Gasps of air are desperately grasped as Meditat’s eyes open wide and he immediately sits up without second thought.

Instantly upon sitting up, Meditat surveys his surroundings, still panting with a rapid heartbeat, the tremors of the recent events still lingering. His dull blue eyes remain wide as he slowly observes the room he finds himself in, lit from the curved white walls in front of him with several arched window screens with thick golden frames like curtains.

The morning blue sky can be seen through the several windows, shining cyan light also into the room, reflecting on the golden ceiling ring and white rug, both circular as is the structure of the large room itself.

Further exploring the room with sight, on the corner diagonal from him are two white sofa chairs with a circular table top between them with a glass shard design, and behind it is a black board that displays a calm orange fire like a fireplace. To the right of the right sofa chair is a doorway leading into another carpeted room as it seems.

On the other side of the room is a doorway leading into a short hallway with golden tiles, and beside it is a longer window with a long white couch neighbored by two smaller sofa chairs forming an incomplete rectangle, and in the center of the rectangle is a rectangular table with rounded corners.

In front of the room is a projection of a golden pillar, and on the pillar is a wide holographic display exhibiting a smooth panorama of the boundless silver city brightly illuminated under the morning sun from a birds eye view, providing live footage. Beyond the pillar on both sides are gaping apertures leading into a wide white hallway that extends forth further than what can be seen.

After assessing his setting and coming to the disclosure that he was now safe and that what he had recently experienced was likely then a dream, Meditat allows himself to collapse back on the wide white bed he’s on, wider than a king sized bed as well as longer, with inclines along the head to provide head support similar to a pillow.

Behind Meditat is a wide golden reflective board making up the back of the room, integrated with the wall although with more sense of royalty, as this bedroom doesn’t seem at all similar to the others in scale, but rather has the dignity of a master bedroom.

Above the man laying on the bed is a circular mirror in between the golden ceiling ring, providing a reflective view of the room he’s in, presenting the wide white bed on the rug, and Meditat’s body on the center of the bed, his arms extended out to cover the maximum space he can, his breathing reduced to normal. He still is dressed in his regular clothing, his gray lined black pants and his antique leather jacket over his plain black shirt, for even in rest he wasn’t changed out into pajamas or anything of the sort.

While staring at the mirror ceiling, he takes the time of solitude to reflect, quietly conjecturing to himself, “Did I…sleep…?” as the simple fact that he had spent time unconscious was the first concern to arise.

It was no random thought however, for this one instance broke a streak spanning years of complete lack of sleep, for his Earth had revolved around its supersun many times since he’s actually let himself lay down and sink into slumber.

Waking up felt strange in fact, almost wrong, as though he had committed a mistake. Against logic it felt unnatural to awake from sleep, as even with every passing second of laying on the bed something deep within him felt repulsed by his own actions as though they were sin.

Blankly gazing into the mirror, Meditat’s eyes peered tensely while meditating on the phenomenon that had occurred to him, unable to ponder anything else beyond it. His eyebrows are scrunched up as the back of his head lays in between his four locks of white hair, still trying to understand what had happened as it seems his mind was moderately hazy.

“Medit!” shouts a familiar mature female’s voice, immediately bringing Meditat to sit up straight again, facing forward with a dumbfounded yet shook expression, instantly taken out of his trance and providing full attention.

Through the two wide openings next to the golden pillar charges in the woman in the black blazer, her short amber hair waving behind her as she gazes with wide light green eyes. She pants heavily, swinging her arms as she enters the room.

Behind her runs the young woman in the cupcake hoodie with drifting pink hair, also with attentive eyes albeit pink, too in a rush.

Tailing the duo jogs the bald old man in the brown overcoat, wearing a perplexed expression with peering yellow eyes.

All of the three enter the bedroom straight for the bed, to which Meditat specifically traces the lead, watching her run up to the side of the bed beside him while the other two follow behind her and stop by the bed as well, all of them directly facing him.

