Don't fall asleep.

"Do you wanna go anywhere today?" Dindet rolled over on her stomach and propped herself up to look at Oliver, who lay on the couch with his phone hovering precariously above his face. He squinted briefly, trying to make out the sort of garbled words on the screen.

"Nah, Mom said she was gonna come home early for my birthday." He dropped his hand down and sat up. "I figured you'd wanna meet her."

Dindet nodded and resituated herself so she sat criss-cross on the floor. "What are we gonna do?"

"Probably go to Mary Jane's for ice cream and I think she wanted to take us to the Park Mall." Oliver sat up and scratched an itch on his arm, heading to the door to check if she'd gotten back yet. It wasn't dark out, so she was probably on her way.

He jumped at the sudden knock on the door, glancing back at the clown who'd already stood up and was facing backward, bouncing eagerly on the couch. Oliver turned toward the door, only a little hesitant to open it.

"Oliver!" His mother's arms reached through and wrapped him up in a big bear hug before she set him down with a smile. "Who's your friend?"

She bent down, smiling brightly at Dindet as her long blonde hair fanned over her shoulders. The clown tumbled over the back of the couch, holding out her hand to shake and his mother promptly took it and popped it clean off with a surprised little laugh.

"Isn't that interesting?!" Her bemused remark made Oliver and Dindet burst out in small, almost forced laughter.

"That's Dindet, she's a clown- like the ones you talked about." He answered, casually taking the arm, giving it back to the alien and getting rid of the itch he felt under his clothes.

"Oh, right!" She answered, standing straight again and pressing her hand against Oliver's back. "Are you guys ready then?"

"Is Mr. Your Dad coming too?" Dindet questioned, glancing back toward Oliver's parent's bedroom.

"He said he'll meet us there, sweetie." Oliver's mother answered, backing out of the doorway into the bright daylight.

Oliver grabbed Dindet's hand and lead her along as he followed his mother into the icecream shop, finding it kind of odd he didn't hear her static. Instead, where her hand was, stung something like bullknettle.

"I know you don't eat like regular people but you have to try this-" He paused, swiveling his head around in search of whoever he was talking to earlier. They were just there. Where did they go?

"Are you coming?" His mother's voice called from inside the ice cream shop and Oliver shook his head in effort to find the thought he just swore he had.

He pushed through the doors, catching up with his mom as she ordered two of the usual.

"Hey, wasn't there someone with us?" He asked, gently tugging on her shirt as he kept his eyes on the door, expecting them to come through any moment now.

"Dammit Marie!"

Oliver's head snapped back as he registered Matthew's voice. The man towered over his mother, and she held her hands over her face.

No. This wasn't right.

His eyes flickered around the tiny, dingy apartment, as some visceral recollection bubbled up and burned his insides.

"I'll not have you fill my daughter's head with your nonsense science!"

Oliver flinched at the sound of the slap, and his mind dug into a little hole that he wanted so terribly to bury the memory in.

"DON'T HURT HER!" The sound of his own voice nearly crippled him and the words fell out of his mouth without any consent. Oliver lunged forward, clawing back at Matthew's wrist until the man swiveled around and shoved him backward, twisting his arm up and causing that aching burn to intensify alongside the nightmare.

"You."

The burning breath in his lungs all but dissipated, and Oliver shrunk back from him as he neared.

"What are- what are you doing?" Like a match to flame, the words caught fire in his mouth, regardless of if he comprehended them or otherwise.

This was wrong. It already- there was something terribly wrong.

"Teaching you a lesson."

His eyes widened, and for several, very, terribly slow seconds, his heart seemed to stop. Oliver took one step, then two, backwards, until the palm of his hand glided along the sofa and something small, innocuous even, caught his grip.

A dining stool from the ice cream shop.

In a flash, before he realized he could even do such a thing at all and before fear froze him so utterly, he wrenched free of the ever terrifying man. He tumbled backwards into half of a couch before he scrambled just out of reach as Matthew clambored after him in a vile and abhorrent rage.

Oliver toppled over stools and chairs and tables, anything to slow Matthew's approach. He slammed hard into the doors of the shop, his skin on fire with ever graze of touch when he slammed his fists into the door and yanked and pulled to get it open.

"Where is it, Olivia?" The man lurched forward, growing larger and slower as his speech slurred. He fumbled over stools and chairs to reach him, throwing out long, thin fingers that planted themselves around his head and pressed into the walls with a force enough to create cracks.

Oliver let out a half choked shriek and kicked at him, bringing his heel down on the man's face and thrusting it into the ground so he could get an opportunity to force the doors to the ice cream shop open.
His monster of a father retaliated though, with some gurgling, horrific yowl, he melted up into some black, disgusting gelatinous beast that stuck to the walls and floor, slamming hard into Oliver's back and pressing him, suffocating into the doors.

The child choked, gagging on the ichor and bile that supplanted itself down his throat and nose, burning every inhale and exhale he attempted in this nightmarish drowning.

