They both laid silently in the same bedroom… Not even separated by a bed, as there was only one to share… It wasn’t intimate; it was awkward. None of them wanted to sleep first just in case the other was going to do something to them. The only thing left for them to do was simply discuss…

‘‘So… Hm…How did that happen to your arm sir…?” Diana said, staring at the ceiling… Why the hell would that be your first question…

Harry let out a small sigh… The memory was still vivid since it happened so recently…

‘‘My old leader sent me flying from the top of a volcano straight into a forest. It was torn off.’’ He said calmly. If his arm had been present, his story would had sounded like a lie…

Diana’s eyes widened… He was sent flying that far…and lived? That was…amazing in a way. Her gaze shifted toward his severed and cauterized arm… She let out a small, pained scoff. The sight alone was enough to make her feel hurt for him… For a stranger. Harry’s eyes glanced toward hers in silence. Unlike her, he was analyzing her. Why was this stranger being empathetic with him? They didn’t know other… Not enough for any of them to feel for the other… So why was she doing this? It was so strange for him…

They stared at other in silence… Diana and Harry clearly searching for a new topic to talk about… This was very awkward… What could they even talk about…? Diana thought of something…

‘‘How did you even find this place?’’ She quickly asked to make the silence vanish in the fog of the air.

Harry let out a soft breath, glancing around the parts of his mother’s room…

‘‘I was born here. I can hardly call this place home anymore… Ive been living within the walls of Elaria’s queendom for the past few months…’’

This made Dania pause… Elaria? He was living within that bitch’s walls and was still alive? Who the hell was he? She quickly hopped off the bed, grabbing onto her small dagger and pointing it toward him as she stood in the doorway of the main bedroom.

‘Just who were you to her, huh?! ’’ She almost screamed out of her lungs.

Harry gently got up from the bed with his only remaining hand wrapping it around the handle of his sword but only holding it toward the ground for the moment. She wasn’t a threat.

‘I was her right arm of battle. Harry Gage, leader of the black helmet division,’’ he commented gently.

Once more… She paused. Her friend who had been trying to escape that damn military for so long… He had died because of him… Luke was dead because of him! She clutched her dagger tighter within her hand… Her damn friend who had been forced into that life… The one person she wished to keep on living for… He had died because of his leader’s decisions! That man before her… Harry Gage was to blame for everything! But… The way he was looking at her… The way his eyes softened as he saw the pure rage go through her veins… Luke didn’t need to be brought up with words… It was as if both of them knew what this whole thing was about right now…and both of them were pained from it. But… He was still the reason he had died… She couldn’t let that action go unpunished… Her eyes roamed down to each of his wounds and scars… Perhaps he had already been punished enough …?

Harry glanced down at the way she was holding her dagger and sighed, letting go of his blade, letting it fall onto the ground and bounce… If she wanted to stab him this badly… She would have done so already. Letting down his guard was a risky move, especially because of his current condition… But…he chose to trust his instincts. Should he be proven wrong, he was willing to endure the consequences.

‘You were close to him… Weren’t you? Luke I mean…’’ Harry said those words softly… Almost like a soft breeze of air when you open a window in the winter.

Diana couldn’t answer that question… It was too personal for her… The mere mention of Luke’s death was like a bomb exploding right next to her… Too recent despite it happening almost a month ago… With a small sigh she dropped the knife from her hand… Taking a step out of the bedroom and walking back toward the basement…

Harry wished to reach out to explain that…he was sorry for Luke’s death even if he wasn’t truly to blame for it… But he chose to allow her to distance herself. Her reaction was understandable… Who would want to sleep in the same room as the person you blame your friend’s death on… He gently sat back onto the bed that was once his mom’s… He could only stare at the staircase leading down to the basement of the house…

He slowly closed his eyes and let the night take him away… If she stabbed him in his sleep… Then so be it.

His eyes stormed open as if a imaginary force of wind had blown them open in their wake… But he wasn’t awake… That was the most obvious… A dream perhaps. No… This was too vivid… The waves around him… The flow of gravity felt so familiar…? His eyes widened as he locked eyes with… What the hell was that? The giant eye before him seemed also surprised to see him… It was as if none of them knew that this would happen…

You…can see me? Perceive me?

The eye spoke within his mind… The rumbling of its ethereal voice bouncing inside Harry’s head over and over again. Harry’s eyes glanced down toward the four-dimensional body… How was he even able to understand what he was seeing?… It had long tendrils connected to a shell-like body with a singular eye staring down at a…book? And… Right under its shell—a red gem. Wait… A red gem? Harry took a step back glaring upward at the giant eyeball that had many irises… Was this… The one who had possessed Elaria?

This goddamn bastard… Harry had seen his target’s “face” now… He just had to find a way to take him out… How could he take out a being that lived outside of the physical realm?… Harry glanced down at the book that the being was writing inside off… The words that were being said at this exact moment being written at the same exact time… This entity… How weird.

How did it work…? Harry was intrigued in this new enemy… How did it work… How did it live… What was it? He had so much questions… The giant eyes stared deep within him as if they were trying to figure out what made him able to be here within this very moment… Was this even a dream or a vision? Was he actually here? Perhaps it was even more complex than that…

The eye leaned forward as it seemed to be examining him closer… A small yet long tendril gently caressing Harry’s cheek… It wasn’t comforting. Suddenly the tendril wrapped tightly around Harry’s neck—yanking him right before him as the young man let out a small yelp of surprise at the sudden pull. Eye to eye couldn’t be a more accurate representation of how close they were…

But something else caught Harry’s eye… A spiral twisting upward and downward infinitely… Neverending… A central line piercing the endless spiral to its point of origin… Spheres adoring the spiral… But those were… They were his planet… Multiplied over countless times… What is this …?

Time.

The eye rumbled through his mind once more. So…This was time… The very concept itself. But… If this was time… What was beyond that light that pierced time itself?… Harry’s eyes widened as he focused on the giant structure beyond the light, only to find a giant eye staring right back at him… But it was… Dead. There were more entities like the eye…? Who is this one?

The eye seemed to wish to answer his question… However, right as the words seemed to bounce around his mind, he was brought awake from falling off his bed in a loud thump.