Rain pattered softly on Nari's face as she stood out at the bus stop, fidgeting with her key chains. In a brief moment of insanity, she stuck her tongue out to taste the freshness of nature itself, to somehow connect, failing as always, but in the ever-present defeat a strong loss of bitterness had occurred. Her pretty hair matted slightly and clinging wetly to her neck, she snuffled slightly, allowing a collecting bead of water to drop, falling to its demise on the cold pavement below. She sighed, wondering vaguely where she was going. Feeling empty, at a loss for words and at a loss for destinations.

 She flashed her bus pass at the driver almost annoyedly, then proceeded to the back of the bus. She threw her blue camo bag on the tacky orange seat, pausing briefly to compare the contrast and obvious mismatch of tones, duly noting that with the overkill on the orange and her bag's black trim, it resembled an overdone Halloween party. She paused, wondering where in hell's name *that* analogy came from. 'Whatever,' she thought. Her mind was creative, and strangely appropriate analogies seemed to have a habit of being her bag, so to speak.

 She almost compulsively pulled her Discman out, then remembering her earlier train of thought, she paused, mind blank.

 'Screw this,' she thought. 'I need music, before I think so much my head explodes.'

 Music harshly poured itself over her, courtesy of her headphones. It really was an interesting sight, this young woman so untouched by much of culture, dressed in loose fitting clothing despite her obviously thin body, towing impatiently with key chains attached to her bag. She had pretty purplish-red hair; quite an interesting dyed color, and hazel eyes. Almost green, streaked with brown. She was fair skinned and muscular, her face touched gently by light pinpricks of freckles across her nose. Her nose itself was straight and sharpish, accenting round, rosy cheeks. She had fine, pale lips, and a dimpled smile. She was square-jawed, with an oval face. Softly arched eyebrows and wavy hair. But the most surprising thing was that although this was a girl of nearly 16 years old, her face was untouched by makeup. No mascara, no lipstick, no eyeshadow or liner. And it was like this that her natural beauty shone through. Her hair straight and down and unstyled, her little bit of nailpolish badly chipped. She bobbed her head gently in tune to the music, sometimes mouthing the words.

Pack slung over her shoulder again, she walked quickly across the bus terminal, glad for the invention of waterproof Discmans.

 'Blechers,' she thought, sitting down on another bus, her nose freezing cold. She picked a strand of wet hair off of her forehead. 'My shirt's probably soaked.'

 She picked her dark blue hoody off her chest, then gathered the lower part of it and wrung it out onto the floor. She patted her bag, splattering the seat with water, then untwisted her headphone cord and wrung out the foam covers on the speakers.

 She sighed, her former train of thought resurfacing among the vibrations of the music. The emptiness returned, almost as a hunger, a feeling of want for something she did not have, though not for things of the material world. She sighed again, trying to somehow clear the dusty hole in her heart by exhaling it. She resumed thinking as before.

 'Why do I feel so empty. Well that's the million-dollar question here, ain't it.' She closed her eyes in complete silence for a moment, then resumed thinking. 'I'm missing something.' Somehow taking thought to form always made her feel better. 'I feel, it's not, empty,' more sighs. 'I just feel. I'm not whole. Missing pieces.' She sighed again and hung her head.

 'This bites,' she thought. She skipped ahead a couple of tracks on her Discman, sat back and enjoyed the ride.

 The hiss of the doors opening brought her back to life. She pulled the bell and waited for her stop. She slung her sack over her shoulder again and trudged over to the open door, waiting for the light to turn on so she could leave. After what seemed like an eternity, it lit and she jumped off the bus. She snuffled, her nose suddenly deciding it wanted to emulate the weather.

She jingled her keys around, trying to find her house key. She sighed, this time in exasperation. 'Fuck, it's dark,' she thought as the lock finally obeyed her key's will. She quickly grabbed the mail and ducked inside.

 Nari checked her watch and realized that she had skipped supper, it being 10:30 and all. "Great..." she spat. She was tired, starving, probably sick by now and nobody to greet her when she got home. 'Being an only child sucks,' she thought bitterly.

She stomped downstairs, her mother being off on another one of her business trips, being the only one at homewould turn to be an advantage.

 Her bag was tossed on the linoleum floor, her clothes draped on the hamper, herself in the shower. She let the hot water run down her back, warming her up, washing out her matted hair.

 She felt her stomach grumble and she yawned. So the endless debate began. 'Sleep!' her brain commanded. 'Food!' her stomach grumbled. She patted her tummy and said, "Patience, my pet."

