"You said it would be fine!" Kai yelled.

Baekhyun was on the floor on his knees, held up by a stony-faced Taemin. "It's fine," he whisper-said, blinking at the ground. Shao took a step back, noticing the line of blood that flowed from his nose, dripping down his lips. "I've just never...never used so much before." He brought up a hand to wipe it across his top lip, leaving behind a red smear. "They'll be fine."

"I don't know about that," Ten observed from the window, glancing back at Baekhyun worriedly. "Even if they survived the original blast, the fire's going strong. The smoke should be enough to do them in, if they don't get out in time."

"They'll be back in time, though," Mark said, and Shao noticed that he was turning a pencil over and over between his fingers. "Right?"

"I don't see them," Ten spoke quietly.

Shao was a risk-taker, but usually not for other people, and never for people she had met only days ago. She was content sitting in the spaceship with a bucket of popcorn and watching the action unfold, but she couldn't help thinking of the fire.

She had seen people who died in fires before. Hell, she had been in a fire before, surrounded by flames that licked the ceilings of the dome, crying out for people she knew would never come back out of the red-hot.

Fire.

"Jesus," she muttered, climbing on top of one of the chairs. The Supers stared at her, mystified, as she grabbed the edge of the open panel on the roof of the aircraft with both hands and swung herself up and out of the hole. Mark gasped, stepping closer to the hole to look up at her. "Well, aren't you coming?"

"You could, like, wait for the door," he said, frowning. "Like a normal person."

"It's not easy being a normal person when you're surrounded by literal superheroes. Y'all are rubbing off on me." She raised her eyebrows. The surface of the plane was slippery and cold, with no grooves to hold on to, and she didn't want to slip. "Besides, it's too hard waiting for the slow-ass hatch."

Saying this, she slipped off the side, sliding over the smooth surface and jumping off one of the wings. The fall was at least ten feet, but she had a rich history of jumping off high places, so ten feet wasn't a lot.

The contact with the hard floor sent a familiar jar through her, and she got to her feet nimbly, smiling to herself as she heard the hatch open with a hiss. Clouds of smoke were billowing from the bar, though it wasn't a lot, and she guessed that the fire hadn't started spreading yet. There was still time, but not enough of it.

"Come on," she muttered, looking back and realizing that no one else was out yet. "Five Supers, and not one of them knows gymnastics?"

Apparently not.

Wait, I have the comm thing, she realized, pulling the device out of her pocket from where she'd put it when Taeyong had handed it to her. She had no idea if it would work with the previous static, but there was nothing to do but hope. Lifting it gingerly to her lips, she put the earpiece in her ear. "Big guy?" she spoke. "Lucas?"

No response.

She pursed her lips and glanced back, beginning to walk. No one was there yet. "Any help?" she called out as loud as she dared, stuffing the transmitter into the pocket of the jeans. Any longer, and Taeyong and Lucas would be grilled.

She squinted at the building again. Yup, the smoke was definitely growing.

"Useless superheroes," she muttered viciously to herself. "I have to do all the work around here."

Shao took off running in the direction of the bar. The entrance wasn't far, and she was a fast sprinter, which meant that she was there in a matter of a few seconds, despite the debris in her way. Distractedly, she wondered if it was safe to just waltz into a burning room without any previous preparation for the kind of situation, but there was no time to act.

The bar was empty when she reached it, but the alcohol bottles were pretty close to where the fire was. The huge, smoked glass doors were lying open, but the room was completely empty. Her eyes were tearing up because of the smoke, and she pulled the neck of her hideously yellow t-shirt up to cover the lower half of her face, getting the little protection it offered against the smoke.

A crash. Only moments before the alcohol caught on fire, and her resolve was already wavering. She could see no one in the deserted place, let alone people she knew—maybe she would never find anyone.

The heat was uncomfortable, she knew that it would grow unbearable soon. Not a lot of time before that happened—she had to find the two and get out, fast.

Shao swallowed against the dryness in her throat and stepped deeper into the room, looking around with narrowed eyes. The Mayfly had been one of her favorite places, and now she was watching it burn down without much care. Oh well.

And then she saw it.

Thank god for hair dye, she thought, and rushed into the fire.

|

Taeyong had been a few feet into the room when the bar exploded.

The last thing he remembered before being thrown backwards was a look of absolute shock on Lucas's face when he had spotted the blue-haired male, unfortunately having missed the panic that crossed it shortly after.

All of Taeyong's awareness of his surroundings had disappeared. He was thrown back by the thrust-like force of the blast, and then—amazingly, impossibly—had been pulled straight back in. It reminded him of bath time as a kid, when he used to push his rubber ducky deep into the water-filled bucket and watch it rush back to the top the moment he released it.

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of his body, imitating the vacuum created by a suction pump. The whole sequence had happened too fast for his brain to process, and the next thing he actually felt happening was his body being slammed into a very solid, very real wall. He fell to the floor, his entire body groaning in pain, and tilted onto his side.

His mind was screaming, but he could barely pay attention to what it was trying to say. His senses had gone completely numb, and his vision was fading in and out like an unfocused camera, trying to make sense of what he was seeing with his eyes. What just happened?

Taeyong winced when he felt the prickles of pain along his arm. Broken glass. There was a distinctive metallic tang on his tongue at the back of his mouth. Blood, no doubt. His surroundings, which had earlier consisted of blurred shapes and images, now turned pure white, like unused toilet paper.

Is this heaven? He wondered, even though he didn't really believe in an afterlife. Taeyong coughed, feeling wet blood spatter his lips, and rolled onto his back, head throbbing. This isn't so bad, he thought, scraping the floor where he had bled over the glass. At least there won't be pain.

Someone knelt next to him, and Taeyong used the last of his strength to look up. The person was just as white as his surroundings, with pale skin and pale hair and pale eyes, an unblinking statue of marble carved by a divine hand. Taeyong stared at the man, mystified. Definitely heaven, he thought, lips parting as the man raised a pale hand towards him.

Angel, he thought, reaching out to the man. Paper skin and paper bones, eyes made of glass. No human could look this otherworldly. The angel extended his hand, and Taeyong watched his own bloodied fingers reach back, the hands coming together in slow motion. Angel.

Their hands connected. In a split second, an icy bite-like feeling spread through Taeyong like frostbite, and his eyes widened. The angel held his hand, and gently curled his fingers around Taeyong's wrist.

The world turned black.

||

THE ALBUM IS SO LIT

i've been listening to mad dog on repeat bc the drop is just *chef's kiss*. i love every single one of the tracks ever since it came out, nct 127 did NOT come to play. i think i might even like this album more than regular-irregular. omg.

might play around and do a whole first listen review thing, but idk. this chapter was pretty short since it's more of a filler, but it's still really important.