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What was it now, the fourth day since he had returned? Alex ran a shaking hand down his haggard looking face. He was till wearing the bloodstained white hoodie, still had remnants of blood from his last meal dried and flaking off of his face around his mouth. His eyes looked haunted, and for some reason, he looked tired, even though he never truly slept. He kept his hood pulled up now, the act somehow slightly comforting, as though he could somehow hide from the voices still whispering in his head. It had been too long. It should have been over by now, shouldn't it? Yin had said it would all be okay soon..

The more he thought about it, the more tears would suddenly spring to his eyes, unbidden, though he had long ago refused to cry about this. It was silly, and he could and should be stronger then that. But these last couple of days had been hell. He couldn't imagine having to live like this much longer, not without any company or anybody to at least help him pull through.

He was going to have to just give in and go and see Yin, if not just send him a message on groanspring as he said he might to let him know that things were still not better so that the other boil didn't worry too much...if he even cared at all at this point. It was hard to tell anymore if he had anything in his pathetic unlife to be happy about, if he had anything to look forward to, if he had anything at all besides this horrible empty lonliness in his chest.

Tired of pacing the floors, he shuffled his way over to his chair and flopped down with a very audible and depressed sounding sigh, closing his eyes, willing himself to just be better already jack damnit!

Ya, like that was going to work.

A sudden knock on the door made him flinch, and made his eyes open wide even as he scooted back in the chair and with his arms suddenly in front of his face as though blocking an attack. He blinked a couple of times once he realized what the sound had actually been, a frown creasing his features as his arms slowly lowered down to his side. Who the jacking hell would be bothering him now? Was it Mitzi again? He had thought that he'd made it pretty clear he'd rather just be left alone right now.

Was it Yin? His heart lifted at the thought, and he even started to rise from his chair, almost eager to go and answer the door before he stopped himself.

It could be anyone, really. It could be somebody here to hurt him, not somebody he actually cared about. He had stopped, and now he was undecided about what to do. Finally he opened his mouth, about to call out and at least ask who was there, after what was probably at least a minute of pondering, when the sound of knocking came again, and he was startled a second time, moving to take a step backwards but finding only chair behind him and falling backwards back into it even as a voice rang out from the other side of the door.

"M-Michi?" Alex practically yelled, though his voice sounded strained, though somewhat broken and low, as though he had not spoken in quite some time. Was it really the smoke demoness? He hadn't seen her since...well, it had really been at least a couple of months. Shortly after they had gone on their date, during their first aide class together. They had texted a little bit after that and then...

Then he hadn't heard from her for weeks.

Suddenly he felt bad. Bad that he hadn't really noticed the sudden absence of his friend, though he had had a lot going on, and it was a fairly sizable school. Pushing himself up from his chair he shambled over to the door, actually reaching out for the lock on the doorknob before stopping again, and considering. What if this was some kind of trick? Why would Michi, whom he hadn't seen for weeks, suddenly be knocking on his door?

Taking his hand back, he took a step backwards, suspicion heavy in his voice as he spoke again. "What are you doing here? How do I really know it's you out there?"

That might have sounded a little bit odd to her but those were very valid questions in Alex's mind.

Well, it certainly sounded like Michi. There was really no mistaking that hotheaded temperamental attitude of hers, and the annoyance in her voice to top it all off. He was actually ready to unlock the door and throw it open wide, a little worried that if he didn't she would just break it down, when the phone was sliding under the door.

Well hello, what was this? He actually had a small smile on his face as he bent down to pick it up, remembering all too well the night they had texted back and forth, though..he may have been drunk for some of that evening, having gotten kicked out of his room by Yin after the picture incident. He actually...barely remembered half of what he might have texted her that night.

Curious now, though he could have at any point looked at his own phone to see their conversation, he thumbed through the messages, and if it had been possible, his face might have paled slightly. Really, their conversation had gotten a little..well, it went beyond typical light flirting at some point, and it was almost embarrassing to read, though he was thankful to see he had cut it short when it went beyond his comfort zone.

And he had a very small comfort zone, so it hadn't taken much.

"Yes, okay, I totally believe you now." He said, his voice strained yet for a different reason then before as he reached out and unlocked the door, his troubles momentarily forgotten when he turned the handle and let the door swing open, not really realizing that she had been leaning against it.

"Uh...Hey Michi.." He said, almost sounding a little apologetic, as he leaned down and held her phone back out to her. "It's...good to see you again?"

Yes, make it a question, Alex. That's a good idea.

Yep, it was definitely the real Michi. It was hard to concentrate, with her first pulling on his arm to help her up, then pushing right past him into his room, beginning to talk, first telling him that he aught to change his clothes.

Well, she really did have a point on that one, so with a shrug, he began pulling his hoodie over his head, tossing it to a corner of the room once it was off, leaving him in the button up shirt that he had been wearing beneath, no tie, which was more then a little unusual for him, and now sporting his new hairstyle and color that Michi would have yet to have seen, though he didn't think about that right now.

His room was a disaster, and possibly more so then usual since he had just been sitting in it for three days straight, barely doing anything except occasionally picking at the now rotting sheepish carpet sitting over in another corner, collecting all sorts of unsavory vermin at this point. He himself probably didn't smell all that fresh, though that wasn't all that unusual. He had, however, showered only a couple of days before when Yin had been by to see how he was doing, so it wasn't terrible or anything.

