"A fool is a man who never tried an experiment in his life." -Erasmus Darwin

Any hope of stirring conversation is lost when Ather turns his back to me completely. Not that I can blame him. I mean, if I had been forced to watch him kiss another girl in front of me, I would have a considerably worse reaction. I suppose the difference between is only that I feel something more for him. I feel as though my loyalty to him isn't just a product of his hospitality or even his willingness to help a stranger. It's from knowing that we have the same questions, and even while I'm the one figuratively behind bars, he still wants me to be a part of his journey to find answers.

At least, that's how it used to be just a few hours ago. Now, he won't even take note of my presence. I almost wish Jeff would come back from his break. Disgust and hatred I could take, but knowing that Ather is somehow disappointed in me hurts more than it should.

"Get it together, Lia. Stop wallowing in self-pity over a boy," I murmur to myself, shifting out of the hospital bed. Ather doesn't even flinch at the sound of me getting closer to him. "Ather."

He remains still against the glass wall. I tap it lightly.

"Ather," I repeat, louder.

Still, no movement.

"Ather?" I call out, panicking as he continues to sit still. Ignoring me is one thing, but it's impossible to not even move at the sound of me banging on the glass.

"Ather, turn around! Are you okay?" I begin to shout, begging him to turn around and look at me. Something is off, I realize as I continue calling out. My lungs feel as though they're closing up as I choke back on tears. Why isn't he listening to me?

"Please, just turn around. I'm scared, Ather." I slump to the ground, staring at his back as if that will help him listen to me. Much to my surprise, I see him slowly turn toward me.

"Thank you. I was so worried," I sigh in relief, looking up after rubbing a few tears from my eyes. "You had me-"

And then, it's as if my vision burns to black. Ather's face is a pale white, smooth as porcelain as he looks at me. But that's not what terrifies me. His eyes are completely black, almost the same color of his chapped lips.

"No," I whisper, pushing myself away from the glass. "No. The entire facility is supposed to be closed off to the strain. This can't be happening. This isn't real."

Ather's once-smooth skin begins to darken significantly as he continues to glare at me. I watch as the disease seals itself into the fissures erupting on his face, turning his skin to a charcoal finish. My mind flashes back to the last time I came face to face with nigrum sanguis.

"Mommy's going to be okay, Sweetie," she smiles at me as she inches away from me. "Do you want to play a game?"

I nod my head and smile up at her. It had been a long time since we did something fun together. Nowadays, I could barely speak to her without her falling asleep in exhaustion or being hauled out by the medics for another examination.

"You're going to hold your hands behind your back every time you come in here, okay? Mommy can't hold your hand anymore. Can you promise you'll play this game with me?" She asks, her voice shaking slightly, though I'm too young to notice.

"Why can't I hold your hand?" I ask. I'd held her hand all this time, though now she decides I can't. It's not a very fun game, I decide. I don't see her smile anymore, not like she used to.

"You're a big girl now, Ophelia. You can do things on your own. I know you can."

"But I want to hold your hand."

"You can't, Sweetie."

"But-"

"You can't." Her face drops at the sight of tears escaping my eyes. "Oh, no. I didn't mean for you to cry. Please, please just listen to me."

"Are you afraid, Mommy? Is it because of those black spots on your skin? I'm okay with them, I promise."

"What black spots?" She presses, staring at me before glancing at her hand. Sure enough, black splotches were forming beneath her skin, causing it to lose its pigmentation. I'd never seen it until that moment, and I somehow wish I hadn't. "Sweetie?"

I look up to see my mom looking straight into my eyes.

"Wake up."

***

"Wake up, Lia. It's just a nightmare. Come back to me."

Flashes of light manage to make it through my eyelids, but for the first time in weeks, I no longer want to come back. I don't want to keep reliving the past until the point that it's my future. It's horribly selfish of me, but I no longer care whether someone is waiting for me on the other side. Call me a fool, but I'm beginning to believe that memories are only available to you for suffering. Not once have I ever dreamt of something happy, of a life that I would want to live. Even my subconscious is destructive toward me.

"Lia, please." I feel my body being jarred against the papery feel of the hospital bed, but I only push myself away. "It's Ather. I'm okay. Please stop crying, Lia. I'm okay."

My throat feels like sandpaper as I finally take a gulp of air. A breath of relief sounds next to me, and I almost close my eyes tighter at what I'm about to see.

"Thank God," Ather says as I finally come to. The light stings my eyes, though at this point I'm not quite sure whether the wetness below them are from my crying or my discomfort.

"What did I say?" I ask, but wish I could take it back immediately as the words leave my mouth. I ask this every time, as if one day the answer will be less pitiful than I expected. The dark circles under Ather's eyes are telling enough.

"You were having a night terror. I couldn't hold you down," He says it slowly, as if after all this time I still need time to process what's happening to me. He's infuriatingly right, as usual.

