Every so often Elyas would open his eyes to see Noah carrying him deeper into the woods, setting up camp or sleeping. He was heading east.

  Despite all of these chances to escape, Elyas didn't. His eyes were indifferent in the face of freedom. He didn't see Noah as his capturer, he simply didn't see the world at all. He closed and opened his eyes only to find that the weather had changed, the day had passed or to find Noah. Trying desperately to talk to him, feed him, or carry him away.

  One day he opened his eyes in a city on the streets. In a dark alley no one would check. Days passed, nights came. But for Elyas time was frozen. More frozen than his body under the heavy rain or the blanket of winter snow. Noah's words destroyed every hope he had of meeting them.

  "A hundred years.”

  You abandoned them

  Even if alive, what are you going to say?

  You'll never see his face.

  Never see his smile.

  Never caress his cheek.

  YOU DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE

  With each breath a new thought formed. From it, came a vision which Elyas used to prosecute himself.

  The image of his mother distracting a Figment to let them live. The image of Ralf's battered and broken body, lying among the corpses of his colleagues. Watching him leave. Following him with a hopeful gaze. ‘I'm sorry Ralf’ The only thing he could say was that. Sorry.

  The images of that day.

  Streets filled with voices as loud as the cheering for a play. Theatre the world, stage the streets, gore and violence the main show. People ripped each other apart as they lost control and became Nightmares, both in the waking world, and the survivors' dreams.

  Monsters, both familiar and alien, all Figments of people's imagination roamed the city like their home. As rhythmic screams rose to the sky, and fainted to the background like the static of a TV; with them came seven moons and three suns.

  Shortly after, a thick fog appeared, reigning over the sky. The only reason he and Michael survived was due to Figment's already full bellies and the fog.

  One day, he opened his eyes to find a familiar face. Noah was kneeling in front of him. Bearing a pained expression, he was saying something to him.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “I'm… sorry… left… here…”

  Elyas couldn't hear him properly, so he ignored him and stared blankly. As Noah left, Elyas did what he had done till now, fall asleep. Every few days he would wake up to Noah feeding him, every time, he pushed the man's hands away.

  One day he came to Elyas. This time he wore a determined expression. “I know how you feel… I was just like you when I thought my sister died.” Noah said with a heavy look as he gazed at Elyas. Now nothing but a few bones held together by a layer of skin. A vegetable leaning against the wall in the cold winter snow.

  Noah continued

  “I was there when it happened… The First Whispers. In Vernis. My sister and I were little. When the Figments poured into the streets. we did what everyone did that day, run.” he paused, looking at Elyas, expecting no reaction he moved on

  “My parents were murdered in front of me while trying to save us. We hid inside a half collapsed building and survived…days passed. And we got hungry, but we didn't dare use our Wish. We watched countless mothers and brothers turn into monsters right after using them.”

  Noah’s voice slowed, a deep, old sorrow leaking into each word.

  “I went outside to scavenge food, told my sister to stay put…I told her but… When I returned, only a pool of blood and one of her shoes was left. I felt, not sad, just…empty, unable to eat or move. An old man from the Protocol found me in the same puddle.”

  He looked at Elyas with deep sorrow.

  “I was reduced to a vegetable. I could hear and sense the world around me but I was unable… no, I chose not to react. I just didn't want to live without her.”

  “That's why I know you can hear me, Elyas.”

  Elyas's fingers twitched.

  Noah knelt beside the pale skinny man in front of him. It was the first time he had seen himself in another person. The first time he could speak without hiding anything. “After a few Dreamers turned Heartless, word reached people across the world. The old man came to give me hope.”

  “He told me:

  “Young man, I understand the bitter pain of losing a loved one. Few people remain who haven’t tasted it yet. But I have good news: your sister might be alive.”

  Noah's voice cracked, making his voice raspier than usual, but he didn't seem to notice. “The blood could have been from a monster… a Dreamer trying to save her. From there, she could have become a Dreamer herself, with the possibility of turning Heartless, nearly immortal.”

  As Noah said this he observed Elyas closely. Hoping for anything, any change…but nothing happened. Noah's words travelled from his mouth to Elyas's ears and lingered in the man's mind. From that short contact a spark had formed. Out of it, a single thought grew rapidly, pushing aside all the clouds covering the truth that was now reminded to him.

  ‘There is still hope’

  The hope that Michael had become a Dreamer, and then a Heartless. Having the chance to live to this day. Michael's smile as he made him watch his favorite movie. The boy's small frame cuddling near him after an afternoon nap. The simple jokes he made, his son's friends. Elyas didn't want to leave that behind. He couldn't let go.

  He used that hope. grabbed onto it like a rope tossed down into a well he was stuck in. to see another day, to have a chance to see his face again. To hear that pure, childish laugh one more time. To say sorry.

  There was still a chance. A sliver of hope that Michael was alive. It was a leap. A giant leap of logic and faith. One that he had to, and wanted to make.

  Noah was about to leave when he saw Elyas's face. Unbeknownst to him, Noah's lips had curved upwards.

  “...I—i see that the rest suited you well. Then, should I get you something to eat?” Noah asked, repeating what the old man had told him over a hundred years ago. As Elyas nodded, he watched Noah for the first time. He saw his stretched hand, his face bearing a faint smile.

  The fog with the help of the stars had veiled the sky in a milky white. That allowed the moons to spread their colors even more than usual, turning the night sky into a colourful canvas. All of it was fading into lilac as the suns rose behind Noah. Elyas barely managed to get up with his help. The darkness that had been looming over him, now dimming under the morning light.

  It wasn't gone. Something like that doesn't leave. It only diminishes. “I'm… coming, Michael.” now, replacing the lessened darkness, was a new found will to continue.