After Sakura's comment, Adrian shrugged and decided to start his hunt for the other three Hopes and/or Nightmares.
Taking a deep breath Adrian closed his eyes for a moment only to suddenly force them open to take full advantage of his heightened senses, and practice his visual scanning technique.
With his senses heightened to their max, Adrian assumed a relaxed pose before immediately snapping forward causing him to propel at near mach one as he dashed across this poisonous wasteland scanning for any signs of activity in the area.
A few hours later after methodically scanning nearly a quarter of the wasteland with the help of Sakura, Adrian found clues as to where one of Adrian's nightmares was.
Both of them were pleasantly surprised by the ease of finding two nightmares already but they were both profoundly confused when they saw this nightmare.
This nightmare unlike the other wasn't a hulking monstrosity, but a theater bustling with life and as they approached a strange light curtain descended over Adrian causing him to suddenly jolt awake as a small boy, feeling as if everything that had happened before was all a bad dream.
******
Adrian Scolvof was a nine-year-old boy, whose father was an ex-marine who was discharged after losing his right arm in a terrible accident while stopping a terrorist organization's nuclear submarine from detonating its stuck payload off the coast of Florida.
Under his father's strict influence, Adrian always had a strong sense of pride in his country, while thanks to his loving mother and older sister he also understood that he never had to follow in his father's footsteps and serve his country.
A few days passed before a young Adrian worked up the courage to tell his family about his odd dream that for some reason didn't fade from his memories and a weird voice that kept repeating one sentence in his mind.
Each time he heard this voice his mind would become fuzzy and odd visions of his dream would flash through his eyes.
While talking to his family about what was going on his parents had grave looks on their faces while his sister looked at him with pity, before Adrian's dad leaned over to his wife and whispered, "Lucy… I'm going to set up another appointment with the specialist. Do you think his senses have gotten stronger again?"
Upon hearing this Adrian's mother, Lucile Scolvof's face turned pale as a sheet before replying in a saddened tone, "If so then he heard what you said… Do… Do you think this time we should have him talk to a therapist? It seems much worse than anytime before…"
As a child, Adrian was born with heightened senses causing him to suffer from sensory overload easily, for the first few weeks of his life he was functionally isolated from any stimulus in fear that he would die from the overload.
Luckily there was one other similar case that had recovered by taking neurotoxins in incredibly small amounts allowing their nervous system to calm and take in a 'normal' amount of information.
So from a young age until his third birthday, Adrian had to ingest poisonous herbs to keep his mind stable at the cost of a weaker-than-normal body.
On his third birthday, a breakthrough came in the form of a small implant known as Brainlink that allowed his body to function without the poisons.
Needless to say when Adrian's parents heard his story they were very concerned that the implant had defected or could no longer work.
Just as Adrian was about to speak up and ask what his parents wanted him to do the weird voice sounded again snapping him out of this illusion.
[Wisdom had increased by 1%]
As the world around him shattered Sakura's soft lovely voice could be heard, ~Adrian, are you ok?~
******
A few days earlier…
As the golden curtain of light consumed Adrian separating Sakura's mental connection to him, she felt lost and completely helpless.
From her first moments, on the beach where she gained her name, to now she had always felt an ethereal link that connected her to Adrian. This connection had always comforted her even when she and Adrian fought or didn't talk.
But, now without that connection, she experienced true isolation for the first time causing her to have an extreme panic attack, making her feel helpless, lost, and unstable.
Imagine you could intimately feel the thoughts and emotions of another person from the moment you were born only to suddenly have that connection break.
As Adrian experienced a different version of his childhood trapped in an illusion, Sakura had to deal with loneliness and a panic attack.
Weirdly the theater that had caused this situation, had disappeared as soon as Adrian did, leaving Sakura alone with nothing for miles in every direction but wastelands.
******
Watching his parents and sister fade in front of him Adrian reaches out his arm trying to grab where they were while softly and shakily muttering, "No… n-no."
Sakura wanted to comfort Adrian but could only stay silent.
As Adrian's emotions started to fall out of balance his cells produced a neurotoxin forcing Adrian's consciousness to fade along with the illusion.
Meanwhile, Sakura felt her connection to Adrian return allowing her to breathe a sigh of relief.
******
A few hours later the effects of the neurotoxin wore off waking Adrian from his unconscious state.
During his time unconscious the energies in Adrian's body were forced into overdrive calming his emotions.
As Adrian groggily sat up rubbing his eyes he heard Sakura muttering to herself.
~What happened to him? Why was he so emotional, did he also feel our link break?~ As Sakura talked to herself her voice became quieter and quieter before asking herself, ~Why did I feel empty without him…~
Adrian tried calling out to her voice, "… Sakura?"
Immediately Sakura stopped talking to herself and immediately felt embarrassed because she didn't sense him waking up.
After being reconnected to Adrian, Sakura realized that their link had returned to when she had first met him, as she could only tell bits and pieces of his emotions while focusing on him.
Pretending like nothing had happened Sakura's voice immediately came much closer to Adrian as she asked once again, "Rain, are you ok?"
Adrian assumed his ears were just playing tricks on him after the illusion so he thought nothing of her words before replying, "I-I'm fine…"
Hearing the uncertain tone in Adrian's voice Sakura pushed again asking, "What does fine mean right now."
After being asked once again Adrian gave in and told Sakura about what he had experienced in the illusion.
"... so by fine I mean I'm confused."
Trying to sound reliable, Sakura replied, ~It's ok… I'm here if you need someone to talk to, so… please talk to me more when something bothers you.~
Suddenly Adrian remembered the cause of everything jumping up and scanning the area for the theater.
Seeing this Sakura was stunned before laughing and asking Adrian, ~You talked to me for almost an hour and you didn't even know the nightmare was gone… and here I thought you were some kind of genius.~
Quickly Adrian responded in an embarrassed tone, "Just because I'm smart doesn't mean I always think."