Dark woke up after a good while, learning that he had actually managed to rest for a good six hours without interruption, which surprised him greatly for two reasons: 1) That was currently his record of most consecutive hours in the past month without something causing him to wake up in a panic or daze and 2) He was convinced Dire would have tried something, as the little monster seemed to feed off of Dark's discomfort and paranoia.
Six hours wasn't really the ideal amount of time that such an insomniac needed to counter his exhaustion, but it was easily enough to help Dark's brain to not be so fatigued along with his body.
He would have more than gladly wanted to continue this temporary luxury, if not for the fact that the slight gnawing and burning sensation in his stomach had gotten somewhat distracting, and was preventing him from easily falling back asleep again.
Almost stupidly, he wondered why it was such problem, and then realized that it could very well be because he hadn't really eaten much in two days as of now.
Almost immediately he noticed a factory sealed bag of rice cakes left on a tray next to an unopened bottle of water, a packet of what claimed to be something to add to the water to flavor it if desired, and a note that read: "Perishables have been moved to the fridge."
Dark looked around before realizing the "fridge" was actually quite small compared to what he had seen before (identifiable by a post-it note stuck to it clearly labeled "THE FRIDGE") and once he was able to pull the door open with his good hand at a comfortable angle, he found that said "perishables" was a medium sized plastic lidded bowl with various cuts of fruit, such as apples slices, pineapple cubes, de-vined grapes, banana chunks, small watermelon wedges, honeydew squares, and, much to Dark immense joy, cantaloupe pieces.
Dark was quick to pluck out a piece and shove the orange-golden melon into his mouth and sink to the floor, hiding behind the side of the bed and clutching the bowl like a kid who just stole a box of Oreos from the cupboard.
"Alright, now how is it that I couldn't get you to willingly eat a even a bite of a banana so that you didn't starve..." Iblis' voice sounded off behind him. "But here you are, eating without a problem at all. What happened?"
Dark looked over his shoulder and up to find Iblis leaning over the edge of the bed to look at him, appearing quite baffled. Dark's pale face darkened in embarrassment a little.
"... I like this kind of fruit..." He muttered, shaking his head slowly before looking back down at the bowl and poking around at the contents, looking as though he was ashamed of the idea, oddly. He then extracted another piece of the melon and stuck it in his mouth and chewed it slowly this time, as if waiting to have to react fast to something he was anxious about. What that was exactly, Iblis wasn't sure.
"It's not a question as to whether or not you like it..." Iblis shook his head slightly, folding his arms in front of him and resting his head on them while continuing to look at Dark. "It's more a query of why the sudden interest when yesterday, you were practically avoiding it..."
"I suppose you wouldn't realize the extent of how drained I was after you tried to get me near those stairs..." The shadow growled darkly, bristling his fur on his shoulders and back. "You'd be surprised of the effect psychological torment has on a person... Especially when confronting a source of fear so soon after a traumatizing event..."
"Hey, all I was saying was that I found it absolutely baffling that the door is wide open, no one is monitoring the halls, the way out is about as easy as it gets..." Iblis explained the concept again to him. "... And you haven't taken advantage of trying to-"
"To what, exactly?" Dark snapped at him irritably. "If, by some miracle granted by Chaos, I manage to get passed the stairs and somehow not go into some fear induced shock, I don't know the way out of here. Furthermore, if I do manage to get that far, and I get caught, I doubt I'd still have what little privileges I have right now, afterwards. And, lest I forget, where, exactly, would I go if I did get out, hmm?" Dark huffed angrily, glaring at the wall ahead of him. "Without Mephy, I don't belong anywhere other than under lockdown as a dangerous artifact, as I doubt Shadow would allow me to remain at the house for the reasons of he hates me, he'll undoubtedly put me at fault for what happened to Mephy, and a host of other reasons that quite frankly, I don't bl-"
"Okay... Dark... breathe..." Iblis cut across him, as Dark had started to string his words together as one stream of speech in one breath, his voice raising slightly in pitch as he had started to run out of air in his lungs to form sounds and didn't seem to mind enough to correct it with a quick inhale. "Don't try and say it all on one breath, especially while you're still sick... or you'll make yourself dizzy, or whatever happens when that happens. Calm down."
