Ruby and Trav stopped in again later that week and it served to recharge Matthias' internal battery. He also managed to acquire a few more pieces of furniture – whatever he could carry or fit on the bus.

Tonight Matthias dragged his weary bones up the stairs toting only two bags of groceries. He fumbled with his keys as he climbed and nearly dropped them back down the stairs before coming to an abrupt halt three steps from the landing. "Trav?"

Travis stood on the landing facing his door. He was completely still, he didn't even seem to be blinking. His lonesome crutch was nowhere in sight and he didn't seem to notice the weight he was putting on his bad leg. He stared at his door, mouth slightly open, expression empty, even in profile.

"Trav?" Matthias tried again, moving up one step. An involuntary shudder zinged down his spine, but he ignored it. He set down the groceries and tentatively reached for Trav's arm.

As soon as Matthias' cautious fingers touched Trav's bicep Trav seemed to snap free of whatever invisible force held him. "Shit!" He yelped and his leg went out from under him.

"Shit!" Matthias echoed as he darted up the last two steps, his fear instinct obliterated. He dropped to a knee beside Travis. "What happened? Are you okay, man? It's fucking late what are you doing-?" Matthias grasped Trav's arm and glanced around, not sure what he was expecting to see. Nothing seemed out of place.

Travis was shaking and Matthias wasn't certain if it was cold, or pain, or something else. The blond boy cupped his face in his hands and sat for a moment with Matthias crouched awkwardly over him. He took several lengthy breaths and slowly raised his head. "What... what the hell happened?" He asked in a voice that was miles away from his usual vibrant tone.

"I don't know. I just found you standing here staring at your door like... I don't know." Matthias found himself rubbing Trav's back in a big brother impulse that was difficult to fight. He scanned the landing again, seeking some invisible enemy. All he spotted were his fallen groceries, his carton of milk balanced precariously on a step. He didn't move to rescue it.

"I don't know what happened." Trav said, scrubbing his face with his palms before raking his fingers through his hair. "I don't know why I'm out here, but my leg hurts like hell. Maybe sleep walking? Was I asleep?"

"You didn't look it, but I've heard some people sleep walk with their eyes open," Matthias admitted. He'd done a bit of research on this for a short story he had ended up abandoning half way through.

Trav stopped trembling and seemed to have settled for blandly confused. Entirely recovered from whatever had come over him moment before.

"Your leg probably hurts because you were walking on it," Matthias pointed out. "Where's you're crutch?"

"I-I don't know. Inside I guess."

"Okay." Matthias chewed his cheek psyching himself up to make decisions, as Trav did not seem likely to be much help in his current, slightly dopey state. "Right. Let's uhm... let's get you back inside and find your crutch huh?"

"Right." Trav shook his head, shaggy hair flopping over his eyes.

Matthias let Trav put his arm over his shoulder and then they worked together to lever him upright. Trav was heavier than Matthias anticipated, but the leaner man had muscle born of farm work and found it hadn't been entirely obliterated by nights behind a security desk.

Trav gritted his teeth and growled in pain as Matthias propped him up, but did his best to cooperate.

They shouldered into Trav's apartment as one. Matthias staggered for a step under Trav's arm as a wall of cold struck him. "Jesus, dude, it's frigid in here."

"Yeah," Trav sounded dazed again.

Matthias glanced around as his breath ghosted in front of him. He was pretty sure he had been warmer outside. This front room was different from Matthias'. No open kitchen; a doorway leading deeper into the place instead. The walls wore aging wallpaper that bore apples instead of pineapples, but Trav had managed to cover a reasonable amount with posters, and he didn't seem to care of what. Cars, video game characters, the traditional cat dangling from a tree encouraging everyone to 'hang in there', and even food posters graced the walls.

Matthias lowered Trav to sit in a bedraggled lounger that looked like had been stolen from someone's grandparents. He folded his arms frowned down at his new friend. Trav's gaze was blank, his face too pale. "Alright. You're uhm... you're not okay so I'm gonna call someone." Matthias reached for his phone.

"I can't af-afford..." Trav trailed off. He seemed to be staring at something over Matthias' shoulder.

Matthias extracted his phone from his pocket and thumbed the screen as a the smell of decay reached him. He recognized it, even as it made his stomach lurch. He spun, drawn by a sudden panic to follow Trav's gaze, and nearly stumbled backwards onto Trav. The wall and part of the ceiling, which he had been looking at only seconds before, were taken over with blackness. A deep, inky powder that Matthias remembered immediately. It had crept over his own walls as he cowered behind his kitchen island, And somehow he had forgotten it. How did you forget this?!

Somewhere deep in the building something rumbled and Matthias felt it in his bones. He groped backwards for Trav and found his wrist. "We need to go!" He choked, not daring to take his eyes off the black stuff. It was spreading like it had before, reaching tendrils like branches searching and grasping, tearing the wall back and away to reveal, not insulation and planks, but fat, grey stones with crumbling mortar between. "We need to go," Matthias said again, but all he could do was grasp Trav's wrist tighter.

Someone grabbed the back of his collar and it took Matthias too long to realize that it had to be Trav. It couldn't be anyone else. The black was moving faster, pouring forth from something. Matthias eyes traced it downward to a source, even as he was dragged backwards. The creeping fountain appeared to originate in what looked to be a simple box sitting on a small table beside what Matthias assumed was the kitchen door. His brows creased, whether from understanding or from the overwhelming stink he couldn't tell. His mind was a foggy landscape, unable to grasp or hold anything except the certainty that if any of that blackness touched him his skin would burn away.

"Come on!" Trav's voice cut through the fog and Matthias managed to turn.

