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'...Cisco, look at me,' came the private words from Dennex.

Cisco did so, moving his eyes but not his head. The reaper was floating right there next to the television.

A skeletal wolf wreathed in black flames, as always.

And yet... Cisco blinked. Did Dennex look different, somehow? A bit smaller, perhaps?

His eyes were probably just playing tricks on him.

'Are you okay?' the reaper asked him.

The answer to that was relative, he felt, but he decided to just say, 'I'm fine.'

'You have been staring at that television for over two hours now.'

Ah.

'And I have been calling out to you for the past five minutes straight.'

Ahhh.

Cisco leaned back on his bed and stretched his arms. 'I guess I was a bit lost in thought.'

'Listen. Anyone would be unsettled after learning what we have.' Dennex hovered over him and stared down into his eyes with his hollow ones. 'But shutting me out is not how you cope with it, my boy. I am not just your reaper, understand? I am your friend. And over the course of our time together, we may go through many more things like this. It is important that you lean on me. It is what I am here for.'

Cisco scratched the back of his own neck. 'What's there to talk about? Our family's in trouble, and we can't do anything about it. It's pretty straightforward, isn't it?'

'We can make ourselves ready for the time when we CAN do something about it.'

'I've been meditating every single day. And for more hours than I ever have before. Are you saying I need to do it even--?'

A shift in the Dantean news program on TV caught his attention. For the first time that Cisco had seen, the mustachioed anchor was brightening up--smiling, even. For the first time that Cisco had seen, the man wasn't talking about the war.