I close my eyes. "Could you tell what was happening?"

I don't have to open my eyes to know that he's nodding.

"You're unstable, Lia."

Ouch. I didn't even know I had an ego to have wounded.

"More than I expected."

I think back to his spiel about me being stronger than I think. I wonder if I've proven him wrong.

"You need time to recover." He looks at me closely, as if he's trying to send me some sort of message.

"I've been trying to recover since my mom died," I deadpan. "Any types of medication you'd like to suggest, Doc?"

He winces and I feel oddly triumphant. It's not the fact that he's seen such a vulnerable part of me that gets me defensive. It's the part where he knows that I saw him dying. That I involuntarily let him know that I care for him, someone who I barely even know. I've basically shouted to his face that I'm a victim to compassion, and I'm not sure whether I trust him with this information.

Worst of all, I've never seen anyone beyond my family die in my nightmares. Why Ather had to show up, I have no clue. Oddly enough, I've never felt more helpless and broken, not even when the first hallucinations started happening.

"You're strong, Lia," he tells me, and I momentarily wonder how on earth he manages to find me both unstable and strong. "I knew you were brave before, but I never knew how much you'd gone through. I've always had this part, deep inside of me, that was jealous of how easily you got accustomed to being in this facility. They kept on saying you were special, that you wouldn't have to try as hard as most of us.

"I resented you right up until the moment you walked into that mess hall and stared right at me. I couldn't even look at you, and it wasn't because I was angry or jealous. It was because I recognized something in your eyes that I'd been seeing for my entire life, up until I wound up in Project Luna. It was fear, Lia. You were terrified, and no one could really see it since they were so preoccupied with seeing a new face at the program. I don't want you to think that I don't get what you're going through. We're all scared, Lia. Some of us just have gotten good at showing it."

I stare at him dumbly as he unloads all of his thoughts onto me. I have absolutely nothing to say to him, for once. The fact that he's been watching me so closely makes me feel oddly comforted. Maybe that's why I dreamt of him. Maybe I've been watching him just as closely and haven't really noticed it.

"For that reason, I'm going to ask Dr. Adams to take me off watch."

The words take a full minute to register my mind. Ather rests his hands on mine. My body fissures and cracks under his touch.

"I've continuously told myself that I'm capable of taking care of you, of being responsible of you and keeping you safe. I've never felt so helpless before, Lia. You were screaming my name, and yet you couldn't respond to me. I'm too weak to help you, and I'm afraid just being near you has caused you to develop a fear of me."

What?

"I don't want you to be so afraid of me that you can't sleep with the thought of me sitting right next to you. Me being here has been selfish. As a member of the project, I'm responsible of taking care of your health and well-being. As your friend, I'm responsible of you.

"Your PTSD is only getting worse as you continue being here, Lia. I obviously can't remove you from the program, because it might as well be the only thing keeping you safe from the outside world, but I can remove a part of your grief."

"You're not part of my grief, you ass-hat," I finally choke out. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"The subconscious is a mysterious thing. I've obviously become a trigger for your PTSD," he says, scowling at me. "Think back to another time you developed a hallucination."

I roll my eyes, but think back anyway. "When Chase and I were in the car, driving here. I dreamt that he got into a car accident while trying to avoid someone on the road."

"Did you see anything peculiar?"

"The person on the road was a little girl with the disease." I pause for a moment, afraid to tell him the secret that even I have been trying to ignore. "It was me. I was the reason he got hurt."

"Think to the next time you had a night terror. Were there any similarities to the previous time?"

"It happened right after Chase got hurt," I say in realization. "The little girl-I showed up again."

Ather nods in acknowledgement. "How about this time? Any similarities or differences?"

"This time, you were the one that got hurt. The girl wasn't there." I scowl. None of this makes any sense. How come this experience was so much more different? It had the same fears, but the circumstances were entirely new.

"The same fear of losing a person to the disease, but this time the setting was different," he repeats my thoughts out loud.

"Why does this matter, though? Isn't it all the same?"

"You've been gone from Chase for a long time, no?" Ather asks, finally removing his hands from mine to cross them over his chest.

"Yes. We stopped seeing each other ever since we came in the dome."

"How long had it been since you last had a triggered reaction?"

"Not since I saw him get hurt," I reply, thinking back to the time that Chase was stopped by the officers.

"PTSD can be triggered by several things. Sights, sounds, smells. Your trigger, Lia, has always been people. You're an inherently compassionate person, and because of that you are consumed with the fear of losing them to something you have no control over. Chase has been your trigger up until now."

"What's changed, though? How could he be my trigger if I don't see him in my nightmares anymore?" I ask. I can't comprehend the idea that someone I care so much about could be the reason I continue to go through trauma. According to Ather, all this time that Chase has been devoting to sitting by my bed and helping me get over my nightmares, he has been triggering me even more. It makes sense, though. My mother used to be the climactic trigger before I spent more time with Chase. He was guilty by association. I don't think I've ever hated my mind more than this moment.

