I'M BAAACCKKK!

Okay, Spain is great and all, but one week is enough. One week without Klance isn't healthy -_-

Being an exchange student was fun, tho. Except I found out my exchange student is a bitch when she lived in my place. I'm glad she left tho👋🏻

O O O

My legs falters without help, my thoughts goes overboard without oversight. My shoulder hits the wall beside when I try to round the corner. I have been busted, but my job wasn't done yet. That's why the rest of the blades is ordering me to run faster and fix this mess by myself. I don't know where they are right now, but all I know is that they're disappointed in me.

"Keith!" My ear twinge under the loudness of Kolivar's voice. Since I joined the Blade of Marmora I haven't really earned many good points. We can start of with the fact that I usually defy Kolivar and try to do my own way, and he always needs to remind me that I'm not in Voltron anymore. He always tells me that I need to come up with a way to disperse the fog in my head that's blocking my senses. He always tells me to think straight.

But not just that, since I encountered Lance in the cave, the fog in my mind has just spread further and covered a much bigger area in my head. I got a very big lecture and a whole lot of screaming when I came back, and some more screaming when he noticed that my communicating device was broken in my mask. He got angry that time would be spent on making me a new mask. That time could have been spent on so much more important things, he told me.

"You met someone", Kolivan said to me as he put his arms behind his back again and stared down at me like he could push me through the ground with just his eyes. "Someone that made you doubt. My guess would be that it was that blue paladin."

He's not the blue paladin anymore, is what plopped up in my head for a micro second, but I quickly pushed the thought away.

"I know he means something to you, just like the rest of the team does, but you have to accept the fact that Voltron is your past, and Blade of Marmora is your life now. If you can't accept that, you aren't meant to be a blade."

I hate that Lance has to be my past now. I hate that every moment we had is something I should push back at the very far back of my mind. I shouldn't have access to those memories, but it's just that; I always find a way to have access to them. And that's what's messing everything up.

"We have connected to the security files now", Kolivan informs. "You need to hurry and blow the galra fleet up and escape from the third exit."

"I know, I know", I snarl as I press myself against the wall and wait for the three galra guards to run past me. I then hurry and take out the last bomb from my holster and attach it to the wall, always sceptical and looking left and right to see if someone would attack me. I impatiently wait for the bomb to load and quickly type in the code so the countdown can begin. I have less than ten minutes to get out of this fleet before I explode with it.

"I activated the last bomb", I say and make sure the corridors nearest me are clear for me to run through. The last thing I need now is a galran soldier blocking away. It would just end up with us both getting killed anyways.

"Don't feel so relieved just yet", Kolivan warns. "You're mission is not done yet."

"Thanks for the encouragement", I say sarcastically, but the silence I'm met with on the other end shuts me up again. That's not the way to be talking to the leader, especially when the leader is really pissed at you. I run far enough to not be so close to the last bomb I attached to the fleet.

"You always seem to find a way into turning your words into some kind of damage", I hear inside my head and it takes me by surprise. It makes me falter and slow down. Suddenly I'm standing in the middle of the corridor, losing my grip onto my sanity. The ticking of the bomb is at the very far back of my mind, a far-flung reminder.

"We had a deal", I wail, feeling deranged suddenly. "You promised to leave me alone."

"Oh, Keith. Anyone should know that Jomboni's never make deals. Not really. You're beyond saving now. Don't think that you can return to your chums now in hope that they will help you. Because they can't."

My head winces and I squint, gripping my hair and stumbling sideways. When I look up it's like the world just turned to another angel. It's like I'm suddenly standing on the ceiling and everything is just in the wrong position.

"Get the hell out of my head!" I scream and pound at my head like I could shake him out. But nothing happens.

"There he is!" I hear through all the madness in my mind and every little footstep echoes in my head until I'm being tackled down, my face pressed against the floor, and the harshness of it scratches up my skin. My whole cheek is throbbing in pain and I grimace as I feel a knee being pressed hardly against the hollow of my back.

"We got the intruder", I hear from above me and I try to breathe but my face is always being pressed against the floor harder and harder. I see how long I can hold my breath, but as I was already addled and muddled, I won't be able to hold in my breath for long. I will probably pass out any second, and never wake up again.

Because the ticking continues, the countdown has soon reached its end, and the whole fleet will be blown up.

I try to say it, but my words get muffled against the concrete floor which takes away a whole sip of oxygen from my lungs.

"We're ready to escort him to the nearest cell", is the last thing I hear before the ticking ends, and the countdown has reached to zero.

O O O

The pain is unbearable.

