Virgil opened his eyes, his head throbbing painfully from where Deciet had struck him.

He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around, his eyes widening as he recognised his surroundings as his own room.

He shuddered at the smell of stale blood, pushing away the memories of what had happened last time he was in this room and instead focused on what had happened for him to end up back here again.

He looked around and noticed a neatly folded piece of paper with his name on it sat next to him. He cautiously reached out and plucked it off the bed, not trusting it to not be a trap of some sort.

The note was from Deciet and Virgil was reluctant to believe a word he said but as he read through the whole thing he found himself actually thinking Deciet was being honest for once.

He sighed and massaged the side of his head which still hurt. He had no idea what Deciet had been talking about before but if he was truly honest with himself there were a few fuzzy moments in his early memories.

Virgil eventually pushed himself to his feet and started pacing, his mind racing as he went over everything that had happened.

The barrier was destroyed meaning both he and Preston were free, Deciet was working with Preston but didn't seem to particularly like him, the others were somewhere, he wasn't sure where, he was sealed in his own room and his arm had gotten worse.

Virgil scrunched up his face in disgust at the sight of his arm which was an ashy grey colour right up to his wrist. His skin looked gross, like some sort of marble statue covered in cracks.

He felt quite worried about why it seemed to have gotten worse, despite Thomas having stopped taking the pills.

Even as he watched the grey spread ever so slightly to his hand and he was unable to stop a jolt of panic as his mind did the usual thing of overthinking.

His thoughts were filled with scenarios of his hand crumbling once the grey fully spread like some twisted parody of the scene from the first Harry Potter film.

He didn't want to be like Quirrelmort.

Virgils panic suddenly rose as he had a horrific thought. What if the greyness spread all over his body? Would his entire body start to crumble?

His breaths started to come in gasps as his throat felt like it had closed up. He was shaking uncontrollably and black energy began pouring out of his body, hitting against the walls which seemed to absorb it and get darker.

As the room started to shake Virgils eyes widened and he struggled to calm himself down but it was no use.

He was in a full blown panic attack and there was no telling what effect he was having on Thomas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Preston grunted in pain, clutching his chest as he lay on the forest floor having fallen while climbing down from the tree house.

His leg had just randomly given out a quarter of the way down and he had hit the ground quite hard.

The familiar ache in his chest that told him he'd bruised his ribs gave him a strange feeling of deja vu and he was suddenly struck by a flashback.

*flashback*

"C'mon, you can do it!" a voice shouted from somewhere in the mist.

A much younger Preston was running through the mist, terror and determination clear on his face.

Suddenly from the mist a dark shape collided with him sending him sprawling to the floor.

"Watch out!" screamed the person from before but Preston was laying on his back clutching his chest, his ribs throbbing painfully.

A dark shadowy creature suddenly appeared from the mist and Preston crawled backwards away from it as fast as he could, his sword having skidded too far away to be of help.

The creature was enormous and seemed to be a mash up of several large predators if they were made of shadows. The beast crouched, presumably readying itself to pounce and Preston closed his eyes, accepting of his fate.

"Get away from him!" the person from before shouted, this time appearing from the mist and stepping in between Preston and the shadow creature.

Preston watched with his mouth open as the boy in front of him grabbed the sword and lunged at the creature.

The creature didn't even attempt to dodge and the blade just went right through it, not effecting it in any way.

"But that's not possible! Your sword can cut down shadowy nightmare creatures, why didn't it work?" the boy with the sword shouted in disbelief, glancing at Preston.

Preston pushed himself to his feet, eyes wide in horror as the creature seemed to laugh.

"I don't understand." Preston whispered and the creature took a swipe at the boy with the sword, sending him flying backwards, dropping the sword.

"No!" Preston cried and launched himself at the monster. "Don't hurt him!"

Preston suddenly found himself pinned beneath one of the monsters enormous paws and it pushed down hard enough that his ribs started to crack, making him scream in agony.

In the background he could hear the other boy screaming "Cayden!"

*end of flashback*

"No!" Preston growled as he ripped himself out of the flashback, trying to refuse to remember. He forced himself to his feet, snarling and cursing at having the flashback.

He punched a nearby tree repeatedly before panting and leaning his head against it, his whole body trembling from anger and, no matter how much he didn't want to admit it, grief.

He took a few deep breaths to compose himself and took a few steps but before he could get far the entire forest started to shake.

Preston grabbed hold of a tree in alarm as he tried to stay on his feet, his brain quickly running over possible causes for the earthquake.

The shaking eventually stopped and Preston started walking towards the edge of the forest.

When he got there a large grin spread across his face, his eyes drifting over the debris and battered looking trees.

He decided that as Deciet had done such a good job he'd postpone what he had planned for now. The snake faced trait might prove to have more uses so there was no point in getting rid of him just yet, no matter how annoying he was.

This chapters a little shorter than the others and might not be as good because I've barely had much time to write and when I did get a chance it was at 4 am with a screaming baby in the next room. I'll make up for this short chapter with the next few chapters.