In a void of darkness, there was a heartbeat. It's pace slow but continuous. Marching onward without falter as steps toward infinity. 

Sky could hear it in the black. Unable to see, she could hear it calling. She could only follow the chains, blind through the darkness, as there was nothing else in that cold void. 

Alone, the feeling was unbearable. 

"Silas!" She called into the nothingness. "Where are you?" 

Turning in circles, Sky's hearing was strained on the near empty air, led only by the dull beats of a distant heart. 

"Silas!" crying out his name. She was growing more and more anxious. What if he was lost forever in that black place? Or what if it was her? 

The chains on her arms led nowhere with no end. Her anxiousness gave way to frustration as thoughts of the past never left her. 

"It wasn't your fault! None of this was your fault." She shouted. Another turn in the darkness, her white the only light. Her shoulders fell. Tears burning to break through the desperation to be heard.

"Of burning flame," A voice broke the emptiness. Sky heard it and a small spark of hope pulled her attention towards its resonance. Silas wasn't lost. He was hiding.

"Silas! I'm here!" 

Swimming blindly through that dark ocean, Sky was near certain she was turning in circles as Silas' voice neither neared nor faded. 

"Lucifer's voice. Lucifer's judgement. This one will follow." He was whispered again and again, fevered in his repetition. 

  "Where are you?" Sky questioned the dark.  

  "This one will follow."

 "Please, Silas. You don't have to do this!"  

 "This one will follow."

"Don't lose yourself!" 

"This one will follow."

"Silas!" 

Sky's eyes opened with a start. Disoriented, the ghost awoke from the embrace of the dark unconsciousness to the white daylight. 

They were no longer beneath the surface of the city. Far from the tunnels. It was day and the sunlight was cold and dim through a fog that had formed on the close horizon in the still air. The air was always deathly still in the world of Others. 

Where?

Slow, the ghost came to her senses. 

She was hovering at the shoreline of the Hudson, her focus coming into the park of dead plants and trees at the edge of the shore. She couldn't be sure where they were, but with the direction of the sun in the sky, she could at least guess. 

They. 

The realization was a sudden panic gripping her within. 

There was no one around. Neither on the banks of the water or standing at the line of the dead trees. No one. Not even Silas. Her eyes darted from her wrists and to the chains that trailed off behind her out into open water.

She turned, stopping in shock when the back of Silas' tall form came into view at the center of her stare. 

As far as the chains could reach, the Soul Collector was standing as a black tower on the surface of the dark waters against the backdrop of white. A feat that not even Sky had ever seen him perform. His body was still stained. The tar-like ink dripped from him into the water where it fizzed and popped when the droplets hit the surface. His back remained to her, his hollow eyes on the horizon while the marked hand continued to grasp his side. 

His voice continued to utter indistinguishable whispers, hovering above the silence while rising and falling on his drawn breaths. Speaking to the dark that always remained a part of him. It listened, flickering as wisps across his skin in answer. 

Sky opened her mouth but stayed her voice. The only witness to what was to unfold.  Just as the ghost thought her Keeper would remain a stone statue forever, the Collector stretched out his long arms, his voice dying away. 

He would claw his way out of Hell, even if it near-killed him. 

The rigidity in his stance went slack. Slumping suddenly, his body began to sway above the water beneath his feet. Closing his eyes, the black Collector began to fall backwards until his body broke the water's surface. A heavy splash and a steaming geyser rose in the wake of his sinking form. The blackish water bubbled and popped. Obscuring Silas with sizzling foam at the surface before flowing away with the slow current. 

Eyes widening, alarm bells went off in Sky's head. A ringing that deafened her hearing. Hastily she swam close over the water's surface to see, the bubbles gradually subsiding to allow her a clearer look. Leaving the water again calm without any wave or ripple, she could see the man in black's face beneath the water. The ink that had been clinging to him, dissipated into the water. The ringing stopped, although her heart remained in her throat. 

Like through the looking glass of dreams, the ghost girl watched streams of shadow wash away from her Keeper, cleansing his corruption, if only for a short time. In his face there was a rare clarity visible in him and his features that Sky had not seen in a long time. His body unmoving, with black eyes open wide, Silas' pupils of white stared up through the water's surface. 

