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SEQUEL STORY TO TWO WORLDS, DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'RE CAUGHT UP! :3

"Daddy, help!"

Skylar's voice screeched with terror as the next explosion hit, this time the Shock blast was more close and hotter than last time as he staggered on his feet, catching himself on a cement wall so he could continue walking down the way he was going. He tasted blood in his mouth as the smoke and flames danced untamed around him, the sounds of screeching horror from other people was heard in all directions while he took every step with pain protesting in his ankles. Where was he? How'd he get here? More importantly, what the hell is going on?!

It was dark out with the smoke and flames and the constant explosions booming in the distance, making everything disorienting with every step. But he just kept walking... Focused on something important enough that it made him keep walking forward, down an open dirt road with houses and little wooden stands lining the sidelines of his path... it all seemed so familiar. Like... as if he was here before doing something.

"Run!"

People all around Kevin cried out in terror as a whistling sound was approaching, getting louder and louder as he noticed people were running at full sprint down the same direction he was going. Mothers and fathers scooping their children up in their arms as their gaze peered up behind their shoulders, fearing something that was approaching--

--KER-BOOM--

Another explosion smacked dead in the center of the street in front of Kevin, the air punched out of his lungs like being tackled by a semi-truck. He was in the air by this point and with his ears ringing and supressing out all the screaming and explosions, he suddenly felt better. Enjoying the silence, until his back slammed and dragged on the dirt road at least twenty metres before rolling to a stop, feeling the excruciating pain rip through his skin and in his veins as the taste of blood came more into his mouth.

He was stunned, his body functions felt paralyzed as he lay there in the ash and dirt, his eyes catching the occasional family running past him, not even considering on looking back to helping him. With the smoke and ash floating around his face it especially made it hard to look at them, but with their backs facing him he could notice something off about them... they looked different... non-human... A mother, wearing a red bandanna and long dirty kilt over he body, knelt down by her son and pulled him into her arms, his tail dripping with blood and--wait tail!?

KAH-SHOOM

He never got a second look at them as another explosion ignited the ash and dirt around the two, their bodies disappearing in the mid-night air and flames.

Kevin couldn't react anymore to the pain and sorrow that was happening all around him by this point. Witnessing the death of a mother and child was just not a sight to see for a man who has a son.

Wait, Skylar! Where's Skylar?

"Daddy, help me I'm stuck!"

A father hearing those words in a tone of fear and terror was not something he ever wanted to get used to as his blood boiled and restarted again, the feeling of his limbs coming back with pins and needles. "Skylar," He called in the dirt and ash, his arms twitching and moving to force himself up in a push-up position. When he stood up, finally, on his feet, he was greeted with a familiar face he'd never thought would ever see again.

It was easy to know who it was instantly as those eyes bore cold holes into his body, freezing the sweat on his body into ice pools. His blood was compelled to a halting pause, his legs shaking under the amount of blood pooling in his heart and his skin prickled with every hair on his body. Kevin was, for once in ten years, lost at words. He didn't know why, but his heart even lurched into his throat and his brain wanted to scream at him to jump into those bulky arms and bury his face into the crook of that large neck. He wanted to kiss those familiar lips and hold onto the one thing he gave up on ten years ago... His lover.

"Daddy, help it hurts!"

Both Kevin and Demetrius Crawford looked in the direction of Kevin's pleading son, whose sobs became loud enough for Demetrius to immediately break into a sprint and towards a burning house, Kevin tried to follow but the Husky leaped through the flames that brightly danced at the front door and disappeared. Kevin's heart could have literally jumped out of his mouth at that point, seeing someone he cared about run into a burning house to save the one thing that kept Kevin going was... scary.

And that's when he heard it: The faint whistle getting louder and louder that before Kevin could react, the flying bomb landed squarely onto the house, erupting in a mess of cement, wood and ash-dirt.

All that was left was the sounds of explosions and the scream tearing from Kevin's throat...

Kevin opened his eyes quickly and sharply inhaled, absorbing in his surroundings as he awoke inside his bedroom. Covered in ice cold sweat and panting ridiculously as his heart rate was fluttering during that whole dream he experienced. He wasn't even sure if it even was a dream, the whole thing seemed so real that Kevin actually felt like he was there himself, being tossed around from explosions and feeling the searing hot fire cooking his skin felt very real. Though, even though he was cooking in his dream, he still felt the ice cold sweat covering his body, and he knew exactly why that happened.

