The breeze felt warm; a salty taste clung to it. Their clothes rustled in the dim light of the rising sun as they landed upon a clustered bit of craggy rock suspended in the air. The two looked around to see their surroundings full of similar jutting crags and stretching plains of sand. Despite the taste of salt in the air, neither could see any hint of the ocean nearby. The sun above was hot and oppressive even in the early hours of the morning. No clouds could be seen for miles.


    It was only after thoroughly examining their new surroundings that they realized they were still pressed together, still locked hand in hand. Both felt an almost instinctual need to push away as the awkward feelings of the night before bubbled up within. Still, they found themselves unable to move, stuck together by the limited space of the rock surrounding them.


    “We should climb down, find some shade…” Jake offered after a minute of silence, not sure what to say next.


    “Sounds fine to me.” Alice agreed, her gaze falling to the floor


    The odd clamber down to the sprawling sand below was short and relatively easy, as thankfully they found useful footholds naturally carved into the side of the rock they were perched upon. Alice required some help, still injured from the day before, but managed to descend nonetheless. Stood upon the heated sands of the dunes, both looked side to side, unsure what to do now as they moved apart, a distance forming between them.


    “Should we try and find some water? We might manage to find an ocean or something…” Jake offered, his head swiveling about as he took in the salty breeze in the air.


    “Don’t really feel like moving that much,” Alice replied. Her chest still ached from being tossed around yesterday, along with her arm. She was unsure if she’d overstressed it playing her harp or during her run through the woods, but today it ached so bad she could hardly move it. She was close to asking for the sling back. “I just want to sit back and relax in the shade.”


    “Sounds fine to me,” Jake said with a slight shrug before the two stalked around the side of the rock they’d landed atop. It wasn’t a particularly big rock by any stretch of the imagination, but its unique geometry provided a large crack where shade was continually cast to the floor below. Standing aside, Jake allowed Alice to crawl into the crack, offering her a hand as she winced in pain, trying to maneuver with her aching chest and injured arm.


    “Thanks…” She said as she settled against the walls of the smallish cave, her bag pulled around to rest in her lap. She turned to glance beside her and saw Jake settle himself a little ways away from her, sitting so that most of himself hung out of the edge of the crack directly in the sun.


    “What are you doing?” She asked, slight annoyance clear in her voice, “You''re going to bake out there.”


    “I''m fine,” He replied, tone trying to sound jovial, “I just… I don’t want to make things too crowded, you know?” She sighed as he said that, and did her best to press closer into the cave wall before saying,


    “It’s fine, just get in here, would you?” He still sat unmoving for a moment after that, before finally standing and sliding closer into the cave, coming to rest pressed against her. She sighed internally as she watched him awkwardly fumble to get comfortable. A few days ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to crawl into the cave, he’d not have worried about being pressed close to her. Now though…


    She wondered if things could ever go back to normal. Last night, she felt they could. As they played through the night, the fire danced to their call. Yet still this morning, they could hardly talk to one another. Her fiery anger was gone now. If she thought about it long enough, annoyance bubbled up within her, but the fury they drove her before was no more. Still, though, it felt as if they could no longer talk like they once had.


    She sighed, her head dropping to stare at the bag lying across her lap. She supposed she was too na?ve to think things could be fixed so easily. She supposed she was too na?ve to think things could just go back to normal. It would take time. Despite what they said, despite their promise of a new start, the fight that drove them apart still lingered heavily in the air. It was still fresh, like an unhealed wound.


    Glancing toward him as a silence filled the cave, yet again, a thought occurred to her. Pulling the bag in her lap close to her, she pulled it open and dug through its contents a moment, struggling a bit as she worked with only one arm. Jake glanced at her and was about to ask if she needed help when she suddenly stopped. Suddenly presented him with something he thought was lost. Something he didn’t want to see again.


    A throwing knife, one of his, he thought, lost in the corridor ages ago. Its blade was crimson, blood long dried to coat its entire being. She held it flat in her palm, not particularly comfortable gripping hold of the blood-coated weapon. She’d grabbed it as they ran to escape the crumbling corridor, held it since then, always forgetting to return it. Only remembered now as she found it amongst her luggage yesterday. Thought it might work to cut through the silence growing between the two.


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    She glanced up to see his face pale. His eyes looked wide, almost terrified, as he glanced at the weapon in her hand. His mouth kept opening and closing, yet no sound came out of his lips as he simply stared down at her hand. Finally, his voice quiet and strained, he managed to ask,


    “Where… where did you get that?”


    “I grabbed it from the corridor after you dropped it. I meant to give it back to you, but we kept getting distracted. Sorry, it’s still a bit dirty. Here, you can have it back now…”


    “NO!” He cried out, something almost like terror in his voice as he scooted across the sand to escape the approaching knife, sweat beginning to run down the side of his face the longer he stared at it. Something told Alice it wasn’t because of the scorching sun above.


