The earth collapsed when his hand touched the island.

The small land mass covered with the motionless bodies of children, cracked clean in half, separated and quickly floated apart.

A second later, the lake itself broke in half.

YooJin, who had released the alpha’s hand just in time to avoid falling into the chasm, looked down with wide, startled eyes to see bright fluorescent lights staring back at him.

“What—” he whispered in disbelief.

“Hey!” the alpha yelled but it was too late. YooJin felt the distinct pressure of a hand on his back and the force of a push that sent him tumbling down into another impossibility.

YooJin grunted as his body slammed into hardwood flooring. Dazed, he blinked up at the ceiling, trying to orient himself. A black swirling vortex hovered several stories above him framed by jagged, gaping holes in the floors above him like the aftermath of a meteor crash.

“What the hell?” he whispered as he forced himself onto his shaky feet, still staring at the impossible sight above. The vortex spun lazily as if taunting him with its otherworldly presence.

Finally tearing his gaze away, YooJin looked around. Rows of shelves lined with bright colorful toys and sparkling cartoon images stood before him, sitting motionless beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.

It took him only a moment to recognize his surroundings.

He was in a toy store.

He then heard a muffled, childlike sob from the shelf behind him and he turned a corner to see a mess of fallen shelves and scattered pink boxes.

He looked down at the box nearest to his feet and stared at it for a moment. He recognized the image that adorned its cover, Miri, a fashion doll popular with young girls. He knew this only because his sister had asked him for one not even a week ago. He had remembered thinking it strange that his normally tomboy little sister had wanted a toy that was advertised only for the most feminine of omegas and betas.

Not that it mattered that she didn’t fit the mold, he had planned to get it for her anyways as soon as he had paid the two months of rent they owed, the school fees, and her narcolepsy medication.

His heart clenched painfully when he realized that he should have just gotten her the doll right then and there.

Another sob broke him out of his depressing thoughts and he looked around until he spotted the source of the sound...

Two small children were huddled in the corner of the room, behind a pile of fallen toys, the unconscious body of an old woman beside them.

He rushed over. “Are you hurt?” he asked as he placed a hand on the old woman’s neck to check for a pulse.

Two pairs of startled wide eyes stared back at him. The older one, a girl, suddenly pushed the boy behind her but did not say a word as her eyes narrowed into a glare so fierce it made him pause for a moment. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

“It’s okay,” YooJin said, trying to keep his voice soft so as not to cause them any more apprehension. “I’m just trying to help. Is she your grandmother?”

The girl’s stance remained defensive however and her mouth closed tight in a straight, immovable line.

“She can’t talk,” said the little boy in a small voice from behind her.

YooJin turned to him. “What?”

“She can’t talk,” he repeated.

He looked at them for a moment, the clothes they wore were cheap and a little worn but clean. The boy’s hair had been recently cut but haphazardly as though cut with a shaky hand. Both sets of eyes were far too wary for kids their age.

He met the girl’s gaze once more and then nodded. He understood. “Nod if she's your grandmother.”

At first the girl did not move, her glaring eyes never leaving his, but then finally, after a long moment, she gave him a small nod.

“Alright,” he said, standing. “Help me get her on my back. We need to get her to a hospital as soon as possible.”

It took the girl only another second before she uncurled herself from her defensive position and stood to help lift their grandmother upon YooJin’s back.

Her back was ramrod straight as she gripped her brother’s hand tightly and stepped up beside him, her head facing forward, but YooJin knew that she cautiously kept him in her peripheral vision as they made their way to the exit.

“Do you know what happened?” he asked them as they began to walk.

The little boy shook his head. “There was screaming and then the building shook and everything fell. And-and a group of people ran by and knocked grandma over. Noona tried to help but-but grandma wouldn’t move.”

YooJin briefly glanced in their direction, his gaze focusing on the little girl once more and he briefly saw tears start to well up in her eyes before she sniffled quietly and her expression once again hardened.

“You protected your brother?” he asked her softly and she looked up at him in surprise before her eyes narrowed once more. A moment later, she gave him a single nod.

YooJin returned the gesture before turning his gaze forward once more, suddenly feeling a strange sense of tenderness for the prickly girl.

He looked around. Having never been in this store before nor even knowing what building they were in, he wasn’t sure where the exit was. All he could tell by the upturned shelves and loose pens and paper scattered upon the floor was that they were now between the toy and stationery sections.

He looked around but still could not see any signs of an exit.

Suddenly, a cacophony of loud footsteps and moving bodies erupted somewhere to their right. YooJin turned to face it when he caught sight of an older omega man that he recognized. It was the owner of the ‘Omega’ Club who had hired him earlier.

“That’s him!” the owner yelled, pointing his finger at YooJin.

YooJin briefly looked around him in confusion, expecting to see someone else somewhere beside him but when he did not, he turned back to face the man and the half a dozen policemen who had come running behind him.

“What are you talking about?” YooJin asked, pushing the girl and her brother behind him with his hip.

Smart girl that she was, she immediately grabbed the boy’s hand and ran over to the corner behind a still upright shelf full of what looked like school supplies.

“He gave a fake name and a fake identification number then put two of my high profile clients in jeopardy,” the owner said, still pointing his finger in YooJin’s direction.

YooJin raised his brow. He didn’t recall endangering anyone. If anything his client, the alpha, had been the dangerous one.

“And whatever he did had caused the building to shake and those invisible monsters to show up!”

He froze as he stared at the man. Invisible monsters? The building shook?

