"Phrixos!" he heard, turning around. Phrixos caught sight of Libitina coming towards them, and he smiled slightly.

"Erm, Kim, this is Libitina. I...met her at the park a few days ago." he explained to her. Kim was eyeing the old woman rather cautiously, he noticed. "How are you?" he asked Libitina.

"Yes, yes, very well. I came to ask you if you wanted to come for some tea, and you pretty friend here, if she wants." She smiled at Kim, who blushed, her cheeks turning almost as red as her hair.

"Uh, okay." she said, turning to Phrixos who said the same thing. Libitina smiled again and lead them towards her house.

"It's not far, no, no, not far at all." she said as they rounded the corner of the street. She could already see the grey slate roof that towered over all the rest of the neat brick houses in the avenue. Kim was enjoying their walk, their little promenade, but caught a glance of Phrixos who didn't seem to be enjoying himself at all. His green eyes flickered from house to house, fixed on Libitina, then down to the floor.

"Phrix?" she asked, stopping. His head shot up, eyes fixing on her face, and then he chuckled nervously.

"Yeah, I'm just-...I'm..." he swallowed, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. "I'm fine."

Libitina had stopped too, and was watching the two with a faint expression of amusement.

When they continued on, Kim slipped her hand into his, squeezing just a little. Phrixos looked down at them, and raised an eyebrow at Kim. She blushed again and took it away quickly, which made him laugh, without a hint of worry this time.

"I don't bite, you know."

She looked up into his face and saw his eyes, those emerald green eyes that suddenly locked onto her caramel irises. They both looked away quickly then, smiling nervously.

"Phrixos!" they heard their guide call, they came over. Stood outside her house was the tiny figure of Libitina, and Kim was clearly impressed by its size. It was as tall as their school, but it seemed tall, not just big. It towered over everything, and its imposing size was heightened even more by its monochrome colours. It reminded Kim of the Addam's Family videos that she still watched. It was made up of three levels -or four, because she was sure that it would have a basement- with evenly spaced windows on each floor. She noticed the lavender bushes in the garden and the wrought-iron fence, which was dangerously sharp, she thought.

"No…" They both turned to Phrixos, who was stood impossibly still. His face was pale like milk and his eyes were wide, dark green, his hands limp at his sides like pallid spiders. Those lips were still forming the word no, over and over again.

"Phrixos?" asked Kim, with unmistakeable worry in her voice. Phrixos didn't look at her, let alone seemed to have heard her. She pulled on his arm, saying,

"Phrixos, listen to me, please. Stop it!"

He shook his head and swallowed, throat constricting. He stayed silent despite the strain it was causing.

She turned to Libitina, who seemed to be standing oblivious to his distress.

"Libitina!" she cried now, frantic. What was wrong with him, who'd just been joking a few moments earlier?

Kim pulled on his arm, pulling him down in an attempt to avert his green irises from the house. That was obviously what had made him like this. Was it?

She gasped when she felt his fingers bite painfully into her hand.

"No…no…I don't want to go back!" he said, voice broken and emotionless. Lost in his head, his thoughts. Phrixos didn't hear her call out his name, or feel her try to pry his fingers away. All his attention, his reality was occupied by this house.

Would it still have the blood on the floor? The ripped curtains in the lounge? He'd never know.

Because at that moment, quite unexpectedly for Kim and Libitina, he took off in the other direction as fast as he could. Tears welled up in his eyes, as they did more and more often since he'd left the asylum. His throat burned from the running after a while, his legs ached. Phrixos stopped eventually, outside the park gates. Today, though, it was full of children and mothers playing. He panted and gasped for air. How far had he come from the street?

"Zero!" said Jack, a little annoyed now. His ghost dog quietened and looked up at him, jack o'lantern nose bright orange. The Pumpkin King sighed and went for the door. Zero had started to bark at the doorbell and he had been in the middle of scouring his library for something, anything on human-Halloween mixes.

"Yes?" he asked, even before he'd opened the door. There stood Doctor Finklestein, carrying a huge pile of old and dusty books on his lap.

"Good evening Jack. A little bird told me that you might want to take a look at these books, here." He took them and examined the first one's cover.

