Shoving his feet into his own pair of boots, conveniently left at the door leading out of Seras’ apartment, Dagan paused thoughtfully for a second, before finally nodding and opening the door: “Well yeah, I’m in the mood...” he had already started walking out of the door and descending stairs... “for some explorin’!”

It was anybody’s guess on whether or not Seras had actually managed to catch up enough to Dagan to hear the rest of what he had said, but he must have thought she did, since he continued on his way regardless. Initially, he had not been this excited to scope out the area, but having had all night to let the excitement build, he just couldn’t help himself.

Dagan was already out the door by the time Seras even got her shirt on. She quickly dressed and started out behind him, but he was down a flight of stairs, ensuring that she failed to hear the second part of his comment. All she could do was sigh. Honestly, if it was that bad, they didn't have to go out for a romp in the hay. They could have just stayed inside. But Seras wasn't going to complain. She kind of wanted to go out there herself, anyways.

"I--" Seras was about to speak up, but Dagan was damn near outside, "Hey--wait for me!"


Seras, Dagan, and Nike had been beyond the city gates a few times, but never all that far. They were always stopped by the Seeker or Attis, who'd belatedly tell them it was dangerous to go much further--and they always sighed and came back. This time, though, they were much better at getting out of their city. They were able to sneak out without anyone noticing. Well, hopefully. But that's something they could deal with later . . . or be horribly embarrassed, whichever came first.

It didn't take long for them to get further than they'd ever been, though. It was both breathtaking and frightening. They'd walked so far north that they could not longer see their unreal city behind them, yet could see nothing around them, either.

Seras and Dagan stood within an expanse, stretching for a distance neither of them could even begin to fathom. They'd witnessed a glimpse of the expanse before, but back then, they were close enough to their city to return. Having left no trail behind them, Seras suddenly felt a bit unnerved. Without giving it any extra thought, she took Dagan's hand. It was subtle, but it was comforting all the same.

There was a breathtaking stillness about their world that was often overlooked and underappreciated. Luckily, Dagan found himself thinking, he did not subscribe to either of the before-mentioned; he found the emptiness of their world to be comforting and relaxing. That did not make it any less eerie, however.

A touch of excitement worked itself up through his spine and he felt his muscles and chest involuntarily tighten. He closed his hand around Seras' comfortingly and nodded to her. Instinctively, despite the lack of anything around them, Dagan could not help but afford the occasional glance behind and to either side of himself and Seras. Maybe it was how far they were from the city or the ever present chance that they were followed, but there was an uneasy feeling that Dagan just could not shake.

"It's . . . quiet," Seras whispered.

A whisper with a hint of fear behind it. The silence was so deafening they could have heard a pin drop from miles away. And that was something Seras was consciously trying to avoid. She was half afraid that someone might be out there to hear her voice--that if she spoke too loudly, she'd cause and echo and lead something straight to she and Dagan. That was not a good idea. Attis and the Seeker never told them why it was dangerous to go out here, after all, but here they were. It was like hopping a fence when your parents told you never to go out there, only to find a terrifying predator ready to eat you alive.

Actually, that was Seras's exact apprehension.

She kept walking, though. Sure, she was a bit unnerved, even a tiny bit afraid, but it wasn't enough to make her want to go back. She'd gone over those fears yesterday, anyways. Thought about it and thought about it and ultimately decided being afraid all her life wasn't worth it.

"And cold, too."

“I like it,” he admitted with the showings of a smile. Though weary and anxious by instinct, he was not consciously expecting something to attack them at any moment, which was probably for the best, because the last thing Seras probably needed was to worry about Dagan actively seeking trouble. Though, given her presence, that was also pretty unlikely, but one never knew for sure.

“--Huh? Now that you mention it,” he looked around quizzically, “it is pretty cold out here.”

"I . . ." she trailed off, half smiled, and looked up to Dagan, replying as playfully sardonic as she possibly could: "You would."

