Dyss wasn't entirely sure what to think... After all, Attis was the most intelligent of all of them, and certainly the one with the most information... And now? He was talking to... Someone? What was Dyss supposed to think? It was one thing to say strange things, but to carry on a conversation with someone who just plainly didn't exist?

"Attis..."

Dyss wasn't sure what to say. For now, he just wanted to get Milos and get back. After a month of blindness and helplessness, he was glad to be useful, and even better, to be reunited with his friends. That was quickly becoming worrying, though... Milos was missing, Illorex was unconscious, and now Attis was talking to people that didn't exist. At this rate, they'd never figure out how to become real...

Maybe it should have been Attis' time?

Dyss didn't really intend to think along those lines, but... If fading was the natural destiny of Memories, there was the possibility that other things could occur. Attis was older, strictly speaking, than the rest of them, and he hadn't faded. Was it possible his mind was going instead? Dyss hated to think that...

"Are you okay until we get Milos and get back to Izumi's house...?"

"I-- I think so," Attis replied.

Truth be told, he didn't know everything that Dyss knew. He didn't know of his moments of blanking out, he didn't know the circumstances of his fainting spell, and he didn't recognize that he was saying anything out loud at all. To Dyss, Attis might surely be mad-- or in the beginning process of fading. After all, when a Memory began to flicker, they first lost their minds, as Attis himself reported in his notes long, long ago . . .

Is it because of me?

"What?"

Did I break my promise?

"No, I don't think you broke your promise."

Perhaps the strangest thing about Attis's dialogue, to Dyss, might be that he didn't speak as if he mad. His tone was a cheerful, hopeful one-- not overbearing or overenthusiastic, but calm, mellow, and optimistic. There was no difference between his tone of voice when addressing what Dyss saw as no one at all, and when he was addressing Dyss, Milos, Izumi, or anyone else. Attis was simply a kind and gentle person. If he inadvertently gained an imaginary friend, he'd have treated them with the same level of kindness.

Dyss didn't say any more, though a worried look remained on his face. Assuming Attis noticed, that is. Dyss couldn't even be sure. It was strange, if liberating, to be the only one capable of dealing with problems, it seemed... Certainly a nice change from the dependence Dyss had on Izumi...

"Where was Milos supposed to be, here?"

Once they were close, Dyss would use his vision to look inside houses for people. Privacy was... Well, not something Dyss typically thought about. Even under the worst or most private sort of circumstances, Dyss was... Not excited by light. His body just didn't react to sights in any sort of way. Any light was just more light, no matter how... Soft... The surface it was reflecting off might be...

Dyss focused his sight, that obscure ability to perceive light in all its forms, within the houses--and, in fact, he'd find bodies there. They were still breathing. In fact, they were all undamaged. Aged and large to young and small, none seemed harmed. In fact, it was only one select building wherein most individuals were injured. Bandaged up, laid out, set up in hospital beds in separate rooms, with only a few select rooms holding much more than one person. That one building was connected to another, which seemed similar to all the rest: one room had a couple sleeping calmly in bed, with another in a lone single person bed at the end of a hall from them-- a black haired teen, sleeping calmly. Oddly, they all seemed to be like that. A whole village, sleeping calmly . . .

Likewise, it didn't seem like many were out in the road, though Dyss wasn't quite paying much attention to that. Had he, he would've seen it coming from a mile away--

"G-guys? Is that . . . you?"

If Dyss followed the source of the voice, switched his vision-- peered out in front of him, to where they were originally approaching, towards the center of town, where the densest collection of houses and establishments were. Dyss need only to check the main road, the only road that crossed through the village of Hillcrest, to see the figure standing in it. A familiar one, one they'd been looking for all along . . .

Milos. He was scuffed up; his baggy white shirt was dirty and torn at his chest and his heavy, ruffled pants were ragged and worn, and he seemed to be barefoot. Despite this, the boy seemed only to be dirty. He was unharmed--he wasn't even bruised in the slightest . . .

Though, he wasn't alone. In Milos's arms was a young girl--one that he wasn't actually much taller than. He had five inches and ten pounds on her, and that was perhaps it. Yet still, she had the appearance of someone far more frail than he. Her clothes and hair were dirty, but she was unbloodied. The girl couldn't have been older than fifteen, but she looked even younger than that. In the dark of night, her hair looked straight black, but Dyss might see it for the real purple tint that it had. The girl was breathing fine, but she didn't appear to be awake.

Dyss would switch his vision as quickly as possible after hearing such a familiar voice. It was interesting to see so many people in such an odd state of sleep with no one awake, but... Not as interesting as finding Milos. And even better, still mobile...

