A/N: Well, here we are again. An astounding 25 days since my last update. I'd be amazed if you even remembered this story. This chapter (hopefully) explains things, even if they are still pretty complicated. Ok, I think that's it. Chapter 12 should be up soon!


Chapter 11—Back to Reality

I hit the damp ground with a thud, instantly curling around my open wounds. Confusion and uncertainty were the first emotions that hit. What had happened? Where was I? Was this all a vision? They were soon replaced by fear as I heard the locks click shut. I silently counted.

One, two, three, four…

True realization of what was happening began to set in. Wherever I was, I was stuck now. It was pitch black and absolutely silent, exceeding my panicked breaths bouncing off the walls. There was nothing now. The room could've ended three inches above my head, it could've ended three miles above my head. I could've been anywhere! All I knew for sure was that I was alone.

The darkness began to press in on me, as that all-engulfing black always did. It seemed a thousand times blacker than the cupboard had been. At that moment, all I really wished for was some light.

But why would I want light? I knew very well that Jinx wouldn't throw me in here so I could have a good time. It was probably as dark and dreary with light as it would be in the murk.

I extended my hands out in front of me, groping blindly, hoping to find a wall of some kind. However, no matter where I moved, there was nothing to be found.

I doubled back for a moment. What if there was a bottomless pit, just beyond where I rested now, waiting to swallow me up, and kill me, and break my bones, and leave me there to rot? Or what if this really was endless, and I spent all of eternity scuffling around on my knees, unsure of my surroundings, too afraid to move very far from fear of bottomless pits?

In one last effort, I extended my left hand out in front of me. I nearly screamed with joy and relief when I felt cool stone beneath my fingers. I slid over, pushing my body up against it, curling up again and biting my lip in an effort not to shiver.

Now that I was no longer wandering, I had to stop and think. What had happened? Jinx was evil, but then he was good, but he'd hurt me, but he wanted to help me, and I had to listen to him, but he would control me, and even that I wasn't sure was real. I might not even be here right now. What if this was all another vision, or just a dream, or what if it was real, and Jinx planned on keeping me here?

What had he said? "You can come out when you've learned to be a good follower." What was that supposed to mean? Or had he even said that? Maybe it was just in my head, I just tripped into here by myself…

No, I corrected myself. Jinx had shoved me. His hands had dug into my sides. My head had been snapped back. I'd lost my footing on the damp stone floor above. I'd fallen far, maybe five or six feet before I hit the ground again. It had not been an accident, and I was in here for a reason. Jinx hated me.

Or maybe that was the dream…

I pressed my face into my hands. Thinking wasn't helping. I definitely didn't have the answers, and trying to find them was leaving me even more confused.

My hands found their way around the walls again, fumbling against the cold stone. From the feel of it, I could tell the wall was probably brick; it's tough surface scratched against my fingers and snagged on my fabric. I didn't care, though. Moving kept me sane, reminding me who I was, where I was, even though I was very unsure of both those things.

My hands found their way to something smooth, glassy, almost bulb-like. It wasn't a light bulb, I was fairly sure of that. It had taken my family years to get our solar generator up and running, and even now it still glitches occasionally. So if it wasn't electric, what was it?

I ran my hands along the bulb's sides, trying to get a mental image. The bulb ended and turned to a cooler substance, probably metal, with a crank on one side. I twisted it, but nothing happened. Other than that, it just spread out into a solid base.

It seemed so familiar, yet so foreign… its name was on the tip of my tongue. I leaned back against the wall, biting my lip and raking my mind. I knew what it was, I just couldn't think of it.

I nearly screamed when my leg hit into something propped up against the wall. I leapt back, my heart thrumming in my chest. I feared it would be something horrible, like the metal skeleton of some other prisoner that had been forgotten.

However, I realized just how preposterous that sounded when I regained some sense. I extended a hand, blindly feeling until my fingers touched damp wood, cut into a squared handle. A match, I was fairly sure.

After running the head of the match along the floor once or twice, it sparked and ignited. The glare made me squint, extremely bright compared to the blackness that had been before. Once the flame died down a bit, I extended my arm, taking in my surroundings.

Numerous other matches lay on the floor, where I'd knocked them down. The walls were a dusky grey, bits of mold and mildew visible at the edges of the match's light. Cobwebs hung where the ceiling connected to the walls, giving me a start at the notion of spiders. And the mysterious bulbed shape turned out to be an oil lamp!

When I was very little, my parents had had one. They used to light it for me, so I wouldn't be afraid of the dark. Seeing this lamp made my stomach turn with homesickness. How I wished to be back in my bed now, curled up in a mass of blankets, not here, in the damp refinement.

Balancing the match against the wall and keeping it burning was a bit hard. I couldn't stop shaking, and I dropped it many times. I finally got it to stand up, then lifted off the oil lamp's glass chimney and lit the wick.

