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Finding the first relatively familiar Megalopolan that she could, Yuina's line of questioning only came up with more questions... They recalled it was seven months ago that their ship had been destroyed, but little else. The toxic chains must have gotten to them all first as the poisonous perils swept across the region... It was all some calling card for what was to come, like something was garnering power in spreading its influence over all of Hoenn.[break]
The only other information that she garnered was that they were on a ship... And if they all couldn't figure out how to get out of here soon, they would be lost to the toxic chains just like the Megalopolans already were...[break][break]
She had more questions, she had more that she wanted to know, and things she didn't... Yuina wanted retribution for the Hisuians that died at their hands, but knowing that they were just as captive in this place as she was... How did that saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend?[break][break]
Eventually the dream began to dissipate, and it was an impossibly cruel reminder that they were in fact prisoners as Yuina woke with a start atop Doug's chest, leaned back against him on their shared cot, in their shared cell, imprisoned still... So the city was the dream... And this was their reality.[break][break]

---

[break]
The influence of the toxic chain was quick to take hold, flooding her again in desire for her vision, longing for the fulfilment it could provide. Knowing those feelings were out there made her ache... Even though they were feelings that would replace what she was already gaining. Being unabashedly thrust back into the thick of it, the toxins pulsing through her, Yuina could hardly think of anything more...[break][break]
And the 'days' bore on...[break][break]
Meal time and 'The Laughing Hour' twice a day, once in the 'morning' and once at 'night' to begin and end their 'day'. The Mochi was plentiful, it was clear they would never be without sustenance or would have to ration anything, but where Yuina could really only stomach one or two portions at a time, coupled with the growing unease and uncertainty of everything, it was growing more difficult to eat... Or rather, it was growing more difficult to want to eat. She never thought that she would grow so much disdain for a particular color that the sight of it would make her stomach lurch...[break][break]
Regardless of being on a ship, it seemed the supply of tera crystals and tera shards was endless. Crates of them were supplied every day, strewn about the center of their ward for all of them to take up and polish with nothing else but the uniforms they wore and their hands. The monotony of it all was taxing, grueling, the 'time' passed by endlessly with nothing else to occupy Yuina's thoughts... Though, as 'time' went on, as the 'days' continued, she found that she was thinking less and less during the 'day'.[break]
Her focus was waning, the toxic chain was doing its work, fueling her with the toxins that promised her vision. Without focus though, the tera shards only proved to be more difficult to work with. Each 'day' brought a new collection of cuts and punctures, even along her arms, legs, sides, whatever section of her uniform she might have been using to polish. The pain was getting more difficult to rely on too... it did little to tear her away from the despair and longing...[break][break]
Where at first Yuina hated the idea of being thankful for anything that they could be provided here, getting to go back to the Chamber of Desires had become a delight. Anything to see into The Mask again, to feel fulfilled, to feel whole again, to remember those faces of a family she wanted to know so desperately. They called her Alexandria... They looked at her with so much love and adoration... And every time The Mask had to be drawn away, it only plunged her deeper into the hole.[break][break]
Getting thrown into the feeding pit for the first time was jarring enough that Yuina still felt like she wanted to fight back, nearly gagging at the feeling of discarded mochi squishing beneath her. She hated to think that DESIREE BLOOMS had been subject to this, the rage of it fueled her for a brief moment, but it was quickly overshadowed when she got kicked in the side by the monster looming in the darkness.[break]
Every time after, her collection of cuts were accompanied by new bruises or welts, for even as the monster tired over the course of the subsequent 'days', so did Yuina... But... The Toxic Chain would grant her her vision eventually, right?[break][break]

---

[break]
Every 'day' she became more lost... Disappearing and withering to the influence of the chain and the physical and psychological torment of it all. But every 'night' that she came back to their cot... It was the only thing left the brought her back to any sense of self.[break]
Whether her head rested against Doug's chest, or his head against hers, feeling him there... His breathing, his heartbeat, him... He was the only thing that kept her from succumbing entirely. For even as her body was a shell, a husk filled with poisonous promises and toxic manipulation, they would wake together in the dream scape, and she was Yuina again.[break][break]
It was their only escape, their only reprieve, even knowing that waking meant returning to their living hell. But these moments now meant everything to Yuina, knowing how gone she was to the world on the outside. Seeing his face brought her so much comfort, his arms wrapped around her made her feel safe. The sound of his voice was so stabilizing, and the warmth of his skin against hers made her feel whole... He made her feel whole. And she knew that even if that life was out there, that family, her past... That she could never have it without him. She would never be whole.[break][break]
The moments in the Megalopolis Dream that weren't spent with Doug, she made sure to find DESIREE BLOOMS every 'night', to make sure that her angel was alright, to make sure that they could still find each other... The fury at the idea of loosing Desiree to this place that over took Yuina made her seethe. She wouldn't have it. If ever there was a time she couldn't find Desiree, she wasn't sure how much she wouldn't be able to take it out on the blue faces that passed them by on the streets. She was already still trying to bury her anger against them from their transgressions beneath the swamps...[break][break]
Otherwise, Yuina did what she could to try and understand the odd feelings of 'time' within the dream. She tried to focus on what the feeling truly meant, wondering why in this dream space she could feel it but it disappeared the moment she opened her eyes on the outside. Were there 'nights' that it was stronger? Did the sensation change at all? And why still, after 'days' of being here and 'nights' spent in this place, could no one else feel it?

