There were no clocks on board.

It was a realization it had taken Kane nearly two days to come to. How could he when everything seemed to be constantly trying to kill him?

Thus, he had no idea what hour he and Esau left their station to go back below deck. The sun hadn’t quite started to rise yet, although the horizon had just barely started to brighten. He and Esau had sat by the wheel together in silence the entire time, each lost in his own thoughts, winking away sleep as they tried to outlast the other. But Esau gave in first, his soft breathing and closed eyes indicating that he was finally ready to turn in.

Kane had nudged him awake, and they made their way to the quarters. Kane watched a half-conscious Esau climb into his hammock, asleep by the time he hit the fabric.

Then, Kane left their room without making a sound.

Kane had no idea if he’d been a stealthy individual in his past life on Earth. In the mundane day-to-day, one never really needed to be one. It likely wasn’t a skill he’d taken the time to develop. But he’d try his hand at it anyway.

He skulked through the halls in silence. The lights in the Log Room were always on, it seemed; Lucian’s enchanted flames refused to burn out, casting their glow in the dead of night, warding off the gray. Kane peeked inside to find the space abandoned. Lucian seemed to have finally retreated to his quarters.

Kane eased the door open and gave the place a cursory scan before quietly stepping inside. The room was honestly beautiful, warm colors dancing with the flickering of the flames. It was the warmest room on board, inviting and soothing, and it would be a nice spot to settle down with a book and lose track of time. Amidst it all, Kane locked on the map, spread flat on the table; it seemed Lucian had given up on his task after all.

Perhaps it had been smart to do so. They all desperately needed sleep, since they were in a real bad spot and already at each other’s throats. But Kane knew he needed a certain something even more intensely than he needed sleep.

Comprehension.

Kane lifted the map to the enchanted light, squinting at its blank surface. As the soft glow illuminated the yellowed parchment, which in turn turned near-translucent with the backlighting, something caught his eye.

Thin, scrawled lines, shifting in the corner of his vision. dancing about, mocking him.

His breath caught in his throat. He blinked rapidly, but when he refocused and pulled the map closer, the lines disappeared.

Frustration gnawed at him, bone-deep.

I’m close. I can feel it.

Blinking the pain in his eyes and his head away, he plodded out, map in hand, and settled himself in the dining room across the ship.

With a lantern on the table as his sole companion, he got to work.

—

The sun had nearly risen by the time his nose started to bleed.

It had been an insidious thing, too. A faint drip, drip, on the table, and then a muttered curse amidst his delirium. Kane had cursed before he’d even known what the problem was, near-catatonic as he sat hunched over, eyes barely open over the map. The pain in them was like if the Sandman had paid him a visit but rather than sprinkling sand into his eyes, he’d stabbed them with shards of glass.

And yet Kane had sat, and stared, his focus unbreakable. Well, not quite unbreakable.

It hadn’t taken long for his thoughts to wander. Back to the real world.

Back to when he’d first received his Nintendo 64 from his mother, a “late” birthday gift that was actually never planned in the first place, the gift leading him to starting the bad habit of playing Mario until the birds chirped outside the windows of his room to announce the end of the school night and the morn of the school day.

Back to when he’d broken his leg freshman year of college, first semester, falling down the Griffin Hall staircase, and how he’d missed his opportunity to go out and make friends during those vital early months, the ones that mattered.

Back to when he’d first picked up a skateboard, and fallen on his face, but gotten up and tried again, and again, until one day he simply stopped falling.

Drip. This drop of blood came from his right eye. Although he didn’t realize that was the case for a good forty-five seconds — forty-five seconds which he spent simply sitting there, staring at the map, mildly glad that the blood hadn’t landed on the parchment.

Another drop. This one didn’t fall onto the table, but rather, dribbled down his chin from his lips. Kane smiled, feeling silly, feeling delirious. Only a horror villain would have any reason to wear a bloody smile. But hell, horror villains were powerful. They were feared. He would have loved to be powerful and feared, if not just fucking respected.

Kane’s body sagged against the table with a dull thud.

—

“Hello!”

Kane shot upright, ramrod straight. He then promptly collapsed to the floor, as the chair beneath him was no more.

