~Disclaimer: I don't own these sweet and innocent characters that we've all come to shape and mold like clay... but, as always, they don't belong to me. Just have fun reading and enjoy the moment.

~I just want to say *THANKS* FOR EVERYONE who reviewed. You guys make my writing complete. I wish I could show everyone how thankful I am.

But I can give you HUGS! *HUGZ* *HUGZ*

demyn

~*~

Ryo jerked awake at 5:12 am, his whole body tense, listening desperately for whatever it was that had jerked him so completely out of a sound slumber.

"What the hell..." Ryo grabbed the side of head. He reached out with his mind, touching the presences he knew better than his own soul. He was just getting resettled in his covers when he felt it again, a flutter in the back of his mind, like something was wrong. Definitely wrong.

His minds thoughts diverted directly to Sage. Ryo got out of bed and headed downstairs to go and check on him. He raced into Sage's bedroom, not even bothering to knock first.

"Sage?" Ryo said in a soft tone.

Sage was trembling and sobbing, but in such an ghostly silence it made Ryo's skin crawl.

Ryo cursed softly and rushed to his side, trying to get him to wake up, "Sage! Sage, are you alright?"

Sage just shook Ryo off, trying weakly to force Ryo's hands off of him.

"SAGE!" he hissed, "Snap OUT of it!" Ryo was ready to smack him when Sage's eyes opened wide and violet, focusing in bewilderment on Ryo's face. Ryo grabbed a hold of him, but Sage just crumpled into him, sobbing so much that his whole body shook.

Ryo shushed him, "It's alright, Sage. You're fine. You're here, it's okay!"

"But... my... my Rowen..." he shook, pressing his palms to his eyes, trying to blot out the images. "No, I can't... I can't," he chanted repeatedly, shaking his head.

Ryo ran his fingers over his cheek, wiping the tears that blinded him. "Gods, Sage. It's okay. Cry for him. Anything that makes you feel better." Ryo leaned closer to him, giving him a tight squeeze. One part of him was yelling, screaming to turn back. The other side was shoving him further into his arms.

"Do you want me to stay here?" Ryo whispered, looking up for Sage's gray eyes.

Ryo's words stung him, as he didn't say anything for a long time, unless he spoke with his anxious eyes. He watched as Ryo blinked, a wave of some emotion intangible to him, something like fear or lust, Sage didn't know. But when Ryo blinked again, that emotion was completely gone.

"What the hell was that?" Sage asked himself. He broke down again, crying softly. But it wasn't those harsh sobs lingering from the nightmare, but the kind of tears that could wipe away pain and ease a heart.

"Go back to sleep, Sage," Ryo murmured, letting Sage fall back onto his pillows. "I'll stay here."

Sage closed his swollen eyes and pressed his head deeper into the softness. He didn't even care that Ryo got in next to him, one arm gently resting over his chest.

-~-~*~-~-

Sage woke with a yawn the next morning. He smiled faintly as he felt Ryo's presence behind him, hearing his soft breathing.

Ryo sighed heavenly, mumbling something close to "It's alright, Sage."

Sage's faint smile became a real one. He couldn't remember what Ryo had done, he just knew he felt better than he had in awhile, not like the weight of the world was crushing his soul. He was actually feeling so much better that he thought that he ought to get up.

But he didn't want to move.

"What the hell," He closed his eyes.

"You a'righ'?" Ryo mumbled sleepily.

Sage shifted his weight onto his shoulders as he turned. Sighing, he muttered, "Yeah. I feel loads better."

"Good," Ryo whispered, snuggling into the covers.

Sage noted that the arms around him didn't move. But, suddenly, he didn't care anymore.

Ryo sighed heavily, opening his eyes to gaze at Sage. But his eyes of sleepiness and content flipped into eyes of fear.

Sage whipped around, hearing Ryo's gasp of panic. "What?"

Ryo covered his mouth, "Your... your back. Look at your back."

Sage's eyebrows creased with immense fear. He jumped out of bed and ran to his closet, his dream suddenly returning to him.

Sage cursed loudly. Two ruby red scars in his light skin drew down his shoulder blades. They were deep. Sage could feel the bottom of each score against his shoulder bone as he moved around. He tensed up looking at himself in the mirror, getting more angry and more frustrated each time his eyes passed over his back. But then he saw Rowen in the mirror.

Rowen outside at the window.

Sage whipped around, staring at the window with his eyes like daggers. But there wasn't anything there. Nothing.

Sage screamed, slamming his fist into the mirror, completely shattering it. He kept screaming, pounding on the wall until both his arms were coated in blood. Then he stopped, collapsing to the ground in a storm of tears and sobs.

Cye, Kento, and Mia all came rushing in.

Kento took one look at Sage and one look at Ryo, shaking on the bed, and exploded, "WHAT the HELL happened?!" he screeched, "Ryo?! What the hell did you do?!"

Ryo couldn't do anything but point at Sage.

Cye was already at Sage's side, but Sage wouldn't let him touch him. He kept pushing Cye away, telling him to leave him alone.

"Just let me DIE!" Sage screamed in-between his sobs, pressing his blood drenched hands against his face, mixing them with his salty tears.

Cye shot his more than worried look over to Ryo. He looked really uneasy with what Sage said. And so did everyone else.

After a good moment of nothing but listening to Sage's crying, Kento spoke up, this time more calm, "Ryo, would you like to tell us what happened..."

Ryo closed his eyes, taking a huge breath. "Sage... Sage has two scars the length of his hand on his shoulders. And when he went to go look at them in the mirror-" Ryo stopping, swallowing the spit in his mouth, "He... I don't know what happened but he just started hitting the mirror-"

"Rowen did all this to me!" Sage scowled, removing his hands from his face, revealing blood-shot eyes and a bloody face. "I had wings like him but they were black and he had another part of him and he told me that he was Rowen, but I knew he wasn't cause he didn't talk like him and he had black wings and Rowen was in the mirror and then he was outside and..." Sage stopped, looking at everyone's bewildered faces. Tears fell down his cheeks, smearing the blood and dripping it down to his neck. "Rowen's doing this... I can't help it." he whimpered, "I love him..."

Cye groaned loudly pressing his palms against his temples. "What is happening...."

"Sage, we need to take you to the hospital or something..." Kento replied, his voice unnaturally soft, "You need help."

Sage creased his eyebrows, making his eyes squint, "No..." he shook his head softly, "No, no, I'm fine."

"No, you're fucking not!" Ryo yelled, coming out of his trance state and into reality, "Sage, look at what you did... look at yourself!"

Sage shamefully stared at the piles of glass from the mirror. He looked at his red arms, feeling the itching pain that scorched through them. He could also feel the caked blood on his face, his tears burning as they flowed down his cheeks.

"Sage, I'm sorry, but you're not yourself anymore. You've become someone that no one in the this house knows - someone that no one wants to know. I can't explain everything, but what I can explain to you is that something has you totally flipped."

Sage swallowed the emotion in his throat, wanting it to go away.

"It's been almost 2 weeks. You can't stay in the past anymore," Cye remarked, standing to his feet. "We are all in this together, but we can't move on. We can't move on without you."

Sage squeezed his eyes shut, "But Rowen. Rowen is here." he mumbled, then opened his eyes.

Blackness.

He tried again to open his eyes, but he didn't see anything. He suddenly felt himself falling, blackness surrounding him. Then there was nothing.