I don't own Black cat. Nodda. Nope. Nothing. But I do own lots of pictures of Train in my computer.

Train: Too much information!

Splashes of Madness: But you're so HOT! 3

Sven: What about me?

Splashes of Madness: Well… you're super hot too, Sven! Train is sorta a mixture of hotness and cuteness, and you're a mixture of hotness and sexiness. *considers* or maybe it's the other way around.

Both: WHAT!


My bodyIt's so cold…

Freezing…

I can't get warm… my skin…I'm surrounded by ice… It hurts…

Cold… So cold…

Am I... dying?

Oh God.

Oh God!

I'm going to Hell.

I don't want to go to Hell!

Oh God…

Forgive me of my sins, though I have many. Too many.

In fact, I don't even have the right of asking you for forgiveness...

But I…

I…

There's still…

. . .

Sven's eyes open groggily.

…What?

Wait, what?

Animal-like instincts took over the confusion in his mind for a terrifying moments, and he would have jumped up and started running around or flailing a bit if his body hadn't felt so heavy. It was like he shackled to the ground, trapped in his own skin. Instead, he waited, zigzagging across the borderlines of patience, for himself to calm down, and took a deep breath, looking up in front of him again.

Blue. It's the sky. He's staring up at the sky.

As his vision returned, he noticed a few other characteristics. The clouds are moving slowly, but they are almost as dark as smoke. The sky is a kind of yucky, grayish blue. Not the clouds he had just been looking at. Not the sky he had just seen. But where had he seen them? Why did it bother him? Not to mention; his back and chest hurt. He's lying on some kind of rough, hard terrain. Definitely not where he last remembered.

What happened?

Once he fully returned back to his body, he twitched his fingers, getting his blood flowing inside them again. Almost immediately his body immediately started burning as though little pin needles were piercing his skin all over. It was like he was hugging a prickly tree. Apparently, he hasn't moved for a long time.

Sven finally trusted his body enough to sit up, and placed a hand underneath him as he pushed up his body. He gritted his teeth as he was almost instantaneously aware of the agony surging from his stomach.

It hurt. A lot.

A wave of dizziness and pain washed over him and he groaned, clutching his head.

Okay. The first rule of astray, discombobulated confusion: Recover his bearings and start organizing the situation.

Number 1. I have no absolutely clue on where I am.

Number 2. The last thing I recall is getting stabbed. I'm starting to remember, now.

Number 3. Where are Train and Eve? Shouldn't they have brought me somewhere or something? They couldn't have just left me here, have they? Of course not. Something must have happened…to…them…

Fear crept into his system, and his heart beat faster. They'd better be alright.

He looked around. He was in a little alley. Another wave of confusion surged over him. They had been in a park when he had blacked out. Tisker, or whoever did it, must have dumped him here. Stupid. He should have taken care of him first. Maybe they thought that he was going to die? As if!

...I just came to the conclusion that I am always surrounded by retarded people.

With the exception of Eve, of course.

After a short self-pitying moment, he began to walk, keeping one hand on the wall to keep his balance. But it didn't support him enough, and he wobbled and almost fell over again. Pain was pulsing throughout his entire body now, and he had to catch his breath. Black spots filled his vision and he swayed dizzily, experiencing swift moments where he wasn't too sure which way the ground was, or where the light was coming from. He bit his lip and shook a hand in front of his face, trying to center his focus. This sucked. Really bad. He was confused, lost and disoriented and in pain, without a clue of what was going on.

…What should he do now?

He looked up. There was murmuring up ahead. Good; he wasn't far from civilization. Spurred on by this revelation, he began to walk faster, finally ignoring the pain long enough to take his hand off the wall.

But the moment he exited the alleyway, he was almost blinded by the sudden light that the walls had been shadowing. Immediately, people were swarming all around him. Music blared in his ears. His nose filled with the smells of cotton candy, hot dogs and other junk foods. Panic swept over and took control of his instincts, and he backed up, heart beating frantically. It only took Sven half a minute to realize that there was a parade. People in funny costumes were jumping around and marching off on the road. People all around were waving their arms, cheering and shouting, "Lib! Lib! Lib! Lib!"

Lib? Guess he'll find out later.

"Hey, buddy. Are you okay?" A man to his left asked, turning around his head.

Sven didn't answer, just gave the man a long, glazed over stare before slowly moving away, ignoring his surprised call behind him. He didn't have the time or energy to waste explaining anything of his situation to anybody.

As Sven staggered through the crowd, he was able to see a man standing on a white float. He was facing the crowd and waving his arms. He had strange orange hair, his long, spiky bangs slicked up with gel and pointing to the back of his head like a spear. He was all grins and smiles, and when he waved, the frenzied shouting of the crowd became even louder. "Lib! Lib! Lib! Lib!"

Sven noticed the tight security, and all the posters plastered along the street walls with this man's face on it. So he was running for mayor. Or, rather, had just become mayor.

Why hadn't he heard about this? This was a completely different location from where he had been before. Sven grimaced. Eve… Train… hold on-

As he turned his head, about to try and get some more information, he froze.

