Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. Nor have I read all the manga, thus mistakes are probable. What can I say? I'm cheap.
Warnings: Slash, near hysterics, some bad language and present tense (the horror, the horror!)
A/N: Now dedicated to me. Sorry Adele. (And sorry it took so long to post. I have no excuse, save laziness. Which is an excuse, but a particularly lame one.)


Day Seven

If Krad's face ever had features, Daisuke cannot remember them. Now it is ivory, but uncarved, waiting to be sculpted, he thinks – he can see a faint gap where the mouth would be, twitching ever so slightly as it breaths in and out. The hands that clamp onto his shoulder are insubstantial, and sometimes he thinks he can feel them slipping in- through him, like the oily slick of the imprint that he remembers with faint blurriness.

"Why aren't I dead?" he asks, and Krad does not respond. Daisuke swallows slowly, unable to feel the fear that he wants to. Is he alone here now? He doesn't want to be alone. This place will drive him mental.

Is he already crazy? He doesn't think he would know if he was or not. He is not sure he wants to know, and his body shakes slightly, trembles in a non-existent wind (oh god, what would he not give for the weather that he can not remember, just to feel rain and wind and sun and everything else. He would sell his soul to the devil – but has he not already done that with Krad?)

He cannot move his left hand, and he wonders briefly if he should be worried about this. He looks down and blinks his eyelids slowly. It is hard to distinguish his arm from the floor. It is like he is camouflaged – camouflaged in a way that would make any... any thief – are they thieves, why can he not remember anything, what is going on? - in a way that would make any thief envious. It makes him feel sick.

He looks at Krad through half-lidded eyes, studies him slowly. Is his only companion – his- he does not know what Krad is to him – gone? He moves closer, leans over the stone-like complexion, briefly wondering at the fact that his breath does not steam on the surface. Maybe he is not warm enough.

"Are you now Aglauros, to be transformed for your jealousy?" he whispers, tracing over the blank skin with his right hand. It is not cold under his hand, but not warm either. He thinks the feeling is going in his finger tips.

"No," a voice breathes out, and Daisuke almost thinks he has imagined it – the mouth does not move, but the word hangs out, eerily whipping, as if it were being stolen away from the non-existent winds. "I have no sister, nor am I female. I am not Aglauros."

"No," Daisuke murmurs, then frowns. "How do I remember these myths, when I can hardly remember who I am? They aren't even Japanese myths."

There is silence from Krad, and Daisuke believes the edge of his body is blurring into the air until it is hard to tell which is which. Finally, he speaks, as if every word is an effort. "Candidus is not Japanese either. The memories of those who have gone before us..."

He trails off, and Daisuke does not bother to follow the train of thought. It does not matter, and the thrum of apathy in his veins lets his attention drift away. What does colour look like? he wonders. What is red, what is green, what is blue?

How could he have forgotten everything, when pointless myths stick in his head like burrs that refuse to leave? What is their use? He hates this, hate this, hates it, and he shouts that out loud, rejoicing in the feeling that is rushing through him suddenly, as if it were a dam that had suddenly burst.

"I hate it, I fucking hate it," he shouts, and hears Krad breathe next to him. He does not normally swear – at least, he does not think he does, anyway. This is different though. He has a point to make to anyone out there; if there is anyone out there. If he did not just imagine everything outside of the mirror. Perhaps this is reality – but no, thinking like that will not let him accomplish what he wants, and what he wants is to die.

"Why won't you break the mirror?" he shouts hoarsely at what he thinks is the ceiling, but could be the floor, but he doesn't know and god, he's batshit insane. "Just break the mirror! Please! Can you hear me? Just break it!"

"That will kill us," Krad whispers, and it's strange to hear the half-echoes of his words that Daisuke would almost swear aren't being said; are just figments of his imaginations. Is Krad just his dreams? Is this entire thing his dreams? Did the world ever exist?

"Better dead," Daisuke whispers, a hint of insanity in his voice. "Better dead than whatever this is doing to us."

Krad makes no noise, and Daisuke does not think he is breathing.

Darks walks in to the room, his shoulders slumped, to see Satoshi pressing himself against the mirror as trying to force his way in helplessly. "What are you doing?" he says, too astonished to be angry at this reckless act; to astonished to feel ashamed at the fact that he hadn't even considered trying what Satoshi is doing.

"What does it look like, thief?" Satoshi snarls, and Dark is taken aback at the pure venom in the boy's voice. "I'm trying to enter the mirror. If I can get in, we can get others in – criminals, people who deserve to be in there." His voice is hurried, and his face flushed as he continues. "We can overload the mirror with too many people. So what if some of them die? It'll be worth it. I'll die for Daisuke if I have to."

Dark's face is pale as Satoshi explains, mind moving at speed as he tried to comprehend everything. "But you can't get in, can you?" he says slowly, and Satoshi's face twists into one of upset fury.

"Shut up!" he shouts. "You don't know anything, you don't even care that Daisuke is dying in there. You'd help me if you cared."

"I'm not-" Dark begins, and then sighs. "Satoshi, that idea is clearly not going to work-"

"Just shut your mouth, thief!" Satoshi says. "You're useless. Go... listen to yesterday's tape or something."

"Satoshi..." Dark says.

"No," Satoshi growls back. "No, don't say it. Just know that if... if Daisuke does not get out, you will pay for it. You should have been running the theft, it should be you in there."

Dark tries not to show the hurt he feels at that, unsure just why Satoshi is acting so out of character – near tears, hysterical in his grief and more useless than Dark is as he pushes against the glass again and again.

"This place is a graveyard," Daisuke's voice says in his ear as he puts a pair of earphones in. "It's just waiting for us to die."

It's like a hospital here, Dark wants to tell Daisuke. We're just waiting for you to die.

I think it will kill Satoshi as well.


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End Chapter


(You know you want to review) Next chapter will be put up next week definitely. Unless I die. In which case it won't.