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Darkness.
Darkness encompassed his vision. His body. He didn't know where he was or what he was doing. But he didn't even react to the situation. He thought of it as getting far too repetitive and redundant at this point.
Heavy eyes behind heavier facades closed as the entire universe began shifting and opening up. He began drifting.
"Don't worry about it man."
"Seriously."
"We messed up not you."
They always surrounded him when he slept. He didn't even have the ability to visit any other memory anymore. There was just too many of them at this point. They would collide with everything. He started playing with his hands, clenching fists, he would never do this while awake but they always seemed to be a good way to channel his anxiety.
He thought of his sister. Who would feel obliged to stay up deep into the night with him. She would miss plentiful opportunities to hang out with the girl she loved herself. But when he took off the obscuration, it would become obviously just in the sight how badly he needed somebody. How badly he needed her for comforting, to postpone the dark places he needed to go every night.
His eyes of deviation started to start perceiving again. His heart skipped a beat as the familiarity of his unfastidious bedroom began to take hold. There was a terrible mixed feeling of nostalgia and fear that began residing in his stomach.
The scene was a lot unlike what he had become accustomed too, he usually had to deal with the beckonings of a million broken shards of himself. And at first it seemed as though he had been given the gift of solitude. He had for a brief moment the hope that he could just bask upon his cold cement bearings. Allow himself to use the vintage beat maker he grew up loving. Have the liberties to open his husk of a fridge to find a series of misplaced and dangerous swords. To just lay down in his bed at least.
He decided to at least give himself that fragile and arbitrary pleasure. He walked from the entrance of the apartment to his room stoically.
He was greeted with himself.
Dammit, he thought. He just couldn't catch a fucking break. But he took a closer look. His hair was longer and shaggy. The dark lines underneath his eyes worse than they currently were for him. He almost looked,
Vulnerable.
"Wait." he spoke softly with a quiver. What was this? This couldn't possibly be him.
"What on earth should I be waiting for?" the younger one replied. "What sort of flavour am I looking at here? Are you going to tell me I should stop burdening myself and drown in sentimentally or that you hate my guts for all eternity?" he could already feel the chronic fatigue that plagued him.
"I'm not your fault." the other replied, sitting on what used to be his bed.
"What."
"I'm sorry I thought it was pretty obvious I'm from the future."
"How."
"You aren't immortal you know." White globes gleamed underneath black fortresses on his face.
The dreamer took a step back. His heart starting to race, slightly.
“How do I know you’re being legitimate here?”
A sigh was released from the reflection of age.
“Would you really not believe yourself?”
Hush.
“What are you doing here?” he decided to drop any pretense still existing.
“Not much. I don’t have much…”
“Time?”
He looked away.
“I needed to come here to talk about her.”
“Her?”
“You just cherish her when you have the chance.” A tear rolled down his face. It was beyond obvious he was well over his prime. “You know there isn’t much time left until the collision. And you’re going to see her again. I know you think you’ve made the right choice with the ignited eyes, but you haven’t. You don’t realize her full intentions; you have a dangerous journey ahead of you.”
The youth looked down at himself and then towards the figure again.
“Look I know it’s obvious this doesn’t make any sense to you right now. But you’ll have a limited time with her. It’s dangerous for me to even be saying this, but I want to be able to tell her things I never was able to…”
“And you want to know what the problem was? It wasn’t time. I just never was able to express myself properly. Goddammit why do you think this whole front is worth anything?”
“I-“
“Fuck you are unappreciative. She had always been there for you. She did everything she could for you. You know it’s fucking true just tell her you lov-“
And just like that, the figure vanished from his visualization as he landed hard on his knees.
“…Dave?”
A familiar graceful and acquitted voice filled his ears as he heard quiet footsteps come closer to him from behind.
For the first time in his life, Dave Strider lost his cool.