"Hey! Why the hell are you sleeping?! We're having a party, bozo!"
Sai's eyes snapped open, his vision a blurred smear of neon pinks and sickly greens. His head throbbed with a suffocating, muddy pressure.
"Huh?!"
"*'Huh?!'*" Rico dramatically rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up to mimic Sai's half-conscious stutter. "You've been out cold for thirty straight minutes at your own damn celebration, dipshit!"
"Alright, alright... drop the act, I'm awake," Sai muttered, raising his palms in lazy surrender.
Instinctively, the performer's mask slid back into place. His posture went relaxed, his smirk widening by a fraction of an inch—the classic, untouchable "Guitar King." But beneath the leather jacket, his ribcage felt too tight. A cold, oily slick of sweat was cooling on the back of his neck. Something in the air smelled entirely wrong.
"Are you alright, dawg? You look like absolute shit!" Rico's laugh was a hysterical bark, barely cutting through the dense, chaotic roar of the packed underground club.
Sai didn't answer immediately. He let his pupils dilate, forcing his eyes to sweep the room. The cheap cologne. The lukewarm stench of spilled lager. The familiar faces of his crew screaming lyrics over the pulsing synths. This was their sanctuary. The exact coordinates where his weekends always burned to ash before his life had unraveled into madness.
*What the hell is going on?* Sai's fingers dug into the edge of the leather cushion, his knuckles turning white. *Why am I here?! I know for a fact I just blacked out. I was dying on some primitive, godforsaken rock... and now I'm just back? If someone dragged my ass back to Earth, why does it feel like time didn't even move? I literally felt the lead rip through my chest on that stage not even an hour ago!*
The thoughts cascaded, threatening to drown him in a sudden spike of vertigo. But Sai didn't panic. Panic was for amateur acts. He breathed through the tremor, his reckless, defiant ego swallowing the doubt whole.
*But here's the million-dollar question... DOES! IT! MATTER?!? I'm back with my gang of idiots. Dream or reality, I am going to ride this momentum until the clock runs out.*
Sai slouched back against the booth, flashing Rico his signature, arrogant grin.
"Well, I only look like shit because you're standing within my line of sight."
"Ouch. Heartless as always," Rico snorted, sliding a heavy wooden tray loaded with thirty glistening glass thimbles across the table. "Anyways, finish your shot, dude!!"
"YEAH, no shit!" Sai slammed his open palm onto the table, the timber rattling. He stood up, his voice effortlessly piercing the bassline. "Hey, everyone!"
"Oh boy," Rico groaned, burying his face in his hands. "I know that look, and it is always bad news. I shouldn't have given him the liquor. I knew something unhinged was about to happen."
"I'll finish thirty shots of vodka right now," Sai declared, his eyes scanning the table like a king addressing vassals. "And I won't even blink."
The table went dead silent for a single, microscopic second before Rico exploded. "THIRTY SHOTS?! Sai, I know you make things happen that bypass human comprehension, BUT THIS?! THIS IS ABSURD!!! You can't even clear fifteen, let alone nine!"
"Yo, chill, Rico. Maybe he's onto something," Jax Storm chimed in, a sharp, chaotic glint dancing in his eyes.
"Or maybe he's *on* something," Rico countered instantly.
"Wanna bet?" Sai leaned across the sticky counter, his smirk turning predatory.
"Aight! Five hundred dollars on Sai to clear the wood!" Jax shouted, drawing his wallet and slapping the crisp bills directly onto the center of the table.
"No way you're throwing down like that, Jax! That's a suicide run, man!" one of the guys background-shouted over the music.
"That's what makes it art! I'm not a guy who thrives on risk, but high risk, high reward, right?" Jax laughed boisterously, delivering a heavy, companionable slap to Sai's shoulder. "And besides, we're talking about the Guitar King himself!"
"What does a stage name have to do with liver failure?" another friend roared, the entire booth breaking into a chorus of jeers.
"That's my dawg," Sai smirked, his hand locking with Jax's in a flawless, synchronized dap. "Rest assured, your money is safe in my hands."
"That's what I like to hear!"
"Five hundred says the floor claims him first," Rico muttered, his eyes narrowing into a sharp, competitive glare.
"Ehh? You really don't think I have the stomach for it?" Sai asked, tilting his head with mock offense.
