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One moment, Ialo was sorrowfully gazing at the floor, listening to his mother swear at everyone within earshot. That was just the sort of thing she did, she was the bark while, ironically, it was his father who had the bite. And he, he had been just useless, going through the motions of life without really understanding them.

And now he wouldn't, because everything turned... nothing. There was absolutely nothing. There was no way to describe it, beyond nothing. There was no light, nothing to be perceived whatsoever, not even darkness. There was no sound, not even the buzz of silence, or his own heartbeat in his ear – which he was sure was beating out of control. Wait, it was beating, right? No, it wasn’t. Oh god. Was he dead? He couldn’t feel a damn thing. He couldn’t feel his own heart, his own pulse. He was sure he was crying now, but he couldn’t even feel that.

He thought he might have even been screaming, but he wasn’t sure. He would never be sure, he realized. He would never sense another damn thing ever. For the rest of his life, he would be nothing, haunted by figments of his imagination. He would be an empty shell, he realized.

This time, Ialo really did scream, but he would never know it.

((Despair Event Horizon))

Adolf just stared at her for a moment, completey certain that she was wrong. "Then I suppose he just abandoned the school without notifying anyone and joined a group of people whose scents I do not recognize." Though it wasn't inherently obvious, Adolf's words were sarcastic. "Do not do anything rash." Because if Danni did something stupid, Athena probably would too.

If she wasn't already.

Off in Ialo's rooms somewhere, Athena was looking through Ialo's desk drawers for anything interesting while eating some chocolate body icing straight from the tin. She tapped lightly on the bottom of each drawer and the sides of the desk--she knew that secret compartments would be so Ialo. It'd probably be all high-tech or someth--

Ooooo.

Secret compartment: check. Security: nonexistent.

Athena gently prodded the little drawer open, peering in curiously. ...Gloves? All that trouble to hide some gauntlet-glove-things? They must be important, then. Maybe they had superpowers or something cool like that.

So what did Athena do?

She grabbed them and put them on, not thinking for a single moment that something bad could result from her impromptu actions. And immediately, she figured out something: these gauntlet-glove-things were definitely magical. Because that was not her memory she'd just seen. It was something new.

Falling backwards from surprise, she reached out to catch herself with the floor and saw some more--ooh, Ialo getting undressed! She had no control over what she could see and what she couldn't; how could she? She had only just picked up these things.

But she was soooo keeping them. She wanted to see more stuff. There was something odd about them, and she wanted to know where they came from. Something about a Fountain...

Adolf sniffed the air momentarily. "Between ten and fifteen. I cannot be precise as they are mostly overpowered by Ialo's, and many scents linger here. It is impossible to be certain." He gave her a long, hard look. "Where they go I will not say."

Of course, he couldn't say anything for Athena. (Well, no, he could: she would find out Ialo was missing and immediately stop whatever she was doing to help Danni in some idiotic quest where he would be needed to save the day after they all got kidnapped.)

(( I wouldn't.))

"Oh." Danni paused for a beat, then two. And then she got to her feet. "Now why would you go and tell me something like that? You know I'm rash. You seen Athena?" She asked, already heading towards the door.

Though her voice was easy and casual, her eyes had turned to hard, flat gray pools.

((Keep in mind this post actually takes place in the near future, several hours after he was first put in the dimension. Taking into account John's description, where a full day feels an entire year in there, two hours would feel like a month... which is plenty of enough time to crack.))

It did not take long for Ialo to begin to imagine things. Left completely alone in that dimension, a single day flowed as if it were an entire year. It was torture, quite plainly put. It was a fear beyond all fears, an eternity that could end at any moment. There was no way to tell one moment apart from another. There would be no way to tell when it ended. It just would, and then you were dead. Until then, it was nothing for forever.

Small wonder then, that so many took refuge in their hallucinations. It was the only thing real to them until the day they died.

The nothing turned an inky indigo blue. So close to pitch black, but it wasn’t. It was something, and that was perhaps the greatest relief he would ever know. Even if it wasn’t really there, it was. His mind, desperate for something, anything, began to fill in the blanks. There was an ocean. He knew this. ******** the judge; he could feel the breeze just fine. It smelled like salt. He could hear the swishing of the waves, the soft crash of the water against the pillars. Pillars? Oh, naturally. He was standing on the bridge. It had always been there, of course: an asphalt-paved, two-lane bridge with electric streetlights every few hundred feet. He peered over the guardrail. It must be a high bridge, he decided. The water sounded rather distant. It was dark and blue, just like the sky. Just like it. There was no horizon. For that matter, there was no light either.

There were the streetlights, and some lights out in the distance floating serenely by. It was a boat, a mere silhouette against the darkness, but a boat nonetheless. He could trace the outline from the lights mounted on it. It was too cloudy though, for the moon or the stars to be seen. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Definitely again, damn it. He would see the moon again. Just, not tonight. Ha. Of course it was night, look how dark it was. He pushed off from the guardrail and began to walk. Streetlight after streetlight passed by him, but the end of the bridge never came into sight. A bit perplexed, he sped up. Soon he was in a full run. The boat had long since crossed under the bridge, still there was end. There were no lights, no shape of the shore on the other side. The bridge continued on, gently curving and obscured by black fog.

