Lukas's POV

I jolted awake, yanked out of sleep by something I didn't know.

My heart hammering, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I couldn't remember what I had been dreaming of just a few moments before, but it hadn't been pleasant.

The night was completely silent, though that could've just been my sleep-dulled senses failing to catch on to anything suspicious. I reached up and shakily pushed a lock of hair away from my face, then let my arm fall thoughtlessly to the side as I closed my eyes again.

Maybe it had just been my dreams that woke me up. There wasn't anything else around that could've shaken me awake.

I was just barely starting to doze again when I realized something, my eyes snapping back open.

I sat upright, my mind spinning into uncomfortable possibilities and my fingers curling into the blankets on top of the empty bed beside me.

Empty.

Where the hell was Aiden?

I scrambled out of bed, my bare feet making only the smallest thump as they hit the floor. I'd basically been using his chest as a pillow when we fell asleep, so I'm not sure how he'd managed to get up without disturbing me.

But he had.

The place where he'd been was still fairly warm, so he couldn't have been gone long. The door was still slightly ajar, and I pushed it further open as I stepped hesitantly out into the hall. I wasn't sure where he would've gone.

I already knew that he was a light sleeper. Not as bad as Jess, but he tended to still be pretty alert. Even if he had heard a noise or something, though, why would he have left? If had been something he'd thought was suspicious, wouldn't he have woken me?

Unless there was something completely different going on.

My nerves were very on edge as I crept down the stairs, nervous hands toying unconsciously with the ties of my sweatpants. The inside of the Order Hall was not very well-lit at night, especially now that Jess was the only one consistently sleeping there. There were torches here and there, and the faint light of the moon came in through some of the exterior walls, but it wasn't enough to eradicate the long shadows that hid ominously in the corners.

It made me even more uncomfortable than I already was, and I rubbed my hands along my upper arms, listening hard. I thought I heard…what sounded vaguely like whispers?

This was too ominous for words.

I saw Aiden as soon as I stepped off the stairs. He stood in the hall that stretched along the north side of the building, with his back partially to me.

"Aiden?" I called in a whisper.

He whirled around, his eyes bright with fear and his handsome face going deathly pale. "Lukas…no. Go…go back. Y-you didn't see me, alright? Go back."

His voice was even quieter than mine, and radiating desperation. I stepped closer, frowning in confusion as I looked him over. He was still in the same t-shirt and sweatpants that he had been earlier, and he wasn't holding anything. What was going on?

Then my gaze lifted past him, and I froze as well.

They were almost- almost -completely disguised in the shadows. In the faded moonlight, I couldn't make out their faces at first, just the glint of narrowed eyes.

One of them stepped forward, and my eyes darted downwards to the unmistakable shine of an enchanted sword blade.

"Who…"

I hadn't even fully got the word out before they moved forward again, and the dull yellow light from the torch behind us fell on their face. Her face; at least the parts we could see, that weren't hidden beneath a bandana or shadowed by coal-black hair.

Essa.

Oh, no.

"Where there's smoke, there's fire." she said in a low voice. "Though, if we're being technical, I'm not sure that you qualify as fire. Maybe…sparks, or embers, or something. Whatever."

"What…what are you doing here?" I asked, barely breathing.

Her eyes scrunched in that way that implied she was smiling. "I need something, something I know I can find here." She adjusted her grip on the sword, lifting it casually so the point was almost even with my boyfriend's throat. "Here's what's going to happen. I am going to go find that thing I need, and you two are going to be as silent as…I don't know, anything that doesn't want to be killed. If not, he is going to make sure you die very quickly, most likely in a pretty little puddle of your own blood."

She gestured to the other person in the shadows, who, from the very little I could see of him, seemed to be her timeline's version of Aiden. The handle of the sword was handed to him in a deft, almost careless movement, and Essa just as quickly turned away and briskly headed off towards the treasure hall. At least, that's where I assume she was going. I don't know for sure.

