As Rex woke up, he saw blurry images, or more specifically, two blurry images moving around. He had a headache that felt like a train crashing into him, and his vision did not, in the slightest, help at all. If anyone were to ask him how he was doing, he'd either be really sarcastic or straight out burst.

"Are you okay?" Lisandra shone a torch in his eyes. It irritated him to squint, so he brushed her torch away and tried standing up straight, despite still feeling nauseous.

"I'm fine. Fine!" He threw both his hands up. Originally, he intended to let everything out in one fell swoop, but seeing as Lisandra wore a worried expression, his heart immediately softened and the heat rushing through his head subsided. "I'm fine..." he muttered through an unsteady wobble.

"Gargh, you should've just listened to me just now, and I wouldn't have had to knock you out then!" Citrix spat on the ground, which immediately swallowed whatever moisture it could get its sand on.

"And you should've knocked him out lightly, not with the strength equal to an elephant's stomp!" Lisandra argued, "you could've put him in some serious damage with that stunt."

A look of surprise dawned on Citrix's face before being replaced by one with playful anger. "And you should've just brought your taser. It would've been a whole lot easier if not for your forgetfulness!" There was a hint of mockery in his final wording.

With that, the both of them officially got serious into arguing with each other. Caught up in the arguments, Rex felt like it was better to leave the two to settle it before actually having them to answer his questions that suddenly came in waves. Besides, the content of their arguements were getting more and more personal the more they progressed. It made him feel like a third wheel, even violating the bro code that he was so fond of. Awkward now, he tried slipping past them, but to no avail.

"Well, your ti- Hold on, where 'ya going?" Citrix, who looked like he was having loads of fun from the arguments just now, had his gaze locked onto Rex. By now, his head was clear enough to move without falling, though this meant his fear had been restored as well. The look he received -from eyebrows to nose and mouth- was one of the fiercer ones he had ever seen in his life, if not the fiercest. He had no doubt it could even tame a lion or tiger.

Stuck, he swallowed his saliva in hopes of lessening his nervousness, but the act was caught red handed by Citrix, who narrowed his eyes, emitting a piercing gaze that was sure to bore a hole through a boulder. Lisandra, finally noticing the distress he was in, intercepted and tried rescuing him. "Citrix... Calm..." She went over to Citrix, who clutched at her protectively before relaxing his gaze and hugging Lisandra fully. Then, he started crying.

"I..." Citrix sobbed as he hugged Lisandra tighter, but Rex doubted whether Lisandra felt Citrix's grip at all, for she continued patting his back while whispering calming words even though she was almost half of Citrix's height. "There there... Everything's alright..." Lisandra shooed Rex away, which he was happy to do seeing as it was the only way to get out of the awkward situation.

There was only a single door to his right, and a table, with two chairs tucked in, was positioned against a wall, just opposite the bed's side, which he was standing at. Rex went over to the door as silently as he could so not to disturb the pair, but after seeing his first few steps echoing crunching noises and not even disrupting the mood the two had created, he just went on walking normally.

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As he went out into a dark landscape, he heard the few dialogues that managed to enter his ears before being shut out by the door.

"I can't do this anymore... I'm being consumed by it."

"You can do it. Fight it, like you always do with things you don't like."

"You don't understand, it's... it's... alive in me..."

"Trust me, you can do it. I believe in you, and we'll always be together to face it..."

"Promise...?"

"Promise."

Then their conversation was out of reach, only unrecognizable murmurs passing through, amounting to nothing worth listening to. Rex looked at the supposed sky that was devoid of all stars on one side, but filled like glitter on the other. It was like a border was made to filter all the stars to one side, while the other was left empty, nothing to house or hold, only cold, dark spaces devoid of all that feels warm.

He thought about what he heard as he decided to take a walk. The consuming part intrigued him, but it also made him fear... unknowingly. There was no logical reason as to why he should fear the thing they mentioned, but it just existed. Different from the usual not knowing, this feeling felt alive somehow, waiting to be manifested in a single, solid form, waiting for the day where it could escape it's unreal prison instead of just watching from the boundaries. He felt cold just thinking about the feeling, and that was when he made the decision that the feeling was bad, not just ordinary bad, but very bad.

As he walked on, unconsciously putting his hands into his pockets, he heard something coming from above. Looking up, he saw nothing but the border between nothingness and stars, yet the boom! sound still reached his ears. His gut twisted as he listened, once... twice... thrice... and when the forth round came, he could hear it even louder and scarier than before.

With nothing else that could be done but to disturb and report about it to Lisandra and Citrix, Rex went back to where he came from. As he opened the door, both individuals had already ended their private session and instead, started arming themselves with futuristic guns and grenades which were stocked under the bed and in the wall by the table. Lisandra wore a modernistic belt that had nothing but uniformly spaced strips on it while Citrix looked more soldier-like, with a futuristic shotgun and assault rifle strapped to his back and grenade launchers hung casually to both sides of his belt. There were several white and black grenades, which made him look both futuristic and old styled.

"What's happening?" Of course, since this was the first time Rex had ever experienced such an event, that's the first question he would ask.

"Found,"

"War,"

Lisandra and Citrix looked each other before breaking into a grin each. "Can't help it, my favourite adopted daughter is just too cute in terms of sugar coating this kind of truth," Citrix reloaded his guns before searching for something else under the bed.

"I thought I told you never to speak of that to anyone!" Lisandra flushed. Her face was red like a poppy when Citrix smiled widely and shouted 'found it!'. He pulled out a pair of glove and shoes before wearing them, and after satisfied with how tightly they were strapped against him, he stood and walked out the door. Now that nobody was speaking, Rex noticed the strange tranquility that befell them.

"You noticed it too, huh?" Citrix asked no one in particular as he narrowed his eyes and walked out farther to take a look at the sky. As Rex, too, looked up, he was surprised to see nothing in the sky. The stars he saw just now was covered with darkness, and as if it never existed, the border, too, was gone.

Suddenly, Citrix cackled madly, before announcing his final words and marching into the dark plain.

"We've been busted, Lisandra. Victor's here to get us home."