I groan softly as my eyes flutter open. I take in a deep breath by accident, my lungs hurting slightly by the sudden intake of air. I close my eyes momentarily and try to remember the important parts of whatever just happened...

But I can't. For some strange reason.

I quickly jump up when the possibility of getting hit by nebmentia enters my mind. A wave of lightheadedness washes over me, making me stumble momentarily over my own two feet. I hold onto the nearby metal table for support and shake my head to get rid of the weariness.

When my blurry vision finally disappears, I notice something teal on the ground.

Two things, to be specific.

Turning around, I narrow my eyes when I see two teal scales that look exactly like the one I already have on the ground, glimmering softly in the laboratory lights. Frowning, I bend over and pick the two scales up, wondering why they're showing up constantly now. I stick them in my pocket before noticing something else.

My eyes widen considerably when I see two pieces of nebmentia driven so deeply into the wall that it looks like it's a part of the actual wall. How did this get here..? I wonder, my fingers glazing over the dark blue crystal. Sighing, I let my fingers drop down to my side before I see something blond moving out of the corner of my eye.

"Sophie..?" Caroline asks meekly, brushing some of her hair away from her eyes. When I walk over to her, she asks, "Do you know what happened?"

Sighing, I shake my head. "No... I actually don't," I say honestly, disappointed in that fact. "I just woke up." I look around and see that we're the only ones in the room. "Weren't there more people with us?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows.

Caroline shrugs. "I think the real question is when you came into the room," she points out, looking down at me.

"Huh," I find myself saying, despite my thoughts racing around in a flurry. "I don't know..." I hold the sides of my head, trying to remember. Why can't I remember? I ask myself, realizing that this isn't the first time. I glance over at the nebmentia and suddenly see that Steven and Fitz standing there, bandages wrapped around two areas of his right arm.

Fitz follows my gaze, his eyes widening at his injuries. "Sophie-" he begins to say before I've made my way over to him. He takes my silence from shock to say, "It's nothing. Just a few cuts."

"How did you get this..?" I don't even know that I'm shaking slightly until Fitz gently cups my face. "I'm okay," he whispers in my ear.

My voice breaks a little as I transmit, I don't know when you came here, or how you got hurt... What's happening to me..? A tear falls down my cheek, and I quickly wipe it away. I don't remember this at all... And this isn't the first time...

Wait- this has happened before? Fitz asks. When? How?

I- I stop transmitting when a sob escapes my lips. "I don't know," I manage to say before I sob again. I glance up to see Fitz's eyes full of concern, sadness, and something that I can't decipher. But as of now, I don't care.

So I continue sobbing into his shoulder, not caring about the surrounding gazes of sympathy laced with confusion.

...

Back in my room, Fitz and I are currently on my bed, trying to figure out my memories. Of course, I haven't told either the Sovereigns or Altruistics about what happened in the laboratory, nor do I plan on telling them anytime soon.

"You usually felt a sharp pain, right?" Fitz asks me, his teal eyes full of the concern that gets me every. Single. Time. "And then you pass out?"

I nod. "Other times, I'd forget after passing out," I admit, looking down at my hands. "It's... I don't know..."

Suddenly, I feel two hands cradle my gently, as if my hands are made of glass. My cheeks warming despite my efforts, I glance up to see Fitz a smile I've never seen him wear before- as if he's happy, but there's more to that smile that need to decipher. "You don't need to know everything at once," the male Percipient says softly. "But I'll help find things out one by one..."

Comforted in his embrace, I close my eyes slowly, not missing how my heart's speeding up and slowing down at the same time. Silence falls upon the two of us, but it's the silence that someone wants to have, not an awkward one. I won't deny that I'm secretly trying to remember, but I will admit that now, it's not much of a priority to me.

When I open my eyes, Fitz looks at me silently. "If you want to remember what happened," he says. "I can use disclosers to send the memories from my perspective to you. Like I said, it's completely optional, and I don't want it to..." He trails off, but I can tell that he didn't want to mention Jacob in front of me.

I wait a moment before nodding. "I'll do it," I say. "I can't keep forgetting whatever's happening."

Nodding silently, Fitz gently places the disclosers on my temples. The male Percipient frowns in thought for a moment before hesitantly placing his fingers over the two disclosers- over my temples. He closes his eyes, and I take it that I should as well. And it doesn't take long before I'm in the blackness that is my mind.

Inside, I wander around a bit, wondering when I'll start seeing everything through Fitz's perspective. Almost on cue, I see that the blackness has morphed into the hallway to the laboratory. My eyes widen when I see myself reach up and touch Fitz's cheek. I frown when I see my lips moving without any verbal sounds coming out, but soon realize that when I'm watching a memory, I can't hear anything.

A few moments pass before my lips move again, and then he and I are running towards the laboratory. The metal doors slam open, and the man that was held captive there is now standing, pointing an archance at the pathologist and another towards the chemist.

The man exchanges a few words, and then he pulls the trigger.

And then the entire projection is white for a few seconds.

Everything clears up almost instantaneously, and suddenly, Fitz is looking down at the man, as if he managed to grow tall enough to touch the ceiling. The perspective looks towards the floor, where the pieces of nebmentia are flying towards me. I barely have time to blink before Fitz is on the same level as the nebmentia. Before the nebmentia can hit me, it reaches Fitz... before ricocheting into the wall.

So that's what happened to the nebmentia on the wall, I note. But how did it get there?

Of course, I wasn't expecting to get my answer right then and there.

The perspective changes to look at the ground, and I see two scales... the same two scales that I picked up when I woke up. The same scale that was on me when I was in the laboratory after seeing Mr. Wallace.

And then... the projection shows a claw.

A claw.

A claw.

It's covered with so many of the same teal scales that I can't even fathom what the number is. I then notice that two scales are gone, revealing brown flesh. I think about Fitz's bandages, and how they're wrapped right around the same area where the two scales fell off when the nebmentia bounced off of them.

What is he hiding..?

Suddenly, the projection disappears and I'm thrust out of my own mind. Taken aback considerably, I blink a few times and shake my head, try to imagine if whatever I just saw was real or not.

When I look forward again, Fitz is holding the disclosers in his hands, his face unnaturally pale. Upon seeing me look at him, the male Percipient glances up and asks, "What did you see?"

"N- nothing much," I say, still shocked. "I saw myself talk to you before we run to the laboratory. It ended when the entire projection turned white, then started replaying itself. He nods, relaxing considerably. Suddenly, he pales again and his eyes widen. I notice him tensing up immediately and ask, "What's wrong? Did something else happen?"

Giving me the same unreadable smile from before, Fitz says, "No, nothing happened. We're alright."

I'm tempted to point out that I'm not that dense, and that he can talk to me- he needs to talk to me because of this.

...But I don't. I stay silent... For now.