(for everyone) a dark world aches for a splash of the sun part i
For: everyone
Title: a dark world aches for a splash of the sun
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Side-Pairings: Xiuhan, Baekchen and slight!Taohun
Length: 12,770
Summary: Kyungsoo is offered a chance to be lead linguist on an expedition to Atlantis, away from his boring, monotonous life, and discovers that in the years that had gone by ( a thousand to be exact), Atlantis had thrived, and so did its heir.
Notes: I apologize to the recipient for the complete and utter lack of NC-17, I didn’t know where to slip it in (ohmygod, inappropriate and immature innuendo much) and thanks so much for kx and日天, you know who you are, also I apologise as the second part is unbeta-ed.
A wave is coming.
Soldiers loaded into the flying vehicles strain to make the devices go faster, to beat the wave. Shouting ensues as they try to make themselves heard over the gaining of the thundering wave. “We have to warn Atlantis,” is the common sentiment amidst all the chaos.
A wave is coming.
The wave takes down one, two, and then half the fleet of ships before easily conquering the structures further out of the city centre. The vehicles that manage a temporary lead over the wave make a series of sharp turns and steep dips over valleys and structures before arriving at the city centre.
A wave is coming.
The red crystal that floats atop the tallest structure identifies and permits entry to the floating vehicles. As the first of the guards manning the city’s outermost tower posts spots the towering wave, the evacuation announcement is quickly made, with “Everyone get to the shelters!” resounding and looping ominously, merging with the sound of the large bell structures being struck.
A wave is coming.
Chaos erupts in the innermost city, people running for shelter, children being forcefully dragged as toys are left behind.
A wave is coming.
One child in particular presents an extreme reluctance against this, tugging as hard as possible to get to his toy, even as a soldier cries out desperately to his father, “This way your highness. Quickly!” As the royal family begins to flee in earnest, against the will of the young boy, the mother pauses for a quick moment and brings herself to the child’s eye level. Desperate to convey the urgency of the situation, she looks into the eyes of her child, even as his own gaze is over her shoulder at his toy. “Jongin! Just leave it! There’s no time!” She exclaims in her native tongue.
A wave is coming.
The light that bathes them from above is a frosty blue as it falls upon their tan features, and Jongin’s mother fluidly stands and turns up towards it, eyes drawn to it, as is the crystal suspended around her neck, now also exhibiting an almost magnetic attraction to the blue glow.
A wave is coming.
The patriarch of the family looks back and is horrified at the sight that meets his eyes, his wife whose pupils are now the same frosty blue glow that bathes his family seemingly in a trance, and his Jongin is frantic and panicked, hand still encased in the hold of his mother’s.
A wave is coming.
Jongin looks up at his mother when all the blue beams alight at a single point above his mother and pulses once. Before he knows it, his mother is being lifted above the ground and the hold of the hand that was just around his is slackened, except for the fingers still tensed around a bracelet slipped from his hand.
A wave is coming.
A single heart-breaking cry of “Mother!” as Jongin reaches his chubby arms out in a desperate attempt at grasping for his mother. Tears streaming down his face as he curls into a ball following the loss of his mother.
A wave is coming.
The King rushes to his son, hugging him to his chest and burying the child’s face in his neck, all the while murmuring in a broken voice, “Look away, child, look away.”
A wave is coming.
Pulsing blue panels of energy lower into place around the little portion of the city left to salvage, as confused citizens thump their fists against said panels of energy to no avail.
A wave has arrived.
The pulsing blue panels continue to ripple outward with every pulse, spreading outward into a shield. As the outward rippling of one panel meets another, they fuse and form a single large area of energy.
A wave has come.
As the wave continues to devastate and rage, the last of the rippling energy fuses, completing the shield, the city sinks downwards into itself.
The wave sweeps over everything, encompassing all, and in its wake the wave is now an ocean.
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Seoul, Korea, 1948.
Do Kyungsoo’s existence is a lonely one, and is for all sakes and purposes, quite literally just an existence. Sure, he loves what he does, for his is the study of small and seemingly insignificant words and the way they come together to form towering castles of language that people become so heavily dependent that they are unable to divorce their lives from.
Essentially, the unraveling of tongues and their nature.
He lives, breathes and eats his craft. His job as a linguist consumes his life, but...
Kyungsoo isn’t quite sure how he ended up here, feeling this way, leading this sad, lonely life. He remembers how he used to feel about his craft, how he had loved it deeply, how he was so certain about it, and now all he does is ache for adventure, and be as lost as some of the languages he unravels. The ache is a bone-deep one, one that steals his breath away at times when the monotony becomes too much.
And honestly it makes him want to scream.
But alas, screaming is not behavior befitting of a linguist in so quiet an environment of a museum, so he doesn’t.
Instead, he patiently waits. (For what, he does not know. Yet, he corrects, does not know yet.)
The shrill tone of the phone echoes loudly in the bar, startling Kyungsoo out of his haze, and the bartender, a large man with shoulders the size of barrels, lumbers over, eager to put an end to the annoying shrieking.
Kyungsoo fixes his attention back onto the glass of amber coloured fluid he is nursing, and sighs a sigh so weary that it adds to the haze in his mind. Today had been bad, or rather, a bad that was simply worse than that of the usual, he muses. He tips back the glass and savours the burn of the scotch down his throat, all the while trying to convince himself that the burn of saline fluid in his eyes is also a by-product of his chosen poison.
For it had transpired that earlier today the board of directors had moved the timeslot of his presentation without informing him. And when he did finally get notice, he’d been late, and not just regular late late, which was by his watch 5 minutes. No, he thinks, this had been a case of So Late It’s Almost Laughable. Kyungsoo knows, knows the opportunity is slipping through his hands so easily that he might as well have been trying to hold water in his palm, but he has to try though, and he gathers his things hurriedly, sprinting to the best of his ability to the venue. He doesn’t manage to catch the members of the board but he had been in time enough to catch the Head of the Board. Kyungsoo tries to bring the stern looking gentleman around to his way of thinking, injecting as much enthusiasm and passion as he can in the face of the man’s growing boredom and displeasure. Needless to say it isn’t long before Kyungsoo sees the snap in the man’s fraying threads of temper. The man lashes out, his face an ugly shade of puce and his moustache twitching every few moments, and throws Kyungsoo’s grandfather’s brilliance in his face, and proclaims loudly that they both suffered the same flaw, “This…this obsession! Yes, obsession. With Atlantis!” Before settling into his getaway vehicle and zooming off as though he hadn’t just crushed Kyungsoo’s world and heart beneath his shiny, leather fitted shoes. Kyungsoo wilts and resumes his job by slinking back to his office, to the life he knows is killing him or perhaps, has killed him.
He is made aware of the lull in the phone conversation of the bartender by the snapping of fingers he swears wasn’t there before. Kyungsoo looks away from his drink for a moment to see the bartender who appears to have been trying to get his attention for a while. The bartender gestures towards the phone and mumbles, “ ‘S one’s for you.” before going back to circling the inside of shot glasses with his dish cloth.
As Kyungsoo stands, vertigo hits him with what feels like an audible whoosh, and he stumbles for a moment before clumsily making his way to the phone, one foot placed carelessly before the other.
The husky, low tones of the person on the other end wash over him for a moment, before he collects himself, and manages an oh-so-elegant “Huh?” Wow, he thinks to himself, good job Kyungsoo, good to see all those years of studying languages doing you good. The person on the end of the line sighs, a weary one, before deigning to repeat himself, “A black limo is waiting by the curb outside the club you’re wasting your life away in, unslump yourself and get the hell in it.” And then silence.
Kyungsoo pulls the device away and stares at it long and hard, going slightly cross-eyed in his drunken state. Okay, he thinks to himself, okay, before setting the phone down on its cradle.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Kyungsoo isn’t quite certain what part of his brain has been impaired by the whiskey but if there was to be at least one thing he was quite certain about, it was that whichever part of it was affected, had been severely addled. The biting chill of the winter wind gusting delivers a kick of sorts, and his whiskey-addled mind is dealt a sobering blow, sobering enough that he isn’t seeing double anymore. Instead, what he does see is a luxurious stretch of limousine, sitting by the curb as promised, in all its sleek curves and elegant black coat.
The man seated within seemed worthy of the sophisticated air the limo embodied, a hint of chubbiness to his cheeks and almond-shaped eyes, which were currently narrowed in a pointed fashion at Kyungsoo, jerking his head sharply in the direction of the car, extending a clear invitation (that seemed to Kyungsoo more like a demand).
This time, Kyungsoo only stumbles slightly before entering the vehicle as smoothly as he can manage, but he thinks he fares okay, he thinks. The man only raises a brow at him, before introducing himself “Kim Minseok, acting on behalf of my employer,” he says politely, before dropping his voice into a seductive drawl, “who has an interesting…proposition for you.” The man, Minseok, leans forward and pins him with a look, one promising secrets, and secrets in abundance. “Interested?”
The limo rolls through the towering iron wrought gates, and pulls to a smooth stop by the sheltered steps leading to the door of a sprawling mansion. Minseok leads him through a grand hall, up a spiral staircase, through a narrow hallway and into an elevator cage, boarding it with Kyungsoo and hitting the button for the basement. He takes the time to fix the finer details of Kyungsoo’s suit, straightening out the creases in his collar and dress shirt, ordering him to tuck the ends into his pants.