Panting with clear exhaustion and even clearer anxiety, Dana insistently inquires, “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you feel any bruises?”

Bewildered at first by the sudden attention, Meditat simply rubs his shoulder slowly, appearing disoriented and still in a daze, and he patiently answers, “I’m fine, don’t worry. How long was I out for?”

Clinging onto the edge of the bed and leaning towards Meditat before her eyes suddenly morph gold, indicating that she was in an analysis, she explains hastily, “About six hundred eighty five minutes, but at least I’m not sensing any immediate damage sustained physically nor mentally, so you should be good. Still, you shouldn’t move too much today, and I’ll bring further treatment.”

Still disoriented, Meditat shakes his head and waves his hand at Dana, trying to shake her off while imploring, “Treatment? Not moving? What are you talking about, what time is it?” to which he seeks his own answers, summoning a short rectangular holographic screen before him, which simply has the text: ‘11:30 A.M. EST.’

Huge waves of anxiety drown Meditat, indicated by his explosive expression before he hastily notes, “I need to get out of here, it’s so late!” to which he begins sliding off of the bed.

Before Meditat can get off the bed, Dana puts her hand out against his chest, pushing him back on the mattress and holding him back.

Aggressively, Dana boldly orders: “Are you insane?! No, you’re not late for anything, you’re fine, just rest! Besides, I already got the roof hole fixed, the other damages are being repaired as we speak. What you need to do is lay down!”

Next to Dana, both Kokei and Ekitai glance at her with astounded faces, taken aback by her sudden hostile hospitality and forceful commands.

For a few moments Meditat struggles to push against Dana, his teeth gritting and his mouth groaning, but ultimately he ceases and leans back away from the hand, surrendering to her words and remaining on the bed.

He shakes his head, mentally adrift, and he places his hand over his head after interpreting the full statement, even more puzzled. His expression seems to be one of lost and gentle concern, and he delicately repeats, “Roof hole? Damages? What…what happened…wait a second….”

On the once placid shore, an enormous tsunami over the height of the clouds floods Meditat’s mind with a flood of memories, flashes of the man in red flickering in his thoughts and images of the chase through the house come to mind which is then followed by flashes of himself crawling on the floor, beaten in agony.

Finally, echoes of the three standing around him are brought to the forefront of the beach of his mind, snapshots of them standing before the man in red, facing off against him in the lobby room.

With a terrorized face, Meditat lowers his hand and turns back to Dana before exclaiming, “Dammit, Exitium was here, and he saw all of you! No…this is bad…this is really bad…,” before he lowers his head and clings onto it even more sharply, almost stabbing his forehead with his nails, to which Dana grabs his wrist and yanks his hand off his head.

In front of Meditat who raises his head back up to meet her gaze, Dana doughty assures without a hint of doubt, “It’s okay, we’re safe, don’t worry!”

Instead however, Meditat jerks his hand back, ripping Dana’s grip off him before sliding off the bed himself.

Standing on his feet, Meditat places his hand over his head and begins pacing back and forth behind the trio, murmuring desperately to himself, “He was here…so he remembers the house…and he knows of them…and he threatened to…dammit…dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit,” as for the first time Meditat truly seemed unhinged and frightened, losing his entire stoic demeanor and now appearing as a frantic senile man.

Hoping to assure the agitated man, Ekitai grins before elucidating, “Don’t worry, he left after your fight with him! I’m sure you really scared him off, because after you came crashing down he bolted out of there!”

Stopping in place, Meditat raises his head back up to meet Ekitai’s gaze, and while still clearly panicked he approaches Ekitai while stuttering, “Le-le- he just left? Just like that? He didn’t come down, d-do anything, he just went away? But…why?”

Joining Ekitai in the attempt to calm Meditat, Dana nods her head confidently, and boldly corroborates, “Yes, he did! He didn’t touch any of us, so don’t worry! And I don’t know why, he didn’t really say anything, he just left after a couple seconds of you crashing down. It was like he just chose to give up.”

