While Gabriel and Dwayne repair his bedroom, Niel speaks with Medova in the private room. His episode from last night is a concern urgent enough for her to stop by despite today being a day off. Not only is it frightening and scarring, but dissonance with reality bodes poorly with unrestrained Dust.
"What did you see before the attack?" Medova asks. "Was it anything in particular that reminded you of your past?"
Niel's memory of the night is shaky and fractured. "I... It was just the Warden's Key and the glow stick off to the side. It reminded me of the first few nights when I was given the Warden's Key," he explains.
Medova was informed that the black pendant periodically flashes white light and that it may be caused by Niel's mood souring. It had been glowing the brightest they'd ever seen during the attack last night.
"Was the Warden's Key flashing or glowing then?"
"It... Yes."
She jots down his answer in a small notebook. "And do you normally sleep with the Warden's Key?"
"Yes. Every night."
Medova is concerned for Niel, but at least it seems like the Warden's Key is the common denominator in this instance. For now, Medova imparts Niel with grounding techniques should he find himself suffering from another attack. He'll also be limiting how often he wears the Warden's Key in the dark, and thus will no longer be sleeping with it. If nothing else, one thing is certain: they'll be talking far more often from now on.
Niel is exhausted today. The attack left him too wound up and anxious to sleep last night. He wonders how far along Gabriel and Dwayne are with his room, so he prepares a scan of the area upstairs, but... stops. He's nervous about using his Dust again. The Warden's Key reads this and begins a faint flash, and Niel quickly inhales a gasp as he hides it away from his vision. Why is he so scared now? In place of his Dust, he makes his way upstairs.
He peers into the room without being seen. The furnishings in his room are shifted slightly to allow the men better access to the damaged areas on the walls. White patches of plaster dot the room to fill in the holes. Most notable is the wall surrounding his bed, which has been almost completely painted white. He ended up tearing so much material off of the wall that Mabel had to vacuum out his bed before he could try to sleep in it, otherwise, he'd be laying on a mat of paint chips and powder. He also made quite a mess of blood, and his bedsheets are in the wash for it.
On his way back downstairs, he gets curious and looks into Reed's room. Reed was the last one to get out of bed this morning—not coming downstairs until sometime after noon. Now his door is wide open and he's laying on his bed watching his phone. Niel decides to approach him, and he realizes that Reed isn't even on his phone—he's asleep. Reed hears the floor shifting through his fatigue, causing him to jolt upward as soon as Niel reaches the side of his bed.
"Oh," Reed murmurs groggily.
"Tired?"
"Yeah."
Niel can't help but feel responsible. He knows everyone is tired because of what happened last night. He sits down next to Reed and notices that there's a long cut running down his left forearm.
"How did that happen?" Niel questions regarding the cut.
"Oh, you must've cut me last night."
Responsibility. He lost control, and now he has hurt someone close to him because of it.
If eyes are the gateway to the soul, then Reed sees the guilt behind them like they're made of glass.
"Your Dust was going wild in there. Looked like a tornado. I knew what I was getting myself into by running to you, and honestly, I figured I would've gotten cut up more than I did." Reed straightens himself up so he's sitting on the same level as his friend. Their eyes meet—he wants Niel to take this to heart. "I know you've got a list of regrets. Please don't add me to it."
Niel says nothing as his gaze falls to the floor between their feet. With the air around them heavy with self-loathing, Reed decides to try lightening the mood by wrapping his arm around Niel's shoulders and brazenly pulling him in for a side hug.
"Since you're here, wanna play something?" Reed asks. Niel eventually agrees, and they spend the rest of the day drowning out their worries.
Later that evening, Niel is in the bathroom changing into his pyjamas when he feels a strange tickle in his nose. He assumes it's just his nose being runny, but a bloodied black crystal of unrefined Dust falling from his nostril tells him what the real problem is. He quickly grabs a tissue to prevent any more blood from leaking onto the floor. This is the first bit of Dust he's lost all day.
