Disclaimer: I do not own Bionicle, or its parent company. This story was created for the entertainment of the writer and the readers and does not reflect anything on Bionicle, Lego, or any of its affiliates.

AN: Takes place after Mask of Light.

The headquarters of the Order of Mata Nui was in an uproar. After recent developments required it, the head of the Order, Toa Helryx, has called a meeting of all officers present within the area. Large and small, male and female, of different villages and commanders of different powers and masks, all gathered within one room to discuss the goings on and what was to be done about it. The tension in the room is overpowering, and it is a mix between excitement and apprehension, the voices of the present members overlapping one another and becoming near indistinguishable from one another as the meeting carried out:

"The Mask of Light has surfaced!"

"As has its wearer, the Toa of Light!"

"The Makuta has been defeated, and the underground passageway to the island city of Metru Nui rediscovered!"

"I imagine the Makuta won't be gone for long, though."

"This is a sign. The Great Spirit must be revived!"

"But where is he? His location has long been lost to the faded scrolls and long forgotten songs of ages past."

"Even so, we must find him."

"But how can we locate him?"

"Does anyone recall where the Codrex keystone was last placed? It has the knowledge pertaining the Great Spirit's whereabouts!"

"It has been hidden on the island city of Metru Nui. But that island has been ravaged by the ebb and flow of time, and we cannot be sure that the keystone is still in one piece there, or if had been stolen long ago by the Visorak horde when they occupied the island and taken to a different area entirely."

"The Makuta cannot touch a sacred artifact!"

"But a Visorak—a Rahi—can, even if it is under the control of the Makuta."

"If this is true, then we are lost. We cannot possibly hope to find the Great Spirit without the Codrex!"

"Then we must find the keystone."

"But how? If it has been moved, then it would take all of us—and more—to find it again, and even then, we cannot tap into its power without—"

"—the Kanohi Aura. The Great Mask of Spirit-Seeking."

"Yes. And it has not surfaced since before the time before time, and has not been seen outside of carvings of the legends."

"We must find it."

"Oh? Since you're so keen upon it, are you proposing to search for it yourself, Dion?"

"I am. If you so wish it, Toa Helryx."

"I do. Then let it be known from this day forth, that the duty to search out the Kanohi Aura—or its herald—belongs to Dion, and Dion alone, while other choice members will depart to search for the Codrex. Once you find the mask or the herald, Dion, you are at the next opportunity to bring them here, so as we can begin our search for the Great Spirit, Mata Nui. Do all present members of the Order agree with this proposal?"

"AYE!"

"And do you, Dion, accept the terms of contract?"

"Yes, Toa Helryx. I do."

*()()()()()()()()()()*

Kezoa's face hurt.

It had been hurting since a month ago, when she woke up one morning feeling like something had crawled under her skin and made a nest in her face. Some days it felt numb beyond belief, and other days she wanted to scratch her entire face off. She had seen a dermatologist when it was at its peak of annoyance, but the doctor couldn't identify any factor or disease that caused this. Today it was a mixture between the two: it felt like her face had fallen asleep, with pins and needles prickling her pores. Speaking of which, the one thing beneficial to this unusual dermal condition was that her pores seemingly disappeared overnight.

They're still there, Kezoa reminded herself offhandedly (and slightly begrudgingly), I can see them in the mirror if I look close enough after I take a hot shower.

It was odd, because her face was feeling fine the morning of this day. It had started stinging the minute she stepped outside to participate in her neighborhood's annual summer block party. She was having fun; there was food and games and talking with her family and friends, but the feeling of all of it was dampened due to the fact that her face just wouldn't stop itching.

She had to stop her hand from reaching up and scratching her face bloody as she gathered around with several other teenaged friends of hers and her little brother, Zeke.

They were going to participate in a scavenger hunt. Kezoa had long put off playing a part in the game, but this year her parents insisted that she join as the partner to her twelve-year-old brother in an attempt to strengthen the "bond" between them. But they were classic brother and sister. There was hardly a "bond" there to begin with.

Zeke wasn't too pleased about the situation turn out either, based upon what Kezoa got from his overall body language standing beside her as they stood in a ring around the host of the hunt while they read out the list of what they were going to be looking for. She was four years older than he was (going onto five more) and even though she was still as much of a kid as she was, she was a bit of a stick in the mud by his standards. Despite having been regularly moved around from city to city within the country within the last few years due to the nature of their father's work. Kezoa was not very adaptive. She always opposed to change if she could do anything about it, whereas Zeke was always ready for a new adventure. He could make new friends at the drop of a hat, whereas it took Kezoa a little longer—if at all—before they made their next big move, and Zeke was always ready to point this out at whatever opportunity possible.