The scarred man in the shadows stepped nearer to us, still holding up the sword. He, too, still had the bandana over his mouth, but I knew who he was. He barely glanced at Aiden at all, his pale green eyes focusing on me instead.

"You'll pretend like you never saw us. We know that, logically, you're going to run back and tell your Prime as soon as we're gone, but it'll be better for you if you retain your silence." he murmured in his horribly familiar voice.

My Aiden tilted his head slightly, a challenging look entering his eyes. "What if we tell him now?"

The darker, more twisted version of him standing in front of us raised the sword tip slightly. "Don't."

I reached over and gently touched my boyfriend's hand, keeping my voice just barely above a whisper. "What happened? How did you know they were here?"

He looked over at me, still with panic evident on his face. "I didn't. I heard something weird down here, something I'd never heard before. Like…if you could hear a flash, or something like that. I came to investigate, and…these two appeared out of the darkness and told me to keep my mouth shut if I wanted to make it to morning."

His description of the noise matched what I remembered hearing when someone came through a gate, which made sense. This didn't explain why they were here, though. What in the Overworld could Essa want that wasn't in her own treasure hall?

Aiden's gaze darted from mine, to the dark hall that Essa had disappeared into, to the other Aiden still brandishing the sword, back to me again. "We can't let them do this." he said in an undertone, narrowing his eyes again.

There was nothing we could do, though, in that tense, horrible moment in the dead of night. The whole situation was so strange and terrifying that it didn't seem real: me, standing between these two impossibly different versions of Aiden. One, who'd repented for his past and reformed his life into something infinitely better, and the other, who'd let his past carry him down a far worse path than the one he'd already been on.

My Aiden's green eyes were still narrowed, and I knew that he was planning something. I touched his hand again, trying to silently convince him not to act, not to do anything that might end with a sword through his chest.

It was then that Essa came striding swiftly through the dark, triumphance apparent in every confident step. I could see nothing in her gloved hands, but that didn't mean she hadn't put her prize into her inventory. Whatever it was.

She held out her hand to the Aiden of her timeline, and he handed the sword back to her. Just as it was passing from his hand to hers, my Aiden let out a deafening shout, so contrastingly loud that it seemed to shake the very building around us.

"JESS! GET DOWN HERE! INTRUDERS! ESSA'S-"

He didn't get any further than that before the silver glint of a knife appeared in his scarred double's hand. I couldn't even let out a scream of my own before the blade had been thrown.

I didn't see it sinking into his chest, but I heard the resulting 'oof' he let out as it struck him, and I saw the blood that began to leak out of the wound. I didn't see when his stance grew shaky, but I saw the panic in his eyes, and heard his small, horrible gasp as the pain began to register.

Essa cursed, and loudly. The damage had already been done- I could hear two sets of footsteps racing down the stairs. Jess skidded to a stop at the bottom of the steps with a torch in his hand, his sharp brown eyes already taking in the scene. Julia was right behind him.

Jess didn't hesitate a second. There was a flash of motion as he simultaneously switched the torch to his left hand, pulled his diamond sword from his inventory with his right, and charged at Essa.

I hardly noticed any of this, though. My mind was on Aiden, and the fact that he was hurt because of me. If I hadn't come down, maybe they would've let him be. Maybe, if I hadn't been there, he wouldn't have had the bravado to shout for Jess.

He went down, his knees giving way and allowing his body to sink to the floor. I tried to catch him, slowing his fall.

Leaning against me as I kneeled on the floor, his pale fingers scrabbled thoughtlessly at the knife embedded in his chest. No, it wasn't quite in his chest, I realized with some relief. It was higher than that, not quite in his shoulder, but almost.

It didn't matter too much where it was, though. It was a stab wound, and one that had the potential to make him bleed out if it wasn't dealt with now.

I looked desperately up at the darkened room. Jess and Essa were in a fierce swordfight, as were Julia and the other Aiden. I needed to get a Healing potion, and fast, but I couldn't just leave my boyfriend here.

