2019-08-28 - Through the Looking Glass

Byron was in a mood after the late night trip to the hospital. Naturally, Lilith wanted to nurture it away and Byron wanted to curl around her to protect. You see, sometimes the woman doesn't want to sleep alone after she's shined bright. There's prices to pay for excess power and abilities. Sometimes that means the dreams come to counter-- like so many long shadows cast, they creep around corners and show up as a reminder of the consequences.

Things have been so comfortable and good the past few days between Byron and Lilith. Is it any wonder they decided to crash together in her bed at the loft when they left the hospital with the excuse to do so? Probably not. Distance wouldn't have mattered or prevented what followed that decision, in truth.

They're too intertwined, a mesh of past and present, memories and fears, conflicts and confusion. They were going to have to face some of these things at one point or another. Mirrors reflect, mirrors refract, mirrors play tricks in the shadow and light.

Their mind's eye has been shifted to the looking glass. And when you're forced to look, do you break the images into new pieces that can be rearranged into new pictures? Or do you fight right through and see how the images change when you're on the other side?

There's hazards to both paths.

With a hazy expression and lashes cut to narrow between orienting flutters and blinks, it takes a moment for Lilith to realize what she's looking at and to realize that she's standing there in the same setting with shadow modification as the child images of herself and Byron. They had been fully dead asleep in her loft and they're wearing what they wore to bed as a reminder of that, perhaps, seeing each other the same way as they did consciously before falling out between sheets and limbs to unconsciousness... now this.

This? What is this?

The adult version of the brunette is wearing a pale orchid cotton tank sleep shift that's a cozy version of slip negligee, more or less, like a long tank t-shirt. Other than that, she's bare footed like the child version, hair mussed as if they've gotten some semblance of rest against the pillows before...

This? What's happening? Is he really here too? Does he see what I see?

Lilith has to touch and reach for Byron's hand and wrist with both of her own hands and fingers at desperate clasp, trying to ensure his solidity and lucidity is a match with her own. Birds are chirping, but they sound hollow and warped, and the noise of hushed whispers from the other side where they see themselves as a memory or alternate are starting to fade in through that ambiance while they take a moment to orient.

The usual grogginess of waking up is almost absent from Byron's mind. It's not the grip of sleep trying to draw him back into a dark slumber that he feels, but the disorientation of waking in a world such as the one they are being presented to today. Sometimes it's difficult to know what's a dream and what's reality. Sometimes...

Wearing a pair of navy blue boxer shorts and nothing else, The dark bruising at his ribcage and one at his abdomen are prominent enough. As she'd already taxed herself with Alexander, he wasn't about to ask her to do the little favor of diminishing his own bruises that night.

Byron moves forward slowly to study the child on the other side. He recognizes a young Lilith before he recognizes his own youthful face. What he hadn't noticed was that Lilith was standing beside him as well. Not just the younger versions of them, but right here next to him. That touch at his wrist has him turning and he has to wonder if she was just part of the dream as well. He'd had dreams where his friends would show up in, but they were just dream versions of who they really were. Was this a dream version of Lilith now?

"Lil." He whispers, "He can feel her, but isn't that always the case in dreams?

"It's me. I promise, it's me. It's me." Lilith tells Byron with a certain whispered desperation in her voice, that of course proves nothing, but such insisting with her very first spoken and breathed words... it seems raw and real in a way that couldn't be fabricated so easily, right? Her fingers grip around the man's hand and wrist a little longer before she takes to cueing into the conversation passing through from the children (them) on the other side of where they are. After looking up at Byron for a long, assessing moment, as if trying to figure out his own state of existing, her head tilts and she looks that way.

Then with a bit of a start as their much larger hole starts to flutter out debris from the terrible darkness within, the woman takes to looking and comparing their surroundings with all that sunshine on the other side. Her features kind of pale instantly with fear.

Lilith has been seeing shadows in mirrors for as long as she can remember. When it happens, it changes what you see, what you believe. She's had dreams like this before, but usually they're differing variations save for one particular recurring scene. This isn't that scene, thankfully, but she doesn't know what's coming next either, she just knows...

