Everyone else had gone ahead. They were all versed in what to do--even Dyss, but he'd stayed behind, back in the tent with Attis.

They had "set up shop" recently and got straight to business: the investigation of the nature of spiritual fluctuations. Attis had explained it all in depth several times before, how it worked it worked, and it should work for them, but first they needed answers: why was this area so high in spiritual energy that Purgatory could barely keep up with it? What made it so special? Understanding why, Attis had theorized to everyone (excluding Izumi, of course, who had specifically requested to know as little as possible-- "The less she knows, the safer she'll be. It's for her own good," he'd told Dyss), would lead them to understanding how to take advantage of the strong spiritual flux in this area.

Where they had set up was outside of town, actually, in a large tent which they all got together to construct--with Izumi helping, of course, oddly enough. She refused not to be involved, so long as Dyss was there. Thus, it was a matter of keeping her as uninformed as possible, which Izumi actually didn't seem to mind.

Nonetheless, the others had gone out into town, leaving Dyss and Attis behind--Attis, who generally stayed behind anyways. He was a recorder of sorts, not the kind of person that went out into the field and gathered information, but the one that understood the deeper meaning behind information, recorded all his colleagues returned to him with, and analyzed the data accordingly. It was unlikely that this was his first time doing this. Attis sat at a wooden desk with papers strewn about before him, a quill pen in hand and an inkwell set nearby.

It was the first time Dyss and Attis had been alone together.

Having time alone with Attis was good, but meant that Dyss was going to have to ask some difficult questions, and probably learn some difficult information. There was just too much going on, and no one else even knew to ask Attis anything...

"Attis, I... Have some questions..."

Dyss sat purposefully, though he wasn't truly able to move around, or make Attis answer questions, or anything like that. He just had to depend on the man answering questions as a friend...

"What exactly were you doing in Purgatory before we met you? Recheov and I, we found a building, and there was a girl there, lost... One of us, but faded..."

"Oh . . ."

Attis had trailed off, and didn't say anything for a moment. He was, prior to that, busy jotting down notes and observations about the area. Most of the papers on his desk were notes, in fact. He was a habitual note taker, even in his daily life, where scientific questions were the last of his concerns. It seemed he had a journal for everything--but only some of it was accessible. Notes like the ones he was writing that day could be read by anyone, but certain journals that he kept, he hid--somewhere, elsewhere, somewhere beyond the reaches of everyone else. Almost ninety-five percent of Attis's writing was a mystery.

He wiped the tip of the quill pen off with a cloth set nearby and put a cap on his ink well, before standing up briefly. He took his chair and turned it away from his desk, to face Dyss, and sat back down.

"You found it, then . . .?" Attis asked--almost as if he were expecting it. Or, at the very least, hoping that Dyss had, in fact, found that old, broken down facility.

It would certainly explain why the facility seemed right in the path that Attis had projected for Dyss and Recheov to take. The question was seemingly rhetorical, though, as Dyss had already said more than enough to suggest that he and Recheov had, in fact, discovered the facility.

"The girl-- did she talk to you?" To him, this was more important than the question Dyss proposed--which he could address, once his own concerns were taken care of.

"A little bit. She seemed... Lost, though... And sad..."

Dyss couldn't quite bring himself to accuse Attis of anything. He'd read and seen enough to suggest the man was responsible, but how could he accuse his friend of anything? He was here, helping them, after all. But what happened back then? Dyss was curious...

"Not everything was destroyed. There were still some things. Some writings... Writings that..."

Dyss couldn't finish. He just had to hope Attis would volunteer things...

Attis smiled. It was a weak smile, and extremely burdened, but a relieved smile. It was as if part of the burden had suddenly lifted. "She's . . . she's still alive, then . . ."

It was a sigh of relief, but not completely. There were still other things to worry about--like the well being of that girl. She was lost, fading-- Attis's concern for her couldn't end, not yet, but they could be put off, now. He had made a conclusion already, one of vital importance, but one that could only benefit that girl and that girl alone.

Attis leaned forward, setting his forearms upon his knees, and briefly stared at the mat floor they had rigged up for the inside of the tent. It was inevitable that Dyss would be here, asking questions about it--and if it was true that Attis had, in fact, send them there on purpose, then it was likely just a matter of time in his mind, though there might well be some questions and subjects that might make him uncomfortable. It was a matter of trial and error for Dyss, who was, himself, already uncomfortable with the situation.