Still, it was kind of weird that Dagan liked the silence. He always got so antsy, and didn't really like having nothing to do. Seras imagined that such excessive silence would've been kind of off putting Dagan. Well . . . the more you know, she supposed.

Walking . . . walking . . . if they knew time, they'd have known that they were on their feet for hours, just walking in the same direction, yet absolutely nothing changed. Except the cold. With each hour, the temperature dropped significantly. They weren't walking fast, incidentally--that would've required Dagan to carry Seras. Dagan could easily have bounded this distance so far in less than an hour, but weighed down by Seras's pace, it took much, much more time than that. Nevertheless, the endless nothing was becoming fairly worrying by this point. At least to Seras . . .

"Hey, can we, uh, can we take a break?" Seras requested.

Her legs were starting to hurt. If she kept on walking like this without rest, she was going to have leg cramps for the next few weeks. Actually, that might end with Dagan having to carry her back home, and that'd just be embarrassing. Dagan was a powerful man, she knew this for sure, but Seras had a hard time relying on Dagan's seemingly limitless energy and strength. He was a super-man, perhaps, but Seras wanted to believe she had it in her to pull her own weight.

For any other person, Dagan may have frowned and insisted that if they could still walk, they could still go on, but he refrained for Seras’ sake. Plus, pushing her too hard might have just made her mad, and he didn’t want anything to do with that.

“Sure,” he said while glancing around for a place to rest--not that there was much of anywhere to sit that wasn’t hard and uncomfortable.

Carrying Seras the rest of the way was a possibility, actually, but Dagan had it on good authority that it was not a particularly pleasant experience. He tried to be as gentle as he could, but he either held on too hard or moved too fast, and it just ended in a whole world of hurt for whoever he was carrying. He wasn’t against it, but he wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it, either.

Seras smiled some and sighed in relief. "Thanks, Dagan."

With little more than a stretch of her arms and legs, Seras plopped down upon the ground. It was dry and abrasive, but she was wearing clothes, so that didn't much matter. Still, she found out the hard way that the ground wasn't all that cozy.

Nevertheless, sitting down was a welcome reprieve from walking. They'd been walking forever, it seemed. Their city was so far behind them that Seras was personally afraid they might get lost on the way back. Everything looked the same, after all. But she didn't bring that up. Not yet, at least. Maybe a little later. She was still willing to travel a bit more distance, here. At least until she started getting tired again. Yeah. That'd be a good time to turn around and start heading back home. At least if they hadn't found anything by then.

"So," she looked up to the sky--or the fog layer that comprised it, at least. "How much more do you think we'll walk? I mean, before we turn around."

In an effort to kill some time, Dagan looked around the general area, but remained within visible range of Seras, which as it turned out, wasn’t all that far from her at all. Given all the fog and how easy it was to lose track of things, he shared Seras’ unvoiced sentiments on finding their way back, but at the same time, the solution seemed pretty obvious to Dagan, too: He would simply turn around. It was just that easy, he thought to himself.

“Eh? Well,” he thought about it as he took a seat beside her. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “and there isn’t really much of a landmark out here either, is there?”

The truth of the matter was, they had not really left the city with a destination in mind, just the general goal of exploration, and honestly, that meant they could turn around at any second.

“What do you think?”

Seras shrugged her shoulders. She couldn't even begin to guess how much farther they'd have to walk. Too much farther, though, and they'd probably reduce their ability to get back home to . . . well, nothing. Zip. They'd just be lost out in someplace they only knew as dangerous. She was actually kind of tempted to suggest they turn around soon. But she stuck to her guns on the matter: the next time she started getting tired was the point in which they'd stop making forward progress and soon turn around and head home. That was her conclusion regarding the matter and that's what she was going to stick with.