“He took pity on me,” Meditat blatantly answers.

“Huh?” implores Dana with a puzzled tone, tilting her head after the sudden answer, as the whole group looks to Meditat with intrigue.

Meditat lowers his head and shakes it again before bringing it back up to look at the three, and he clarifies intently, “He took pity on me, he saw how pathetic that fight was and left. He saw how little of a fight he’d have and probably figured it wasn’t worth it. I disappointed him…I did…damn.”

Still bewildered by the interesting explanation, Dana is the only to break her speechlessness, and she then debriefs gently, “Regardless of why he’s gone, that’s all that matters, that he isn’t here. Doesn’t matter if you scared him or ‘disappointed him,’ whatever that means, but at least we’re safe.”

“We’re not you idiot!” shouts Meditat all of the sudden, causing Dana to stagger backwards in shock to the intense rebuke, simultaneously with Kokei and Ekitai.

Starting to pace back and forth again in front of the mortified three, Meditat shakes his head before elaborating frantically, “He knows where we live, meaning that at any moment, he could be back here. He could come back in a month, in a week, in a couple minutes, who knows. And if he really wanted to, he could just drop a bomb and wipe us all out before we can react, there are an infinite amount of ways for him to slaughter us and that’s only including the ways where we don’t have the time to fight back! Don’t you understand, he hasn’t left, he’s holding us all hostage in my own house! This isn’t good…no….”

He then finally comes to a stop, before then facing up at the three worried people, who have begun siphoning his fear after feeling the anxiety stabbing them.

Without hesitation, Meditat decisively demands, “All three of you need to leave.”

Confounded, Dana simply asks, “What?”

“All of you, you need to go, soon, actually today. You all came from somewhere, I’m sure Ekitai has a place, Dana has multiple properties, and Kokei has her house,” repeats Meditat, his words suddenly unwavering as he finally finds the confidence to say something regardless of what it ended up becoming.

Also confused but even more so perturbed, Kokei insists: “But…I just moved everything here recently!”

An impatient sigh vents from Meditat before he faces her straight, and he apologizes earnestly, “I’m sorry, but you really can’t be here. Look, I brought you to this house in the first place because this was the one region I could secure your safety in, but right now exactly anywhere that isn’t here is safer for you to be in! All you need to do is not be here, and you’ll be untouchable.”

“And what about you?” demands Dana, clearly doubtful of the provided plan.

Meditat faces Dana, to which he explains unhesitantly, “I’ll stay right here, and wait for him to face me again.”

“What, so you can die?” argues Dana in a progressively more unstable voice, reaching her boiling point.

“Good to know how much faith you have in me,” Meditat retorts before then diverging from Dana and turning to the three in general, directing his words to all of them as he beseeches, “Don’t worry, I can handle him, but you will all just end as casualties. And before you even think about it, it does not matter that we fought together once, those were amateurs at best who spent most of their lives never truly pushing themselves and likely had their first battle when we were against them, they are nothing of the same caliber as this man. So I don’t even want to hear the idea of you staying here, because that’s not going to do any good.”

Still not having it, Dana steps towards Meditat and places her fist against her chest before declaring, “Medit, you know deep down that you’re just going on a suicide mission, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you were planning to blow up the entire house with him! Whatever your plan may be, if you even have one which I also doubt, you know it won’t end well with you! So if you’re going to make us leave because you know he could be back, at least don’t just stand there waiting for him!”

Disgruntledly sighing, Meditat slaps his forehead before exhaustively asserting, “Dana, even if I did leave this house to go hide out somewhere else, he would eventually find me. Honestly, the Earth isn’t a very large place, especially for him, he can make entire rounds in just a few minutes. There’s nowhere here where I can hide.”

“Then don’t hide here.”

Meditat drops his hand and tilts his head with a perplexed face at Dana after hearing her vague suggestion.

