Ethan didn’t st long.

  He tried to stay upright on the cot, rubbing his eyes, willing himself to stay alert — to not drift toward tails, warmth, and a body that felt like breathing for the first time—

  But exhaustion was a tidal wave.

  His head dropped.Shoulders sagged.The neckce glimmered faintly under his palm.

  And then Ethan slumped sideways in one slow motion and passed out.

  No dream-murmurs yet. Just pure, empty crash.

  Alex walked back into the nurse’s office a few minutes ter, quietly closing the door behind him. Nurse Hartley was at her desk doing paperwork; Alex nodded at her and sat by the cot again.

  He studied Ethan’s face — pale, dark circles, brows still knotted like even unconscious he was fighting something.

  A whisper escaped him, barely breathing:

  “What the hell is happening to you?”

  His eyes fell to the rise of Ethan’s hand over his hoodie — the spot where that neckce sat. Always there. Always held. Like it mattered more than oxygen.

  Alex’s jaw tightened.

  He didn’t think it was drugs.Ethan wasn’t self-harming. He would’ve seen signs.

  But this?The desperation, the colpse, the cling to that neckce?

  It scared him in a way he didn’t know how to expin.

  “…It’s like you’re vanishing into yourself,” he muttered.

  His chest felt heavy. Ethan wasn’t just tired — he looked like he was running on fumes of willpower and nothing else.

  Alex hesitated — then slowly reached toward the chain peeking out from Ethan’s shirt.

  “Maybe this thing is connected. And if it’s making you sick or—”

  His fingers brushed the cold metal—

  Ethan jerked awake with a sharp gasp, hand snapping up and grabbing Alex’s wrist before Alex even registered he’d moved.

  Eyes wide.Breathing fast.Instinctual panic.

  A fsh of something flickered in Ethan’s gaze — fear, desperation, possession.

  “…don’t,” Ethan croaked, voice raw and hoarse.Still half-asleep, but deadly sure.

  Alex froze.

  “Jesus, okay—”He slowly pulled his hand back, palms open like he was trying not to spook a wild animal.

  Ethan blinked hard, disoriented, still gripping the neckce tight to his chest like someone had tried to rip his heart out.

  Then his head dropped back to the pillow.Fully unconscious again within seconds.Gone.

  Alex stared, stunned.

  He whispered it like saying it too loud would shatter something delicate:

  “What the fuck are you holding onto, man?”

  He looked at Ethan — really looked.At the trembling eyeshes.The clenched fist.The exhausted, fragile boy drowning under something invisible.

  And Alex made a silent promise, one that tightened like steel inside his chest:

  I am not letting you disappear. Whatever this is — I’m staying.

  Even if Ethan hated him for it.

  Even if things got weird.

  Even if… he didn’t come back as the same person.

  Alex leaned back in the chair, eyes never leaving him, expression heavy, uncertain, scared, but stubborn as hell.

  “…You better wake up as you,” he muttered.

  But if Ethan did?

  Alex wasn’t sure Ethan wanted to be himself anymore.