> As Gacrux turns to go, a vicious fist grabs his hair at the very roots and slams him face first into the alley wall.

----------------------------------------

He's caught off guard again as he sulks past the alley right outside the cafe.

"I'm going to kill you myself again so help me god," an arm snakes around his neck unbidden.

Before he can think, he has the arm in his hands and the pressure of an adult body swivelling over his back and onto the ground with a hard thud.

The flip takes less than a second, and it takes him by surprise when he tries to look his attacker in the eye. There was nobody on the ground. His assailant had disappeared in a blink.

"What the hell," he gasps, half hoping that was the end of this weirdness.

Searching the area brings no results. Unexpectedly, there was suddenly nobody in sight all the way down the street. Even the cafe seemed to lose a few of its patrons inside. In fact, the whole world seemed to take on a blurry quality, as if he was seeing it through a smudged lens.

"Did you leave your self preservation at home or were you always this suicidal?" A voice drawls from the side.

Spinning on his heel, he is met with a completely unfamiliar figure for the first time since waking up in the Mneme.

"Silly me, what am I saying. You've always been like this," the stranger scoffs before he can respond.

Tall, dark, and handsome, is the first thought that floats his traitorous mind. The second was that the stranger in front of him was practically glowing. The alley was a narrow, poorly lit crevice, made worse by the blurry quality of the world. If the state of the alley was like looking at an oil painting, where the details got a little smudged in places with less focus, then this stranger was unquestionably the subject of the composition. A person who was vivid with detail. And irritatingly unruffled from his physical retaliation as if it hadn't happened at all.

He takes in wispy dyed hair, dark skin hidden behind a devastatingly well fitted leather jacket, badly scuffed platform boots that could (and likely did, multiple times) kick someone's teeth in. Takes in tense shoulders, a neutral expression that he couldn't trust considering the unwelcome greeting earlier, fingers clenched in two tight fists at the side, and decides to err on the side of caution for the first time that day.

"Excuse me?" Is just about the most polite reaction he had on the dialogue wheel.

"Don't play games Mimi, you're supposed to be recovering. At the hospital. Which, last I checked, is at least an hour's walk away!" The stranger snapped.

It clicks. This had to be Amice's memory.

Despite his rising annoyance, he feels a tiny spark of envy for his old companion. Mortifying. Refusing to resign himself to a nagging intended for someone else, he tries to dissuade the stranger from a further tirade.

"Save your breath, I don't even know you. I'll send Amice your way if I see her, though," he tries.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The stranger frowns. "What did you say?"

He takes a step away, putting distance between himself and the stranger. "Look I know you're a memory and you can't help it but god can you at least pick the right target? I've had a long day."

As Gacrux turns to go, a vicious fist grabs his hair at the very roots and slams him face first into the alley wall.

"Th'fuck!" He spits into the concrete.

"Who are you and how did you find us?"

"Fuck y-" The stranger acted quickly. Pressure on his shoulder turned into blinding pain before he could complete a breath. Pop. His mind scatters.

"How do you know Amice?" The stranger demands over the white noise in his head.

There was no way this was part of the memory. He couldn't think. The side of his face was molten hot where it chafes against the wall. He smelled metal in the air like smoke. His ears rang and rang and there were too many people screaming-

-Someone stumbles over his sprawled legs. A foot comes down hard over his arm. He is bleeding on the road and there is bone and blood and a slugger in his mouth and he cannot breathe. He is dying and he can't breathe-Wait. He grasps for the frayed strings of consciousness. This cannot be right.

Reality re-asserts itself. Tilts itself in his favour.

The pain above his neck lessens, barely clearing his head enough to notice the distortions around him. What had once been a smooth concrete wall was now rough asphalt running perpendicular to the alley's floor and stretching endlessly upwards.

The very concept of gravity itself seemed confused. If he wasn't already lightheaded from the attack, he would have been fraught with vertigo, unable to make heads or tails of up and down. Street lights and buildings sat along the 'wall' at ninety degrees. Blood pooled under his head, stagnant when it should be dripping down to his feet. He should be upright against a wall but he is simultaneously horizontal, flat against the ground. The stranger presses him into the asphalt, holding his arm at an angle he can't think too hard about, seemingly unfazed by the change in environment.

"Let's try again," the stranger glowers, "I'll even make it easy. Just breathe if the psychic sent you."

Eyes wide and eating dirt, Gacrux had a sinking suspicion that he might just die all over again if he kept quiet.

"No! Shit, you came up to me first. I don't even know you," he spat.

"Wrong answer," the stranger shifts, puts more pressure on his already dislocated shoulder. Here's a fun internet rumour that once went viral at his school: it takes the same amount of force to bite through a human finger as it takes to bite a raw carrot.

If only carrots could scream.

His voice is hoarse by the time the stranger speaks again, body hot and cold and disoriented all at once.

"What do you want with my Amice?"

He's so sick of that name it makes him physically ill. Or maybe it's the nausea from the literal violent interrogation. Something stubborn and aggressively petty makes itself known in the space between agony. Fuck this guy. He'd rather be choking on the bullet.

As soon as he thinks that, the alley floor vanishes under his feet. Gravity pushes horizontally. His body goes slack against the asphalt.

"What-" the stranger grunts.

Gacrux looks over his uninjured shoulder.

The alley was physically drifting away from the asphalt 'wall', taking the stranger with it. Unexpectedly, the stranger makes no move to chase after him, instead choosing to glare at his surroundings in bewilderment.

Mindful of his injury, he turns just enough to flash a finger at the stranger as the distance grows.

And with that, the stranger fades away and Gacrux is once again right where he started, left lying in a pool of blood in the middle of a major road crossing.

He cusses.