Eyes opening, he was greeted with a teal ceiling and the morning sun that filtered in. Sitting up in the bed, he immediately shifted himself to its edge before running his hand through his hair, trying to smooth a dull throb that resonated throughout his head.

  he thought as he squinted and waited for his eyes to adjust to the morning light. But as his eyes adjusted, his vision landed on a sight that made him let out a sigh.

  It was Julius lying on the floor soundly asleep.

  "I'm at his home," he muttered.

  "How did he even find me?" he asked, unable to remember anything from last night after he took off into the sky and escaped the golded ones.

  Not even racking his brain for a minute, his attention was soon diverted when he looked to his right to see a familiar face waking up.

  "Ughhhhh...broooooo...mmmmm," he groaned incoherently as he stretched idly in the chair before cracking his eyes open to see the gray-haired guy looking back at him with a blank expression.

  Jolting back in surprise, he caused the chair to lean back and the back of his head to smack the edge of the dresser.

  "Goddammit!!!" he shouted in pain as he held his head. "My head..." he began to groan

  The loud sound instantly jolted Julius out of his sleep, his eyes snapping open and him sitting upright. Taking a quick survey of the situation, anger hit his tired system first.

  "What did you do to him?" He said his tone, despite meaning to sound threatening, sounded more whiny due to him having just woken up.

  he thought, not even registering the threat until Julius raised his hand and a blue ball of flame formed in his palm.

  "You—" Julius started, but before he could do a thing, Jake called out.

  "Jules, calm down; I just hit my head on the desk when I leaned too far back in the chair," he explained while standing to his feet.

  "Oh," he muttered as he lowered his hand, and with that, the ball of flame. "Stop being so damn clumsy in my room because if you break something, you're paying for it," he shouted, his face full of annoyance.

  "Don't be mad at me because you tried to shoot the new guy for no reason," he shot back. "Speaking of, how are you feeling?" he asked as he picked the chair up and put it back under the desk.

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  But the words lingered in the air as he just looked at him, his mind somewhere else. "I'm missing at least 6 hours of time," he surmised as he looked to the corner of his eye to see the still-rising sun.

  "I'm guessing they took me here after finding me wherever, but judging by the pain in the back of my head and the dark choking marks on his neck..." he analyzed, his gaze shifting to Julius before shifting back.

  "I must have attacked him last night, and seeing that he has no obvious signs of injuries..." he thought while his gaze fell on Jake. "He must have been the one to stop me."

  But his analyzing was cut short when a more pressing thought entered his mind.

  Standing to his feet, he turned on his axis before walking towards the exit. But before he could make more than a few steps, Jake reached out to grab him.

  But right as he made contact with his skin...

  Whoosh

  His hand simply passed through him.

  This made Riven stop and turn around before his eyes narrowed slightly. "Yet he passed through," he muttered as his mind flashed to when Alice was able to grab his arm.

  As he pondered why that could be, Jake and Julius each wore a look of confusion on their faces. Jake questioned as he stared at his hand and then at Riven.

  While Julius wondered the same as he rubbed his eyes, thinking he must have seen it wrong or it was an illusion due to an angle or something.

  Reaching out to grab him again, this time he was stopped by Riven catching his wrist. "You aren't seeing things; your hand did go through me," he clarified before releasing him.

  Turning his head back to the door, he heard a quick

  "Okay, okay, I know you want to leave, but can you just answer a few questions? Like, we did save your life twice, and you kind of almost choked out Julius. So don't you think this is the least you can do?

  Narrowing his eyes in confusion, he said, "Twice?"

  "Yeah, the first time, when we pulled you out of the alley, and the second, when you—you know..." he started to mutter, obviously hesitant to say the last part.

  "What?" Riven said, his voice sounding more annoyed than he felt.

  "Come on, man, are you really going to make me say it?" He asked with a groan while rubbing the back of his head profusely.

  "No," he said, dismissing his own question as his body started to transform into smoke.

  "Wait, wait, wait. Hold up," he said. "Come on, du—"

  But before he even finished that sentence, Julius, who was just now standing to his feet, said, "When you tried to kill yourself," his tone blunt.

  Freezing, his eyes were agape for a moment before they returned to their normal size.

  Reverting back, he turned to Julius, whose expression was wrinkled with contempt and disgust; he was either badly hiding it or not bothering to.

  "He's not lying," he assessed. "He has no reason to, and he obviously doesn't want me here, though he does hold contempt for me...not enough for him to know who I am or even have an idea."

  "Right," he muttered before taking a breath to clear his mind, yet he was still unable to recall anything from the previous night after he launched himself into the sky, unable to take his grandfather with him for questioning.

  Taking a deep sigh, he turned back to Jake before, with a dead look in his eyes, and said, "Ask your questions."