"'Species and races of the Worlds'? But Doctor..."

"Look at the marked pages, Jack. You'll understand." he interrupted him. Jack looked confused for a moment, before flicking through to a page that was separated with a piece of black ribbon.

'Why relations between Worlds shouldn't occur', the chapter was called. The thought came to his skull immediately. Phrixos.

"But-...but how?" he asked, bewildered at the unexpected aid.

The Doctor smiled and wheeled carefully down the steps towards his lab. Jack recognised the figure that was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. Long flowing red hair, large beautiful eyes, a tattered patchwork dress covered her hourglass figure. Sally looked up at Jack, however. Another small smile crossed her lips and she followed the Doctor across the Town Square a little shakily.

"Sally." Jack whispered softly. Sighing, he closed the door, books in hand and patted Zero as he passed back upstairs.

His study was bathed in orange light from the setting sun, making his squint at the windows. Setting the books on the table next to his other collection of literature, Jack sank into his chair, rubbing his sockets tiredly. Why could he never get any sleep anymore? There was nothing he could do at the moment, nothing he could think of at least. His Halloween preparations had been put on hold recently; he really should get on with that before. And then maybe, just maybe, something would come to him, and idea.

But for now, he coul-...

Something came to him then, but it wasn't what he hoped. It was about what the Doctor had said earlier.

"A little bird told me that you might want to take a look...a little bird?" muttered Jack, sitting upright in the comfortable chair. He frowned and tapped the table-top with his bony fingers absently.

Who had followed him to the house with Libitina that day? No-one, he had thought, but that obviously wasn't the case. He tried to remember who he'd passed, Mr Hydes, Behemoth, one of the Vampire Brothers...

Sally. She was outside the gate when he was walking up. How could he not have noticed her?

When he finally worked it out, Jack stayed motionless for a few minutes, before walking over to his giant grey fireplace. Old ashes hung to the nearby cobwebs like dew and he smiled slightly, for no reason. Jack paused and looked around for the matches, before shrugging and clicked his fingers. A flame appeared there and he blew into it, setting the various bits of screwed up paper and wood alight in an instant. The room lit up quite quickly and warmed up just as fast. Jack felt something nudge at his side and looked down to find Zero; the ghost dog had huddled up to his master and held something in his mouth. The Pumpkin King reached down for it and saw a rough drawing of a Christmas tree. Smiling openly, Jack stood up and tossed his dog one of his collar-bones to play with.

Just like the Christmas affair, Jack was sure that he'd find a solution to help Phrixos eventually. Whether, like before, it would turn out being worse before it got better.

Libitina caught sight of Phrixos sitting alone on the park bench they had been at just days earlier. She walked over to him silently and said softly,

"You can run, yes, yes. Run like the wind, Jack."

His head shot up and she noticed red rings around his eyes, where he'd rubbed them.

"Sorry." He said, sniffing. She sat down next to him and smiled up at the dark sky. Thunderclouds were brewing, a storm hung in the air like water vapour.

"One week to Halloween, one week." She murmured to herself. Phrixos glanced at her, and looked back at the spot he had been staring at before. A breeze stirred the leaves that now lay strewn across the paved path, far more than two days ago.

"What are you going to do for Halloween, Jack?" Libitina asked him.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" he snapped. "How do you even know my name?" He spat it with unexpected force, standing up. The old woman looked rather shocked, or thrown by his sudden outburst. She blinked up at him, eyes huge and black as coal.

"You're just like him, you know."

Something in her tone made him soften, listen. He relaxed, muscles loosening up.

"Like-…like who?"

She didn't answer, only gazed up at him absently. It looked like Libitina was miles away.

"My father?" asked Phrixos, sitting back down. She faced him, and for a moment, he thought that she was angry with him. But her face crumpled in on itself and she smiled. "You knew him well, didn't you?"

"Yes, yes, he was a remarkable man. Keen on new experiences, on trying new things. He was a true leader."

"Unlike me, I guess." Mumbled Phrixos, he'd gotten himself into a position with his knees up to his chin and it impaired his speech.

"Hmm?"