Oliver grappled, blindly feeling for the doorknob until his fingers found it and latched around it. he attempted to open his eyes, but the black bile burned so fiercely that he simply had to trust himself to pull the lever down and gain freedom. 

He flew backwards into the snow and the sludge forced through him, spattering out on the powder and staining it black. Oliver wretched, coughing and spewing the bile that festered up, and spilled out of a sudden hollowness in his chest.

He trembled, staring down at it as it dripped down and stained his dress like fresh blood. Some terrible emptiness, that he could only half see through his hair that had almost doubled in length. It was there though, and it ached and hurt even more than the terrible touch of his skin.

Oliver stumbled, crawling shakily to his feet and squinting in the bright, burning white light as he searched around aimlessly for his mom, or his dad, or someone.

Suddenly, as if a light flickered on in front of him, his gaze rested on a deep mahogany coffin surrounded by frost covered roses and pink lilies.
At first it was far away, and then in a second it was in front of him, buzzing and humming softly in the bright, white emptiness of the snow.

"...Mom?"

"Oliver," Jon's voice came from behind and a heavy hand fell over his shoulder. "There was an accident at the lab today."

No. No...no...

Oliver's heart dropped to his feet and he felt as though he were falling for a split second before he whipped around, yanking his father's hand off of him only to freeze in quiet terror.

The man that was meant to be his dad, stood, lolling deafly in front of him with nearly blackened eyes.
His father stumbled, emaciated and skeletal toward him, and then past him to the casket. He dropped to his knees and groaned, "My... machine....Marie...."

His head reeled, he couldn't remember what happened, or what was happening before this. It wasn't- this wasn't right.

"Dad!" Oliver started toward him but the casket whirred to life, a bright blue light shining through the cracks at the seam of it. It grew increasingly vibrant and loud, whirring and shrieking like a dying animal until left him blind and deaf to everything with one giant flash that turned the entire world around him black.

This wasn't right- something happened before this, he just couldn't think of it, he could remember. Someone said something? Don't...don't what?

He couldn't see, and was sure he couldn't hear, and focusing on anything other than the terrible burning that surrounded him, and filled him up with an aching bitter bile that gushed out of him in blackened spatters on the ground was next to impossible.

In the pitch black nothingness, he stumbled blindly around, tears searing his red hot and burning skin as they dripped down his face and were lost in the nothing. Everything ached, and burned, even the shallow breaths he drew in stung his throat and burnt his lungs. And ever breath brought with it a horrid, cutting ache that forced him to hack up more and more of the dark blood.

"Oliver." His mother's voice called out in the darkness, pausing his desperate and confused sobs for a moment as he swiveled around in search of her.

"Mom!" He cried, croaking the words out far softer than they should have been. He stumbledover his stinging feet, "Mom come back!"

No reply. Oliver twisted around, flailing desperately as he searched for her. She was just here, someone- they were just here. They said something. Something important.

"Mom! Please! Pleh-s..." he choked on his tears, wrapping his arms around himself despite the terrible pain the touch offered and the heavy emptiness the hole carried, burdening each further step.

He was alone. He was alone and empty and afraid.

Finally he dropped down on his knees, buckling over as a wail tore through his throat and he shuddered and rocked, clenching his eyes shut just to make them stop burning if only for a second.

She was there, right there. Right there and now he in the dark, hurting, alone, and afraid.

"Mom...mommy....I want my mom.."

Oliver curled up, drawing as close to himself as possible as the terrible nightmare drowned him in this bitter, awful ichor. She was gone, everything was gone, and he couldn't wrap his mind around it, none of it.

Not her. Not the accident. Not Matthew or his father. It was just a dark, black pit, and it opened up inside him, dragging him down and sinking him ever further into its deathly maw.

Whatever it was, it ate him, slowly, devouring every last bit of strength and effort in him until all he was, was some wretched, crying mess, with burning skin and teary eyes, and an emptiness that couldn't be filled. Whimpering for someone long dead.

Gently, a small hand glided across his back and two slender arms pulled him into a soft embrace.

"Hey..." a familiar voice broke through his quiet, shuddering tears. "It's okay to feel a lot of different things all at once."

Oliver shifted in the familiar stranger's arms, and eased his irritated eyes open to look up at their face.

"It hurts, alot..." she said softly, glancing down at the gaping nothingness. "I imagine."

He stared at her, some soft memory returning to his bleeding, terribly lost mind. She was like a ball of colors in the dark, foaming up and floating away in little recollections.

"Its all a big jumbly mess, and you feel everything, all at once, and very hard..I know," for a moment, those colorful memories turned a shadowy grey, and the fuzziness of her began to solidify, growing edges and lines in the dark that made her look like a painting on black canvas.
She stood up, crouching only a bit to take his hands in hers.

Dindet offered a warm smile, "You don't have to do it alone."