"Oh no. You're not supposed to be here unless..."

On the other side, something falls out of the trees and they hear little Lily scream bloody murder before everything shimmers hazy. There's less diffuse summer light suddenly when the view is washed indecipherable, and it darkens their own setting ominously.

Byron's own encounters with darkness and shadows tended to linger more heavily at home. At the Thorne House. The place was filled with dread. His own dreams were dark and while they vary in content the way dreams do, some of his most prominent remained the same.

After he'd spoken her name, his attention moves back to the children, watching as they work separately, than together, to tackle this problem that lays in a hole in the ground before them. Was this a memory? Is it something completely fabricated from their minds? Was there ever such a hole? Byron's trying to remember. The hole on their side, in the shadows is gaping and ominous. Something about it brings this uneasy feeling to chill at his bones.

His wrist shifting within hers, pulling itself out of her grasp just so he can thread his fingers with hers. If his own anxiety is raising, he can only imagine what she must be feeling right now. Then he's quiet, the conversation of the children lightly heard, but he's thinks back on what the Lilith besides him says. He's encountered her here before, but it was a dream version. Those do not tend to be comforting no matter how relieved you are to see them, to have them with you. In the end, you just know that they aren't real. But this Lilith? She feels real.

"This is a dream?" He asks, though he already knows the answer to that. Or so he believes. Whose dream though?

Then there is the rustling sound coming from the brighter version of their existence and he hears the child Lilith scream, something which snaps his attention her way, his hand gripping ever tighter around the adult Lilith's hand.

Byron's not thinking of the image of the children as a mirror to them. Perhaps, that's why he doesn't realize that the thing that frightens little Lily may very well make an appearance within their own realm, crawling out of the shadows. Or in their case, falling out of a dark, frightening tree. His eyes are fixated on the children. There's nothing that he can do for--

Then he notices it, the serpentine creature that lunges out at his own version of Lilith with that killer mouth. Panic takes over him, making him react as quickly as he possibly can, "Lil, look out!" He has this need to pull her close against him, but all he can manage at the moment to ensure that the monster doesn't dig those needle-like teeth into her flesh is to shove her out of the way. Their bond quickly breaks when he steps forward for that well-timed push.

Lilith can't do much against Byron's size and moment of reflex with their hands laced and locked, but maybe it's a good thing he did it. She would have been quite vulnerable to a direct attack if he hadn't done something because something about this dream state and the sound of her scream from the child side of the dream-view forest where all the sunlight was...

It paralyzes her to match that pallid visage that flooded with fear while she looked at the man, and she can feel the shadow dropping on her. Why is she not doing anything?

Lilith is afraid of snakes. She used to lie and say she wasn't, of course, but she was.

Lilith is on her ass after the jarring push for safety out of the way by Byron and it really takes her a moment to get her faculties going after that paralyzing fear took over. But the hit onto the darkened grass and his voice and... staring at him suddenly in trouble, it sets her to scramble into stand, calling out with warning, probably due to all that inky saliva that's in the thing's hissing, needled mouth. "Don't let it bite you! I'll get... the teeth..."

The serpent creature fell right where she was standing and Byron was ready for that. On the ground it coils and hisses and rears up.

A flock of ravenous dream birds descend upon the snake, but it's a wily one and slithers its way out of the grasps of their beaks and claws. Byron will just have to try harder next time. A quick look is given to Lilith and he would've reached out a hand to help her, but she manages to get right back up on her own without assistance. Which is a good thing, the distraction could prove lethal against this vile creature. "I don't even think that I can grab it." He says without taking his eyes off of the monster. "I can try." Or he can try to summon up another pack or flock or grouping of animals of any sort. That should keep him from needing to close the distance though he may need something bigger than mere birds.

Lilith tries to focus on the teeth and gets a trio of them snapped off at the bottom row with a tear that extends superficially down into the creature's scaled chest. She keeps a good distance and curses low under her breath, watching Byron bobbing and weaving around to evade it, but it's a good six feet long, which means it's a good three and a half feet or so while coiled up and standing like a cobra to dart in and out.