He swore under his breath, looking straight up at the Shade. Freddy smiled back down at him — if whatever the creature was doing with its mouth could be considered a smile. His slender static form wriggled about, as if trying to escape its bounds and leak into the white void around them.

“Did you miss me?”

Kane scooted away, pushing himself away with his feet, only to find himself dragged back to the demon under the effects of a strange force, something fundamentally different than Tal’s gravity.

“Clearly you didn’t. Ouch.”

Pushing himself back upright, Kane glared at the Shade. “You have ten seconds to explain what’s going on,” he demanded, keeping the tremor out of his voice. “What happened to the heading? Why are we lost?”

Freddy tilted his head at Kane, backing away to give the man room to breathe. The mirth was visible on the creature’s face, despite his inhuman expression being so difficult to parse. “And if I don’t want to tell you?”

Kane reached for his dagger, which seemed to still be in the sheath at his waist. He lifted its point up to his chest. His original idea to stay awake and avoid the Shade altogether could never possibly work, so he’d had to plan for the inevitable. What he was doing right now wasn’t quite a plan he had high hopes for, but options were limited when it came to facing demons who visited you in your sleep.

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The Shade leaned in, the air around him dropping in temperature due to his very presence. “You want to stab yourself? Hm.” Freddy shook his head sadly. “And I took all that time prettying myself up after our encounter yesterday. I’d thought that the poor first impression was due to the lack of effort I’d put into my appearance. But I suppose that wasn’t quite it.” As if the demon didn’t look exactly the same.

“And we’re both aware that you’re aware that it might not be wise to make any sharp movements in this realm. Who knows? One false step, and someone could end up tumbling into the Sea.” His grin widened at that part.

Kane’s grip on the dagger tightened, holding the tip against the fabric of his chest. Slowly, he pressed it inwards, hissing as it pierced his jacket. “Are answers really too much to ask for? You said you were here to help me out of the mess you put me in yourself.”

Freddy fixed him with the most unsettling stare Kane had ever received in his life. The absurdly wide smile had toned itself down to a shallow grin, and even that was devoid of true emotion. Freddy was simply staring, his mouth wide open, like a mindless predator about to feast, his brain without a doubt calculating something beyond Kane’s comprehension.

Kane told himself he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t. When the only leverage you had against the sleep demon was your own life, you had to gamble even that.

He looked Freddy square in the eye.

“I don’t know what exactly my relationship with her was. Or what it ended up being at the end. But if you can — and I have a strong fucking feeling you can — please tell Isabella I loved her. Just so that she knows.” A single bead of sweat coursed down Kane’s temple as he raised the dagger and, with full conviction, plunged it inwards towards—

Freddy yanked it away with the flick of a single clawed finger. The dagger clattered to the floor a couple of feet away soundlessly.

“What did you think would happen?” was all Freddy said.

“So you do need me alive,” Kane thought. It was a conclusion he’d more or less come to, but when navigating this forced relationship in the future, he needed absolute clarity on the Shade’s interests. And sure, the creature could be bluffing. Or, more likely than not, this need he had for Kane was but a temporary one. But that still meant that, for the time being, Kane’s survival was of the beast’s interest. And he could use that.

“I’ll just do it when I wake up, then,” Kane dared, eyes flicking to the dagger and back to the demon. “You can’t control me when I’m awake.”

“And is that really a good idea?”

“Is testing me a good one?” Kane sat up to full height. “You. You’re a creature down here, in this hellscape. I get the sense you’ve seen many a man throw his life away without any good reason at all. You can’t deny that there’s a nonzero chance I do the same, regardless of the consequences.”

Freddy’s eyes glinted with mirth as he made the threat. “And if the consequence is Isabella suffering a similar, if not worse, fate?”

Kane’s fists tightened as his heart stopped for a moment. “Hard to decide when I don’t know if the consequence of working with you is very much identical.”

Again, Freddy paused, eyeing him curiously. As if still trying to figure out whether Kane’s last stunt had been for real.

Unfortunately for him, it had been.

Kane had promised himself there would be no more half-assing things. Sure, it was a reckless angle to take, but if there was any chance that him dying would mean this demon would keep its claws away from Isabella, then so be it.

However, the doubt had now been placed in his mind that him dying would lead to that unfortunate fate.

