The Blessed: Chapter 1.

 “Boy and girls, please be very careful of the artifacts. If you look to your right, you’ll see the Greek section and to your left, is the Egyptian section, now this way please…”
“Psst~ Jonginnie~ Psst~”
“What?!”
“I’ll bet you can’t run over to that vase and touch it and come back.”
“I’ll bet the same, goody-two shoes!”
“Don’t you guys have better bets to make?”
“Aww, scared much?”
“Hey, Jong! Too full of chicken?”
“Of all the lame jokes to make… fine, I’ll go and touch the stupid vase, it’s an urn actually.”
“Ooo~ an ‘u~rn’, very fancy~”
“Bunch of silly… stupid… people… there! I touched it, hap- oh shit!!”

‘Darkness… darkness… doomed to eternal darkness… then why is there that-? Why is there a crack in the shroud of Tartarus…? Are those… human voices?’

“The idiot dropped it!!”
“Oi!! Hurry!! Put it back!!”
“Run!! Here comes the guide!!”
“Holy hell! Seongsaengnim!!”
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU”RE DOING?!?”

‘Is Tartarus opening again…? No, that cannot be, no one else seems to have seen the light... who’s voices are those?’

“Ahh… Seongsaengnim… I was… I wanted a good look at this art work, looks like it’s from the Corinthian era… hehe…”
“You should have asked then. Now get back in line Kim Jongin!”
“Yes sir!”

‘Kim Jongin…? Is he the one who freed me?’

  Απαρχές (Aparchés)
             Beginnings~

(3:25 pm KST; Seoul, South Korea) 

Jongin grins as he walks out of the school grounds for the last time, the trip to the museum from the previous summer, still fresh in his mind for some reason. It was a good thing he was known for being an academically interested student. He’d been let off by the teacher on the excuse of ‘wanting to get a better look at Greco-Roman art’ and only he had noticed the hairline crack on the side of the black urn… a fact he was more than happy to keep to himself.
He turns homeward, only to have a short stranger cut off his path.
“Excuse me, are you Kim Jongin?” Jongin looks at the stranger in wonder. The stranger is almost a head shorter, all baby-faced, wide-eyed, soft cheeks and milky skin. Jongin is a little shocked (maybe more than just a ‘little’ awed) and the stranger waves his hands in front of his face. Pretty fingers too…? Jongin snaps back to reality and the stranger slowly asks again,
“Are. You. Kim. Jong. In?” Enunciating every word clearly as if Jongin is either hard of hearing or stupid or both. Maybe Jongin is because he mutely nods. The stranger smiles brightly. I think I need shades…
“Great. I’m Kyungsoo, and I’ve been waiting for you for over a year.”
“…say what?!” Jongin pivots on his heels. Crazy stalker! Crazy stalker alert!! He starts walking as fast as he possibly can in his graduation robes and sends up a prayer that the crazy stalker won’t follow him. One block down the road, and Jongin looks back to find no trace of the guy. He breathes a relieved sigh and decides to walk home the long way.
“Hello again.”
“AAARGH!!” Jongin jumps a foot into the air at the soft voice next to him. Not again… “Look buddy, I don’t know who you think I am, but I certainly don’t swing that way. So you’re pretty and all, but sorry. Nope. See ya’!”  There’s a firm hand on his shoulders and the next thing Jongin knows is that he’s being pulled backwards. “Yah!! Yah! Let go! Let me- HELP!! HELP ME!!! I’m BEING KIDNAPPED!!” His screams were met by odd stares from passersby, who wondered at his mental health. At almost a head shorter, Kyungsoo certainly looks like the kidnapped one, except, muses Jongin, they obviously can’t feel the rock solid grip.
Jongin feels a strange sense of panic that renders him unable to fight this smaller, lithe stranger who should ideally have blown away with the wind, or so thinks Jongin as he mentally panics, while physically screeching like a banshee, till Kyungsoo has had enough and he claps his hand over the other’s mouth. Jongin’s screams turn to muffled gasps, as he begins to feel oddly discomforted at the touch. Kyungsoo’s hand smells of the warm summer earth, and fresh grass, Jongin's senses begin to cloud over as he feels slightly dizzy. The aroma of the earth is suffocating now, as he squeeses his eyes shut, his body having long succumbed to being dragged around. The dizzyness is numbing. Kyungsoo stops, sensing something wrong. Jongin grinds his teeth to stop the pain. His vision turns black. He feels a strong rush of air. The ground gives way from beneath his feet as he lands face forward into soft grass.
Jongin opens his eyes to find himself in a park, that should have been about a hundred meters away. Kyungsoo blocks his sunlight as he stands over him, with his head cocked to one side as if studying a specimen in a laboratory. Jongin bolts up and shakes an accusing finger at him.
"YOU! WHO THE- WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU??!! HOW THE FREAKING HELL DID YOU DO THIS??!!"
"Me...?" Kyungsoo whispers quietly. "No, I did none of this..."
"Then how...?" Jongin's words die away as Kyungsoo looks very meaningfully at him.
"Welcome to the family fledgling, you are one of the Blessed."
"Wha....?"
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(2:45 pm CST; Beijing, China)

"Oi! Luhan... Luhan!!"
"Ye... Huh- wha- what...?"
"You passed out again... "
"Xing..."
"Yes...?"
"Tickets.... Seoul. I've.. found the last one."
"Wait- what? Luhan?! Come back- dammit!"
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(3:45 pm KST; Seoul, South Korea)

"I'm a what...?"
"A Blessed One."
"So what am I, like a holy Harry Potter? You're kinda tiny for a Hagrid though..."
"What is a 'Harry Potter'... and however big a Hagrid is, I assure you, I'm a thousand times bigger."
"What are you.... how the hell do you not know what Harry Potter is??!! Any way, what is this "Blessed One"?
"There are twelve of them-"
"Then how is it a 'One'-"
"SILENCE!" Kyungsoo slams his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree, leaving a wide crater on the surface and his hand miraculously unscathed. Jongin pales.
"Umm... nevermind... so Blessed One...?"
"There are twelve children, each blessed by a God or Beast, to protect the earth in their absence."
 "From what? Like psychopaths... serial killers.... the government... aliens from outer space..?"
"What gibberish is that...?"
"Wha... what are you... are you like me?"
"It isn't important."
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(3:00 pm, CST; Beijing, China)

"His name is Jongin, and- damn! Why is this taking so long??!!"
"We're bound by traffic laws, Luhan."
"To hell with laws, just drive faster Yifan!"
"Don't yell at him Lu..."
"You guys don't get it! We can't afford to lose another one..."
"We won't, okay? Have some faith."
"Faith has forsaken us, Xing, what's the use?"
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(4:00 pm, KST; Seoul South Korea)

"There are others like me? Whatever 'me' is..."
"Yes, and you... are important." Kyungsoo walks forward a few steps, contemplating on the next course of action. Ideally, Jongin should be disposed off of. Being one of the Blessed, he is an immediate threat, even if the boy isn't aware of Kyungsoo's nature...yet. Then again, a teleporter, and an inexperienced one at that, isn't much of a threat alone. Kyungsoo looks over his shoulders and sees the slumped form of the tan boy on the bench. Dusk is approaching. Soon the sun will abandon this face of the earth. Darkness is something Kyungsoo is used to, not in this form, but it is still a welcome shroud. He looks over to Jongin once more. One quick snap of the neck and everything would be over, wouldn't it...?
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A/N: This series was inspired by Greek Mythology.

[Chapter 2]