After hissing with rage that sprays the dusky grayish-green grass with flecks of black saliva, the creature has to change tactic and goes for whoever's more convenient after it's through dodging through with its own weave around on the grass from what Byron brings forth next.

The thing about dreams is that you can conjure up just about anything within one on your own, even if that something is a pack of wolves. Byron could sense them in the dark forest, his mind calling out to them as they make their way from beneath the dark shadows and canopy of trees. He instills in their minds a second command. It's a fleeting thing, his focus on the snake, especially as he's forced to move and swerve out of the way of the creature's attack. These wolves begin to circle it now too, their own sharp toothed maws snapping at it, before the fall back looking as if they may attempt to do so again.

"Are you okay, Lily?" He calls out, his pulse racing and he looks like he might be ordering for another attack.

"I'm... I'm... yes." Lilith seemed to need that check of Byron's voice, honestly, because her focus seems all off there, despite getting a few of the teeth snapped off. She backs herself up against a tree trunk like she needs more distance even though there's plenty, then tries to work the mouth needles into snap and break the rest of the way. In fact, she's starting to look faint and it's pretty ridiculous. This isn't really her, is it?

It is, of course, but there's something more poignant about fear that's manifested from shadows, you see. You're being pointed to look the terror straight in the face in the worst possible way you can imagine at the core of a phobia.

There's something odd about the way the teeth seem to be matched to the scales, though. Byron's wolves are having a time of things with biting into it, until suddenly they aren't. It coincides with the snap of the teeth out of the thing's head to fall on the ground and sizzle with dissolve, which makes it quite vulnerable to the fury Byron commands at the same time.

When it's done, Lilith slides down the tree with relief as the thing puffs to shadow and smoke, but her eyes kind of start to unfocus and drift with blink like she's blacking out or hyperventilating as a result of adrenaline comedown. Pretty sure she can't lie about hating snakes and pull it off with any success anymore.

From Byron's perspective, his mind so in tune to watching that thing be ripped to shreds by a pack of wild wolves, once they crowd around the snake, a wash of relief comes over him. It's over. "I freakin' hate snakes." He breathes out, though that's in part with the difficulty it was to kill Carver's earworm doppleganger. Those things were slipper and difficult to get a hold of. Wolves are a frightening thing to have lingering around once the deed is done, but he does't release them just yet. Just in case, so some of them lay on the ground, while others sit upright.

One of them makes a whining sound at Lilith and that's when Byron realizes that all is not right. "Lils!" His cry comes first, before he moves in close, dropping to his knee to try to keep her seated upright. He didn't think it launched at her at all. He'd been actively working to avoid the thing.

Lilith rouses to that conversation and Byron doing the exact same thing for her now, taking away her fearful body response in a moment of rare overwhelm. And maybe it's clear now why that fear was making her features so pallid in anticipation before. She knows she's making the shadow. People create fear from the inside, and they're essentially taking a walk through that, somehow. These dreams must be terrible without Byron here.

She said he wasn't supposed to be here.

When the man is close, she's unhurt and she immediately reaches to latch onto him as the little Byron latches onto little Lily to make things better again. And while she's there, she murmurs, "... you're real." Whatever doubts she had before, they aren't there now. She assures then, "I'm okay. You're here. We have to go into the dark, though. I've tried to sit and wait it out, it doesn't work. Are you ready?" She's clearly dreading it, but she seems to know how these things tend to work. The doorways differ, but they're always gaping dark. There are probably monsters in that hole, but not all monsters are fought the same way, nor are they physical constructs.

All of the debris blows out of their own hole after she says it like it's clearing a path.

He's only half-paying attention to what's being said on the other side, still focused on tending to Lilith. While he could find an array of animals to do his bidding here, Byron wasn't able to conjure up water or anything of that nature if Lilith were in need of it. She seems to be doing okay and he can feel her strength when she pulls herself against him, his own arms wrapping around her lithe form. It's during this brief moment of comfort that he returns to look on those children, listening to their chatter.

