Dyss fell asleep eventually, and Aria actually felt pretty good about that. In hindsight, maybe this wasn't the best song. Dyss was awake for the happy parts. It got happier, of course, but he fell asleep before the conflict arrived. It was a story about retribution and turning a new leaf; there was conflict and there was fighting, but it was all for the betterment of the self. Dyss didn't need to hear about conflict and fighting now, though. He'd already had his share of it and he didn't need anymore weighing on his mind.

Once he was asleep, Aria stopped singing entirely, and instead just hummed to herself. It was the same (or similar, at least) tune that she was singing before, but humming felt nice and wasn't abrasive on her vocal chords. Of course, when she wasn't parting her lips to sing, Aria was as ignorant to tone as a deaf songbird, but the vibrations in in her upper chest and throat still felt nice to her.

Time would pass, and soon REM sleep would descend upon Dyss.

His dream, however, would not be exactly normal. Dyss would find himself standing upon the same beach on which he slept, dressed down in what he used to wear, including the dark sunglasses that he left with Aria at the excavation site. Here, he did not have his perception, not the thing he called normal. Here, he had only what everyone else deemed normal.

The lake was a lot more shallow than he might remember it, yet it looked like it just finished raining. Worse, perhaps: it looked like a hurricane just blew threw. Sand and dirt were all mixed and scattered and there were many a tree uprooted all around him. On the other side of the lake, a boy, a familiar boy, sat upon one knee, finishing setting up a makeshift display: a metal quarter staff and a pair of steel fans, both set and spaced like headstones on grave plots.

Dyss drifted off, but the new vision wasn't disturbing, exactly. Rather, it seemed... Not calming. But expected. He had already seen so many events he had never witnessed, and been so many places he had never been... And was wearing things he hadn't worn, at least for a while...

"Hey!"

Dyss called out to the youth across the lake, stepping to the edge of the water. Dyss had seen the boy so much lately, but had no idea who or why... And as he looked, the place looked devastated... And Dyss realized that the boy was setting up a grave display, and took on something of a more somber tone, while still calling out loudly.

"What happened here...?"

The boy stood up, stepped back, and solemnly acknowledged the graves. He said nothing to Dyss, but when he turned away from the graves, it seemed as if his violet eyes fell upon the young man, and in them was a small level of sad acknowledgment.

But then he turned again, faced the graves, knelt, and adjusted them . . . or, rather, unadjusted them. It was slow at first, but it was happening again. Seconds passing had paused entirely, only to retract. Seconds began to fly by in reverse. The boy plucked the weapons from their plots, took steps back, walked the length of the lake backwards, and departed from Dyss's vision. Unlike the last time Dyss experienced this bizarre happening, though, time did not flow backwards like a raging river. It was evenly paced. Seconds retracted with the same timeframe as a second's passing.

It took Dyss a moment to realize what was happening. The boy seemed to acknowledge him, but then... Nothing? No, it was time itself... Running backwards. Dyss wasn't sure what to do, but for once, he wanted to figure out who this boy was...

"Wait!"

Dyss started to run around the lake, trying to, for once, not be a passive observer to all these events. They were intruding on his consciousness, in a way, and he deserved some sort of answer why...

And the boy stopped entirely. He was in mid back-step, and he stopped. One foot was lifted, retracting his step forward, and the other was still firmly upon the ground. The boy's face no longer moved. His heart was not beating and he no longer seemed to breath.

The boy wasn't the only thing that stopped, though. All Dyss would have to do was take a look around him, and he'd find that the whole world stopped moving. The lake ceased its gentle lapping against the extended shore, the breeze no longer whisked away stray blades of grass, and the broken trees all around no longer shuddered under their own weight and the forcefulness of the wind against their broken branches.

Time was driven to a halt.

Dyss moved forward slowly, almost feeling as if he had stopped too... Before realizing he hadn't. Everything in the dream had stopped, instead... But Dyss had no idea what to expect...

"Hello!?"

Dyss called out to anything, continuing to approach the boy. As if perhaps examining the only other living being around would inform him of anything...

Examining the boy . . . trying to conclude something about the boy . . .

He was sixteen years old and short for a boy his age, around five and a half feet tall. He had chin length black hair and bore Cizokian traits-- the same brand of genetic traits that Izumi possessed. His eyes were a violet color and his features were forlorn and solemn. Filled with regret and riddled with guilt. This was a boy that felt as if he'd done something horrible, regardless of if he was at fault or if he was not.

This was something Dyss could discern. After all, Dyss had a knack for the precepts of guilt and justice. One always led to the other, and the latter was his specialty.

Dyss had more power in this dream than he was aware of, however. He only needed to put for the will to learn, to find out what this boy had done to leave him riddled with guilt and regret, to find out first hand . . .

Dyss looked over the boy, with his sense of guilt, but... It was true. Dyss was attuned to justice, in a way. Guilt, however... Guilt had little to do with justice. Justice was about the wrong done and the restitution or punishment enacted. The most just people, in fact, tended to be the guiltiest, usually for little reason. The truly unjust were those who never felt guilt...

Dyss, however... He soon realized that the time in the dream itself seemed to be at his command... He could actually learn more. Focusing, he tried to exert his will on the dream around, seeking... The end. That was his instinct, to see how things ended, more so than how they began. Ends didn't justify means, but they were certainly the more important of the two...

The end, however, would be right confusing ...

Dyss would watch as the boy returned home. He'd see the clinic, see where it was in Hillcrest exactly, watch the boy return to a clinic room and to a girl lying flat in a bed, seemingly asleep. She had strange blue hair that was tucked behind her ears and her face seemed off color. Too white. She looked naturally pale, but here, she looked somewhere between life and death. The boy spoke to her for awhile, held her hand, and kissed her forehead before he left.

He gathered as much supplies as his weakened body could carry, packed them up, and left home, heading down the path away fron Hillcrest, ever towards Galaens. On his back he seemed to be carrying a simple farming scythe. It was, however, the same scythe that Attis wielded now.

And that was the end, the full extent of the vision Dyss was privy to. It was at that point that he'd hear talking in the darkness. Talking close by him.

Shouting ...