"Tatsuya? What's this?" Sion blew a cloud of dust off a small oblong box. He'd found it up in a closet while looking for some tools Domon had misplaced while 'cleaning'.

"Huh?" Tatsuya peered over his shoulder. "Looks like a game of some sort."

"Really?" Sion tried again to wipe the dust from the top of the box, not having much success. "Let's play!"

"Right now?"

"Yeah!" It had been a slow day to begin with, and since it had been raining intermittently all afternoon, it was unlikely that Tomorrow Research would be doing any more business.

Sion put the game on the coffee table, smiling at his four teammates. Returning his attention to the box, he pried off the lid. It was harder than he'd expected; somehow the edges had stuck together. When he finally got it open, the contents were just as dusty as the outside. Sion frowned. "Tatsuya?"

No one answered. Sion looked up to see an empty room. He stood. "Yuuri? Domon? Ayase?" It seemed to have gotten darker in the past few moments. The one lamp in the room was weaker than it should have been, barely cutting through the gloom. Sion took a step forward. "Takku?" Something clattered against his foot, and he looked down automatically.

A Chrono Changer winked up at him, somehow picking up the weak lamplight and reflecting it back. Sion bent down to pick it up. It belonged to TimeRed. "Tatsuya?" The room was completely silent. He turned back towards the door, thinking maybe they had gone out, and nearly bumped into a small boy.

Startled, Sion jumped back. The black-clad child had made no sound. Once he'd regained his balance, Sion knelt down to look the boy in the face. "Are you okay?" he asked.

The child looked up, dark-ringed, empty eyes in a dead white face, and opened his mouth. No word or sound came out of that shadowed maw as the child reached forward. Sion stumbled backwards again, a wave of fear sweeping over him. Nothing alive had ever looked like that. The child grabbed his face and Sion tried to shove it away. Its grip was unbreakable.

A strange lethargy began to spread through Sion. Despite his panic, his struggles grew weaker. When his hands dropped to his sides, he knew with utter certainty he was about to die. His mind, his consciousness, everything that he was down to his physical being started to dissolve, sucked into the thing in front of him. Sion found the strength somehow to scream…

…and woke up to find himself in a bed, with a child-height figure standing next to him. "Get away from me!" He flung himself away, uncoordinated, impacting painfully with the wall behind him. "Get away!"

The figure jumped as well, expanding to the size of a full-grown man. "Sion? You okay?"

Sion's vision cleared slightly. "Domon?" He could hear the hysterical edge to his voice, but he didn't care.

"Are you okay?" Domon repeated.

"Where is everyone?" Sion clambered unsteadily off the bed, trying for the door.

Domon caught him before he tripped over his own feet. "Ayase got a job, the lucky bastard. Yuuri and Tatsuya are makin' a racket out there. That's why I'm in here. What's wrong with you?"

Sion stopped. "They're okay?"

Something outside the room broke, and arguing voices became audible. Domon rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish. "You could say that."

"Oh." The fear was draining away, and the adrenaline with it. He leaned against Domon, suddenly exhausted. "I thought… there was a monster…"

Domon steered him back towards the bed. "It was just a dream, Sion. Go back to sleep."

p center /center

Outside, a door slammed. Yuuri poked her head into the boys' room a few minutes later. "Is he awake already? It's only been three days."

"Bad dream." Domon retrieved his book from under the bed. "Are you -"

"I'll be back soon." Yuuri closed the door abruptly.

"Yuuri…" Sion murmured, reaching out.

"She's fine," Domon said absently, pulling the blanket back up. Sion latched onto his hand, clinging to it as if it were the only thing keeping him safe. "Hey, leggo." Domon tugged, but Sion was stubborn, even when asleep. "Dammit." He maneuvered the chair around and settled in to read one-handed. "…you'd better be having good dreams this time, Sion."

Sion smiled.

end