Normally, he might smile at this fond memory, but instead, though one corner of his lips tugs up gently, that smile is kept at bay. Resting his chin down against the top of her head, he doesn't like being told that they need to enter the darkness. Crawling down into strange holes never seemed like the smartest thing one could do, so he hesitates, allowing his gaze to stare deep within its depths, but he sees nothing to tip him off on what's to come. What if they just waited it out? Woke up?

Rising to stand himself, he carefully guides her to do the same. "Looks like we don't have much of a choice, do we?"

Lilith makes it through the darkness without too much clutching and fumbling and stopping uncertainties because she has Byron gripped along with her. At some point, she starts wishing she could fall through the floor because even though she can't see it, that and Byron's touch are the only things her senses are still registering as actual through the disorientation. It would be more horrible alone, for certain. Thickly, at some point, she says in the darkness and it sounds faraway and underwater through the murk: "Don't stop walking. It's twice as hard to start again."

The music does make her falter, though, with a hint of uncertain confusion, but she doesn't lose stride with gut determination there alone before the light floods them. When their eyes adjust with blinking, they're looking at Lilith and Byron in an old Elm alley so she can wear her tall clicky shoes on the cement while dancing. They're fourteen. It was the last time they danced together.

Like before, their own side is full of dark shadows where they don't exist with the images of their younger selves. But that's not why Lilith seems bothered, suddenly, once she can focus. She looks a lot like she's waiting for someone to piss on a rainbow and ruin the colors. In fact, her features are almost offended, "This doesn't scare me. I remember this already. What the hell?"

Byron doesn't dare let go of his hold on Lilith, even if this free hand feels blinding in the pitch darkness. The floor felt sticky. No, like a muddy marsh, thick with a strong hold on you if you struggle with your footing. And in this place, it was easy to do just that. It made the trek tiring, trudging through the muck that almost felt like quicksand without pulling you in deeper. In a low voice, he tries to keep talking if that will help keep them both calm. "I don't know if I'm glad to not be wearing shoes. Probably would've lost them by now a mile back." He's not sure how far they've walked in the dark. "But the sticky feel uncomfortable between my toes."

Then the sound of music trickles in, seemingly cutting through the darkness as they soon encounter light in the vision from the other side. He knows the song being, it's familiar enough to him. When they are in full view of that alley on Elm, he comes to realize why. If there's an period in his life that he had strong memories and attachments to, it was around this time. How long after this day would Lilith decide to withdraw from him completely? Though he tries not to think about it, he can't help himself.

They looked happy then or he remembered being happy. The Byron that he sees now was moving on his with life. Much of his earlier baggage was dealt with, so he thought, and he was making waves in his goal to reach financial freedom. He was fourteen. What did this place have to show them now?

"... I don't understand what's going to jump out at us because this literally is one of the hap--" Lilith seems an almost frustrated level of paranoid suddenly, her brows ticked down as she watches the pair of them and turns to look up at Byron after she's made a brief check of their dormant, if shadowed, alley surroundings. Then the cement starts to quake with the music changing source position, seeping out from the shadows to strengthen in volume and pulse and she grips to him before taking one hard tango posed test stomp on the ground. It bounces back and makes young them seem to animate with sudden laughter on their own end while holding a pose.

Uncertainly, she looks at Byron, unsure if... that worked, didn't it? But it's been a long time and the ground is moving. And what if something comes jumping out at them? Of course, that won't matter if they can't stay on their feet and the cement starts to break and drop them into who knows where or what. She slides one hand to his shoulder and tries not to grip overhard as she's rocked with another impossible undulation tremor from under her bare feet.

This obsession that he had to relive moments such as this one being projected before them is what makes Byron watch their younger selves with a dark intensity. He's played back this exact moment in his mind over and over again for a time. It's not something that he'll ever forget. This was an age of transition, where he may have been embarrassed about learning dance steps with Lilith a couple of years back, it was around this age where school dances felt important and you didn't want to make a fool of yourself on the dance floor or in front of your date.