 Stepping out of the shower, she finally felt warm. She wrapped her hair up in a towel, dried off and pulled pyjamas on, then jogged upstairs to eat.

 Opening the fridge, there was very little inside, so she grabbed a bowl of cold rice and dashed downstairs to chat with a few of her friends.

 Her computer begrudgingly started up as she noticed the lights on her cable modem weren't lit. She jiggled the cord and gave it a good whack, smiling as the lights lit up and flashed.

 The computer was an outlet for her creative energies, to literally become another person, to create and assume their form was an interesting waste of time to her. The channel she hung out in was unlike most of the other chats on the Internet, being that she was known around the place, a regular, and there were rarely times when people she didn't know were online. She had also met a few of them in real life, away from the chatroom, and in them found some very good friends. Logging on, she joined the channel and opped herself. She enjoyed being a channel operator, the fact of the matter being that she was in the chat so often she may as well have her share of the moderation power. A chorus of "Hey," and "Welcome back," made her smile, as she scanned the list for anyone she didn't know.

 A query window beeped open, one of her good friends, Jesh, was messaging her. And he wasn't happy.

 "What's wrong?" She typed.

 "Erg, just one of those days," the response flashed.

 "What happened?"

 "Nothing in particular, just one of those days."

 Things continued in that fashion until well after eleven thirty, joking around with her buddies in the channel and trying to help people out a bit in private message. For a while, she forgot her hunger to be whole in the quest to help others first, and that hole was partially filled for a time.

 She cracked and popped her knuckles, stabbing pains making their way up her arms, through her wrists and elbows, a stinging numbing, tingling pain.

 "My CTS is acting up again, I should really start typing properly. Must go," she clicked.

 The good-byes were said, and she disconnected from the IRC server, drawing her hair back across her skull in semi-dismay. She needed sleep. The array of things she'd seen today was going to crack her, would she have stayed up and kept dealing with them.

 She dressed for bed and laid in bed, jotting things down in a hardcover notebook she had come to call her journal, pen in hand, covered by blankets.

 And as so, she fell asleep.

 And as asleep, the dreams came.

 First, as with everything, there was blackness. Then, in flashes of light, she saw life. Or her lives, rather, flashing before her eyes.

 She saw herself in a strange city, surrounded by winged creatures. She then saw herself as the duchess of a royal Scottish kingdom, continuing on a legacy in Europe, then in Canada where she lived currently.

 She watched the sequences of events unfold in front of her as she stared, frozen. Then, she dreamt she was asleep in a bed, and a beautiful lady came to visit her, wearing wings and stroking her hair gently. Nari remembered her face from somewhere, the images of the first lifetime. The lady stroked Nari's hair and gently touched her face as she slept. The lady's hand rested lightly on Nari's collarbone as she whispered in nearly inaudible tones; "You are the sun, the moons, the serene face of our lady. Let our dreams guide you through a path of enlightenment, the quest to make you whole again."

 Nari blinked, and the gentle face hovering above hers smiled.

 She opened her eyes, and to her semi-groggy surprise, the face was still there! It mouthed the words, 'I love you', then faded as Nari drowsily fell into a dreamless but confused sleep.

 She woke up drowsily to the shrill screech of her alarm. She whapped the damn thing hard with her fist to silence its cry then flopped over. Today was Saturday. Getting up early could go to Hell.

 Nari opened her eyes later to stare at the ceiling, noting it was eleven o'clock and she had slept long enough. She sat up, her mind flickering back to the dream. Her dreams were almost prophetic, an ability she had developed and used efficiently. She enjoyed the security of being warned of upcoming changes in her life before they were to occur. She was tempted to write this off as a run-of-the-mill dream, but something about it irked her. Perhaps it was the fact that just that night she had been poking into that long-silent feeling of emptiness. By God, it was back. She sighed almost painfully, realizing that the sense of emptiness had become much more difficult to shake.

 No, she commanded herself. On with the present train of thought. Perhaps the irk stemmed from the illusion that the lady who had stated her wishes so plainly was still there when she opened her eyes. Or, she continued, was it all an illusion after all?

 These thoughts troubled her. The fact that she knew not herself so well as she thought she did frightened her. And her weird prophetic-ish dream didn't help much either. She got up and out of bed, and in one graceful movement she strode across the room over to her tall dresser. She picked up a point crystal, one piece of many occult-ish paraphernalia, which she had picked up over the course of time. She rolled it around in her hand, thinking, focusing.