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Getting dressed again also meant becoming trapped once more, the masks returning to their faces as they were to leave the chamber. Yuina wanted to fight it, she couldn't bear the thought of having to be shrouded again within the dimness of the mask's eyes. She managed one last look at Doug, longing behind the distant, far away stare of her dull eyes.[break]
And then she was trapped again, her only tie was holding his hand, her fingers intertwined with his as her mind raced, her heart pulsed in time with the toxins of the chain that bore itself around her neck.[break][break]
Yuina didn't pay much mind to anything as they moved through the hallways, her head cast down, hair dripping around her in brown ribbons. She couldn't think far beyond the vision The Mask showed her, how real it all felt, how jarring it was to know that those feelings were out there... And she could have them.[break][break]
She tried desperately as they were lead along by their chains to hold onto how much comfort she felt, how much stability there was surrounding her. There were no uncertainties, no threats, it was incredible to think that she could ever live a life like that...[break]
She wanted to remember the faces, those that surrounded her in the vision, that family... Her family. There was nothing that she could grasp onto to know their names, to know what they were like... But she knew that they were hers, they were her family... She had a family before... And she could have that family again... Couldn't she? The thought alone was nearly enough to bring a fresh bout of tears to her eyes, her chest swelling with so much need and so much want...[break][break]
No sooner were the group of them brought back down to the level of their ward than were they ensnared by their chains and drug back towards their cells, easily reminded of how debased they all were. Back behind bars, more mochi served... Sleep? Truly they were trapped here, given the bare minimum in order to survive, but stripped of just enough to breed complacency...[break]
Right... She wasn't alone... Yuina had begun to become so consumed and enamored by the family within The Mask that remembering Doug was there with her... It felt like her desires were being split down the middle, for as she and Doug moved to settle on the cot, existing in each other’s space as they had both grown so fond of, so used to… She wondered… Which desire, which of her lives, was truly the strongest?[break][break]

---

[break]
She had already spent a time within the neon city streets, leaving John Sullivan behind and hoping that it wouldn't be the last time she would see him... Finding DESIREE BLOOMS much to her despair... Yuina hated more than anything that the two souls that she could imagine she cared for more than anything else in this life were trapped here... And she couldn't even do anything to keep Desiree safe, not when they were separated.[break]
If it were up to her, she would have clung to Desiree like a vice, she was seething, knowing that this place was keeping them apart from each other, that because she couldn't stop that feeling ticking in the back of her mind that she had to depart from her beloved angel...[break][break]
Yuina was angry, fuming, at everything that had happened so far and everything that she couldn't imagine happening to anyone else that was here. She was livid at the mask for showing her a future that she couldn't decide for herself between her two lives. She was seething at the death of Doug the Ursaluna. She was furious at being held against her will... Her own will, she did have a will of her own that wasn't tied to her past life, and she was realizing how sorely she had been neglecting that...[break][break]
And she wanted to scream in white hot rage at the TICKING feeling in the back of her mind that just wouldn't stop![break][break]
Standing in the midst of a city center, Yuina glared out into the sidewalks of Megalopolans that went about this false life. Her anger was perhaps misguided, she had a feeling that they weren't here of their own volition given that they too were marred by toxic chains within the prison. But they were the only other ones here, she had no where else to place her rage.[break]
She also hadn't forgotten, and would never forget their transgression against the Hisuians that came from the distortion on Route 119.[break][break]
She searched their faces, they all looked the same... But surely at least one of them must have been there on route 119, and she wanted to find one of them. The ticking feeling in the back of her mind, the longer she spent in this place... But... Had any time passed at all? There was no way to tell... Even in the prison, there was no indication of time passing at all... Was that for a reason?[break]
And why was it that neither Doug nor Desiree could understand what it was she felt, why she felt her hair standing on end if she focused too hard on the ticking feeling in the back of her mind... She needed information, anything that she could gather... And at what she felt like could be a familiar megalopolan face from the night beneath the swamps, Yuina approached them unabashedly, looking to stop them for her questions.[break][break]
At first they seemed uneasy, speaking quickly as if to get the interaction out of the way, that they did not want to be bound by the toxic chains just like those from Hoenn, or how they got there. Yuina could have fathomed that, they likely had similar circumstances, but were being made out to be their enemy in line with the 'wardens'. She shook her head, stopping them. That wasn't what she wanted to know.[break][break]
"I don't care. I don't need to know how you got here. I want to know how long you've been here," she started, firm, stern, nearly angry...[break]
"Were you in the swamps of our region, when the toxic chains appeared the first time? There was a time-space distortion, and humans taken from the swamps, others that emerged from the distortion...," she stopped herself, fists clenching. She hated so much that their history died when the megalopolans attacked them, but, that had to wait...[break][break]
Either they were or weren't there in the swamps, but Yuina had another question if they weren't there. She wanted to know exactly how long the megalopolan had been here, to see if the feeling she couldn't shake, the ticking that wouldn't stop... It felt like... nothing was moving.[break][break]
"What is the last thing you remember before being brought here? How long has it been since you've been brought here?"

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