That's when he begins to feel the ground shift and rock on their side of things and just as with Lilith, he automatically closes into her one of his arms holding onto her hand, the other resting at a spot behind her at her shoulder blades. Of course, Byron's danced the tango in recent years. Well, probably not since he'd arrived in Gray Harbor, unless he attended a party complete with ballroom dancing at some big event or party. This was more awkward, their own steps unsteady as they struggle to keep their footing with this fancy footwork.

For a time, he stares almost nervously into Lilith's eyes, his own form towering over her. Even back then, he was a pretty tall, lanky kid. "Just like old times." He murmurs.

While dancing with Byron, Lilith is actually... starting to relax some, especially when the music starts to lower in volume of pitch and throb and the ground seems to be heading toward stable again instead of cracking open to swallow them whole. She has an awful suspicion that's how people disappear, though, for a moment. Is he slipping his hold or is it the ground moving? (stop that) Did he want her to fall into the dark like Isabella's twin? (of course he doesn't) It's why she had to shut him out, why is he making her feel for him again just to rub in what she can't have in timed turn? (is that really what's happening?) All because she ripped it away from him to save him at expense to herself?

It's irrational and her dance moves turn into a more incensed version of tango like she's being fed by the waves of malaise coming off of those creatures of shadows. Suddenly she's not relaxed, she's glowering at him, it's irrational, it's all the shadows working old hurts and bitterness and defenses because she has so much guilt and regret and pain she did to herself (and him). In fact, she pushes him away from her and abruptly turns her back like it's part of the moves, but she pays for that dramatic felt moment.

These two shadow creatures have numerous reaching claws that rake from the side and behind when that happens. She gasps and is unable to lash out immediately before she's raked with surprise by those claws across her ribcage, blossoming tear and shallow bloodletting from the skin.

Then everything happens real fast. There's electricity. There's heat when she sees it go for Byron next. She never saw his own shadow monster with that tempermental dance move and the quick following assault by her own bitter demon.

Even when the floor begins to even out and they are no longer on literal shaky ground, despite having some familiarity with the dance, Byron continues to remain tense. His grip on Lilith tights at various points as they step forward, then back. Did she know that she was going to leave him that day? (She must have) And yet, she was all a smile with that knowledge in the back of her head. He could hear laughter coming from the young teenage pair. You're not going to let her get away this time, are you? (...) You know that she'll try. Just like she did before. How many times have you relived this moment? Over and over and over..

He catches her glare, one which mirrors that dark obsessive gaze. That's when he feels her push against him, something which makes his grip on her tighten but too late. He was losing her again.

What he hadn't noticed, being blinded by his obsession are those two lurking creatures, their outstretched claws grasping towards them. He had no time to grab and pull Lilith away from the one that launched at her, so instead, he does a little dance with his own shadow partner, moving quick to avoid those clawed hands, (Just like at Kelly's gym) before finding an opening in which to... A spark of electricity transfers from himself and through dark and shadow, making it disperse.

He sees the tear in Lilith's shirt, the bloom of blood that begins to grow. "You and me," He calls out to the fiend, trying his best to lure it away from Lilith, doing the same dance, circling one another.

Once the second creature disintegrates into a vaporous shadow, Byron makes sure to keep watch on it until it truly fades before turning back to Lilith, knowing that she had gotten injured during their last dance. Her top isn't drenched in blood, so it couldn't possibly be anything too severe. Not that he has much time to dwell on it as his attempt to give her a good inspection is thwarted once he feels his arm being pulled and tugged by this mysterious stranger. Yet, she was not so mysterious. The figure wore many faces, morphing from one into another until it settles on the most familiar of them all. In his confusion, he moves in time with her, back and forth. Step. Step. Quick Step Step.

He probably told Vivian about Lilith a while back and then again, more recently, more than likely leaving certain details out. So the words being uttered make some sense in his mind, but the Glass that he knew wasn't overly vindictive was she? He'd been with her for a few years now, off and on. Would she ever say anything like the words which continue to slip from her lips now? He would always come in defense of Lilith and if this conversation ever did come up, outside of this place, his words would be the same, "She must have had her reasons." She did. "You never grew up in Gray Harbor as a child. You don't know what it's like to live our lives." Perhaps this shadowy version of Vivian was pushing some of the wrong buttons and rather directing his ire towards Lilith, that annoyance is felt to his blond dance partner instead.