"Don't tell me what to do!" Dark lashed out, jumping to his feet, turning around and stepping away to be a few feet away, pointing at the other furiously with the uninjured hand. "I swear to Chaos, everyone is always telling me what I should and shouldn't do! I know! I'm not an idiot!"
Iblis blinked in confusion. He was quick to compose himself, and changed his position on the bed to be that of a sitting posture.
"You misread..." He said calmly, contrasting Dark, who was breathing heavily in rage. "I was merely commenting on that so that you didn't further upset yourself..."
"Why do you care! You're not even real!" Dark shot back, trembling in fury now.
Iblis's eyes widened just slightly before narrowing even more than they had before as he folded his arms again.
"Y'know... I don't have to be here..." He snarled at him lowly, swiveling his ears back. "And you seem you couldn't care less if I was or wasn't..."
The only response was getting the sealed water bottle thrown at him.
"That's it! I give up!" Iblis shouted furiously, throwing his hands in the air, and getting to his feet. "I've been trying as hard as I can to get you back on a more calm level, and try and get you to stop ignoring your needs, and even put up with getting backhanded more times than I can count! You want to starve yourself while angsting? Fine! Go ahead, see if I care! Goodbye, you spoiled brat!"
This response actually stunned Dark noticeably.
"... Wha-what..?" He stammered in a considerably lower tone as Iblis actually made his way to the door. "... I-I don't... Wh-what..?"
"You want me to leave you alone? Fine. At least it'll be one thing I can do that'll make you happy..." Iblis said in a dangerously calm voice, holding his eyebrows in the air while still keeping his eyes narrowed. "All I can say is that I'm sorry for messing you up so much, but you're not even trying to overcome that... I might have hurt you... But you refuse to let yourself heal..."
The closer Iblis had gotten to the door, the more and more sickly pale Dark's muzzle had gotten from shock. His body started to quiver in terror as the air started to seem too thick to breathe in. His heart pounded furiously enough that each quick but heavy breath was synchronized to it subconsciously. Darkness started to creep into the edges of his vision while his brain reeled nauseatingly with this simple fact: Iblis was going to leave him... Again.
...
...
...
...
...
What ever had been bending and tweaking inside Dark in the past month, finally snapped clean in half like a piece of plastic.
"... Did I do something wrong, Brother..? I didn't mean to anger you..."
Iblis froze at the doorway, then spun around, eyes wide. Not only did he know quite clearly where he had heard that before, but he knew what it usually meant if Dark's voice had lost the growl.
Dark was swaying slightly, his eyes were more than half closed, his left hand gripping his not torn ear as he giggled nervously, smiling weakly and having a far off stare before suddenly appearing and sounding very panicked.
"I'm sorry, Brother! I-I was just curious! I know you don't want me near the Edge, but I wanted to see why!" He shook his head feverishly, trembling too much to stand upright and sank to the ground almost immediately. "Brother! Please! I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you mad! I've been trying to make you happy again! You're never happy anymore, and I-I miss that!"
Iblis was pretty sure Dark wasn't really aware of anything relative to the two of them in this room right now. He was even more sure that Dark's mind wasn't even in this year, more or less, as the shadow was having a, for lack of a better term, flashback.
"Brother! Don't go! Please! I'm sorry! Don't leave me! I don't want to be alone! Please!" Dark actually in tears, hunched over on the floor as he shuddered and howled miserably, pulling at his quills with the hand that wasn't sprained. "I'll do what you say! I'll stay away from the Edge! Whatever you want! I won't mess up again! One more chance, please! Brother! Don't leave me!"
Then he sniffled loudly, gasping for air as he repeated the last three sentences in varying order and coherency.
... Aw, crud... Iblis was frozen in place as the creeping black darkness from before started to spread from where Dark was and engulf the room at an alarming rate. ... No... No... No no no no no-no-no-no-NO-NO-NO-(*I'd like to add a bleep sound here...*)!
