Acacia, the voice caressed her ears, where are you, my darling?

Bolting up in bed, her heart pounding against the chasm of her chest, seeming to want to desperately escape the barrier, Acacia gasped and felt the tears rush down her face. She flinched as images assaulted her vision, white rivers and shining faces had illuminated the darkness. But they had vanished upon her awakening, and their absence stirred up a deep sense of loss in her chest. Her heart screeched in anguish, her body felt tight and wrong. What was she missing? Where had she gone?

Her eyes peeled open to face the suffocating shadows. She needed a reprieve, to breathe fresh air, to feel light and warmth and not this hallow aching that filled her chest. She wanted to wear clothes that weren't devoid of color, but instead possessed a fierce vividness of hues. She wanted to wear her hair in something other than the tight braids that were 'expected'. She wanted to go back to that wretched forest that felt so much more welcoming at this point than the caves. She wanted to bathe and drown herself in the clear, glimmering water of the stream that she had cleansed. The darkness that bellowed at her stained her body and seeped into her skin. This was wrong.

She was wrong.

A tumbling heap of quaking limbs, she plunged through the gloom. Her legs faulted beneath her light weight, the weakness encasing her as the murkiness continued to pollute her being, shading her heart and bruising her soul. She had to escape, had to taste fresh air and lose herself in the freedom of the surface. She had to get to the surface, had to touch the sky and brighten the stars. Something in her whispered the urge throughout her mind, gradually gaining momentum as it grew to be a full out scream.

She plummeted to the floor as her body gave out. On limp legs, she dragged herself with her arms and dug her knees into the harsh floor, heaving herself across the cold surface. It was cold. Everything was cold, too much cold.

She felt the thick metal surface of the door at her finger tips, dug her nails across the surface, hearing the sharp screech of resistance. She reveled in the sound, doused herself in it, yanked her faulting body onto its knees, her fingers biting into the surface of the metal, gripping and wrenching, she struggled to haul the door open. Yelling out in desperation as the hysteria began to set in, she scratched and screamed and crashed herself against the door.

A biting pain shot through her fingers, and she felt the blood being to drip from her cracked and beaten nails, down her fingers and hands. Her ribs ached against her onslaught of the door. But she kept slamming, slamming, slamming against it. She screamed out in anguish. Why wouldn't it budge? She had to get out. She had to get out!

"Acacia!" Another voice screamed with hers.

She pounded herself into the surface into the surface of the door over and over, as arms wrapping around her waist, wrenching her back. She thrashed against them, fresh screeches ripping from her throat.

"No!"

"My gods, you sound like a dying badger. Can you shut up?" He yelled at her.

She shrieked in reply, her bloody hands reaching out to slap him, to free her. The crimson smeared black across his exposed chest. She lurched out and away, struggled and grappled. His arms were iron rods around her, never budging against her assault, pulling her firmly against him and waiting her madness out.

"Let me go!" She groaned, elbowing him in the ribs, twisting and thrashing. "I want to go," she cried. "The sky! I have to reach the sky!" She shrieked.

He ignored her distressed pleas, dragging the fraught girl through the dark halls, through his room and into the wash room. He briefly flashed a light, a soft glow in the rumbling darkness of the room. Securing her with one arm, and grunting as she kicked at him, her toenails ripping his legs, he used the other to run the water, watched it spray down from the tunnel in the wall.

She lurched again, slamming him against the sharp edge of the wall that curved into the shower. He groaned and felt the tell tale ache under his skin that meant he would bruise. Huffing, he towed her flailing body into the stone square, the warm mist dousing their clothes and causing her hair that had freed itself from the confines of its braid to fall limp.

He leaned against the wall, drawing her in, encasing her as the water tapped against their flush skin, gentle and warm and soothing. Her protests reduced; her frenetic gibberish hushing to a strangled whimper.

Her body sagged against his rough, solid frame. A constant stream of tears melted down her warm, pink cheeks. She felt him slowly slide down the wall of the shower, holding her as he descended. He allowed her to collapse against him, her head burying itself in his shoulder and her body shuddering as it was wracked with heart wrenching sobs.

His arms encircled her and she lied strewn across the floor, her torso lain over his chest. The tension seeped from her body in waves, and he looked down at her strangely as she gripped his arms for support. She had needed this, needed some form of human touch, of loving contact.

Her cries eventually fell silent, her body quietly trembling against firm chest and arms. She peaked over his shoulder to the water pouring around them, coursing over the floor, and noted the scarlet tint. She leaned back and held out her shaky arms under the spray, felt it wash away the blood from her aching fingers and feet. She looked to Alias, saw her blood soiling the scarred flesh of his chest, and noted the crisscrossing lines that seemed to slice across his body. She reached out and rubbed the blood from his chest, watching the crimson drops trickle down into the puddle, and disappear through a screen at the edge of the rock square that surrounded them.

