Soundtrack: Schizophrenia - Blue October

THE TOUCH OF THE DARKNESS

The sun had just recently started rising from the sky, ignited light flashing through the sky in a pang of colors spreading across the emptied out dessert. The only life daring enough to make a statement in the hollow desolation was the rumbling SUV, driven in a beeline in the direction of the shore. No sounds were made other then the motor of the car, as it bumped up and down repeatedly on the dirt road, headed back towardsPerdido Beach.

Edilio, who seemed as healthy as ever - after Lana healed him - was behind the wheel, driving carefully through the rough terain. Dekka was riding shot gun, still shaken up by her interference with the coyotes. The second row was occupied by Astrid, Sam and Jack and the third one by Quinn, Lana and Patrick. Patrick was squeezed in between the two of them, lying with his head in the lap of his owner.

Lanas fingers kept touching strands of his hair, playing with them energetically as she stared emptily out into the desert. The closer they got to the west side of the dome, the sooner the darkness seemed to envelope the seven passangers again, the sun never really catching up with them. The gloomy dark prevented her from seeing far, yet she felt as if she saw it all. She had seen it before, walked it before. Travelled by feet as part of the coyote pack. Travelled side by side next to Drake.

She took a deep, shaky breath and the exhale came out as sob. After weeping for what had felt like a century, she had finally been able to calm down enough for them to finally drive back towards town. Yet, her eyes were watery and a few teardrops had run down her cheeks.

With each breath she inhaled, her chest would be heaving unsteadily, a sudden heaviness tugging at her insides. From the corner of her eye, she would spot one of the others throwing a pitying glance in her direction. It furied her, recieving such empathizing looks as if any of them understood her. They understood none of it. No doubt they'd be just as messed up as her had they been exposed to only a portion of the madness that had. Yet they could never truly understand. They most likely thought that it was due to being trapped inside of a cave for a day. And while that had been tough on her; she had been through so much worse.

She would not tell anyone about the voice that had been stuck inside of her head, because it would brand her as unstable and dangerous. And she could not tell anyone about Drake. They were all too ignorant, to innocent. She'd come to learn about their childlike weaknesses quite quickly, yet her paranoia alarmed her, stating that if she ever just brought up his name when telling them about her time in the FAYZ, someone might get a hang of the expressions that'd flash across her face. They might make a connection between her physical damage, her sudden turn of emotions, the way she'd always take a sudden notice to when someone mentioned him.

She shook it off, internally agreeing with herself that any clue left behind that could be connected to Drake needed to be disconnected. It would be too big of a shame if anyone found out about what had went down between the two of them. She needed to forget.

He was dead now, he couldn't bother her anymore. He wouldn't be able to show up at her doorstep, he wouldn't be able to drag her across the dessert, cage her in at Coates for him to kiss her or kick her whenever he felt like doing so. He was no longer here to torment her with his too complex persona.

Yet he was there. In her mind. Lingering, braided into her memories, her every thought, now of him.

But they wouldn't find out. If so, they'd have to figure it out themselves, and that would be pretty damn hard. The person with the most clues would be Quinn, who had seen her breakdown as soon as he stated his death, but he was way too naive to make anything out of it. His immaturity would probably just cause him to think that she was having her PMS.

The car slowed down as Edilio parked outside of Clifftop. Quinn stirred in his seat, seemed on the verge of saying something to her, but Lana turned her back on him, clearly not interested, and got out before he ever got the chance. She walked up the stairs and entered the lobby with Patrick at her tail, without bothering to say goodbye to any of them. She took the elevator up to the second floor where the two of them had been living by themselves for almost three months now.

With every step she took towards the door to her room, her limbs felt heavier, weaker and she was barely able to open the door to her room and enter it before she collapsed up against the wall.

It was nothing like the time she had walked down to Perdido Beach, lacking energy due to food and sleep deprivation. She was physically exhausted now, yes, but that wasn't the source to her current struggles. Now, she was worn out emotionally, anguish pushing her to the ground, her head spinning.

So as soon as the door to her hotel room was closed behind her, she sank to the ground, leaning the back of her head to the door. Her vision was unsteady, filled with spots at one moment and then everything within her view would spin violently. Her eyes shut forcefully in an attempt at making it stop and was soon replaced by loud sobs shaking her starved frame. The sight was miserable. And Patrick seemed even more alarmed by his masters tears now, then before.

He whimpered and came to her need right away, but she pushed him away. With each attempt he made at showing affection, she would slap him away. Not painfully, though the rejection itself did seem to make an impact on the already confused dog. In the end, Patricks weak attempts at licking her face had finally stopped and he settled with laying down by her side again, just like earlier, watching her carefully without touching her.

The part of her that was able to comprehend this act of bravery form her dog, was thankful for it. She felt appreciative of how even after having violently pushed her beloved dog away, he stayed beside her, keeping her safe in the only way he could. She didn't want to hurt him, it just happened. She wished she could control herself, her emotions, her actions, her mind.