 She stood there for a while, how long she didn't know, for she didn't remember. She stared at the crystal, wondering if perhaps it had something to do with her peculiar loss of time. Nari shook her head. 'That's too weird,' she thought, then decided to try an experiment. She stared hard at the crystal in her hand, not altogether blankly, but prying at it with her eyes. She concentrated on it, somehow trying to force energy out of her eyes or her hands or something, she thought, in what seemed to be a half-baked idea to make the crystal somehow do something.

 Her eyebrows inadvertently knitted, her forehead wrinkled, her face tense, almost agitated, as she stared at the little crystal in her hand. She nearly screamed when, to her half-doubtful surprise, the crystal very suddenly grew firey-hot and nearly burned her. In a frightened panic, she dropped it and dashed downstairs. As she reached the bottom step, she put a hand to her breastbone, panting, while a tiny voice in her head screamed, "Out of sight, out of mind."

 "What the hell is wrong with me?" she breathed, frightened more than she'd probably been frighened in her life.

      *

 Many hours later, after a long and toiling day, she seemed to have forgotten the things which had scared her so that morning. Ignoring the details, she had reasoned that she had had some weird dream-within-a-dream, and considering she had sleepwalked before, it could explain a tad for her loss of time, and how the crystal had been moved. She was sort of in denial about the fact that after she reached the bottom of the stairs, she had been too frightened to sleep, and simply huddled on the couch for about an hour, trying desperately to forget what happened.

 She sighed and sat down at her computer, patting her cable modem a friendly hello, seing it working properly. A few of the chatters she knew greeted her as usual, and she began her trek online. Laughing happily at a twisted joke her friends pulled, she struck up a conversation with VVlad, a good friend of her who helped her with spiritually deep stuff.

 "Hey," she creatively began.

 "S'up?"

 "I dunno, really," she typed. "Just feelin' weird."

 "Weird how?" he asked. He had a keen nose, even impersonally, for when things were wrong.

 "I feel empty," she stated clearly.

 "Ah. I thought so," he smiled.

 She sighed. "I feel not whole. Less and less at peace as every moment goes by."

 "I understand," he typed back.

 She sighed again.

 "I believe..." he began, "that the time has come for you to figure out who you are."

 "What is that supposed to do to help me!?" she almost yelled back.

 "You must learn," he replied just before disconnecting.

 "Great!" she spoke, thudding her mouse on the desk. "Great! Awesome! That helps me *immensely*!"

 She shook off the sarcasm and jumped headfirst into a conversation in the channel.

 Later and later, after scores of music downloads and little chats with different people, her eyelids drooped and she nearly fell asleep on her keyboard. "I think it's time for bed," she typed before disconnecting.

 She stumbled into bed, falling asleep nearly the second her head hit the pillows.

 Sunday morning slapped her awake with the screech of her alarm clock. "Shit," she rapsed, having fortotten to shut the annoying little box up. She whapped it hard with her fist, complaining to herself. Nevermind shutting it off during the weekend, but she'd bitch about having to shut it off in the morning.

 Feeling an odd push to meditate, she reached for her lighter. It took a couple of tries to light it, but once it lit the candle the lavendar smell refreshed her. She smiled happily and breathed in the color and warmth. She felt a surge of warm sensation inside her and tried to channel the energy outwards, to other parts of her body. How extra energy aided one to relax was beyond her, but she always finished meditating feeling refreshed and energized, het just that; relaxed. She finished the meditation differently this time, moving excess energy to her hands instead of exhaling it, which appeared to be a waste of energy. The superlative energy-high left her, and no longer feeling wired she stretched.

 Brushing her hair out of her eyes with one hand, she stopped short in surprise. Her hands were blistering hot.
 Bringing her hands to her face for a closer look, she realized that not only were they flaming hot, they had red marks on them like she had been rubbing them against something vigorously. Nari shook her head in near-disbelief. But there it was, plain in front of her. The tips of her fingers, as well as the pams and heels of her hands to all were a bright magenta red. She narrowed her eyes.

 A flash of white light blinded her as she was surrounded by a thick white fog. It seemed to swirl around her, like a long curtain, until suddenly it parted and she saw herself in flowing white robes, a violent grimace of rage and passion pasted on her face. The vision raised her arms, and stepped back, one arm quickly snapping outwards, fingers fanning, in almost a flicking motion. To Nari's surprise, a fireball formed speedily at the vision's fingertips, launching itself intoo oblivion. Then, another blinding flash and she found herself laying on her back on her bedroom floor.

