I stumble and fall on the closing doors. I hit my fists on the wall but nothing happens. Jay was just lost in a flood of light and darkness, the light coming from the cube and the darkness from his parasitic transformation.

Dark Jay is once again awake and now, more than ever, I’m not sure how I feel. Even so, it’s never good when he is around, and it’s certainly not good that Dale saw him change. Now, he has to come with us no matter what. He knows way too much to be safe on Yaerus.

Zan and Silver arrive at the same time behind me. The young boy seems overly energetic like he’s happy that Dark Jay woke up, but I don’t share his feelings.

“Eladia, Eladia! You have to follow him,” he says to me.

Why should I be the one that goes after him? He can come and find me himself if he wants. I won’t make the same mistakes I did before. But, something in the boy’s voice draws my interest. Those two were always somehow connected. When the one felt danger, so did the other. And Zan was always somehow protective of Jay and the other way around.

Maybe he’s right.

Dale suddenly appears next to me. He has something to say, I can tell, but I stop him. “Look. I can explain everything to you, but you have to decide now. If you’re staying with us, then you have to stay with us until the end. If you don’t, then it would be better for you if you fled Yaerus for some time, at least until the crisis is sorted. What’s your decision?”

I know that I should have asked him earlier, but he can’t stay on Yaerus, and if he doesn’t want to come with us, then he has to flee the planet until the men with the masks get as far away as possible. Either way, we’re losing time. We should have been on our way to the blank spot for some time now.

I stare him deep in the eyes, and I see he’s trying to avoid my eyes. He’s on a dilemma, a pretty bad one at that. But, as he probably knows already, there’s no time for him to procrastinate.

“Yes or no, Dale?” I push him until the man gives me a slight nod.

At that moment, I hear the engines of the elevator working, only, this time, it’s coming down. Silver gets in front of us and opens her arms wide, ready to use her fencing ability if needed be. I’m not sure that all those precautions are needed, but you never know with him.

When the elevator finally arrives and the doors open, Dark Jay is lying on the floor, and his white hair cover his face. He’s sleeping.

“Thank god. I couldn’t have handled another monster today,” Silver says in her robotic, emotionless voice.

How she manages to have so much character in her voice without tone variations is above me, but still, she’s my best friend. And I’m certain that this fact says way too much about me.

Dale suddenly rushes forward, pushing Silver and me out of the way. He checks his vitals and opens Jay’s lids to check his irises.

“He’s okay. He has just passed out. Now, is someone going to explain to me what’s going on here?”

We all look at each other, but none of us takes a step forward. Well, I and Silver don’t move. Zan, on the other hand, has other plans.

“This Jay, he’s bad. He kills and frightens Silver and Eladia. But, he talks more. The other Jay is good, but doesn’t like to talk.”

He said everything with such a serious face that I burst out into laughs, thinking that it’s a joke. Dale flashes a wry smile at me, but Zan doesn’t seem to get what’s going on. Soon, my laughter fades and only the memory of it remains as I move to Dale’s side.

“Silver, we’ll move Jay to his room. Can you start the engines and get us on track to the blank spot? Also, let me know when you have an ETA. Okay?”

She nods and disappears behind the closing elevator doors. Now it’s just Dale and me in the small room.

“I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing telling you what’s going on with Jay, but it’s the best thing I can do to thank you for helping him back at the hospital.”

He looks at me with the same confused eyes as before. He opens his mouth, ready to talk, but I don’t let him. This is a long story he’s asking me to share with him, and that’s without answering all his questions.

Soon, we’re in the middle of the upper floor hallway, him carrying the heavy upper part of Jay’s body, me his feet, talking about my past like we’re old friends.

During our way to his room, I explain to him everything that happened between us during our short adventure on Primordial Earth. I tell him about the dangers of traveling to a primitive planet, and Silver accidentally picking up the signal to his crashed ship. Then, I describe everything in great detail, how I helped him out of the cryo-pod, and how he changed to his dark self to kill those predators.

The hours pass by, and I can’t stop talking. I tell him about the insectoids, the feline that almost attacked us, about the other, underground human. At that moment, I had to explain to him Zan’s origins to fully understand what we went through. He seems more confused.

He goes through an outburst, telling me that it’s not possible for humans to evolve so fast, but as soon as I explain to him that there was a Nusae Artifact in the area, he kinda nods and lets me go on. I continue by telling him about our latest adventure, this one on Mosa. I leave out all the embarrassing parts, including mine and Jay’s intimate night together. When that scene pops in my head, I shudder. He quickly asks me if I’m cold. I shake my head and continue.

At some time, I reach to the part that we arrive at the hospital, and he’s shocked that the man in front of him was still alive. I decide on the spot to keep the part of the two Originators that got assassinated a secret; and that a man wearing a red mask is the murderer; or that another man with a blue demon mask saved us.

And so, when I finally get to the end of the story, I realize that all this time we’re in Dale’s room, drinking a second glass of scotch. I feel a bit dizzy, but sitting on his bed, his hand touching mine, I kinda feel safe. It’s not something erotic, but it’s more than enough for me. I just want someone to tell me that everything is going to be okay

“And so...you and him? What’s going on between you two?”

He’s perceptive as well. I see. There is no point in hiding it then, I think at first, but as I watch deep into his eyes, his anxious stare that kinda reminds me how I was when I was watching Jay that night, I stop.

“I think I should go,” I suddenly say to him.

I thought he would try to stop me, but he’s a gentleman, as always, and even escorts me to my room. However, feeling like I was dreaming, I don’t remember him leaving my room that night. He just left me there and by the moment I blinked once, he had vanished.

Where am I? What am I doing outside? And where is Dale? All those questions suddenly appear at the top of my head. I know we were together just now, but I can’t remember what we were talking about.

It’s weird, I’m not all that drunk. I should be able to remember at least a part of our conversation, but something is wrong with me. Or Dale’s hiding something behind those big, blue eyes. My feet hurt, my back hurts, my head hurts. Everything on me has that numbing sensation of hours sitting on a bed.

I open the door to my room and walk inside. I change to something more casual, something more suitable for sleeping. Before lying on my bed, I walk all the way to the only window in my room. I look outside and see the stars standing still, fixed points of gas and fire. The stars have been kind with me since I’ve started researching the Great Mystery, but now, I’m not sure that it was luck that made me get this far.

Dale is hiding something, Jay is two people in one body, and seeing his dark counterpart coming to the surface again, woke something inside me, a desire I didn’t know existed. My hand travels down on my skin, all the way between my legs. I moan and stop. There’s no way I’ll masturbate for him, but I can’t take my hand away. His white hair, his ash-gray skin that doesn’t reek of death, and that jovial, half-maddening attitude are more than Jay will be able to give me his whole life.

After all, he’s the same person, just not the same personality. I...I can work with that.

I shake my head snappily and stop. I pull my hand up and change side on the bed. I try to push his image out of my head, but I can’t.

This man has driven me crazy.