Kane had brought up a good point, too. Of course Freddy held all the power here, but the one thing that Kane could do was deny the demon access to him. Kane could do nothing to protect Isabella from here, in reality. Which meant he had to start small, and figure Freddy out first. After that, he’d simply work from there.

“Alright,” Freddy conceded, raising his hands to his sides. It was very much a gesture completely unfitting of his frightening form. “You win. Let’s slow down here. Don’t go jumping off the ship just yet.”

“My mind’s subject to change.” Kane moved his legs to sit cross-legged, and crossed his arms as well. “You called. I picked up. What do you want from me?”

Freddy’s eyes opened and closed in what looked like a forced imitation of a blink. “I wanted an update. On your situation with reaching the next circle.”

Kane bit his lip, mildly puzzled. The day before, the creature seemed pretty damn cognizant of the situation, down to Kane’s own doubts. What did it know, and how?

“FUBAR. Fucked. Lucian’s map is broken. You said follow him to the center, but he can’t tell his left from his right.”

“Is that so?” Freddy raised a hand to his chin, stroking it thoughtfully. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

Kane gave the beast the finger.

“That’s not really offensive where I’m from.” Freddy nodded, as if checking with himself that it wasn’t. “So it wasn’t you. I got it — let’s discuss another topic, then. Are you trying to learn magic?”

Kane thought for a second. What would the creature want to know? And would it know if he lied?

The safer bet, unfortunately, was honesty. “I figure that if I know enough magic, I’ll be able to use the map and help Lucian figure out this little problem we’re having.” Now that he thought about it, his sixth sense could pick up on the magic that was positively radiating from Freddy. But yet, in this dream realm, it all felt muted, like they were underwater.

“Hm. Good luck with that.”

Kane raised a brow. “Really? So no tips? No advice? No eye-opening insights?”

“That’s not my job. My job — and a self-appointed one at that — is to get you to the center so you guys can escape.”

Escape? Saul had previously brought up the idea of escape. Kane had originally dismissed it, because of course they didn’t fucking want to be here, but it seemed like a pipe dream behind several doors in a line, the first being basic survival. But Freddy’s response raised the question of whether returning to Earth was an actual possibility.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Freddy whined, shrugging his shoulders of static. “I’m a Shade. I’m required to fix my mistakes — a trait most humans could stand to learn.”

Kane pinched his temple. “OK. Sure. You said you’re the reason I’m down here, and now you want to rectify it. I’ll act like I believe you for now. What I’d like to know, at least, is if I’m dead. And if so, how.”

At that, Freddy guffawed.

While the creature’s speech could at least be compared to that of a human, its laughter was something else entirely: unmistakably demonic.

“Ooh, wow. OK, yeah, all of you guys are dead. But I am not going to tell you how you died, because I know you will not like it. Ha, yikes.”

Just how bad had it been?

Freddy sighed, faking the action of looking at a wristwatch. “Our time is running short, boy. I’ve already kept you here too long. Any last questions before you return to the cruel land of the living dead?”

Fuck. Kane hadn’t taken the time to come up with questions that were unrelated to the map and their destination when he was still awake. He stopped short of asking the beast what he wanted: total power, the ship for himself, or Kane’s soul. Because one question came to mind faster than any other.

“Who was Isabella to me?”

The Shade nodded, as if this question had been well-expected. “Of course. Isabella is… was… well, it’s debatable — she was your girlfriend. You were her boyfriend. Wouldn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

Kane’s breath caught for a moment, and for the twentieth time, he felt the weight of that loss — but this time, with all the certainty of it.

“What surprises me is that you’re so attached to this person, all based on a photo? Really? I thought your head had been scrubbed clean. But memories don’t dislodge from the soul that easy. They always remember something; it never quite becomes a blank slate.” He’d said that last part as if it were a failing of a system he couldn’t control.

Kane pressed his palms to his knees, processing, while Freddy went on. “I wanted to give you more information, but it seems that every time I see you, you want to hash out some power dynamic or waste time trying to kill yourself. Quite frankly, you’re being just as unpleasant as everyone else on that husk of wood there with you. Maybe tomorrow, you’ll find yourself in direr straits and more willing to work together more quickly.

“And no, Kane, I don’t want your soul.

“I already have it.”