Snatching a hand back angrily, he stares at the woman's familiar face, seeing the taunting within her eyes. "You're not.." He starts, before his sights are set on Lily and the man she's dancing with right now. "Lilith, don't listen to him!" Closing the distance now, he studies the man as he pushes his way forward. These weren't all lies though were they? Perhaps for Vivian they were, but for this guy? He tries to interfere, tries to get between the pair, "That's not who you think it is... and if it sounds like him, he's not worth your time, Lily."

It's funny what a person will believe when the right seeds are planted to lie dormant and await the sprout of shadow and taint inside. Under no rational conditions outside of this dream would Lilith listen to Grant Turner speaking truth, let alone worming lies. But he hits her where it hurts because this comes from inside and her own bitter regrets and fears and issues of damages done over the years. The words are gilded with a chromed, sleek and dangerous infection that sings to her ears and makes her wonder just as he starts to turn her into glide of takeover with the dance.

She deserves all of it. Maybe he understands. Maybe he's what she needs and deserves. He wasn't so bad, once. If he hadn't slipped like he did, maybe...

Everyone loses control sometimes, don't they? She does it a lot.

The cement motion is starting to level out, but the creatures waiting to infect untended are feeding off of the shadows being kicked up by all the worming and grow larger while dormant. It's making Grant sound more powerful to her, because wouldn't she fix her damn life if she didn't want to be this way? Shouldn't she be stronger? The weak needs the strong to tell them the truth, it lets them know where to belong in life.

Byron. The shadows can grow and Grant's hand can grip, his velvet words can rip fresh blood out of old wounds, but... Byron. His voice is stronger for her, his insisting is more believable, he's less prone to believing fears and lies that come from the inside in this dream of her mind's design because... she's clearly weakened to degrees in this dream mentally-- anyone that knows Lilith would know from how she responded once the snake was gone. It's really no wonder she's so plagued by these shadow dreams of misery without Byron inside them to anchor her and protect her.

Gasping as if breaking from a haze, Lilith widens her eyes and stops staring up at Grant to suddenly lash with reach toward Byron so he can pull her close and they can resume the dance to kill the rest of the shadows, meshed together again amidst the darkness and fear. The music is hectic now with both other interfering parties spurned and falling to coalesce and grow with the creeping and enlarging creatures. It'd be very risky to attack them at this size.

It's the shadow of Grant Turner that Byron reaches for, grabbing a hold of the man's wrist to spin him towards Thorne while pulling him off Lilith. He recognizes the man from the research he's done, seeing his face plastered on several websites dealing with the wealthy and successful most of all. He knows of the other's assets, the kinds of cars he drives. The yacht. His castle of a mansion. He can even imagine the man saying these exact words to Lilith outside of this place which is why he fights so hard to tear them both away from one another, his grip loosening to be replaced with Lilith's slender wrist. He keeps a watchful eye on that shadow as he starts to lead the wide eyed brunette away. "You're nothing." He tells Turner, before his gaze sweeps across the room to look on Vivian's shadowy doppelganger again.

It's an odd thing to start dancing again, but it's almost as if they are compelled to do so. With each step, he's take Lilith farther and farther from the shadows and yet those shadows keep creeping forward, surrounding them in darkness as their dance floor becomes smaller and smaller. If any attention is paid to those young lovers in the light, it's only fleeting, as they step and turn in time with the musical fervor. They keep step if not time, their own moves becoming erratic and quick-paced. If anything, it's not the whirlwind melody that they are following, but the quickening pulse of their own heartbeats. It's almost a blur, his eyes settling in on Lilith before him, before he feels that tear into the back of his right shoulder. The claws within the darkness raked through his flesh, drawing blood, something which makes him wince in pain. But he does not stop.