"Until I start tiring out again, I guess?" she said, "Then we can rest, and--"

She was about to mention "getting to the other reason they came out here," but she didn't get that far. In mid-sentence, she caught a glimpse of something. It was enough to coerce her into standing as quickly as possible and taking an abrupt step backwards, which was really saying something, because Seras was tired as hell and could barely convince her legs that moving was worthwhile.

In the distance, there was a shadow. A silhouette, shaped like a man, approached from afar, clouded mostly by the fog, though it showed no sign of slowing down . . .

"Ready to go already--?"

He hopped up just as fast as she did, he hadn't seen the silhouette, but the abruptness in which Seras stood was enough to prompt him into doing the same thing. In fact, it would take a second for him to recognize what alarmed her so.

"Ah, damn," he cursed and kicked at the ground, "think we were followed, maybe?"

Unlike Seras, Dagan took an inch forwards, and he obviously wasn't particularly concerned about the silhouette hearing him.

"I-- I don't think-- I--" she looked behind her, back in the direction where they came from, then realized what should've been obvious to her before. "Wait, we didn't come from that way . . ."

The silhouette was not approaching from the direction of the unreal city. It couldn't have been. She'd sat down specifically in that direction, faced her back to the way they came, as a means of keeping them from getting lost. As she thought about it, though, the silhouette got closer, and Seras saw something she couldn't exactly explain.

"W-- wait-- it's not--" Seras began, but couldn't properly convey the entirety of her message. What she saw was utterly mind blowing. So much that she couldn't take her eyes off of it.

As it came closer into view, though, Seras and Dagan would both find that the silhouette itself was . . . empty. A cloud of darkness formed the vague shape of a man, walked like a man, and heaved its shoulders in fatigue like a man, yet it held no form. No substance. Just a walking outline. It didn't appear to notice Seras and Dagan, though. They could do absolutely nothing to it, and it would likely walk by them with little hesitation . . .

When the silhouette finally came into view and seemed to disregard Dagan and Seras, the former kind of moved in front of it, like as if to stop it, but then stepped around and behind it as it kept on walking. He was not sure what to make of it, or even what to think... He could not claim to be an expert on what was normal, but that definitely wasn't.

"H-uh," he looked away from the silhouette and towards Seras, "you don't know what that was either, right?"

Pausing and waiting for her to answer, he took a moment to look towards where the thing had come from; it did have to come from somewhere, after all, right?

"Guess we're not too far from something?"

Seras, like Dagan, watched the silhouette as it marched past them. She turned and watched it go, making note about how it moved.

"I . . . I have no idea . . ." she said, awed as the next person would be.

That was just . . . bizarre. She had no idea what to make of it. Dagan had stood right in front of it and it just kept walking. If he hadn't moved, what then? Would it have walked right through him? Seras could feel her brain hurting more and more each time she tried to think about it. And then she turned around again, faced the direction that the silhouette had come from, and found herself in a panic again.

"Ah!" Seras then covered her lips and bounded to the immediate right.

There were more silhouettes coming. A . . . it . . .

It was a whole army of them . . .

Except they were all walking in single file, and many of them appeared to be riding on top of other silhouettes--these ones much larger than the smaller, man-shaped ones. They were large, walked on four legs, and had tall backs--on which the man-shaped silhouettes rode . . .

His mouth dropped at the sight of the ... army, the marching silhouettes approaching. It was an unreal experience that he could not make sense of anymore than Seras could. For the first time, he did not feel an overwhelming need to act, but instead to wait, to see and watch these things, almost with a child’s curiosity. There was, however, a distinctive lack of joy, there was not fear, but he did not understand enough of what he was seeing to be entertained by the sight.

“ Wha-Why... So many of them!?”

Almost immediately he crossed back over to Seras; he was not testing this one, he was not standing in front of these guys, because he honestly was not too sure about where this situation was going. The first one had seemed okay enough, but this was quite a bit more than one.

“Uh,” he nudged at Seras, “What do you, ha, what do you make of this, Sera?”