“Sleep, Jastyn.” He lowered his voice, letting her fall to the ground.

He had to move quickly.

Hyde only brushed himself off, glancing around him. He stashed the shard back in his pocket again, quickening his pace.

His heart slowed as he approached a door. Unlike what he had expected, it was unguarded.

Does Lear expect to be safe in this maze? Not bloody likely.

“There’s someone out there.” The President’s voice was quiet; distantly, Hyde heard glass clink onto a table. “You can come in.”

He’d been expecting him.

Hyde hesitated, and his breath caught in surprise.

He knocked on the door for good measure.

Lear’s voice hitched with impatience. “I said you can come in.”

Hyde pushed open the door. He saw Lear stand from a small chair that had been seated in a far corner of the room.

As he shut the door, Lear nearly stumbled. There was a brief appearance of guilt upon his face, but it was gone before Hyde could be sure.

“You know me.” Hyde crossed his arms, leaning back against the door. “You recognize me — I can see it.”

“You’re supposed to be dead.” Lear stared at the floor. Hyde couldn’t see it, but there was guilt in his eyes. “You’re supposed to be-”

“Dead, I know.” Hyde cut him off. “May I come in?”

“Seeing as you’re already in, I don’t see why not.” Lear regained his composure but still appeared dizzy, sitting back upon the chair as though that were the last thing keeping him from falling over. He fixed Hyde with such a cold gaze that Hyde himself nearly fell over.

Slowly, Hyde strode over to Lear, watching as fear overcame him once again.

I’m sorry, Lear. Rilon was lamenting as though Lear had already died. There was going to be more lamenting once Hyde’s job was done. Unfortunately, for Hyde, he would have to stay hidden.

He pulled out another chair, one he suspected that had not been used for some time. Rilon’s mother could have been the only one, unless…

“You have — had — a brother, didn’t you?” He rested his chin in one hand. This was going to be very amusing.

“You should know,” Lear murmured. “You’re him.”

This man is delusional. Hyde got up from the chair and knocked it backward. He saw Lear flinch, and very visibly. The President opened his mouth to protest but decided against it. A grimace appeared on his face.

“Oh, I am?” Hyde chuckled, a very low, disturbing chuckle, as proven by Lear’s reaction. “I’m your brother? Your brother, who’s been,” he swung around, behind Lear, and bent over his shoulder. “Dead for years Do you believe in ghosts, Arlett?”

“Well then.” The panic rose in Lear’s tone once again. “I don’t.”

He wasn’t lying. The panic had left his tone.

“Then who am I?” He stood fully upright. “If I’m…” His voice change, lightened. Lear was sure to recognize this. “Not your brother?”

“My…” Lear’s voice was being smothered by panic. “Dear God. Rilon.”

This was enjoyable. Hyde liked them panicked. They didn’t get away as easily as they’d like.

He decided to keep up this act.

“You should expect these things to creep up on you eventually, father.” He stood before the President now, sneering. “Did you assume that you can run from such things forever?”

“ I-” Lear couldn't bear to respond, not properly, at least. “N-”

Hyde seized him by the lapels of his coat, pulling him upward so that they were face to face. Lear was dangling several inches off the ground, fighting helplessly.

“Did you expect your son to fight back, dear father?” He mocked. This was unlike Rilon — Lear would see through this ruse sometime.

With a free hand, Hyde took out the shard once again. This was a physical fight he wanted.

Unfortunately, Lear has seen what he had tried to do. With free hands he shoved Hyde away, falling into the floor with a dull thud.

This is the same man that killed two of Rilon's family members. It had nearly slipped Hyde's mind.

Yet, here, Lear didn't have a gun.

The hand that had held Lear now clenched into a fist, the other only helped tighter around the shard.

Lear took a hot minute to stand, and Hyde waited until he did so fully. Lear was bleeding from his nose but appeared unbothered otherwise.

In a final rush of adrenaline, Lear ran toward Hyde with any strength he had left. He barreled into him at full force, throwing them both to the floor. Hyde's head hit part of a bed stand; he heard a loud crack but didn't immediately register the pain.

I'm going to die here.

Lear had both hands around Hyde's throat. Spots appeared at the edge of his vision.

This was what he hated — feeling helpless, incompetent. He felt his hand relax and drop the weapon, leaving him more helpless than before.

“Please,” the pain from his wound was beginning to register. “You wouldn't kill your son, would you?”

Lear wasn't fazed. Instead, his grip grew tighter. Hyde was sure there would be bruises in the morning.

If he survived.

Frantically, his hand searched for the shard, but it was just out of reach.

“I've killed before, and I'll do it again.”

“Oh, I see. . .” It was obvious, from a vague memory in Hyde's fading mind. “You think that makes you... so formidable.”

In a moment of weakness, Lear's grip loosened. Hyde's vision began to return.

“You see...” Hyde slightly inched away from the bed frame. His hand seized hold of the shard. “I have too.”

He attacked from the back, his hand swing right where he needed it. Lear visibly jerked, his release suddenly and completely relaxed. Hyde shoved him off and sat up, struggling for breath.

