" Almost as soon as the illusion had clouded Adius' mind, it was gone. He was somehow sitting in the car next to Hope. His backpack was on the floor behind his seat, and his hand was grasping the seat belt buckle. Blinking, Adius looked around.

Hope was driving, her normal carefree smile gracing the bottom half of her face. Her right hand was lazily draped over the wheel while her left was tapping out a little beat. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and he swore in that little second of eye contact he saw something akin to realization.

He made himself look away.

His hand's were clammy and his heart was racing, the fear still hadn't left his system.

"Addie?" He had distantly heard. "Addie... there's something I have to do today. Is it alright if I just drop you off, we can hang out tomorrow? I'm sure you're tired anyway from practice." Her eyes stayed on the road, and Adius found that he liked it better that way.

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There was something in him that hadn't settled, something that, when faced with the picture of Hope, screamed and clawed at him. He swallowed the building saliva in his mouth and turned to look out of the window. "Yeah, I am pretty tired. I uh, I actually have something I need to do tomorrow though."

He could feel her eyes burning into the side of his face as she pulled to a stop in front of his house. He had clambered out without so much as a wave in her direction and had entered his home almost as quickly. The soreness in his muscles was forgotten.

The fatigue pulling his eyes closed from the inside was pushed away.

All he could think about was the blood. It was dark, almost black, and thin. All he could see when he closed his eyes was Hope's body. Dragging his hand down his face, he paced the entrance of his home. What had it been? A daydream? A mirage? Maybe he had fallen asleep in Hope's car.

That was right! It all had to have been a dream.

Nodding, Adius had resolved to forget about it. It was just a figment of his imagination. It was just the exhaustion from the hours of exercise getting to him. And that was that. He had gone to his bedroom and fallen face first into his bed right after that.

The look on Hope's cold lifeless face never quite left him though. "