Sundance opened his eyes to a world of darkness, a numb, dead, black core of suffering. He lifted a hand but his fingers ghosted over air. Sundance closed his eyes, scraping his fists over them until it hurt. "It's all in my head, all in my mind. Ophelia's just playing with my mentality, probing my mind for a weak thing. I have to get myself out. I can't raise the white flag here..."

"You have to keep your eyes closed, please, please. If anyone sees them, I'm dead."

Sundance opened his eyes but he was dumbfounded because it wasn't his voice he was hearing. He acknowledged snow on the grass, on the road. A bird squawking nearby. Weeping willow trees.

"What is this?" Sundance asked softly.

Sundance glanced between two trees, placing his hands on them. A woman in a cloak sat up on her knees in the shade of a tree, her tiny hands clenched over a plastic bucket wrapped in sheets. Her hair was red-blonde and braided. Her back was turned, her shoulders were shaking.

"You have to understand why I have to do this. I never wanted this." she whispered, lifting the cover of the bucket and shaking her head. Sundance couldn't see what was inside and he decided that he would rather not. "Your eyes…I don't know why they came out like that. I never seen anything like them…they're gruesome."

Unconsciously, Sundance put a hand over one of his eyes, covering it.

"We can't keep you. I'm sorry, you'd be better off anywhere else," she muttered. "You mustn't exist with eyes like those."

"But…why?" Sundance asked. "Why? What did I do? I don't–I need to keep calm. Ophelia just wants the win. She'll do anything for the win."

Footsteps were approaching and the sound of hooves crunching through the snow on the road. The woman gasped, covering the bucket again, whispering her final condolences. She pulled her cloak over her face and ran off, becoming a blur of white and blue in the distance. Sundance didn't move. He was mystified.

"This is unreal…"

The sun started rising out of the clouds, like a bird taking flight for the first time, and the color of the skyline was changing from white to gray to blue. Sundance looked straight into the sun but he didn't feel the light or the burning heat. He was an illusion, nonexistent in this world. He couldn't feel the texture of grass or make footprints in the snow. He was watching a movie until Ophelia decided to end it.

"Someone seems to have abandoned camp. Might be a traveler."

A new woman appeared, hustling through the trees, younger than the last but showing more age in her features. A hiking backpack strapped to her back. Her long brown hair clotted with sweat, red and yellow curlicues painted on her cheeks. In the clearing, a man in a winter cloak was standing beside an underfed horse. The man put a hand on the horse's mane. "It's okay…"

"He looks like…Papa." Sundance muttered, staring at the man. "Ophelia–she…no, no, no…this isn't real. That's not me. This isn't–"

The woman gasped.

Sundance's gaze snapped to her. She had uncovered the bucket, uncovered what revelations it hid. Her callused hands were shaking as she lifted the cocoon of sheets. Sundance saw a tiny face, turned blue from the cold, with undeveloped features. A mistake child. The children abandoned in wilderness, thrown into rivers, deliberately left to die. Those that were destined to remain in shelters and suffer until their time came.

The world never made time for mistake children.

"You win!" Sundance yelled. "You win! I'm done!"

The woman ran over to her group, holding the tiny face against her shirt. The man looked confused. "Lachlan, what is that?"

"A baby, a baby boy," Lachlan answered. "We have to get to the Refuge! A little boy…someone abandoned a little boy!"

"How could they?"

"Oh, you know why."

"A mistake–"

"The spawn of–"

Sundance collapsed into the foliage, covering his ears. "Please, please, stop it! I give! I GIVE!"

In the sky of Sundance's nightmare, a girl laughed cryptically.

Eve opened her eyes to the loudest, shrillest scream. She watched Sundance from across the room, his face turning another color, screaming, wailing. He looked distorted, a warped creature. Eve extended an arm, stretching her fingers to reach for him but she was pulled back, thrown against the wall. The wrist of her left hand was tied to the wall with wire, a bruise-colored welt standing on her skin.

"What the–"

"You're alive. Good."

Sundance's tortured screams gave out, becoming silence in the air.

Eve heard a nasty, arrogant laugh. Caleb was staring into the sun. He looked skeletal in the light, the bones standing out in his hands and face, like a space alien. He acknowledged her with the corner of his eye, uninterested.

"That was annoying, all the screaming. He'd been like that since the morning." Caleb replied. Eve pulled against the wire, turning a face. "Ophelia wants me to be nice. I don't answer to her but I'll try it out. In my experience, being nice doesn't get you anywhere."

"You wouldn't know." Eve snapped.

"I didn't burn the kid's book when I could've." he retorted. "I think that's awfully nice of me."

"Oh, that's nice? Do you think that's nice? Think about what you did to those innocent civilians, mothers, children, families! How can you live with yourself knowing you caused their demise?!" Eve screamed, pushing harder against the wire. "How can you look at yourself the same?"

Eve didn't know what more to say. She placed a hand on her leg, clutching it, shaking. She didn't have an idea or a strategy. She couldn't protect Sundance or reach the root of his problem. Caleb had Sundance's book in his hand, taunting her with it. She needed a plan. But she couldn't think.

Caleb smiled, one side twitching. "I never had that problem."

Eve rolled her eyes.

"You're done now? What's up? You have that face." Caleb asked, turning to look at Eve from a side-angle. "The grouchiness."

Eve looked away."Just leave already."

Caleb approached, letting out a nasty bark of laughter. Eve watched him, her eyes widening. He chucked Sundance's book at her, throwing it into her lap. She put a protective hand over it. Caleb stared at her, admonished her with hatred. His eyes, a dazzling blue, deep-sea color, were narrow. Eve saw a painful death, a nightmare.

"Shady bitch," he sneered. Caleb turned to Sundance's book briefly. "It's not like you'll win, anyway."

Sundance screamed when Caleb was gone. Eve pulled Sundance's book against her, collapsing against it. She couldn't fight, couldn't win. She didn't want to lose, couldn't tolerate losing anyone else.

Eve hated Caleb, hated him. But he was right.

They would never win.

"Eve and Sundance are gone!"

Lilja was awake when Viola stormed into the guestroom to share the news. She was staring out the window in her room, watching color from the sun trickle across the skyline, blue and gray and white.

"A beautiful morning," Lilja acknowledged, pointing at the clouds. "I like this sky."

Viola pulled a hand around her neck, rubbing. "Didn't you hear what I said?! I said–"

"I heard." Lilja answered. "I just wanted to hear it again. I did not think she would listen to me."

Sundance opened his eyes, regenerating his inner strength. It wouldn't be easy. He had a lot to do. He looked around, scoping through the darkness. He couldn't see anything. He couldn't hear anything. It was a wasteland. Sundance lifted a hand in front of him, feeling a wall. Sundance thought about it for a few minutes.

He smiled, showing his kid-teeth.

"I have a plan."

There's a lot in store in the upcoming updates, a lot of revelation and twists coming up. Sorry for the huge procrastination. I'll see y'all in 2014. R&R!