"Noxian... You and Noxian have lived together longer than you and me."
Darius stared at Xion with a chilling smile. "Four more years than me. Even though I was the first one to find you. First one to hug you. First one to kiss you."
"Noxian did all of those things before you."
Xion immediately regretted the words that slipped from his mouth.
He understood rather late that he wasn't completely out of Zen's control just yet.
It wasn't just him. Perhaps the entire room was in the same kind of heavy emotional mess.
Only if Xion could see the drawer where Zen was kept, he would have screamed by now.
The drawer yawned open like a silent mouth, and from its depths poured a tangle of black vines.
They weren't just still tendrils of growth. They breathed. Their greasy, tar‑dark skin pulsed in slow rhythm, each throb echoing with the darkness coiled in Darius' grasp.
They crawled over the cupboard in rippling waves, their tips tasting the air like the tongues of starving beasts.
