Honor and Glory | ATEEZ

031

There was no reason to wait around for the temple to fall down on top of us, I thought, feeling optimistic by the fact that most of the temple's size was in its height.

That meant it probably wouldn't take us a long time to make it out again.

Because time was something we absolutely didn't have at the moment.

The crumbling stones and pillars carrying the weight of the ceiling couldn't hold up for much longer.

I ran faster, Yeosang trying his best to keep up with me as rubble and stone began to fall on top of us.

We made it back out into the humid jungle air just in time, the green landscape greeting us with its joyous sounds of life and colours before a roar silenced the small clearing around us and the temple crumbled to a pile of rocks.

A heavy cloud of dust fell down on top of us as Yeosang and I tumbled into a bush a couple of hundred meters away from the ruined temple.

Once the world finally stopped spinning I took a moment to sit back up, picking some of the twigs out of my hair as I glared at the pile of rubble and dust in front of us.

I was getting really tired of all of these self-destructive temples by now.

I realized that I had thought the same thing in District 4 after escaping the Temple of Air.

And that had only been the third gemstone.

Yeosang sat up as well, rubbing his head and shaking it back and forth as if he wanted to get rid of an unpleasant nightmare.

He spat out a couple of leaves as well, though the green foliage seemed to bother him less than the headache.

That was probably a given, considering the fact that he was a nature elemental.

We crawled out of the bush and sat down with our backs against one of the many trees in the clearing.

"Here," I said, handing Yeosang The Emerald of Narava.

It looked astonishing as it glinted in the last rays of sunlight that the crescent sun had to offer for the day as they filtered through the lush treetops above.

"Wow," Yeosang said, sounding almost breathless as he studied the gemstone in his hand.

He looked back up at me, and my red eyes locked with his green ones.

A moment of silence passed between us, and then we both cracked up laughing, our exhausted bodies still pumping with adrenaline.

"I did not expect that," the brunette admitted, and I giggled a little more as I tried to calm myself down again, wanting to catch my breath.

Our little bubble of happiness burst faster than expected, though, as the sky suddenly rumbled above us. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as a strong sense of dread washed over me.

Not this again.

Anything but this.

"What's that?" Yeosang asked, pointing up at a patch of purple sky that was left bare by the trees in the clearing.

Clouds were swirling around, growing in numbers and size as they moved naturally in and out of each other.

Streaks of purple and white came and went in flashes.

It almost looked like a tornado, though the swirling clouds stayed in the sky, and the wind didn't pick up any more than it usually would have done in a storm.

Thank the heavens for tall trees, I thought to myself, getting up from the ground.

Suddenly, the plants at the other end of the clearing began to move as well.