He thought the trip to space had been hell… he was not completely accurate. It had been a peek into shock and loneliness, a world where it was nothing but him and an apparently bipolar Lyra… who sported a new design obscured by white stockings.
By contrast, an empty room shouldn’t have seemed as shocking or as lonely…
But there was something distinctly stomach wrenching about returning to waste bins full of glow sticks, the remains of the tape on the floor which had long since left sticky dark lines that refused to be mopped away… a pair of neatly made beds and nothing at all that might break the stringent rules of the Hillworth dorms.
It was sterile, cold… dispassionate and removed with just a dash of uncomfortable intensity in its emptiness. It was little more than the sum of him with none of the lively, silly passionate raver to light up the dark and empty corners.

He limped to his bed and picked up the note with its ‘I’s’ that were topped with stars and wide swoops that seemed to cut through the page. It was strait forward, and to the point, it was utterly not dem except for the note about the fish. What about the talks…what about the flash cards?! What happened to not leaving him here alone?

Zac sat down heavily on the side of his bed and let the note drop free from his fingers. It drifted down and slid over the tile floor and vanished under the bed where Dem used to stay like it mocked him. He thought just then that it rather felt as though someone had gutted him using an ice cream scoop.

A note… he left a note rather than be here to say, or even leaving a voice mail, wouldn’t that have been better and more personal for someone who ‘meant so much’ to him?
He’d copied Zac’s odd bangs, asked for his note books, patrolled with him for so long as captain’s followed him ages before Zac even got drawn into this mess. They talked plans and worked so much out, petty revenges to elaborate plots for ‘accidents.

He stripped off his shirt and reached under his bed with a soft sigh for the first aid kit that resided rather close to Mister Tenebrous, he wasn’t at all sure how he was going to get this done on his own. He could already see bruises forming almost everywhere thanks to the floor giving way, but he did his best to doctor the places he’d been splintered or gouged by broken tile. When he was done he stared for a long time at the empty room as though simply by waiting everything would return to ‘normal’.

When it did not he pulled out his cell phone and dialed with a soft sigh.

“Hey… Beth?... I got your messages.”