"The last time you bragged about clearing fifteen without retching, you gave me massive secondhand embarrassment, Sai. In front of fine chicks! *Fine chicks!*"
"No way you fumbled that hard, Sai! That is tragic!" The group erupted into a collective roar of laughter.
"Wait, I haven't heard this one," Jax leaned in, thoroughly invested. "Where the hell was I when this happened?"
"Yeah, fill us in," another voice called out.
"This was back when we were still roommates at the University," Rico explained, leveling an accusatory finger across the table. "He thought he was untouchable."
"Well... that was a long time ago. People change, dawg," Sai said, crossing his arms and projecting an aura of absolute invulnerability. "And I'm the guy who specializes in the absurd, Rico."
"Yeah, that's what makes you, you," Rico chuckled, his expression shifting into something wicked as he leaned over the tray. "But I'm definitely not ready for the cleanup. Before you touch a single glass, we play by the House Rules to keep it interesting."
"Spit it out," Sai challenged.
"Rule number one," Rico smirked, raising a single finger. "No pacing. You have exactly three minutes on the hourglass to empty the tray, or the bet is forfeit. Rule number two: no chasers. Not even a lime wedge to kill the sting. And rule number three..." Rico's voice dropped into a playful sneer. "The exact microsecond a single drop of vomit leaves your mouth, Jax loses his five hundred, and you have to wear a maid outfit to our next live gig. Deal?"
Sai let out a low, smooth chuckle, entirely unmoved by the terms. "That's noooo problem. In fact, you might want to start mourning your wallet right now."
"I highly doubt that," Rico said.
The two locked eyes, their expressions contrasting sharply under the shifting strobe lights—Sai's face a stone-wall of unshakeable confidence, Rico's a mask of eager anticipation for the imminent disaster.
"Timer starts in three..."
"Don't disappoint us, brat!" Jax yelled.
"Yeah! Show us the magic, dawg!"
"Two..."
Sai's fingers were already coiled around the base of the first thimble, his muscles tense, waiting for the drop.
"One..."
"Start!"
The booth erupted into pure chaos. The table's collective chanting completely drowned out the venue's audio system, screaming his name like an anthem. Sai didn't waste a fraction of a second. He snapped the first shot back, slammed the empty glass down, and picked up the second before the liquid even hit his throat. His pace was flawless.
Within forty seconds, he blew right past his old university threshold, effortlessly tossing back his eleventh glass.
Rico's smug composure dissolved into blank horror, his jaw hanging open as he stared at the blurred motion of Sai's arm. "No shot... he actually bypassed his limit!"
"Looks like someone's about to enter financial ruin," Jax laughed hysterically, pointing a finger at Rico's rapidly paling face.
"There's no way this is real," Rico stammered, his eyes fixed on the growing mountain of empty glass.
As Sai tipped the next shot back, however, the world *stuttered*.
A bizarre, rhythmic lag caught the edges of his vision. It wasn't the slow, heavy warmth of alcohol poisoning; it was the cold, clinical architecture of his own brain breaking through the veil.
*I know this is a dream,* Sai thought bitterly, his internal monologue completely detached from the arrogant expression on his face as he swallowed another ounce of vodka. *Thirty shots? Heck, I can't even cross ten on a good night. Yet here I am, past twelve without a single hint of nausea. And the audio rendering is too precise. Hearing them speak properly, responding instantly, acting under my own free will... it's completely surreal. Normally, a sleeping brain cannot construct exact syntax, let alone allow you to articulate responses with this level of accuracy. It's a lucid dream, but someone else is holding the master controller.*
He looked at the laughing faces around him.
*But whatever this nightmare is building toward... I'm going to enjoy the scenery. This is probably the last time I'll ever see them this crystal clear. I almost wish I could stay here forever.*
Before the three-minute threshold could even approach, Sai slammed the thirtieth glass onto the wood with a definitive, ringing crack.
"Ahhhh... How's that?!"
The cheers reached a deafening, metallic crescendo, the sheer volume shaking the fictional plaster of the walls. Sai wiped his lower lip with the back of his hand, his eyes softening as he looked at the bright, familiar faces of the brothers he thought he'd left behind in a pool of blood.
"Yes! Five hundred dollars, baby!" Jax roared, lunging across the table to snatch the bills, waving them triumphantly in the air.
