}{The Worlds Between Us}{ Chapter 1}{

Instructions

The Worlds Between Us {}Chapter 2{} {Part 4} {Pyxis Eery} There's no such thing as a peaceful sleep. Nope. Impossible. She HAD to be plagued by nightmares. Burning. Flames. Gold sparks and orange flashes. Smoke. Ash. Choking people and babies crying. Death. Decay. Hopelessness. Pyxis screamed herself awake. "Ugh." She muttered, sitting up. Sun streamed through the cave mouth, reflecting off her shiny hair. She could hear birds calling outside, and wind through long grass, but no Elementals. Good. She didn't want to deal with people right now. Well, she never wanted to deal with people at anytime, now that she thought about it. Pyxis had always considered herself to be a sort of ambivert, but maybe she really was more of an introvert. To be honest, most Void Elementals were. Not that she spent any time with them. She had come to Rekybral in the hopes of visiting her family, to come and see them after all this time... And when she had finally reached her old house, when she had finally scraped together enough courage to try and mend what had been broken in the past... she had turned away. She remembered what had happened, and she remembered why she had left in the first place. She remembered the day something broke inside of her, something that could never be fixed. Just when she had reached the door, her hand raised to knock, she had listened to the echoes of clanging inside her, caused by the broken thing, and she had turned away. The only thing that could fill the hole in her chest was the excitement and freedom of running. The first few months she had been running from the Soldiers her family had sent out to find her. Then, when they stopped coming, she was running from anyone who recognized her. And when she had ran long enough for no one to recognize her, she stopped, and looked around. She was so, so far from home, and even farther from herself. But when she stopped running, the hole in her chest widened, so she kept going. Now she's just running from herself. {Part 5} {Nickolas Everblack} Nicko climbed through the glassless window in his bedroom on the second floor of his house. If you could call it a house, anyway. It was nothing more than a badly put together shell made of corrugated iron, lit by dark candles, which gave off some kind of strange light, despite the flames being being colored black. His room was sparse: bare, iron walls and floor, a patchwork of thin pelts spread across the floor, but still leaving large areas of rusty metal floor exposed. He slept on small pile of scratchy black and brown furs, balled into the corner, and the window that he climbed in through overlooked a small, ash covered 'street'. Not that anyone bothered about sticking to the streets for walking. Scattered across the floor were a number of chains, small knives and hammers. He coughed as he entered the smoky room. Hopefully, his Mother would think he's been here the whole time. He nudged the black curtain-like rags that served as a door aside, peering down the rickety stairs that led to the ground floor. Down the small hallway on his level was his Mothers room. He had never been in there, or, if he had, he couldn't remember. Downstairs was a tiny kitchen and an even smaller room, which he called 'The Dark Room', because there were no candles there, and Mother had warned him not to take any light source into that room. He didn't know what was in there. The rest of the house was silent, but Nicko knew his Mother was home. He crept down the stairs, emerging into the tiny kitchen, and there she was. His Mother. She was standing with her side to him, clutching the back of a chair and standing rigidly straight, her dark, dark blue eyes staring at nothing. Her loose, pale grey clothes reminded Nicko of karate clothes, but with no belt. Her long, raggedy black hair reached her waist, and was tangled with bits of dirt and garbage, like his shorter, neck length har was. Like all the Fear Elementals was. Everyone always said Nicko looked like his mother, and he did, a bit. He had sickly, olive skin and ragged black hair. His eyes were dull and hollow whenever he looked into the dirty looking glass in his house, and I was smaller and thinner than average, although most Fears resembled each other in this was: Sickly skin, dark, tangled hair, hollow faces and very malnourished. Although Nicko did have dark eyes, like all the others, he had begun to notice them looking more dark brown than black, with amber flecks. He slunk past his Mother, trying to make himself appear even smaller. He approached the water basin, which was only a quarter full with dirty grey water. Nicko dipped his hand in, bringing it out cupped, and took a sip of water. He turned and tried to edge past his mother. He had almost made it to the stairs when she said, "You, boy. Come here."