 Frighened, Nari blinked a few times before the vision cleared totally from her line of sight.

 She sat up, half-expecting another weird vision of such a type to assault her.

 Once satisfied that such a thing wouldn't happen any time soon, she groped for the phone. "I really need to get out today.."

 She dialed Sarah-Lainn's number, hoping to catch her at home.

 "Hullo?"

 "Um, hi, is Sarah-Lainn there?" she stammered.

 "This is. What's up?"

 Nari sighed. "You have to come over."

 "You're bored, hey? I told you! 'No mom, I'll be okay while you go to Mexico for three days!' You swore! HAH! I never thought I'd see you *lonely*! I--"

 "Sarah, shut up."

 "I told you!"

 Ignoring the interruption, Nari continued. "Grab the car and grab your pendulum. I need some questions answered. And a dream interpreted."

 "I charge $3.99 a minute," Sarah joked. When Nari didn't laugh, Sarah became worried. "What's wrong, hun?"

 "You'll find out when you get here. Just bring your pendulum and your thinking cap."

 "Nari, is something wrong? I get the feeling you're scared, and you don't scare easily."

 "Sarah, just move it. This isn't something I'd like to say on the phone."

 Within an hour, she was over at Nari's house, and acting pensive. "What's up? What was so urgent and secretive that you had to get me over here now but couldn't say on the phone?"

 "Sarah-Lainn, you're my most weird friend."

 "I'm flattered."

 "No, seriously. That's why I think I can trust you on this. Some weird shit has been going on lately. It all started with this dream..."

      *

 Sarah-Lainn sat after Nari's hour-long explanation looking slightly awestruck. Or maybe dumbstruck.

 "You mean to tell me.. that.. you think you're developing parakinetic abilities? Esper even?"

 "Yup."

 "Is this your idea of a cruel joke?"

 "What?!" Nari was insulted.

 "No, you were always the one who only half-listened to me, saying offhandedly that 'this crap is bull'? How *gullible* do you think I am?"

 "Sarah-Lainn Collins!"

 "Knock it off, Nari, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you mock me." She reached out to grab her pendulum that was sitting on the coffee table but Nari grabbed her by the wrist. "N.. Na.. Nari! Your hand!:

 Nari's hands, fingertips esepcially, were glowing hot. She had pent up a good chunk of anger, enough to the point where she had inadvertently welled it up in her hands.

 Nari let go abruptly, nearly scared herself. Sarah-Lainn, however, was doubtful.

 "How the hell did you do that? You're really pushing my line of tolerance here."

 "I don't know!" Nari yelped, frustrated and frightened.

 "You want me to interpret your dream? I'll interpret your dream!" Sarah yelled with rising tones. Nari paced to the other end of the room, breaking odwn. "I think you're an egotistical--"

 "Stopit!"

 "Self-centered--"

 "I said stop!"

 "Closed-minded--"

 "Sarah, please!" Nari was on the verge of angry tears now, her face and nose red.

 "Sonofa--"

 "Shut UP!" Nari screamed from across the living room, flicking her arm out in front of her, palm down, fingers extended and together. To both girls' surprise, a bal of fire formed instantly at Nari's fingertips and her arm's motion flung it towards her friend, who couldn't move, frozen in fear. As quickly as it happened, Nari yelped in surprise. "NO!" and immediately the fireball vanished.

 Sarah-Lainn shivered.

 Nari backed up slowly, and ran into the kitchen to answer the ringing phone. It was her mother.

 "Hallo dumpling!"

 "Hi mom."

 "Listen sugar knees, the business trip's taking logner than expected. Miguel's having me draw up more blueprints, I'll need at least another week."

 "But mom--"

 "No buts, dumpling. You know the drill. Lily will drop off the groceries on Wednesday, try and keep the house clean until Anna gets here on Friday to clean up, don't make the job *too* bad for her--"

 "But mom!--"

 "I said no buts, dumpling. Now behave, and It'll be home by next Monday. I send my loves."

 "Mom, I--"

 "Good bye, hon!"

 "Bye mom--"

 *click*

 This wasn't the first time her mother had avoided coming home when expected. But she was loving, and her job supported the both of them, there weren't many jobs out on the market that would. She was an architect, and occasionally her business trips would taket hem on spur-of-the-moment family vacations. But with Nari's second semester midterms coming up, she couldn't afford to leave. She fumed silently for a little while, then returned to the living room. Sarah-Lainn was still completely dumbstruck.