"You've lost that connection to Chase that you used to have from spending so much time with him. Your coping mechanism has always been social support. Your trigger system is caused by people who you connect to the traumatic event. Your best asset has become your nightmare, Lia."

I'm not so concerned about this realization as the fact that Ather has somehow connected my trigger system to himself.

"What does this have to do with you?" I ask. "Why would you need to leave your post for me?"

"I'm your new trigger, Lia. Somehow, you've adjusted your coping mechanism so that I'm your new support. It's probably due to your exposure to me."

I blink at him, still convinced that he's gone completely mad. All of this just sounds like his ego has inflated enough to convince him that I would use him to alleviate my trauma.

"You've been doing a good job of maintaining your coping mechanism by separating yourself from the source. Seeing Chase all of a sudden has caused your symptoms to intensify."

"So you think leaving will let me get rid of my symptoms?" My brain is pounding from him picking at it so much.

"Yes, Lia. My main concern right now is to keep you safe and healthy. I can't do that if I'm triggering your PTSD."

"And what about Chase? Do you think me being separated him was a good choice for my health?" It comes out more like a threat than a question. How he answers this question will determine whether he meant to ever help me find my brother. It will distinguish whether he's been on my side, or the side of people like Nes who are the reason I'm being holed up in this glass room.

"I know you'll do anything to convince yourself otherwise, but I'll plead my case anyway. Separating you from Chase was the best path we could take."

I don't even both asking who 'we' is. I have no doubt in my mind that the program had full knowledge of who I was before I even stepped foot into the dome. My heart doesn't drop because of this realization. It drops because the one person that has supposedly been looking out for me, who I have allegedly developed compassion for, has betrayed me in the worst way. Ather is leaving me because he thinks I'm hurting myself because of him. Worst of all, he thinks that Chase is capable of hurting me further.

And you believe what he's feeding you? You really think he'll eventually help you find your brother?

I think back to Maddox's interrogation of my allegiance to Ather. I was so, so wrong, I realize as I stare at Ather's faux-concerned face. I can't believe that I believed for a second that Ather would be anything but a pawn to this program. My brother told me to run away, and yet here I was, paying the price for fraternizing with the enemy.

"Ather," I murmur, and his eyes immediately focus on mine. I discretionally place my hand against my jean pocket, feeling the familiar bump of Dox's comm link.

"Yes?" Ather looks at me, almost tearing my heart in two. I feel as though I'm about to hurt him even though he's the one who has hurt me.

"I need to go to the bathroom." His face falls at an alarming rate, but I maintain my composure. I need to be left alone for a while, safe from his watch. I'm not going to wait around for Ather to disappoint me over and over again. To hell with compassion. I'm going to see my brother.

***

A/N: I'm a terrible person. This is a mediocre chapter and I've taken two weeks to write it. I really hope you guys are somehow enjoying this, because it was hell to actually form a coherent sentence. My writing block is consuming my life, and the three English projects I have coming up are not helping any of this.

Well, enough about me, let's move on to the good stuff.

List of good things you should look at:

1. If you haven't noticed already, I dedicated my story to @CandaceMJ. I highly suggest you read her story Chameleon because I've recently become obsessed with it and can't stop thinking about it. It's also a plus that Candace is super nice and really fun to talk to. Shoot her a message telling her I said "hi" and read her story, please! If you guys enjoy an amazing plot line including a character who can READ MINDS in a synesthetic viewpoint, then I think you'll like her story. I'm super excited to see how the story develops and I'm super happy I was directed her way. I reiterate, SYNESTHETIC MIND READING. SO. COOL.

2. Penny Roux (@pennyandpaper), aka my favorite person ever is writing a new story called Olivia Lives. If any of you are fans of Sherlock, or can relate to a person who loves a TV show so much that she become dedicated to it, you'll definitely love it. Even if you can't relate to that, please read it. Tell me how you feel about it. Also, I urge you to read her completed story The Library Girl, which moved me to tears on its cuteness. Ahhhh. Great. (I also want to say thank you for dedicating the new chapter to me. I'm freaking out a tiny bit.)

3. Kassandra Tate (@famouxx) is writing this really cool story. Yeah, you should read that. The Famoux. Hit it up. You'll fall in love. You might notice that she's a character in TLP. That's pretty cool.

If you guys would like to recommend any stories to me, or would just like to read something alongside me so we can discuss it together, PLEASE MESSAGE ME. I GET REALLY PUMPED ABOUT READING AND TALKING TO PEOPLE.

Please comment/rate/message me about your thoughts on this chapter!

Thoughts on Ather/Athia? ;)

Stay lunar,

Liliana