She clutched her head in between both of hands, leaning forward with her forehead pressed down against the rug. This was supposed to be over. She had destroyed the Darkness so that she could be rid of the nightmares that flashed before her eyes even when awake. She had set herself on fire, just so she could escape that goddamned monster.

Why wouldn't it go away?

And that was when she started screaming. The cries burned her throat, tore at her insides, filled her eyes with tears and caused her ears to pump unbearably painful. It took one scream for Patrick to stand up alertedly, two screams for him to start whimpering, three for him to close the distance between the two of them, and on the fourth he ran away, seeking cover behind the bed as if it would lower the sound of her heartbreaking shrieks.

When Lanas voice was broken and her chest was heaving from the heavy use of vocals, she sat up straighter, eyes still closed, cheeks still soaked, and for the first time since she escaped the mineshaft she did what she hadn't had the courage to do then; she searched her mind. She searched every corner of her brain, looking for... Something. She couldn't feel it. It wasn't communicating with her. Just...

Just what, she did not know. Gone? Her mind seemed distantly set, heavily focused the same way she'd feel whenever she was fixated on healing something. Someone. She knew for a fact that she wasn't healing herself. It was using her. Taking an advantage of her power. She didn't like the sound of that, nor the feeling of it being inside her head in this way, though she did feel at ease at the utter silence within herself.

The voice was gone. The agony was gone. The illusions she had seen, the confusion it had caused.

All gone.

That was what she had asked for, wasn't it? Yet, the scares remained inside of her, and the power to forget was a skill she lacked greatly of. So crying out in sorrow was the best way for her to ever recover. So yet again, she sunk backwards, halfway sitting, halfway lying on the floor as tears and snot streamed down her face, self-pity filling every fiber of her body.

The shock was still there. The trauma. The despair.

She was only waiting for the relief and the hope of a better future in the FAYZ to kick in, but it never seemed to come.

One day bled into the other without making her able to address the time that had past.

It took four full days for the anguish and the grief to build itself sky high walls inside of her, preventing from anyone being able to knock it down. After that it took another two days for Quinn to return to his accommodating state, due to Sam having given him a strict message to stay away for a while, yet he had returned much sooner then the mayor would be pleased to hear.

On the ninth day she was finally grasping the fact that her mind was no longer being under the control of the Darkness, that she was free again - or as free as a post-tormented person could possibly be. The day after was when he finally found his place inside of her head. He settled down, pushing all other memories and thoughts to the side, spinning them like crazy and blending into each of them almost immediately. She tried not to question herself about how he had come to appear before her in the mineshaft when he was supposedly dead, due to every thought of him usually driving her off track.

It took another three days for her to start craving Quinns company. The lack of another presence in the silent hotel room had - finally - gotten to her by then, and his never-ending attempts at ignoring her at soon gotten her drugged on self-pity.

Another two weeks went by before she returned to the old habits of questioning her sanity. Quinn had first told her that she was overthinking things. That she was getting to herself by being caught up in her own head, choosing her imagination over reality. She never reacted positively to Quinns brave acts of honesty, and so he no longer felt very welcome up at Clifftop. He continued visiting, yet less frequent, and without giving her any excuse, she soon felt even more left behind.

The only one she felt that she could truly connect with was Patrick. He never seemed to judge her any further then hiding behind the bed whenever she had a violent break down. Yet the moment she had overcome the urge to throw things around, and instead collapsed onto the floor in a small heap of misery, then he'd slyly make his way over to her and lick her face lovingly, confirming to her that he was still there.

Having him stay behind with her was a cure of its own. His ability to forgive her for every time she would attempt to harm him was heartbreaking, yet she was forever thankful for it. When she calmed down, she'd always try and make it up to him, treating him with the love she used to possess for her dog before.

Yet there was always a side of her that was fearing when she would lose it completely.

So... Sorry about the long wait and the lame update. You see, I've been busy with school, but then I got back last week and was ready to update some of my stories. And I've actually written the chapters 8-12 on beforehand, so I was confident that if I just read through it twice and edited it some more it'd be up in mere hours.

But like I said I've been busy with school work and even before then I wasn't really doing much editing on them, because I found it more relevant to finish off the earlier chapters first. Soooooo, you can guess what happened, fanfiction thought I didn't want my stories, so they ate most of them. I sent them a mail asking to get them back, but I currently feel kind of ignored...xD

Anyways, my exams are coming up, meaning less homework and more preperation. First off will me Norwegian and English writing, so I'm taking this as an invitation to read and write shit loads as my preperation. SO, I'm hoping to update one of my stories just about every other day for the next two weeks, how does that sound? :)

So make sure to leave some wonderful reviews down bellow and you might incurage me to update this one quicker as well. You could also request other stories if you read any of my others, and it may or may not happen depending on wheather I have the inspiration.

And thank you thank you thank you thank you to FAYZlover101, Randomblackberry and AncientSTORM for reviewing, I really appreciate it! :D