Lilith seems bolstered by this display by Byron with the construct that they now both recognize as Grant Turner in this dream. She clings tighter and faster to him, some of the motion when they start moving again, it comes with ferocious press to keep herself away from the shadows, away from where the man was standing, then wasn't standing anymore.

Grant Turner's image had a smirk on his face, though, before he collapsed and he was looking right at Byron with dark eyes just as intense with shadow rimming before he became part of the shadows themselves to feed the growing creatures. It's infuriating to Lilith that she felt that melt and it's hard for her not to be irrational again and blame... oh god, Byron's turned her to avoid a shadow claw and she sees the pair of teenage them kissing and moving and drifting backwards toward the darkened alley that's adjacent while latched together on the other side of the dream's looking glass.

"Byron, they can't go that way!" Lilith is afraid suddenly, even though the imagery is blissfully happy and ignorant of the path their teenage selves are taking toward the inevitable. But Byron knows they need to not fall through the floor and wake up and get the hell out of here, his attention is marginal and he's in pain now from turning her again-- the man is hit with encroaching, wounding lash of claw and shadow and old hurts in manifest form that she can't see, but she sees the pain on his face and misinterprets it as something in response to what he's seeing too on the other side. Despite it all, though, she keeps dancing and starts to hide her face against him as if she can't watch and is getting overwhelmed. Yelling will do nothing.

But she can't do nothing. She can't let it happen over again. Lilith tips her face back up to look at Byron directly with a sudden gasp, not at the imagery through the shimmer of late afternoon sunshine on the other side making the shadow they're walking straight into. She knows what happens after they go there.

When she looks at Byron with panic and he manages the dancing lead, she's rolling silent tears of fury and guilt and the invisible mirror partition between what they were and what they are in the middle of very real and dangerous unreality shatters in cacaphony as she flares with shine. There's no real time for him to do anything but try and save them.

Neither of them can change the past.

There really was very little that Byron could do for their younger selves as he keeps up the dance in an attempt to keep their own hungry and all encompassing shadow at bay. If not the darkness, then what? What future did they really have? He tries not to think about it despite Lilith's anguish, though this is what makes him look, makes him turn to observe the fates of the ignorant and blissful when in truth, it truly did mirror their own fit, being torn from one another.

When they'd awoken, the evening dance leaves Thorne's body in pulsating pain. The bruising that he'd received from Kelly's gym had ached the whole time, but there was a new, fresher wound searing into the flesh at this back. He can feel it burning as he embraces Lily tightly within his arms, his eyes open remembering every aspect of the dream -- something which is far more difficult with real dreams rather than dreams conjured up by the town. Was she really there with them? She felt so real and the way that she clutches onto him more than tells him that she was there and that they'd shared one dark evening together. His hair is damp from exertion and fear, his skin being cooled by a light sheen of sweat.

Lifting Lilith's chin with a shaky hand so that he can get a better look at her face, those same hands run fingers through her dark locks to brush them gently to the side. He'll hold her close, pulling her against him with his arms wrapped around her form. He'll lay there in silence for a long moment, his mind still reeling from confronting that one moment from their past before everything went to hell.

Lilith squeezes her eyes closed while clutching to Byron's body, his real body, his pained body in bed. Her senses are flaring with the not-quite-right of it, but she can't focus to do anything about nurturing it, not right now. She's trying not to fly apart as she realizes where they are and what actually happened and she's using his arms as much as her own to keep from doing it. Because little by little, she's starting to realize too what he got dragged into and it feels like being split open and splashing him with the spatters of her own darkness that come from having too much light.

It's worse than the blood on them from their old anger and wounds manifesting in the form of shadow demons. At least until the touch at her chin to lift her face reassures her of the more important part-- they could have died or fallen away into the shadows like the others that disappear, perhaps. But he's right here alive, they're right now, not anywhere else or any other timeframe of memory.

They're right now. Alive and together. Her whisper to him shakes in that moment of meeting eyes and assessing the truth of how together they were through all of it before his arms draw them back together in smash again to still her trembling jaw and words that grip onto what really matters.

"... you're still here."