"I'm not-…I can't even…" he sighed and muttered, "I'll start again. I don't take to being in charge; I can hardly keep myself under control, let alone others."

"Is that so?" she asked, her eyes shining mischievously "You do have a little admirer though, Phrixos, yes, yes."

He thought about this, even though it was obvious who she meant at once.

"You little friend Kemina, she thinks highly of you, she does. Almost even-…"

"Even what?" he asked, curious. She smiled again and shook her head.

"That's for her to tell, I think. Not my job, no, no, not mine." Her tone was subdued, even sad somehow. Phrixos smiled back, genuinely, then frowned slightly when he realised something.

"So...how come you're not asking me why I ran?"

"Oh Phrixos…do I really need to ask that? Do you want me to ask you why you ran anyway? No, no, I thought not." She added when he didn't reply.

"Not curious?" he asked.

"Not in the slightest."

"…Whatever."

"Come in." called Kim, replying to the knock on the door. She was busy tending to her pride and joy, strewn across the carpeted room floor.

There were three resin dolls, with jointed arms, legs, hands, feet, everything. They were pale and shone under the sunset-light from the window. Kim was currently taking various items from cardboard boxes, eyes, paints, even delicate false eyelashes, all fit for the dolls. She handled everything with great care, especially the dolls themselves.

"I said come in!" she snapped, annoyed at the interruption in her careful work. She took a paintbrush from one of the boxes and retrieved a bottle of resin from another.

"Hey." She heard from behind her, a voice that she recognised even without having to turn around. Kim put the dolls away into a large box quickly, and stood up.

Phrixos stayed where he was, silent and brooding as he sometimes was. She sighed and placed a hand on his cheek, it seemed so dark against his pale skin.

"Geez, you're freezing, Phrix! Where've you been?" she said, trying to make eye contact with him. His irises were clear green again, not dark in any way, but the pupils were so large in the half-light. He latched onto her caramel eyes, and smiled slightly.

"Sorry." He croaked, mouth dry. He cleared his throat and licked his lips, trying again. "Sorry, Kim. I was scared."

"Of what? The house?"

Phrixos looked back into her eyes; he seemed very child-like at that moment, naïve.

"Yeah."

Kim led him to the bed, her they both sat. He took off the coat he had been wearing and ran a hand through his black messy hair.

"It was-…complicated, actually. It's hard to explain without me going into meltdown, really. I wouldn't want to go through it if I didn't have to."

"Well, you don't need to tell me if you don't want to, y'know. It's alright." She smiled, hoping her reverse psychology trick would work. She really could be a bit pushy at times. He shrugged as if it was no big deal about telling her anyway, but his shoulders slumped and he sighed dejectedly.

"But it's never going to go away, is it?" He sighed again and took a deep breath.

"Okay, I'll say it. But I've got to ask you something, Kim." Phrixos looked up into her eyes again, not looking away this time.

"What Phrixos?"

"You can't repeat this. To anyone, I mean it. You can tell whatever else you like to people, but this is the most important thing that I'm ever going to ask you to do, Kim."

She nodded, slightly distracted by the worried look in his eyes, It was so desperate, scared.

"Then I'll tell you."

Kim put the last of the dolls in their cases and put the box with them in back under her bed. Phrixos was sat on top of it, fingers entwined, white knuckles. She flopped down next to him; he started a little and took his hands apart.

"So…where to start."

"The beginning is a great idea, Phrixos." She quipped, winking despite her sarcastic tone.

He nodded. "But when is the beginning? I have an idea of when but it might be a little too far back…"

"Look, you can tell me the whole ordeal if you think I'll understand better. Whatever."

"Okay. You know how I freak out at times; I act strange, mood-swings, the whole thing. I never used to be like this, it all started when…" he stopped, and took another deep breath. "When my mother died. About a year ago, my mother died of cancer a while after my seventeenth birthday. She didn't tell me until it was far too late, a week before her death actually. I was astonished that she wouldn't have told me, but the worst was that she'd left it too late to do anything about it. Of course, it wasn't her fault, it was that she didn't notice it until it was dangerous and then…it was too late."

