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Wake up.

Jackson opened his eyes, reeling from the sudden vertigo that hit him like a brick wall. The aching in his teeth and the sharp pain behind his eyes made him wince, holding his face in his hand until the discomfort faded. He glanced up and slowly adjusted to the sight before him, tilting his head with a puzzled look. What stretched on was the expanse of a University hallway, as far as the eye could see. He glanced behind him, narrowing his eyes at the night outside, with silver light peaking through the cracks of the trees. He checked his watch, watching as the second hand slowly ticked through the second until the clock struck twelve.

The light fixtures above emitted the fluorescent glow of hospital lights, clinical and white. Jackson figured that was one of the reasons why his eyes were hurting before. He wasn't sure why he was in the Arts' building at the dead of night. The last thing he remembered was sleeping in his own room with the door locked and a dresser pushed in front of the door. It was a safety measure above all else, though he doubted that the killer would try to confront him again now that security guards patrolled the area around Beaumont's halls of residence.

Perhaps he had been sleep walking. It was the next step to sleep talking, which was something that he did according to Stevie's brother. His gaze shifted down to his clothes. Not the clothes he was sleeping in. This was... this was very strange, and concerning. There was a tight, twisting feeling in his gut that made him uncomfortable.

He walked past rooms that led to different lecture theatres, but paused when he saw the trophy cabinet to his left. The Campbell peered through the glass, studying the few framed pictures that sat next to trophies. His gaze landed on a photograph of a familiar curly haired woman, with a bright pink bow tie in her hair, and he smiled at the sight of her. Bea was grinning, holding up a gold award she won for an inter-state quiz competition a couple years ago. No one could crush you in quiz night like she could. His smile fell when he saw the girl next to Beatrice Price. Silky blonde hair fell around her heart shaped face in tresses, like a fairy tale princess. Blue eyes gleamed, and she grinned with her arms around Bea's neck.

Jennifer Curtis.

There was a lump in his throat; an unsettling feeling he couldn't shake. No one is fully aware that another human being has just as much complexity and desires and dreams as oneself until they're gone. Even then, some people only think about how a person mattered or benefitted them. Jennifer's parents would weep for their daughter because she was their daughter. Jennifer's friends would cry over her passing because she was their friend. Who would mourn Jennifer Curtis because she was just as much of a human as the rest of them - who laughed and lamented, and loved and loathed?

Not him. He had no right to do anything in her name. The Campbell pursed his lips, continuing his journey. The more he walked, the more he realised the twisting sensation in his gut was like a spool of string drawn taunt around his organs, loosening with every step. There, at the end of the hallway was the stairs that led up to the other floors in the building, but his eyes were set on the door to his right. His hand curled over the door handle, letting out a soft exhale from the cool metal against his fingertips.

He swung the door open, marching inside and frowning when the setting didn't meet his expectation. It was his history class, but there was nothing in the lecture theatre. The room was dark, except for the overhead projector all the way down on the professor's desk, the Fresnel lens lit up with the same stark white light as the fixtures outside the room. It was odd that only the projector was turned on, but the projector screen hadn't been pulled down.

Jackson made his way down the steps, his eyes sweeping over the room. He couldn't hear anything over the pounding of his heart and his soft, shaky breaths. When he got to the desk, he peered at the lit up surface of the overhead projector, narrowing his eyes at the piece of ripped paper that was on it.

KNOW THY ENEMY.

What the hell did that even mean? Who was his enemy? That was a stupid question, he knew very well that his enemy was the killer. The paper was probably demanding that he figure out the identity of the crazed psychopath.

He turned, and stopped dead in his tracks at the masked person a meter away from him. The hunting knife in his grip bounced off the light from the projector like a silver coin glinting in a fountain. It was the Grim Reaper, the man who killed Lindsay and tried to attack him. Despite the urges to scream, throw up, sob and run, he remained still and silent - a dead man in the making. It seemed like all those options resulted in a temporary crash in his system.

In a clearly induced state of insanity, Jackson took a step towards the stalker, his hand reaching out towards the mask. The killer did nothing to stop the Campbell, remaining still as Jackson's fingers curled at the hem of the black fabric, before pulling off the mask. His blood ran cold at the sight before him, his face fixed in horror.

Jackson saw his own face smirk at him, the clone delighted by his shock and terror. Black veins were etched halfway up his neck, the rest hidden by the black Halloween costume. He dropped the mask and stumbled back, eyes wide at his doppelganger. The light of the overhead projector had cast a very large shadow of himself. There was no way Jackson was the killer. For God's sake, he was in the same room as Lindsay's killer.