Unsettled, he turned around to walk the other way. Maybe he just hadn’t gotten to the middle of the bridge. Wait, he did start from the end, right? Did he start from the middle? Or maybe, there was nowhere to go. He stood and stared before him. It looked exactly the same as before. Look, there was the boat. No. Wait. That was on the other side. He turned around again, and still the boat was there, sailing serenely to the left. He took a few steps backward, and quickly black fog enveloped him. In a panic, he ran forward, out of the fog. It worked, he could see the rest of the bridge again. Turning around once more to see the fog behind him, he cursed. It was just the same as before, the bridge into nothing and the dark boat now further away, still on the left.

Around and around, but no matter what, he could not see behind him. Stepping backwards only brought him into the black coldness, and stepping forward brought him out, onto a bridge that there was no end to.

“Do you really want to know?” a voice asked sweetly, a voice that had him nearly jumping out of his skin and starting forward several steps.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” it said. Black fog crept forward, settling around his feet. He tried to run again, and found he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel his legs, and they would not move. “It’s just us here, you know,” the voice continued blithely. “Well, sort of. I’m not really here per se, and neither are you. This place doesn’t exist. But still, you and I are here.”

The fog rose up and dissipated into a fine mist, leaving him paralyzed as he breathed it in, his whole body numb. “There, there,” it said in soothing tones that sent terrible icy chills up his spine. “You don’t have to be scared of me. We’ve known each other for years! Why, I’m a part of you.”

If he could, he would have shaken his head. No, no, no. The fog was not part of him. It could not possibly be. He was he and it was it.

“What’s that look for?” More black fog gathered, a thick cloud before him. It billowed ominously as it took shape. “Please don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me! That would just break my heart!” it teased. It, the fog, finished forming, and he would have gasped and put his hand up to his face just to make sure he wasn’t looking at his reflection. No, no, no. Was his skin really that pale? And his hair, it was so white. He looked dead.

“Oh, it looks like something’s clicking!” It moved, and he was forced to move with it, to stare into cold red irises set against totally black eyes, framed by a mask. “Maybe you’d remember if you walked towards me?”

He was terrified, absolutely terrified. Three steps, and the fog reached out and took his hand with its own disfigured claws, a glinting obsidian black. “We could really get to know each other,” it purred. “Well – I already know so much about you though. It’s almost not fair!”

The boat was long out sight, and one by one the streetlights began to flicker and go out, leaving him in total darkness again, glowing red eyes for a companion.

“So much,” it continued, either oblivious of his fear or thriving of every drop of it. “For example, how you’re a stupid desperate coward. How you fainted, of all things, and left that cute werewolf to fend for herself. She must have really thought you were cute, because I would have just ditched you right then and there.” It was laughing at him, a cold, mirthless laugh. “But no, look at how nice I was! I stepped in, and offered to save both your asses!” It paused, he just barely made out it mockingly putting a finger to its chin in thought.

“You never did pay me back, you know. For five years, you’ve been giving me the shaft. That’s another thing I know about you. You’re a liar. You’ll tell anyone anything to get them off your back. How many times has Ophiuchus asked you if you were alright, and you said you were fine? How many times have you frightened Luna? Frightened your own family? In fact, does your family even know I exist? That one moment I slipped out in court – did you even see your mother’s face? Your own mother, she had no idea who she was looking at. Doesn’t that feel great? I mean, do I really have to go on? I think I will!” With its other claw, it reached up and drew a line down the side of his face. It was cold, until he felt hot blood welling up and trailing down. “Oh my, are you crying? Don’t you just – don’t you just want to kill yourself now?”

It stepped around him, almost gliding, smirking as it watched him nod slowly and shamefully. “It’s not like you’ve done anything to live, either,” it continued. “At least that girl Danni was useful. She killed herself out of work-related stress. And you? You were getting your a** kicked by Krauser. Sheer brilliance right there. You weren’t paying attention, and you let him sneak up on you. How exactly does that work for a dragon anyways? Pathetic. You had to be saved, and in that you let Riser torch an entire city. Millions of lives ruined, for one lazy stupid cowardly lying dragon.” It finally took its claw away, and casually flicked his blood back in his face.

“You feel that? That’s blood. Your blood. You know what else you're feeling? Guilt, shame, and self-pity." It scoffed. "You are weak and disgusting, a liar and a cheater. You abuse everyone around you, abuse your power, and then you mope around wailing about how unfair your life is. You sicken everyone around you. Your only redeeming feature is that you're aware that you deserved to have died a long time ago.”

He was being pushed, pushed down onto his knees. His head was down, his eyes staring emptily at the pavement. Blood was dripping down onto his hands. “You will never be able to kill yourself,” the foggy image said. “Which is why I can’t kill you myself. But, I think we’ll both agree this will do nicely. I’ll even consider it payment for years of being ignored.”

He collapsed onto his side, onto the cold pavement, black fog floating on a spreading pool of blood. It, the other him, had withdrawn an ugly serrated obsidian sword from his chest. Why he hadn’t seen it or heard it or even felt it before, he had no idea.

“You’re just that awful,” the darkness jeered, as the fog rush in to blind his eyes, and fill his mouth and lungs. “I really hate you.”

((Being mean is great fun.))

She knew his goddaughter too well, Adolf noted. He silently watched her leave, hoping in vain that neither of them would do something stupid. Again.