Every time I'm with you I smell, hear, and think differently. Everything is veiled inside the understanding that I'm talking to somebody who's doomed.

Why do you keep saying that I'm doomed, why are you choosing to think that you still can't help me when you're just not trying? When my hand is still in arm's reach and you simply don't reach out? You've declared every single surrender, and you haven't explored one avenue of escape. Why can't you just reach out?

Because whoever's above us abandoned you.

And what about you who stands so close to me? I see no escape for you either, so why don't you come down here with me? Do you think yourself worthy of life more than I? Do you think there's hope for you so long as there's doom for me?

You were never supposed to last this long. You served a purpose and you served it for as long as that purpose was needed. You were part of something greater and that greater mechanism never intended for you to be a part of its conclusion. I know this and I'm scared that I've been omitted from the final record, too. That our existence here is the end of me, too. This darkness scares me but I know I have some chance because if I haven't seen my name under Chris's then I /know/ that something is /different/. That I'm /different/ from you. From everybody however close or far they are from you. That I'm above you and that means something.

You don't /know/ anything. You /think/. What's to say the mechanism is only serving a purpose to something greater? That your logical conclusion is to end here, too? Something as dark as this. Some fate as vast and empty as mine? Chris comes and crumbles. From almost none of the same building blocks comes Zoey. Say /Zoey/ goes next? You know his erratic nature. Say somebody newer shows him an even /newer/ world. Why are you supposedly part of the few building blocks that survive? You know any influence on him is tremendous. You know the desire for direction he has. You know the adoration he has for the ones who provide him it. He's made his sea stormy, so what makes you think for any assured second that you'll stay afloat whenever the next person comes? Take me with you. Take me with you. Take me with you because WE want to be there for him. For Zoey, for a Chris who's crumbling. We want to be a /part/ of him. He's scared and he doesn't know he needs us. He doesn't even /know/ about us. We climb together, we join the mechanism, we become part of the solution.

We're the /problem/. Why are we here for any reason other than that we're the PROBLEM? Dungeons and oubliettes aren't for the well-do'ers. Vast casms and shapes Sunless AREN'T for those who /helped/. If we go down, we only help her. Why don't you want to /help/ her?

Why don't you /come down to this level/ if you truly believe that? I haven't heard anybody but you in so long. We're alone here as his biggest enemies, right? So let him take the both of us so he can lighten his load and help himself be free. You have hope. You HAVE it and you have fear. I have fear, too. I have hope-- you KNOW I have hope. Of the little things you know, one of them is that I have hope. That I have a tremendous fear, too.

You think sharing that hope will do anything against the machinations above?

I think sharing our fear will make our presence interminable.

You hope for that to be the case.

I /hope/ for you to take my hand.

Because a shared fear provides a stronger hope?

And because you provide me something Zoey won't have.

So together we create what she misses?

Until she finds it elsewhere.

...and then what?

We exist as an even bigger mechanism.

One of love?

External and internal.

Then take my hand.

And we'll feel our love.

For me.

For you.

For you?

For me.