The killer lurched forwards, and with one clean move, ran his blade over Jackson's throat. Blood spurted like a sprinkler from the torn muscle of his trachea. He clutched his throat in a mindless attempt to stop the blood flow, though the crimson continued to pour between his fingers, streaming down his hand and staining the sleeve of his coat. The killer watched in sadistic glee as Jackson dropped to his knees, instinct forcing him to try to breathe. But the blood in his trachea blocked the airflow, rising up his throat.

Sanguine overflowed and escaped his parted lips with a mixture of saliva, running down his chin and dripping onto his exposed shirt. He struggled to keep his eyes open and keep a hold on his neck, rapidly losing consciousness as he slowly choked on his own blood—

Cold water splashed onto his face, waking him up instantly. He gasped for air like a corpse raised from the dead, bolting up with alertness. Water dribbled down his face and was soaked up by his shirt, his coily hair stuck to his forehead with a mixture of sweat and water. The panting continued as he blinked the water from his eyes, glancing up with bewilderment at the person who had splashed water on him.

Kai Parker lowered the glass onto the bedside table beside the bed, frowning down at the Campbell. Jackson managed to speak between breaths. "Why did you splash me?"

"You were saying some mumbo-jumbo and hyperventilating," Kai wrinkled his nose. "Usually you snore."

"And you usually drool all over me," Jackson frowned, his eyes darting over to the door. The dresser wasn't there, instead back in its original spot. "How did you get in here?"

The Parker raised an eyebrow. "Like a normal person?"

Jackson opened his mouth, about to mention that he put a dresser against the door specifically to prevent people from entering, but decided against it. He wasn't sure if he moved the dresser to the door anymore. He wasn't sure of a lot of things. Kai sat on the bed, his right thigh brushing against Jackson's own right thigh. He couldn't help but flinch at his touch, glancing warily at Kai's hands. His mind didn't entirely shake the sight of Kai choking his sister, even if they had no choice but to fight each other. The Parker's ability to risk killing someone was chilling, to say the least.

"What's going on with you?" Kai asked, the crease appearing between his furrowed brows.

Flashes of his dream were unwanted in his head. Was he capable of killing someone too? Jackson's lips trembled, his voice growing shaky and quiet. "I think I'm going crazy."

"Woah," Kai reached out and moved the sticky hair from his forehead and wiped some of the sweat with the sleeve of his shirt. He placed his hand on Jackson's thigh, catching the Campbell's attention immediately. "Breathe. Focus on me if you need to."

He nodded, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves. Kai was Jackson's toothache and his anchor, drawing all of his attention to him. It hurt his head to try and understand what Kai meant to him, with all the complexities in between. "Why are you good to me?"

"Because I'm your friend, Jack," Kai's thumb ran along the fabric of Jackson's sweatpants in a soothing, repetitive motion. "I don't care about the things or people you save, I care about you. Figured you need it, since you hate yourself so much."

A faint smile flitted across Jackson's face despite the semi backhanded compliment. "You're the only one who calls me Jack."

"Good. I'd hate to be the guy competing against me," The Parker smirked. "Promise me I'm the only one who calls you Jack."

An odd request, but Jackson let out a soft laugh. "Alright, I promise."

Kai lifted his hand from the Campbell's thigh, all his fingers curled into a fist except for his pinkie finger. "Pinkie swear?"

"Kai."

"I take pinkie swears very seriously."

His enclosed hand reached up and his pinkie curled around Kai's, before pulling away. "I'm afraid your father's words are in my head. He told me that there will be a time that I would be so blind as to not know my enemy."

Kai's expression was unreadable, lowering his hand back on the dark eyed man's thigh. He was less wary of Kai's touch, but still slightly uncertain. "Have any idea what that means?"

"Not a single one," He let out a tired sigh. "It's one of several of his riddles that I can't solve."

The Parker snorted. "You think my father's bad? You're lucky my mom died before I dated you."

Jackson tilted his head. The sudden mention of his mother was surprising, though not unwelcomed. "What was your mother like?"

Kai had a small smile on his face, but he wasn't smiling. Or at least, his eyes weren't smiling. "When I was a kid, an obnoxious fourteen year old, me and Jo got sick with the flu half the kids at my school caught. My father was... out. My mom came to my room and spoon fed me chicken soup. She was a terrible cook, so my father always cooked for us. But I drank the soup because, deep down, I wanted her to like me. Don't all kids want their mom to like them? Between spoonfuls, she'd push the sticky hair out of my face, wipe the sweat from my forehead, and tell me what a good boy I was. How I made her proud. I finished it all; I finished it for her."

