boy ran into the picture—a boy with messy hair and a carefree stride.“What… What is all of this?” Baekhyun sighed to himself. He blinked, though the blink was more of a close of his eyes that lasted for a while with his eyes finally opening after a period of time, and he looked down ahead of himself as his body continued to descend. Then there was another view laid before Baekhyun’s brown eyes.In the picture Baekhyun saw what appeared to be his friend Minseok and his psychology teacher, Professor Leeteuk, smiling. They weren’t just smiling in general but they were smiling at him.“He has a voice,” Leeteuk said and he closed his eyes as his smile grew and the dimple on his left cheek was revealed.Minseok nodded. “At least we know that, right?”The two agreed and they looked to each other, turned away, and walked off leaving the picture of a door behind them. It wasn’t merely a picture, though. As Baekhyun sank closer to the door, he saw that it was an actual, physical door and he reached his hand out and as his body paused from its slow free-fall, Baekhyun rested his fingers against the knob on the right side of the door. Before he opened it, he thought for a moment. Was this the right way? Baekhyun sighed and shrugged. Even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t as though he was aware of another way out of this vast space. So Baekhyun turned the knob on the door and opened it. It was black inside. Was this The Void again? It didn’t matter. Even if it was, Baekhyun was ready to go. All he wanted was to find his way back to his friends and help Chanyeol defeat the beast.Baekhyun stepped cautiously through the door at first, but then he placed both of his sandaled feet through and closed the door behind himself once he was finally all the way through.When Baekhyun first closed the door behind his slender body, it was pitch black all around him. He was scared of this at first, in all honesty, but he began to walk forward and he saw a light ahead of him that looked just large enough for him to fit his own body through. He did so and just beyond that light was a sight Baekhyun had been desiring to see.Chanyeol and Jongdae were standing there with a stack of boulders behind them that Baekhyun assumed had to have been rubble from the cave they were in just before he was separated from them. They were outside now in an area that was grassy and had some flowers spread throughout in sparing ways so that there was more grass than flowers towering above it. There was a mountain range far behind them that was casted over with a mist that also colored the sky and Baekhyun could see that the sky was not green like when he had first entered Chanyeol’s world, but it was a purple-ish blue. It looked like the colors of the place Baekhyun had just left from were mixed to create this sky color and Baekhyun found that to be most curious. Another man had been standing with Chanyeol and Jongdae—wearing a satchel on his side—that Baekhyun did not recognize. He looked harmless enough, though, judging by the fact that he was continuously laughing and smiling.Baekhyun walked forward toward the three and when he was close enough, Chanyeol spotted him—eyes growing wide and a large, toothy smile painted on his face. “Baek!” Chanyeol yelped with glee and he gallivanted toward his friend. As Chanyeol approached Baekhyun, he put his hands out and finally placed them on the other’s shoulders.“Oh wow, he’s okay!” Jongdae burst out. Baekhyun couldn’t tell whether that comment was genuine or displayed some sarcasm.“Of course he’s okay,” Chanyeol said with a tilt of his head and a gleam in his eye. “This is Baekhyun we’re talking about, after all.” His hands continued to rest on Baekhyun’s shoulders with a firm grip and all Baekhyun could do was smile back, albeit bashfully.When Jongdae ran over to see Baekhyun as well, the other person Chanyeol and Jongdae had been speaking with before Baekhyun walked in turned his head in a curious look. “Hm?” he hummed and walked over as well. “Who is this?” he asked with his hands cupped in front of his chest and his neck careened so he could peer over at Chanyeol and Jongdae.“Oh,” Chanyeol’s eyes lit up. “This is Baekhyun,” he said while removing his hands from Baekhyun’s shoulders and using them to gesture to the smaller male. “And Baekhyun,” Chanyeol looked to his friend and gestured to the other, unfamiliar person to Baekhyun, “this is Joonmyun. We met him after we escaped from the collapsing cave.”Joonmyun—the newly named man—looked directly into Baekhyun’s eyes and smiled widely. “It’s good to meet you, Baekhyun!”“The same,” Baekhyun smiled gently back.