Rico merely shook his head, staring at the perfect, empty pyramid of glass in utter disbelief. "You had me there, man. You really did change... though as far as I'm concerned, your only upgrade was your liver."
Sai laughed, the sound loud, resonant, and entirely genuine. "At least something upgraded."
But beneath the laughter, the fog returned, heavier this time. It began to suffocate the artificial warmth of the room. The neon lights began to cycle through colors at an unnatural, jarring velocity. The underlying wrongness was clawing its way through the code of the simulation. He needed to confirm it. He needed to hear the reality from his best friend's mouth.
Sai leaned forward, the rockstar bravado evaporating from his features. He slung his arms heavily over Rico's shoulders, pulling him into a tight, brotherly embrace. But Sai's eyes didn't look at Rico—instead, they remained fixed on the shifting, ambient movement of the bar patrons behind them as he whispered the chilling question into his friend's ear.
"By the way... I don't know if I should ask this, but... are you guys actually real?"
The question didn't just stall the conversation—it murdered the room.
Instantly, the bassline snapped into a dead, suffocating silence. The ambient chatter of hundreds of patrons vanished into absolute nothingness. The spinning strobe lights froze instantly in their tracks, casting a harsh, unmoving, blood-crimson glare over the entire interior.
*Just as I tho—*
Sai's throat locked. He pulled back to look at his best friend, and the air died in his lungs.
Rico's eyes no longer possessed pupils. They had rolled back into perfectly round, lifeless spheres of solid white. A grotesque, impossible smile stretched across his face, carving upward toward his cheekbones far past the limits of human anatomy. Without warning, a violent spray of dark, fresh blood splattered across Rico's skin from an unseen source.
Horrified, Sai scrambled backward, throwing his weight against the leather booth to distance himself. But the distortion was global. Every single individual in The Neon Amp had stopped dead. In perfect, mechanical, sickening synchronization, their necks snapped toward Sai Haizen all at once. Their torsos remained rigid, entirely devoid of life, staring at him with those wide, unblinking, hollow white voids.
*Looks like I triggered the system!* Sai's stomach dropped into a bottomless abyss.
*This is bad! This is really damn bad!*
The terror hit him like a physical blow to the sternum. He scrambled frantically against the leather, drenched in a sudden, freezing sweat.
"Holy shit! Stop looking at me like that!" he screamed, his voice cracking violently against the oppressive, horrific silence of the frozen venue.
"You guys are creeping me out!!! Rico! Jax! Say something!!!"
The entity wearing Rico's flesh merely stared back, its bloody, distorted grin perfectly static.
*Yo!!! This shit is absolute nightmare fuel!* Sai screamed within the confines of his own mind, his fingernails clawing uselessly at the upholstery as he tried to back away from the bleeding crowd.
*I'm literally about to piss my pants right now! Shit! I need to find a way out of this hell. It feels like I'm trapped in a VR headset playing some hyper-realistic horror game! I need an exit!*
His eyes darted across the crimson-stained room, finally locking onto the heavy metallic emergency doors at the far end of the venue.
*There.*
Sai didn't hesitate. He lunged out of the booth, sprinting full speed down the center aisle. But before his boots could cover half the distance, a cluster of the lifeless, white-eyed patrons drifted into his path with supernatural speed, their rigid bodies perfectly sealing the threshold.
"Well, I'll be damned! There's no running away from this shitty sleep paralysis!"
He was entirely surrounded. The crowd was closing in, their mechanical movements tightening the perimeter. He had no weapons, no cards left to play, and no physical exit.
*There's only one option left,* he realized, his adrenaline spiking to its absolute threshold.
*I have to break the simulation. I have to wake up! Why didn't I just try to force myself awake sooner?!*
The moment the realization solidified, the center of the bar fractured.
A thick, ink-like black mass materialized out of the floorboards, expanding aggressively until the walls of The Neon Amp began to tear and bleed at the seams. The environment melted away into nothingness, staining his vision in a sickening, monochromatic blood-red hue. Standing dead center in the middle of the crimson void was the one nightmare he couldn't outrun—the man who had executed him.
"Who are yo—wait..." Sai's voice trembled, his rockstar defiance completely choking under the crushing, supernatural weight radiating from the figure. "Was it you... Was it you who killed me?!"
The entity offered no answer. The terrifying Skull Mask drifted closer, its form absorbing what little light remained in the void.