He looked blankly at a spot on the floor in front of them and Kim put an arm around his skinny frame. He sniffed and continued.

"I wasn't taken into care because I had my godparents to look after me. But even though someone was there for me, I never really understood that she was gone. Well, I did, but I never really took it in.

Then, a while after, it hit me square in the forehead like a ten-tonne wrecking ball. I lost it, went off the tracks, whatever you want to call it. I had these phases when I stayed silent, vacant, I didn't eat and I hardly slept. I got really ill back then, and I got this personality disorder. Have you heard of schizophrenia?" he asked.

"Not really. I might have."

"It's a split-personality disorder. I feels like I've got two personalities, one where I'm like this, I'm kind of normal, then the other is usually confused, a bit crazy. Only when I'm in my other mood, I get erratic, aggressive, violent. Very violent, I cause self-damage and I can harm others, as you've seen. Well, that's it. Only that's not really it but..."

He leaned back now, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

"Well, near enough anyway, isn't it? Where was I…? Ah yes, what happened. Well, to say the least, I was thrown so far that even I had no idea what I was doing anymore. It was under some of my control until one time, Halloween, a while back. I was out with some friends, trying to be as normal as possible. They were younger than me, as I'd stopped school and my old friends had moved onto everything else. It came to around the time when we were supposed to go, but we stayed out and did the normal thing that kids do. We went to an empty house, infamous on the street, and hung out in it, trying to scare the shit out of the others."

Smiling softly, he glanced at Kim to see if she was still following. Judging from her expression, it looked as if Kim was eating up his every word. Hooked.

"I can't remember much after that but I woke up some time later, the others were gone. It took me a while to realise after that that-…"

Phrixos stopped; his eyes seemed to not see the room, but what he was telling her.

"It was horrible Kim. I still can't believe I'd done it."

She put a hand on his shoulder, even though he didn't seem to notice, she felt better doing it. It was what she felt natural to do, help him to stay anchored to where he was, when he was. She hated seeing him so caught up in himself. When he spoke again, Phrixos' voice was quiet but the words struck Kim like hailstones.

"They're dead. And I killed them. I murdered them, two...they were just kids. Barely teenagers."

His gaze dropped like a lead balloon, to his knees. His world went double, reflected in the tears that filled his eyes now. This was so hard, but it was getting so hard to stop now the stone had started rolling.

"And I was locked up. I pleaded my innocence, saying they were crazy, they had no right to do this, they had no evidence. Which of course, they did. Traces of blood in the carpets, on the razorblade I'd had. Their blood. And my blood. They didn't know what to make of it, so they were going to sent me to prison, or wherever I was supposed to go. And I couldn't take it. I flipped."

What seemed like the worst over, Phrixos sat back and crossed his arms, blinked hard and looked at Kim. He wasn't sure she'd seen the tears; he made the point of not brushing them away now.

"And that was Libitina's house, was it? That's why you ran?" she asked, her inquisitive side acting of its own accord. He nodded slightly, turned his head to the ceiling as if could tell the story for him.

"And that's how I was in the asylum. And then Laura came, she helped me get out. I was placid, I think, she didn't think it was human to keep me in there."

"And you think she was wrong?" The words came out of Kim's mouth before she could stop them; two shards of green glass were on her as quick as a flash, his steady gaze never moving from her face.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well-…umm…" she started, blushing slightly. She couldn't escape those eyes of his. "It was just…you seemed as if there was something you wanted to add, but didn't with a sense of dignity, y'know." She stopped the sentence hanging in the air; Phrixos said nothing more but his green eyes didn't move. There was no darkness about them at all, as she noticed when something was up with him. He was just silent, a thoughtful silence that Kim wasn't sure she'd witnessed in him before.

After a while, Phrixos laughed softly, it was one of those laughs that came from your nose, when you couldn't be bothered to open your mouth to laugh in their face. Or if you were Phrixos.

"I don't think my dignity means much to me anymore, Kim." A small but warm smile crept onto his lips; she couldn't help but smile back. He was entirely lovable. Maybe a little strange at times, eccentric in his own eccentric way, but he was lovable.

And, as the cliché goes, she wasn't going to say it out loud, of course.