The curse word appeared in his mind just as soon as the only way out was saturated with so much of the inky substance that it was clearly impossible to try and step past it and hope that you won't get caught by it.
"Dark! Stop this right now!" He shouted, immediately conjuring a ball of flames in cupped hands, and holding it in front of him to ward off the approaching mass. "You don't realize what this-!" Iblis stopped in mid-sentence when he realized he couldn't see where Dark was now. "Dark? Dark!"
The sticky black goo tried to adhere to him, so he flared his Aura, hoping to repel it briefly, as he knew he couldn't afford to expend his energy when he didn't know how long it could take or if he could even be able to calm Dark down.
"Dark! Where are you!" The flame called out, straining his eyes to distinguish the depth perception of every black coated object in the room, which, from where he was standing, gave the illusion of a void to his eyes.
The crying out and pleading from the shadow had died out several minutes beforehand, and was replaced with harsh gasping and uneven breaths, as if he were having a panic attack right now.
"Dark! I can't see you!" Iblis had forgotten all about leaving Dark alone and felt the need to find him before he got hurt. "Can you hear me! Where are you!"
There was a feeble reply, which sounded somewhat muffled, and because of that, Iblis didn't hear him clearly enough.
"What!"
"... C-can't... Br-breathe..." A weak but terrified squeak sounded off in a shrill tone.
Iblis spun in circles to try and find anything that would help him find Dark, who was undoubtedly unaware of what was mostly happening, and therefore of no help in locating his own placement in the pitch black, inky and now chilling darkness of the uncontrollable element of shadows.
The oily substance rolled towards Iblis, who instinctively threw the fireball at it, cursing quickly and conjuring a slightly smaller one this time.
Well, that was stupid... He berated himself before stepping back and bumping into something he didn't see before: an dark opaque cocoon-like dome that was obviously surrounding something.
It was quick to stick to him, and he flared the heat Aura briefly to pull free, already feeling a ghost of fatigue setting in.
I need to calm him down before either I waste all my current energy reserves, or he suffocates... He forced his eyes open a bit wider and tried to ignore the soft buzzing in his ears. I'm very sure he's in this whatever this is, and I just have to get to him... How, I don't really know...
"I think I've found where you might be! Can you hear me?" Iblis called out to him, hoping he could pinpoint the sound of his voice relative to location. "I need you to breathe in and out slowly, you get it?"
"... C-can't... Hurts..." Dark responded in a cracked tone, moaning weakly as Iblis examined the cocoon, horrified to see that it had no weak spots.
"I don't know how much you understand right now..." The flame explained carefully, getting desperate. "But I can't get passed this barrier! This stuff keeps trying to stick to me!"
He got too close to it, and the substance seized his arm that didn't hold the flame, causing him to shout in shock and fight back. He pulled at it as hard as he could, but he was already entrapped. The next mistake he did was drop the ball of light and brace his other hand against the barrier instinctively, which caused his other hand to be caught as well, prompting him to let loose a stream of colorful curses.
Convinced he was going to be snuffed out right here, right now, Iblis allowed himself one scream of terror, realizing now was just as good of time as any, and he probably would never get the chance to legitimately do it anyway otherwise.
He felt something pull him in and through the shadowy cocoon, and he was just so completely mindscrewed by all of this, he didn't bother to think of any logic behind this. Heck, the whole past ten minutes alone threw any sensible meaning out the window, really...
After repeating to himself over and over again how utterly doomed he was, he lifted his arms slowly away from his head and realized that nothing was sticking to him anymore. He couldn't see jack squat, mind you, but he at least didn't feel anything trying to stick to him.
Alright... Either I've been miraculously spared... I've just gone blind and my nerve endings are dead... Or I'm completely dead right now and can't feel anything because dead doesn't feel... He ran over the list of options as he lowered his arms to rest at his sides, knowing his was sitting awkwardly anyway. He felt something get brushed by his hand. ... Or, y'know... I could be trapped in this cocoon with a delusional and panicking Dark, who's about as dangerous if not more than a rabid animal right now in this state, either to me, himself or the both of us at once...
