"I hate endermen."

Rythian watched from the creeper-shaped window of his castle. He'd merely been walking down his hallway when he'd heard the cries.

Purple dust was everywhere. Rain fell upon the ground as if made of lead, heavy and dense. Zoey would be asleep through all of this. While Rythian got little to no sleep, constantly dashing around the castle, finding new ways to prepare for what he imagined was the coming confrontation with Sjin; Zoey was a deep sleeper. She would exert so much energy over the course of a day by simply being… well… Zoey. She was a wildfire, ducking in and out of her exuberance. Rythian was a steady river.

The endermen screamed profusely through the shiny, inky landscape. Just when Rythian would turn to walk back to his alchemy room, his ears would be barraged by yet another grotesque scream. He couldn't help but watch with sick satisfaction as they fell dead to the ground. Enderpearls lay everywhere, glistening from the rainfall, and illuminated by the light of the castle.

Mesmerized as he was, he didn't notice as Zoey crept down the stairs, watching silently in a sleepy stupor from around the hall's corner. Rythian merely stared, repeating once again, as if it was a mantra, "I hate endermen…"

Zoey tried in her daze to walk silently into the kitchen, only to stumble slightly. Rythian jumped and whirled around, katar in hand. He stopped, wide-eyed and blushing slightly when he saw not an intruder, but a sleepy Zoey staring groggily back at him, in contrast to her usual chipper self.

"Why?" she asked.

"W-why what?" he said, sheathing his katar.

"Why doya hate enderman?"

He froze for a moment, still holding the katar at his waist, clutching it tighter.

"I just do."

Zoey sighed, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes, her head tilting a painting as she did.

"Tha's not fair, Rythi."

Rythian sighed, scratching at his mask.

"Life isn't fair."

Zoey groaned, rolling herself off of the wall and into the kitchen, grabbing a bowl of mushroom soup and heading over to the table in her semi-awake trance. For the first time in a while she didn't feel the need to talk through her thoughts out loud. She'd come down in the first place to check up on Barry, as she'd been feeling paranoid as of lately. The guilt of harboring her lab was eating her apart.

She didn't have the energy to argue with Rythian. Just seeing him had made the guilt even more palatable. But she couldn't dwell on it. So instead she ate her stew and stared out the window just as Rythian had… not quite seeing.

It was much, much later, after a long stretch of hot, dry weather, that it rained again. Unfortunately, Zoey and Rythian found themselves outside, on a scouting mission around Cabertown. They were quite far away from their desert haven, and it would take the whole day for them to take on the trek back.

Rythian threw up the hood of his cloak at the first sight of it, looking abjectly to the sky, and taking an immediate 180 back towards their home. Zoey swiveled around in confusion, looking to see Rythian's retreating figure. She jogged after him, slowing down when slightly ahead of Rythian as to meet his face with curiosity. She walked backwards when addressing him.

"What's wrong?"

"I just want to get back home." He looked up, keeping his pace, and winced slightly as a few drops made contact with his face, "Out of this damned rain."

"Sure but… It's really nice!" She said, doing a little twirl to emphasize the point.

Rythian paused for a moment, "Tee will be missing us." he said, bringing his head back up to meet Zoey's eyes.

"Pfft, Tee'll be fine, Rythi! He's lasted longer. Besides, he's got Ravs with him!" She walked on for a moment, but then blocked Rythian's path, forcing him to stop abruptly. "What's wrong?"

"We've been out here long enough, and this rain is horrible."

Zoey looked towards the sky, observing the lazy, and in no way imposing, drizzle.

"It's not that bad…"

Rythian began to walk again, moving around Zoey as if she wasn't there at all. She matched his rushed pase, following close behind.

"I have some wool and sticks. We could make an umbrella!" She said, "Or- or…"

"Or we could go home, Zoey," Rythian put bluntly, stepping over a fallen log, "You know I hate the rain."

Zoey's first instinct was to blurt out a loud "why". But as Rythian sped up his pace, the word died on her lips, only coming out as a quiet breath. And she followed him. And although the question may have been lots in the respects of conversation, she couldn't help but ask herself that resounding "why?" over and over again.

Why?

It was nearly two weeks later, after some mad exploits with the spacetime-continuum, an incident with an outhouse and a desperate search for chocolate milk in the hopes of powering a certain robotic arm, Zoey, Rythian, and Teep found themselves in a world unknown. They walked through the never-ending, twisted walls of the twilight maze. Zoey was once again lost in her thoughts, even while chattering to Rythian. Her mind was elsewhere.

Rythian was a spiteful, hate-filled man, and she knew this. She had accepted this long ago. But the thing about Rythian was he very rarely hated anything without good reason. He was vengeful for the old world, he hated science because of how unreliable it was, he hated brussel sprouts because he said they tasted terrible. He hated zombies because they were loud and persistant.