All the while, Minseok walks Kyungsoo through the do’s and don’ts, some of which include: Do address him as Mr Wu or Sir, Do keep sentences short and to the point, and Kyungsoo’s personal favourite, Don’t sit unless you are expressly told to do so. Needless to say, Kyungsoo begins to sweat a little as his mind runs quickly through the ways he could screw all, and compulsively goes over what he’s just been told.
He doesn’t get much of a opportunity to do so though, as the elevator dings and he is deposited from it by Minseok, who as the elevator begins making its way back up, smirks and says rather cheekily, “He doesn’t bite though.” He pauses for a bit, contemplating before the smile becomes positively devilish and continues, “Not much at least.” Then he’s gone.
Kyungsoo gulps, and collects himself, wanting to make a good impression on his prospective employer. The linguist studies his surroundings, only realizing the extent of his prospective employer’s wealth in the glossy glassed-in aquarium, housing an entire marine ecosystem. Kyungsoo gapes for a moment, before he remembers the resemblance between him and the fishes. Not to mention unattractive and schools the expression upon his face is a neutral, stoic one.
The room is a dark one, and feels almost ominous as he begins his search for his employer, prospective, he reminds himself, in earnest. Only to be startled by teeth, and what looked like an extremely gummy smile that he had to crane his head to catch a glimpse of, Kyungsoo flinches away, quickly and violently, damning his poor life decisions.
The owner of said gummy smile had just now become the owner of the eyebrows drawn in and lips tugged downward expression. Here, Kyungsoo panics and tries desperately to rectify the situation, reaching out to grasp the wrinkled, gnarly hand of the upset old man and deliver a firm shake, introducing himself and smiling his heart-shaped smile.
It does the trick for the most part, as the gummy smile makes its way back on the elderly man’s face.
“How ‘bout an adventure then, son?” Mr Wu smirks.
How about one indeed, Kyungsoo thinks.
As it turns out Mr Wu is actually Kris Wu, eccentric billionaire and best friend of Kyungsoo’s grandfather, Do Junmyeon. Kris hands over the single most important artifact for any Atlantean expedition-The Fieldguide- with a flourish, presenting it to Kyungsoo as his birthright. Kyungsoo learns the tale of his grandfather’s own adventure, one of endurance and camaraderie in the quest for The Fieldguide. It is when Kris cradles a sepia photograph with all the care one would take with an ancient, barely there heart, standing against the backdrop of the bright blaze of the fireplace and symphony of firewood crackling, and traces a finger over the curve of Joonmyeon’s jaw that Kyungsoo begins to feel that he has missed something, something of grave importance.
The trace of a single tear down the plane of Kris’ time-weathered cheek confirms this. The moment may have been quiet but within the silence lay the shared memories of Junmyeon, of how he loved and was loved.
“So,“ The hoarseness of Kris’ voice startles Kyungsoo, “I’ve got a capable crew assembled and as for transportation…” Kris pauses for dramatic effect, “Meet the Swordfish.”
The magnificence of the submarine is evident even existing as a model on Kris’ mahogany desk, no less gleaming or brilliant than the wood it rested upon. The Swordfish was indeed an apt name, shaped like a sword, its design intended to slice through water with the ease of hot knife through butter. A viewing port on each side of the blade, large enough to observe their surroundings while travelling. Kyungsoo feels anxiety bubbling at the very thought of what it would mean to be in such a magnificent structure, the adventure that it would entail.
Kyungsoo flounders for a moment, feeling the reality of Kris’ offer sinking in as he too sinks into a plush velvet chair. Kris seems to sense his apprehension before reassuring him, his time-worn hand over Kyungsoo’s shoulder and in a deep voice says, “We’ve made the necessary arrangements, everything from the nitty gritty of your work to the more personal aspects of your life,” Kris heaves a sigh, “you needn’t worry, boy.”
So Kyungsoo doesn’t. Instead, he inquires about the crew assembled for the expedition, and Kris spreads a sheaf of papers over the expanse of his desk, breaking it down:
Park Chan”mole” whose real name was Chanyeol, who would be their geologist or dirt man as Kris had put it;
Byun Baek-me-a-cake Baekhyun, who would double as both their demolitions expert and cook (it’s a strange combination that makes Kyungsoo fear for his life);
Oh Machine-hun Sehun, who in spite of his tender age would serve as their chief mechanic;
Zhang Yixing “Healing Unicorn” (Kyungsoo keeps it to a need-to-know basis, and this was most definitely a need-to-know eccentricity), who looked dazed, but according to Kris would serve as their physician;
Kim Jongdae, (Kyungsoo heaves a sigh because this individual does not have a horrifying nickname and that makes him trust this stranger) their radio operator;
Luhan, whose baby-faced look was a guise for the fierce and capable commander that he was
And finally,
Kim Minseok, the second-in-command who had brought him to Kris and gave Kyungsoo the goosebumps
Kris adds with a measure of pride in his voice, “This was the very same team that brought back The Fieldguide.” The minus-your-grandfather bit hung in the air and for a moment, as brief as that moment lasted, Kyungsoo believes that Kris in all his glorious height and eccentricities might sob, but it is a moment that never comes.
Instead, Kris bestows the honour of playing the most important role of the expedition: its linguist upon Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo wears the honour like a badge, gleaming, gleaming gold.
The loud blare of a horn interrupts the crashing of waves against The Swordfish, the accompanying harmony to Kyungsoo’s upchucking, the result of the terrifying rocking motion that Kyungsoo learns even the most magnificent of ships is not immune to. Kyungsoo finds out that even being immaculately dressed doesn’t help one bit in shielding him from the horrifying effects of seasickness.
He quickly makes his way in to the bridge, eager to look out at the aquatic world through the large viewports. A melodious, cheeky voice announces over the speakers praying for the safety of the crew being fed by Byun’s “healthy food diet”, before the loud thwack of a rolled newspaper colliding with a bare and vulnerable forehead. Kyungsoo regards his surroundings with awe, wondering at the massive size of crew required to ensure the smooth running of things. Something that wasn’t visible from the smooth, calm exterior of the flawless Swordfish.
He sees the back of a forest green military coat, and figuring it belongs to someone of authority, requests for directions to the bridge. The person turns, and surprise overwhelms him, even with prior knowledge that Kim Minseok was second-in-command, Kyungsoo starts at the intimidatingly sharp image Minseok cuts in military wear, especially how ready he appears to be to kill, maim or injure.
“I’m gonna seok your bones in soup to make a broth, Kim Minseok!” Someone threatens, his voice shaky and anger-riddled. Kyungsoo spies a man barely taller than himself stalking over, a basket in his arms and shaking with fury. Minseok, Lieutenant, Kyungsoo corrects himself, rolls his eyes so forcefully Kyungsoo worries for their structural integrity, before turning around to deal with the menace. “What now, Baekhyun?” He grumbles, and Kyungsoo’s tendency to tidy is kicked into overdrive when the short man, Baekhyun, begins to toss cans and spice bottles out from his basket. A bottle of cilantro flies over his shoulder, a can of broccoli to the left, the unending spurts of food , which Kyungsoo is beginning to see the pattern of the chucked food being of the green variety, continuing for a while as Baekhyun mumbles beneath his breath as to the uselessness of said food items.
Minseok’s face turns from a light shade of red to an unhealthy purplish hue before he explodes, and in a low, dangerous tone, questions, “And what pray tell is wrong with my additions to your food supply, they fulfill the basic nutrient requirement.” Baekhyun scoffs, before retorting, with a finger pushed to Minseok’s chest, “I’ll tell you what fulfills the basic food requirements-Meat! Potatoes! And beans!” Emphasizing each with a jab.
Their argument is suddenly, and Kyungsoo thinks, thankfully cut short by the blaring of an alarm. The previously melodious and cheeky voice has sombered, and is issusing orders for crew members to proceed to their stations are repeated. Kyungsoo follows a cluster of soldiers onto a platform, which begins to sink downwards into a bay area where everyone is in neat, organized rows. This makes Kyungsoo’s tidy tendencies curl into a soft, purring ball, awaiting their living arrangements.
He chances a look behind his line to find the man from earlier-Baekhyun-, this time wheeling a cart full of…of…explosives. He swallows audibly, when Kris had said demolitions expert, Kyungsoo had envisioned an operator of heavy trucks or tanks, and only now sees the err in his judgement.
He’d only have to keep hoping he wouldn’t be rooming with someone that bent on the destruction of the crew through both their bellies and blown apart body bits.
On his way to his room, he meets the Commander, whose face he had taken special care to commit to memory, for this would be the head of the military detail assigned to the expedition. The cherub-face commander smiles a charming smile and wordlessly hands Kyungsoo a hand-written note before continuing on.
Kyungsoo unfolds the note and sees a single line: Our lives are remembered by the gifts we leave our children. He knows beyond the shadow of doubt that it’s Kris. He tucks the note in the inner-pocket of his jacket, leaving with a heart heavy with the determination to do right by his grandfather and set on having an adventure of his own.
Kyungsoo steels himself before stepping into his shared quarters, but upon the seemingly empty sight that greets him, he lets his guard down, neatly draping his jacket on a coat rack in the corner of the room. He rests his head on his arms, against the pillow of one of the lower deck beds, listening to the voice of the radio operator, soothing in spite of the cynical remarks being made, announcing their descent into the depths of the ocean before dryly repeating something or other about a musical program, and complaining about who on earth wrote this. In the background of the broadcast, someone mutters something and the brief snatches of words barely audible over the microphone include dinosaur and singing cheekbones, whatever that meant.
