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Vito was floundering. His mind felt scattered. His senses. His limbs. Why weren’t they reappearing? The regeneration. It was still happening. He could feel it. But it was slow. Not like pan-forma. What happened to the hyperstate?

His senses. Yes. No. Foggy. Too greatly diminished. Something was very wrong, and he quickly realized what it was.

‘Kerikos?’ he thought. ‘Where are you?’

There. Vito saw the reaper in the grass, not far away. Smoldering with ethereal, black-and-white smoke. Wounded. Badly.

To Vito’s eyes, the reaper was supposed to look like a honey badger, but right now, Kerikos was virtually without form. Little more than a blob.

Vito crawled with his one arm, trying to will the other to grow back faster.

So much blood. Still gushing out of his wounds even as they healed.

He didn’t understand. How had they been separated? Where had the attack even come from?

Might this be how he was going to die? Without even a clue as to what happened? Just caught up in some mayhem beyond his comprehension? Wrong place, wrong time? In some foreign land? Never to see his family again? His dorky little sister? His stubborn father? His brave cousins? Lord Dimas?

This wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair, either. He couldn’t explain why. Couldn’t think it through. Couldn’t process any of it.

But he could feel it. In his gut, he could feel it. How wrong this was. How cruel.

He kept pushing. Kept crawling. Somehow, with each passing moment, it seemed to be getting harder, not easier. That also made no sense. He was still regenerating. He should’ve felt the improvement. And yet.

It was like the world itself was pushing down on him. Telling him to stop crawling. Telling him to give up.

It kept growing more difficult. His vision stretched before him. It felt like Kerikos was getting farther away, too. Not closer. That couldn’t be right. Even time itself was all wrong. This felt like an eternity going by. How could Kerikos be so far away? He’d been right there a moment ago.

Agh. He knew the problem. Rationally, he knew it. He was delirious. His senses were lying to him. Aftermath of the hyperstate. That had to be it. Only explanation.

Or he was dying. Truly dying. Turning slowly feral after his link to his reaper had been severed.

No. No, no. He refused to believe it. That was just the fear talking. Trying to take over. Make him panic.

Kerikos was right there. Wounded, sure, but still alive. He could almost touch him.