I'm surprised I even feel pain right now; I didn't think you could when you're dead. Or maybe this is my punishment, for something I have yet to know. Maybe it's my punishment for leaving Voltron. Maybe I should have listened to Lance after all. Maybe they could help me. And I should have lightened up all this time, being more open with my teammates. But it's just that, I push people away before they reject me. I want to be prepared. I don't want to build any strong relationship with anyone, afraid that I would get betrayed faster than I would know. Maybe it's because my mom left me, and it all just started from there.

I want the pain to be over. I'm dead now, so it should be over. I want peace and stillness and silence. I want all my insecurities and bad thoughts to wither away into nothingness. My head should be emptied on everything, leaving space for the taciturnity and only that.

But it's hard to get that when the only thing now is my thoughts screaming, warning me about the pressure against my whole body, like the pain is covering my whole surface. I can't even understand which body part is hurting; everything is now. Somewhere beyond the screaming of my thoughts, I can distinguish another sound, a more real sound. Like explosions. As if my feelings is exploding inside me.

But it's after some seconds that I realize that it really isn't my thoughts screaming. It's ringing in my ears. Maybe from those explosions that should have killed me. Now I hear them from afar, must that mean I survived them? How? I should be dead.

I get access to my eyes, and I finally open them, just to see in a blur. Everything is blurred out, and it takes several blinks to set my sight somewhat right. I can see purple light, and metallic walls, like it's belonging to a spaceship. I wonder if I really survived, or if this is just my head playing games with me even when I'm dead. But no, this feels too real to be imaginary. I should know better than to fall for the imaginary by now, as I was thinking a dream was reality for a month. And look where that got me.

I start to shift, opening my eyes more and more until a silhouette is forming in my sight. I don't recognize the silhouette, but I certainly know it's a stranger, their back facing me while they're holding something familiar in their hand. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but the stranger is holding my blade, and it's activated, it's length shining under the fluorescent light all around us. It's an elegant sword, really, different in some kind of way, kept with a past and secrets untold. I once looked at the blade like I really couldn't understand its functions, like it was a object with a meaning I couldn't really figure out.

But now that I have, I certainly feel another way about it; I want to protect it at all costs, now that I know a little tad more about it, and its functions. And seeing it in another's hand just breaks all my promises. And the fact that this stranger managed to activate it too.

"H-hey", my voice comes out hoarse and barely audible, resembling like I just smoked three packs of cigarettes. All my insides is hurting and I feel like throwing up right now right here. I have never felt this agony before and it's messing up my head.

The stranger turns around just as they are disactivating the blade againg, turning it back into it's small form and placing it inside their holster in one swift movement. I blink again to see that this stranger is a woman, definitely garla, with her purple skin and long ears. Her eyes are yellow but you can still see her irises. She has two darker purple marks running from her throat up to her cheeks, and a rat tail. Pink, for that part, standing out from her purple hair.

"How are you feeling?" she asks me but her voice doesn't really reach out to me completely, like the ringing in my ears is blocking it out. I can still hear the faint explosions somewhere. I try to sit up but it just sends a sharp pain through my soul so I lay back down again.

"Give my blade back", I instantly say, even though it feels like I'm on the verge of dying. I need to get my blade back, I need to stand up. I need to know who this woman is and why she can activate my blade. "Who even are you and where the hell am I?"

"A safer place, for now. You should be resting." She walks over to the dashing board and press randomn buttons. "I'm tracking the coordinates for the nearest landing spot. It might take a while, as we are very far any planet so far, or fleets for that part."

"Who...are you?" I repeat and try to sit up once more but all my muscles fail me. It ends with me leaning back on my elbows but even now my arms are trembling and I breathe heavily, feeling exhausted from the start.

"You know, I never really thought that the Blade of Marmora rule applied to me. Knowledge or death. It was just nonsense to me. Nobody should die for at least trying. I hated that phrase, and I still do."

"What are you..."

"I never let the baldes die. Every blade has the same value, knowledge or not. You were a lucky one to be placed in the same ship as me." She turns around and her eyes hold a bigger sentence I can't read. My mind is clogged with questions right now, and the pain isn't really clearing things up for me.

"How do you know about the Blade of Marmora?" I ask but it's so obvious. "Unless you're one of us..."

"You know how I where able to use this?" She's holding my blade again, playing with it between her long fingers, throwing it up in the air a few times, always catching it. "It used to be mine, before I gave it to your father."

O O O

KEITH, SON, COME BACK TO VOLTRON.

YES. COME HOME AGAIN.