"Melanie, would you pass me the soap?" I run my fingers through my long strawberry-blonde waves, weighed down by water, and try to get it all untangled. I'm still not used to this hair- or this body, for that matter- seeing as I kept Mel's hair short for the majority of the time she was my host.

"Sure thing." Mel smiles at me in the dim light we get from a lamp we were smart enough to bring (this time) and fishes the prickly, acidic bar from out of the pool, tossing it my way.

I shrink back a little when it flies my way, so of course I don't catch it even though I extend my arms out to it. It splashes a few meters from where I stand and I follow the sound it makes, since it is too dark in the bath to see where it landed. The sharp noise echoes off of the dewy walls of the cave, slightly disorienting, and makes it harder to locate. Not that I would really want to rub my skin raw, but for hygiene reasons I make my pruny fingers find it.

I wince as the soap scratches at and stings the cuts and wounds that have accumulated on my body, the most recent one being a scrape on my knee that I got from tripping in the fields this afternoon; it was my rotation today. I haven't gone to Doc about them yet, thinking that he would probably be busy doing more important things, like saving other humans and evacuating the souls from their bodies... or something like it. Really, I just did not want to bother him with a simple cut. Besides, I will feel better when I get all the dirt off of me and the oil out of my hair.

I suck in a breath. Melanie chuckles.

"Yeah, it's a bitc- I mean... it just blows." I'm still not accustomed to swearing, even after months of living with everyone in the caves, and constantly being surrounded by Jared and Kyle, who seem to curse religiously when they're not around Jamie or the kids. "But you should go use some Heal, we've got a lot to spare. And we're going on a raid in a few weeks anyway, so it doesn't even really matter."

"But-"

"Wanda," she cuts me off pointedly. "'But' nothing. You don't have to be so selfless, it's not like there's going to be a shortage anytime soon." I hear the water rippling out from her as she wades closer to me in the warm, murky water. "And if other people need to use some, then they'll go and use some; you don't need to save up or anything."

I flip my head over, soaking the roots of my hair as I massage the cactus-y wash into my scalp.

"But we're out of shampoo already," I point out, talking into the pool. My breath bounces back at me from the surface, making small undulations in the drink, and hits me in the face. "So who says we won't run out of the medicine, too?"

Mel laughs, somewhat stubbornly and condescendingly.

"That's only because Sharon was hoarding."

I pull myself out of the deep lake, created by the flow of nature just like the rest of this place, a put the bar of soap at its edge before I walk off towards my towel and clothes that lay next to the lamp. My bare feet are slippery on the clammy rock. The sound of them slapping against the cave's volcanic ground is an unwelcome sound, unwelcome as the almost-sticky wetness that clings to it, itself. It is glaringly unpleasant and raises goosebumps on my arms. As I jump to tug on my jeans, my feet land hard and the dewy sheen announces its presence, too loudly. The gloss makes me cringe. I frown and pull on my shirt. The grey fabric is stained a darker, deeper grey as the ends of my hair drip and the excess water seeps and absorbs into it.

I bend over to rustle my fingers through the still-knotted blonde mass, trying to get it somewhat dry before I wrap it all up in the towel.

"Mel, watch out over here. The floor is kind of slick."

"Thanks for the heads-up," she murmurs.

I am about to hum back a "mhm" when I reach down for the corner of the linen and my foot loses its hold on the rough floor. The soft mumble quickly turns into a sharp gasp as my feet slip out from under me. The condensation on the ground takes away any friction that I had, any grip that I had and it pushes me abruptly forward. Traction becomes nonexistent, where gravity and my body weight combined should help to keep me rooted in my rightful place, and for a moment I feel weightless.