Sai braced his feet to fight, but before he could draw a breath, his muscles seized. An invisible, agonizing pressure pinned his limbs to his sides, rendering him entirely helpless, locked in place like a bronze statue. The assassin's hand, clad in a grotesque, ashen glove, slowly reached forward, the cold fingers extending directly toward Sai's eyes.
*I must wake up before those hands touch
me!*
Fighting against the absolute, dead weight of the paralysis, Sai poured every remaining ounce of his soul, his pride, and his performer's willpower into breaking the physical lock on his throat. He forced his jaw open, staring straight into the dark hollows of the Skull Mask, and spat his absolute contempt right into the center of the visage:
"I got no time for you, assface!"
*This is just a dream!* Sai ordered himself, a reckless surge of adrenaline overriding the cosmic terror
.
*Wake up, Sai! WAKE UP!*
Just as the freezing, ashen fingers of the Skull Mask brushed the skin of his cheek—
Sai bolted upright with a ragged, violent gasp.
He was suffocating. His lips were dangerously pale, and his entire body felt freezing cold—as if a sudden winter blizzard had just ripped through his chest. His ribs heaved as his lungs fought desperately for oxygen. He was entirely soaked in sweat, his ruined leather jacket clinging uncomfortably to his skin. His fingers clawed at the surface beneath him, finding not the smooth leather of the bar booth, but the rough, damp moss of a cavern floor.
Sai's mind raced, his throat too tight to utter a single word about the horror he had just witnessed.
*What the hell was that?!* he thought frantically, trying to steady his visibly shaking hands.
*What does he want from me?!*
He forced himself to take slow, deliberate breaths, fighting the residual adrenaline until his breathing finally stabilized and his core temperature began to normalize.
"Vaide, Mata kavaku," a calm, grounded voice drifted from the shadows.
Sai's head whipped around, his vision slowly stabilizing in the dim, amber light. Standing near the mouth of the cavern was a woman, watching his panicked awakening with cold, observant eyes.
Sai blinked, looking past her to take in his surroundings. The panic in his chest gave way to pure confusion. *Where am I? Am I in a cabin? That's neat, I must say.* He looked around the space, genuinely impressed. For a shelter buried in the middle of a hostile, alien jungle, this place was pristine. It was a remarkably well-maintained cabin structure built directly into the stone, organized with clean timber, structured tools, and an actual bed.
"This cabin is well-maintained," Sai muttered aloud, his arrogant composure sliding back into place like an old habit. "I'm impressed."
As Sai scanned the room from the comfort of the bedding, a sharp, irritated noise sliced through the air.
"Oi! Oi! NINGRETO!"
Sai snapped back to attention, his eyes darting back to the woman. "Oh! My bad! Were you saying something?"
Her style was striking and intensely utilitarian. She wore cuffed shorts paired with a leathered crop top that extended upward, tightly covering her neck like a structural collar. Over it, she donned a sharp, leathered crop top jacket in a deep, rich maroon. She didn't possess the aesthetic of an ordinary tribal hunter, nor did she resemble the clinical enemies he had imagined.
The woman crossed her arms, fixing him with a flat, unwavering glare. "Mukoton gabal kan?"
Sai rubbed his temples, the horrific imagery of the Skull Mask finally fading into the recesses of his mind. He let out a dry, shaky breath. "Uhhh... sorry? I don't speak gibberish?"
The woman tilted her head, her expression shifting from mild irritation to a sudden, heavy sigh of realization.
"Sighs. After all the tribulations thou hast endured, is that truly the first sequence of nonsense thy tongue chooseth to blabber?" Her accent was a jarring mixture of formal, ancient structure and sharp, modern sarcasm.
"Well, first of all! I don't know shit about your language," Sai shot back, his rockstar pride flaring up as he sat up straight.
"And second of all... you can speak my language?!"
A faint, knowing smirk touched her lips. "Yeah, I can."
Sai leaned forward, his eyes narrowing into slits. "This is not Earth, I assume?"
"No," she replied smoothly, her voice leveling. "This is Pholesteite."
"Oh, so you guys already have a name for your planet, huh?"
"Do not presume to underestimate us, Ningreto!" she snapped, her amber eyes flashing with a dangerous, golden undertone. "I am well acquainted with thy specific nature... an otherworlder."
Sai froze, his mind struggling to process the weight of her words.
