This time when he woke up, Screech was not where he was meant to be; he was aware for the briefest of moments, not even a breath, more like a spark - a short circuit. He wasn't on the slab of stone upon The Roost — but he wasn't supposed to be, his brain said. The sun was not here to warm him now.

Instead, he was in a deep dark forest. A blackness swam around him. Branches swayed and creaked soundlessly (he knew, somehow, they should be making those sounds; he heard them as if they were prerecorded and inconsistent, a record skipping, a ghost of what should be). His ears pivoted, and he looked around carefully, but without fear. The shadows reached for him — they formed three heads, four, five, six — they reached for him with limbs, whispers, and he shut both his eyes and ducked away.

—  -  -  —

Then there was light. He saw a flash of it through his eyelids, and when he opened them he saw @Fire — she was alight, made of her namesake, and the tendrils of her burning light caused the blackness to part; as she walked, she burned. Her body slowly turned from its brilliance of golds to a pale yellow, a gray, a black, as the fire left her. He felt her warmth as she drifted closer — she was so near, able to wrap him in an embrace. He tasted something sweet, and blinked, and as she pulled back from him it was not Ceara but @Niamh. The blackness spread across her, and she became fractured, a calico duplicate of what he knew. She did not open her mouth, but somehow the words came, sharp and harsh at first: Sor-INA?! But the sound was too high to be her voice. It was a shriek, a howling wind, higher than a dog whistle, higher still, until he was ducking back and feeling pain in his head.

The sound cut out. She was only eyes, now. Her body had become a wick, and had burned through; she fell as ash at his feet and those twin supernovas became dust motes, then nothing.

He was alone, until there was a bellowing voice, the sound of which seemed to boom through him like Tegan's Tears:
YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE!

— — -

He didn't recall sleeping this time, but was instantly awake, but elsewhere yet again. It was the top of a mountain, the sun was just cresting a hill and spilling its light across the bellies of the clouds; he thought it was beautiful. The clouds shifted, billowed across the sky towards him as if they had purpose, sentience within themselves, and they slowly became figures — he saw @Rannoch and @Liffey there, but upon recognizing them they became other shapes, other faces. Beings he didn't know, mostly. They looked a little like the pair — some had their eyes, some had the dark Blackthorn stripe — — and soon enough he wasn't looking at clouds, he was standing among them. They became a heavy seafoam which chilled his feet on contact. Screech could smell salt — - - --

The sea roared like a bear as it crashed around him, breaking across his young body as if it were made of limestone; he was cold for only a moment as he winced and tried to duck away from the immense force that was anticipated, but all he felt was the softest of touches. There was something comforting about the water as it wrapped around him, and when Screech realized this he tried to look around — he saw @Coelacanth beside him, and felt the cool night's sand under his feet, the ocean receding.

She looked at him with those big, beautiful blue eyes. They seemed so much brighter than they should've been. He tried to open his mouth to speak — but could not, and sighed dejectedly out of his nose upon realizing he was doomed to silence, but she only smiled with her eyes, and in a clear voice called out to him, Come, please, and he found he could not move. She tried again, slipping to her feet and dancing backwards, as if her fluid movements would entice him; he felt the need to stand, but still could not — Come home, she whispered, soft and wanting but not desperately so.

Screech could only smile as he watched her. Soon the sea was rolling in again, but instead of cresting off of the fine-boned Aralez, it seemed to make her image bleed like watercolor in to the brine; soon she was dissipating, and he felt sleep calling to him again. As the sea overtook her — and she became a shadow in the current — Screech felt the chill of the water sweep across him too, and he too faded in to the abyss of his healing mind.