In this one second that it takes between when my toes feel the grating of the caves' floor but can do nothing to stop the slick displacement and when the side of my forehead comes in contact with the rocky earth, I realize where the notion of seeing things in slow motion comes from. Quite a petty train of thought, considering the circumstances, but at times like these one really has no control. Literally and theoretically, both. See, the human brain is wired one certain way: happened, received, processed, perceived. There is a natural order. The human body is so accustomed to this order, to having that lag time between when information comes to be and when that information is understood, no matter how small of a lag time it is- nanoseconds, milliseconds- that it cannot comprehend the lack thereof. When I see the low glow of candlelight reflecting off the mirror-like wetness and the ground coming up to meet me, that natural order goes away. No longer is my human body, my host body, the body of Petals Open to the Moon, taking that precious time. No, the brain I inhabit comprehends simultaneously as these phenomenons occur. In sync. Together. This body, the whole species of bodies like this one, is so acclimated to this tedious system of comprehension when the information travels up to the brain and the spinal chord, where it is broken down and put back together again, only to be sent back to the rest of the body, the limbs and extremities to react to this information. And because of this, when that system is compressed into a fraction of a fraction of the time it normally takes to follow through, the human body and the human brain is disoriented. When the lag time is missing, the performance of the mind has become so quick that now the only way that new found speed can be processed is by making the excuse that we are seeing in slow motion. Of course, it is not true. But in this instant I understand.

In this instant I hear my breath being pushed back into my throat and feel a sensation quite similar to when Ian was strangling me upon my arrival here in the caves, anger hot in his icy eyes.

In this instant I smell the fragrance of our uncomfortable homemade soap and the remaining fragrance of the store bought shampoo mingling together, among the weak but lingering scent of dirt and sweet sweat.

In this instant I feel the collision of the heat rising from the bath and the cold seeping from the walls and rolling of the stone, meeting in an attack against one another, neither side a victory, neither side a loss.

In this instant I am more aware, hypersensitive.

But once that instant is over, there is nothing.

My skull strikes into the unforgiving, ancient rock, born from a fiery intensity deep below the surface of the earth we know. Just by my temple, it hits and I am shot through all throughout my being, the human and the soul combined, an agonizing razor-sharp pain. It is hot. With such a force that it nearly causes the silvery sinews of my true form to relinquish the body, to shrink back into a creature the size of a man's palm and slither my way back out the slit on the back of this girl's neck, now but a puckered scar. I go limp, shocked out of control, like hitting the funny bone against a sharp corner of a chair, a table, only so incredibly multiplied. Possibly a whimper escapes me; I cannot tell. And just like that-

I'm out.

I know I am awake because I hear things: the rustling of clothes, the whispering of voices, an argument, someone drinking. Things.

Only my eyes won't open. With crusted over eyelashes, I feel it in my bones that something is wrong.

I become conscious of my glistening parasitic form before I do my host. Instinctively, I check the holdings of each threadlike tendon and the workings of each wiry muscle. Only when I am sure of the well being of my wandering body, the one that has seen nearly every planet and lived nearly every form of life, do I concern myself with the humanity I am obligated to have and feel and be.

I am heavy. Every part of me must be weighed down by some unimaginable force. It takes me a few moments to be able to simply flutter the fingers at my side. When I successfully manage that miniscule task, the tips of my fingers brush against fabric, beneath which a thin cushioning shapes itself to fit my bones.

A cot. I am lying on a cot.

My hair sticks to the back of my neck, each strand making itself known to me. Unpleasant, disagreeable. Vaguely irritating. Does it stick to me with blood or sweat or something as innocent as rainwater? I can't find it in me to check for myself, so I ignore it and try to dismiss it from my mind.

My head pulses with a sensation like the ghost of an injury, but that sensation confuses me. I can feel no injury, not by simply focusing my attention to that part of my anatomy. My breathing is somewhat shallow, as if I have been asleep for some time, in a coma, half-dead. I don't feel the energy, the strength, the motivation, the worth to lift a hand to the skin and to see whether there is blood, a scab, a scar. Any memory of a wound. But it's not there. I am empty, tired. So I do nothing but lay motionless on the cot that smells of musk, listening to the things.