Kezoa wasn't going to say that he was wrong, but it wasn't like she was going to admit to her flaws anytime soon. She had always been that way, and it would take a lot very soon and very quickly to change her set habits and personality anytime soon. She knew this to be true, and she had adamantly told her parents this multiple times in light of the recent situation:

They were going to move again. This time to landlocked city to help with the growth of a new location from her father's employing company.

As the hunt host finished his lecture, Kezoa looked up at the sky. It was sunset, the sky splashed in orange, purple, pink and slight blue bands all across the sky. The block party had started fairly late in the day, around three o'clock, and the scavenger hunt was the last activity before all of the families present went home.

While she was looking up at the sky, a dark streak blazed quickly over her field of vision, across the heavens. Kezoa started, and then rubbed her eyes quickly.

"What the heck…?" Kezoa squinted and looked around, wondering if maybe she had just seen something or just "saw" something. She either did, or she didn't.

"Hm." Kezoa shook her head. She felt a sharp jerk on her arm and she was suddenly at eye-level with her brother.

"Earth to Kezoa!" he snapped, giving the top of her skull a hard rap with his knuckles, "We've started! Get a move on!"

Kezoa pulled her arm out of her brother's grip and straightened to her full height. "Fine, fine. Don't get your panties in a snarl."

Zeke glared at her and shoved a piece of paper into her chest. "There. In case you weren't listening, all of the items are inside the park! Let's split up; you go that way, I'll go the other way!"

Kezoa looked to see where he was pointing. His forefinger was extended towards the far end of the park, where a long-lived forest of deciduous trees sprouted.

"The stuff is in there?"

"The good stuff! The ones that'll get us the most points!" Zeke grabbed her arm roughly and shoved her in the direction of the forest, "Go! Before the other kids get the stuff before we do!"

Kezoa jogged off towards the forest, but at the last second she turned her head around and stuck her tongue out at her little brother before she vanished into the darkness of which. After trotting a few ways, she stopped and lifted up the piece of paper to her eyes. It was unusually dark inside the forest; more so than it usually was.

I don't want to be in here long. She told herself, I'm just going to find the darn thing and then get out.

Kezoa had never had a good experience with forests, whenever she had been inside one of any kind; natural or concrete. Her sense of direction was very poor, ever since she had learned to walk. Over the course of her sixteen years of life you could count on four hands the amount of times her mother had called store security when Kezoa would wander away to find the toy isle and end up on the opposite end of the store and then get further lost when she would try to backtrack and find her mom. Considering the day and age that she lived in, Kezoa counted herself very lucky that she hadn't been picked up and dragged away by some creep prowling the store. She had been told over and over the rule that if you ever got lost, you should stay in once place so that you could be found, but Kezoa was never one to sit still. It made her uncomfortable to stay in one place if she had gotten lost, which only made matters worse.

Even as she grew older, Kezoa's sense of direction was poor enough that her tiny group of close friends joked (as well as Zeke, although his was a little more obnoxious) that she could get lost in a small ten-by-ten room if she didn't have a map leading to the door.

The object on the list that amounted to the highest point was an old hubcap, and the hint was that it was next to a tree. Making sure that she never wandered too far from the exit of the wood, Kezoa began to comb the area, checking the trunks at the base of the tree, and looking up into the branches that she could climb. Whenever a tree never yielded up what she was looking for, she continued, moving from tree. As she became focused on the task at hand, she failed to notice that the woods around her grew darker and darker, wandering farther and farther away from the exit into the park and the branches of the trees grew thick and tangled together, nearly blocking out the sun.

She didn't keep track of how long she was looking, but after some time of searching she deemed that someone else either got it before her or she was barking up all the wrong trees. So Kezoa looked up and over towards the exit—at least, what she thought was the exit. Her heart stopped when she realized she couldn't see the green lawn of the park. Casting her eyes about quickly, Kezoa saw that there was no trace of light anywhere; it was only trees tangled together as far as she could see. Though she kept on telling herself otherwise, Kezoa knew that somehow she had gotten herself lost.

"Great." Kezoa huffed. She slumped over and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes in annoyance. As she continued searching, her mind began to wander as she thought of events prior to today:

Around the time her face started to go numb, she had been getting terrifying nightmares of robots in multi-colored armor, fighting shadow 'bots in a never ending war. There were tall ones, and then there were little ones as well, but her nightmares mostly focused on the tall ones.