Kyungsoo is startled and simultaneously annoyed by the appearance of a pupil magnified by a device. He swats at it amidst stop-its and that’s precious, eager to rest from the excitement of the day before a tall lanky figure drops from the bunk bed above and whispers, “You’ve disturbed the dirt,” by his ear. Kyungsoo cracks an eye open, deciding this stranger was not worth the trouble of getting out of bed for, when an intruding forceps pinches at his clothing and plucks something from it. The stranger, or rather creature Kyungsoo notes, with his wild head of crazy curls that bounce with his excited rant, begins an extremely detailed analysis of the miniscule sample of who-knows-what plucked from Kyungsoo. “From the soil-lives in Seoul, from the dust and parchment-works in a museum, and from the hair strands-lives alone in an apartment, aha!”
He exclaims, “Also, ink- occupation as a linguist!” Before bouncing around the cramped room. Kyungsoo resolutely keeps the stoic expression on his face but admits, not outloud mind you, that this stranger, who he suspects is Park Chanyeol from Kris’ breakdown of the crew, is quite good at what he does.
The sound of shoes against the floor signals the arrival of the third roommate, who goes in for a high-five with Chanyeol. He sternly, if not dazedly warns Chanyeol off annoying others, especially strangers and intruding upon their personal space. His gaze alights upon Kyungsoo and he introduces himself as Zhang Yixing. Kyungsoo does the same, shaking the hand offered to him. Yixing turns back to his bag, slowly retrieving and arranging a wide variety, and quite frankly--wickedly horrifyingly sharp array of surgical instruments on the limited space of a tiny desk.
Kyungsoo is slowly coming to the realization that the crew, the portion he’s met thus far at least, is an eclectic, horrifying bunch of individuals, who are somehow growing on him, like a fungus, and becoming strangely endearing.
Kyungsoo’s face burns up as he walks the hallways to the bridge, the radio operator overhead having made the announcement a while ago. Before casually mentioning that he had a picture of their new expedition member before proceeding to publicly describe Kyungsoo’s features while at it. “Wide eyes”, the voice had said, cheekily, “looks like an owl, pale as a sheet of paper with a perpetually surprised expression,” and then the radio operator said that one word. Cute.
Everyone Kyungsoo passes snickers, and he huffs. Finally, Kyungsoo arrives at the bridge, and is prepared to have a meltdown, when he catches sight of the view from the magnificent viewports, and sighs at the beauty of it all.
A throat clears from behind him and snapping Kyungsoo out of his daze and Commander Luhan asks for a presentation of the things Kyungsoo expects they’ll encounter. Kyungsoo slips on his professional façade and glasses, with one hand holding a sheaf of thick paper and the other a pointer, he begins.
His audience consists of the crew Kris had introduced to him, and his presentation covers the Before aspect of them arriving at Atlantis, beginning with a guardian of sorts. Kyungsoo begins his explanation to the sounds of a lanky kid chewing and blowing a bubblegum. The brat, Kyungsoo thinks. “So, the Leviathan is its name, and,” gesturing to its illustration on his paper, “it is rumored to be a lobster like creature that functions as the fearsome and deadly efficient guardian of the lost city.”
Here, a cheeky voice interrupts,--Jongdae-- if Kyungsoo’s memory served him right. “I would have that with white wine.” Turning to his right, Jongdae and Baekhyun fist-bump, imitating the clinking of wine glasses and doubling over in laughter.
Kyungsoo elects to ignore them and continues, “Multiple references have been made to it from a variety of historical texts and it is rumored to be able to spit fire from its mouth…” At the disbelieving looks from the crew, he corrects, “but they’re most likely only rumors, and the guardian is probably just an extremely well-made statue.”
Commander Luhan considers this, and asks, “Do we have to dig?” Kyungsoo hurries to correct the misconception, using the back of a piece of paper to illustrate his point, “No, according to The Fieldguide, when we find the guardian, the Path to Atlantis will be a tunnel at the depths of the ocean and curve into an air pocket where an ancient highway leads to Atlantis.” The mention of dig makes Chanyeol pop up, whining about the lack of digging to Minseok, before Minseok flicks his ear, hard and pouting and sulking about, looking every bit an abandoned puppy.
As Luhan makes to dismiss them but an alarm blares, Kyungsoo wonders if alarms are that common an occurrence on expeditions, and it must have been a specific alarm as Jongdae is the one hurrying to his station. A crew member calls for Luhan’s attention and the urgency in his voice draws everyone’s attention.
The crew member directs the Swordfish’s headlights downwards, and the sight of a graveyard of the nautical kind greets them. The multitudes of wrecks are covered in a thick layer of algae, and in the glow of the headlights, it looks eerie and ominously beckoning.
Jongdae’s voice comes over the speakers sounding strangely disembodied, as though he were in a trance, requesting Commander Luhan’s and Lieutenant Minseok’s presence at his station.
Luhan arrives to find Jongdae with a hand pressed against his headphones, and a disturbed expression gracing his face. Jongdae wordlessly connects the audio to the microphone and the entire crew is treated to an eerie echoing, explaining that the input was from the hydrophone. The eerie echoing takes a sinister turn when a series of groans join the symphony. “Could be the echoing of whales bouncing off the ship graveyard.” Minseok theorizes, reaching over to the dials at Jongdae’s station, and adjusting a few.
Jongdae’s response is a bone dry, “Do you want to do my job?” Before shooting down Minseok’s theory, explaining, “No, whatever it is, it sounds mechanical.” Over the speakers, Commander Luhan speaks, issuing a quick series of commands, “Helmsman, begin immediately the search for a tunnel! Bring us deep-!” The violent tumbling of The Swordfish throws everyone off their feet, hurtling towards the ground, and the furious blaring of the alarm begins.
Orders are now barked out, Lieutenant Minseok and Commander Luhan having made their way back to the bridge ordering for “The immediate return of all crew members to their battlestations!” His order is obeyed with great efficiency, the mass hurried movement of the members are a nest of red ants threatened and gearing up for a counter-attack.
Jongdae and Baekhyun load into a pod with a portion of the crew, just as the Swordfish is given another violent tumbling. Kyungsoo, who is still on the bridge is flung sideways into one of the viewing ports. Curled up, he cradles his right arm, its impact against the reinforced glass no soft one. As he braces himself against the pain, he notices the glowing red of a something lighting up the glass beneath him.
With a groan, he sits up and gazes into the single blood-red eye of what he is sure is the Leviathan.
Oh my god, he thinks, the Leviathan is real, and it’s a machine.
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Outside, the Leviathan holds the Swordfish in its claw as though it were a chewtoy. Somewhere in the hydraulics chambers in the bottom of the Swordfish, Sehun is making good use of his long and lanky limbs, sprinting through a narrow hallway that is filling with water at an alarming rate, and upon reaching its end, he turns a gear triggering the closure of said narrow hallway, with two crew members narrowly making it through.
The pods launch outside the Swordfish with a whoosh, and jet easily through the waters, in attack formation before breaking off to launch torpedoes, each maneuvering expertly out of the Leviathan’s reach.
The Swordfish too, begins her counterattack, firing a rapid series of torpedoes. In the ensuing bubbles, everyone waits with a bated breath.
The Leviathan comes roaring back with a vengeance, firing a beam at the Swordfish and the damage is irreparable. Sehun finds this out as the heat burns up the hydraulics room and screws are forced out by the heat intensity and begin their assault at him. He escapes through a ladder, just barely.
Between heaving pants, Sehun orders, “Contact the bridge!” To the crew members. Speaking into the phone, Sehun reports, “Damage to the hydraulics chamber and incoming into the boiler room!” “How long more?” Luhan snaps back. “Twenty,” Sehun begins to say, but an ominous clanking makes itself heard, and Sehun hesitates, “Make that 5! Tops!”
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The crew members hustle themselves to get to escape pods pre-loaded with their vehicular and necessary equipment, in case of emergency, which this is, Kyungsoo thinks to himself as he too is swept along in the tide of people. They face several obstacles, namely a suspended bridge that Kyungsoo is certain will not stay suspended for long, and a series of open doors that are difficult, to say the least, to get through amidst the violent rocking of The Swordfish. Most make it safely, with Minseok bossing, “Some time today would be nice!” Before he too jumps into an escape pod. Chanyeol, Commander Luhan and Sehun manage to make it in moments before their departure.
All the escape pods make it out just in the nick of time, just as The Leviathan fires a beam that does The Swordfish in.
The life of The Swordfish has just ended, but the desperate chase for their lives has just begun.
Mechanic it may be, but The Leviathan displayed great maneuverability in its ability to turn corners and make swift dives. The only upper hand the escape pods had over it were their size and thus speed. They milk it for all its worth and pushes the escape pods to their limits.
The Leviathan gets one pod with its claws, and another with its beam that causes a collision with yet another, as they desperately look for the crevice leading into the tunnel. Lips pressed so thinly they disappeared, heads angled upward and hands clasped together were the uniform look of all in Kyungsoo’s escape pod, praying for some god, any god.
The Leviathan still giving chase, Minseok now serving as their helmsman bumps them into the rock walls of the tunnel around them in attempts to escape The Leviathan’s beams, Jongdae and Baekhyun’s other escape pod following them closely. After a series of harrowing escapes, both enter a narrow tunnel before both escape pods break the surface of the water in the air pocket. The Leviathan had been too large to fit through the last stretch of the tunnel, and had turned around.
