they lie with a smile [r]

[king]

his body seems to float, weightless. he feels the heat from the sun, burning. the moon is on the other side, chilling his back with the night. alex forms a bed to lay on, slowly floating down.

rolling to the side, he sees a face.

ZULF ?

[ZULF ?]

Night in, night out, he finds himself in this hellish land. Oddly enough, it feels like home, even with the unpleasant scorch of red sun and the ice of red moon.

His shoes make no noise as he walks.

Failed attempt of #115 of searching for the Dream Land was what this was.

king

[king]

"... aaron." he places a name to the face. "aaron sideris." memories of the pax institute flow back into him. the virus sings in him, but he is no longer sure what he feels about it.

ZULF ?

[ZULF ?]

"Alex Faysal," he responds. A young and brilliant intern at the Pax Institute, if he can remember things correctly.

Something stirs in him. They say it is a reaction of the Hades that knows others are near.

"You seem to know your way around here quite well."

king

[king]

his eyes are half-mast, looking mostly uninterested with aaron. "is that a good or bad thing?"

in an attempt to summmon something nice, the land of nightmares provides something else. this is not the dream world.

a burnt corpse of a woman appears beside him on the bed.

ZULF ?

[ZULF ?]

He eyes the corpse at Alex's side, its black frame twisted in some horrendous shape.

"It is neither."

Somewhere, in the back of his head, he thinks it looks like her.

king

[king]

"such a gray answer."

"i love you alex."

the voices are back. but it's always one voice.

whose is it?

"i haven't seen you in a long time, aaron."

ZULF ?

[ZULF ?]

"It's been years, hasn't it?" He recalls seeing the boy (he'd only been a boy) wandering the institute's halls.

"You've grown."

king

[king]

"you're still old." alex tries to stay in his mind, but he feels the fog setting in. a poisonous fog.

"let's grow old together, alex. we'll die together. hand in hand. together."

he resists the urge to scream. instead, his body tenses. he feels like a corpse in rigor mortis.

"how... have you been?"

ZULF ?

[ZULF ?]

A small grin cracks across Aaron's face. "Ah, I won't be old until I hit middle-age."

It's strange being here, being in the Land of Nightmares where he feels as though he has little control over his own body.

"Searching for answers that I don't know exist anymore."

king

[king]

"nah, you're pretty old." alex sits up, looking around. there is nothing, and nothing goes on forever. his eyes dilate.

"surprised you're not dead."

"we'll die together. hand in hand."

ZULF ?