As he waits in front of the sink for the bleeding to stop, he hears footsteps walk through the hall toward his room. He isn't sure who that was, but they haven't come back yet. Curiosity is killing him. He wants to scan the area to find out, but he's still afraid of using his Dust. Fighting through apprehension, he clenches his non-dominate fist and releases an invisible smog to remotely survey his room. There is someone in there, and that someone is Illia sitting on his bed. What is she doing?
At first, she's just sitting there looking forward, but then something strange happens. A signature, more defined than his Dust, but not dissimilar. It's potent—a larger blip on his internal radar than the Dust around her. What's more, Illia begins to look around. Niel assumes this is just a coincidence and that she's just looking at the patchwork walls, but then she surveys her arms and body and gets up to peer down the hallway toward the bathroom. Can she... see his Dust? No, she can't—it's veiled too thinly. He can't even see it with his naked eye, and he knows it's there. So then, what's going on?
Niel continues to get ready for bed as he waits for his nose to stop bleeding. All the while, he's thinking about Illia's actions. No matter what angle he approaches this from, all he can come up with are logical explanations and coincidences. He could have accidentally made the Dust particles bigger than normal so she felt it on her arms, he could have moved something in his room on accident and gave her an audio cue on what he was doing (which would explain the signature), or maybe she was just uncomfortable in his room after last night and was checking to see if he was leaving the bathroom. After how wound up he's been today, he convinces himself that he's just overthinking things. Illia is waiting for him, so after making sure his nose is no longer bleeding, he leaves the bathroom and meets with her.
"I thought I heard someone walk past the door," Niel says when he lays eyes on Illia, feigning ignorance to the fact that he already knew she was here. Illia tilts her head in contemplation but brushes off whatever thought she had. She raises the phone in her hand so Niel can read the message written in it.
'How have you been feeling today?'
Afraid. Anxious. Self-loathful.
"Alright, I suppose."
Why did he respond with that? He was in the middle of organizing an answer, and yet, his mouth chose a lie on its own. Worst yet, he can't bring himself to take back the lie and tell her how he really feels. Illia appears to be somewhat skeptical, making Niel want to correct himself more—but then her expression softens with belief, and now it truly feels too late to talk.
'Come talk to me wherever you need to, even if you have to wake me up. Lydia says I'm a good listener.'
"Okay. I will."
With her business concluded, Illia gives Niel a gentle pat on the head and returns to her room, leaving Niel to contemplate alone in his. Both of his responses were knee-jerk reactions and held little to no truth in them. So why did he say what he did? He hasn't been feeling well today. With the lights off, he closes his eyes to think. His feelings... There's something there that's familiar. Either he became numb to it and forgot, or the home has done well to change it. The teachings of the lab, reflected back at him from Illia's terrified eyes.
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How he feels doesn't matter.
A white flash permeates through his eyelids. It's the Warden's Key, and his heart skips a beat. He hastily rips it off of his neck, throws it to the foot of his bed, and fearfully grips his bedsheets. That flashing led to what happened last night. He doesn't want to suffer another attack. He doesn't want to lose control again. Heat builds up in his core as his breathing and heart rate quicken. His face and hands begin to tingle. Not again. Not again.
Light footsteps travel swiftly down the hall toward him. Is this another illusion from his mind? What is it going to make him see in the dark? The knob turns and the door opens, and it's revealed to be Illia again, phone's flashlight aglow in her hand. The light reveals that another black haze has formed around Niel, so she flicks on the light switch and approaches him with speed.
Illia kneels on his bed in front of him and motions for him to follow her pattern of breathing. She inhales, he inhales. She holds her breath, he holds his breath. She exhales, he exhales. She holds her breath, he holds his breath. They start at two-second intervals for each stage and work from there, eventually slowing down to four. Niel remembers that this box breathing technique is something that Medova taught him today. With his breathing brought back into his control, the pair sit in silence as Niel rides out the rest of his panic attack.
After a few minutes, Illia caresses his cheek with a soft hand—her way of asking if he's alright now.