They had barely escaped with their lives intact, held together by pure hope and desperation. But made it they had.
Commander Luhan lets a single white paper flower adrift in the water of the airpocket, and it joins the multitudes of its kin drifting about. “We began with 200 of the finest men and women,’ he sighs, and the sorrow in his eyes is a heartwrenching, “and now we’re all that’s left.”
“As such, we dedicate the success of the expedition to them, they who have bravely given up their lives for it.” Luhan salutes, and bows a ninety degree bow, his show of appreciation.
It leaves Kyungsoo with a sour taste in his mouth, and the weight of the lives lost resting upon his weary, narrow shoulders. All because he’d said it was a state, a myth, a rumor.
As the crew set up their vehicles and equipment, unloading them from their escape pods, they make their way across the rocky landscape. The rumble and shaking motion of the trucks is all Kyungsoo remembers, caught up in his calculations, checking, re-checking them, his heart heavy in his chest. He does know that they make their way across a narrow cliff face, and have to be lowered via a pulley system at one point, but everything else passes as a blur, amidst numbers and directions swimming about in Kyungsoo’s head.
Unbeknownst to them, masked figures stealthily make their way across the landscape, following at a safe distance, careful not to be heard or seen.
At one of their rest-stops, Kyungsoo uncaps a canteen he had been offered by Jongdae, chugging down its contents in a single gulp, the dry air in the tunnels having seeped the moisture from his very pores. Baekhyun stops in the carting of his explosives, and stares at Kyungsoo, his jaw dropping as he exclaims, “You didn’t drink that did you? That was Nitroglycerin!” Baekhyun stops, and holds up his hands, “Okay, don’t move.” Kyungsoo holds his breath in his mouth, still as a statue in a museum.
Jongdae jumps up from behind Kyungsoo, yelling and laughing simultaneously, an ugly combination. He shares a laugh and an enthusiastic high-five with Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo experiences confusion momentarily before he understands, raining a barrage of hits against them as they run away, shrieking like the babies they are.
The days too passed, their progress across the terrain is a significant one. Then they encounter The Pillar. Towering over a gaping portion of cliff, he only has a moment to admire it before Baekhyun sets the charges, no small amount, and detonates it, forming the bridge to cross from one side of the cliff to another.
In the wake of the explosion, Baekhyun turns around, throwing his arms out and bowing as though he’d performed a gymnastic feat of sorts.
The masked figures skip their way past, and one masked figure in particular stops and shakes its head at the damage, before moving forward to re-join its companions.
It’s not long before they encounter another obstacle, this time in the form of a large round structure buried deep in the ground. They all file out of their vehicles and size up the obstacle, Commander Luhan turning to Baekhyun and discussing their solutions in low tones, before Luhan sighs, and announces, “It’s time to dig!”
The gleam in Chanyeol’s eyes goes from manic to positively crazed.
They make it through successfully to the other side, and decide to set up camp for the night in a cave lit by a phosphorus structure on the ceiling, casting a bright green glow about.
Gathered around the campfire are the crew, minus one Do Kyungsoo, who as usual is off to the sidelines up to his neck in calculations and directions.
Their first day truly as a team begins the moment Jongdae, with a jerky head motion, gestures towards the lone figure of Do Kyungsoo and says “Don’t you think he’s been too hard on himself?” The rest of the crew looks down guiltily, they had noticed it, but they just hadn’t done anything about it.
Jongdae calls Kyungsoo over, just as Baekhyun finishes his meal preparation, dancing over to Yixing with a cauldron in his arms. He plops a hearty amount of what can only be described as sludge down onto Yixing’s tray, before moving on to Sehun and repeating the same. Before long, everyone is wearing the same disgusted expression, save for Yixing and Chanyeol, the former of which is absentmindedly scooping up each spoonful while the latter is positively shoveling it down, earning him judging looks.
As soon as Baekhyun’s back is turned, the decision to toss the food into the fire is a unanimous one, and the combined toxicity of the sludge makes the fire spark before dying. Kyungsoo swears he hears a I’m so sorry Baekhyun you know I love you right coming from Jongdae’s direction as the food heads for its fiery death.
Baekhyun returns from his cauldron washing and his question of “Done so soon?” is met with large, overdramatic smiles all around. He too beams and takes another dramatic bow.
They linger around the fire, and Sehun snarks, “Don’t you ever consider putting that Fieldguide down?” To which Kyungsoo sighs a world weary sigh, and explains “I would, but there are things inside that don’t add up, it’s…it’s” he hesitates, “it’s almost as though its missing a page.”
Chanyeol, words garbled around his mouthful of horrendous sludge says “Relax, we don’t get paid for overtime work.” Kyungsoo looks around the campfire for the general consensus, and if the nodding is anything to go by, it is in agreement with Chanyeol’s words. Huh, Kyungsoo thinks.
As they pitch their tents, ready to settle in for the day, Kyungsoo rolls his head about his shoulder, trying to rid the knot that has built up over the days, lodged tight and painful. Yixing happens to pass by tent materials in his arms, and seeing the problem, he pushes his thumb into the problem area, rubbing and kneading till the knot unravels.
Kyungsoo turns around, gratitude twinkling in his dark eyes, as he thanks Yixing, and enquires “Where did you learn that from?” Yixing rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, and replies “From the medicine men of the Tibet mountain.” The no-ways are echoed throughout camp, everyone wanting to know more about Yixing’s story. Yixing, in an attempt to placate everyone, tugs a necklace out, and points to a tooth, “Yes way, this is a tooth from a bear.” Amidst the how’s, Yixing states matter-of-factly, “My father settled down in the Tibetean territories after he met my mother, I followed him on some of his jobs as bringing eager visitors about, and the hunters would sometimes bring back mementos of their kills, and one gave this to me.” Yixing leisurely makes his way back to his claimed spot, leaving everyone in awe.
Yixing’s sharing opens up the crew to speaking of their own pasts. Sehun speaks of an older sister embroiled in the dangerous world of boxing, and of how his current job had been a gift from a strict and precise father who had loved him and his sister. Kyungsoo, feeling generous shares briefly about his grandfather and his dorkiness, of his passion for Atlantis. Jongdae and Baekhyun stare lovingly into each other’s eyes, which speaks a story of its own. (Chanyeol’s story however is skillfully avoided by Baekhyun breaking his stare with Jongdae to interject a “You don’t want to know.” Advice everyone heeds)
Everyone speaks wistfully of the pasts, and falls into the warm, sleepy embrace of sleep, and blanketed in the feeling of family.
Kyungsoo wakes to a flaming campsite, set alight by fireflies that were, from the looks of it, quite literally, fire flies. The campsite erupts into chaos as everyone descends into panic, and rushes to salvage what they can, loading them into their vehicles.
The vehicles pile onto the rock bridge to get to a safer side, but in a dastard turn of events, the bridge is unable to support the weight of 2 trucks and a drill.
They go crashing down.
Commander Luhan calls for a damage report, and most reply affirmative, dusting themselves off and checking for injuries. Lieutenant Minseok, in an attempt to determine their depth, fires flare gun upward, only to find that there was no end. Chanyeol sweeps his finger through the dust of the surroundings they have just found themselves in, and licks it. “Solified magma of a dormant volcano, soft enough that it cushioned our fall,” he analyses, tongue as an efficient tool as any lab equipment.
Luhan calls out for Kyungsoo, asking for his suggestion and is met with silence. “Kyungsoo?” the crew murmur.
Kyungsoo comes to, waking to a titter of foreign language and figures in strange long masks covering not only their faces but bodies as well, reminding him of the totem poles of Native America. The sting of an open wound in his hairline makes him groan, and as he probes the area, he finds a raised jagged open monstrosity that makes his fingers pull away bloodied.
The vulnerable sight prompts the masked figure in front of him to pull off their mask. Kyungsoo is stunned by the sight of an extremely pleasing young man beneath, all tanned skin and platinum blond hair, eyes brimming with a multitude of questions and curiosity swimming deep. The icy-blue markings beneath his eyes resembling the chinese character for two; with the upper line curving upward. A large expanse of skin is on display, the man is topless, a royal blue pair of pants on his lower half.
The male lifts the crystal around his neck, seemingly to bring light to his inspection of the wound, but proceeds to press his hand, now the icy blue of his markings, to Kyungsoo’s wound leaving a glowing imprint behind. Kyungsoo stares up at him with wide eyes, for when he pulls away, there is nothing in its wake, no blood and definitely no torn-open wound.
The daze Kyungsoo is in is quite thoroughly broken when the sound of the drill going through the stone walls and the crew’s vehicles emerge from the rubble. Startled and unwilling to be discovered, the masked figures leap nimbly from one rock structure to another, and Kyungsoo soon finds out that the struggle to keep up is real as he stumbles after them, and in turn the vehicles after him.
Kyungsoo arrives at a narrow crevice, where he’d seen the masked figures disappear through, and pauses only briefly before squeezing through. To his surprise, he lands not in another rocky patch, but instead in lush grass.
The vehicle behind bursts through and soon the rest of the crew is looking on in awe. Kyungsoo’s whisper of “Atlantis” may have been silent but amidst the stunned, speechless state of the crew, it echoed and felt more like an announcement.
