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The turning of the clock is the only indication that the final day had come upon them all. The night continues to stretch on into infinity, like this island's last attempt to cause further strife to the eggs and their parents.
Phil is standing guard again while Chayanne sleeps. It's a terrible habit he's picked up since the first nightmare. Even knowing that his egg is sound asleep in an impenetrable fortress he built, Phil doesn't feel like he can rest easy, especially tonight of all nights. There's no telling who or what is coming for his egg, but Phil knows that he'll fight tooth and nail to keep them away from Chayanne.
A shadow sweeps by out of the corner of his eye, startling Phil enough to reach for his bow before he realizes who's climbed onto the wall. It's only Missa, practically camouflaged as one of those beefed-up mobs on the ground with his skull mask and dark cloak. The rippling fabric draws Phil's eyes as his partner walks closer, a hypnotic shade of black so deep that it almost reminds Phil of the Void itself.
With the hood pulled up over Missa's face, shadows completely consume the half of his face that isn't covered by the skull. Phil can't make out any of Missa's expressions, but his shoulders do relax slightly when he hears the teasing warmth in his partner's voice. "No monsters, yet, right?"
"No," Phil admits, lifting one shoulder in a tense shrug. "Doesn't mean that they couldn't show up any moment though, right? I mean, the island admins spoke with a lot of certainty, and they've kidnapped our eggs once before. Wouldn't put it past them to try it again."
Missa nods in silent agreement. His cloak seems longer than Phil remembers it being, completely consuming the rest of his clothes and spilling out around his feet like a puddle of spilled ink. "It isn't going to be nighttime for much longer, Philza. Pronto será el amanecer."
Phil looks up to the sky, frowning when he finds the moon still hanging high in the same static position it had been for too many hours. "How do you know it's going to be morning soon?" he challenges. "Moon hasn't fuckin' moved in a minute."
Light laughter reaches his ears. Phil is starting to wish that he could see Missa's face, and wondering if the perpetual night has done something to cause this new look. "Yeah, it's weird, right? Do you think the island has something to do with it?"
Phil looks away from the stars, much preferring to look at the skull mask and the face he cannot see behind it. "Yeah, I mean, probably. I was just saying that it was probably something like that."
"Then we need to bring everybody together." Missa decides aloud before Phil is even done speaking. Their voices trip over each other, it leaves Phil staring in bewilderment at this sudden announcement.
"What for?"
Now it was Missa's turn to shrug one shoulder. "Like you said, if it is this island, then we'll have better luck fighting them together than all apart."
Phil can't quite argue with that logic. "But how are you going to get all of them to come here, and at this time of night? Or, day, I guess."
He can't tell if the cloak is muffling Missa's voice, or if he's quiet for another reason. "You should bring Tallulah here, so she can be safe too. While everyone else gathers.
Again, Phil doesn't see a reason to argue with that. "Alright. Keep an eye on Chayanne until I get back."
Missa places a hand on his heart, a pledge of protection. "Of course. I will keep a close watch on hijo mio."
The weight on Phil's shoulders feels so much lighter hearing those words. He hadn't even realized how tired he had been from parenting both eggs until Missa had returned and began sharing the workload with him again. "Right," he agrees, though his steps are still reluctant as he approaches the waystone. His skin is still crawling with uncertainty, looking in every dark corner for a mob or something worse.
But there's nothing dangerous here. Only Chayanne, the pets, and of course, Missa. And Missa isn't even all that dangerous, even with the swirling cloak and the scythe in his outstretched hand.
Phil blinks, registering the scythe for the first time that evening. He opens his mouth to ask Missa where he had gotten that weapon, but his hand is already on the waystone, whisking him away before he gets the chance.
Tallulah's tower is almost completely locked down, but it doesn't take much effort to scale up to the balcony and enter through that way. Wilbur's egg is still fast asleep, so Phil is extra gentle as he picks her up, wrapping her tight in a blanket so she doesn't fall.
Leaving the tower, the rough movements of Phil's descent do cause her to wake with a sudden startled sound, following by panicked breathing that Phil is quick to quiet.
"It's just me," he soothes, pulling back so Tallulah can see his face. "I'm sorry to wake you, Tallulah, but we're, ah, we're having a surprise sleepover at my place tonight, alright? Just in case something happens."
