A/N: So glad I had at least one reader lol. That proves to me that this fandom wasn't as dead as I had initially thought ^^ Enjoy the second chapter …

They led their horses through the dead town. A heavy air hung around the pair. It pulled at their lungs, forcing them to take cautious and calculated breaths.

"There's this story." Jacob began. Will kept his eyes on the road even though his attention was drawn towards his brother. A thoughtful expression washed over him before he shooed it away.

"I'm already regretting stopping by the library." Will muttered to himself. Jacob's love for books had eventually won the argument Jacob had started fueling when he saw a sign that read the town's library was just down the road.

"It says here that 'a cursed traveler will come by, slay a horse and run into the river where he shall drown, unleashing an unseen destruction of ice'." Jacob nodded his head in what seemed like interest. "I bet they didn't believe in magic, Will." Jake said with a small forced smile. "They hid the book on a far too high shelve in the library." He told him. Will just nodded, his mind traveling further than his eyes could possibly see with the rising fog. It was a fog created by the ice.

"That doesn't explain the demon." Will said thoughtfully. What he didn't realize was that he was practically saying he believed there was a demon or more specifically, there was real magic involved.

"Oh? Are you accepting reality?" Jacob asked with a grin.

"I'm accepting my own reality without magic, but one cannot ignore the demon of death when it's breathing down one's shoulder while one is asleep." Will countered. He threw a frown over his shoulder before turning his eyes back on the road.

"You had the same nightmare?" Jake asked, his grin had fallen from his lips to form a worried frown. This wasn't right.

"About the demon and whatnot. Yes." Will confirmed sternly.

"We need to do something about this." Jake said pulling the rein. His horse halted immediately.

"This town is already lost." Will said. His voice was getting softer the more he spoke. His words strung together as if they were glued somehow. "There are no people left to save." He was almost muttering now. When had he become so tired? His head was heavy, his vision had an edge to it and his horse's steps were starting to sound distant. The strangest sensation brought him out of his stupor, he hadn't even noticed he'd gotten off his horse until his head started hurting. An incessant throb that kept on hammering inside his head.

"Will!" He heard a distant voice creating ripples inside his head. There should have been peace, yet the echoes of the bells of tomorrow were already ringing. They were piercing through him, insisting on being acknowledged. Instead, Will did everything in his might to ignore the incessant sound. "Wilhelm!" Why so frantic? A frightened tone underlined the voice he was hearing. "…'elp me out." Where was it coming from? If his hand hadn't felt as numb as it did, he would have brought it up to his mouth in a thoughtful gesture. Allegedly, he was forced to sit tight and wait for whatever would happen next. By any means, Will was not a patient man when it came down on waiting for something to strike down on him. He knew that someone was expecting something from him, but he just couldn't figure out what. A bone chilling cold was starting to settle into his muscles now and hell if he knew where it was coming from. "…should come back…me." The voice wasn't making any sense, Will decided. He fought back a sigh of annoyance. What was it on about and why couldn't it form whole phrases? Someone care to explain?

"G'way." Will slurred out. He managed to slightly lift his hand in an attempt to push the voice away from him. His hand ended up dropping back to his side, but he'd be damned if he knew why he couldn't feel it.

"You…up." What up? Will fought the urge to roll his eyes mainly because somewhere he knew that he couldn't. His eyelids felt like lead.

"Wha?" He asked. If he couldn't make sense of the voice soon, he'd go bonkers.

"You really need to wake up, Will." The fog was clearing and suddenly his senses felt overstimulated by the invading noise of what appeared to be his own brother's voice and the light streaming through his eyelids. His body felt like it was on fire, an ice cold fire raging through him and through his veins. His numb hands shot up to cover his eyes, acting of their own accord in an effort to try and shield his eyes. He was curling in on himself until he felt a hand on his shoulder and a voice telling him to calm down. All at once, everything just stopped. There was no sound. There was no light. Everything was gone before a voice called out.

"I too suffer."

Will stood inside an empty tavern facing a rotting corpse.

"A life is not lost to death." The corpse told him. Will could make out the distinct appearance of a small girl, her voice hoarse and unused, but still obviously from a child. "Death is but a place." She said with an ever present grin. The flesh around her mouth had long since rotten away, giving her a slightly less innocent appearance. She seemed deluded were it not for her words. Somehow, Wilhelm was willing to accept that. He'd been pretty close to death himself.

"A peaceful one." Will said at last.

"No." The child disagreed, her voice wavered. "It is chaotic." She stated. A cold gust seemed to sweep up from beneath them. Will's feet started growing cold and soon it climbed up all the way to his head, earning him a massive headache.

"You must free what is not actually dead." The girl told him before he was cast back into a body with numb hands and cold feet. Slowly he opened his eyes to see blue eyes staring back at him with the most relieved expression he'd ever seen.

"God, Will." Jake breathed out. Somehow they'd gotten back to the library where Jacob had placed Will into one of the seats. "You scared the daylights out of me." His brother said with a smile.

"What happened?" Will asked, fighting the urge to rub his head. It kept on pounding, but the numbness in his hands were keeping him from using them. It felt too strange.

"You tell me." Jake said with an exhausted yet relieved huff. "You just stepped off your horse and tried to walk further down the road, I tried to draw your attention but you just kept going until you collapsed." Jacob explained with a frown.

"I'm sorry." Will apologized. He sat upright from his already seated position on the seat. His attention was focused on trying to get his feet into position so he could stand, but somehow they would not obey him. "Strange." He muttered.

"What is it?" Jake asked.

"My feet." Will said with a frown. "They feel detached." Jake couldn't help but laugh at the sight in front of him. Will was staring down at his feet as if he had just discovered them and proclaimed they were not attached to his legs. It was a sight that cast an interesting light in a dark day. The darkness overpowered the light too fast to enjoy though.

TO BE CONTINUED