They had arrived in the fabled land.
part ii
Title: a dark world aches for a splash of the sun
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Side-Pairings: Xiuhan, Baekchen and slight!Taohun
Length: 12,770
Summary: Kyungsoo is offered a chance to be lead linguist on an expedition to Atlantis, away from his boring, monotonous life, and discovers that in the years that had gone by ( a thousand to be exact), Atlantis had thrived, and so did its heir.
Notes: I apologize to the recipient for the complete and utter lack of NC-17, I didn’t know where to slip it in (ohmygod, inappropriate and immature innuendo much) and thanks so much for kx and日天, you know who you are, also I apologise as the second part is unbeta-ed.
A wave is coming.
Soldiers loaded into the flying vehicles strain to make the devices go faster, to beat the wave. Shouting ensues as they try to make themselves heard over the gaining of the thundering wave. “We have to warn Atlantis,” is the common sentiment amidst all the chaos.
A wave is coming.
The wave takes down one, two, and then half the fleet of ships before easily conquering the structures further out of the city centre. The vehicles that manage a temporary lead over the wave make a series of sharp turns and steep dips over valleys and structures before arriving at the city centre.
A wave is coming.
The red crystal that floats atop the tallest structure identifies and permits entry to the floating vehicles. As the first of the guards manning the city’s outermost tower posts spots the towering wave, the evacuation announcement is quickly made, with “Everyone get to the shelters!” resounding and looping ominously, merging with the sound of the large bell structures being struck.
A wave is coming.
Chaos erupts in the innermost city, people running for shelter, children being forcefully dragged as toys are left behind.
A wave is coming.
One child in particular presents an extreme reluctance against this, tugging as hard as possible to get to his toy, even as a soldier cries out desperately to his father, “This way your highness. Quickly!” As the royal family begins to flee in earnest, against the will of the young boy, the mother pauses for a quick moment and brings herself to the child’s eye level. Desperate to convey the urgency of the situation, she looks into the eyes of her child, even as his own gaze is over her shoulder at his toy. “Jongin! Just leave it! There’s no time!” She exclaims in her native tongue.
A wave is coming.
The light that bathes them from above is a frosty blue as it falls upon their tan features, and Jongin’s mother fluidly stands and turns up towards it, eyes drawn to it, as is the crystal suspended around her neck, now also exhibiting an almost magnetic attraction to the blue glow.
A wave is coming.
The patriarch of the family looks back and is horrified at the sight that meets his eyes, his wife whose pupils are now the same frosty blue glow that bathes his family seemingly in a trance, and his Jongin is frantic and panicked, hand still encased in the hold of his mother’s.
A wave is coming.
Jongin looks up at his mother when all the blue beams alight at a single point above his mother and pulses once. Before he knows it, his mother is being lifted above the ground and the hold of the hand that was just around his is slackened, except for the fingers still tensed around a bracelet slipped from his hand.
A wave is coming.
A single heart-breaking cry of “Mother!” as Jongin reaches his chubby arms out in a desperate attempt at grasping for his mother. Tears streaming down his face as he curls into a ball following the loss of his mother.
A wave is coming.
The King rushes to his son, hugging him to his chest and burying the child’s face in his neck, all the while murmuring in a broken voice, “Look away, child, look away.”
A wave is coming.
Pulsing blue panels of energy lower into place around the little portion of the city left to salvage, as confused citizens thump their fists against said panels of energy to no avail.
A wave has arrived.
The pulsing blue panels continue to ripple outward with every pulse, spreading outward into a shield. As the outward rippling of one panel meets another, they fuse and form a single large area of energy.
A wave has come.
As the wave continues to devastate and rage, the last of the rippling energy fuses, completing the shield, the city sinks downwards into itself.
The wave sweeps over everything, encompassing all, and in its wake the wave is now an ocean.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Seoul, Korea, 1948.
Do Kyungsoo’s existence is a lonely one, and is for all sakes and purposes, quite literally just an existence. Sure, he loves what he does, for his is the study of small and seemingly insignificant words and the way they come together to form towering castles of language that people become so heavily dependent that they are unable to divorce their lives from.
Essentially, the unraveling of tongues and their nature.
He lives, breathes and eats his craft. His job as a linguist consumes his life, but...
Kyungsoo isn’t quite sure how he ended up here, feeling this way, leading this sad, lonely life. He remembers how he used to feel about his craft, how he had loved it deeply, how he was so certain about it, and now all he does is ache for adventure, and be as lost as some of the languages he unravels. The ache is a bone-deep one, one that steals his breath away at times when the monotony becomes too much.
And honestly it makes him want to scream.
But alas, screaming is not behavior befitting of a linguist in so quiet an environment of a museum, so he doesn’t.
Instead, he patiently waits. (For what, he does not know. Yet, he corrects, does not know yet.)
The shrill tone of the phone echoes loudly in the bar, startling Kyungsoo out of his haze, and the bartender, a large man with shoulders the size of barrels, lumbers over, eager to put an end to the annoying shrieking.
Kyungsoo fixes his attention back onto the glass of amber coloured fluid he is nursing, and sighs a sigh so weary that it adds to the haze in his mind. Today had been bad, or rather, a bad that was simply worse than that of the usual, he muses. He tips back the glass and savours the burn of the scotch down his throat, all the while trying to convince himself that the burn of saline fluid in his eyes is also a by-product of his chosen poison.
For it had transpired that earlier today the board of directors had moved the timeslot of his presentation without informing him. And when he did finally get notice, he’d been late, and not just regular late late, which was by his watch 5 minutes. No, he thinks, this had been a case of So Late It’s Almost Laughable. Kyungsoo knows, knows the opportunity is slipping through his hands so easily that he might as well have been trying to hold water in his palm, but he has to try though, and he gathers his things hurriedly, sprinting to the best of his ability to the venue. He doesn’t manage to catch the members of the board but he had been in time enough to catch the Head of the Board. Kyungsoo tries to bring the stern looking gentleman around to his way of thinking, injecting as much enthusiasm and passion as he can in the face of the man’s growing boredom and displeasure. Needless to say it isn’t long before Kyungsoo sees the snap in the man’s fraying threads of temper. The man lashes out, his face an ugly shade of puce and his moustache twitching every few moments, and throws Kyungsoo’s grandfather’s brilliance in his face, and proclaims loudly that they both suffered the same flaw, “This…this obsession! Yes, obsession. With Atlantis!” Before settling into his getaway vehicle and zooming off as though he hadn’t just crushed Kyungsoo’s world and heart beneath his shiny, leather fitted shoes. Kyungsoo wilts and resumes his job by slinking back to his office, to the life he knows is killing him or perhaps, has killed him.
He is made aware of the lull in the phone conversation of the bartender by the snapping of fingers he swears wasn’t there before. Kyungsoo looks away from his drink for a moment to see the bartender who appears to have been trying to get his attention for a while. The bartender gestures towards the phone and mumbles, “ ‘S one’s for you.” before going back to circling the inside of shot glasses with his dish cloth.
As Kyungsoo stands, vertigo hits him with what feels like an audible whoosh, and he stumbles for a moment before clumsily making his way to the phone, one foot placed carelessly before the other.
The husky, low tones of the person on the other end wash over him for a moment, before he collects himself, and manages an oh-so-elegant “Huh?” Wow, he thinks to himself, good job Kyungsoo, good to see all those years of studying languages doing you good. The person on the end of the line sighs, a weary one, before deigning to repeat himself, “A black limo is waiting by the curb outside the club you’re wasting your life away in, unslump yourself and get the hell in it.” And then silence.
Kyungsoo pulls the device away and stares at it long and hard, going slightly cross-eyed in his drunken state. Okay, he thinks to himself, okay, before setting the phone down on its cradle.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Kyungsoo isn’t quite certain what part of his brain has been impaired by the whiskey but if there was to be at least one thing he was quite certain about, it was that whichever part of it was affected, had been severely addled. The biting chill of the winter wind gusting delivers a kick of sorts, and his whiskey-addled mind is dealt a sobering blow, sobering enough that he isn’t seeing double anymore. Instead, what he does see is a luxurious stretch of limousine, sitting by the curb as promised, in all its sleek curves and elegant black coat.
The man seated within seemed worthy of the sophisticated air the limo embodied, a hint of chubbiness to his cheeks and almond-shaped eyes, which were currently narrowed in a pointed fashion at Kyungsoo, jerking his head sharply in the direction of the car, extending a clear invitation (that seemed to Kyungsoo more like a demand).
This time, Kyungsoo only stumbles slightly before entering the vehicle as smoothly as he can manage, but he thinks he fares okay, he thinks. The man only raises a brow at him, before introducing himself “Kim Minseok, acting on behalf of my employer,” he says politely, before dropping his voice into a seductive drawl, “who has an interesting…proposition for you.” The man, Minseok, leans forward and pins him with a look, one promising secrets, and secrets in abundance. “Interested?”
The limo rolls through the towering iron wrought gates, and pulls to a smooth stop by the sheltered steps leading to the door of a sprawling mansion. Minseok leads him through a grand hall, up a spiral staircase, through a narrow hallway and into an elevator cage, boarding it with Kyungsoo and hitting the button for the basement. He takes the time to fix the finer details of Kyungsoo’s suit, straightening out the creases in his collar and dress shirt, ordering him to tuck the ends into his pants.