Wait... Had the hole he had fallen through led him to the GK building?

“What do you mean monsters?” YooJin asked softly, crouching down slowly so as to put the old woman down gently onto the floor.

“Don’t move!” one of the policemen yelled, his arm raised and a pistol in his hand.

YooJin froze, his body in an awkward, near crouching position. “I have an elderly woman on my back who needs medical care,” he said.

“I said don’t move!”

“Just let me,” he said, moving inch by inch and slowly set the still unconscious woman down onto the ground, leaning her against a shelf that had fallen onto its side.

He stood back up slowly, his hands out in front of him. “I’ll go with you quietly, just get this woman and her grandchildren to the hospital.”

“Arrest him!” yelled the owner.

“Wait,” said a small voice YooJin turned to see a fairly young officer, hardly even twenty, staring at him. “We don’t have any real proof that what the owner is saying is true,” he added weakly.

But the other police officers ignored him as two of them came forward and grabbed YooJin roughly by the arms. YooJin turned briefly to see the young officer slink back into the group.

The owner of the club walked up to him and, grabbing the front of his shirt, pulled him down until YooJin was at his eye level.

“Do you know how much business you cost me today?” the owner of the ‘Omega’ Club whispered in his ear. “The alpha TaeHyun Moon refused to blame you for the hole in my club or for the omega singer’s collapse but I knew it was you. You single handedly ruined the club’s reputation in a single afternoon! It’s all over the news that the prestigious ‘Omega’ club's owner had put the nation’s sweetheart in danger. I should have never hired a worthless thug of low birth like you, you disgusting omega peasant.”

He then forced YooJin an inch closer and smirked beside his ear as he whispered. “And I know you had nothing to do with the building moving or the creatures, but how could they know that? They are looking to pin the blame on someone and this way, I can get the reputation you so wrongly stole from me by becoming the man who had caught the GK terrorist.”

YooJin continued to look at the man as he released him. He shouldn’t have been surprised and yet he was. This shady old man who was trying to pin the blame on something that was not his fault on him was an omega…

He opened his mouth to say something to the police officers when he saw, through his peripheral vision, the children quietly make their way toward their grandmother. The old woman’s chest was moving but he could see now that the movements were significantly more shallow than before.

And as they began to drag him away, he yelled. “Get her to the hospital. Can’t you see that she needs help!"

The officer in front of him turned around.

“I told you to shut up!” he hissed, his fist making contact with YooJin’s abdomen. 

YooJin lurched forward and coughed. Damn. He hadn’t been punched in the stomach in a while.

He coughed again. “Just get her to a damn hospital!”

Another punch came barreling toward him, this time causing YooJin to wince in pain but he opened his mouth again anyways.

The policeman then raised his hand high, his palm open, aiming for his face, when suddenly an invisible force slammed him hard into the shelf behind him.

Hundreds of rubber stamps rained down on them as YooJin quickly turned to see another one of the officers being lifted off the ground and flung in the opposite direction.

The two that held him released him, scrambling back into the others and toppling them down like a game of dominos.

YooJin turned again just in time to see the owner of the ‘Omega’ club scream and back away.

“No! No!” he yelled, his face twisted into anger and self-justification. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to. He deserved it, the fault is his own. And her? No, no, no that omega deserved to be fired, seducing a client then claiming that he had forced her into it. She deserved what happened to her! No, no…. N-n-o – NO!”

YooJin watched as the owner fell to his knees in front of everyone and began to sob loudly, his beautiful face, aged by time, contorted by what he knew to be terrifying realizations.

In the chaos of the panicking policemen and among the owner’s cries, YooJin’s gaze found the young girl and her brother trying to drag their unconscious grandmother away. 

He watched as the girl’s hair suddenly rose up into the air and he knew without a doubt that the creature had set its sights upon them.

Fear suddenly pumped adrenaline through him and he scanned his environment, his gaze settling on the ceramic pencil-holder mugs, painted with the loud childish image of a frog wearing a tophat, only a few feet away.

He was suddenly struck by the memory of the alphas and how they had trapped the ‘ghost’ in the ceramic vase back in the dungeon.

If he could just somehow do the same, somehow force the monster into that ceramic mug…

He looked around, searching for anything that might remotely be usable as a weapon and then his eyes spotted it.

A red plastic toy bat sat calmly out of place in the middle of the aisle.

He lunged for it just as a body awkwardly tumbled into him.

He looked up and grabbed the arm of the young policeman who had meekly tried to stop them from arresting him earlier. His eyes were round in terror as he looked up at YooJin.

“You!” YooJin said, “I need your help.”

“What?” said the policeman, his eyes now wide with confusion.

YooJin grabbed two ceramic mugs and shoved them into his hands. “Stay there and keep that mug open facing me. When you feel something go into it, close it quickly with the other one.”

“What?” the young policeman said again but YooJin had no time to explain again, he was already running toward the children.

The girl’s hair was now swaying wildly above her head.

“Duck!” YooJin yelled, his voice sharp with urgency. He gripped the toy bat tightly, positioning it behind his head and bending his knees into a stance he thought was long forgotten. He focused on the space just above the girl's head, where her hair whipped wildly in the air.

The children's eyes widened and in the second before impact, the girl acted, pushing herself and her brother down onto the ground beside the still form of the old woman.

The toy bat in his hand began to glow a soft, white light.

YooJin barely registered the glow before he swung, the bat slicing through the air, meeting resistance—something solid yet unseen and propelling it in a wide arc across the room.