"I think I'm okay now..." he responds. His heart still beats sharply and the tingling in his hands and face persist, but they aren't as strong now. She stays with him a minute longer just to make sure, and once she's convinced he'll be okay without her, she returns to her room for good.
With the Warden's Key placed away from him and Illia gone, Niel lies down to try and relax. It's fortunate that Illia appeared when she did, but how did she know? Did he alert her by making noise? She's gone now, so he'll have to wait until tomorrow if he's going to ask. The summer heat is making the bed too hot, so he kicks off a few covers and rolls onto his other side. Illia lingers on his mind for the rest of the night.
>>>>>>
Niel checks the clock when he wakes. It's past 11 am—long after he normally rises. He feels cold now, so he puts on his pyjama shirt and pants long dried of nightly sweat and covers himself in all of his bedsheets. The bed feels much more comfortable now than when he was tossing and turning late last night. For the first time, he doesn't want to get out of bed. Instead, he just lazes on his stomach while drifting in and out of sleep, time be damned. This continues until Lydia bangs on his room door before opening it.
"You're still in bed?" she questions, puzzled. Niel looks up at her with glazed eyes, so she crosses the room to throw open the curtains. "Come on. Poppy's getting ready to leave and Mabel and Gabriel want to paint the room."
As she crosses the room again to leave, she brushes her hand comfortingly over Niel's head—a way of showing that, despite her tone, she does care about him. Niel gets ready for the day after this wake-up call, and after extensive internal deliberation, decides to take the Warden's Key. Reed also ended up sleeping in late, so the pair eat their late breakfast together.
"Rare for you to sleep in like that," Reed comments. "Something happen last night?"
Niel doesn't need his Dust to know that Illia is watching him from afar. "I just had trouble sleeping. It was warm last night."
"Yeah, makes sense. It probably doesn't help that you're on the third floor as well."
Illia notes how Niel is being secretive. She plans to talk to him about it sometime after breakfast, but he ends up approaching her first as soon as he finishes eating.
"About last night," he begins. His voice is restrained to avoid being overheard. "How did you know what was going on?"
Niel doesn't know this, but Illia's heart skips a beat upon being asked this. She quickly brings out her phone and hastily types in her reply. 'I just felt like I should check on you again. I'm glad I did.'
"I'm glad you did, too. Thank you."
Illia nods and types another reply. 'You should bring it up with Medova. It would be important for her to know.'
Niel hadn't thought of this. "It... probably would be."
Their conversation dies out there, and with Illia appearing to pull away, Niel decides to break it off entirely so he can survey what their guardians are doing to his room upstairs. However, he misread Illia's body language entirely. She was building up the courage to ask him why he hid the panic attack from last night, and with him gone now, she's left standing in place feeling wistful that she didn't act to stop him sooner.
Mabel and Gabriel are still in the middle of painting his room, using handheld rollers to colour the white plaster a glistening blue. Old bedsheets are draped protectively over the furnishings and across the floor to catch any paint that may fall. While the open window carries most of it away, Niel notes that the smell of fresh paint, though strange, is not entirely unpleasant.
"How are you feeling today, Niel?" Gabriel asks as soon as he notices the boy peering in from the doorway. Niel steps in now that he's been found, careful of disturbing their equipment. The summer sunlight beaming through the window casts a deep shadow behind him.
"I'm fine," he says morosely.
Both guardians immediately notice the tone of his voice. "Are you sure? It sounds like you have something on your mind."
"Is it about that night?" Mabel questions.
Niel shakes his head.
"It's important to tell us how you feel, Niel," Gabriel tries to say compassionately, but it doesn't come across as well as he meant it to. Because of this, instead of him opening up, Niel retreats further into his shell. The Warden's Key shimmers in kind. Understanding this, Mabel whispers something to her husband before approaching Niel and wrapping her arms around him in a hug.
"We don't want you to bottle up your feelings because it'll only make you feel worse. When you're ready to talk, come find one of us. We'll listen to you," she says in his ear. He nods sullenly and quietly slinks out of the room, leaving the two guardians their own shades of melancholy.