"Kinds like me? What do you mean by tha—"
"As I was articulating," she interrupted, dismissing his ego with a sharp wave of her hand.
"Art thou famished? Thou hast remained in a state of slumber for two consecutive days."
Right on cue, a loud, violent gurgle echoed from the depths of Sai's stomach, completely ruining his tough-guy posture.
"Well, my stomach says so," Sai smirked, entirely unfazed by the betrayal of his own anatomy.
"What you got?"
"I have prepared krendal," the woman said, turning on her heel and walking over to a steaming iron pot near the hearth.
"Whether thou chooseth to partake or starve is of little consequence to me, given that its appearance may seem alien to thy sight. But heed my counsel: it is exceptional nourishment."
She began to ladle the thick soup into a carved wooden bowl.
"Here."
When she passed the bowl over, Sai hesitated. He looked down at the unknown liquid, his face instantly twisting into an expression of deep disgust. The soup was a vibrant, glowing, completely unnatural shade of deep purple.
"Are you trying to... poison me?" Sai asked, looking up at her suspiciously. "If that's the play, just let me eat some nuts or something."
"Poi—no, idiot!" she shot back, her tone sharp. "That is merely its natural pigment. Now consume it!"
He glanced up, but the woman just gave him a cold, unblinking stare, waiting to see if his pride was large enough to let him starve.
"Sighs. Here goes the last strand of my life," Sai muttered.
With no other viable options, Sai gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut to block out the offensive color, and reluctantly took a sip.
The moment the liquid hit his tongue, his doubts vanished instantly.
It didn't taste a single bit as foul as it looked. In fact, it tasted remarkably like a rich, deeply savory squash soup with a hint of roasted herbs. The warmth bloomed in his chest, and before he knew it, his stage manners went completely out the window. Sai began to inhale the food, taking massive, unrefined sips. Within sixty seconds, the bowl was scraping dry.
He slammed the wooden bowl down, his eyes wide.
"Holy shit! This is fire!" Sai shouted.
"No, that is krendal," the woman replied deadpan.
"Another one!"
The woman didn't move right away, a smug, satisfied look settling onto her features.
"Told you."
She filled his bowl a second time. Once Sai had thoroughly finished his second helping, the tense silence in the room finally began to settle into something manageable. The woman set her ladle down, straightening the lapels of her maroon jacket.
"It is an act of incivility on my part to withhold my designation," she said, her voice carrying a sudden, formal weight that resonated through the cabin.
"I am Maxus... Maxus Grey."
Sai took one last heavy gulp from his bowl, swallowing hard.
"Hmmm... *gulps.* I don't really mind if you don't introduce yourself, but since you've already done it, it would completely destroy my pride if I didn't do the same."
He set the bowl aside, leaning back against the wooden headboard with a sharp, confident smirk.
"Name's Sai... Sai Haizen." He let out a content sigh, patting his stomach. "Ahhhh, what bliss! Thanks for the food! Now, back to where we left off."
In an instant, the joyful, energetic rockstar face vanished. Sai's expression went dead serious, his pupils locking onto her with an eager, piercing intensity that demanded answers.
"How can you speak my language?" Sai asked, his voice dropping into a low, commanding register. "Are there others like me? From Earth?"
"I am not entirely certain," Maxus said, her gaze drifting toward the fire. "But perhaps there are several of thy kind scattered across this realm. I can readily discern when a being originates from beyond our sky."
"How?"
"The moment an entity of thy nature speaks within a specific proximity, my auricles begin to vibrate mechanically. It is an adaptation—an involuntary translation of a tongue hitherto unknown to me. Though, curious enough, thou and the predecessor I once encountered shared the exact same linguistic structure. What was the designation he gave it? *Japanese?* I could not tell if thou wert speaking the same tongue initially. Thou wert screaming absolute nonsense during thy night terrors."
Sai stiffened. "Wait. Since when did you meet this other guy?"
"That would be... fifty? Sixty cycles ago? I have lost count," Maxus murmured casually.
"Damn," Sai remarked, his eyebrows raising. "You're old as fuck."
"I am not!" Maxus snapped, her jaw tightening.
"Though by the metric of thy fragile human lifespans, yes, I am ancient. But we do not measure time by the standards of thy kind."
"Well, aren't you worried? You're acting as if finding an alien in the woods is just your average Tuesday."
