What Have U Done?

But just as still as he is how she lay, her breathing light as it warmed the crook of his neck from where her face was nuzzled. And she'd been like that for some time, just as long as he had been there lying still. And it was only as he shift to move to his side then, reaching both his arms around her, to hold her as if to take her into himself, that he felt it. And it was with the hand that he was going to wrap around her from above that he used, instead, to reach beneath his side, pulling from beneath him the demonic horns of his costume, laughing quietly to himself as he discarded them to the floor along with the other articles of both his and her forgotten costumes. "The party," he said aloud to himself, though quiet enough to keep from disturbing the sleeping Liric, remembering the festivities and the friends he'd left behind. He'd forgotten all about them just as soon as he'd come through the door, the all of them not even a distant memory once his eyes had fallen upon Liric in the dark.

Liric...

If only they all knew, if they could see her, touch her, know that she was here and just as real as she ever was. As if—as if that terrible occurrence had never happened at all. No, it hadn't, he was sure of that now, all of the memories that Ryan thought that he'd had, the pain that he'd felt, the grief, the suffering, his seemingly endless time spent mourning her loss—All of that meant nothing now, all of it a fleeting nightmare that he'd finally come to wake from. And they would wake from it too, all of them. Things were finally as they should be again. Nothing at all had changed.

But it was as Ryan began to turn again, to drape his arm over the form of the sleeping beauty that his tranquil disposition was suddenly disrupted and his lazy haze dissolved. It was a sound that was frightfully familiar to his every sense, and yet, just the same it made his every hair stand on end. The sound of a door being pushed open in a distance which didn't sit too far off from where the two of them lay at rest. And footsteps, soft as they might have been against the bare floor of the entryway, they rang deafeningly loud and clear between Ryan's ears, nearly drowning out Liric's words as they continued to echo on and on in his head, filling his mind with such noise--!

Promise me that you'll never let go of me... Over and over he could hear her words. And with his mind he pushed them forward, drowning out the sound of the footsteps as he was careful in the way that he'd begun to raise from the bed. Keeping his eyes to the door, Ryan crouched to reach for his pants, slipping into them with timid ease and fastening them with shaking hands. It was only to steal one last look to Liric that he dared to look away from that doorway, the only way in for whoever it was out there. So peaceful was how she looked as he started around the foot of the bed and made his way towards the door, taking careful, easy steps. Now was not the time to rush thing, he had to be careful—and quiet. He'd come too far, after all, to loose his Liric again, and he wouldn't loose her, not to anyone or any thing.

Keeping his back to the wall, Ryan started his way down the hallway, still unable to see whoever it was who'd come in. A fleeting wisp of black was all that he could see as it flickered around the corner that hid the door from his sights; and he stopped, holding his breath in his lungs as he stood there silent and still as he could manage. The were closing the door behind them, now, keeping their whit's about them—whoever they were—to close the door without making so much as a sound. And it was while their back was to him that he made his quiet approach, closing in the space between him until finally they turned to face him. A dark figure cloaked in black, their face shaded from his sights, only the most faint of shines as he could see reflecting in their eyes, large as they were captured in the light.

Not for anything in the world, Liric's voice echoed on in Ryan's head as his breaths began to increase again with panic or frustration. Whoever this was that stood there before him, Ryan was sure that they were here, come for Liric. To take her back to from wherever it was she had been kept for so very long, away from home, from friends—from him. "And I can't do it!" he yelled as he reached out for the dark, hooded stranger, his finger wrapping about their throat as he lift them up and threw them back against the door. He could hear the forced gasp that had escaped them upon impact, the dark and bat-like wings that came from their back crushed from the weight of their being thrown. Taking a hurried step back, Ryan cleared the way as their body crumpled in a pile at his feet, motionless and shallow of breath.

"Ryan?!"

He could hear the call from behind him, her ever melodic voice gentle in the way that it rang in the hallow of his ear, despite its undertone of concern. And he swooned to simply hear it, turning slowly to glance back and over his shoulder, back towards the room in which he'd left her resting.

"Ryan, what was that?" With her costume thrown on sloppily an her short curls a tangled mess, Liric hurried down the stretch of hallway, as fast as her feet would carry her only to stop before she'd reached its end, collapsing against the wall and falling straight to the floor as her sights locked onto the one who lay in a pile at the door. Nauseous was how her stomach felt, wrenching and twisting against itself as her wide eyes rose from the collapsed figure and up to meet with Ryan's calmed and tearful gaze. "What—she gasped, determined to speak before all words escaped her. "My god, Ryan, what have you done?"

Through his nose he inhaled deeply, dropping back his head as a cold chill made its way from the room, blowing past Liric with ease and brushing across his skin, cooling him where he stood. It was so easy a situation to explain, why she couldn't see it, couldn't understand it was beyond all reason in his mind. And he laughed at that out loud, though only for a moment, just long enough for him to lift his dropped head, lowering his gaze to meet with hers; her own expression one that he couldn't seem to read. Was she smiling to him, or was she appalled? One or the other, he couldn't tell. Shaking his head he dropped to his knees, and threw himself forward where he knelt, starting towards her on all fours before stopping only a matter of inches from where she had collapsed, extending a hand to touch at her face as he struggled to read her expression. "I—," closing his eyes he laughed, needing only that moment to collect his thoughts before his expression began to contort then with an almost sinister grin across his lips, curling upwards only one corner of his lips as there gleamed in the depths of his eyes a knowing that even he couldn't seem to grasp hold of. "I did it for you, Liric," he said in as sincere a tone as he could muster. "Everything I do, I do for you." Suddenly his expression fell somber, his smile having gone just as quick as it had come, his jaw hard fixed in place as he bore his teeth and hissed, "They took you from me once, and now...I'm taking you home..."