"Whose writings?" Truly, it made a world of difference.

"Yours."

Dyss had read some of Attis' writings while in the facility, and they hadn't exactly been cheerful. Rather, they had seemed to lead up to whatever horrible fate had befallen the facility, along with the girl, the man, and whoever else may have been present...

"Attis, why...? Wasn't there a better way?"

There had been warnings, from what Dyss had seen. Attis normally would have heeded them, or so Dyss thought...

And that was the world of difference he was looking for. Someone else's writings wouldn't have been nearly as in depth; Dyss would know much more than someone like Recheov, who had read things in another person's office. It meant he had just a little less to explain to Dyss.

"At the time . . ." Attis started, pausing for a moment to release a sigh, "No-- there wasn't a better way. I had signed up for the project long before anyone else. That was before we had what we do now-- a long, long time ago, Dyss. It was back before we knew what we were doing . . ."

The entire subject was a depressing one; there was no escaping that. There was no documenting the amount of people that died in that accident, and only two seemed to survive, that had at least been caught up in it, and one of those two was questionable. When Dyss saw that girl and the other man she was with, the man was under a cover like a body bag. He was breathing, but so bad off that seeing him wasn't even an option--that the girl, perhaps, had removed the option for herself.

"It was back when I had someone to answer to," Attis looked up to Dyss, "Someone I couldn't say no to. But I don't have that now."

"But... What about them? No one else ever knew... Even knows they're still there!"

There were so few memories as there were... Was Attis really the only one of them left? How many others had there been? Dyss had never heard about them, certainly... And Attis was probably the longest living Memory, too. He was apparently much older than they all thought...

"Were they your friends too?"

Dyss spoke very quietly, thinking of the group of them here in the real world. Attis had lost the first group of people pursuing a way to extend life. Perhaps, as the oldest, he was most pressed for time, despite the extra time he had apparently already gained. The girl, the man, everyone else who had done what Attis wanted... What made the four of them (and Izumi, now) any different? They were still acting under Attis' orders...

It was warranted aggression, truly. Dyss had every right to be angry--or frustrated, or whatever negative feeling he directed towards Attis. Attis didn't return aggression, either. He merely smiled a half smile--one of regret and sympathy.

"Yes, they were," Attis replied, "Ozrik and Aria. Aria was . . . the girl you met. And Ozrik . . . I don't know. I don't know if he's even holding on anymore. I don't think he even had the strength left in the first place . . ."

Aria and Ozrik--two names that were both sensitive subjects to Attis. He could rattle off biographies of the two of them if asked. He knew them just as well, if not better, than he knew his four friends who stood with him in the real world. And, unlike them . . . Aria and Ozrik knew Attis inside and out. They knew when a smile really meant that he was hurting inside, and that for some reason or the other, he didn't want everyone else to worry about it.

"Ozrik helped build the facility at the Rubicon. He was . . . the fifth person that was recruited him. I didn't do the recruiting. If I did, I wouldn't have asked anyone that came along to even think about it," Attis sighed and looked at the mat floor again, "They were all good people doing the work of real world convicts. Ozrik didn't care, though. He was happy, really, happy just to be outside of the city, somewhere else, being physically active. He'd-- we'd-- we'd have him be a messenger a lot, you know, sending him back to the city if we needed an urgent message sent, and he'd just take and start running with this huge grin on his face. And then-- Aria-- she was . . . she loved Ozrik, and Ozrik loved her just the same. Once the facility was built, she refused to let anyone tell her she couldn't stay there with Ozrik-- even though she was deaf, and couldn't help the project in any way . . ."

"I..."

Dyss almost felt sympathy for Attis in that situation. Almost. Whatever had happened, Attis had let it happen, and perhaps even caused it... And he hadn't been the one to pay the price for it. Aria, Ozrik, and anyone else there had been the ones to pay...

"Who ran the project?"

Attis had always been the one in charge- no one had ever disputed it. But he had worked for someone else at some point? Someone who had made the whole damned project happen? Dyss was curious to know...