Sky drew nearer and from the world beneath the water, the Collector's gaze went to the ethereal silhouette rippling into view. Apprehensive Sky was to break through into his silent world where his hearing remained muffled with the gentle rush of the water in his ears. Yet motionless, he watched her, waiting.  

Her hands neared the water's glassy surface. A moment's hesitation that passed as an eternity in time, before into the water her fingers pushed. Through the water's surface without even disturbing it. Gentle. From the bridge of his nose, her touch traced over his cheeks and the sides of his head, running through his hair to the back. Her face nearing, she could see the finer details of Silas' features, the staining ink now gone. Pulling him upwards to break the surface, the familiar shadows returned to envelop his features like they always had. 

Silas didn't take notice of his own change. His attention remained on the ghost that held his head to the surface, cradled in her arms. The rest of his body floating in the dark waters. 

There was a long inhale through his nose, the marked hand clutched the wound at his side. He was still hurt but very much in control of himself. 

"Are you alright?" She asked. 

The breath slowly left him after he inwardly assessed the sharp pain at his side.

"He survives." He said, wincing with another light exhale so that he didn't aggravate the pain any further. He put his feet to the riverbed, pushing himself to stand with Sky's aid. The chains like  tentacles pulling them to the shallows. Trudging to the rocks on the bank, Silas pulled himself out of the water. 

Dripping wet, the chains and his Sky gathering to him, he was exhausted. Finding dryer land on the bank, Silas sat. Only then did he lift his hand away from the trauma in order to finally get a clear look at what had been done. Pulling away the stained shirt revealed a slice into his abdomen above his hip and it was still seeping blood, black ink and shadow. 

His head remained light. The quiet of where they stood was all enveloping. Sky's form sank to rest on the rocks, waiting for his sight to catch her. 

"What happened...?" Her eyes were pleading to know the answers to the holes she had in her mind. The Collection. Rathaneal. Their escape. None of it pieced together. 

His eyes didn't look to her, but he did answer,

"This one and my Sky escaped and that Divine did not follow." 

That answer was obvious and Silas always found a way to be vague. Sky paused, looking deep into her Keeper.

"What happened to you?"

Silas was silent. Thoughtful as another exhale left him. 

"It's the Corruption, isn't it?" Sky said. Panic rising to the surface of her voice. "It's eating you alive. You-"

The Collector raised the hand that held the chains to hush the ghost. He didn't have the answers nor the energy to think of them. But he understood the weight and truth in what Sky said. Her hunger and his corruption. It was inevitable. It was the Devil's work that he had become what he was and the Devil wasn't finished with him. Even if the end was near. Everything was a symptom of the Contract. A Contract he swore he would finish before the darkness within them reached the point of no return. 

"It's getting worse." Her voice was small. Sitting where he was, Silas fished something from the inner pocket of his jacket. The blood loss of Victor's payment and then the Child's inflicted stabbing was far from kind to his body, despite how tall he was and his resilience against every injury he received. Retrieving in his marked hand a surgical needle and thread and a small bottle of a clear liquid. Alcohol for sterilization. Infection was always a problem. That side of him remained human. Susceptible to illness and pain. 

The skill to thread a needle with one hand. It came in handy in that strange world when so many times his body had been left in a less than desirable state. Unbuttoning his shirt, his wet clothes came open to a pale chest, marred with the scars from his career. 

The injury was clear. 

A clean stab inward through fat, flesh and deep muscle at his right side. The Child was not that strong to have outright killed him. But the blood loss proved a hindrance in completing the task at hand. Quietly he set to work doing what he could to remedy his situation. There wasn't much time to recover. Silas sterilized the needle and stab wound with a shaking hand and through skin and muscle, he stitched himself back together. 

All as Sky watched. 

The weight of one's body was a prison and Sky was free from such constraints. Her focus on Silas as he kept working to keep his insides from spilling out. Shadows seeped from the cut, alongside a mix of blood and the Devil's black poison. Something Silas could never rid himself of.  At least as he sewed, he could at least contain it. 

Clenching his teeth, he snorted a breath of air through his nose. His hand hesitated. His body was heavy. Shutting his black eyes for a brief moment, he collected his light thoughts that tried to escape the task at hand. He needed to regain some strength in order to make it to the Archives. If at all possible, he wanted to avoid Miss Yona's patronizing commentary that was sure to come. 