All the while, Minseok walks Kyungsoo through the do’s and don’ts, some of which include: Do address him as Mr Wu or Sir, Do keep sentences short and to the point, and Kyungsoo’s personal favourite, Don’t sit unless you are expressly told to do so. Needless to say, Kyungsoo begins to sweat a little as his mind runs quickly through the ways he could screw all, and compulsively goes over what he’s just been told.
He doesn’t get much of a opportunity to do so though, as the elevator dings and he is deposited from it by Minseok, who as the elevator begins making its way back up, smirks and says rather cheekily, “He doesn’t bite though.” He pauses for a bit, contemplating before the smile becomes positively devilish and continues, “Not much at least.” Then he’s gone.
Kyungsoo gulps, and collects himself, wanting to make a good impression on his prospective employer. The linguist studies his surroundings, only realizing the extent of his prospective employer’s wealth in the glossy glassed-in aquarium, housing an entire marine ecosystem. Kyungsoo gapes for a moment, before he remembers the resemblance between him and the fishes. Not to mention unattractive and schools the expression upon his face is a neutral, stoic one.
The room is a dark one, and feels almost ominous as he begins his search for his employer, prospective, he reminds himself, in earnest. Only to be startled by teeth, and what looked like an extremely gummy smile that he had to crane his head to catch a glimpse of, Kyungsoo flinches away, quickly and violently, damning his poor life decisions.
The owner of said gummy smile had just now become the owner of the eyebrows drawn in and lips tugged downward expression. Here, Kyungsoo panics and tries desperately to rectify the situation, reaching out to grasp the wrinkled, gnarly hand of the upset old man and deliver a firm shake, introducing himself and smiling his heart-shaped smile.
It does the trick for the most part, as the gummy smile makes its way back on the elderly man’s face.
“How ‘bout an adventure then, son?” Mr Wu smirks.
How about one indeed, Kyungsoo thinks.
As it turns out Mr Wu is actually Kris Wu, eccentric billionaire and best friend of Kyungsoo’s grandfather, Do Junmyeon. Kris hands over the single most important artifact for any Atlantean expedition-The Fieldguide- with a flourish, presenting it to Kyungsoo as his birthright. Kyungsoo learns the tale of his grandfather’s own adventure, one of endurance and camaraderie in the quest for The Fieldguide. It is when Kris cradles a sepia photograph with all the care one would take with an ancient, barely there heart, standing against the backdrop of the bright blaze of the fireplace and symphony of firewood crackling, and traces a finger over the curve of Joonmyeon’s jaw that Kyungsoo begins to feel that he has missed something, something of grave importance.
The trace of a single tear down the plane of Kris’ time-weathered cheek confirms this. The moment may have been quiet but within the silence lay the shared memories of Junmyeon, of how he loved and was loved.
“So,“ The hoarseness of Kris’ voice startles Kyungsoo, “I’ve got a capable crew assembled and as for transportation…” Kris pauses for dramatic effect, “Meet the Swordfish.”
The magnificence of the submarine is evident even existing as a model on Kris’ mahogany desk, no less gleaming or brilliant than the wood it rested upon. The Swordfish was indeed an apt name, shaped like a sword, its design intended to slice through water with the ease of hot knife through butter. A viewing port on each side of the blade, large enough to observe their surroundings while travelling. Kyungsoo feels anxiety bubbling at the very thought of what it would mean to be in such a magnificent structure, the adventure that it would entail.
Kyungsoo flounders for a moment, feeling the reality of Kris’ offer sinking in as he too sinks into a plush velvet chair. Kris seems to sense his apprehension before reassuring him, his time-worn hand over Kyungsoo’s shoulder and in a deep voice says, “We’ve made the necessary arrangements, everything from the nitty gritty of your work to the more personal aspects of your life,” Kris heaves a sigh, “you needn’t worry, boy.”
So Kyungsoo doesn’t. Instead, he inquires about the crew assembled for the expedition, and Kris spreads a sheaf of papers over the expanse of his desk, breaking it down:
Park Chan”mole” whose real name was Chanyeol, who would be their geologist or dirt man as Kris had put it;
Byun Baek-me-a-cake Baekhyun, who would double as both their demolitions expert and cook (it’s a strange combination that makes Kyungsoo fear for his life);
Oh Machine-hun Sehun, who in spite of his tender age would serve as their chief mechanic;
Zhang Yixing “Healing Unicorn” (Kyungsoo keeps it to a need-to-know basis, and this was most definitely a need-to-know eccentricity), who looked dazed, but according to Kris would serve as their physician;
Kim Jongdae, (Kyungsoo heaves a sigh because this individual does not have a horrifying nickname and that makes him trust this stranger) their radio operator;
Luhan, whose baby-faced look was a guise for the fierce and capable commander that he was
And finally,
Kim Minseok, the second-in-command who had brought him to Kris and gave Kyungsoo the goosebumps
Kris adds with a measure of pride in his voice, “This was the very same team that brought back The Fieldguide.” The minus-your-grandfather bit hung in the air and for a moment, as brief as that moment lasted, Kyungsoo believes that Kris in all his glorious height and eccentricities might sob, but it is a moment that never comes.
Instead, Kris bestows the honour of playing the most important role of the expedition: its linguist upon Kyungsoo and Kyungsoo wears the honour like a badge, gleaming, gleaming gold.
The loud blare of a horn interrupts the crashing of waves against The Swordfish, the accompanying harmony to Kyungsoo’s upchucking, the result of the terrifying rocking motion that Kyungsoo learns even the most magnificent of ships is not immune to. Kyungsoo finds out that even being immaculately dressed doesn’t help one bit in shielding him from the horrifying effects of seasickness.
He quickly makes his way in to the bridge, eager to look out at the aquatic world through the large viewports. A melodious, cheeky voice announces over the speakers praying for the safety of the crew being fed by Byun’s “healthy food diet”, before the loud thwack of a rolled newspaper colliding with a bare and vulnerable forehead. Kyungsoo regards his surroundings with awe, wondering at the massive size of crew required to ensure the smooth running of things. Something that wasn’t visible from the smooth, calm exterior of the flawless Swordfish.
He sees the back of a forest green military coat, and figuring it belongs to someone of authority, requests for directions to the bridge. The person turns, and surprise overwhelms him, even with prior knowledge that Kim Minseok was second-in-command, Kyungsoo starts at the intimidatingly sharp image Minseok cuts in military wear, especially how ready he appears to be to kill, maim or injure.
“I’m gonna seok your bones in soup to make a broth, Kim Minseok!” Someone threatens, his voice shaky and anger-riddled. Kyungsoo spies a man barely taller than himself stalking over, a basket in his arms and shaking with fury. Minseok, Lieutenant, Kyungsoo corrects himself, rolls his eyes so forcefully Kyungsoo worries for their structural integrity, before turning around to deal with the menace. “What now, Baekhyun?” He grumbles, and Kyungsoo’s tendency to tidy is kicked into overdrive when the short man, Baekhyun, begins to toss cans and spice bottles out from his basket. A bottle of cilantro flies over his shoulder, a can of broccoli to the left, the unending spurts of food , which Kyungsoo is beginning to see the pattern of the chucked food being of the green variety, continuing for a while as Baekhyun mumbles beneath his breath as to the uselessness of said food items.
Minseok’s face turns from a light shade of red to an unhealthy purplish hue before he explodes, and in a low, dangerous tone, questions, “And what pray tell is wrong with my additions to your food supply, they fulfill the basic nutrient requirement.” Baekhyun scoffs, before retorting, with a finger pushed to Minseok’s chest, “I’ll tell you what fulfills the basic food requirements-Meat! Potatoes! And beans!” Emphasizing each with a jab.
Their argument is suddenly, and Kyungsoo thinks, thankfully cut short by the blaring of an alarm. The previously melodious and cheeky voice has sombered, and is issusing orders for crew members to proceed to their stations are repeated. Kyungsoo follows a cluster of soldiers onto a platform, which begins to sink downwards into a bay area where everyone is in neat, organized rows. This makes Kyungsoo’s tidy tendencies curl into a soft, purring ball, awaiting their living arrangements.
He chances a look behind his line to find the man from earlier-Baekhyun-, this time wheeling a cart full of…of…explosives. He swallows audibly, when Kris had said demolitions expert, Kyungsoo had envisioned an operator of heavy trucks or tanks, and only now sees the err in his judgement.
He’d only have to keep hoping he wouldn’t be rooming with someone that bent on the destruction of the crew through both their bellies and blown apart body bits.
On his way to his room, he meets the Commander, whose face he had taken special care to commit to memory, for this would be the head of the military detail assigned to the expedition. The cherub-face commander smiles a charming smile and wordlessly hands Kyungsoo a hand-written note before continuing on.
Kyungsoo unfolds the note and sees a single line: Our lives are remembered by the gifts we leave our children. He knows beyond the shadow of doubt that it’s Kris. He tucks the note in the inner-pocket of his jacket, leaving with a heart heavy with the determination to do right by his grandfather and set on having an adventure of his own.
Kyungsoo steels himself before stepping into his shared quarters, but upon the seemingly empty sight that greets him, he lets his guard down, neatly draping his jacket on a coat rack in the corner of the room. He rests his head on his arms, against the pillow of one of the lower deck beds, listening to the voice of the radio operator, soothing in spite of the cynical remarks being made, announcing their descent into the depths of the ocean before dryly repeating something or other about a musical program, and complaining about who on earth wrote this. In the background of the broadcast, someone mutters something and the brief snatches of words barely audible over the microphone include dinosaur and singing cheekbones, whatever that meant.