 Nari's voice was a near-whisper. "Now do you believe me?"

 "I--... I mean, .. you *read* about those things. I never thought I'd see it. Hell, I doubted they even *existed*."

 "Sarah, will you help me?" Nari's eyes were pleading.

 She simply rambled on. "I mean, Nari, like.. what's happening to you? You're scared, I can feel it. You carry agitation about with you. Enough to make me blow up. I mean, *I* blew up at *you*! This is *amazing*!"

 "Please.." Nari whimpered.

 Sarah-Lainn looked into Nari's lowered eyes for a moment. She watched Nari's eyes slowly rise to meet her own, and felt her stomach twist.

 Fear. Pure, raw, angry, frustrated fear. Being the 'weirdo' among their friends Sarah-Lainn had become somehow semi-detached, not totally feeling anything anymore. But when she looked into Nari's eyes, Sarah-Lainn felt real fear.

 She closed her eyes reluctantly and stuck out her hand. Nari grabbed it firmly, squeezing a tiny reassurance. Sarah-Lainn closed her eyes, as did Nari. The former being the one doing all the work, she gently prodded at Nari's mind until the visions came.

 She herself had developped abilities like that long ago. Wherever she went and whatever she touched was left with almost a residue of calm serenity, and reassurance. She could, simply by touching someone's hand, share your emotions and share a small part of the events in which you played, in the form of sometimes fearful visions.

 She shuddered hard, shaking her head and hands, trying to shake off the aura of the dreams. Head in hand, Sarah-Lainn sat and thought for awhile.

 "Nari..."

 "Sarah..." Nari's voice cracked in fear and pain.

 "I don't konw what to say."

 "Say *something*!"

 "Your first dream.. was unlike anything I've ever seen before. Come to think of it, so was your vision."

 "Oh, Sarah-Lainn.."

 "Nari, what's wrong?"

 "Sarah, my mother's gone another week. Please ... just .. stay..."

 "I had a feeling you might say that. I packed myself a bag." Sarah winked knowingly.

 Nari just sighed.

 "Look," Sarah rested her hand on Nari's shoulder. "We'll figure this out. I promise."

 "Okay."

 "Can ... can I test a theory?"

 "What theory?"

 "Just a theory I'd like to test on you."

 "Eh.. sure."

 With that, Sarah-Lainn pulled a dark purple candle out of her bag and set it on the coffee table. It was very wide, but short, one of the very long burning type of candles.

 "Light it," Sarah commanded.

 Nari reached for her lighter in her pants pocket, but was stopped. "Hey, if you just about lit your couch on fire, you can light that candle."

 "But--"

 "No buts, Nari, you snooze, you lose!"

 "Sarah--"

 "What?"

 "Sarah, how the hell am I supposed to *aim*?"

 Sarah-Lainn just shrugged.

 Nari made a frustrated noise.

 "Just chill, sister! Focus. Stare at it. Whatever you did in the first place, just.. erm.. *smaller*."

 "*Smaller*!?" Nari just shook her head. Sarah-Lainn nodded vigorously.

 "Yes! Just.. um.. Oh, I don't know what I'm talking about."

 "No shit, Sarah." The sarcasm that oozed from Nari's words nearly threatened to stain the carpet.

 Nari whapped her palm on the coffee table, making the candle jump. "Fine then! I'll be all cool and hardcore like those people on TV!" More sarcasm.

 "Geez, Na-RI!" Sarah whined.

 "Okay. Okay! Fine! I'll pull your little barroom stunt. Just so long as I get free drinks later or something."

 Sarah hung her head in distaste.

 Nari, obedient albeit smartassed, focused her eyes on the wick of the candle. She tried somehow to pull the energy she felt circulating elsewhere in her body and to somehow focus it at the candle in such a way that it would possibly ignite or something.

 Nothing happened.

 In a fit of frustration, she flicked the wick with her pointer finger. To her shock and surprise, the wick lit as if she had taken a lighter to it.

 "Geh.. g... d.. did.. did--..you.." Nari stammered.

 Sarah-Lainn clapped her hands in delight. "Oh this is going to be so *FUN*!" she squealed.

 "Oh, Sarah, you're going to be *SUCH* A pain in the ass..." Nari muttered, staring bitterly at the flame.

     ***

Thanks for reading this far everyone. Comments and suggestions, snag me on ICQ, or IRC, or e-mail at [email protected]. This is subject to that wholey'know rewriting thing so don't get jealous.

Wriness

http://sailorsaturn.com/wrin