Sleep. It can be both a relief and a burden. It allows a living thing to escape from the world they know, if only for a brief while. A feeling like time has slowed to a halt as the rest of the world continues on. Time. Time can also be blessing and a pain. So it had been for the middle son of the Zeromus, prince Vincent.

The memories of his recent life replayed over and over again in his mind as he slept. Dreams showing the rapid decline in his family. Their empire. Their existence. All due to an old man's curse. The King and Queen were dead. His older brother, Juda, perished on the battlefield. Something Vincent never thought would ever come to pass. Decisions had to be made.

An irreversible ritual was conducted by the Bherjuban mages to counter the curse and save Vincent and Skylar from the afterlife. But there was a cost. They were saved from the afterlife, but not from the in-between. They acquired ethereal power native to the Purgatory, yet didn't belong. Not dead, but not living. The Zeromus princes were changed, altered. Hoping to escape the reality of the downfall of the House of Zeromus, Vincent ordered the mages to cast one final spell on him and his brother. And so they slept.

Days turned into months. Months into years. Years into centuries. In their time away, the world had forgotten them. Their home city of Bherjuba was no more. The echoes of the Purgatory whispered into Vincent's mind. Awaken. His eyes fluttered slowly and his vision was blurred. Violet hues glowed faintly, piercing through the darkness of the ancient Germans makeshift prison. Pain surged throughout his neck and body as he tried to move. The stiffness of his limbs was unlike anything he felt. Finally, he mustered the strength to lean forward. His body smacked to the hard floor of what appeared to be a small dark room.

The air was heavy and still. A cloud of dust had kicked up from his fall and floated about. Oxygen shot through his mouth to his lungs like a bullet and Vincent sluggishly stammered to his aching feet. The purple eyes of the German glimmered a bit brighter as his otherworldly strength had already begun to return. Rolling them to look at his surroundings, his gaze was drawn to that of the human sized box that stood beside him. Feeling the ethereal warmth of his younger brother's flames, Vincent knew what his awakening meant. It was all gone.

Choosing to leave his brother asleep for now, he muttered in their native German dialect as he reached out to place his hand on the box. "Not yet, my brother...". Stumbling to the door he had found across the room, it didn't push open at the turn of the knob. With all his limited power he could muster, Vincent threw his body into the wood and burst through. The outside world immediately greeted Zeromus as he fell to the ground again. Looking about, he didn't recognize anything around him. A large concrete bridge loomed above. Loud sounds roared from the overpass.