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He must have lost time, again. But for how long?

The landscape was familiar. There was a forest in the distance, black branches stretching up high to the greying sky. It was quiet and still in equal measure, and he was cold.

Kostya looked at her, at the nothingness she wore like a second skin, an invisibility cloak of the mundane.

"I have done everything that has been requested. Vhat do you mean?"

(But he knows, that he has questioned the path he'd wandered down, swathed in blood. He knows he is not alone in his head. But who's in there with him?)

Too long, he knew. Too long. He'd grown comfortable: time lost-- but minimal, nightmares-- but manageable, cruelty-- kept in check.

Kostya looked at her, and how the snow seemed to elude them both, flurries slowly sinking to the ground.

"How did you know?" he asked, but before the words had hit the air, Kostya realised that he already knew the answer. It was like the edges of his memories had blurred, just enough to let the contents of the dreams rise to the surface-- and what had caused them.

The throne in Room B069 felt an awful lot like the one that had forced him to bend the knee.

Jane looked at him with empty eyes. It was like there was nothing beyond them: dark pits and nothing else, a body that was more husk than person.

"Vere they more than dreams? Vhat I saw?"

A world where there was nothing but ruin and subjugation.

A world where he was the one at the top.

(Within you, there has always been the capacity for unkindness. How far does it go?)

A worrying thought, indeed.

"If I do not visit again," Kostya said, careful, each syllable enunciated with care, "does it mean they do not happen? Or just that I vill not play a part vhen they do."

He felt, vaguely, as though he were playing a game of chess, against an opponent with nothing but queens.

"I have done vhat is require, vhen I am told."

Kostya was playing a dangerous game: trying to stand upon the beam and have both the darkness and the light. It would be time for a decision, soon.

It was so much easier, when the power was not so close that he could taste it. It was so much easier to ignore the thirst he had for vengeance in the light of day, surrounded by the one he loved, and the hope of a future that was more than piecemeal.

It was not reassuring in the slightest.

"Vhat is my place?"

He woke up, and did not open his eyes. Instead, Kostya just curled his (cold, clammy) fingers around his sheets, feeling sick. Like so many before, Kostya remembered only bits and pieces of the dream, underlined with dread and expectations.

Above all else, Kostya remembered the flashes of darkness, all the more significant against a backdrop of white.

In his head, all had Syntax had to offer was a countdown timer of only variables, and a siren wailing in the distance, steadily growing louder, until it was all he could hear.