He starts the second day out with a lot of hope, and that is pretty much where it all goes wrong.

Actually, it's all been going wrong for quite a while, but this is just for the second day, which is also the beginning of his failures to really accept reality.

The first of these is the hope that it has all been a terrible dream and that he has, indeed, saved the world with Valkyrie and is still in Ireland and is going to wake up sometime quite soon. He doesn't bother causing himself hurt to check this, because the Faceless Ones are doing fairly well in this respect.

The second is the hope that it has all been a terrible dream and that Serpine never killed him and he still lives with his wife and his child and he has flesh and blood and all those easily injured accoutrements that constitute humanity.

The third is that he's not alone in this world.

He thinks he sees them out of the corners of the eyes he doesn't have as he is screaming like he hasn't since the days of Serpine and lungs and torture still feeling so incredibly thorough. He thinks, but he isn't sure, and by the time night arrives and the unfamiliar stars are out, he is in no state to find out.


A/N: I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this... =3

Heartache and syrup nails and cold, cold stone~
Sweethearted.