It's clear that Tallulah is still half-asleep, and is barely comprehending any of what Phil is saying. But when she sees his face, her little body relaxes in Phil's arms again, fingers curling around his arm as the two of them touch the waystone and return to the top of the wall.
Within minutes of touching down on the grass, Tallulah is lifted out of Phil's arms. The after-effects of teleportation leave Phil's vision swirling for a few more seconds, and when he realizes that it's Missa's skeletal hands that are wrapping around Tallulah's blanket, Phil relaxes and lets the teleportation wear off naturally. Missa's got her. Missa is taking her inside Chayanne's house, where the rest of the eggs are sitting. And all of the parents are standing outside.
Phil shakes his head to clear the last of the nausea, registering the situation before him in perfect unsettling clarity. All of the parents are standing silent, some of them wringing uneasy hands together, others pacing back and forth.
"What's going on?" Phil asks, catching Bad's narrowed eyes before turning back to the house.
"Why don't you ask your husband, Phil?" Fit says darkly. A vein is popped along the curve of his clenched jaw all the way up to his temple, a line of tension that continues down to his clenched fists. "He's the one who has all of our children, after all."
"Missa?" Frowning, Phil approaches the door. Some of the parents follow him, spreading out around the sides of the house to similarly get a better glimpse. Through the window, Phil can see all of the kids, his own included, sitting on the ground in front of Missa, who has his back turned to the front door. Missa's cloak, which previously Phil thought had only been a trick of the night, now stands out as a piece of the Void itself, spilling out from all sides of him onto the ground. From the center of his back sprout two skeletal wings, extended to curve in front of the windows on either side of the door like an additional barrier. Phil reaches for the door, opens his mouth to ask what's going on, but is stopped by two things.
First, Chayanne's small voice, brave but wavering, reaching out for his fathers hand and asking, "Will it hurt?"
Second, Phil's fingers tugging on the handle of the door he designed, only for it to stay firmly locked on him.
"Only for a little bit," Phil hears Missa reply. His heart drops to his gut as he recalls the scythe he had seen. The wings. The Void-cloak. All of it, connecting together into one horrible picture that has Phil immediately shouting his partner's name.
"Missa!"
"Phil, what's wrong?" Fit asks from beside him, voice tense with fear. Jaiden stands at his other side, looking similarly distressed. Phil doesn't know how to answer them. He doesn't want to give them the answer he knows is true.
"It's locked!" is what he shouts instead, because that part is also true. He can hear Missa talking in his softest voice to the kids again, but Phil can't make out his words over his own rising panic. He tugs on the door again, but it doesn't budge. "Open the door, Missa!"
Phil's fingers fumble on the keypad as he types in the access code. Even if Missa changed the allow list, he should still be able to get in this way. He programmed the door, after all. He needs to get in, before Missa completes the mission he was sent here to do.
The code blares an error at him. Phil stays locked out.
The other parents have begun to join in on his shouting. They call to their kids, they begin to take pickaxes to the house and Phil doesn't shout at them for it, because he knows it's futile. He built this house from the ground up as an impenetrable fortress, and now it's becoming the undoing of all of their kids.
Panic squeezes at his lungs, tearing more words from his throat. "Open the door!" he shouts again, slamming his fist on it. "Don't you fucking dare!"
"What's he doing?" Jaiden cries out. Beside her, Roier clutches bleeding knuckles he gained from trying to punch his way into the house. "Phil, what's he doing?"
"He's taking the kids," Phil breathes, every word only increasing the nausea in his gut. "He's the one who's taking them, oh, fuck!"
"Okay, well, open the door then!" Fit shouts at him.
"I can't! He's locked me, out, he's— Missa! Missa, let me in, don't do this."
Even though Phil can make out what Missa and the eggs are saying, it's like his words and the cries from all the other parents are falling on deaf ears. Their kids aren't even looking at them, they're all fully enraptured by the call of the Void. The call that could only ever come from Her.
"But you'll look after Papa?" he hears Chayanne ask. His son's voice sounds even quieter now. It sounds like they're already fading away.
Phil slams both fists on the door again, right behind Missa's head. The reaper doesn't flinch. "Please!" he cries. His throat burns, his eyes sting, and he tries to scream, but his voice only breaks. "Oh, God— not you— not like this."
