It’s that little hand again, warm in mine. I let go of it again, and watch it dwindle from my sight as I drift further and further away. It’s this feeling again, this giving in, surrendering feeling that takes over me. I close my eyes again. Behind my eyelids, I am going to feel a bright light approaching me again, then I am going to wake up.

But the light never comes.

Instead, I feel something cold grab desperately onto my stretched-out hand. It pulls me back, and I don’t resist its gravity. I open my eye. Beneath my swaying hair, I can see two hopeless seafoam green eyes, staring at me with fury and hurt. Tear droplets glistened by their edges, threatening to come out.

She sprung up, gasping for air. Panting, she looked at her trembling hands, and hid them underneath her arms. Trying to calm herself down, she took a deep breath; it smelled like the stagnating scent of the Reses Sea. She glanced at it distastefully; it was as still and greenish as ever. Slowly, she got up and dusted her dark pants from the pale sand grains that clutched at it. Now standing, she felt calmer and more like her usual self. Her boots stepped towards the beach and stopped where the water meets the sand, just far enough to feel the wetness of the ground without the water touching her soles.

Lethe thought about her dream. It was different this time too. Her dark blue eye stared thoughtfully at the gigantic Hourglass in the middle of the sea. Majestic, terrifying, and older than time, its upper half was almost empty. It was indicating that the next day was about to start. The black sand was dripping down tormentingly, one grain at a time. The dream usually stopped when she could feel a light behind her closed eyes. But lately, it has changed. She pulled at her eyepatch strap and let it fall back on her cheek with a slight slap. Such intense green eyes, Lethe thought to herself. Placing her hands in the pockets of her pale purple jacket, she turned away from the Reses, and began walking towards the island.

As she stepped on the cracked pavement, the neon street lights above flickered painfully every two seconds. She counted from one to two then looked at them to see the blinding flicker. Her heels made a loud clicking sound against the dreadful silence surrounding the eternal night. Lethe wondered if any of them will appear. They usually attack when the upper half of the Hourglass has completely emptied, so she was expecting them within the next hour or so. Every now and then, the ebbing street lights would reveal the ruins at the outskirts of the island. Some were in better conditions than others, but none of them had a roof. Wherever you decide to take shelter, you’re bound to be faced with the starless pitch-black sky above that seems to be sucking you into its emptiness. That is why Lethe sleeps. She does not want to look at it, and so she shuts her eye.

She was now at the center of the island, known by the name Inanis. Lethe stood at a crossroad of two broken streets, still thinking about her dream. She wondered why it has suddenly changed, when it was the same for as long as she could remember. Pulling at the strap of her eyepatch, she took a long, deep breath. The image of those desperate green eyes furiously gazing at her would not leave her head, though she would usually forget all about her dream as soon as she gets up. A cold, echoing, and shrieking creak snapped her out of her thoughts, and she looked towards the Reses Sea. The Hourglass had struck the next day, and had begun turning. Lethe hated the dreadfully loud and rusty noise it made. She violently shut both her ears and closed her eye, waiting for the sound to pass. It felt like an eternity, but it eventually came to an end. Opening her lonely dark blue eye, Lethe saw that the upper half of the Hourglass was full again, swarming with hungry black sand. She slowly lowered her arms back to her sides. At least she was safe from Perditus for today, since they didn’t attack her earlier on.

With that danger out of her head, she placed back her hands in her pockets, and resumed walking, never knowing where to. Her gaze wondered here and there, from the man laying on the street, snoring still despite the Hourglass turning, to the woman talking to herself in whispers, to a short bald man beating to death a Halfling. In the back of her mind Lethe thought that it was somewhat cruel of him. The Halfling hadn’t fully turned yet, and was still harmless. With the closing thought that it was none of her business anyway, she continued on her path towards nowhere, breathing in the musty blanket of fog. Usually, Lethe preferred to walk only straight ahead. It was not due to any preference of hers, but simply because that’s where her long black boots took her. When she would reach the final point of the island, which was the opposing beach, she would spend the rest of the day there, humming to herself until she fell asleep. This time, however, her boots urged her to take a turn at the next crossroad, and so Lethe did.

She randomly stopped at an alley that formed from a building that had broken in half. It was somewhat a different sight from the ruins she was used to seeing, and so she decided to stay here for a while. Before she sat against one of its walls, however, an angry shout issued from behind the two buildings. It startled her, but Lethe paid it no further mind. It was nothing unusual, after all. But then a grinning Perditus emerged and ran past her, groaning in pain. It was too fast for her to react in time, and it didn’t seem to be targeting her in the first place, so Lethe simply stood up in surprise. Before she could process the situation, a tall figure came rushing after the Perditus, and bumped against her violently. The crash made both of them fall back on their behinds.

“Watch where you’re fucking going!” The man exclaimed, picking up a nail-filled wooden club from the ground where it had fallen.

“You’re the one who bumped into me.” Lethe responded calmly, and was surprised by the sound of her own voice. When was the last time she had spoken to someone? Both of them stood up and took some time to re-adjust their clothes.

“Fuck… Now it’s escaped! All because of your dumbass standing in the way for no damn reason!” Placing the club on his shoulder, he stepped out of the darkness. Lethe’s heart jumped at this sight.

“The fuck you staring at?”

She gulped. There was no mistaking it. She had seen them one too many times not to recognize them on the spot. Those seafoam green eyes. The eyes she had never seen before yet had been dreaming of. She was looking right at them, not in a dream, but right here, right now.