"Milos! We came here to find you..."

Dyss was happy to find Milos safe and mobile, but on the other hand, there was a curious wave of exhaustion that came over him to match. Perhaps because he'd found what they had come for in the first place. Seeing the whole town in such a state was still somewhat worrying, but none of it compared to seeing Milos again.

"Are you hurt? What's happened here?"

Dyss couldn't really explain what had happened to them in town, though the shadow creatures were a real problem... Not that Milos usually had a firm grasp on what was going on, either.

"M-Milos!" Attis reacted shortly after Dyss, "Y-you really are okay!"

Attis rushed to get to Milos's side. He'd been worried sick about him, though he appeared to have no reason to. Beyond tears at his clothing and dirt on his cheeks, Milos hadn't a scratch or bruise upon his body. There was nothing, no damage to his person, only the articles on his person. Milos was truly an amazing man--frighteningly so. He might've looked the part of a teenage girl, but he was veritably indestructible, and anyone who knew this had no choice but to look past his appearance.

But still, Attis was worried sick about him. Milos looked up to Attis with a bright and relieved smile. Truth be told, Milos was worried about him, too--and all of them, for that matter. Dyss, Recheov, Illorex, and Izumi . . . until now, he had no way of knowing if they were all right or not.

Of course, the fact that Dyss and Attis were both carrying weapons, a longsword for the former and a scythe for the latter (both of which seemed fitting in Milos's eyes--and the fact that he could imagine such things as his friends' choice in weaponry when it came down to it frightened him just a little) told him enough that their survival hadn't necessarily come easily.

"I-it's a really long story," Milos admitted before motioning with his head to the girl in his arms, "Can we talk about it after I get her home?"

"Um... Sure..."

Dyss of course, wasn't going to insist they talk before getting the sleeping girl home. Ordering Milos to drop the girl wasn't exactly in his nature, after all. Though, it did make Dyss feel perhaps slightly guilty, as if he should be doing something, since he was still mobile if not thriving...

"How many people are like this?"

In truth, things didn't seem that different compared to how things had been earlier that day, in an entirely different city. Fewer shades, perhaps, but there had certainly been a lot of strange activities going on...

The girl was asleep, but it was a different kind of sleep than those of the rest of Hillcrest's citizenry. Every so often, the girl's eyes clenched tightly tightly together; sometimes, even, she'd tense up her body and cling to Milos. It was during those moments that Milos looked down to her face with a sympathetic frown. This was an innocent girl; the trauma she experienced was completely unnecessary.

"I . . . I'm not sure," Milos replied regrettably, "I've only been in a couple houses, and everyone looks like they're fine, but . . . I don't know. They weren't fine earlier . . ."

Attis followed along with them, albeit in silent. He kept a watchful eye out to the houses they passed. Milos was leading them beyond the central collection of houses and towards the woods again--towards the path Attis and Dyss just came off of, but askew to the right, where there seemed to be a smaller path leading to a larger house, somewhat more exotic house.

"Why? How many can you see like . . . well, that?" Milos asked.

It was a good question, too, as far as he was concerned. Dyss, after all, could see in ways that the rest of them could not. It was important, that; if someone was hurt in the vicinity, he could let them know--and while there were some hurt people, they were all collected in one building, and were all sleeping soundly, like everyone else in the village--like everyone was at one point in Galaens.

Dyss, somewhat relieved at finding Milos and simultaneously exhausted now that there was no immediate danger, thought for a moment about the situation. He wanted to get back to Izumi, but really, she was in good hands. At least, moderately good hands. And the people here...

"I have an idea... Let's go to where the hurt people are... I can stay, and search for people, and lead you to them..."

Dyss's powers of sight would be much more efficient if he knew where he was, didn't have to worry about his body, and could simply roam with his consciousness. Once he found someone injured, it wouldn't be too difficult to create some sort of beam of light that would be visible to Milos or Attis...

"Yeah," Attis replied, the first he'd spoken in the last couple of minutes, "That's a good plan. We'll find you someplace comfortable to rest first, though, okay?"

Truth be told, neither he nor Dyss were in that great of shape. In fact, Milos was the only one of them now that was actually doing all right. Attis could have used rest, too, but not as much as Dyss. For some reason or the other, Attis was in vastly better shape than Dyss. He certainly didn't look it, though . . .

"Well, after we get her home," Milos added, before shaking the girl in his arms slightly.