"Así es," Missa agrees gently, as though Phil hadn't spoken. He speaks so tenderly, even when promising the worst. "Even though he won't want me to."
The cries of the other parents become a deafening roar in Phil's ears. He looks up at the stars, begging for a sign from the one he loves, but She is not there for him. Not this time. There is no one he can pray to or reach that will stop this.
He doesn't watch as it happens. Some of the parents do, some of them scream or curse or beat their knuckles bloody on the reinforced glass, but Phil can only stare numbly at the locked door until Missa opens it again.
Skeletal hands grip his arms before Phil can raise his sword. Phil wants to fight back with every inch of his furious being, but he's frozen in anguish as he gets a glimpse of the now-empty house before the door shuts behind him. "You motherfucker!" he shouts, his voice ringing out across the silent roof. Head twitching to the right, Phil's heartbeat begins to race. The roof is empty now. Had the parents been taken, too? Was it only him alone, again?
"Please understand, Phil," Missa pleads. "I know you understand why I had to do this."
"No I don't!" Phil shouts back, even though he knows exactly. "I don't understand, Missa, how could you do that to those eggs? To our egg?"
"They're with their friends now. I made sure it didn't hurt for very long."
"I don't care how long it did or didn't hurt, you shouldn't have done that to begin with!" Phil roars.
Missa continues, insistent. "They're safe with Her now. Surely even you can't object to that. You know what it means when She calls for them."
For the first time, Phil falters, unintentionally sinking into Missa's arms. There's nothing he can say to that that wouldn't be rejecting his goddess and Her love for him, even if it burns to keep all his confusion and rage trapped inside. "You know Her," he gasps instead of screaming again.
"I work for Her."
Phil can't decide whether he's going to start laughing or crying hysterically. He wonders if he'd be able to manage both. "How could you do that?" he asks, even though he knows there isn't an answer in this world that would satisfy him. "We weren't ready. None of us were ready."
Missa's cloak folds around him, and Phil can't find the strength to protest it. The Void washes over him in a way that's calming, almost familiar. "Phil. You should know better than anyone that Death never waits until we are ready."
Phil opens his eyes to the lantern-lit ceiling of his home with a gasp big enough to make his lungs ache. When a skeletal hand again closes around his wrist, Phil immediately makes a grab for his sword. It's only hearing Missa's voice, and how rough with sleep it is, that stills him. "Qué pasa— Philza? What's wrong?"
Every part of his body still feels wired with tension. Heart racing, head pounding, Phil can't even bring himself to look at Missa. He's too scared of what he might see. "Chayanne," he rasps instead, throwing himself forward to the end of their bed to look over the edge.
Relief crashes against his chest so strongly Phil feels his eyes begin to burn with tears. Chayanne is tucked into bed just as he should be, glock gripped tightly in one hand. "A nightmare," he breathes as his throat begins to close up. "Oh, fuck, it was only another nightmare."
"Another?" Phil flinches when Missa's hand settles on his back. "Was it the same one you had before, or a new one."
"New one," Phil says. His chest still feels too tight to breathe."Worse one."
"Ven aquí, déjame ver," Missa coaxes. When Phil turns his face, he tenses, expecting to see nothing but that ominous skull mask wreathed in shadow. But in sleep, it had fallen halfway off of Missa's face, and with his hair sticking up in several different directions, it's suddenly a lot more difficult to be terrified of him. "It's alright, Philza," he murmurs, brushing his thumb against Phil's cheek. The bone comes away glistening with Phil's tears, leading Phil to the sudden realization that he had already been crying before he woke up. "Chayanne is safe in here. Nothing can get to him, nothing can touch him. He is safe here."
Phil couldn't say anything in response to that. His mind was still stuck within the depths of his own anxieties, fearing that if he says what had happened, it might just come true.
Missa must take his speechlessness as exhaustion, because he guides Phil lay back down again. "Try to sleep, if you can," he encourages. "Chayanne and I will protect you from the nightmares."
When Phil laughs, it's with a helpless canter, stifling his giggles against the pillow. Tears soak the space immediately after, taking his words along with the water. How can Missa possibly protect him from the nightmare when he had been the primary piece of it? How is he ever meant to take his eyes off either of his family, ever again?
He stays still until sunrise, but it isn't from any deep slumber. Phil's eyes stay wide open, watching Missa for any sign of Her, waiting until this endless night comes to a close.