Chapter Seventy - Nine

Preparation:

The darkness was calming. It was comforting, there was nothing there, no pain, no problems. I was empty and the emptiness calmed him. He wasn't a stranger to this place. He had spent years in and out of the darkness. Day and nights when the cell he was kept in became too much, when xyler couldn't handle another blow. It was Aldric who normally sent them here, Xyler was always ready to fight. He was never the one who made them go into the darkness. He could feel him detached from him. He was there in the darkness but blocking their connection.

It was usually the other way around. He remembered a night when he wanted to let it all go. He shut down and let himself slip in the blackness and hid there so well that Xyler couldn't find him. He remembered hearing his howls echo around the silence. It was days before Xyler found him. He remembered how Xyler buried his head into him, begging for Aldric not to give up. To try once more.

Aldric let out a breath he knew he was going