Time dragged its feet in the insensible darkness, lethargic as it blindly ambled forward. The entity could barely sense its obscure passage, yet the husk clinging to tangibility outside the dim corners of his consciousness estimated it had been nearly a week. A week of revisiting old memories, good and bad. It was his only chance to remember before the moon shone her pearly eye back on him and with pitying arms, commanded the amnesiac tides to wash the hurt away again, dragging his memories and identity to the ocean's depths. He didn't want to let them go; one blink he was fruitlessly rambling to a little brother, cradling his head to his breastbone as crimson life trickled from the other boy's scalp. Staying by his side as his knees were peppered with burns, the residual embers from the inferno. The next he was braiding a young woman's hair, envy flaring within his pulseless heart as she told her closest friend about the sweetest boy she had ever met. He watched the faces of many families blend together, opening presents under an evergreen and splashing at each other in wild rivers and encouraging the youngest's first steps and mourning the eldest's ashes. Why did he have to lose them again? Did he have to forget all of the rose, rather than plucking out only the infected thorns in his side? Because, the moon soothed, they still hurt you in the end.

    The smallest twitch of an eyelid parted the dark seas, fuzzy static ebbing from his healing brain. Wincing away from the onslaught of sunlight in his unfocused vision, it took a while for the scrawny feline to move at all, only his nose twitching in confusion. Questions and paranoia were far from his thoughts as he slowly processed his surroundings, blankly staring at the dizzying details of the room. Cluttered with soft blobs and rectangular frames filled with watercolors. Folded creatures and frilly pillows scattered amok. The musk of sea salt and hibiscus tickled his nose -- Goldie? He mustered the will to lift his head from where he had curled up, stretching out a cramped leg to stand. Only to be stopped by a velvet cocoon. Frantically kicking his way out of the blankets, Beck paused to blink at the fabric nest; who had brought him here? Collapsing back on his haunches and failing to notice the absent feeling of impact, the poltergeist rubbed at his eyes with scarred paws curled into fists, attempting to clear away persisting nausea. He wasn't able to register the tight gauze layering his forehead either, or the makeshift wiring keeping his jaw from opening. While not entirely conscious yet, he pushed himself back to his feet, stumbling over numb paws until he could lean against a sun-warmed wall, wobbling his way to the outside world. But not before pocketing two of the paper animals, a fish and a deer; he was always an opportunistic thief after all.

    Senses late to awaken, the boy was lost in his own choppy string of actions, defeatedly slumping on the hut's sandy porch with glazed eyes struggling to remember what had sent him into an emergency dormancy in the first place. As he tilled through broken thoughts, a silent urge begged for him to move -- as much as he tried to ignore it, focusing on the more urgent matter of recollection, the bedraggled feline began to erratically twitch, wrinkling his nose or poking a blue tongue out through wired teeth or even jerking his head to the side at one point. Not that he noticed. All he could perceive was the oblivious sun shining into his eyes, grits of sand rubbing between his digits, and the delirious buzz of crickets in his ears as he struggled to remember what he had forgotten.

    Despite dead nerves, the tip of his tongue poked around the front of his mouth, investigating the unfamiliar pressure clamping his jaw shut. Thin and rigid beams locking his teeth together -- wires. The foggiest memory of a four-eyed beast insisting that she wire his jaw for it to heal as well as the panicked imagery of threading his gums closed with cable glazed over his vision. A clattering set of teeth bloodied with stitches danced on the bridge of his nose, an omen of what the medics had done to him. Tossing his head back, the boy set to work mindlessly wrenching the brackets holding his jaw in place. Without pain to restrain his movements, he had nearly yanked all the wires out and cast the slivers of metal aside in a slobbery haystack by the time the buzz in his ears paused for a squeaky voice. His focus locked on dislocating the final wire attached to a sharpened molar, the boy mumbled around his paw to echo her first word, "Hey." Spitting out the mangled splinter of metal, he clicked his teeth together several times before jerking his head around to peer at Linux with shiny eyes. "Aft-ter... after what?" He spoke with a stutter, disrupting his rasping question, "Did I do somethin', do somethin' wrong?"

    The poltergeist seemed to perk from his lethargy when the girl carrying the sea breeze itself floundered into his nearsighted vision. A bobbed tail quivered in an attempt to wag, lightly thumping against the porch as she spoke words he didn't understand -- he simply enjoyed the exotic lilt of her voice. "Uh-huh, guess so," followed the absent-minded wheeze, his head bobbing up and down in a lazy nod. His nodding died off as the glint returned to his dark glare, brow knitting in sudden concern. "Where's Aud-drey? What d'ya do to 'em?" An accusing tone slithered into his speech, assuming the worst had been done to his only companion and stumbling to his feet in a rising panic. He couldn't be separated from the plant again, not after what happened.