Alex felt a gust of wind on his face. He opened his eyes slowly, each increment gave way to a cloudy tuft in the sky dappled in hues of lightened pink and dark dreary blues. It was another dream. This one felt different... it felt like it happened before, like deja vu. He looked down at his palms, each one still encompassing a mark of a four-sided cyan star. He saw his sleeve's ends fanned and fluttered out to remind him that he's still there.

Alex looked over an edge right in front of him. This was a floating island, a town with buildings surrounded him. He turned around, cafes and stores filled the space. Several other islands were floating beyond that point, cascading up and downward. Living beings strolled without worry, talking to one another. Each one looked almost exactly like him in form. 'Humanoid'. 

Alex opened his eyes further to a sound... a hollow and deep humming, the periodic ticking of a mechanical clock. This noise vibrated through the ground beneath him. At the cliff's edge, he fell on his knees, eager to witness what was calling to him. All he could see was a gear. A toothy and thick ring was rotating slowly beneath where he was. As it moved, it burrowed the ground even more. After one more rotation, it slowed to a halt. As it did, the air felt ominously stagnant. A shade of cerulean grey manifested the environment like a still-water pond. With every second, Alex grew aware. Everything around him felt louder as white noise drowned his senses. Every living thing that was once moving, every object once in motion. They were silent, trapped in time. He thought of fear, yet it couldn't grasp his mind. It was there but it wouldn't show, as if feeling it was impossible and yet... he knew he should flee.

Alex watched as a dark body of mist lingered from under the island, under the mechanisms that were dormantly idling. The ferritic cloud waft upward in front of Alex as he fell backward on the ceramic tile. Opening his eyes again, he caught a glimpse of the being pursuing him. It formed into an alien-like humanoid, hind legs and head of an anubis. Zig-zagged cuffs were clasped on their ankles and wrists and their neck was wrapped in the same material, stone. It shaped into a collar that fanned to its shoulders. A brightened, completely solid white rhomboidal star inset within its chest and its tail had twin ends, glowing all the same. It stared at Alex, its arms behind its back. Its stature was formal. It held its hand out to him slowly, creeping closer.

Alex woke from his dream, gasping and panting. He grasped his left hemisphere. He tries looking around taking in all the imagery rather than feeling the anxiety dredge him. As he sees Akhmin snoring, Nilin and Riddik laying uniform next to eachother, Achiin playing with Zyphon's tail, Seff and Elkhra sleeping on eachother's shoulders... his breathing slows. His eyes' irises gauge wider as he takes one last reassuring breath, listening to the pittering of medium rainfall right outside the window next to him. "Interesting...", he says aloud. "Why did that one look different from the other..." He remembers the dark entity he witnessed back in the geodite cave. The portal held a figure with eyes but the outline was still prominent to him despite it being a black background. "That other one looked more like a bat... but... this one? This one looked like a dog..." A zap from his brain had punished him from that word. "d...dog??--" Yet another zap had been given. "What...--"

Achiin watches Alex as he talks to himself. Zyphon turns to Achiin, speaking for Alex. "It's ok, he's finally just getting real dreams now. I've monitored his mind's vitals before... something isn't where it should be..." Achiin confusingly watches Alex, hearing this. In their mind, a vision of horns appear, dual-sided ones. A four-sided diamond iris... indigo is drenched inside the body of a puppet-like human... it looks... exactly like Alex, save for one feature... long, flowing, Dovrah-white hair and a butterfly-shaped hole on its back. 

Achiin turns to ask something of Zyphon, "What... do you know about butterflies?..." Zyphon remembers how the boy can see a split in space. The scorpion shakes its body left and right as if shaking its head. "It's... just someone he remembers... maybe you should sleep, young Achiin." Achiin scrunches his face but yawns. "Hhh okay..." Zyphon goes back to Alex as Achiin keeps his right eye open. He speaks under his breath in retaliation, "I will find out..." 

Alex looks at Zyphon as it scurries up to him. "Your mind... it's stable. No nightmares?" Alex looks down, contemplating his dream. "I don't think so... it was more pleasant... a memory that hasn't happened yet... something I want to happen... I think." He twiddles his thumbs, pondering. "What is... a dog?" that same small zap is still happening as he speaks it, but not as painful. Zyphon gives him a mental image of a puppy from the past. "A simple furball with little paws, brown fur, floppy ears that were rounded. It had blackened beady eyes that could pierce your defenses and make you weak to its whims. A perfect evolution of domestication... some things I do not envy...", says the scorpion. Alex feels comfort from this picture and yet, at the same time, feels a dreaded fear of it. "T-take it away..." He puts his palm over his eyes. Zyphon is surprised at his response. Most 'humans' become enthralled by this sight. "I suppose Aeo really did choose the right vessel for this mission..." Zyphon thought to itself.