The smile waned from his face. "She put rat poison in the soup."

Jackson swore his stomach dropped in shock. Never in his wildest dreams would he ever guessed that. "That's beyond inhumane. Who would do that to a child?"

"My mother would. Good old mommy dearest, couldn't stand the sight of her eldest twins. In her crazy little mind, we ruined her," Kai let out a soft snort. "Turns out, she had been trying to poison me for six months. All those little hot cocoa treats she brought to me were all a ploy to slowly weaken me. She figured giving me that poisoned soup would get rid of me for good. But I lived, 'cuz I built a tolerance to it over time." He glanced down at his right hand. "Jo had it worse, you know."

"What could be worse than that?"

Kai drew circles on Jackson's thigh. "Besides from poisoning her too? One time, she tried to burn Jo's face off with boiling water. Another time, out of nowhere, she grabbed a kitchen knife and tried to attack her. My father held her back while Jo had to lock herself in her room. And then there was this thing she did to Jo, when she would pinch her for no reason, regardless of where we were." He tilted his head slightly, caught in a short reflection of the past. "I think she just liked to see Jo hurt. My mother was bitter like that. She saw me as a parasite that needed to be eradicated, and she saw Jo as competition for my father's attention. The apple of my mother's eye was a mirror. But she was fading, and my sister wasn't."

Jackson took Kai's hand in his, squeezing it gently. The Parker tried to smile, but the bittersweet edge to his lips made Jackson all the more sad for him.

"Neither of you deserved that from her," Jackson wanted to claw his eyes out. His words didn't feel sympathetic enough to him. "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

Kai shrugged, the bittersweet smile remaining on his face. "It's nothing. Just the double-edged sword of a mother's love, and all the rage she held dearest to her heart. Even when she's rotting in the dirt, she still causes shit." He gestured to himself with his other hand. "I have my mother's eyes and her depraved mind."

"You're not depraved."

"But I'm incorrigible. And that's the same thing."

Jackson shook his head. "Would a depraved, incorrigible person wake me up from a nightmare? Would he comfort me whenever he can? Bake me treats? Bring me gifts? Take in a pet for me even though he doesn't like animals?"

Kai remained silent, studying the Campbell's face. Jackson released the Parker's hand to grab his arm, dragging him on top of Jackson while he laid back onto his bed. Kai's head rested on his left shoulder, his nose brushing against the crook of Jackson's neck.

"Why did you turn me in?" He heard Kai ask.

The Campbell let out a light exhale through his nose. "Because I thought you betrayed me. I trusted you - I needed to trust you. And when I realised that I pointed the finger at the wrong person, I had to distance myself from you. It's the only thing that feels real to me, something that I know I did."

"You can still trust me."

He glanced down at Kai, his voice soft. "I know."

There was a small eternity where they laid there. Jackson hadn't bothered to get into his blankets when he fell asleep, and having Kai's warm body so close to his made his eyes flutter shut just for a few moments. He wasn't sure why he wanted to sleep again knowing he just had a night terror. Perhaps it was certainty he had knowing that Kai would wake him up if he started muttering and hyperventilating like a madman again. Or perhaps he just missed the time where he had nowhere near the amount of stress he had now, when he would sleep next to Kai knowing that the worst stress he had was the looming deadline of an assignment.

Kai sat up, making Jackson frown and open his eyes. "I came here for a reason."

The Campbell let out a soft chuckle. "Wanted to make sure I hadn't buggered off and died in my sleep? Haven't had alcohol poisoning yet, love."

"I was thinking about you."

"You were thinking of me?" Jackson's lips curled to a lopsided grin as he sat up. "Late at night, I expect. What was I wearing?"

"Making sexual jokes is my thing. Stop doing my thing," Kai huffed. "It's ten. According to Trixie, you missed History class. That's why I was thinking about you."

Jackson checked his watch. Missing classes was not good for his case when he was involved in a murder case. "Oh. Well don't fret, I can make it to the library to study before everyone else takes all the good seats."

Kai got off the bed, running a hand through his hair as he made his way towards Jackson's dresser. "Better shower and grab something from the dining hall quickly."

"Half the time I don't bother to go to the dining hall."

The Parker looked horrified, glancing up from the drawer he opened. "Why not? Breakfast is, like, the best meal of the day."

"You know why."

"Okay, well—" Kai tossed clothes in Jackson's direction. "After you shower, you're gonna go eat something and do the thing where you can't finish your food so you give it to me. I have a craving for mediocre cafeteria food. Got it?"

Jackson fought back the urge to laugh again. "Got it."