The entire room was illuminated by the lamp's yellow glow. I looked around now, a bit more of the gloom pushed back by the lamp. The room was bigger than I expected, probably almost as big as a human room, but the roof was only about a foot off the ground.

I saw, about fifteen inches away, another shape, propped up against the opposite wall. I squinted, the dark confusing me. Was it another lamp? No, it was too small, was it…

It moved.

My breath caught in my throat as the shape unraveled slowly, almost robotically, layers of grime sliding off. Machine? My mind screamed. I instantly dropped to the floor, hiding as much as I could behind the lamp. The shape raised its head, facing towards me, then opened its eyes.

It's eyes.

I nearly screamed. They were optics for sure, but the pupils shone white in the darkness, not really producing light, just reflecting it. And those eyes, those horrible, soul-sucking eyes, were locked on me.

A horrible sound bounced across the room, a sound rusty and unused. Laughter. It was laughing at me, as it slowly rose out of its covering of dirt, the grime caking off. "You don't need to hide, my friend," it comforted me, it's voice as rusty as its laugh. "For I am just like you."

I couldn't help it anymore. I screamed. I'd been wishing to scream for so long, to release all the boiled up tension that I'd been holding in for what felt like forever. When I finally stopped, the other figure was standing, leaning against the wall. It was still hard to make him out (I could tell it was a him from the voice) since he remained in the shadows.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"C-come forward," I stuttered. "So I can see you."

He did as I asked, stepping out so I could see him clearly. My breath caught in my throat. "Nissa…" I whispered. "You look just like Nissa!"

It was very true, this mysterious stitchpunk had very similar facial details to Nissa, and even his 'Punk costume seemed like the male version of hers. His hair was cut short, in what I could've sworn was the exact same style as hers, but whereas Nissa's hair was dyed pink, his was aqua. He also had the green camo pattern, designed like a long sleeved shirt, different from Nissa's sleeveless one.

He nodded, smiling sadly a bit. "Yeah. It's been so long since I saw her." He sighed, his entire body slumping.

"You must really miss her," I stated, slinking out of my hiding place. I seriously doubted he meant me harm. He was in solitary, too!

He sat down on the floor next to me. "She was my sister. My twin. Of course I miss her." He looked over at me. "Name's Ember, by the way."

Ember. "The others keep mentioning you," I told him, sitting back against the wall. "Nissa was worried sick."

"I would expect her to be," he stated. "She's older, by seventeen minutes. She's always been really protective of me."

After an awkward silence, I asked what I'd been dying to know since I'd first seen him. "Are you blind?"

He sat up and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "No. Why do you ask?"

"It's just… your eyes…"

"Oh," he slouched back again. "That. When we're disconnected from Jinx for a while, our pupils get all white. I don't know why. I think it was like to "make people not want to help us," or some crazy thing like that."

"And what's the deal with Jinx?" I continued. Even the thought of him made me want to spit, and at the same time curl up and cry. I hated him, but I loved him so much…

"Hey," Ember drew my attention by snapping his fingers. My scattered thoughts disintegrated. "He's… well, he's not like us."

"What do you mean?" I asked dubiously. "If he's not stitchpunk, does that mean he's machine?"

Ember shrugged. "I think he's something in between. He… he can put thoughts in our heads. He can make us see things, make us think things. And when his thoughts get jumbled up in our thoughts, they all become one thing, with him leading."

"So he's mind controlling us?" I asked, my brow knitted in confusion.

"Sort of," Ember stated. "It's really complicated. He can make us think things, like I mentioned. If we start to panic, he can take that away. Whenever we get the slightest notion of his true power, he replaces it with something else."

"Then how are you able to tell me all this?"

"Let's just say I'm very hard to break," he winked. "Whenever he finds us, it takes a few weeks before he can get really into our minds. He has to gain our trust, only implanting little thoughts at a time. That's what makes us come back."

I looked at him. "He… he showed me that my parents were dead. And then, he was evil, and then he was good. How do I know what's real and what's not?"

"Well, in his implanted pictures, it's always overcast, and of you're inside, there will only be fluorescent lighting," Ember nodded. "And there's never any plant life. He can't summon up the strength to fit that in."

I sat back and placed my head in my hands. "This is all a bit confusing…" I muttered.

"Don't worry," Ember placed a hand on my back. "It took me a while to understand it."

"Another thing," I looked back up. "It seemed like I was just… like, teleporting from one place to another. One second I was in the Library, the next, back in the cupboard… but I know for sure neither of those were implants of his mind… at least I think."

"He can scrap things from your mind," Ember stated nonchalantly, scraping some caked dirt off his leg. "If nothing happened while you—say for example—walked from this library to the cupboard, he could just erase that from your memory."

He read my bewildered expression quite simply. "His control works best if you're confused. That's why he makes things so complicated to understand."

"It's working pretty well," I muttered, running my fingers over the scar on my arm again.