In her most recent dream—which had been a week ago—she had dreamed of a golden robot fighting a gigantic, twenty-foot robot. Their words and arguments were garbled and their features were no less blurred and to this day she couldn't remember any details beyond their colors, and it was nearly impossible for her to understand what the heck they were saying, but she followed the action with her eyes as the golden robot and the black robot fell into a shining mercury-like pool together and came out as one being, opening a huge door and holding it there while the little robots and other taller ones went through.

The door then collapsed, crushing the gold-and-black robot beneath it in a bloody explosion.

She had woken screaming, and her face had never hurt worse than it did that night. She had told her parents about the dreams, but all the advice they gave her was to write it down and maybe she would become a famous author. But you forget ninety percent of your dreams, and though she was certain that she had dreamed more of this fantasy realm nights before, she could remember barely of it, and she was no good and coming up with things over the top of her head.

Kezoa had allowed her mind to wander to far, however, as when she suddenly became conscious of herself when it began to get cold around her.

Uh-oh. She started, how long have I been gone?

Kezoa looked around. It was very dark around her, with very little light peering in between the leaves. It must have at least been a while. Did the scavenger hunt finish and everyone went back to their homes?

Kezoa picked a direction, picking up her feet and began to run, thoughts of paranoia and terror coursing through her that maybe everyone left her inside the forest, thinking she had already gone home.

She didn't stop running until she broke out of the wood, running into Zeke who had his back turned to the forest.

Zeke let out a surprised cry as they collided and fell to the ground. The long grass that hadn't been cut since March for some reason broke some of their fall, but it wasn't enough as when Zeke pushed her off of him he lifted up his head and held a hand to his nose, blood seeping through his fingers.

The adults—all of them, including their parents—ran over to them and helped them up. Looking around, Kezoa saw that all the other kids that had participated in the contest had arms full of second-hand items and etcetera while they gathered around and either laughed or help Zeke with his bloody nose.

"How long was I gone?" Kezoa looked up at the sky. Though it had turned somewhat a navy-blue color, there was still some evidence of a receding sunset.

"Long enough," Zeke grumbled beneath his nose, now plugged at the bridge to stop the bleeding, "that we lost the competition."

"Huh?!"

Zeke looked up at her, "Everyone else found all the good stuff before you or me. It's been over for five minutes now."

Kezoa's face and heart fell. Though she knew it was a long shot, she wanted to at least get something, not come back empty-handed, especially since they were moving in less than a week.

"Great job, Kez'!" a neighborhood kid cackled, "You're never good at these sorts of things!"

()()()()()()()()()()

Kezoa flopped face first onto her mattress. She was going to help her mother help put the leftovers of their potluck in the fridge, but Kezoa wanted to lay down for a while first. Flipping onto her back, she looked up at the ceiling and watched her overhead fan spin slowly around, circulating the air. She sighed and looked around. The walls were bare and empty, though they were never full beyond family pictures in the first place. She had learned a while ago after their third move that it was better not to put up anything or paint the walls because odds were she wasn't going to be there for long. Cardboard boxes were stacked in the corner. She had yet to pack up her clothes, other personal effects, and her bedding. They may have been going to move in less than a week, but she had been advised and had also taught herself from experience to wait until the day before the big move to deposit all of her clothes into the boxes.

A little sad, though, Kezoa thought as she scanned her walls again, that I haven't got posters, like other teens do. It's just too much hassle.

Kezoa turned her head back to her roof, making out patterns in the design, maybe when I turn eighteen and finally move out I'll begin to put down som roots. Make some new friends, perhaps even stay in the same city for over a year for once. The idea sounded prospective.

As Kezoa lay there, she saw something flit around out of the corner of her eye, something like a shadow, but when she turned to look nothing was there. Kezoa sat up and scanned her room and walls. There was a dresser in the right corner, by the door that had a large mirror standing on top of it, but she didn't see it there. Whatever Kezoa had just seen had disappeared. She rolled off of her bed and landed at the side, taking the edges of the covers in her hand and slowly began to raise it up, expecting Freddy Krueger or some psychopathic clown to come lunging out of the darkness, shrieking. But when she leaned over to stare into the tiny crack that she had made between her covers and the floor, she saw what was in the darkness…

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Kezoa frowned and started to look around her room again when she suddenly heard a knock at the door. She jumped ten feet in the air and the door opened to reveal her mother.

"Hi!" she grinned, seeing Kezoa's frightened expression she looked around her daughter's room, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." she lied, grinning, still looking around her room for whatever had snuck around it.

Meanwhile, Mom's expression darkened, "Kezoa, you're not hiding anything in here, are you?"