“Hey, just where were you at anyway, Cutie?” Jongdae asked very loudly, catching Baekhyun’s and Joonmyun’s attentions. Jongdae briefly smirked and then made a serious expression while looking at Baekhyun.Baekhyun squinted his eyes. He thought about the answer and he thought that it might have sounded slightly out of the ordinary. He decided he’d tell them about the person he had met while he was separated from them. “Well,” he started, “I was at this place where I met someone named Yixing…”“OH!” Joonmyun gasped loudly, startling the other three around him. His right hand was cupped around his lips and his eyebrows were arched very highly. He breathed heavily for some moments which only left the others to continually look at him oddly. “Yixing, you said?” he finally asked while darting his black eyes to Baekhyun.Baekhyun nodded.“Ah,” Joonmyun smiled mostly to himself. “I know him.”Jongdae arched his upper lip and furrowed his brows. “How do you know him, Joonmyun? Does he live nearby?”Joonmyun shook his head. “Not that I know of. Yixing is only there when you need him.”“Really?” Chanyeol asked. He looked at Baekhyun curiously. “Is there some reason why you would have needed this Yixing, Baek?”Baekhyun puffed his lips and furrowed his brows as he thought. His finger reached his chin and he tapped it gingerly. Was there a reason why Yixing had been there for him when he was separated from his friends during the cavern collapse? Well, at least he was there for Baekhyun when he had awoken in a foreign place in a completely strange world. There was that… but was there something more?Baekhyun thought about his reflection in the turquoise liquid that had filled the well and how it was not just a reflection, but a vision of something that made him happy to look at, though he wasn’t entirely certain of what it was. Then there was Yixing’s reflection which was simply that—a reflection of him. But Yixing saw it as something else… something ugly. Maybe it was the same for Yixing? If Yixing had looked at Baekhyun’s reflection, would he only have seen a mere image replica of the brown haired boy? Despite being confused by the significance of the reflections, Baekhyun could decipher that they were there to help him, and in the long run Yixing was too. Yixing helped Baekhyun notice that it wasn’t really all about how he was seen through other people’s eyes…“Maybe he was there to guide me back to you guys,” Baekhyun ended up saying with a slight nod of his head.“Probably, right? How else would you have gotten back to us without help? It’s not like you know your way around here,” Jongdae folded his arms over his chest as he said this and his look on Baekhyun was a bit condescending.Chanyeol nudged Jongdae on his arm with his elbow.“Yixing guided me when I was lost in the woods over there,” Joonmyun said with a gesture just past him. The other three looked in that direction to see a forest that they definitely would have judged as something a bit sinister. It looked dark and alarming and immediately they wondered just what in the world Joonmyun had been doing in there in the first place. “It was a dark time for me,” Joonmyun began again, “but I was able to get out of there.”“No kidding,” Jongdae mumbled as he obviously observed how grim the forest looked. Chanyeol nudged him once more, though this time harder so that Jongdae let out a small pained noise.Chanyeol sighed after he chuckled at Jongdae’s anguish as he rubbed his arm where Chanyeol’s elbow had impacted him. “In any case, it’s good that we didn’t lose Baek, right?”Baekhyun and Jongdae nodded and then Joonmyun did as well when he noticed the others doing it.“I’m glad I made it out,” Baekhyun softly said, “but where do we go from here?”There was a pause and Chanyeol and Jongdae looked to each other with perplexed expressions. Apparently they weren’t necessarily aware of where to go.“Are you guys trying to get back to the city?” Joonmyun asked kindly with a gentle smile on his pink lips.“S-sort of…” Jongdae mumbled. He looked to the ground.“We need to get to the beast. Do you know anything of it, Joonmyun?” Chanyeol asked.Joonmyun put his hands in the air close to his chest and rested them there. “I don’t!” he said in an oddly positive way, causing the others to lower their heads. “I’ve been hearing it around lately, though. It sounds pretty scary…” His face morphed into one that expressed some fear, yet it still looked cute.“Any idea of where it might be now?” Chanyeol tilted his head.When Joonmyun heard this question, his expression immediately flattened and his head lowered. He raised his left arm upward ever-so slowly and used his index finger to point. He pointed toward the intimidating looking forest that was just beyond them. “I’ve been hearing its roar come from there…”Chanyeol, Jongdae, and Baekhyun collectively looked toward the forest. They really had been hoping they wouldn’t have had to face that place since it sent chills down their spines as they looked at it, but according to their goal, it seemed that was the only way.