Her eyes drifted up to meet his piercing coal orbs. Her breath caught in her throat as he watched her intensely, his arms stiffly at his sides, yet his eyes seemed to touch every part of her, seemed to see her in a silent understanding. He knew her pain, somehow perceived her desperate fit of insanity for what it was, not placing any judgment on her.

"Thank you," she whispered, his uncharacteristic humanity not lost on her.

He remained silent, his face creasing as he frowned at her. He stood up, and her eyes gripped the way his loose pants now clung to his legs, soaked much like her pants and top. She glanced down at her wool clad body, the material stretched and weighted. She ran her hands through her jumbled hair, loosening what was left of the braid and allowed it to fall free against her back.

She looked up to Alias, his eyes already meeting hers. He stretched out his hand, warming her as she took it and he helped heft her up. He flicked his wrist and the water stopped, shooting her a glance, he exited the shower and wandered back into his room. She crept back into her room and stripped off her drenched clothes. She glanced over to the folded white dress in the corner, simple and flowing, and unworn for weeks. She padded over to it, held the gentle fabric in her hands, and decided to break the customs she'd been instructed to follow, and listen to her urging heart.

She slipped the dress over her head and ambled back out of her room, into the hall, and hung outside of his doorway.

"Alias?" She called.

"Yes?" He mumbled.

She took that as an invitation and walked into his room, frowning at the blackish tint that blossomed over the skin of his back. She wandered up to him, her hands pressed against the darkened skin.

"Did I... Did I hurt you?" The thought horrified her, her veins felt shoved with icicles.

He turned and her hands fell, but he picked them up, revealing her cracked and split nails, the scabs forming around her fingertips. "You should be worried about her state, and never concern yourself with mine. My health is mine, and mine alone."

Her wide eyes watched him sadly. "Why help me then, if my health should only be my concern?"

"You woke me up. If you didn't calm down then you would've made a bigger mess than you did, alarmed the elders and got us in more trouble than we already are, and ruined what time I have left for sleep. I assure you, my motives were wholly selfish."

She looked down at her hands held in his at the same moment he did, and he dropped them, taking a step back. She looked up at him, hating how he seemed to bask in the shadows. Closing her eyes, she breathed in, and breathed light out, warming the room in a soft shine.

She felt a twinge of pain in her fingertips, looked town at the bloodied stubs, and something in her heart swirled, reached out, and encased her body. Warmth seeped into her fingers and hands, her ribs and back. Utterly astonished, she watched as her wounds disappeared, the cracks in her nails merging to form the same clear polish.

Looking up to Alias as he now had his back to her, she watched as he fumbled through his clothes, seeking a shirt. She marched up to him, guided by knowledge she never knew she possessed and pressed her fingertips against his bruised skin, let the heat sing through her fingers and into his flesh. She felt the muscles in his back tense and then slack under her placating touch. The black skin faded blue and then white, pale and gleaming in the light.

He turned to her, eyes wide with wonder and mouth parted. "How?"

She shrugged. "It's something I've already learned. It's buried in me." She paused, the images that had flitted through her dreams slipping to the front of her thoughts. "There's a lot buried in me."

He studied her, words lost, and mind struggling to comprehend her complexity.

"Do you understand what happened to me? Why I did that?"

He frowned, a dark quality overtaking his eyes. "You had a fit. It's not uncommon for how long you've been here. Everyone in Community has had one at one time or another. Being in the dark, living in the caves, it begins to take a toll on your mind and you have to learn to cope with it."

She looked down at her perfect fingertips, then back up to him. "Do you?"

He paused. "Yes, now and then. I suffer from them more often than others, but they are not to the degree that yours was. With time, they get better."

She bit her lip, hesitantly asking her next question. "Do you miss the surface?"

He sighed, falling onto his bed and staring at the floor. "Everyone does, but there is no point in yearning for something that is lost and not to be recaptured. It causes unnecessary suffering. You must learn to accept that this is what life is now."

She frowned. "But I don't know what life was like before. I have no memory before the day I wandered to the caves." She fell silent, weighing through her thoughts. "What was it like? Was the ground always scorched and the sky always black? Please tell me that it isn't true."

His eyes grew glazed as he began, a far off look capturing his face. "No, it wasn't always like that. Once there was a sky of all different shades depending on the time of day; anywhere from blue to pink to orange to a deep navy. The ground was green and rich; people were plentiful and lived together in villages spread throughout the land. A golden glowing orb would streak across the sky every day, and the stars would shine at night. There was never complete dark, never holes in the earth or wandering creatures of hell. It was bright, and happy, and... And this is pointless." He shook his head, lying back on his bed. "I need to sleep, and you should probably do the same." With that, he turned to his side, his pale back facing her.

"Thank you, Alias," she whispered, even if she wasn't sure whether or not he cared to listen. "And goodnight."

Silently, she crept out of his room, the shadows enveloping her as she found her way to the hall.