"You read the name once before, right?" Attis asked as he again looked back up to Dyss, "In my notes. A lot of it was burned that had to do with them, part of the process of shutting down the Rubicon Excavation site-- at their request . . ."

There were only a few names that Attis mentioned in his reports, none of which would've seemed familiar to Dyss at all. All but one. When he had read it, it made his head hurt. Just three words of a language long since dead, yet glaringly important:

"Crepesculum ex Memoria."

And just hearing it . . . it'd cause a headache to flair instantly. It was small, a slight throbbing pain in the front of the skull, but it was there. Whether or not Attis felt it, too, was unclear. If he did, he didn't notice, or perhaps he was used to it. Or, perhaps he didn't feel it at all. Dyss would, though. He'd feel the pain, and though he could not see, his other senses would blur for only a moment.

"The guiding force behind all of Memoria," Attis continued--but this time, without a smile. It had all but faded. "And the very people we're here to avoid."

Dyss would grunt a bit in pain as the headache hit him, his senses similarly compromised. What the hell kind of power was in that name? Why did it hurt whenever he interacted with it? He was almost afraid to think it...

"Guiding? How? I thought we just sort of... Appeared. Is there someone making us or controlling us? What are you talking about, Attis?"

It was all extremely confusing. To go from a huddled hidden collective group of memories to something that was purposeful, controlled? That made so little sense. And why hadn't Attis warned them before? It was so strange...

"No . . . we're still that," Attis shook his head, "We've never been anything but a series of unfortunate anomalies of the dead lands-- anomalies that, since the day we started to understand life and death, and the non-existence that waits for us at the end of ours life --anomalies of Purgatory that have wanted more. But no one could promise that. The Crepesculum tried to do that-- it tried to make that promise, and it failed horribly-- and then, it tried to cover everything up. To this day, few really remember. And if I were to outright tell someone, I'd only be speaking misery for them. Who wants to listen, when the subject tries to worm old memories out, causes nothing but pain? It's worse, back there, in Memoria. It's unbearable."

The man had a lot to say, yet no matter how much he said, it wasn't going to be enough. A three hundred page book wouldn't document it well enough. There would always be more to say--but Attis could get to that. In time, he could say it all--but only if Dyss truly wanted to know. Sometimes, the truth was harder to hear.

"The Crepesculum comprised five men, at first. They were the first Memories to find each other-- and establish Memoria. They-- . . . we . . . --wanted to try and make sense out of what was happening. The world was a cold and dead place, nothing like we remembered. It was a rude awakening. You've had it, too, haven't you? A thousand lives flashing before your eyes . . . millions of disjointed memories that will never make sense, yet all have something in common."

Attis paused.

"What is it you see, Dyss?"

Dyss, without realizing it, was suddenly on the defensive. The information that Attis was one of these people made sense, perhaps, terrible though it was. Dyss still knew Attis, still trusted him, but... Perhaps things were different now. Attis wanted the best, though, right?

"What do I see? Lots of pain. Lots of loneliness... All the things I remember are... Wrong. Just wrong. Things that shouldn't have happened. Bad things that happened to people who didn't deserve them... Like Izumi..."

Dyss had also seen some of Izumi during his time here, memories that weren't unlike what he normally experienced. And when he thought of those vague memories, those brief moments, he felt a sense of... Righteousness. That those people responsible should be punished. It was only right...

"Seeing all the injustices of so many lives . . ." Attis began, pausing only a moment as he recalled more and more, "Recalling the orders and successes and failures of war, remembering only the pain of losing oxygen while trapped under the water, recalling the sensation of vertigo a thousand times over before falling, remembering forests and jungles and plains and prairies and the empty of those that traveled with you, of a thousand loves lost, of a thousand loves gained . . ."

Only one of which would be familiar to Dyss--those of his own, but what Attis presented were the descriptions of much more than that. The recollections and feelings that drove their peers to act as they did, the unique memories that seemed so senseless at times . . .

"We all see something different. At first, we sought to make sense of it. And then we did," Attis paused again.

This time, it was a long pause.

"And then, as time whittled away, Memories flickered and faded, and more were born. We brought the new to Memoria, and tried to find a cure for those that passed-- but we couldn't. They always passed too quickly. All I could do was document the lives that faded into nothing. We were powerless and confused. We couldn't explain why everyone else had such short lives . . ."