The dim light coming from outside the windows where torches with white light sat on brick walls, shone into the gray library that they had just entered.

Once again, they were inside the great library in which they had been searching for any kind of way to escape that world.

Han and Phil were both sitting on the floor in the middle of the hall with bookshelves on both sides, not reading, but discussing and clarifying things.

Han had been surprised when Phil had stood in the doorway, looking at him, not with shocked or afraid eyes, but deep and understanding ones.

But now, it all became clear to him.

Not only why Phil had called him, ‘eternal one’, but also why all the gray children trusted and respected him.

“Y-you knew..?”

“yes, all this time. or, rather, I’ve known about your existence for a while now.”

“Y-you have?”

Phil was sitting with his legs crossed, his eyes shut as he focused on something.

He did not know how Phil knew. Phil had just beaten out and told him that he did and that he knew of Han’s existence, but Han could not understand how.

If everyone had forgotten about him, how come Phil had known?

“I have known, know who, or rather what you are. your name is Han, right? you are probably wondering how I know all this despite the others having forgotten, well, here.”

He placed an object in between them.

Han looked down at it, and soon he understood.

“in that, I write down everything that I know.”

“I-it’s not even a notebook!”

“heh, yeah, sad that I ruined it. but you understand why, don’t you?”

“Yeah… kinda”

Han understood why.

Phil said he had written everything in that book, which surely meant that Phil's previous experience with Han was written there too.

This was an incredibly smart move only Phil would do, but how?

How had Phil broken off the repeated forgetfulness everyone there experienced?

“How did you..?”

“simple really, by mistake.”

“What?”

“sigh, hehe, it seems that I snuck a book into the dormitory and folded the paper to know where I was. then I must’ve discovered that book again and been confused about why it was there and why the page had been folded like I had been reading it before. after noticing this, I got curious and tested the nature and power of the thing that makes everyone forget everything.”

“Amazing!”

Phil's geniuses were clear now. He had accidentally folded a page in a book which led him to this moment, it was crazy to Han.

“How long have you been documenting it?”

“uh.. approximately twelve years now…”

“Twelve years?! You must’ve been like three when you started!”

This was even more shocking to Han, that Phil had been documenting since a toddler was insane to him. How smart was Phil?!

Han’s stupidity was too much for even Phil as he did something that he had never done before, Phil laughed.

“Ha-ha-!”

Han looked shocked at him.

In his eyes, they all were just like him, all gray children. But this truly showed him. Phil was human too, just like Han…

“yeah, it would’ve been great if I knew it since three, but no, you are mistaken, unfortunately, and clearly.”

Phil grinned.

His laugh had not been because he was mocking Han’s stupidity, but rather because he found Han funny.

“What? How can that be?”

“sigh, you see, things in this world don’t age, that is what the eye is for, I think.”

“You think?”

“yeah, I do not truly know what happened in the past. my documents could’ve been sabotaged somehow, leading me in another direction than what I am striving for, but, I am pretty sure no one but me, and now you, know about this.”

“Why would you decide to tell me then?!”

“sigh, well, simple, I trust you.”

“Wha-”

Phil blushed a little.

It wasn’t so much that it was incredibly visible, but Han could see it, sense it somehow.

Phil’s trust was making him a little nervous, since to Phil, Han had just now entered his life, while to Han, it should have been more obvious. But it wasn’t. This was the first time anyone in that world, including Cloud’s library and his gray rooms, had told him that they trusted Han.

Phil, the gray child trusted Han, the outsider, now that was a sentence.

To Phil, it didn’t seem to matter where he came from, who he was, or when he got there. The fact that Phil trusted him exceeded all that, and for the first time, Han realized fully, why he was doing this.

“You… trust me?”

“yes. probably more than anyone in this world currently.”

“W-why?”

“because we are the same.”

“Wha-”

“both of us are gray children, both of us want to escape this hellish world, and most of all, both of us fully know that we are all alone in time. the only difference between us is your ability to survive death and my curse of constant forgetting. However, what will unite us, is this.”

Phil pointed at the book.

Han didn’t look at it but instead looked at Phil.

“You.. know about that?”

“yes, why wouldn’t I, it is recorded in the book after all. and you have this ability. I know this.. because a past version of me saw you, and that past me saw you dead.”

The pause made Han think back to his second death, which must be what he meant, and if not that, his third.

Phil had seen him dead, a sight that Han felt sorry for, but he could do nothing, and despite Phil having seen it, he had forgotten, which made Han exhale in relief.

“it seems that you feel bad for me, well, it isn’t that bad when you grow used to it…”

“Stop with the bullshit.”

“what?”

“You know what I mean, being trapped in time like that, if someone knows what pain feels like, it’s me. You don’t have to hide your pain, Phil.”

“what-”

It was true, Han knew pain by now. It was confusing and clear as a day, complicated and hard, but easy to understand somehow.

But he couldn’t compare the pain to being alone, stuck in time, knowing that you have done the same thing day after day for who knows how long? Only to by chance discovering it by accidentally folding the corner of a single book he happened to steal from the very library that they were in!

But in front of Han, Phil would not be permitted to hide his pain, because Han couldn’t know what knowing these things must have been like.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone else?!”

“wha- uh… I have tried, but if I am discovered, I will just go back to repeating the same day over and over. The housemaster won’t allow anyone to escape, he would’ve taken the book from me, or maybe just kill me, I do not know.”

The Housemaster.

The individual running this place was a person he had heard a lot about, but not near enough.

Who the hell was he? What was his intentions? And was it he who had done these things to the children, making them repeat the same day over and over?

“Who the hell is this ‘Housemaster’ anyway?!”

Phil furrowed his eyebrows and sank into thought with a complicated face.

“he is our farmer, the shepherd of this farm, using his dog Morris to keep us in place. I do not know much, but one thing is for sure, do not talk to anyone about this, because he has got eyes and ears everywhere, and even one of the children could be against us. that’s why…”

Phil got up.

“that is why I trust you.”

“...”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“if you want to escape, take us with you. I will help you with all I’ve got, at any price. Do you accept?”

Phil stretched out his hand.

“if you do not want to die, we have to defeat him, together.”

Phil's eyes were sharp like it was the most important thing ever, and Han understood why.

If he took Phil’s hand now, their fate would change forever.

But this was nothing new to Han.

“Stupid, I’ve already thought of it, and I’ve already decided my fate.”

He stretched out his hand, shaking Phil’s.

“Let’s flee this world forever!”

“let us bring this place to the ground!”

“Let us unite and save them all!!”