Chapter 231 Blanking Out

"Alex!!" Nix called out before his head could slip off where he had leaned on.

Jolting awake and in confusion, he frowned and closed his mouth.

Nix narrowed his eyes at how Alex had been blanking out at every chance of inactivity for over three days since they had planned their escape.

They were going to carry out their plans in a few days and he looked mentally drained.

"Do you know when Sid will be back?" Nix tried to start a conversation.

Blinking a few times before he understood what was being said and shook his head. "All he had said was that he would be busy with a task, so it might take a while before he would be back.'"

Even though they were roommates, the sense of familiarity was still out the window.

Nix had asked the question, not because he wanted to know where Obsidian was, but rather to confirm that they were alone and he could understand what had been wrong with Alex.

If they didn't tackle the problem right away, he would be the dead weight that would pull them back and that might be detrimental to their operation.

"Great!" He exclaimed with a nod.

Alex did a double take on his response, as far as he could remember, they weren't really on talking terms and he would mainly watch his team quietly, rarely chipping in.

He had readily accepted the idea of leaving the academy, it was almost like a prison for them sticking by to have a fill of temporary enjoyment.

The outdoors was a better place and he missed that. When he remembered the little girl that he had saved, it always brought sad memories of the family he wished would return to him someday.

"Alex!" Nix hissed, frustrated by how he readily submitted himself to distraction. "What the hell is going on with you?"

Shaking his head, he looked up squarely at Nix and furrowed his brows. It was one thing not to be aware that he was blanking out, but it was another to be snapped out of it.

"I- I don't understand myself." He muttered, disheartened by what had been going on with him for over a few days.

Nix didn't reply, instead calmly listened as Alex tried to explain his confused thoughts.

"I don't know if I'm going crazy." He muttered, pulling on his hair and shaking them in confusion.

None of what he was feeling felt normal, but it all felt too real to brush off.

"Alex," Nix began, careful on how he would address this situation.

He could rightly tell that what was happening to Alex wasn't just something one could call a normal occurrence.

His ability was still strange and hard to place, it was only a matter of time before they would leave before he would be a target of an experiment by Sesa.

"It must be hard for you, but I want you to know that you could say those words in any way you could think of." He nodded and hoped Alex would continue.

Pushing back his hair, Alex leaned forward on his chair and let out a subtle chuckle at how different his life had been the moment he decided to come out of hiding.

Bringing out his hands and staring at them like they weren't part of his body, he clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, and prepared himself to relate what had been troubling him.

"Have you felt that your dream was so real that you could almost feel it?" He began and let out a laugh at how weird that sounded even to himself.

Nix tilted his head and gave it a thought, this world he was living in felt like a dream. There had been a few times he had been scared that all he had been going through up until now was a dream.

That was one of his greatest fears–waking up and seeing all that had happened was nothing but a figment of his imagination and had happened just within the span of a few hours.

Snap!

Alex snapped his fingers in front of Nix to pull him back to reality. He was the one being interrogated, yet Nix was the one who had blanked out after his question.

"I don't think it's nice copying me, it's not funny at all if you'd ask me," Alex said with a scoff, folding his hands and feeling offended.

Nix jolted from his initial confusion and shook his head, immediately trying to explain what had gone on with him while still affirming that he had felt what Alex had said.

​ He internally wished that he could earn Alex's trust, he was almost at the point of getting the information he needed, and he couldn't back down now.

Alex stared at him for a while, gauging all he had heard. Nodding his head, he concluded that he could as well continue.

"I had been having dreams of a girl–"

Cough!

'At one point in our lives, we all do dude!' Nix's thoughts added.

Nix couldn't hide his shock at the sentence, repeatedly hitting his chest so he could calm down and respond well.

Taking in gasps of air and exhaling, he finally tried to continue with what he had planned on saying. "A girl?!"

His mouth hung open afterward, feeling stupid for suddenly showing some concern.

There was nothing to worry about if that was the case, yet he could only blame himself for asking.

"Really? A girl?" Nix repeatedly tried to get some form of assurance, still in disbelief at what he had heard from Alex.

Alex facepalmed as he knew it was hard to believe without him explaining the rest of what he wanted to say.

"Would you at least let me finish?" He hissed through gritted teeth.

He understood that was not the best starting approach, but being cut off wasn't cool.

Nix raised his hand in surrender and gestured for Alex to continue. He would try not to interfere no matter how tempting it was for the sort of conversation they were headed to.

"It's about a girl..." Alex paused to gauge Nix's reaction.

Seeing Nix's cheek fill up with air, he could guess that he was trying his best not to interfere. If he were to poke at the side of Nix's cheeks, it was bound to blow up in his face.

'You can do this, no need to worry about what anyone would say.' Alex reminded himself as he briefly closed his eyes and opened them right after.

"Coming from me, you should have a bit of faith in me." Alex accused Nix of misunderstanding him and having a lewd conversation.

"I do." Nix quickly clarified weakly and zipped his lips when Alex narrowed his eyes at him.

He dreaded getting a blast of that static energy that periodically turns on if he's triggered. It was best to keep him under the wraps and play along.

Alex let out a sigh, knowing fully well that he was not as strong as the one pretending to be submissive to his glare.

Shaking his head, a smile made its way to the corner of his lips, "you did so well in hiding your trump card."

He could remember when he, Solis, Luna, Gia, and Lumina had been briefed on his other strange abilities, they had been gripped by shock at the truthfulness of what they had heard.

"A magician never reveals most of his secrets," Nix said with a wink and burst out in a peal of laughter.

Putting a quick thought to it, Alex could tell there were still some things that had not been fully explained and his eyes glued to Nix's chest wondering how he could take in all that power.

Clearing his throat, he proceeded to continue where he had left off.

"There was something different about her eyes and the innocence in those mischievous orange eyes piercing through my soul." He placed a hand on his chest and closed his eyes and smiled in satisfaction.

Nix raised the corner of his lips at how awkward it seemed to him watching Alex look like he was in love with someone in his dream. "Oh-kay..."

He had tried to cut in but sealed his mouth shut when Alex continued.

"It felt like she was reaching out to me, and I had repeatedly tried to reach out to her but I would always fail. She was always in some forest like she was all alone in there even though there was an older male by her side. Instead, she chose to reach out to me for help." He related, opening his eyes to see the shock on Nix's face.

While Nix had been listening, he had been making a mental match of who could fit this description. A part of him could feel he knew who Alex was talking about.

"Her hair, could you remember anything about the color or texture? The forest, what is a distinctive feature?" Nix inched closer to Alex as he awaited an answer.