And, as expected, Nyle could be found on the porch, looking over the garden with a frown. He turned around when he sensed Leo, smiling awkwardly -and in embarrassment- over his abrupt exit. "Look, I... that was dramatic, I know, but I didn't want to argue in front of you," he explained with a weak smile, reaching to pull Leo closer. "I love you a lot, and I just... Oliver... I don't know, it's my fault, I'm being paranoid. I'm sorry--"
Midway through his attempt at an apology for his behaviour -and an effort at being romantic with brief kiss he managed to give to his boyfriend-, Nyle, again, abruptly vanished. Only this time, he had no control over it. He didn't make the conscious decision to just disappear; it was something that happened against his knowledge. In fact, it was a greater deal than simply growing transparent to have some time to himself; his spirit wasn't in the house any longer, having disappeared from it entirely.
The idea that he could be alive again had been something he had obviously wished for, but knew the reality of it was unattainable. He had died and his body buried six foot underground, so for Nyle, the rest of his life would be spent as a ghost; something he wasn't necessarily horrified by given he could spend eternity beside the person he loved most in the world. That said, he had regretted dying when he did, knowing how much pain it had caused his family and the friends that were left behind.
That didn't mean he expected to ever live again... which made waking up inside the coffin... a strange experience. It was a long month after his sudden disappearance from the porch, though he didn't realise just how long he had been gone, nor did he remember anything that happened after it. He was there one moment, and the next he was waking up in a coffin that -thankfully- hadn't quite been shut properly since it as reopened. He had had no idea that some private, elusive company had purposely sought out coffins of the recently deceased in their quest to succeed in reanimation, one being Nyle's. It was through sheer chance that he had been one of five chosen for the experiment and, fortunately, buried again when they naively thought their expensive experiment had ceased to work. Nyle had shown no signs of life and was swiftly buried again. Had he shown the experiment worked, there was no chance for him to have a normal life; he would have kept inside a cell inside a laboratory and experimented on for the rest of his days. Fortunately, he was deemed a failure, which left him waking up inside the coffin, trying to gather himself together.
It took him a long time getting out of it, and an even longer time to convince his father and sisters that he was alive, and that his appearance on their doorstep wasn't a sick joke. He realised that he had died, but he couldn't exactly stroll up to them and tell them that, somehow, he was alive again; they would only figure out that something was wrong with him and be fearful of him. Instead, he went through great efforts to conceal the bullet wound on his forehead and make himself look as alive as he could. The company had managed to reverse the signs of decomposition, enough for him to walk around in public without alerting horror, but he wasn't perfect, so time had to be dedicated to concealing himself as much as possible. Somehow, they bought his story, believing his tale that he had woken up in the middle of nowhere and that someone else was buried accidentally in his place. It was a ridiculous excuse, but they had no other reason than to believe it when he was stood in front of them in the flesh.
Nyle realised that nothing was going to be normal again, of course. He realised that the moment he met his family and wanted nothing more than to bash their heads in to get to their brain - it wasn't a nice thought, but it was all he could really think about during the weeks he stayed with them. He also realised normality was impossible when his hand detached from his arm one day, leaving him no choice but to messily stitch it back on and miraculously found that it still worked perfectly. Despite all that, he knew he was alive again -or, rather, undead- and he was thankful for it... even if he had to deal with being a zombie. It was better than being a ghost, he decided. He could still talk, think and move perfectly normally, so the only downsides were the cravings and the frailties of his body. Unfortunately, those downsides were considerable.
His family noticed how strange he was and inevitably grew concerned, so he made his exit from the home as soon as he could. He didn't want them noticing anything weird about him, even if he looked different and acted different, so it gave him a good excuse to leave and head back to Leo... even if he wasn't sure how to explain what had happened. Nor could he come to terms with the actions he had committed to silence the cravings, the few incidents he had acted upon them being things he wanted to keep to himself, for obvious reasons.
And yet, despite wanting to be with Leo, the first place he went to was to Gigi's home. He had received care from his family, but a maternal presence had been severely lacking, and he had always gravitated towards Gigi for that alone. He wanted to be comforted and he had always felt she gave him that, even if he had to first explain why he wasn't dead and why he looked as he did. He was considerably paler -deathly pale, in fact- and his eyes were framed by dark, permanent marks, which only emphasised the deathly appearance. He had managed to hide the bullet wound with makeup, but his arms were lined with evidence that not everything was right, whether that was by the stitches or the signs of decomposition that the company had failed to fully reverse. He opted to wear large hoodies to ensure nothing could be seen, thankful that his face had at least avoided the misfortune of permanent decomposition signs. His neck did, a large portion of the right-hand side lacking flesh entirely, but wearing his hood up managed to hide that from the world.
"...Gigi?" He called out weakly through the letterbox, fiddling with his large sleeves out of nervousness. "I-It's, uh.. It's Nyle, do you maybe wanna open up? I... I could do with a friend right now, and I, uh... got some explaining to do, I guess?"