He didn't want to risk burning up whatever amount of oxygen was in the dome, since he didn't know if it was airtight or now, so he couldn't see even the bridge of his nose in front of his eyes. He could at least hear the wheezy breaths from the shadow, who seemed to be not too far in front of him, so he carefully reached out and was able to touch a hand to what felt like a clump of quills, which prompted a shriek from the owner of them, who pulled away quickly.
"Hey! Chill! It's just me!" Iblis snapped, trying to speak over Dark's howls, who now seemed to realize that it was pitch black, and immediately started to scream for help. Iblis was sure he lost the ability to hear a few sound frequencies when one particular shout left his ears ringing.
Suddenly, it stopped, and something made what must have been Dark's retinas shine back a flash of blue, and Dark inhaled sharply, before saying in a small voice: "... Y-your eyes are g-glowing..."
"... Eh..?" Iblis blinked, as he was actually unaware of that ability.
"... Y-your Aura... M-makes your eyes g-glow..." Dark stuttered, moving closer carefully as he still tried to catch his breath. "... Only in th-the d-dark... Mine j-just ref-flect... C-can't see in t-total d-darkness without..."
"Well, I only see your eyes reflecting... Other than that, I can't see you..."
"... I c-can see you..." Dark said numbly, still sounding out of breath. "... You h-haven't left yet..."
"Is that what this is all about..?" Iblis asked, wondering if the idea of it had caused Dark to have a total nervous breakdown. The glow reflection shifted away for a moment.
"... Y-you haven't left yet..." Dark sounded as if he was trying to reassure himself, and didn't quite answer Iblis, who reached out cautiously and touched his shoulder, causing the reflective eye spots to look back at him in a snap.
"I take it back... I'm not going to now..." Iblis tried to reassure him, but he was shoved back.
"You did it before, you'll do it again!" Dark snapped, sounding as though his voice raised a few pitches. "Everything always leaves me, whether they want to or not! I can't have anything!"
... Oh, what did I cause..? Iblis questioned himself before trying another tactic.
"Dark... I'm going to ask you to try something, and you get the choice of doing so or declining..." The flame offered, wondering if Dark would be more willing to calm down if instead of being told that he had to, he was given the option to decide for himself. The reflective eyes stared back at him before moving slightly up and down as if Dark was nodding slowly. "Alright... Let's try something for a moment... Do you think you can disregard (just for the moment!) what happened before and focus on the now..?" He explained carefully, trying his best not to sound too demanding. "... What was it that monkey said in that movie you watched..?"
Suddenly, he felt something strike him hard on the top of his head, and he shouted in pain, before asking why Dark did that.
"It doesn't matter! It's in the past!" Dark responded in a slight laugh before adding: "Hurts, doesn't it? Kinda hard to forget..."
"Hit me that hard again, and I might forget something..." Iblis grunted in annoyance, pressing his hand to his sore spot. "... I take it you're feeling a bit better, at least..?"
"... Where are we..?" Dark sounded very nervous now, no doubt because of the pitch blackness all around.
"I was kinda hoping you'd tell me..." The flame muttered.
"Me..? Why me..?" Dark was very confused.
"... You don't remember what just happened, do you..?" Iblis said in a slight bit of worry. He had his own theory, but he wanted to see what Dark thought about this first.
"... N-no..." Dark stammered in a small voice, lowering to the ground slightly.
"... Well, I can only explain what I know..." Iblis offered. "... You can hold onto my arm or something so we're not separated... If you want..."
No sooner had he made the suggestion, did Dark respond by finding him and wrapping his arms around his torso so that all Iblis could do was place an arm around the shadow.
Immediately, Iblis noticed that Dark was trembling from either fear or the significant drop in temperature... Or perhaps both... And it was very obvious right now that Dark's core temperature was a few degrees lower than normal, which meant the collar wasn't going to alert anyone, because it was calibrated to detect higher temperatures.
"... Well... Before I explain..." Iblis started. "What do you remember so far..?"
Dark was silent, and shifted slightly and almost uncomfortably before saying in a meek tone: "... You... You were... going to leave me, again..."