>>>>>>
"We've got an announcement for you four," Gabriel states when everyone is sitting around the dinner table.
"It's about volunteer work, isn't it?" Reed presumes.
"Yeah, you guys are starting this Friday," Mabel confirms.
"Knew it."
Volunteer work? Oh, Niel remembers how Dwayne's wife told him they would be volunteering at the hospital. This must be it, then.
Illia tilts her head in confusion, and Reed takes this as an opportunity to explain to the new kids.
"Every year, we volunteer at the hospital for three or four weeks doing a lot of the menial tasks the regular staff is too busy to do. We could be, like, changing bedsheets, checking on patients, taking calls, sorting mail and stock—basically anything the staff needs help with, we help with," Reed explains.
"Specifically, you'll work each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from eleven to four. So that'll be... the fifth through to the twenty-sixth. Fifty hours of work in total," Mabel elaborates.
"This'll be good work experience for you two," Gabriel adds, addressing Illia and Niel. "It also looks great on a résumé."
Niel doesn't know what a résumé is, but it must be important if Gabriel is making note of it. He's apprehensive about this revelation due to how new and unknown it is to him, and his sentiment is echoed in Illia as well. Their feelings are plain to see to everyone around them—from their being in the pair's position before, and from them helping and being helped by the previous children of the home.
"You guys won't be going in blind," Reed reassures. "Me and Lydia have already worked there before, and the nurses will show you everything you need to know. You won't be thrown in the deep end and left to figure things out yourself."
Hearing this eases the pair's spirits—maybe things will be okay for them.
Later that night, Niel is in bed reading on his phone about the technical malfunction that caused the blackout from two nights prior when he hears footsteps climb the stairs. The source turns out to be an odd one: Gabriel. The father figure cautiously opens the door to his room, and when he sees that Niel isn't asleep, he steps inside. Both of their demeanours carry a wariness not seen in the daylight.
"Are you doing okay?" Gabriel asks. He knows he already asked a similar question earlier today, but he isn't sure how else to break the ice.
"Yeah," Niel responds in kind.
Gabriel takes a knee next to Niel's bed, and for a moment, he's reminded of that horrible night. The tone of Niel's voice isn't as mournful as it was earlier, but it's enough to tell Gabriel that something still weighs on his mind.
"That night is bothering you, isn't it?"
Niel looks down at his lap. The Warden's Key lays dormant on his nightstand. "I lost control."
"...Niel, what happened wasn't your fau—"
"I CAN'T lose control." Strong emotion ripples in Niel's voice as he hugs his knees. "I hurt Reed that night. What would've happened if I lashed out more? Or if it happened somewhere crowded? It's so easy for me to take a life. I don't want to hurt you guys. I don't want to kill anyone..."
Gabriel finds a hint of something very worrying within Niel's fear-filled words: experience. While those newly awakened to their Mutes may fear hurting others accidentally in an unforeseen outburst, Niel's anxiety goes well above that. And the comment about how easily he can take a life makes Gabriel think that this kind of accident has happened in the past. No... if the lab trained him to be a weapon, then it likely wasn't an accident.
"Your control over your Dust is a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for," Gabriel comforts as he places a hand on Niel's shoulder. "That night was a freak accident. There was no way to predict it. Yet, you still controlled your Dust enough so that the only injury that happened was a single scratch. And even then, you were hurt the most, and you're still beating yourself up for it."
"But what about the next time? What if it gets wors—"
A loud pop and a bright flash permeate through the curtains, causing the pair to instinctively look over. Celebratory fireworks for the First of July dazzle the night sky.
Gabriel redirects his attention back to Niel. "You'll have grown even more by then, and you'll be ready for it."
Grow to understand. Grow to redeem. Grow to be ready. The fireworks whistle and bang and sizzle outside, and Niel can smell the fresh paint on the walls. He can't see it, but the others are watching the fireworks, too.