"Tuesday?" Maxus blinked, completely blank.
"Oh right, you don't know about that. Just forget about it."
"This manner of celestial disruption hath become exceedingly common after tha—"
Maxus abruptly bit her tongue, cutting her own sentence clean in half.
Sai stared at her, his eyes boring into her profile, waiting for the rest.
"Nevermind," Maxus said coldly.
"What was that for?" Sai asked, his tone dropping.
"What was what?"
"Why did you cut yourself off in the middle of the sentence?"
"Well... I simply forgot the remaining sequence of my thought."
"What a stupid excuse! Come on, don't be coy with me."
Maxus turned her entire body toward him, her amber eyes narrowing defensively. "And what of thee? Why hast thou not inquired about my lineage? My specific kind?"
"We'll get there the second you tell me what you just hid!" Sai countered, leaning forward. "I'm quite persistent, y'know."
Maxus let out a long, defeated sigh, her shoulders dropping slightly. "Thou art not yet equipped for that knowledge. Thou art entirely uninitiated to the mechanics of this world. If I were to unveil it now..."
"Alright, alright, I'll stop prying, geez," Sai said, waving his hand to diffuse the rising tension.
"I appreciate thy restraint," she stated formally.
"So, what are you really?" Sai asked, his curiosity piqued.
"As thy eyes can clearly discern, I am not of normal human anatomy. I am what the texts designate as an Aeroxon."
"Aeroxon?" Sai tilted his head, a smirk returning. "What, like a bird?"
"Not even remotely close," Maxus replied, her voice ringing with immense tribal pride. "Our lineage is far grander than that of the base dragons."
"Woah, that's cool!" Sai said, his eyes widening with genuine, childlike excitement. "You know, back when I was a kid, I used to love dragons."
"Do dragons also walk the soil of thy world?"
"Not really in real life. It was just an ancient myth from the old times. Not a single shred of evidence ever proved they existed, so as time flew by, people just used them as fantasy assets. Put them in storybooks. Some people actually hoped they were real, which is kind of messed up if you think about it."
"What are the parameters of thy world's dragons? Their capabilities, if they were to exist?"
"It depends on who you're talking to. Everyone has a different spin on them. Some want a wishing dragon, some want them as pets. But in the classic stories, they're usually the ultimate bad guys. A prince tries to save a princess trapped in a castle, but there's one massive problem standing between them: a giant dragon blocking the path. And all they really do is breathe fire."
Maxus let out a sharp, dismissive breath.
"Our reality is vastly distinct. Unlike the beasts of thy imagination who command but a single rudimentary element, the dragons of Pholesteite can manifest three absolute elemental properties simultaneously. We Aeroxons, however, can command five—though our biological specialization lies within the domains of Lightning, Air, and Fire."
"That's overwhelming," Sai admitted, his mind trying to calculate the sheer destructive scale of such a creature.
"Yes. Beings of our caliber possess an internal force known as *Aethel*. It allows our biology to dynamically adapt to our surroundings, whether the crisis demands physical fortifying or linguistic conversion."
"Well, that's convenient," Sai muttered. Then, his eyes narrowed again. "Why are you telling me all this?"
Maxus's expression grew entirely serious, the firelight catching the sharp angles of her maroon collar. "Although I am fundamentally an Aeroxon... that does not dictate that I share an alliance with the rest of my species. As a matter of absolute fact... I should not even exist."
She stepped closer to the edge of his bed, her gaze piercing through him.
"I am relaying this data so thou wilt comprehend exactly which side of the line to occupy when the time comes. Count thyself exceedingly fortunate that thy descent concluded within the boundaries of my domain. Hadst thou fallen into the hands of another faction... I cannot guarantee the survival of thy soul. It would have been unimaginably worse."
Sai remained silent for a moment, the weight of the cabin, the alien planet, and the terrifying entities from his dream settling onto his shoulders. He looked up at her, his voice low and steady.
"Yeah... I think I am. Do you want me to trust you? Is that what you're trying to say?"
"Thou couldst articulate it in that manner,"
Maxus said, turning back toward the dying embers of the hearth.
"Now that our inquiries have concluded, we shall commit to rest. We have an exceedingly long trek ahead of us tomorrow."
Sai lay back down against the wooden frame, his eyes staring up at the dark timber ceiling.
"Yeah."
TO BE CONTINUED....