"... You haven't really had a problem with me disappearing before now..."
"... No... You were... going to leave forever..." Dark continued in the small voice, lifting his head off Iblis' side to look up. "... If you go... I'll be alone for real... There's no Mephy to help me... And I won't be able to ignore Dire... I hate being alone... It's worse than being hated, because there's no one else..."
"There's nothing good about being hated..." Iblis reminded him wearily.
"... I know... But at least it means someone knows I exist..." Dark heaved a sigh and lowered his head again. "... I'd rather have to endure a month of being snowed in a cabin with Shadow as the only other one around... Than to be alone for a week in a cave..." Dark and Iblis were both silent for a while before Dark added: "... Are you going to tell me what happened..?"
"... Oh, right... Of course..." Iblis said, nodding slowly. "... Do you know if your powers are linked to... Eh, do your emotions affect them to any degree..?"
"... If I'm really angry, they can flair up and destroy things... Or fuel the anger before I can stop myself..." Dark sounded as if he wondered why this was important.
"... How about if you're upset... Or scared..?" Iblis was trying to narrow down the possible reasons.
"... Not that I'm aware of..." Dark now sounded as if he was trying to remove any tell tale signs of otherwise in his voice by speaking flatly.
"... Oh, I think you're aware to some degree..." Iblis added, sensing when Dark grew tense at that. "You probably don't know about it directly, but you know something must happen when you... What would be a good term for that..? Eh... Black out..?"
Dark didn't answer.
"... We're in a shadow right now..." Iblis finally told him, not sounding all too shocked about the situation now.
"... What..?" Dark whispered in surprise. "... I don't... How did... I don't understand... Why..? How..? When..?"
"I don't really know the answer for that, but if I had to guess..." Iblis shrugged. "... What I was going to do caused you to have a nervous breakdown... And if your powers are really linked to your emotions, then when you lost control of yourself, you lost control of them... The shadows took a physical form, and spread throughout the room, and tried to keep me from leaving..." He inhaled slowly and sighed before adding: "That's really a theory...
I do know, however, that your shadows formed a barrier around you (this dome thing around us...), and you started to have a panic attack or something like one, because you said you couldn't breathe..."
"... I-I don't remember any of th-that..." Dark stammered in a soft voice, sounding quite shaken upon hearing this. "... All I recall is getting very dizzy, like I do before a migraine, felling like I normally do before I get sick... Then... Black... That was right after you said you were going to leave..."
"... I take it you don't really know how to dissipate this dome then, do you..?"
"... I didn't even know it was me doing it until you told me..."
"... What if you try and calm down and think happy thoughts or something to counter it..?"
"... Easier said than done..." Dark moaned anxiously.
"... Why..? You know what's causing this, and why it happened now, so how can it be hard?" Iblis didn't understand.
"... It's too dark in here..." The shadow groaned, pressing his face into the flame's side.
"'Too dark'..?" Iblis blinked in confusion. "But you're a shadow... You're supposed to like the dark..."
"... I don't like what I can't see..." The younger one explained wearily. "... Absolute darkness reminds me too much of the Scepter... And all the bad that came with it..."
... So, he's actually afraid of the dark... Iblis pieced it together carefully. ... How ironic... But, I suppose if I had something happen to the degree he did with my own element, I guess I'd be worried about it too...
Iblis noticed that the darkness was starting to lighten somewhat, as he could see Dark a little bit more than just reflective eyes, so he assumed the darkness was going away. The tenseness in Dark started to go away, which sped up the process of the room coming back into view, and in turn seemed to calm Dark down more.
Interestingly, not all of the inky mist receded back into Dark, and instead dispersed and melted into fine vapors in the air, fading from view.
"... Wonder what's up with that..?" Iblis wondered aloud, lifting his arm off Dark to stand up.
"... Doesn't really matter... My body produces too much of it anyway..." The shadow shook his head slowly as he got up carefully, trying to not put any pressure on his hurt wrist. "... No way to properly channel it, so it usually gets out in short bursts of energy without my say so..." Dark sighed before smiling weakly. "... On the plus side, when that happens, I feel a bit happier without all that negative energy building up like sinus pressure... And my head doesn't buzz as much then..."
