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The Sleeper lay within the machine, their eyes fixated on Serafin, searching for a flicker of doubt or fear in his blue eyes. Yet, all they found was a fierce determination that he had seen for the past week as they plotted their escape.
When Serafin initiated their plan, he vowed to shield the Sleeper from Laine's suffocating grip, that they would never have to see him again.
Serafin knelt beside the Sleeper, his hands trembling ever so slightly as he began to secure them within the cold, metallic machine. When the last strap was pulled tight, he reached out for the Sleeper’s hand and intertwined his fingers with theirs. "I love you," he breathed softly, pressing a tender kiss to the Sleeper’s forehead. As the machine began to hum to life, Serafin whispered his last words to them, "I won't leave you." before the electric energy sent shocks through the Sleeper's body, Serafin's fleeting smile dissolved into the darkness that engulfed their eyes.
It felt like hours had passed until sensation began to meld with consciousness; first, a whispered awareness of their body, signaling its existence to their brain - reminding it of the subtle rise and fall of their chest as air flooded into their lungs.
Then emotion, crystalline and sharp: fear. It was fear that gripped them, the primal instinct that had stalked them relentlessly through hundreds of cycles serving under Laine.
Next arrived the voice, muffled at first but gaining clarity, resonating with an urgency that began to slice through the haze. "Wake up, Sleeper."
"Wake up, love."
"Please, we don't have much time left."
A shuffle punctuated the tense silence, and a desperate cry followed.
It took them a while to remember they had eyes, and minutes passed until they managed to open them.
Before them loomed Laine, pale eyes against a stark, ashen face—the tormentor they had sworn to escape, now an unbearable reality.
The Sleeper found themselves ensnared in a paralyzing grip of fear, listening to Laine's voice as if lost within a suffocating dream.
Suddenly, with a fierce intensity, Laine jerked forward. Their body crashed against the Sleeper's, and he spun away out of sight. In his place, gentle hands appeared—warm, soft yet steady—working at the tangled wires and cables that clung to the Sleeper's skin.
There was something hauntingly familiar about the boy's features.
Once freed from their restraints, the boy spun around; he shoved the Sleeper toward the doorway, his voice ringing out with a command tinged with desperation: "Move."
They sprinted down a labyrinth of twisting passages, the dimness closing in around them until they burst into a shadowy alley. Breathless and wide-eyed, they leaned against the rough, weathered wall.
Turning to face the boy, desperation swirled within the Sleeper. They struggled to hold onto the fleeting sparks of connection. The longer they searched, however, the more elusive those memories became.
"What's going on, Sleeper?" he asked, wiping his brow with a weary hand, concern etched deeply across his furrowed brow. "Talk to me."
"Who are you?" the Sleeper whispered, their voice a hoarse rasp.
Alarm flickered across his face.
"I don't know who you are."
The weight of those words rested heavily in the air, and as the Sleeper spoke, they noticed the boy's expression shifting from concern to an overwhelming sorrow.
"Serafin," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper as if saying the name would shatter something fragile. He reached out again, his fingers brushing against the Sleeper's hand in a gentle, tender request for recognition. But none came.
All the Sleeper could grasp was the burning realization that they must have once meant something to him. Yet, as they strained to recall their shared past, those memories slid further from their grasp.