Dana throws her hand to the side before daringly proposing, “If you’re so worried that one Earth isn’t good enough, there are ninety nine others my friend, Earths that he has way less of an understanding of. You could go for weeks without even crossing paths, and I know it wouldn’t take that long for you to come up with a legitimate plan to defeat him.”

In the purely silent room, Meditat stares straight at Dana with a tilted head, his doubt written all over his face without an ounce of genuine understanding. His expression is one of disapproval and discontent, almost judging Dana for the recommendation.

Next to Dana, Kokei turns to her before raising her hand over her mouth and discreetly whispering, “Wait…Dana…can we talk this out first? Maybe…maybe he’s right.”

Even more agitated now, Dana turns to Kokei with widened irises and shrink pupils after hearing her support, to which she contends aggressively, “Kokei, what are you talking about?”

Sheepishly as she pokes her two pointer fingers repeatedly into each other, Kokei feebly mumbles while facing the ground: “I mean…this is the man Meditat talked about before, right? If he is…like…didn’t this man slay all of The Shield on his own? I mean…those people were superheroes…they could run faster than light and displace an entire planet…to be fully honest with you I haven’t really done anything beyond knock out a few people and even doing that exhausts me too much to be of any use. And like…ignore anything Ekitai says…I know he’s not cut out for this and I’m not saying to offend him, I’m saying it because I don’t want him to end up the way the others did. So…I mean…if this man does find us…what are we supposed to do?”

“We can’t just leave him though,” suddenly asserts none other than Ekitai, finally speaking up and snatching the attention of Meditat, Kokei, and Dana all concurrently.

Standing straight with his shriveled chest puffed forward, Ekitai faces Meditat to explain confidently, “We can’t just leave this man behind, after everything that has happened. It doesn’t matter how hard it may be, but I say we stand by his side! I know this adventure might be a bit different from what we’re used to, but I don’t think we’d be able to return to our normal lives if we just walked away. We got in this sludge, and we’re in this together until all of us are out!”

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with him, but he’s right,” joins Dana, initially hesitant, calling for Kokei’s and Meditat’s attention from the sudden revitalization.

After facing each of the three others, Dana contends wholeheartedly, “Exitium isn’t just angry that Meditat is alive, he’s angry that we’re with him, but from what I remember we were the ones that insisted to live in his house and show ourselves alongside him to others! We got him into this trouble, if we left now we’d be no better than the man seeking to kill him.”

She then directly turns to Meditat before concluding, “I don’t care if you want to stay here or run, I’m staying with you! But it’s up to you to decide if you want to survive or not, if you want to stay on this planet or go back up there!”

Reluctance pours out of Meditat’s face which hasn’t changed expression as he weakly mutters, “Dana…it’s not that simple…come on…you know this out of everyone. I…I can’t.”

Taking steps forward again, Dana places her hand on Meditat’s shoulder, tightly gripping him before shaking him, to which he raises his head still with despair but a newfound lure.

Gazing straight into his eyes, Dana gently swears, “You’re not going to be alone, okay? You have us, and I know that might not feel like enough, and it won’t be the same, and I know you would rather live the rest of your life without having to go back out there. But we don’t have a choice now, I’m sorry but we need to do this. Please…Medit…don’t give up on yourself.”

Being shaken back and forth, Meditat’s head swings limply before fixing his neck, and gazing back at Dana. His soulless blue eyes stare into her shimmering green eyes for a prolonged moment, deeply meditating on the disturbing subject.

A soft sigh releases from Meditat, and he slowly lowers his head with a face of defeat, staring down at the ground below him while his shoulder remains grabbed.

Seconds pass in silence as Kokei and Ekitai watch from the side, and Dana peers down at Meditat, who eyes the floor, his expression seeming to lean towards rejection.

He then squeezes his eyes tightly shut, the entire decision riding exclusively on his word.

“Pack your essentials, we’re leaving before sunset.”