As soon as he caught hold of the edge of the bed and pulled himself to his feel, his eyes had gone completely blank, while his body started to shake feverishly, and his face had drained of color.
Overall, he looked as though he had seen a ghost.
Concerned as to why he acting in such a way, Iblis followed his gaze towards what Dark was staring at, and immediately it was clear why.
It was a photo printed on a piece of simple copy paper, with a note written on the white space that was in the robot's handwriting.
It must have been under the plastic food tray that was now on the floor from the recent shadow episode, otherwise, Dark would have surely noticed it before now.
What was it a photo of?
Well, it was obviously from the perspective of a robot of some kind, given the view and HUD display readouts littering the edges and telling the then current status of the robot.
But it wasn't who it was from that obviously affected Dark... It was who was in it. Dark reached for it shakily, bringing it to his eyes to examine it closer.
There was no mistaking the bubble shield, the purple Aura and the near identical look compared to Dark in the slimmest sense...
It was Mephiles.
Suddenly, everything in Dark's senses when out of whack. His mind was reeling, his vision was spinning and blurring, his hearing became muffles of the blood rushing through his ears, and a tingling numbness spread throughout his body.
He didn't know what to feel.
At first, he was shocked at seeing the hedgehog alive and well when he had thought otherwise, and felt much needed solace in knowing Mephy hadn't died from being attacked while protecting Dark.
Then all that changed to confusion as he examined the image closer and realized Mephiles wasn't the only one there. A vaguely familiar looking pixie dog (though Dark couldn't quite remember where he'd seen him before...) was hiding behind the hedgehog and the shield, and Mephiles looked quite determined to net let this creature get hurt. The same determined look he had when trying to be brave for Dark...
Confusion melted away into horror. No matter how much you explained that image to Dark thoroughly, his mind had already come to the conclusion it was going to stick by, and having Dire there to encourage the idea did nothing to help even in the slightest.
The paper slipped from Dark's hand and Iblis caught it before it hit the ground to see what was troubling Dark so much.
"Hey, wow! That hedgehog's still alive!" Iblis exclaimed in surprise. "That's wonderful! Now you don't have to-! Dark?" Iblis realized Dark seemed anything but relieved. This both puzzled and troubled the flame. "Dark? This picture's recent, that means he's still alive. What's wrong..?"
"..." Dark just stared at the wall directly across from him, his gaze almost a textbook example of being disquieted. His uninjured hand slowly came to where his heart was, gripped the messy white fur in a tight hold as he leaned against the bed for support. He looked as though he was in immense pain, teeth clenched tightly and face scrunched in reaction to that.
"Sweet Chaos on Mobius! What's wrong, Dark!" Iblis knew it couldn't be a good sign if Dark was reacting like this. Dark only shook his head, unable to speak and explain. Various objects in the room were either engulfed in darkness and swallowed into oblivion, or exploded (thankfully, only inanimate objects did such..), as Dark's pupils widened to the point of making his irises almost non-existent to view, which Iblis could see when Dark forced his eyes open slightly to squint and look around himself frantically. Some objects even bent and tweaked into shapes and positions that were impossible otherwise for them naturally.
Then, as suddenly as it all started, it stopped... And Dark dropped to the floor in a dead faint.
Although this was becoming a common occurrence, it didn't make it any less unnerving when the shadow collapsed.
Iblis checked him over and realized that Dark seemed to be having trouble breathing properly, even though he was unconscious. Wheezy breaths escaped him and they sounded irregular, which was another cause for alarm. A check of the pulse showed that his heart had to be beating twice as fast as it should be, which wasn't especially good when Dark was in such terrible condition... It could quickly change into a heart attack, if he hadn't had one just now, that is.
With no idea how long it would be before someone was sent to check on the shadow, Iblis looked around for any kind of alert device, as he knew that hospitals in general had at least one per bed, and figured that would be the best option.
He found it, pressed it, and waited for something to happen...