The sky. The ocean. The wind.

The stone was cold.
The shadow of the wall caste a blanket of obscurity across the ground.
Weakness huddled under this blanket of obscurity. His back was to the stone-cold wall. Tremors ran up and down his spine and disbursed through his rigid body. Beads of sweat glistened on his clammy skin. A drop of sweat slipped down his forehead and into his eye. Stinging. The sweat froze on his body like tiny particles of ice. Cold shadows. His teeth, which he ground so tightly together, chattered. A moan slipped past them and into the air: a beaten puppies whimper.

Cylone stood in the threshold of the doorway, perfectly still. He looked into the corner of the room, and his bright eyes pierced the shadows of obscurity. Burning light slipped past him, coming from the world outside. The light stung Weakness' eyes. The sight of Cylone standing so still and calm in the doorway, as if he had always been there, sent a spasm of fear vibrating through Weakness. A cry wreathed out of his parched throat. He pressed his back into the cold stone wall until it hurt. Every muscle in his body went rigid. And froze.

Cylone stepped across the thresh hold. The door shut behind him. Shutting out the light. Everything was darkness. A thick, cold, palpable darkness. It dripped with fear.

Weakness' eyes frantically scanned the darkness, but he saw nothing. Nothing but empty blackness.
His teeth were ground together so tightly that waves of pain trickled up his jaw and through his head. He laid very still, every muscle tense, waiting...

Something cold lightly touched his chest. A hand, palm-downward.
Weakness julted at the touch, but the wall was to his back, and he could not get away from it.

"Are you still trying to escape?" asked a voice. Smooth. Calm. Airy. The sky. The ocean. The wind.

Eyes suddenly adjusted, Weakness saw the shape of Cylone, bent over him. And his face. And then the eyes in his face. And the eyes were so intense they seemed to swallow up the entire face: endless pools. Vaster than the sky. The Ocean. The Wind. The eyes were light, like laughter. And they hurt, but Weakness could not look away.

His throat was parched, but words somehow came out. They sounded like sand-paper. "I have tried to get away, but I hit the wall. And now I am alone with myself." He inhaled a raged breathe full of air as he tried to continue."I did not want this. And now you are here.... after so long. How did you know?"

Cylone ran his hand down Weakness' body. His touch was cold, but warmth came into the trail that it left. There was something in that touch. Something of the opposite of the cold, and the stone, and the fear, and the loneliness. Something.... and though Weakness did not like the touch, he found that a new sensation of life was breathed into his lungs.

"How did I know?" Cylone repeated, and something like a laugh echoed out of Cylone's throat. It was a small sorrowful laugh.
Smooth. Calm. Airy.
It vibrated through the core of Weakness' being. "But don't you know? I always know. I always watch. I always wait. Until the time is right. Until you hit the wall. Ah, and don't you know that I follow, wherever you go?"

His touch grew warmer, and his eyes grew more vast, until they had swallowed Weakness completely.
The sky. The ocean. The wind.
Consuming.
Gentle, like laughter.