Both men launched themselves through the still open door and spilled onto the landing, Trav nearly sprawling down the stairs. The smell and a binding wave of cold followed them, grasping at Matthias' exposed skin like talons. He'd been outside on days when the air could leave you gasping for a breath you couldn't catch, and this was worse.

Matthias scrambled to his hands and knees as quickly as trembling limbs would allow. He grabbed the door handle, so cold it burned. He yelped at the sting, but didn't yank I back. Instead he slammed the door on the blackness and threw himself backwards until he was up against his own door. He stopped, panting desperately as the smell faded, every muscle tremoring violently.

"W-what happened?" Trav hauled himself to a sitting position, his face a mask of fear and pain. He stared at Matthias with eyes so wide his retinas were lost in the whites. He reminded Matthias of a spooked animal.

"I..." Matthias mentally grappled for purchase on what he had just seen. The panic was still there, leeching into every muscle and bone. The image was foggy, swimming in his thoughts as he grabbed for them. "I don't know what the fuck that was. Has that happened before?"

Trav inched his way further into the landing, dragging his leg, still looking around as though he expected an enemy to spring from the cracks in the walls. His voice was weak when he spoke, "I don't know either, man, but I can tell you that my leg hurts like a son of a bitch."

"That stuff came after me the other day too. I didn't remember." Matthias was still staring at the door, half waiting for the blackness to start oozing out at the top. His heart was beginning to slow down though, and his thoughts to fog.

"I think it's happened to be before too." Trav said, still almost too quiet to hear.

"What do we do?" Matthias asked, though his trembling had faded and his fear was leeching away, leaving only a vague feeling of wrongness. The fog in his head had begun leeching away his understanding. It reminded him of the concussion he'd had after that cow kick as a child. Except there was no pain, just a fogged confusion.

Matthias was finally able to tear his eyes from Trav's door and concern immediately surged as he took in Trav's pained expression. He was arranged uncomfortably on the landing and that couldn't be good for a broken leg. He eased himself to his feet, surprised when there was no dizziness. The fog was leaving and he blinked, his mind abandoning concern for how he and Travis had ended up toppled over one another on a landing, or why he felt certain he never wanted to go into Trav's apartment again. His main concern in that moment was getting his injured friend off the floor.

The other man clasped Matthias' offered forearms and allowed himself to be hauled upright, even as he hissed in pain. He hopped on his good leg and gave Matthias a wan grin before glancing over his shoulder. His eyes went wide and spooked again and Matthias turned, still holding Trav upright, to squint at the top of his door.

Black dust, familiar again, crept in little jerks and starts, out across the ceiling. "Shit." Matthias rasped, gaping at the gunk. His fear returned with the waves of decay-odor roiling over him like a physical attack.

"MEOW!"

Matthias managed to tear his eyes from the black stuff to glance towards the third floor stairs. Cheese was a blur of orange as he hurtled down at them, a furry bullet. He yowled at the top of his feline voice and didn't stop when he reached the two men. "Cheese... what?" Matthias' ability to reason seemed to have abandoned him once more, but looking at the cat he snapped back a bit.

"MER MER MEOW!" Cheese commanded, putting his plump little body between the men and the offending door, around which the blackness was spreading.

Matthias pawed at he pocket of his grey, security jacket and it took him far too long to extract his keys. He stepped back, taking Trav with him, unable to fully pull his attention from the spreading black. His hand fumbled, but he kept at it and in moments he heard the click of his door unlocking. He pushed it open and hauled Travis through, Cheese rushing behind, then slammed and locked it again.

All three stood, two humans and a cat, staring at the door. Matthias had no idea how long they stood before he shook his head and looked around at his companions. He wanted to ask why they were all staring at his door, or where Trav's crutch was, but he couldn't bring himself to admit a gap in his memory. He was tired, that was all. His limbs were like jelly and his head so foggy he thought he could sleep for years.

"C-can I crash with you tonight?" Trav asked.

"Yeah. Yeah of course," Matthias said automatically. He thought of asking why, but his mind prickled, shooing him away from that topic. "You wanna stay here too, Cheese?"

Cheese stood by the door, tail sticking straight up, rounded ears cupped forward. He looked like a little centry and Matthias almost laughed. Something held his mirth back. Some cold, dark feeling he couldn't name. He shuddered and turned his attention back to Trav.

Matthias helped Trav limp to the couch and eased him down. Trav turned to sit the long way with his leg up on the seat, breathing hard. Matthias went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of aspirin. Trav clawed it open and downed six pills before passing it back and leaning against the couch arm.

Matthias set the bottle on the little table with the TV and collapsed onto his end of the couch. His body willingly went limp and it was all he could do to loll his head to the side to glance uneasily at his friend. Did Trav remember what had just happened to them? He couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming, that he should be afraid, but he couldn't imagine what the danger might be. Travis looked back with dark circles under his eyes and a paper-pale face, teeth gritted against the pain in his leg. He offered no answers.

Cheese bounced up onto Matthias' lap and rubbed his head against Matthias' hand. Matthias petted automatically, even as his eyes grew heavier and he drifted to sleep.

******

Author's note:

Finally another chapter! Whew. My writing time is down the tubes and at work lately I have been feeling very brain dead. Gotta get back on track. I know people were getting sick of meeting characters and getting little hints, so I hope this chapter is more of what they were looking for! You might still be confused, but so is Matthias, so keep an eye open for future chapters!

Someone expressed worries that I admitted to Matthias being a lot like me. Don't panic. While I am allowing myself to write someone who is a lot more like me than my characters usually are, he's far from a one to one comparison. And it's more than him being a guy LOL.

As usual remember that this is a first draft, but feel free to leave thoughtful comments that'll help if I decide to edit this when it's done :)