Kyungsoo is startled and simultaneously annoyed by the appearance of a pupil magnified by a device. He swats at it amidst stop-its and that’s precious, eager to rest from the excitement of the day before a tall lanky figure drops from the bunk bed above and whispers, “You’ve disturbed the dirt,” by his ear. Kyungsoo cracks an eye open, deciding this stranger was not worth the trouble of getting out of bed for, when an intruding forceps pinches at his clothing and plucks something from it. The stranger, or rather creature Kyungsoo notes, with his wild head of crazy curls that bounce with his excited rant, begins an extremely detailed analysis of the miniscule sample of who-knows-what plucked from Kyungsoo. “From the soil-lives in Seoul, from the dust and parchment-works in a museum, and from the hair strands-lives alone in an apartment, aha!”
He exclaims, “Also, ink- occupation as a linguist!” Before bouncing around the cramped room. Kyungsoo resolutely keeps the stoic expression on his face but admits, not outloud mind you, that this stranger, who he suspects is Park Chanyeol from Kris’ breakdown of the crew, is quite good at what he does.
The sound of shoes against the floor signals the arrival of the third roommate, who goes in for a high-five with Chanyeol. He sternly, if not dazedly warns Chanyeol off annoying others, especially strangers and intruding upon their personal space. His gaze alights upon Kyungsoo and he introduces himself as Zhang Yixing. Kyungsoo does the same, shaking the hand offered to him. Yixing turns back to his bag, slowly retrieving and arranging a wide variety, and quite frankly--wickedly horrifyingly sharp array of surgical instruments on the limited space of a tiny desk.
Kyungsoo is slowly coming to the realization that the crew, the portion he’s met thus far at least, is an eclectic, horrifying bunch of individuals, who are somehow growing on him, like a fungus, and becoming strangely endearing.
Kyungsoo’s face burns up as he walks the hallways to the bridge, the radio operator overhead having made the announcement a while ago. Before casually mentioning that he had a picture of their new expedition member before proceeding to publicly describe Kyungsoo’s features while at it. “Wide eyes”, the voice had said, cheekily, “looks like an owl, pale as a sheet of paper with a perpetually surprised expression,” and then the radio operator said that one word. Cute.
Everyone Kyungsoo passes snickers, and he huffs. Finally, Kyungsoo arrives at the bridge, and is prepared to have a meltdown, when he catches sight of the view from the magnificent viewports, and sighs at the beauty of it all.
A throat clears from behind him and snapping Kyungsoo out of his daze and Commander Luhan asks for a presentation of the things Kyungsoo expects they’ll encounter. Kyungsoo slips on his professional façade and glasses, with one hand holding a sheaf of thick paper and the other a pointer, he begins.
His audience consists of the crew Kris had introduced to him, and his presentation covers the Before aspect of them arriving at Atlantis, beginning with a guardian of sorts. Kyungsoo begins his explanation to the sounds of a lanky kid chewing and blowing a bubblegum. The brat, Kyungsoo thinks. “So, the Leviathan is its name, and,” gesturing to its illustration on his paper, “it is rumored to be a lobster like creature that functions as the fearsome and deadly efficient guardian of the lost city.”
Here, a cheeky voice interrupts,--Jongdae-- if Kyungsoo’s memory served him right. “I would have that with white wine.” Turning to his right, Jongdae and Baekhyun fist-bump, imitating the clinking of wine glasses and doubling over in laughter.
Kyungsoo elects to ignore them and continues, “Multiple references have been made to it from a variety of historical texts and it is rumored to be able to spit fire from its mouth…” At the disbelieving looks from the crew, he corrects, “but they’re most likely only rumors, and the guardian is probably just an extremely well-made statue.”
Commander Luhan considers this, and asks, “Do we have to dig?” Kyungsoo hurries to correct the misconception, using the back of a piece of paper to illustrate his point, “No, according to The Fieldguide, when we find the guardian, the Path to Atlantis will be a tunnel at the depths of the ocean and curve into an air pocket where an ancient highway leads to Atlantis.” The mention of dig makes Chanyeol pop up, whining about the lack of digging to Minseok, before Minseok flicks his ear, hard and pouting and sulking about, looking every bit an abandoned puppy.
As Luhan makes to dismiss them but an alarm blares, Kyungsoo wonders if alarms are that common an occurrence on expeditions, and it must have been a specific alarm as Jongdae is the one hurrying to his station. A crew member calls for Luhan’s attention and the urgency in his voice draws everyone’s attention.
The crew member directs the Swordfish’s headlights downwards, and the sight of a graveyard of the nautical kind greets them. The multitudes of wrecks are covered in a thick layer of algae, and in the glow of the headlights, it looks eerie and ominously beckoning.
Jongdae’s voice comes over the speakers sounding strangely disembodied, as though he were in a trance, requesting Commander Luhan’s and Lieutenant Minseok’s presence at his station.
Luhan arrives to find Jongdae with a hand pressed against his headphones, and a disturbed expression gracing his face. Jongdae wordlessly connects the audio to the microphone and the entire crew is treated to an eerie echoing, explaining that the input was from the hydrophone. The eerie echoing takes a sinister turn when a series of groans join the symphony. “Could be the echoing of whales bouncing off the ship graveyard.” Minseok theorizes, reaching over to the dials at Jongdae’s station, and adjusting a few.
Jongdae’s response is a bone dry, “Do you want to do my job?” Before shooting down Minseok’s theory, explaining, “No, whatever it is, it sounds mechanical.” Over the speakers, Commander Luhan speaks, issuing a quick series of commands, “Helmsman, begin immediately the search for a tunnel! Bring us deep-!” The violent tumbling of The Swordfish throws everyone off their feet, hurtling towards the ground, and the furious blaring of the alarm begins.
Orders are now barked out, Lieutenant Minseok and Commander Luhan having made their way back to the bridge ordering for “The immediate return of all crew members to their battlestations!” His order is obeyed with great efficiency, the mass hurried movement of the members are a nest of red ants threatened and gearing up for a counter-attack.
Jongdae and Baekhyun load into a pod with a portion of the crew, just as the Swordfish is given another violent tumbling. Kyungsoo, who is still on the bridge is flung sideways into one of the viewing ports. Curled up, he cradles his right arm, its impact against the reinforced glass no soft one. As he braces himself against the pain, he notices the glowing red of a something lighting up the glass beneath him.
With a groan, he sits up and gazes into the single blood-red eye of what he is sure is the Leviathan.
Oh my god, he thinks, the Leviathan is real, and it’s a machine.
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Outside, the Leviathan holds the Swordfish in its claw as though it were a chewtoy. Somewhere in the hydraulics chambers in the bottom of the Swordfish, Sehun is making good use of his long and lanky limbs, sprinting through a narrow hallway that is filling with water at an alarming rate, and upon reaching its end, he turns a gear triggering the closure of said narrow hallway, with two crew members narrowly making it through.
The pods launch outside the Swordfish with a whoosh, and jet easily through the waters, in attack formation before breaking off to launch torpedoes, each maneuvering expertly out of the Leviathan’s reach.
The Swordfish too, begins her counterattack, firing a rapid series of torpedoes. In the ensuing bubbles, everyone waits with a bated breath.
The Leviathan comes roaring back with a vengeance, firing a beam at the Swordfish and the damage is irreparable. Sehun finds this out as the heat burns up the hydraulics room and screws are forced out by the heat intensity and begin their assault at him. He escapes through a ladder, just barely.
Between heaving pants, Sehun orders, “Contact the bridge!” To the crew members. Speaking into the phone, Sehun reports, “Damage to the hydraulics chamber and incoming into the boiler room!” “How long more?” Luhan snaps back. “Twenty,” Sehun begins to say, but an ominous clanking makes itself heard, and Sehun hesitates, “Make that 5! Tops!”
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The crew members hustle themselves to get to escape pods pre-loaded with their vehicular and necessary equipment, in case of emergency, which this is, Kyungsoo thinks to himself as he too is swept along in the tide of people. They face several obstacles, namely a suspended bridge that Kyungsoo is certain will not stay suspended for long, and a series of open doors that are difficult, to say the least, to get through amidst the violent rocking of The Swordfish. Most make it safely, with Minseok bossing, “Some time today would be nice!” Before he too jumps into an escape pod. Chanyeol, Commander Luhan and Sehun manage to make it in moments before their departure.
All the escape pods make it out just in the nick of time, just as The Leviathan fires a beam that does The Swordfish in.
The life of The Swordfish has just ended, but the desperate chase for their lives has just begun.
Mechanic it may be, but The Leviathan displayed great maneuverability in its ability to turn corners and make swift dives. The only upper hand the escape pods had over it were their size and thus speed. They milk it for all its worth and pushes the escape pods to their limits.
The Leviathan gets one pod with its claws, and another with its beam that causes a collision with yet another, as they desperately look for the crevice leading into the tunnel. Lips pressed so thinly they disappeared, heads angled upward and hands clasped together were the uniform look of all in Kyungsoo’s escape pod, praying for some god, any god.
The Leviathan still giving chase, Minseok now serving as their helmsman bumps them into the rock walls of the tunnel around them in attempts to escape The Leviathan’s beams, Jongdae and Baekhyun’s other escape pod following them closely. After a series of harrowing escapes, both enter a narrow tunnel before both escape pods break the surface of the water in the air pocket. The Leviathan had been too large to fit through the last stretch of the tunnel, and had turned around.