A mob of familiar, spiky brown hair had entered his vision. It was moving away from him, but Sven would be able to recognize it even if it had been a mile away. The guy who didn't know he needed a shower until you literally pushed shampoo into his hands and directed him to the bathroom. The guy with the sea urchin head. The head that belonged to his partner.

Sven began to push through the crowd, ignoring their protests and glares. He had to get to him.

He finally shoved his way out of the crowd and straightened up, looking around, frantic that he had lost him. But no- there he was, walking a little ways away on the abandoned part of the street, littered with dropped cotton candy and wrappers. I was so relieved that I had found him, I couldn't focus on anything else but his familiar brown mob of his as I took a step forwards.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Hey! Hey! Train! Hey!"

He didn't stop. Wonderment bewildered Sven for a few moments, and he ran towards him. "Hey, stop! Didn't you here me? You deaf or something?" He grabbed his friend's shoulder. "What happened! Where's Ev-

The mob of brown hair whipped around, and suddenly Sven was eye-to-eye with the barrel of a gun that used to fight alongside him.

Train stood in front of him, holding that gun up to his partner's face.

Sven was so shocked for a few moments that all he could do was stammer. But just when he was about to say something, ("What the heck, Train?" "Did you drink something you weren't supposed to again?" "Whatever you're mad at me for, it was for your own good.") he stopped, looked again and he saw what he had failed to notice before.

Train's eyes were not warm. They were not laughing, they were not joking. They held no tint of life at all. It was as though all of it had been erased and all that was left were these glowing, sharp looking yellow eyes. His pupils had narrowed so tightly they bore an extreme resemblance to a cat's. Shivers were sent down Sven's spine upon seeing the dark, cold look. He also took notice of the long black coat that decked Train's shoulders, running all the way down to his ankles. He had stopped wearing those a long time ago, along with his assassination job.

Something had happened. Something bad. Something that made Train change so suddenly and so dramatically.

"Train…" Sven began, but the chestnut haired man had already started talking. His voice was dark, barely recognizable. Something Sven had only heard from him in the darkest of times, like when he punched Creed in the church when he had almost shot Sven with the Lucifer bullet, or when Eve had gotten beaten up by the cowboy Taoist. It took Sven a few moments to realize that he was talking to him.

"Let go of me."

Sven was aware that his hand was still on his shoulder. Feeling nervous, he loosened his tight grip and let his hand fall. "Train…is something wrong?"

"You know my name. You're from Chronos, right?" He said in the same cold monotone. He sounded almost bored, if but to some extent, annoyed. "You should no more than to touch me so casually. I have no reason to listen to what Chronos has to say. I am allowed to have nights after missions with no disturbances. Goodbye."

With a swish and a fluttering of his black overcoat, he turned away. Silently walking down the street as though nothing had transpired between them, as if all of the previous tension had never even existed in the first place

As if Sven had never spoken to him.

This time Sven did not chase him. He didn't shout disbelieving outbursts at him or continue asking questions or shake him by the shoulders and demand why he was acting like this. That man's aura clearly stated that if he kept on following him, he would have shot him, right there in the middle of the street, and could have done it without attracting any attention, too.

Sven stood in the middle of the road; his eye as wide as it ever could be, staring after his shrinking back. The shouting and cheering behind him seemed muted; they didn't even matter anymore.

Those last words had scared him. He couldn't think. He didn't know what to think. He could hardly even breathe as it was.

His mind had gone numb. His body was moving on its own now. He turned around and slowly walked away, into a separate alley. He continued to walk for a few minutes, the voices getting softer and softer as he dragged himself on. Finally, when he didn't have the will to go on any farther and he couldn't hear the faint background noise anymore, all his energy seemed to suddenly vanish and he stumbled weakly, falling to his knees, and then to his face as though he had been shot. He didn't try to get up. The pain in his stomach was aching in all sorts of ways now, and he was on the verge of crying out for help. Pleading with some invisible, illusory friend who was not there, did not exist. Maybe even screaming. But he couldn't do that. Somewhere in his pained, terribly confused, and hurt mind, he held onto the last of his dignity—or some other emotion—that would not permit him to. Meanwhile, the rest of his mind whirled in all sorts of directions, unsure of where to go, what to choose, what to make of the state of affairs.

What…the…heck?

This wasn't a trick. Everything was too real. This irrelevant, random mayor, the town's praising and thrill, Train's dark, cold voice. Let go of me.

Maybe it was some kind of dream.

Some twisted, warped dream that was being triggered because of my stab wound. Yeah, the pain was making me delusional. That was it.

…Well, I want to wake up now, please.

I didn't like this feeling. I wanted to get away from it as fast as possible.

The feeling as though the world stopped moving, and everything that used to be so familiar to me disappeared and was replaced by foreign, frightening exterior.

My eyelid drooped. As my mind became fuzzy and my vision clouded around the edges, my pain seemed to ebb a little bit. Maybe if I went to sleep, all of this would go away. Everything could be fixed and I wouldn't have to deal with any of this anymore.

…My eye closed even further. Maybe I could even wake up, with Eve and Train by my side, looking down anxiously at me, but ready to pull me up if I was alright and greet me with smiles.

For the second time in 24 hours, Sven lost into consciousness.


Review! Please! =)