And on to trying to answer her questions. He reached up to run one hand through his already tousled black and white hair, though it fell back into place as though perfectly styled when he let his arm flop back down to his side. "Well, no, not really. Lot's has happened since...wait, how long have you been gone exactly?" Typical Alex, having not really paid much attention to anything beyond what was in front of his face, not even knowing how long Michi had been gone only proved how little he had probably cared at the time. As for her mother dragging her out...well, it had probably been for the best, really, all things considered. She was certainly better off then half of the school, at this point.

"Seriously Michi, so much has happened and...it's just been one thing after another, really. I'm sorry but you're just going to have to be more specific."

He shambled over to settle in a chair across from her, face weary.

Okay, her explanation helped a little bit. It gave him a timeline but...Oh dear jack, since he was still away on his trip back home with Yin? A week after they had returned from that had been scarentines day. And a week, and one day exactly, had been the day that he had become Yin's bonded.

Yes, he had a lot to tell the ghoul, it seemed, as she wouldn't even know about that.

But first things first. She could tell that something was wrong, and why wouldn't she be able to? It was fairly obvious, really, with the way he was behaving. Her first question startled him, asking him why he wasn't wearing a tie. It was true that he felt completely naked without one, he just couldn't bring himself to put one on now...not after...

He cleared his throat, his eyes suddenly looking slightly red and watery, though he managed to blink it back, to try and shut himself down emotionally before beginning.

"Bad stuff? Well...ya, I mean, did you watch the horsemen trials on skeevee? They happened over a month ago and it was heavily skelevised. I was there, on a team with Yin, Mort, Chuppi and Taryn. Of course, it was exactly as they showed it, on skeevee, but then the trials of death happened, and they hadn't been broadcasted at all..." He let his voice trail off there, as he remembered that particular trial, the one that had happened so long ago. The shadowy figures in the fog, the ones that had whispered of home, they sent a jolt tingling down his spine even now, especially since the events on the horsemen isles, with the student consumed with insanity, with the grey scale phoenix made up of all of the dead horsemen, pulsating with insanity as well.

And now. Now the whispers that were invading Alex's own head, driving the once happy and easy going zomboil, the one with a ready smile, deeper and deeper into depression. Is it possible he might end up like that student had? Turned to stone, with his arms wrapped protectively around somebody he loved? Jack, he hoped not.

Telling her to leave was tempting. He didn't particularly want company right now, if that wasn't made obvious when he had told Yin to go back to his own room and basically wait for the zomboil to finally come around. He really should send a message to him. This wasn't fair for him, if he was worried, at least. His gaze sought out his scraptop that was sitting on his desk to one side. It would be fairly easy to send the weremantis a message right now.....

Oh right, Michi. He needed to deal with Michi first.

His heart sunk when he found out that she really didn't know anything. Nothing at all. She had no clue as to what had been happening from the moment she left to the moment she had come back. How could he compress this all into one story that was short and sweet so that he could push her back out the door all the quicker? Ugh, he really couldn't, could he. Well, no point in wasting any time fretting over how to go about this. If she wanted to hear it from the beginning, then she could, even if something was making him feel like shoving her out the door now would really be for the best.

With a very audible sigh, he looked down into his lap, then, frowning, back up to the ghoul.

"I don't know if this is important or not, but I guess the first thing you should know is that..me and Yin are together now. He's my boilfriend, not just my best friend. I...I think you might have guessed that I..." Had feelings for him was how he wanted to finish that, but he was struggling to get that part out. What was this, gossip hour? Was he seriously having ghoul chat with Michi? He actually groaned inwardly at the thought, but then continued on, as though he hadn't just left off a sentence half way finished.

"I confessed to him after the scarentines dance, and about a week later.." And a day, he mentally added, since he had been unsure at the time how long he should wait, "He agreed to..try, anyways. Things have been going fairly well for us." If you tried to ignore the obvious that Yin wasn't here now and Alex looked like complete and utter s**t, then ya, things were going well.

Anyways, it was time to get beyond that. She didn't need to know all the in's and out's of Alex's relationship. They had had a few rocky moments, but this was not the time to discuss it.

"So then the horsemen trials. Those happened a couple of weeks after Yin and I started dating. We did three trials, one for famine, one for war, and then finally, one for death. The first two...they were fairly intense." He then went on to explain the trial of famine and the trial of war in as much detail as he felt was necessary, leaving out huge chunks like how both he and Yin had fallen off a cliff and broken their bodies quite badly during the trial of war. It was only important that they were fine now.

"And then the trial of death. It was..confused at first whether they were going to even have them at all." He frowned, not really wanting to relive this through telling Michi the story, but feeling like he had little choice if she was to understand just how bad things had been while she was gone. "They decided finally that they would, but that it could not be skellivised. That should have been a fairly good warning that we were getting into something horrifying, but by then, it was really much too late. I was already signed up, after all. There was no backing out and...well, we didn't exactly know that it was going to happen in our dreams." He let that sink in a little, allowing Michi a time to respond before he would continue on.