(a/n) here we are, seven months down the line from when I had finished Strawberry Wine. I was happening along Gamestop a month ago and I found a copy of Magical Melody, used for twelve bucks. Well I still had my Gamecube and so I bought the game. When I got home, I started to play it and the next thing I know, I'm falling in love with the series all over again. -=sighs=- so here we are, a sequel to Strawberry Wine. I hope it catches your imagination the way Strawberry Wine did. Of course, this will be a self insert/OC story. It will be going into a bit more of a background story with Annie's family, most particularly Aunt Liz. This story takes place a year after SW so we'll see how I'll tie it together...-=scratches nose and walks off=-

Introduction

I suppose the best place to begin my story would be at... well, the beginning. I don't think that you would believe me. Hell, I have a hard time believing it myself sometimes... I know that what I have been experiencing is no dream though, not when it feels so real. Where can I begin?

The funeral... I'll start there. That was when everything had changed. For my mom, for my aunt and uncle and cousin Jenn, for my family and... especially for me. Aunt Liz had been the bright spot in our family, the single voice that could manage to bring any bickering between the members to a standstill. She was our rock, of that there was no doubt. However, she had taken ill, developing a cancer that spread throughout her body, weakening her... It was such a troubling time for my Aunt Anya to lose her favorite sibling. That was no secret either. My mom Maria, the oldest of the three sisters, never did get along well with her baby sister. The relationship seemed to get even worse the moment Aunt Liz had gotten sick.

Then, three years ago, my cousin Annie had disappeared. She was living down in Virginia, away from the main hub of the family after a fall out she had with her parents years before. We had received word from the authorities that she had gone missing, her and her dog. One morning, she had gone out for a walk and never returned home. Six months later, she was declared dead. We held a funeral for her and my cousin Jay was on his way home from his traveling... He disappeared as well. No one knew what was going on... My Aunt Anya was at her wits' end. Then, about year ago, my aunt called my mom, all excited and crying, saying that my cousins had come home. Both Annie and Jay.

They had come back for Aunt Liz, apparently having heard somehow that she was sick. I vaguely remember going to my aunt's house to see my cousins during their stay. Annie and Jay had been so happy so see me. Out of the entire family, they were easily my favorite cousins. I was an only child and we grew up together, I looked to them as the siblings I never had... They never explained to me what had happened to them and no one seemed to want to talk about it. I thought it was weird for them to have disappeared like that but in the emotions of knowing that they were alive and well, I didn't think much of it at the time.

I should have asked them... I should have found out where they had been, what they were doing there and... why they had gone back. They had come back to the family just to say goodbye. Where they were going, they said, was a special place with special people. It was their home now and they had to go back... I should have asked my aunt what they had meant but they had disappeared after that and Aunt Anya never said a word of what had happened. She seemed to understand something that I didn't. My mom didn't understand and she argued with my aunt, trying to find out why it was that she had let her children go without even an explanation.

Aunt Anya simply said, "When you've experienced the loss of a child, when you feel that you had truly lost them... and you find that they were, they were living and they were happy. You'll understand that it's all right to let go. As long as they're happy..."

My mom couldn't understand and she had called me, telling me that no matter what happened to me, she wanted me to promise that I would always stay in contact with her. I promised her... If only I knew then what would happen to me...

I wish I could make more sense than this but I suppose starting at the funeral is good enough... the day my Aunt Liz was to be buried. I wished I could have asked her while she was alive exactly what her life had been like. What had she done, what had she seen? I would come to find out but not from her... and in place that I had no idea could even be possible.

My name is Dahlia and I am caught between two worlds... I hope that no matter how this turns out, you dear reader, will come to believe my tale. After all, I can barely believe it myself...