Zoey followed Rythian down to another maze level, landing in a small well. They hopped out and continued the trek. Rythian had good reason to hate things. But the fact alone that his hate of rain and endermen had no valid excuse led her mind down several odd series of thought and back again. Each idea crazier than the next, and each being almost instantly discarded as a possibility.

The suspicion was killing her. Friends don't keep secrets… although she wasn't really on to talk… She sighed, watching as Rythian ran right down a branching corridor before her. She followed close behind, checking the rooms he passed quickly in his haste and grabbing and fireflies she came across. She walked by a torch room. Had Rythian been cursed by the endermen to be weakened by rain? Had he been defeated by the Enderbabe before? Was he… no. That one was too stupid.

She turned left, not thinking to look for Rythian or Teep anymore. They were far ahead of her. She continued on, a million "maybe's" floating around her head.

Rythian searched through a chest, grabbing a few items before stalking off to the next. He hadn't felt right since his magic was cut off from him. He felt a sort of emptiness inside… but the longer he stayed in this dimension, the more he could feel that gaping hole being filled with something else, something unsettling, something so wrong… but so familiar. His fears were only met with a feeling that he was forgetting something very important.

He glanced over his shoulder, doing a double take when he realized that Zoey hadn't been following him. He looked to Tee, who merely shrugged in response. Rythian gave a little mutter, turning aroung and beginning to head back through the labyrinth. Past the treasure room, past the torch room, taking a as many different routes as possible, all while crying out her name.

That was when it struck him. A burning sensation raged across his cheek, causing him to clutch at it with his hand. Teep looked around in a panic for any enemies, gun at the ready, having thought that Rythian had been attacked. Still in tremendous pain, and slightly hunched over, Rythian began to sprint, taking a few twists and turns to arrive at the well that the group had landed in. Tee followed close behind, obviously distraught.

Rythian kneeled at the water, pulling off his mask in a panic, cupping water in his shaking hands. As uncomfortable as water was, it was worth attempting to rid himself of this greater agitation. Tee stepped back slightly upon seeing Rythian's face, a reaction which Rythian himself did not notice.

However, when he brought the water to his face, an even stronger burning sensation washed over his cheek. He let out a shocked, although suppressed, cry of pain. He automatically jerked away from the water, bringing a hand to his face. A cold sweat rushed over him, and all he could hear was his heartbeat mixed with his own hushed, panicked swears. He looked around to see Tee, staring wide-eyed back at Rythian. He turned away from the dinosaur in a vain attempt to hide his face. He grabbed at his mask, trying to pull it back up in a panicked daze. In his rush, the mask merely swept between his fingers as he tried again and again to pull it over his face. He began to hyperventilate .

He felt a hand grip his shoulder, and grabbed it with his own sweaty hand, cold as death, only to find the hand was scaled. Teep. He spun to look at the dinosaur, eyes widened and dilated, like a cornered animal. Teep merely looked into Rythian's eyes with a cold, steady gaze. That single look calmed Rythian immensely. Slowly, he took Tee's hand, and pulled himself up. He gently reached up to his mask, and pulled it back over his face, the burning sensation still gripping at his skin.

"D-did you see?" Rythian asked.

Tee merely nodded, a sympathetic, if troubled expression on his face.

"Can I see your sword, Tee?"

The dinosaur stepped back, turning his hip away from Rythian as to protect the sword. Rythain winced and reached for his face once more.

"I won't do anything rash. I just need a mirror."

Teep watched Rythian, taking in the mage's expression carefully before dropping his tense guard. He unsheathed his sword, carefully handing it to Rythian.

Rythian took the sword and turned away from Teep. He raised his fingers to the edge of his mask and slowly pulled it off, careful not to agitate his skin. With great trepidation, he brought the sword up to his face and looked.

From beneath his mask, that is, around his neck, black skin grew, reaching towards his right eye like briar branches clawing their way over soft and yielding soil. The right eye itself, which only recently had been cyan was once again a bright purple. What had probably worried Teep initially was the state of his mouth.

Rythian usually had a deformed mouth, so this he was expecting. While the average human mouth ran a length from pupil to pupil, Rythian's ran a length from one outer corner of his eye to the other. Deep scars marked it's length. Small sharpened teeth occasionally poked over his grotesque lips. All this was normal… for Rythian at least. Instead he found his mouth reaching nearly from ear to ear, drawn in a sharp and terrifying frown.

He grunted a low, "shit", immediately regretting it at the sight of his mouth opening, effectively splitting his face in half. He grimaced, resulting in another hideous expression. Realizing what he should have done in the first place, Rythian held the sword out behind him and felt its weight be lifted by Teep moments later. He didn't need to see any more.

He spoke up, voice tight. "Please, Tee. Zoey can't know."

Tee didn't respond.

In the silence of the maze, with only the occasional pitter patter of water falling to the stone ground, Rythian unwrapped the bandages on his left hand. He took the cloth and gingerly wrapped it around the right side of his head, covering his purple eye. When he finished he slipped his mask back on, having effectively covered everything he needed to hide. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

If what he thought was happening was happening, he didn't have much time.