Phobos was awoken by someone knocking on his bedroom door, he got up and he walked over to it, opening it to see a sniffing Empathy. Her eyes were practically red and tear tracks were still visible on her face.

"Em, what's wrong?"

"I had a bad dream Pho, can I sleep with you tonight?"

"Of course." Phobos moved to one side as that Empathy could enter the room. She did so happily, with her ponytails being blown back by the speed that she was going. She happily jumped on the bed, giggling, as she hugged the pillow that she was carrying to her chest.

Phobos closed the door behind him, locking it, before he walked over to his bed. "Em, move over, it's my bed too."

Empathy giggled as she moved over, leaving enough room for Phobos to slide back into his own bed and back under his covers.

Empathy wiggled under the covers too, happily snuggling up to Phobos, letting the purple eyelighted Skeleton undo her ponytails before he placed her hairties on his bedside table, along with her scarf.

"I'll fix them in the morning Em." He told her, before he threw an arm around her, pulling her closer to him. His thumb gently followed the line of the scar from a knife on her back. "What was the bad dream about Em? Was it the usual one?"

"No." Empathy shook her head. "It was different, you was all alone, Lo wasn't there, Rani wasn't there, I wasn't there....

You was crying and holding something, you was screaming actually, it was like the time that we found Lo's scarf...."

Empathy started to cry, burying her face into Phobos's shoulder, holding on for dear life. Phobos stared at her, before he pulled her into a hug. "It was just a bad dream Em, everything is going to be okay. I've got you, I promise."

"You promise..."

"Yeah, just like when we were looking for Dolos, I promise. Everything's going to be okay, one day..."

Empathy nodded her head, tucking it under Phobos's chin, he smiled, before he began to sing.

"I remember tears streaming down your face,
When I said, "I'll never let you go."
When all those shadows almost killed your light.
I remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone."
But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight."

Empathy joined in, sniffing.

"Just close your eyes,
The sun is going down.
You'll be alright,
No one can hurt you now.
Come morning light,
You and I'll be safe and sound.

Don't you dare look out your window.
Darling, everything's on fire,
The war outside our door keeps raging on.
Hold on to this lullaby,
Even when the music's gone,
Gone....

Just close your eyes,
The sun is going down.
You'll be alright,
No one can hurt you now.
Come morning light,
You and I'll be safe and sound.

Just close your eyes,
You'll be alright,
Come morning light,
You and I'll be safe and sound..."

Phobos smiled when he saw that Empathy had fallen asleep, curled up next to him, with a small smile on her face. He gently wiped away a small tear that was about to fall. "Everything's going to be okay Em, I promise."

He tried his hardest not to think of the nightmares that he had been having for the past week, they always started out differently but they ended in the same way, him holding a blood soaked body.

He slowly started to fall asleep, gently holding onto Empathy.

-------

Empathy sniffed as she wiped away the tears from her eyes. Her Mom and Dad didn't mean that right, Dad had clearly had too much to drink today, she could smell it from the end of their street, but a small voice in the back of her head told her that they did...

"I'll just stay at Pho's for a few days, they'll calm down, right, they did let me take what I wanted to keep..." The items were heavy in her Subspace as she walked.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost didn't notice the stone that hit her in the back. Empathy whimpered, she was used to that, but she didn't expect the other stone that hit her in the stomach as she turned around.

She gasped, wrapping her arms around her stomach, looking up to see most of the villagers gathered there with small stones, rocks and even slings.

She quickly turned around to see more of the villagers behind her. She had been surrounded.

She didn't really remember what happened next, or where the next stone hit her body, but she was soon being pelted with stones and rocks. She raised her arms over her head to protect it, but when she heard a snap from one of them, she screamed. She moved that arm down, tucking it against her chest to protect it.

But that left her head wide open, she turned her head to the left a bit, only for a rock to hit her right in her left eye.

Everything seemed to slowly fade in that moment, colour slowly started to disappear, followed by shapes and forms.

She could no longer feel pain or any other emotions, apart from her own, it was slowly going quiet, and even the emotions from the villagers were going away...

Everything went dark in that eye...

She slowly started to fall, collapsing in a heap, she could see something red staining the ground around her.

'Is that my blood....' She thought, as her other eye started to close. She could still feel the stones and rocks being thrown at her but slowly, it all died away.

"Pho..."

She could see him in her mind, with a smile, it was one of the rare times that she had seen him smile....

All those memories, she slowly gathered them up and she held them close to her.

A sad smile stretched across her battered face.

"Come morning light..." She whispered, burying her hands in her treasured scarf. "You and I.... will be.... safe... and.... so.... und...."

Everything faded to black.

-----

"Em!" Phobos yelled as he rushed through the village. "Where are you?! Empathy!"

He was worried, one of the other villagers had reported seeing a dangerous wild animal in the village. Moerani had already left to check outside of the village while he was to check inside of the village. All of the villagers had gone somewhere safe, all but Empathy.

He quickly looked around the area that he was in, hoping to see any sign of her, when he spotted something brown.

"EM!" He yelled, rushing over to her and kneeling down by her side. "Em, come on." He grabbed her shoulders. "We need to..."

She was cold.

"Em?"

He quickly turned her over, only to gasp at what he was seeing.

Her eyes were open but her left eye was not blue anymore, he couldn't even see it through the mess that was the left side of her face.

Her remaining blue eye was empty but the dried remains of tear marks could be seen under it, through the bruise that marked her right cheek.

Her hair was a tattered mess, he could see that it was short now, spread all over the place but the worse sight was the rest of her body.

Various different bruises littered it and through the torn clothing, he could see where her ribcage had been broken or collapsed, a broken bone from her left leg had torn through her skin and the area around it was covered in blood.

Her scarf was missing, he had never seen her without it since she was given it but the skin around her neck was raw and torn.

"Empathy?" He asked, placing his fingers on her pulse point, hoping for a response, but there was nothing. She was still cold and lifeless.

The sky above him broke and rain started to fall onto the earth. The drizzle quickly became a deluge, soaking him to the bone but he wasn't focusing on that.

There was never a wild animal in the village, he could see that now, blood had been splattered on the ground around her and on the various different rocks and stones littering this part of the village.

He had broken his promise...

He gently scooped her up, cradling her close to his chest as tears started to fall from his eyes, landing on her face, before they continued to fall, making her look like she was crying too...

He threw back his head and he screamed to the sky, pleading, begging.

"Em, don't leave me, please... EMPATHY!"

----------

Underverse_Trash
Lunar_Dreamcatcher

Please don't kill me but I had to write what happened to Empathy on that day.

And to anyone who is confused, Empathy is my main character for a Dreamswap RP that I am a part of on Discord, this is a very important part of her back story and I wanted to write something for it.

Phobos and Moerani belong to Lunar.
Dolos belongs to Underverse_Trash.