“Do we really have to go after that thing, Chanyeol? It’s not like it’s killed us yet…” Jongdae wrapped his arms around himself and firmly held his shoulders. He continually shuddered as he looked toward the forest.“If we don’t, maybe it will kill us,” Chanyeol said in a firm tone. “Besides, don’t you want to have more picnics that don’t get ruined?”Jongdae closed his eyes and bared his teeth. He breathed out heavily and sighed under his breath, “Yes.”“I don’t know what you guys are planning to do, but I really do wish you all the best of luck,” Joonmyun smiled to the three encouragingly. His smile was so nice… it was like an angel had just smiled at them. He turned to look at the mountain range in the distance and he wistfully sighed at the sight. “Hm… I suppose I do have my own things to be doing.” Joonmyun stretched his arms far into the air and then let them fall to his sides. “It was nice meeting you all,” he nodded.“You too,” Chanyeol was the one to return the kind words for his little trio.“Oh!” Joonmyun’s eyes lit up. He reached for the satchel that was on his side and pulled it so it rested on the front of his thighs. He flipped the cover of it open so that he was able to reach inside and when his hands returned from the insides of the bag, he had produced what looked like three bread rolls. “Do any of you want these? I don’t.”“I DO,” Jongdae was quick to respond and his hand swiped one of the rolls from Joonmyun’s hold. He quickly nibbled a piece from it and hummed in satisfaction as he chewed the bread with his back teeth.“Thanks, Joonmyun,” Chanyeol grabbed the other two rolls from Joonmyun and handed one to Baekhyun.Joonmyun grinned widely. “Of course! I think I know some hungry boys when I see them, anyway.” His hands moved to place his satchel back to the side of his body. “I’ll be going now, then.” He turned on his heels to walk away, but as he did so it appeared he had recalled something else he had to say judging by how his eyes lit up once more. “Just to let you guys know, no one truly knows what lies in that forest.” His eyes narrowed as he spoke. “I think it’s one of those things that’s different for everyone, you know?”Baekhyun nodded. “We’ll keep that in mind. And thank you again, Joonmyun.”One last smile escaped from Joonmyun’s lips and he waved in a small fashion with one hand and began to walk away. The three watched as he left and soon he was far enough so that he was only a small speck in their vision.Jongdae continued to munch on his bread roll, and in between furious and fast bites, he murmured with his mouth full, “Was that guy kind of off? He seemed weird…”Chanyeol smacked Jongdae on the side of his head—mostly playfully than harmfully—which caused Jongdae to cough some of his bread crumbs from his mouth. “Stop being a brat, Jongdae,” Chanyeol said with an air that showed a bit of shame toward Jongdae’s attitude.“So, we’re going to go in that forest?” Baekhyun asked in hesitance. His hands held his bread roll close to his chest and his eyebrows arched highly over his brown eyes.“We have to if we’re going to stop the beast, Baek. It’s the only way,” Chanyeol tried to give a reassuring look to Baekhyun as he noticed the smaller male had a worried expression playing on his features.Jongdae sighed heavily. He had now finished all the bread that was given to him. “This beast, though… Is it really anything? It’s not like we’ve seen it.” He rolled his eyes.“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun softly said while Chanyeol had been glaring at Jongdae, and Chanyeol turned his head to look at him. “Is it really a ‘beast’? I mean, there was something I saw before the cave collapsed in on us, and it didn’t look like a beast to me…”“What’d you see?” Chanyeol tilted his head.“Something… Something gorgeous…” Baekhyun looked off and he began to space out as he reminisced about the odd, unexplainable thing he had caught sight of just before the boulders cut off his vision. He wasn’t entirely certain of what it was, but he did remember that it looked gorgeous in his eyes.Jongdae chuckled. “Are you sure it wasn’t just me, cutie?”Baekhyun lightly gasped at the unexpected comment and once again, Chanyeol nudged Jongdae in the arm.“Hm,” Chanyeol softly hummed. He scratched the side of his head and ran his fingers through his messy locks of hair. “I don’t know what that could have been, then…” was all he could utter at Baekhyun’s comment. He then made a small grunt in the back of his throat and said, “Let’s go, guys. Even if this doesn’t lead us to the beast, maybe it’ll lead us back to town.”“Whatever you say, Captain,” Jongdae made a fake salute with his hand against his forehead and followed Chanyeol. Baekhyun soon followed, looking around a few times first, and then taking gradual steps toward the other two.Baekhyun wondered for a moment why Chanyeol hadn’t been using his compass to lead them around. He then thought that maybe the compass didn’t work at all and that this time, they truly were lost.