Demetrius was there.

The fictional character from his childhood once again returned to haunt him in his dreams. Kevin was suddenly reminded of the memory when he was 16 and late for class, everywhere he turned he saw the strong, muscular Husky skulking around him. Watching with those cold glacier blue eyes that always seemed to have an interesting, yet foreign, effect on Kevin's feelings that it felt like his heart was always lodging into his throat,

Kevin thought he finally got rid of Demetrius when he met Emily, but now that she's been dead for 4 years, has being lonely finally caught up to Kevin that he's reliving the old memories? All that therapy he took for so long as a kid was gone down the drain now, an actual waste of time now that Kevin thought about it. His parents paid so much money to have him 'fixed' but now that he's reliving those thoughts it seems that cash was pointlessly used.

Kevin needed to re-fix himself again. These thoughts of Demetrius Crawford coming back and haunting his dreams are probably going to ruin his life and affect Skylar if he didn't get help. And he hated the thought of not helping his son. The memory of his 4 year old trapped in a burning house suddenly came into thought now, but that was quickly shaken out as he turned onto his side.

In order to keep himself and Skylar safe, he was going to have to go back to the therapist. But tomorrow, though, right now it was too late to even think about all of that this late at night.

Closing his eyes, Kevin slowly drifted back into a deep sleep again. That night he dreamt of walking animal soldiers marching toward a bright greenish-blue light...

"Good afternoon, my name is Zoe Travis, how can I help you?"

The secretary's voice was polite and professional over the phone that he was reminded of a woman wearing a business top and skirt sitting behind a big marble desk, her hair tied back into a pony-tail and her black lined glasses sharp and pointy at the sides. He smiled at the thought and spoke through the phone. "Hi, would there be any way I could talk to Dr. Ada please?"

The women paused for a second and responded, "And whom may I ask is asking?" She asked politely.

"Kevin. Kevin Justice." He replied in his fatherly tone but that seemed to have been a little over the top for his taste.

"One moment, please."

She put the phone line on hold and music started to play. After 2 minutes, the line crackled and another woman's voice appeared on the line.

"Kevin," Her voice was old and professional, almost a little intimidating as well. "What a surprise."

He shivered immediately as her voice droned into his ear like a woman purring, he didn't know why since Dr. Ada and Kevin both lived in different states 10 years later. But, still, it was creepy. Kevin took a deep breath on his balcony during the damp next morning, using his free hand to rub out the tiredness in his eyes. Last night he slept horribly, and he had to take Skylar to the bus stop soon so his fatherly sixth sense needed to wake up.

"Hi, Doctor," He grumbled a little, trying to sound like he was awake, but failing.

"How have you been since we last talked ten years ago?" Her voice mused and already Kevin felt like he was in the chair talking about his feelings and troubles again in front of her. She was always like this, straight to the point and right on the ball, it usually knocked Kevin off his game for how fast she moves but by now he should have been used to it. 10 years is a long time though.

"uhh," He stuttered and looked out at New York, trying to focus on something to get his thinking brain started, "Good, good, I have a son now, named Skylar."

She inhaled quietly and Kevin imagined a smile on her old unwrinkled face, "Oh, Kevin, that's wonderful. So you met a woman, are you two enjoying yourselves?"

Yep, 10 years is a long time... "She died." Kevin blurted out as if it was force of habit. Her demeanour changed and Kevin sensed what was next.

"Oh... Are you feeling okay?" She said, moving right into therapist mode instead of happy human being mode.

"Yeah, I'm fine, that was 4 years ago. So I've had a lot of time to move on now." He sighed and leaned on the balcony edge with his free hand supporting his body.

"Time means nothing to accepting a loved one's death, Kevin. It takes more than time in believing you've accepted something." She said.

Kevin was getting frustrated, this is not exactly how he planned the phone call would go, he had to switch topics. "Doctor, I'm not here to talk about Emily. I'm calling to talk about..." He stopped? Why is he stopping? Something inside Kevin's throat felt like it grabbed his tongue and yanked it back, it was probably his heart back in his throat again.