"Think of it this way," Ember continued. "Your life is a book. Jinx can write things in or rip things out. However, you have to keep looking past those to find the truth."

"I always remembered what was really happening whenever I saw my wounds from him," I stated, looking down at the gash on my side, and facing the fiercely real truth that Jinx had done this to me.

"Yes, that's good," Ember said. "What always works for me is to write down something that Jinx did that makes you so mad on the back of your hand, and get in the habit of looking down at it. That way, you'll be able to remember even when you're deep in his control." He lifted his right hand. "I've got mine right here."

In the oil lamp's dim light, it was hard to make out, but I was still able to read it. "Willow," I quietly read. "Who's Willow?"

Ember looked to the ground. "I'd rather not talk about it."

I sighed a bit, rubbing my head. The whole notion of Jinx's new powers was quite flustering, to be honest.

"Just for the record, your hair looks very messed up," Ember suddenly matter-of-factly stated."Did Jinx do this to you?"

I hung my head in shame. "No." He waited in silence for a moment before I broke down and replied, "I did it to myself."

"Oh," Ember seemed to notice how upset I was. "It's all right. It doesn't look that bad. I'm sure you'll get more used to it eventually."

This didn't really cheer me up. I bit my lip, fighting the urge to collapse in a heap and sob. "I always loved my hair," I whispered, curling up. "But after hearing the others say how terrible it was… I just had to change it…"

"Oh," Ember looked over at me, slumping up against the wall and crossing his arms loosely over his chest. "That's ok. They didn't mean it, Jinx was just making them say it. None of the others have it in them to fight back. Jinx has his ways of breaking us. Lucky for you, solitary was one of the minor ones." Seeing that his speech wasn't making me feel any better, he decided to shut up for a bit.

"Ember," I quietly called. "Do I really look that bad?"

He scoffed. "Of course not. You're overreacting. Jinx is probably using your hair to break you, making you think it's way worse than it is. And how could you look terrible with such a pretty face?"

A soft blush crept to my cheeks. "Why, thank you," I smiled shyly, raising my head to look over at him. "No one's ever told me anything like that before."

"That's odd," he stated. "I'd think it would be obvious."

I shuddered again, still smiling. "Man," I muttered, now biting my lip to stop shivering. "Is it cold down here, or what?" I laughed nervously.

Ember scooted over and wrapped his arms around me, pressing my face to his chest. "Warmer?" he asked.

I was a bit shocked. "Yes, thank you," was all I could manage. Ember's chest was so warm, it was a comfort in this world of darkness and lies. I couldn't help but pull myself closer and sigh.

"Ember…" I mumbled after a while. "What did you mean when you said… you were just like me?"

It took him some time to reply. "Well… it's kind of a long story."

I sat patiently. "We've got time."

He sighed. "Well, you see, I sort of… well, uh…" he trailed off as he searched for the right words. "You know when you have your visions and you can just, like, sense something?" he asked.

"How do you know I have visions—" I began to ask, but he cut me off.

"I'm building to that. You see, I have visions like yours, too. Except mine are—from what I've seen—a little more lucid. If I dream of something, I'll understand it. For the past few weeks, I've been having visions of a reflection, someone who would share my trait, someone like me.

"When you were thrown in here, I could sort of sense your spirit. It comes with my visions. I can understand electrical charges. Like how instantly, I knew you were quite positive with a strong spirit and a brave heart. But you were scared, and confused. However, I still knew you were the one from my dreams, my reflection."

"W-wait," I stuttered. "Slow down."

"Everything's just so complicated," he ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. "I have visions, too. Let's leave it at that."

"Ok," I quietly said. My mind was racing, running the information over and over and over again. "Jinx is just too good at confusing me. And I don't know what's strong enough to remind me."

"You'll find it," he assured me, giving my hand a bit of a squeeze. "Do you know you're shaking real bad?" he asked, out of the blue.

I smiled a bit and laughed despite myself. "Yeah, it's kinda hard not to notice," I mumbled softly.

"That's ok, I'm very warm right now," he replied, pressing me closer. "Are you tired?"

"Mmm-hmm," I muttered slowly, my head resting on his shoulder. "I haven't slept for…" I trailed off, thinking back to when I had last slept but giving up after a moment. "I don't remember. I'm so tired now, I have been since I tried to repel Jinx."

"It takes a lot of energy," Ember told me, brushing a strand of hair out of his face. "You'll get used to it."

"I hope," I replied. "I don't know what I'd do if I was so exhausted after every time I fought back…"

"Shh," Ember petted my head. "Rest. You're going to need your energy for what Jinx has in store for you. Now, when you get back to the surface world, talk to Nissa. She'll help you understand. And whatever you do, don't let Jinx know you've figured him out. Everything will be easier for you, trust me."

I smiled. "Thank you, Ember." I closed my eyes and nestled into his side, letting his warmth and the slow steady throb of his heart lull me to sleep.