He didn't want to wake her up harshly, but he needed to be sure he was at the right place. He hated to think that she might wind up in the wrong place, in terrible hands, after this traumatizing night. The girl roused somewhat. She was groggy and exhausted, and clearly didn't want to wake up, but when she opened her eyes (however reluctantly), she saw Milos was calmed noticeably.

"Hey," said Milos softly with a calm and patient smile.

"Hey," the girl reply with meek fatigue; she didn't seem to be put off by being in Milos's arms, though--and with good reason.

"Sorry to wake you," Milos apologized, before motioning forward with his head, "But . . . is this your house?"

The girl turned her head a bit, to look blurry eyed at the exotic house before them. She looked up to Milos again and nodded up to him. She smiled somewhat.

"Th-thank you again . . ."

"No, no need to thank me at all," Milos smiled, "I'm just glad I could help. Go back to sleep, okay? You need your rest. I'll come by and see how you're doing in the morning, okay?"

"Okay . . ." the girl trailed off tiredly, "Good night, Milos . . ."

"Good night, Mayako," Milos replied soothingly. He stood still for a second, and once he was content with the knowledge that the girl, Mayako, was asleep, he looked back to his friends. "I'm going to get her a bed. I'll be right back, okay?"

Dyss had been away from Purgatory longer than Attis, and with that, he had an opportunity of sorts to become a bit weaker. He had been blind for a long time, which wasn't conducive to increasing or maintaing strength, and it hadn't really been a priority in any case. Maybe part of it was simply mental, as well. Dyss just wanted a chance to relax...

Watching Milos interact with Mayako made him a bit curious: how many people did Milos know here already? Still, it wasn't right for him to pry, he felt... He didn't even quite know what Milos was doing in this town...

"Has everyone just been... Tired?"

Milos left Attis and Dyss alone when he approached the ornate house just down the path from them. Attis watched Milos go with a smile; it was nice to see that Milos was going out of his way to help the people here. None of them were truly bad people; they didn't deserve the terrible things that happened to them recently.

"I . . . don't know," Attis replied as he looked to Dyss again.

He stretched his arms out before plopping down upon the ground. Now seemed like a good time to sit down and maybe rest his legs. He didn't know how long Milos was going to be, after all--and it wasn't like he had much else to worry about at the moment. Well, sort of. There was nothing else in the immediate future to be concerned about. They hadn't seen any shadow creatures since the last big one, and while that didn't discount the possibility that there might be more, Dyss could find those before they could find them.

"I'm a little tired, but . . ." Attis paused. "Not that tired. Do you think it's this place that's doing it?"

If so, that wouldn't explain why Attis wasn't that tired--but then again, Attis was acting extremely strange recently, talking to himself and all . . .

"I don't know... We still don't even know what happened earlier..."

Dyss, sitting down in a corner, would curl up to a certain extent. While he moved his consciousness around, he tended to try to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. After all, he couldn't defend himself, and perhaps wouldn't even know if his body was to be killed while he was away. That was a question he didn't really want to have answered, though...

"Maybe it's not that bad. Maybe I'm just tired of having to deal with strange things like this..."

With that, Dyss opened up his consciousness, and first marked his own location, setting up a sort of grid in his head over the town. Then, he could begin to systematically look...

"I can relate . . ." Attis sighed.

He plopped down upon the ground, seating himself next to Dyss. It was really a horrible situation, this. He had no idea what was going on. Everything seemed so normal, yet . . . so dark. So very, very dark. And every time he looked at his friends, they were looking at him strangely.

Attis leaned against the same bulky oak that Dyss did. He let the pole of the scythe rest against his shoulder, the shoulder opposite from Dyss. His eyes were on the sky, the dark night sky above. It was all a blur--as if there was nothing up there to see. No stars to dot the sky. No moon to brighten the earth, however subtly it did. Attis narrowed his eyes, trying to focus, but he couldn't find it. He was having a hard time finding the light.

Was this how Dyss felt when he first came here?

"Dyss," Attis whispered as he stared blankly into what, to him, appeared to be little more than a blank, black canvas of sky. "I think I'm losing my mind."

Dyss's voice was only half there, as if he was busy doing something else. In truth, he was, despite the fact that he might well have looked as if he was sleeping. That is, if he didn't have a cloth tied over his eyes...

"Attis... It doesn't matter. We made it to the real world..."

That would be the last Dyss would speak, his breathing assuming the slow and rhythmic pace of someone sleeping. Or really, perhaps a touch slower and deeper than sleep. A sleeping person, after all, would wake up if touched, but Dyss likely wouldn't until his consciousness returned on its own...