"Are you having homosexual imaginary thoughts again, Kevin?"

Holy shit...

The blood inside Kevin's vein's froze and the wind outside was not helping either. For being gone in ten years and moving out of Alaska to New York and getting married with a son of four years old and graduating to become a journalist in the New York Times paper was enough time to forget stuff like that. But not to Dr. Ada, apparently, the woman had a memory of an elephant, and that shocked Kevin. Ten years ago, Kevin told Dr. Ada everything about his 'imaginary' world with walking-talking animals and being engaged to one. So, you could say, she is the only one in Kevin's life who knows everything.

"Uhh," Kevin's tongue still felt stuck, but he swallowed hard and fought against it, "I'm having dreams again. Dreams with..."

"Your Husky friend, the one you engaged to. Demetrius, was it?" Once again, she was on the ball and still knocking Kevin off balance. How's she doing this?

"Yeah... How do you still remember?" Kevin asked, bewildered.

"I took your file out when you were on hold. So, tell me about the dreams Kevin."

And just like that, Kevin felt like he was 16 again. He told her everything with the dreams of Skylar crying out for his dad to Demetrius popping out of nowhere to Skylar even drawing pictures of his Husky friend. Though, Kevin chose not to tell her everything, and that's the feeling of being watched in his own apartment. There was a line between sounding normal and crazy, and Kevin didn't want Dr. Ada to mark Kevin crazy enough to mark him as unstable to look after his son. Losing Skylar would be... Once again, he was reminded of his dream of Skylar pleading for help...

"Hmm, I see. Well Kevin, it looks like your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Perhaps you need to get all of these thoughts out of your head someway, and you're doing the right thing on telling me this stuff, it's a good first step." She mused on, and Kevin imagined her writing some notes in his file.

"Telling me something? Like what?" Kevin asked, peering inside to look at Skylar watching TV.

"Who knows," she said, "It could be that you're having too much stress, or you miss something... or someone..."

Oh no, she's looping back to Emily, Kevin cleared his throat and twisted her words, "So you think I might have stress?"

She sighed, "Kevin, you're a journalist aren't you? Maybe this is a sign for you to write this off your chest. Some writers use literature to vent their feelings and emotions into their work so they can get whatever's bothering them off their chest. Perhaps you should look into something like that. From what you have told me you seem to have a plot line..."

Kevin looked back out at New York and considered, maybe she's right. Kevin could write a book about this... "Huh, yeah, sounds like a good idea." He smiled.

"Try that, and call me same time next week. I'd like an update on how you're doing every week now, Kevin. Just to see how you're doing."

Kevin agreed and finally got off the line with Dr. Ada, turning to see his son at the door with his back pack around his shoulders. "Ready, Daddy!"

Kevin smiled and picked his son up.

"I know it hurts, but you have to fight the urge to talk to him again. You mustn't risk getting in trouble twice in a row."

His long-time friend beside him softened his gaze and peered up at those eyes looking across the building gap towards the man holding his son on the balcony of his home. His eyes were plastered with sadness and hurt, almost looking like tears were going to fill them. It was painful to watch him act like this, act like a lost child looking for his mother in a market.

The taller friend blinked and cleared his throat as the wind picked up and blew at his armour, the black and gold shimmering in the damp sunlight. "I know... I just wanted to hear his voice again." He paused and looked back at the man holding his son, who was now closing the glass balcony door behind him and locking it this time. He smiled, smart boy. "I just miss him so much..."

"I know," his black and orange stripped friend put a firm hand on his shoulder, "But it looks like he's found a special friend now. It's been ten years; don't you think it's time to move on now?"

The taller friend frowned at the thought of Kevin and his neighbor friend, and then looked at his black and orange stripped friend, "He promised, though. It's enough for me to hold on to right now, isn't it?"

"Ten years is a long time to forget something like that Demetrius. It may be time to let go." Damien sighed and let go of the Husky's shoulder, "Come on, let's get back to work."

Demetrius sighed and looked up to the sky, grabbing his two sided sword and turning toward the opposite side of the building, standing on the edge and spread his arms wide. With one long intake of air, he and Damien both dove over the edge and disappeared into the concrete jungle of New York City.