“Your only fault was trying to redeem yourself, Lear.” Slowly, Hyde's voice returned to its normal pitch. The world spun, which he attributed to the wound on his head. He must have been knocked harder on the bed frame than he suspected.

Hyde closed his eyes and let out a breath.

Either way, Rilon was coming back, whether Hyde wanted it or not.

The first thing that happened when he came was that he recognized the persistent throbbing pain in his head. How hard had he hit it when he fell upon…

This wasn't his room.

It took only seconds to realize that this was, in fact, Lear's room.

And he was covered in blood that most definitely was not his.

Everything he should have remembered was completely some dream, experienced by someone else.

Hyde.

He'd done this.

“Ri...” What could only be the dying words of a man stirred Rilon out of his feverish trance.

Scarcely a foot away lay Lear, staring off into space, having no choice but to do so.

This was Hyde's doing. This was Hyde's doing.

“Rilon.” He was still alive. Oh God, he was still alive. He didn’t appear wounded at first but upon closer inspection, he was lying in a pool of his blood.

Disregarding his pain, Rilon crawled over to his father. He struggled at first, but eventually, he eased him into his lap, muttering silent words of reassurance.

“I’m here.” He wouldn’t comfort a dying man who had wronged him, but his vows he had taken back in University meant that he had to help anyone, regardless of personal experience. “I’m here, Lear.”

“You wouldn’t…” There was so much hatred in those few words, that it made Rilon flinch. “You… killed…”

You killed.

There was too much blood on Rilon to be just Lear’s. Hyde had killed before, perhaps only moments.

Lear would die in the arms of the man who had murdered him.

“I didn’t. I would never.” It was a protest in vain, but it was an attempt. Rilon would never hurt anyone, even Lear would know that.

“Then… who…?” Lear’s eyes closed, as if unable to stare right at Rilon.

“It wasn’t me, I promise.” Rilon continued even as his breath became the only one in the room. “It was…”

It was me.

He couldn’t lie. It was he who had come to this floor. It was he who had intruded on his father’s privacy.

It was he who killed him.

He didn’t know how to feel.

Should he feel guilty? Should he feel comforted, knowing that his father, his childhood tormentor, was dead? Lear was gone.

Both his parents were dead.

At that moment, he had never felt more alone in his realization.

Everything was too painful — physically, emotionally, mentally.

The realization struck him that he'd forgotten how to get out of there. Hyde had gotten in, no problem, likely from an unburied memory in Rilon's subconscious mind, but that was him. Rilon could not remember anything, as if he were an entirely different person altogether.

He was stuck here.

It wouldn't be long until someone came in to check up on Lear, it wouldn't be long until someone discovered that foul play had been committed.

It made Rilon sick to his stomach.

I guess this is it. They'll see that I've been planning something all along. Everyone's going to know that I planned all this.

He stated back to where Lear lay, now completely lifeless. It hadn't been long, but his body had already started to go cold. Rilon brushed away hair from his father's face, very nearly flinching as though he would wake up again.

There was no reaction; Rilon relaxed, although felt terrible for doing so.

He moved away, standing. He was only there for a few brief moments, before leaving the room in its entirety.

For some unconscious reason, he guided himself out of the floor unseen. He collapsed in the elevator, the world spinning and his legs unsteady.

This was the only true chance that he had to gather the truth, the effects of the damage he had done to himself.

The back of his head was the most noticeable — it took up most of the thoughts of pain in his mind. He went to inspect it with a hand, and reeled, spitting in pain.

His hand came away almost completely red.

Very nice.

He was fortunate to have not passed out already; he suspected that it was out of sheer terror that he still was awake, or Hyde's basic stubbornness.

The secondary focus of his attention was his neck, which felt as though it were already starting to bruise. It possibly was. From that, Rilon could tell that Lear had fought back — He wasn’t completely helpless before he died.

Before... I killed him.

Helplessly, he fought back another wave of nausea and a further threat of unconsciousness. He couldn’t pass out now — he needed to get to his room before anything could be done and before anything was discovered.

Yet, he hesitated when the elevator came to a full stop. Still, unconsciousness threatened to take him out when he didn’t want it.

Unsteadily Rilon got to his feet, taking careful measures in seeing that it was his floor and nobody else’s.

Floor Ten. Thank God.

He stumbled out into the openness of the floor. Here, even if there were no guards within sight, Rilon felt exposed.

His room was just within safe walking distance of the elevator, unlike the stairs.

He was suddenly grateful that he had taken the elevator instead of the stairs.

Hurriedly, he shut the door and stumbled into the bathroom, locking it behind him. Relieved — and nearly unconscious — Rilon slid back against the door and closed his eyes.

It was over. It was all over.

Yet, somehow, he could not bring himself to rest. His brother would come, sure enough, and deliver the news.

Rilon stood up and stumbled the few steps to the sink. The few pieces of a shattered mirror brought him a broken reflection. It wasn’t enough for him to survey the actual damage, so he freed one of the largest pieces that he could from that mirror, and held it carefully in his hand.

He was right about the bruises. They lay in dark, blotched ring around Rilon’s neck. Lear had had a good stranglehold on him before he was thrown off.