Building and planting the cities was the last thing the ancient race of men had ever asked her to do, and she had not seen one since. Looking at it evoked clear memories of its precise internal layout from the top floor to the two thousandth.

Siona’s pulse quickened and her body began to feel tight and uncooperative, as it did when she was afraid. With a look of determination, she approached the wall of the city in front of her.

As she approached the black leviathan, she saw footprints leading away from it then terminating abruptly as though their creator had been simply carried off into the air. Her advanced senses were able to recognize the footprints as Ty’s.

She followed the footprints back to the city, stepping daintily, as gliding through the sand was impossible. They originated at a disused maintenance shaft. Pulsing red light emanated from inside it, and its walls were lined with warped, alien metal structures.

Siona hesitated. Her rational mind told her that the people who had hurt her those thousands of years ago were long dead, but part of her still screamed against going in – to never see them again, to never be hurt again. She knew with absolute certainty that Ty was inside there.

Siona stepped into the shaft. The instant she did, the machinery lining its walls sprang to life. Rusty, twisted mechanical arms, hooks and saw blades, nightmarish contraptions tried to snag and tear at her. She staggered back.

“W-what!? I didn’t build this! What the heck are these even for!?” She gasped in surprise. Irritated, a sapphire shell manifested around her and she proceeded forward. The appendages gouged malevolently at it, but it only rang like a fine bell and glimmered in the red light.

As she walked, she clothed herself in a dainty blue sundress in the event that she should run into any people, but as she descended into the city she began to doubt that would happen. “I’m not really going into a city. This is a dream, or a nightmare more like.” She said out loud. The crazy appendages had given up, but still rested in the walls, seeming to wait.

After a long time, Siona came to a large, cube-shaped room. Slate grey light shone down from a skylight above and colored the room a pale hue. A cage barely big enough for one person was in its center and Ty was inside it wearing ragged burlap clothes. And old man with a long grey beard was standing outside the cage holding something. Reluctantly, Ty approached him.

Siona raised a brow in curiosity and approached the scene for a better look. What she saw made her furious.

Ty’s face was wet with tears and his eyes were red and puffy as though he had been crying for hours, maybe days. The cage was too small for him to stand, and so he was kneeling before the old man. The man was spoon feeding Ty like a baby.

“There there” the old man mumbled in a frail and cowardly voice, “you’re much too stupid to live on your own.” He said with a spoonful. “Much too stupid, you must rely on me.”

Siona gave a short, loud laugh that would make children cry and animals yelp and hide under furniture. The old man dropped his container of food and turned toward her, startled, but it was much too late. In the span of a heartbeat Siona closed the six feet between them, her hair rippling in the wind, and bound the old man’s mouth and arms in impenetrable blue bands.

“How would you like him to die, Ty?” she asked conversationally. Ty stared at her, amazed.

“Wha- Siona? How did you get here!? What’s going on!?”

“We’re sharing a dream, love… from our joining, I think. I’m here to free you.”

“I-it won’t do any good. I’ve done it before, he always comes back. I’m stuck here, Siona. Forever.” Ty said in explanation, but his tone was pleading.

“Ah, I’ll make this painful then.” She said wickedly.

Siona’s hand became a razor sharp lance and she stabbed the old man cruelly in the lower back, but his eyes only opened wide as saucers in agony. His skin began to cover with a webwork of blue tracery as Siona’s mass filled his blood vessels.

With a flinch, jagged blue spines erupted from the man in every angle, from head to toe. Siona retracted her hand and the violent scene vanished with a series of wet plops. A half liquefied rain of flesh and bone fragments fell where the man had once been. Siona sifted the grisly rain between her fingers playfully as it fell.

Ty’s puffy red-rimmed eyes were wide.

“That was AWESOME.”

“You’re dating the finest weapon ever created, sweetie.” Siona said innocently. She dusted her hands and laced her fingers to stretch her arms over her head. Her breasts rose fetchingly behind the ersatz sun dress.

Siona made a circle with her thumb and middle finger and casually flicked one of the bars of Ty’s cage. It assumed a V-shape and snapped from its upper mount, clattering to the floor.

“Let’s blow this stand of popsicles!” She shouted posing heroically, a serious look on her face.

“Popsicles?” Ty asked.

“An old figure of speech!” Siona shouted and lifted Ty out of the cage, one arm under his knees, another around his shoulders, and another tousling his hair and caressing his face.

“We can’t leave, Siona. You don’t understand.” Ty said, but he made no effort to resist. He only collapsed against her breast, looking up at her hopefully.

“Well, we’re going to try, got it? You’re coming with me, Ty. You made a promise.” She hugged him tight to her a moment, like a child to its mother’s breast. “Hungry?” she asked impishly. Ty only shook his head. “Then let’s go.”

Siona marched defiantly down the infested hallway. She manifested no crystalline shell to defend herself: dream or no dream, this place had made the grave mistake of pissing her off.

When the nightmare machinery leapt from the walls, tremendous crystalline lances shot from her body seemingly with a will of their own, destroying anything that moved and a great deal that did not. A roar of ripping steel and snapping wires echoed around them. The corridor itself was twisted and destroyed in their wake.

The sunlight stung their eyes as they emerged from the dim city. Ty’s own footprints preceded them. Siona carried Ty to the point where his footprints halted eerily. The moment she passed that terminus, Ty vanished from her arms.

Siona glanced around, confused, her hair swinging. She spotted Ty behind her, at the precise spot where his other sets of footprints ended.

“I told you. It’s no use, Siona. I’m stuck here. I want to go with you, more than anything in this world, but I can’t. I have to break my promise.”

The two only stared at each other for a long time. Siona felt a lump rise in her throat, but she choked it back.

“You of all people should know what it’s like to be unable to leave a place you hate.” Ty said, as if this explained everything.

“I don’t understand, Ty. What’s wrong?”

Ty reached up to remove the absurd burlap slave tunic he was wearing.

A jagged, bloody X was carved into his abdomen, intersecting with the arms of his blue starburst scar. Blood diluted with human tears ran freely from it and began to patter to the sand below.

Siona staggered backwards and tripped in the sand, landing on her ass. Ty only stood, bleeding, with an apologetic look on his face. A strong desert breeze blew around them, kicking grit at both of them.

Siona could only shake her head slightly, as if denying what she was seeing. “It’s not… possible… I’m…” Her confusion was cut short. White light filled her vision, her head began to swim dizzily, and the couple’s dream ended.