One of him was dreaming.

He was a cloud, floating over skeletal towers and tiny people magnified a thousand times and everything hazy.

Except her.

She was a pearl of clarity staining the sea of haze, lending light to the vague shadows.

She was no taller nor shorter than the rest. Her brown hair fell free to the middle of her back, as gentles waves. Her lips curled as she greeted everyone, and every smile popped a dimple. Her voice was bright as her, and sweet, and kind, and patient.

And her eyes were brown, and dark. Quivering. Darting about, like she was searching for someone, for something.

Rika. Her name. Was on the tag pinned to her shirt over the swell of her chest.

Just as she spread out light, she herself was in the centre, a blot of dark.

*

Another him was sitting up on the bed. In the dark of the night. One hand holding the book. Another a pencil.

He was sketching. The lead scratching over the paper the only sound.

His eyes were open. But glazed. Like they were veiled by a translucent film. The grey covered the blacks and the whites of his eyes.

His back was straight. His short hair standing just as straight and tall.

The night itself had shifted apart from him, as if pushed by an invisible aura. And he was at the centre of the bubble of nothingness.

*

It was a while before he woke. And the both of him met.

The lights were on. He was sitting much more relaxed on the bed. Looking deeply at the sketch.

One side was a skeletal city. Tall and bare buildings, nothing but pillars and floors. And people walking the ground between the buildings. It was discordant. The buildings were smaller than they should be. The people were bigger. And all of it was too narrow.

The other side was Rika. In black on the white paper. But the colours filled in in his eyes. The brown of her hair and her eyes. The chocolate of her face. The green of her shirt. The black of the letters making her name. The curl of her lips. The waves of her hair. And the dark of her eyes.

It was as if he was right in front of her. And she wasn't even looking at him.

*

She was under the bed. Hiding. Hands pressed over her mouth. Tears squeezing out of her eyes. Curled into herself.

Her ears were perked. Every faint sound was caught, and heard. And she honed in on the footstep in the distance. A foot stepping on the bottom stair. Then another on the next. And then another. Every step brought the sound closer. And it grew bigger. And she felt every step as much as she heard it, in the pit of her stomach. A strike of a drum. As the feet grew louder and drew closer, she felt a tingle in her spine. Like a stab. That had her shiver.

And then, she froze. Everything froze. The feet had come to a stop right outside the tiny door that wasn't tiny enough. With an almost inaudible squeak, the door swung open. And the large shoes came into view.

A silent scream rose in her throat. A sob burst the gates and her tears flowed like a flooded river. She couldn't stop trembling. And her hands slipped onto her ears, pressing down hard. Anything to keep him away, keep him out.

But he only came closer. Stepping toward her with that same, unaffected steps.

*

She lay awake. Cold. Drenched. Trembling, lightly.

The old nightmare. She was so very certain she had outgrown it.

And yet, here it was. Returned.

And she was no better with it. As if she would never stop being that little, frightened girl.

Would it ever stop to feel like it was a miracle that she survived? Like it was an accident?

It was still the middle of the night. Morning was a long way off. And she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep again.

She went to the kitchen. Poured herself a glass of water. Cold. Almost freezing. Gulped it. Felt the water trying to freeze her throat and her stomach as it went down. Enjoyed the cold ripping apart the numbness. Poured herself another glass. Gulped that too.

Went to the living room. Curled into a ball on the sofa. Turned on the tv. Didn't care which channel she was tuned into and what was playing. The tv was a haze. The sound only serving to break the rhythm of her thoughts, until eventually they were cleared. And she felt relief.

Riding the slow waves, she drifted off, without even realizing it.

*

When he woke again, it was well into the morning. The sun was peeping through the slits in the tall curtains drawn over the door and the windows. And the first thing he did after waking, was to walk over and pull the curtains open.

The door stood in the middle, reaching from the ceiling to the floor. Sheets of thick glass that let in light but nothing else. That slid open to the wide balcony and the park across the street and the city further beyond.

The windows were on the left and the right, filling the middle third of the wall, from the door to the ends. Made of the same glass, but stuck in place.

With the push of a button, the door and the windows went dark. For when he needed complete quiet and complete dark.

And he enjoyed feasting on the morning sun. It was breakfast for the skin.

Today, he was fasting. He sat on the floor, leaning against the bed, looking out. The light came in, but the heat and the morning was kept out. He was eight stories up, so the voices of the people and the sounds of the streets couldn't come in either.

He saw the light wind in the trees of the park. It took him back to the book.

"A supermarket," he said to no one else. "That's what it was. A supermarket. Where Rika is employed. Should find it. Quick."