“Can I get a chair?” Lucrys asked.

     Skaarin pursed his lips. “Fine,” he decided. Lucrys was unstrapped. He heard a door squeak open. “Come on,” Skaarin said, pulling him along.

     Lucrys skirted the dark room until his knees hit a slab of stone. He caught himself. “This is my room.” He said.

     “That’s right,” Skaarin replied, spreading his arms. “Welcome back.”

     “That’s what’s been behind that door this whole time?”

     “Aren’t you more comfortable knowing the monster in your closet is me?” Skaarin smiled, and then realized that Lucrys wouldn’t understand the phrase. “Shit, you won’t get anything about the Old World.” He pulled his bloody chair into the room and sat down. “Well, aren’t you going to tell me about Mil?” he asked.

     “Yeah,” Lucrys replied. “Sure. She was amazing.” He stammered. “She protected me. From everyone. But those wars spread into the walls of the kingdom. When Alucin appeared, we fled. But his army entered every building, chased down every survivor. Mil and I hid. She left to help someone who was wounded. But it was just an illusion. As Mil carried the injured woman, Alucin took her place. He stabbed her in the stomach, and ripped away her arms. Before she even hit the floor, his jaw unhinged. He looked like a snake as he ate her. And Amillara,” Lucrys covered his mouth. “Amillara’s expression… She was terrified.”

     “Yeah, you already told us about that part. I’m sure the girl was worried for your safety. But here you are in the flesh - flesh that won’t ever break, at that! Aren’t you lucky to be alive?” Skaarin rested his head on the back of his hand. “So if she died, how does the broad talk to you? Weren’t you saying she’s been sneaking in when I’m away?”

     “She’s not dead,” Lucrys mumbled.

     “What?”

     “She’s not dead,” he repeated.

     Skaarin knew he was going to lose himself again. He watched as Lucrys grabbed his head. “Hell no you don’t!” He grabbed Lucrys’ hair and force his head back, staring into his eyes. “Look at me, Lucrys! You’re not gonna go off and in right when I started having a conversation with you, you rude little bastard! When the hell did you meet Amillara? What did you two do? Wrap your mind on something useful and keep yourself around!”

     Lucrys looked up at Skaarin. He couldn’t see anything within the darkness. “Skaarin,” he whispered. “I want to see. I don’t like the dark.” Lucrys pressed his face into Skaarin’s shoulder. Skaarin patted him gently as he cried. “I miss her, Skaarin. She left me when the wars came. She ran away when Alucin attacked. She got away and left the city alone.”

     “I know,” Skaarin said, hiding a chuckle. It was fitting into place now. Why Lucrys was delusional, why his mind was ruptured - even how his traumatized soul allowed him to access memories. Skaarin brushed Lucrys’ hair softly. “She certainly was in the wrong, Lucrys.”

                                                                 ◊ ◊ ◊

     “Alright, Lucrys,” Skaarin said. “Let’s hear the next one.” He slumped down into his bloodied chair. He had just finished injecting the serum that allowed him to see in the cell. “I’ve had a rough day of playing royalty with Latrus. Where should we start? How about you tell me how you met Amillara?”

     Lucrys rolled over on his stone slab. “Did you get me those blankets to sleep on, Skaarin?”

     “Not yet,” Skaarin replied, drooping his head on the back of the chair. “Story time first. It’s your turn to share.”

     Lucrys faced away from Skaarin. After a moment, he fell back to sleep.

     “You and Latrus would really get along.” Skaarin smiled. “If the two of you weren’t so stubborn.” He jumped onto the stone slab and shook Lucrys. “Come on, pal. I want to hear that story.”

     Lucrys sat up, irritated. “I don’t want to think about her, Skaarin. What if I just tell you about my childhood?”

     “Fair enough.” Skaarin leaned against the wall. He pulled out a dagger and began messing with his skin. He glanced at Lucrys and noted that his scars had begun to heal. He decided the old ones wouldn’t fade from his regeneration, because his memory counted them as something that belonged on his body. That, or Lucrys may not have even remembered a time when the scars didn’t exist.