"Does it hurt?" She asked. It was hard to imagine the pain of the body when she didn't have one. Ghosts felt pain in a different way. 

"My Sky mustn't concern herself with trivial matters of the flesh," Silas said. Opening his eyes again. He continued pushing the needle's tip into his skin, his completed work perfection. A clean line of stitching running the length of his side once finished. Assessing his work, Silas appeared satisfied. Cleaning his tools, he slipped them back into his pocket, caught in a thought suddenly when his fingers brushed against what he kept hidden within his jacket. Pulling out a small round object between his fingers from the wet pocket.

Sky's eyes caught the object's glint and she was instantly on edge, near hissing at the sight of it. Stone faced, the white pupils of Silas's black eyes were on the Angel's Egg in his hand. 

"A vexing curiosity," Silas said, finishing the observation. 

"I wouldn't trust a gift from Victor." whispered the ghost, cautious. 

With the subtle turn of his hand, the divine locket was again hidden back within a pocket inside his jacket. That was his answer. The question for him being what was the use of that small device. He was certain it would reveal itself to him in time. 

Casual in his motion, he buttoned his shirt, now more damp than wet. Hiding the brownish black stain from his blood by buttoning his jacket closed, he asked the ghost at his side, 

"Does my Sky hunger?"

The ghost hadn't expected her Collector to even suggest such a thing then. Taken aback, she shook her head in answer. 

"No. I'm alright," She half-smiled, although her expression was still tinged with worry. She always hungered but from the Youth's horrid dream, she had eaten her fill. 

Reaching to her, he grasped for her ethereal hand as she helped him to stand. The chains heavy, they climbed up over the rocks of the bank to the old brick path that ran the length of the shoreline. In an overgrown park on the very edge of Manhattan island, they were as far from the city center as they could get. Alone and with a quiet cover of white fog in the air, the world felt emptier than usual. Even if Sky had wanted to feed, there didn't appear to be anything around. A fact that was soon proven wrong as with a brush of movement from a nearby patch a dry grasses, Sky's attention was snared. She looked out into the dead trees and outcropping of tall yellow  grass, both her and the Collector were silent. The chances of surviving another onslaught so soon did not have the odds in their favor. Silas' tired back went straight, and despite the pain, he stood to his full height. Being as tall as he was helped ward away the unwelcomed before a confrontation even occurred. 

There was a cat's meow through the still air not far from where they stood. When both Collector and ghost looked, they were greeted not only by a cat, but one made completely of shadow. It was staring at them with silver eyes as round as saucers. An unblinking gaze from beside a tall patch of dried grass at the path's edge.

In the blink of Silas' eye, Sky was to the cat, inches from its face. It was unafraid of her and she knew it.

"A familiar." Sky whispered, scanning the creature. They had only encountered such creatures a few times. Each one time leaving a lasting impression.  

Silas approached the ghost girl from behind, her flowing form a white fabric sheet floating above the ground. Looking down the bridge of his nose to the cat made of shadow, who was now looking back at him. Chirping, the cat skipped past Sky to Silas' damp leg and with a purr, it curled with affection around it. 

There was only one out of all familiars that would ever have dared. This one in particular they knew well. They had met only a handful of times, and it had been a very long time since the last. 

"Could it be?" She asked, wide eyed.

"Moon," Silas said beneath his breath. He was certain. With ears perking, the look in Sky's eyes was unmistakable. There was a glint of genuine happiness. The cat meowed again before turning in full circle on the spot where it stood. Giving a glance to both Collector and ghost, it disappeared off into the mist and dead trees. 

Sky gave a beckoning look to her Keeper. Silas' expression never changed but he gave slack to the tired chains, allowing Sky more space to stay on the heels of the shadowy feline. With his head and hand, he gave a nod and a motion for her to follow and quick she was to swim off in pursuit of the creature. 

"Wait!" Sky called after the shadowy creature.

The chains led a trail for the Collector to follow in the haze. He was slower than usual but he didn't object to following the cat. Through the maze of bare trees to the park's center where stood a crumbling fountain that never spouted water. 

Empty in that strange world.