They had barely escaped with their lives intact, held together by pure hope and desperation. But made it they had.
Commander Luhan lets a single white paper flower adrift in the water of the airpocket, and it joins the multitudes of its kin drifting about. “We began with 200 of the finest men and women,’ he sighs, and the sorrow in his eyes is a heartwrenching, “and now we’re all that’s left.”
“As such, we dedicate the success of the expedition to them, they who have bravely given up their lives for it.” Luhan salutes, and bows a ninety degree bow, his show of appreciation.
It leaves Kyungsoo with a sour taste in his mouth, and the weight of the lives lost resting upon his weary, narrow shoulders. All because he’d said it was a state, a myth, a rumor.
As the crew set up their vehicles and equipment, unloading them from their escape pods, they make their way across the rocky landscape. The rumble and shaking motion of the trucks is all Kyungsoo remembers, caught up in his calculations, checking, re-checking them, his heart heavy in his chest. He does know that they make their way across a narrow cliff face, and have to be lowered via a pulley system at one point, but everything else passes as a blur, amidst numbers and directions swimming about in Kyungsoo’s head.
Unbeknownst to them, masked figures stealthily make their way across the landscape, following at a safe distance, careful not to be heard or seen.
At one of their rest-stops, Kyungsoo uncaps a canteen he had been offered by Jongdae, chugging down its contents in a single gulp, the dry air in the tunnels having seeped the moisture from his very pores. Baekhyun stops in the carting of his explosives, and stares at Kyungsoo, his jaw dropping as he exclaims, “You didn’t drink that did you? That was Nitroglycerin!” Baekhyun stops, and holds up his hands, “Okay, don’t move.” Kyungsoo holds his breath in his mouth, still as a statue in a museum.
Jongdae jumps up from behind Kyungsoo, yelling and laughing simultaneously, an ugly combination. He shares a laugh and an enthusiastic high-five with Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo experiences confusion momentarily before he understands, raining a barrage of hits against them as they run away, shrieking like the babies they are.
The days too passed, their progress across the terrain is a significant one. Then they encounter The Pillar. Towering over a gaping portion of cliff, he only has a moment to admire it before Baekhyun sets the charges, no small amount, and detonates it, forming the bridge to cross from one side of the cliff to another.
In the wake of the explosion, Baekhyun turns around, throwing his arms out and bowing as though he’d performed a gymnastic feat of sorts.
The masked figures skip their way past, and one masked figure in particular stops and shakes its head at the damage, before moving forward to re-join its companions.
It’s not long before they encounter another obstacle, this time in the form of a large round structure buried deep in the ground. They all file out of their vehicles and size up the obstacle, Commander Luhan turning to Baekhyun and discussing their solutions in low tones, before Luhan sighs, and announces, “It’s time to dig!”
The gleam in Chanyeol’s eyes goes from manic to positively crazed.
They make it through successfully to the other side, and decide to set up camp for the night in a cave lit by a phosphorus structure on the ceiling, casting a bright green glow about.
Gathered around the campfire are the crew, minus one Do Kyungsoo, who as usual is off to the sidelines up to his neck in calculations and directions.
Their first day truly as a team begins the moment Jongdae, with a jerky head motion, gestures towards the lone figure of Do Kyungsoo and says “Don’t you think he’s been too hard on himself?” The rest of the crew looks down guiltily, they had noticed it, but they just hadn’t done anything about it.
Jongdae calls Kyungsoo over, just as Baekhyun finishes his meal preparation, dancing over to Yixing with a cauldron in his arms. He plops a hearty amount of what can only be described as sludge down onto Yixing’s tray, before moving on to Sehun and repeating the same. Before long, everyone is wearing the same disgusted expression, save for Yixing and Chanyeol, the former of which is absentmindedly scooping up each spoonful while the latter is positively shoveling it down, earning him judging looks.
As soon as Baekhyun’s back is turned, the decision to toss the food into the fire is a unanimous one, and the combined toxicity of the sludge makes the fire spark before dying. Kyungsoo swears he hears a I’m so sorry Baekhyun you know I love you right coming from Jongdae’s direction as the food heads for its fiery death.
Baekhyun returns from his cauldron washing and his question of “Done so soon?” is met with large, overdramatic smiles all around. He too beams and takes another dramatic bow.
They linger around the fire, and Sehun snarks, “Don’t you ever consider putting that Fieldguide down?” To which Kyungsoo sighs a world weary sigh, and explains “I would, but there are things inside that don’t add up, it’s…it’s” he hesitates, “it’s almost as though its missing a page.”
Chanyeol, words garbled around his mouthful of horrendous sludge says “Relax, we don’t get paid for overtime work.” Kyungsoo looks around the campfire for the general consensus, and if the nodding is anything to go by, it is in agreement with Chanyeol’s words. Huh, Kyungsoo thinks.
As they pitch their tents, ready to settle in for the day, Kyungsoo rolls his head about his shoulder, trying to rid the knot that has built up over the days, lodged tight and painful. Yixing happens to pass by tent materials in his arms, and seeing the problem, he pushes his thumb into the problem area, rubbing and kneading till the knot unravels.
Kyungsoo turns around, gratitude twinkling in his dark eyes, as he thanks Yixing, and enquires “Where did you learn that from?” Yixing rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, and replies “From the medicine men of the Tibet mountain.” The no-ways are echoed throughout camp, everyone wanting to know more about Yixing’s story. Yixing, in an attempt to placate everyone, tugs a necklace out, and points to a tooth, “Yes way, this is a tooth from a bear.” Amidst the how’s, Yixing states matter-of-factly, “My father settled down in the Tibetean territories after he met my mother, I followed him on some of his jobs as bringing eager visitors about, and the hunters would sometimes bring back mementos of their kills, and one gave this to me.” Yixing leisurely makes his way back to his claimed spot, leaving everyone in awe.
Yixing’s sharing opens up the crew to speaking of their own pasts. Sehun speaks of an older sister embroiled in the dangerous world of boxing, and of how his current job had been a gift from a strict and precise father who had loved him and his sister. Kyungsoo, feeling generous shares briefly about his grandfather and his dorkiness, of his passion for Atlantis. Jongdae and Baekhyun stare lovingly into each other’s eyes, which speaks a story of its own. (Chanyeol’s story however is skillfully avoided by Baekhyun breaking his stare with Jongdae to interject a “You don’t want to know.” Advice everyone heeds)
Everyone speaks wistfully of the pasts, and falls into the warm, sleepy embrace of sleep, and blanketed in the feeling of family.
Kyungsoo wakes to a flaming campsite, set alight by fireflies that were, from the looks of it, quite literally, fire flies. The campsite erupts into chaos as everyone descends into panic, and rushes to salvage what they can, loading them into their vehicles.
The vehicles pile onto the rock bridge to get to a safer side, but in a dastard turn of events, the bridge is unable to support the weight of 2 trucks and a drill.
They go crashing down.
Commander Luhan calls for a damage report, and most reply affirmative, dusting themselves off and checking for injuries. Lieutenant Minseok, in an attempt to determine their depth, fires flare gun upward, only to find that there was no end. Chanyeol sweeps his finger through the dust of the surroundings they have just found themselves in, and licks it. “Solified magma of a dormant volcano, soft enough that it cushioned our fall,” he analyses, tongue as an efficient tool as any lab equipment.
Luhan calls out for Kyungsoo, asking for his suggestion and is met with silence. “Kyungsoo?” the crew murmur.
Kyungsoo comes to, waking to a titter of foreign language and figures in strange long masks covering not only their faces but bodies as well, reminding him of the totem poles of Native America. The sting of an open wound in his hairline makes him groan, and as he probes the area, he finds a raised jagged open monstrosity that makes his fingers pull away bloodied.
The vulnerable sight prompts the masked figure in front of him to pull off their mask. Kyungsoo is stunned by the sight of an extremely pleasing young man beneath, all tanned skin and platinum blond hair, eyes brimming with a multitude of questions and curiosity swimming deep. The icy-blue markings beneath his eyes resembling the chinese character for two; with the upper line curving upward. A large expanse of skin is on display, the man is topless, a royal blue pair of pants on his lower half.
The male lifts the crystal around his neck, seemingly to bring light to his inspection of the wound, but proceeds to press his hand, now the icy blue of his markings, to Kyungsoo’s wound leaving a glowing imprint behind. Kyungsoo stares up at him with wide eyes, for when he pulls away, there is nothing in its wake, no blood and definitely no torn-open wound.
The daze Kyungsoo is in is quite thoroughly broken when the sound of the drill going through the stone walls and the crew’s vehicles emerge from the rubble. Startled and unwilling to be discovered, the masked figures leap nimbly from one rock structure to another, and Kyungsoo soon finds out that the struggle to keep up is real as he stumbles after them, and in turn the vehicles after him.
Kyungsoo arrives at a narrow crevice, where he’d seen the masked figures disappear through, and pauses only briefly before squeezing through. To his surprise, he lands not in another rocky patch, but instead in lush grass.
The vehicle behind bursts through and soon the rest of the crew is looking on in awe. Kyungsoo’s whisper of “Atlantis” may have been silent but amidst the stunned, speechless state of the crew, it echoed and felt more like an announcement.
They had arrived in the fabled land.
part ii