    “No…” He said again, more quietly now as he realized how loud he’d been before, seemed to want to calm himself, “That’s… you keep it. Please.”


    “What? But I don’t really need…”


    “Then throw it away. Keep it, sell it, or throw it away! I just… please…” He faltered a bit at the end, tearing his eyes away from the dagger to stare at the rocky ceiling above.


    “…Alright…” She replied after a moment, her voice confused and concerned. Still, she took the knife away from him and returned it to her bag without further questions. Silence returned to the cave for a few moments, before suddenly he began to speak again, tone low and quiet, his gaze unwavering as he continued to stare at the roof above.


    “In the corridor… while we were stuck apart there… I had to fight this horde. Monster upon monster, I’d never seen before. Whatever the voice could come up with, I guess. I don’t think they were there to kill me, just hurt me, make me bleed and suffer.”


    Her breath caught in her throat as he talked. She wasn’t quite sure what to do, she wasn''t sure if she should say something. This was the first time either of them had brought up the corridor, brought up what the voice had done to them. What it had shown them.


    “Jake, you don’t have to…” She quickly tried to say as he paused for breath, gaze unwavering on the ceiling above.


    “I want to.” His answer was short and clear, his gaze faltering just a moment to stare at her. His eyes looked lost, a sort of darkness in them she’d never seen before. “Please…” She could only nod, acquiesce to his request, and sit back silently listening to his story.


    “I’m not sure how long I was stuck fighting. It felt like weeks, months. It could have just been an hour or two. Who knows. When I was finally done, though, allowed to stop fighting and breathe, he appeared. Bloodied and beaten and dying. He already looked half-dead. He… Rick… I didn’t know him for very long. Maybe a month? He was with the magician I told you about. But he was the one who gave me my knives and taught me the basics to survive. Saved my life so many times.”


    “I was so happy to see him again, so delirious after fighting so long, I forgot where I was. Nearly let him kill me… or whatever he really was. Still, though, he looked like Rick. Sounded like Rick. It might as well have been Rick. He just kept coming at me, desperate to kill me. I had no choice, at least, it felt that way. So… I stabbed him. Ran him through with his own knife. That knife.”


    He let out a little chuckle to himself, pointing toward the bag that held the crimson-coated knife.


    “What does that make me, huh?” He asked aloud, voice sounding lost and confused.


    “A survivor,” Alice replied after a moment of pause. She thought back to when she first found him in the corridor and ran upon him, coated in blood. It felt so long ago, and she tried so hard not to think back to those times. Still, she could vaguely remember someone else besides Jake as he sat motionless, someone ran through the neck dead on the ground.


    “So what? So, what if I survived? I ran him through with his own…”


    “It wasn’t real!” She interrupted him before he could spiral, she could already see him beginning to lose himself a bit. “Remember Jake, none of it was real. It was tricks designed to torture us. Nothing there was real.”


    “But… but it was,” Jake said after a moment, his head dropping low to stare at his own feet. “When I left them, when I had to fall out of their world, Rick and Lana and Leopold… they were barely clinging to life. I just had to leave them and carry on like none of it had happened. I may as well have left them dead, may as well have stabbed them, run them through. After everything they did for me, how could I just carry on like that?” He seemed a bit hysterical, grabbing onto his hair, he quickly turned to stare at her, a moment before his gaze fell.


    “Not just them. You too! Every day we traveled together, I was scared you’d die. So terrified since I accidentally kidnapped you that it would be my fault you died. Cause it would be!! Whatever happens to you… It’s all my fault. And it only gets worse the longer you’re here, cause the longer you’re here… the longer you’re here, the more it hurts to lose you. I’m so…so scared of losing you… of you leaving… what can I possibly do about that!? How can I keep going like this?!”


    It was like a damn had burst inside him. Everything came pouring out as he sat, curled up in the cave, his thoughts just seemed to flow. He hadn’t meant for things to be like this. He’d only meant to share about the dagger, hoping to help her understand why he couldn’t take it back. But the more he talked, the more his worries about the past and future flowed freely. The more his fears were laid bare before her. Curled tight, he felt a sudden pressure on his shoulder as she draped her arm around him.


    “It’s not your fault. None of it is. Accident upon accident, coincidence upon coincidence. That’s all you’ve described so far; all you’ve taken the blame for. So, stop blaming yourself for Rick and whoever else you said. I’m sure they’re doing fine. And seriously, stop blaming yourself for me.” She shoved him slightly. He lifted his head to see her smiling at him, hand outstretched.


    “You didn’t kidnap me, got it? I ran away with you. Major difference. So, stop blaming yourself for everything.”


    “But…”


    “You have to, greenie,” she said, pushing her shoulder against his, their hands still intertwined a smile till on her face, “Have to learn to live with it, carry on. That’s what it means to be human, right? At least we get to carry on together. Cause I’m not going anywhere.”


    He could say nothing in response. Only feel her press into him as they listened to the wind rush by the cave outside.