One Of Us

Chapter Six

Virgil slept uneasily. (To be fair, he never slept particularly well, but tonight was worse than most.) His few hours of rest were punctured by the same dream, over and over:

He was standing on a ledge, somewhere so high up he couldn't see the ground. Clouds loomed above him and a foggy abyss swirled below. A strange feeling gnawed at his stomach, one that told him he had been here before, and that maybe... maybe last time, he had jumped.

He didn't want to jump. The view was alright and the air was cool on his face, though no wind blew to accompany it. Maybe he was too high for wind. Or birds. Or sound.

The only thing keeping him from tipping over the edge was a hand gripping tight to the back of his hoodie. He should've felt safe. Instead, he felt stuck. Virgil tugged away, and the grasp tightened. He tried to protest, to tell whoever was holding him to get off, but his voice didn't work and he was going to lose his balance and suddenly there was wind blowing, blowing, blowing in every direction that threatened to send him flying.

The hand let go.

He lost his footing and fell.

A sharp knock at Virgil's door jerked him awake, and he flailed in a tangle of bedsheets for a solid twenty seconds before finally stumbling toward the door, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he went. Yesterday's eyeshadow was still smudged beneath them and his hair was a mess — all of him probably was — but he opened the door anyway and found a wide awake Logan just outside of it.

"You're not wearing your hoodie," he said in lieu of a greeting.

"Good morning to you, too," Virgil said flatly. He glanced down; he was, in fact, still in a plain purple t-shirt and black flannel pajama bottoms. "You think I sleep in it or something?"

"Of course not," Logan said. "I just... don't recall seeing you without it before."

Virgil shrugged uncomfortably, scanning the room for the rumpled lump of fabric. He found it in a heap at the foot of his bed and slid it on in a hurry, acutely aware of how exposed he felt without it wrapped around him.

"So," he said, tugging at the strings so they were equal lengths, "any particular reason you're here at —" he checked the rapidly spinning clock by his bookshelf "— ten in the morning?"

"No," Logan said. Virgil tipped his head forward in disbelief, and he went on. "I thought I'd check up on you."

"I'm not sick."

"I'm aware." Logan nudged at his glasses despite them being situated just fine on his nose. "May I come in?"

Virgil moved to block the doorway without hesitation. "You may not," he said, and it earned him a sigh.

"Would you consider accompanying me to my room instead?"

Whatever proposition Virgil had been expecting, that wasn't it. Logan's room didn't exactly have an open door policy like Patton's; in fact, Virgil wondered if he had ever seen further inside than what was visible from the hall when he passed by. What was Logan plotting?

"Uh," Virgil said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I... I guess?"

"Excellent," Logan said. He turned and set off down the hall without bothering to see if the other was following (he was, for the record, albeit reluctantly). It was a shorter walk thank Virgil remembered — maybe Logan was better at navigating the mindscape than he was. "Here we are."

It took a conscious effort for Virgil to keep his jaw from dropping.

Logan's room was incredible. The walls were painted a deep blue with indigo along the bottom trim, and a silver-silled window was situated next to an orderly black desk. It looked out over a rushing stream, which twisted through trees and was lined with large, smooth stones. Pale morning sunlight filtered into the room through large green leaves. Virgil found it almost peaceful, but he only got a glimpse before Logan waved his hand and the curtains slid closed, bathing the room in darkness.