"Lukas…" he murmured heavily, his breath catching. He was looking up in my direction, but not directly at me. I felt tears sting my eyes as I took in the blood staining his shirt, all the deadly red that shouldn't be there. This wasn't real. This couldn't be happening.

He let out another gasp of pain, then tried to grab the knife handle again. I grasped his hand and kept him from touching it, knowing that the blood flow would only get worse if the weapon was removed. He curled up, still whimpering in pain.

"You're gonna be okay…it's gonna be fine…" I muttered, knowing that I had to do something, and fast, if my words were going to be true.

Then, as if this wasn't bad enough, a whole new variable entered the already-chaotic scene.

Radar came shuffling down the stairs, adjusting his glasses. I didn't know he'd stayed there that night, but things would've ended very differently if he hadn't. "What…guys, what's going on…?"

"Radar, no!" Jess exclaimed, at the same time that Essa called, "Aiden, now!"

Radar cried out in fear and practically threw himself to the floor as the knife came flying towards him. I couldn't tell if he'd been hit or not, but Jess ran over to him anyways.

Meanwhile, the other Aiden kicked Julia's feet out from under her as she tried to attack Essa. The other Prime woman was slashing her sword through the air, though my frenzied brain didn't immediately catch on to what she was doing.

Luckily, Radar was back on his feet, apparently unscathed. "What- what's happening?" he stammered, looking wide-eyed at me and Aiden.

"I need a Healing Potion!" I exclaimed as Jess recollected his sword and moved towards Essa again. Radar didn't hesitate a second, bolting off towards the storage room.

Things weren't looking good. I still couldn't tell what Essa was doing, but the other Aiden was fending both Julia and Jess away from her. Julia seemed unwilling to put her full weight on one foot, and wasn't fighting as well as earlier.

I glanced back down at my Aiden, and my breath caught as I took in his pale face and shallow breaths. I gently smoothed a lock of hair away from his forehead, silently willing Radar to hurry.

A bright flash of white light lit up my vision, and I shut my eyes against it. Right at that moment, as though he'd heard my thoughts, Radar dropped to the floor beside me, pushing a pink bottle into my hand.

"You're gonna have to pull the knife out." I told him, uncorking the potion. His brows furrowed nervously, but he gently gripped the handle protruding from Aiden's chest.

It was out with one swift tug, and Aiden let out a heart-wrenching cry of agony. I quickly drizzled the pink potion into the wound, which was already bleeding worse. His shout dwindled to a pained whimper as the horrible tear in his flesh gradually started to close.

I took a deep breath as I applied more of the potion, watching the tension slowly leave his body as the wound healed. It was okay. He was going to be okay.

His green eyes fluttered shut again, and I gingerly checked his pulse, confirming my assumption that he'd passed out. His shirt was torn where the knife had gone in, but the skin visible through the tear was whole, if scarred. He was okay.

It was then that my sense finally caught up with the rest of me. I lifted my head, looking around the now-empty room. "What…what happened?"

Radar was biting furiously at his lower lip. I wanted to tell him to stop it, that it was going to start bleeding if he kept that up, but instead, I repeated, "What happened? Where are they?"

He exhaled. "Hooo. Okay. So, ahh…Essa made a gate. And she and her Aiden went through."

I shut my eyes. "Don't tell me. Jess and Julia followed her."

"…Yeah. And wherever they went, it…it wasn't just back to the In-Between. I don't think." He added, reaching up to rub his eyes.

"What?"

"They…I don't think they went to the In-Between." Radar repeated. "The symbol Essa made; it wasn't the normal exit code for this timeline. It was something else."

I pressed my fingers against my temples. "So they not only just disappeared into thin air, but we have no idea where they went and no way to find out."

"Yeah." He agreed in a simple, rather morose tone.

I glanced down at Aiden's closed eyes, then looked around mindlessly at the dim room. I couldn't believe how quickly everything had been dashed to pieces. I let out a slow breath, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Well. This certainly makes things a whole lot more complicated."