     “When I was young I lived with my father,” Lucrys said. “He was nice enough, but he cared a lot about my mom, who was never around. She’d left him before I could even remember her face. But my dad always thought she was around. Sometimes he thought she was walking into the house, as if she’d finally come home. Other times, he just couldn’t remember that she left, even though she wasn’t there. He had some memory issues.”

     “Runs in the family,” Skaarin mumbled under his breath. He sliced off his finger and watched a new, clean stub regenerate in its place. He pushed the old one onto the floor.

     “As I got older, I understood that my dad wasn’t really in the right state of mind. In the end I wound up attacking him. He was trying to get me to talk to my mom, but she wasn’t there. She was never there.” Lucrys grabbed his head. “I killed him. For years he was going crazy. He seemed less and less like himself as each year passed.

     “When he was talking to my mom, I attacked him with his axe. He’d swung it at me before. I’d always thought about burying it, but he caught me when I tried. When he hit the floor, bugs pooled out of his head. Long bugs with so many legs. I ran. I ran until I reached Nuu’reil.” Lucrys reeled back. “I’ve always hurt people out of fear, Skaarin.”

     “Agaur.” Skaarin chopped off another finger.

     "What?”

     “Those bugs are called Agaur,” Skaarin said. “They first came from some crazy fucker named Craal. They feed on the brain. While they eat, the victim thinks they’ve obtained what they want most in the world. It’s not the worst symbiotic relationship, if you ask me. Most people die happy. It’s rare for the host to go crazy like your old bastard.” He patted Lucrys on the back. “Don’t worry, though, you don’t have any of that shit mucking around in your brain. I can tell by the way you act well enough, but I’ve also seen inside your head.” He winked at Lucrys. “Nothing’s lurking in there but you and your own fucked up world.”

     Skaarin stood and tossed his digits into the grate.

     “They eat the brain?” Lucrys asked.

     “Well, they mainly consume memories,” Skaarin said. “But yeah, they eat the brain, too. Some creature created them inside of Craal. Whatever it was could learn, too. The vermin were based off of some weird-ass bug from the World Before called centipedes.”

     “What’s the World Before?”

     “I’ll explain it another time. I’ll go grab you that damn blanket.”

                                                                 ◊ ◊ ◊

     Skaarin came back into the cell. He tossed the blanket onto Lucrys. “Happy?” he asked sarcastically.

     Lucrys stood and made his bed. “Yeah,” he replied, lying back down. “I’ll sleep fine now.”

     “It’s the only comfort you’ll get.” Skaarin said. “For all the stories you’ve shared. Think of it as the only piece of paradise you can ever come back to.”

     Lucrys rolled away from Skaarin and faced the wall. Skaarin sat on the bed next to him. He cut off his hand, which regenerated after a moment. “You know, Lucrys,” he said. “I never did tell you about how I learned about the world.” He lay down beside Lucrys. He rested his head in his hand and placed an ankle over his knee. He shook it gently, eccentrically copying a god he’d seen. “It all started when I left my hometown for the last time.” He traced his hand through the air, using a kdulinj and magnius to project stars onto the ceiling.

     Lucrys smiled and turned away. “Get off of my bed,” he said, scooting himself closer to the wall. “And thanks for the dim light. I wanted to see it.”

     Skaarin scratched his stomach. “Well it’s not like I could blind you even if I wanted to, now is it, killer?” He rolled over and draped his arm over the side of the bed. He used magnius to engrave drawings into the floor, then repaired the stone. He projected a small gathering of characters and watched them dance together in joy before having a meteor crash into them.

     Skaarin heard Lucrys’ breathing settle as he drifted to sleep. He turned off his projection and closed his eyes. Lucrys was just another bastard in Latrus’s kingdom unlucky enough to have run into Alucin during his insatiable reign. But he doubted he could convince the young king to understand that a slaught bastard like Lucrys was just another man in the city. “The two of them definitely are far too stubborn,” he mused.