For whatever reason, Asher seemed to stick around. Orion left him be, he figured he'd leave on his eventually. But the next morning came, and he didn't leave. Nor did he the next, nor the next after that. It was confusing to Orion.

Was there a future like this? What path would have led to this? If only his foresight was still working properly, he could figure it out.

He also couldn't quite figure out what he had done to make Asher stick around but he was starting to feel guilty about it. But he couldn’t help but admit it was nice having someone around. He felt like things were starting to make sense again.

Orion was getting better until one day; Asher wasn't around anymore. It was vexing. Orion was terrified that perhaps he had killed him in a lapse of cognition. Despite what Asher had been telling him, he couldn't help but think of the worst-case scenario.

He just barely managed to convince himself that rather than by his own hands... He might have been killed by his boss because he was a spy or maybe even an assassin.

No, no he was far too weak to be an assassin. Maybe he was eliminated for being a distraction. But his boss never meddled in his personal life, did something change?

Orion had no way of knowing what was actually the case.

They could have easily threatened Asher or driven him away and it would've produced an equal result. Orion still assumed he had done something to Asher and struggled to escape that thought.

Orion couldn't fathom that Asher would actually be willing to fight for him in some way, surely, he would've fled right? He did not do nice things to Asher; he didn't know what those things were, and Asher said he didn't, but what if that was a lie?

If he did stay then he must have died, right?

But if he didn't stay, he must have died, right?

He must have died, right?

The more he forgot, the harder it was to convince himself that any of what Asher told him was real. To the point that he completely believed he must have killed Asher himself in some brutal way, despite having no evidence or memory to say that he had ever died.

He struggled to think of Asher as anything other than dead and himself as anything but a murderer.

“Orion?” Asher called out to him. “Orion are you okay?”

“Where did you go?” Orion asked flatly, “I worried about you.”

“Huh? I was only gone for an hour. I went to get my stuff, well, whatever was left of it.” Asher explained holding up a worn-out backpack.

“Oh, that’s right.” Orion shook his head.

Had it really only been an hour? How much time had passed since he was last aware of it? He hadn’t actually been Orion in a while, had he? At least not the Orion that he was now.

“Are you doing alright? You seem a bit out of it.” Asher pat the top of Orion's head.

“It's nothing-. I mean, well I’m just a little disoriented right now.” Orion answered.

“Maybe you should get some fresh air.” He suggested.

“That’s probably a good idea.” Orion responded, but he could feel himself drifting off again.

The warmth of Asher’s hand in his own was soothing. It was as if the sensation was keeping him tethered in the present.

“Hey Orion. I have a question.” Asher asked.

“Yeah?” Orion replied.

“Are vampires real?” Asher asked in full seriousness.

“What?” Orion replied, he couldn’t help but wonder just what was going through his head to ask such a thing.

“The first time you dragged me out here you asked if I was a vampire. Are they like, real or where you just messing with me?” Asher seemed curious. Orion couldn’t remember that conversation at all.

“You're a demon, aren't you?” He responded.

“Well yeah but I'm only part demon, I don't know a lot about that sort of thing. I honestly wasn't entirely convinced shadows were real until I met you.” Asher explained.

“They might exist in this dimension.” Orion paused.

“This dimension?” Asher seemed to perk up.

“You’re familiar with the whole multiverse theory thing?” Orion asked.

“What?” Asher said.

“You know, Like? The existence of parallel universes and stuff?” Orion explained.

“Well Duh. The demon world is like, a separate dimension or whatever. I know that much.” Asher asserted.

“So, the universe is kinda stratified with a bunch of layers of those parallel universes that kinda overlap and occasionally bleed into one another. Kinda like the demon world but on a much larger, near infinite scale.” Orion continued.

“Okay.”

“The layers are grouped up in places called sectors and sectors typically have levels of similarity within them so dimensions that are similar all align in some manner. Either by how energy flows within them or how it flows between them.” Orion explained.

“What does that have to do with vampires though?” Asher looked at him expectantly.

“So, if there's adjacent dimensions with vampires then there's a non-zero chance that vampires could exist here, have existed here in the past or will exist here in the future.” Orion smiled.

“Are you messing with me?” Asher scoffed.

“Only a little.” Orion laughed, “The dimensional stuff is true though. I actually did my thesis on utilizing dimensional energy to synthesize unique metal alloys.”

“Fucking? What?” Asher stopped walking.

“It’s true you can look it up online.” Orion replied smugly.

“It's not that I don’t believe you, I just don’t even remotely understand what you just said.” Asher admitted, “An alloy is like a fancy metal, right? So, you just took a form of energy no one’s ever heard of before and made a fancy metal with it.”  

“It’s a little more complicated than that. The real crux of it was finding a way to harvest that energy in a way that could be replicated by huma-”  Orion corrected himself. “I mean safely.”

“Ah.” Asher seemed to catch what he was saying, “So dealing with that energy… Is that sort of thing normal for people like you?”

“I doubt it, but there aren’t a lot of people like me to say.” Orion thought about it for a moment. Surely there were more human shadows out there somewhere. But he couldn’t remember if he had met any others.