Time passed, though there was no way to guess the duration as per usual. After he had calmed from the attacks, he decided he wanted to decorate his mindspace at least somewhat. His feelings about Ambrose were a little mixed now, but he was still in awe of the majestic mindspace he had made for himself and thus, Hollis wanted to start improving his own.

     To start things off he 'planted' a tree. Squatting in the middle of the aisle of the abyss, he envisioned a small one. He didn't want it to be too big. If it was small, he might be able to use any potential growth to tell time. It would be pleasant to look at, and useful.

     Now that he knew who the girl was, he was feeling more hopeful about his chances of getting out of this place as well. He now had plenty ways to reassure himself, but he still wasn't sure of his true condition outside of this space. There was still the chance that he was dead, and thus, there would really be no point in leaving. But if he was alive out there...

     The idea made him smile, but there was still much that needed to be done.

     All of a sudden, he heard a door click.

     "Hey, Hollis." Though the tone was a little more downtrodden than usual, it was clearly Ambrose who had come in.

     Hollis looked up from the tree sprout. It truly was the tall youth, though he seemed less like his carefree, snarky self.

     The brunette went to speak up, but the face that had stared at him as it went to strike flashed through his mind like a bullet. He snapped his mouth shut before anything could leave his lips and stood instead. Ambrose smirked.

     "You look busy. What's going on?" He tilted his head far to the side as he looked over the miniature tree. "Looks like you're decorating a bit?"

     "Y-yeah. I guess."

     Ambrose snickered, his attitude seeming to shine through once more. "Well, I guess you got the right idea. Everyone's gotta start somewhere."

     "Yeah. That's true."

     A dreary silence approached and hung in the air for a while. Seeming to grow uncomfortable with it, Ambrose spoke up. "So, I said about doing some research on you." He tossed something up into the air. It halted before him and turned into a small, blue square. "Terra sent me a link to an article. Here it is." Placing his fingers to the edges, he expanded the square until a full image with blocks of text were visible.

     Upon seeing the image, a rush of excitement coursed through Hollis's veins. As the blue tinge of the screen faded and all of the colors came through, he was even more positive about what he was seeing.

     Those pieces of glass, those police lights, that dark road.

     It was the same scene from Mayura's dream.

     Despite the fact that Ambrose was on the other side of the screen, he tapped at the top corner of the article.

     "Check the date, guy."

     Glancing over to where the taller boy had been pointing, Hollis realized almost immediately what he was trying to tell him.

     "2038," he muttered more to himself than Ambrose. "Two years ago?"

     "You remember the year? That's good."

     He may have realized the article was from two years ago, but it hadn't dawned on him that he even remembered what the current year was. How did that work? Did that mean that some part of him was still alive after all? Some part of him had to be keeping track somehow.

     "So, according to this, that would mean you're twenty...twenty-one?"

     "Oh! R-right." Hollis blinked once, then twice. His age. He remembered the year, but not his age?

     "Um," he hesitated to ask, but the look on Ambrose's face told him he should keep going. "How old are you anyway?"

     "Me?" The taller youth asked with a dramatic flair to his movements and face. "Well, I'll let you know now, guy. You deserve it after all. I'm twenty."

     "Eh? R-really?"

     "Nah, I'm eighteen. Going on nineteen, I might add."

     Wha—? I'm even more shocked!

     Hollis had completely forgotten that the appearance he was seeing wasn't true. He had assumed, based on the way the youth looked that he was in his mid-twenties. Learning that he was so young, he felt a little awkward.

     I don't know what to think about this...

     Ambrose clearly found the reaction amusing and chuckled playfully, seemingly forgetting all about the article he had just pulled up for that brief moment.

     "Anyway, back on track," he swiped his finger up and the article scrolled showcasing more text. "You weren't completely wrong."

     "Hm?"

     "About being dead. You're almost there."

     Hollis nearly gasped but he held it down. Instead, his eyes grew wide, and the color seemed to melt away from his face.

     "According to this thing, you fell into a coma, and you've been that way since." The youth eyed Hollis up for but a moment before returning to the article. "The others did a little more digging and Noodle found out that you're still hooked up to life support."

     Hollis looked faint. He had told himself that he was probably dead, and he had so readily gone along with that. Now, hearing this, he couldn't believe it. It was as if his life before this was flooding back, remembering that there truly was a world outside this and now he had no access to any of it. Because of...

     "It was a wreck?"

     "Ah, yeah." Ambrose nodded absent mindedly. "You were hit by a drunk driver. They thought you were going to die, but you ended up in a coma." He paused, as if he was thinking something over and his dark brows lowered over his eyes. Suddenly, he spoke up again. "You don't have a lot of time left. Noodle said that they plan to take you off of life support."

     "W-wait. What do you mean? Why?" His voice began to lose its collected, flat tone and grew noticeably rough as panic set in. It felt like he was being toyed with. Were things going from bad to worse? Or was it flying around all over the place trying to break his already horribly confused mind?

     "He said," Ambrose spoke, a sharp note in his tone. "They've given up hope on you recovering. They don't think you'll ever make it." His yellow-brown eyes peered past the article and over to Hollis. "I think he said you might have...a month."