[Xyan]

I looked left. I looked right. I looked everywhere.

Darkness stretched farther than I could see. The only light was my own cyan glow, illuminating a few feet of black before the air was plunged into darkness once more.

I lashed my tail once. I'd been here before. This was the empty dream space I visited in my sleep, a dark void of nothing. Akhet described what it was according to the Spiritbooks - just a blank, empty space, a void where our living memories no longer rested. Just... nothingness.

Except there was something here. I felt a presence. It was dark, it was cold... familiar in a way. Too familiar.

Way too familiar.

"Who's there?" I called into the abyss. No answer except my own echo.

I tried again, only louder. "Hello?"

"I thought you'd guess."

I turned and met the figure that had appeared behind me. A face that smiled with tight lips at me, one sinister white slit of a pupil slicing and dicing my soul into bits as I stumbled backwards in surprise. I caught myself before I could fall. My eyes were glued to him, the spirit only staring silently in wicked amusement at my shock.

"What, surprised?" Gradient chuckled, black knives in his mouth glinting in the dim light as his mouth parted in speech. The scribble over his left eye was almost mesmerizing as I stared at him, drawing my gaze in a distraught panic of the lust for attention. I couldn't see behind it, but I could make out small, colorful dots that flickered every now and then like shadows passing over light.

I couldn't find words. I couldn't find movement. My limbs were frozen, a cold stillness spreading through my body. A few silent moments passed before I managed to utter, "H-how are you here...?"

Gradient flicked his broken, spaded tail, the chips floating off the end following like moths to a flame. "Funny enough, that's not a question I may be able to answer correctly. But I'm here now. So that doesn't matter."

"You're lying."

"I wish I was. I'd like an explanation too, but..." He revealed his sharklike teeth in a devious smile. "I have more important matters on my mind than answers."

I choked as my airflow was (somehow) cut off, pressure around the base of my neck's remains in a thin line encircling it forcing a choke from my mouth. A similar pressure formed at my wrists and my ankles, discomfort sparking in my back as I was suddenly jerked from my defensive position to an upright, stabilized one. I stumbled a bit to the side, my hand flying to the side of my head as a stab of pain erupted through the side of my skull. Following that hand was a white string, tied tightly around my wrist like a tight bracelet and extending upwards until it fades into the darkness above.

"It seems you've trespassed within... what used to be mine." Gradient twirled his finger in the air, and suddenly my feet pulled me along towards him. I inhaled sharply, unable to gain control of my limbs as I walked closer and closer, until my face was inches away from Gradient's. His smile still remained, a twisted display of sharp black teeth protruding in his mouth. "Or, that's what I think. Just a little theory."

I felt one of his frigid claws caress my jaw, just enough pressure for cold droplets of blood to run down my neck and drip onto the collar of my shirt. I couldn't look down or away, I was paralyzed in place. "What do you think?"

"G-get the hell away from me..." The stammer in my voice couldn't be hidden. Whatever confident anger I'd felt the last time I'd seen the turned spirit was gone along with the Gradient I used to know.

He chuckled again, a cold, lighthearted sound with little true compassion behind it. "And you used to like me. Consider me a friend." He spat the word "friend" as if he were spitting venom from his mouth. "You do know what they say, don't you? Is it old enough for you to know, or do I have to explain?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know what he was speaking of.

"Death changes people. You know?" Gradient tilted his head ever so slightly, that same, psychotic smile twisted onto his face, burned into my memory like a brand on a horse. "Maybe... maybe that's why I ended up like this."

Claws from both of his hands dug into my scalp as he held both sides of my head without gentleness or care, only the violent intention behind the action.

"And it's why you ended up like you did, too."

A quick pressure gave me a sudden, splitting headache, but as a strangled cry escaped my lips the excited, sadistic grin faded into the darkness, seeming to linger a split second before blackness completely engulfed my vision.

-=+=-

Dried tears stained my face when I awoke, that same distraught scream carrying into my waking moments. I could barely breathe as my ragged breaths dragged along. It was cold, but not frigid - a normal cold. I felt arms around me, the cover of a green wing holding me close. Praxus. A gentle hand stroked my hair, a comforting motion as I looked up at him.

He seemed quite surprised at the pained sound I'd made on my awakening. Praxus's eyes shimmered with a clear worry that I was suddenly immensely relieved was there. "Again?"

I didn't reply. My hands tensed over my own biceps, my fingernails digging into the cloth of my coat. A cold sweat drenched every inch of me, a chill shaking my heart in its cavity. I wanted to curl up into a ball for the rest of eternity and never awake. The same nightmare, the same one. Each time I entered without memory of it ever happening, him not saying a word about any previous experience. But each time the awakening was different. It was horrifying the many ways the evil spirit could conjure to kill me swiftly but unforgettably.

Praxus pulled me closer to him, and I buried my face into his chest as the tears started again. Sobs of despair, sobs of terror, racked my body as I gripped his shirt as if afraid that if I let go, he would disappear and I'd be alone.

Alone.

Alone with him.

"Hey, it's just a dream, okay?" Praxus attempted to comfort me. "Just a dream. Nothing real."

But even he sounded unsure of his words. I didn't blame him. It's been two weeks since we found the ring, and still that nightmare had haunted me since.

The rising moon was already midway to its highest peak when I finally got the strength to stand. If you could even call it that. The best I could do was lean against Praxus like a depressed drunkard and hope I didn't accidentally hurt him by holding his hand with all the might I had in me. Both of us got to our feet, and Praxus guided me into the hall.

We went to go check on Akhet, as we had every day for the past two weeks. Akhet never left Aiko's room anymore, only sat in one place with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms hugged around her legs. Rarely do I see her move. The black on her arms didn't spread past her shoulders, but her eyes had turned the same color, blank and without emotion as she stared into space. It was no different when we entered today, the depressed red figure of the former adoptive mother curled on the passed child's bed without a word.

Whatever happened when we were gone that day, it had broken something inside of her. I hadn't seen her like this since we met nearly forty years ago, when she had lost someone close to her before. I hoped this trend wouldn't keep up - I feared what would happen if she just couldn't take the pain any longer. The scars interlacing her arms, nearly invisible against her now pitch black skin and sweater, were a reminder of what had happened before her death.

"We've gotta do something," I finally said, breaking the silence with a soft, almost raspy voice.

I felt Praxus's tail intertwine itself with mine. "Do what? We have no idea where Gradient is."

"I don't know," the response came almost as a snap that sounded nearly on the brink of anger. Praxus looked at me, concern swirling in his gaze as I sighed. I rubbed the side of my head, where I clearly recalled the sensation of rigid claws against my skull. "S-sorry..."

"Xyan, I think something's going on." The green ghost put his hand on my shoulder, shifting so he faced me. His eyes rested at mine. "You're getting less and less like yourself every day. What..." He inhaled softly. "What happens in those nightmares? What happens to make you so... tormented by them?"

"I-I'm fine." My reply was too quick. I saw a small splash of hurt in Praxus's eyes as I refused to reveal anything else to him.

A change in the air caught my attention. I turned to find the blank, black voids of Akhet's eyes, the mute spirit now staring at me from the doorway with terror in the empty pits. Black tears spilled from those pits, rolling down her cheeks as if she was crying without any other visible sign.

"X-Xyan..."

Her voice was distorted in my mind, fading in and out of audibility. Akhet's breaths dragged longer and longer, the more she stood the more her chest heaved with the effort to inhale.

"Akhet...?"

"Run."

And suddenly morbid terror flooded my senses.

-=+=-

Why did I love writing this chapter so much

1650 words