After a few minutes, I was forced to admit that this indeed, was not a dream. 

We went through a warp of distorted colours, suffocating silence and blinding lights. After a timeless period, we stuttered to a stop. 

I found myself in what looked like a quaint, wooden cottage, as if straight out of a fairytale. The entire room was made out of wood with a simple wooden table on my right and a cosy-looking bed complete with covers at the other end. A small door presumably led outside, although, I had no way of knowing since I had been directly brought into the hut. There was no kitchen or nothing personalized about the hut either as if it was a temporary abode for its refugee. 

He dropped my hand after a while and stood back to gaze at me silently. I gulped, unable to comprehend what was happening. I gaped at him, wondering if I was even awake. Was this reality?

"I...I understand you may have some questions," he took a deep breath. I noticed his hair had grown a tad bit longer over the last few months. Even his eyes had somehow gotten impossibly greener. He wore a long robe, something I couldn't ever imagine him wearing. Most strangely, he seemed to emit an unearthly aura. "I...I didn't die."

I remained still, my heart hammering. Was it possible? Had he actually returned? To me?

"When I jumped, Azure found me and brought me here. But...I...I wasn't allowed to contact anyone. It was necessary and no matter how I begged him he wouldn't let me contact you." He shuddered to a stop. "I...I'm sorry."

I didn't say anything, my heart too numb. 

"This...this is the fairy isle by the way. Azure decided to train me and another Nuvue-" he seemed to rush into the next sentence, "-because he thought the Deus won't approve. He...he thinks its time that the Deus are replaced and that is why he had been training me and Ellion.

But I...I heard about everything at the palace and how you were accused of poisoning your dad and then...then they put you in the dungeons and I told Azure that we couldn't wait any longer so he finally let me-" He stuttered to a stop, taking a shuddering breath as he gazed at me. "I...Zeke?"

I had stopped listening to him a while back, a single thought in my head. A single emotion in my chest. I felt like all the air had rushed out of my lungs. Like my chest had collapsed under itself with a force greater than gravity. Like my entire world was spinning out of control into an endless void. 

"How do I know, you're not lying?" I whispered. There were so many things he could be instead of who he claimed he was. "Why...should I believe you? Am I...dead?"

His eyes widened slightly for a second before he sighed, seeming to resolve something in his mind. "I went with you to your childhood home to get your mother's amethyst ring. We found a dog there and got terrified. That's when...you first expressed your powers."

His words seemed to silence the beating of my numb heart. 

There was no way anyone apart from the both of us could ever know that. Unless of course, he was a figment of my imagination and merely telling me what I knew myself. 

I wasn't satisfied with his prove. I wasn't sure there could be anything that could make me believe in the apparent truth of it anyway. 

"Zeke," he said softly, and somehow, all my doubts crumbled into ashes. The way he spoke my name. The soft, masked longing. The tenderness I had ever only experienced from him. The gentle caress of his tongue on the syllables as they formed beyond his delicate lips. It was him. 

An infernal tide of rage drowned out all my senses and I spoke slowly, "You are the singularly most selfish person I have ever had the misfortune to meet, Aureus Greenwood."

My voice seemed alien when I spoke, slipping out of my tongue almost uncontrollably. His eyes widened slightly as he gulped and I realized with satisfaction that he was afraid. 

"Zeke...I...I wanted to go to you but you have to believe me. He wouldn't let me. He kept saying so-"

"Shut the fuck up!" I balled my fists, incoherent with indescribable emotions. 

The starlight that I had been sure had abandoned me for so long returned to me like an avalanche and I lashed out almost unknowingly. The source of the light flung him backwards and he hit the wall. I glared at him, clenching my fists and feeling my entire body vibrating with the powers I thought I had lost. Anger coursed like potent venom throughout my body. I hated him at that moment, with every fibre of my being. 

He winced in pain, crumpling to the ground. 

"How dare you stand in front of me after all this time Aris? Was it fun for you to see me in pain? Do you have my fucking idea how hellish it has been? Do you have any fucking idea how much I was tempted to follow in your footsteps?"

He shivered slightly, managing to look up at me. "I...it has been hellish for me too, Zeke-"

"Lies," I lashed out again, glaring at him. "Do you want me to believe that you had absolutely no fucking way to let me know that you are alive? A fucking letter? A word? When you know you were the only damn person I ever trusted and like a fucking selfish-"

I stuttered to a stop when the door to flung open. I didn't look at the new entrant, amused by the sudden terror in Aris' eyes. 

"Aris?" a man's voice called and I watched as a tall, dark, unfamiliar man with raven curls strode into the room. His dark eyes widened when he glanced at me and back at Aris who seemed to be on the verge of saying something. He quickly made his way and crouched beside him, embracing him affectionately. "Aris, are you hurt?"

All the air seemed to rush out of my lungs. 

"N-no-" Aris' voice was muffled as the man glared daggers at me and slowly rose to his feet. 

His nostrils flared as he began, "What the fuck do you think you are doing, Hunt?"

I was quiet, unable to find any rage inside me. Just the way he seemed so angry, just the way he had held Aris, just the way he looked at him, it was clear to me what he meant to him. 

I found myself speechless, hoping Aris had just left me to die. 

"El," Aris spoke, his voice quivering. "It's okay. He's not hurting me."

"What are you talking about?" The man shook his head, his face pale as he glared at me, livid. "You were literally on the ground, wincing and you're telling me he didn't hurt you?" He turned towards me, rising to his full, impressive height. "I do not care who you are or who you think you are, Asterius. If you dare to hurt him again I will make sure that is the last thing you do."

"El-" Aris spoke again, averting my gaze. "Can we j-just-"

And somehow, I started laughing. 

I wasn't sure what came over me, or perhaps I was finally losing it. They gazed at me, comically bewildered as I doubled over in laughter. Delirious, maniacal laughter. Or perhaps it simply sounded so to me. 

How was it possible that even after I had been so sure I had been broken into numbness, analgesia was never the mercy I received? How much would I lose? When would I finally feel so much that I would be unable to feel at all? Why would oblivion take so long to dawn? 

The man called Ellion looked affronted. His eyebrows shot up his forehead as he muttered, "What the hell is so funny?"

"El, you should leave," Aris spoke. "Please. I...I'll-"

"I think both of you should leave," I said, gaining control of myself and glaring at the pair of them. "Don't you have some fucking to do Aris?"

I felt another savage twinge of pleasure when he recoiled. The other man now looked simply bewildered. He stared wide-eyed at me and then at Aris before back at me. "Do you know who you are even talking to?"

"No. I don't think I know him at all. Not anymore," I admitted.

Aris' gaze found mine, almost pleading. But he didn't say anything. I knew there was nothing he could say that would ever set anything right. Everything was ruined beyond repair. He had replaced me, as easily as he had left me. 

I turned away from them, making a show of gazing around the room as there was a loud sigh from behind me and the man spoke, "Azure will be here tomorrow. I expect he will have a lot to talk."

That's all they ever wanted for me. To fulfil the prophecy. That was where my existence began and ended. I heard the door opening and waited for it to shut when it didn't for a long time, I turned around to see Aris still standing near it.

"Zeke. It's not what you th-"

"If you don't leave right now Aureus Greenwood," I spoke, my voice emotionless. "I will kill you."

He was quiet. I wasn't sure if he believed me. His face showed no sign of fear at my threat. He sighed softly and shut the door, leaving me alone. Once again. Damned into the purgatory of my own unforgiving thoughts.