Whether it was regular neon lights, holograms, or both lighting up Las Vegas across the assumedly desert horizon, from this distance and through the veil of the white curtains it was not easy to tell. The lulls from the silence of the treatment center made it hard to know if the clacking of hooves, the engines of terrestrial cars, or the whizzing of magnetic cars were either real or dream artefacts. Even the supernal effulgence emanating through the curtains was a perfect dark blue, making it difficult to see if it was evening or if it was dawn. It was as if the sky itself wanted to be just as reticent as the reality Iker existed in.

  Through whatever analysis Iker could make of the unremarkable rehab bedroom with foggy eyes and foggy thoughts, there were no significant markers of a specific time period. The rehabilitating abode was as ambiguous as the sky across the curtained casement window.

  Knocks came from the white wooden door.

  "Bastian! Bastian. You won't believe the bender I just had!" Iker yelled. Stinking of sweat, sex, and plasma'd r0cbytes, he had no choice but to notice how destroyed his tuxedo had become. Forget calling it a tuxedo; the jacket had become a pair of solitary cuffs and the pants had become pair of half-trunks and half-pants. And upon wondering for how long he wore this soiled outfit, Iker tripped over the part of his pants that could still reach his crusty ankle. His arms, wanting to guard his face, did not respond. His hands flailed as he faceplanted onto the wooden floor. Luckily he did not feel the pain from it yet, and he used the rebound of the fall to land back up on his bare feet precariously. He dived towards the doorknob and his face–

  "... were you expecting someone else?"

  The visitor's sanctimonious demeanor from either Iker's reality hops or hallucinations did shed, but his imposing posture remained. Especially in the way he carried the Aulasy in his composed arms.

  Ameen Alkrez was a patient in this rehab center too.

  "I heard through the grapevine that you have returned, and I wanted to apologize to you directly about being the unfortunate target of my spiritual psychosis," Ameen added. "Theolepsy if you will."

  "I don't even remember..." Iker murmured. "I only remember what you became in my hallucinations."

  From what he knew about Ameen, Iker would have guessed he never had a shed of curiosity in his life, but Ameen did indeed express such a thing upon that revelation. Even though Iker found religiosity and curiosity to be an oxymoron, Ameen's strange eyes perked up in wonder.

  "Tell me more!" Ameen demanded a little too loudly.

  "Shh! ...what if you relapse?" Iker whispered.

  Ameen, for the first time, broke eye contact with Iker. Faltering skylight reached all the way to his irises that captured light so well while he mulled over Iker's warning.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "My first thought was to deny that it will ever happen again," Ameen replied. "But that has been my downfall every time hasn't it? I was trying to put into words my newfound conviction while not neglecting to mention how fallible I am."

  Iker smiled. "That's been the paradox I've been dealing in my twenties... there's both this need for self-acceptance... and the awareness that we can always improve too."

  Ameen met Iker's gaze once more, and he smiled back. "Do you mind if I come into your room to apologize? I feel like I have to rush when I am standing outside of your door..."

  "You can do it out here," Iker suggested, both of their smiles simultaneously dropping. Ameen shifted his gaze towards the hallway's floor.

  "I am sorry for yelling at you at the recreation room," Ameen eventually said. Iker waited for more, but Ameen remained silent. Rather than giving into the impulse to ask if he had anything else to apologize for, Iker tried to close the door on him until Ameen shoved his black dress shoe between the door and the threshold.

  "Wait! I'll apologize about anything else you want. I just want to know what you saw," Ameen begged.

  Well... they would be disingenuous apologies now, Iker thought. However, even with that in mind, Iker wanted Ameen to go away as soon as possible.

  "Your spiritual psychosis must have really gotten to you and me, because you became some kind of superpowered messiah in my bender. Causing earthquakes and making people's heads disappear and shit. Now, can you go away please? Don't knock on my door again."

  Ameen stepped away, however Iker did not take the opportunity to close the door. They locked eyes for a moment.

  "....you don't believe those were mere dreams do you Iker?" Ameen asked with his notorious confidence.

  Despite the perfect opportunity to close the door, Iker stared at him.

  "Did you talk to the psychiatrist yet?" Iker asked.

  "Have you?" Ameen asked right back.

  While Iker stayed silent, a subdued chuckle arose in Ameen's chest while he stood in the middle of the hallway. Eventually, any restraint he had vanished, and he could not hold back his deranged laughter no longer.

  "Trickster, I frankly do not care if you are playing stupid or not," Ameen eventually said when he calmed down. "Unfortunately for your platoon, I know perfectly well how all these non-linear realities work. The virtual, the physical, and the dream realms. While you will be stuck confused figuring out how all these times and places interact, I shall destroy every interdimensional city, and I shall possess the existing one. See, the world he exists in... if the readers are disturbed with how easily human beings are falling for propaganda... they have seen nothing yet. Not only will corporations and government double down further into using the same tactics as cults, but even cults will adapt in ways that even cult experts will never fathom. Fictional characters, dead people, and old gods will be just as influential as politicians. Extremely convincing and generated videos will make the pagan times of the Bible look like a Doctor Seuss story. The only solution is–"

  "Shut the fuck up," Iker interrupted.

  "What?" Ameen asked.

  "I said shut the fuck up," Iker replied. "You've lost your mind. Get help."

  Iker finally closed the door, now the tapping from the window being audible due to Ameen's theoleptic and continuing monologue being sealed away from the room. Upon perceiving the tapping, a catlike silhouette behind the curtains was spotted by Iker, and he proceeded to walk towards it.

  When Iker pulled the curtain aside, a white cat with the same hue of blue in his irises like Bastian's eyes had was sitting on the window sill outside.