Key is drained. His legs don’t feel like his own, stumbling over themselves; his arms dead weights hanging by his side. The very act of taking a breath seems to take more energy then it provides. His head, heavy, constantly lulls unto his shoulders. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d felt so tired.

But as Key dances (or attempts to, with his unstable feet and lethargic arms), he realizes he can’t remember a time when he wasn’t this drained. The days seem to pass endlessly, hour following hour with fluid precision. Can Key even recall when he started preparing for their comeback? Or, for the matter, when he’d started dancing tonight, alone in this dance studio?

Reflected in the mirror, Key thinks he looks ridiculously stupid.

It must be the way his feet can’t find a firm grip on the smooth floor, or the way his body slumps forward despite how much he tries to keep upright. As impossible as it seems, Key thinks he’s losing more of himself with each passing moment.

It gets hard to breathe.

Keep going, he tells himself. Darkness tugs at the edge of his vision as his eyelids lose energy to stay open, but Key forces them apart. Honestly, he has never encountered anything as silly as being unable to control one’s own freaking eyelids, and for an instant, it jolts him. In the midst of his current mental and physical state, Key manages to laugh.

It is a sharp, dry sound, and bounces off the four shiny walls back at him.

His feet decide to move again, drawing its power from him once more. Key winces, as what little he has left in him drains out through his feet. His arms and torso soon join in the movement, and he finds his mind a prisoner to his determined body. (But really, his body is his mind’s prisoner too)

There seems to be too much blood under Key’s skin; for some reason, everything is suddenly harsh to the touch. Subconsciously, he flattens his shirt against his sides – now slim and ideal – and realizes he could identify its separate threads. He ignores it, for now. He has yet to finish what he’d come to do. (But what had he come to do?)

Dancing is torture, at this moment. In the flurry, he is kicking his own feet, slapping his own face, scratching his own skin.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop, now.

And just when he feels his mind leaving him – floating out of his head and leaving his bo