The air is cold. As far as I can tell, the room I am in- if it is a room, at all- is not sunny nor dark; without sight, I can only describe it as monochromatic, gray, dull. Sad. Like steel and cleaning supplies. I see the shades on my eyelids, moving and growing and changing. But it always stays grim.

My ankle throbs and my foot twitches.

How long have I been here? How long have I been lying in this foreign place, helpless? How long does it take for a pair of eyes to be glued shut tight with the cement of sleep, to the point that they cannot open with the same simple will that it takes to blink?

I don't know how long I continue to lifeless in contrast to the obvious signs of life around me. I have no way of keeping time.

These thoughts escape me, slowly, drifting away like on a breeze, a breath, a sigh. I fall asleep again and when I wake, the atmosphere is different. I can't quite place it, but it makes me squeeze my eyes shut as if it would make me slip off into oblivion again and leave it all behind me. That's when I hear a sharp sound, one that sticks out from the rest of the gentle muffled sounds that surround me.

An inhale, like a gasp or the sniffle of a person with a cold.

It's the proximity. That's why it's louder, that is why it is clearer than the rest. They're closer to me.

A rough, calloused hand touches the crook of my elbow and if I wasn't still hazy with sleep, I might flinch away from this unknown person.

Curiosity is tugging at my laziness, trying to peel it back like a layer to reveal the answers I've been looking for. I will the energy into every inch of me and am about to pry open my eyes and peel the lashes from the lashes from the sand when a voice pierces my train of thought.

"Wanderer?"

My eyes end up opening lopsidedly, one after the other, slowly and tenderly. I don't know what I expect to greet me, but what does in the end is one other set of eyes, beautiful with ivory and sapphire and ebony altogether. Emotion washes over me and I have the sudden theory that I could drown in the deep blue that meets me, and the corners of my lips turn up ever so slightly. It was involuntary.

"Wanda? Are you okay?" The man asks, the owner of the gorgeous swimming eyes. His bigger, stronger hands find my shoulders and grip them like I might evaporate before him, like he isn't sure I am real and tangible unless he is toughing me.

"Yes." Blunt. Neutral.

"Nothing hurts?" Concern shows in the crease between his eyebrows and frown of his mouth. Despite that, he is attractive. I notice that.

"No." I do not bother mentioning the pang in my head, or the sensitivity of my ankle, or the chafed skin of my palms, or the many other cuts and scrapes I am slowly becoming more and more acutely aware of. The sting of my beat-up elbow or my bruised knee are minor annoyances when compared to that of the morbid apprehension I feel in my bones. It is unrelenting. It overshadows every other thought that passes through me.

And before I understand what is going on, his lips are on mine and his arm has circled around my back and has lifted me off the cot, pulling me closer to him. I can feel the passion seep through him as his mouth works against mine, but I do not work my mouth. The only thing working now is my mind. I can sense the presence of an audience somewhere nearby, but the man had blocked my view and anyway I had only been paying attention the the rich color of his irises. I do not know where I am, I do not know what is going on. And then the man has pulled away and is breathing heavily. I feel an obligation to comfort him because obviously something is nagging at him, but I do not. He fits his chin into the curve of my neck and is murmuring to me, an embrace I feel is too personal for me to witness yet I cannot pull myself away for his privacy. I am part of the embrace. I hear "You are not leaving me" and "I love you." I feel him pressing against my frail back. His scent wafts up into my nostrils, soil and sweat and it smells good. At some point he has gone silent and is merely holding me in his arms. I feel valuable and precious, yet in the pit of my stomach there is the suspicion that somehow I have let the man with the sapphire eyes down. But then he draws back and the question that has been gnawing at the inside of my skull for the whole time since I opened my eyes wrangles itself out of my throat in a hoarse whisper:

"Who are you?"