"What?" she cried, "pfft, no! You know me better than that don't you?"

Mom cocked an eyebrow at her, "I can tell when you're hiding something from me…"

"I know, Mom." Kezoa rolled my eyes, "You've told me a thousand times."

"Oh, really now?" Mom leaned against the door frame and cocked her hip, placing a curled fist on it, "And when have I ever told you that?"

"Ever since I was a little kid." Kezoa smiled at her, shrugging.

"Alright, fine. So I did tell you that." Mom chuckled, "But if you are hiding anything in here, I will not be pleased." Mom waggled her finger at Kezoa as she receded away from the door and began to head down the hallway, "Besides, dinner's ready."

"Okay!" Kezoa waved back, "I'll be down in a minute!"

Mom halted in her tracks and glared at her daughter again, she looked around her room yet again before she slowly backed away, closing the door behind her. Kezoa kept on waving as she did so, hoping she didn't suspect anything.

When Mom closed the door and the lock clicked behind her, Kezoa dove under her bed and cleared away all the dust bunnies, searching for whatever had hidden there. But yet again, she found nothing. Kezoa wriggled out from under her bed and sat down on her knees; she scratched her head and scrutinized her room again. What was that? Kezoa wondered to herself. She got to her feet and looked around again, making sure that whatever she had seen wasn't just her imagination.

Kezoa smiled to herself and turned towards the door, when she felt a chill go across her shoulder and she froze.

The room began to drop in temperature, Kezoa grabbed her arms and started to shiver, she began to see her breath puff into the cold air. Kezoa's eyes rotated in their sockets, trying to realize or see whatever had caused the sudden chill in the room. She felt something hot on her back, like someone was staring at her hard from behind.

Kezoa forced her body to move and whirled around to whatever was staring at her, but nothing was there to be seen.

The temperature rose back to normal, so quickly it was almost a shock. Kezoa gulped and dared to look around the room again. And again, there was nothing. She sighed in relief and walked over to the door to join her family at dinner, when out of the corner of her eye she saw a glint in her dresser drawer's mirror. Instinctively, her head turned to the mirror see what was there. When she saw what was behind her, Kezoa's heart almost stopped.

A large, man-shaped shadow stood there.

His details were rough, like black paint was splotched onto the wall in the attempt to create a man. Red eyes gleamed at her—or the mirror—like red fireflies. Kezoa didn't even turn to look.

She pulled open the door and tore out of the room, booked it down the hallway, and barreled down the stairs as fast as she could. She raced across the living room and slipped on the floor to enter the kitchen. Mom jumped, Dad looked up from his laptop on the table, and Zeke—still holding a tissue to his nose—cackled loudly. Kezoa looked behind her to the stairwell to see if the ghost had followed her, which it had not. Kezoa breathed out and walked over to the table.

"Dear heavens, Kezoa!" Mom cried, "You looked like the devil was at your heels!"

"I think maybe he was…" Kezoa grumbled, she walked over to the fridge and began shoving items within out of the way to make room for the leftovers.

"You looked so funny!" Zeke crowed, "You should have seen your face!"

Kezoa snarled at him, walking over to the living room to pick up a dish of leftovers on the bookshelf by the door.

"Oh, don't do that, Kezoa." Dad scolded, digging back into his typing, "One day you'll need his help."

"Please." Kezoa shook her head, "Maybe when hell freezes over."

"That's not very nice, Kezoa." Mom scolded her.

Kezoa opened her mouth to reply back, but a loud thunderous CRACK! Cut her off.

As Kezoa's hands flew to cover her ears, the earth suddenly started to heave and swell. Dad was knocked off of his chair and Zeke ducked underneath the table, Mom falling into the depths of the kitchen. Frames and pottery fell off of their designated posts and clattered and crashed to the floor, Kezoa was hunched over on the floor with her hands covering the back of her skull. She heard another sound, like wood being pulled apart lengthwise.

Kezoa risked looking up and saw the roof crack, shatter, then finally collapse onto the kitchen table. Kezoa jumped back, but her parents and Zeke weren't so lucky, and the roof landed on top of them. Kezoa shouted and reached for them when something yanked her hard from the side. She flew to her right and landed hard against one of the living room's walls. Stars flew in front of her eyes as she tried to recover from the jarring slam.

As she did, something dark and large slid in front of her vision.

Kezoa shook her head violently to try and clear her hand, and when it did she wish it hadn't. Kezoa shrieked at the red eyes that glared at her, at the bipedal form covered in a black cloak that obscured his armor that shone black and red in the light with glimpses of silver muscle fibers in between the gaps in the joints, she saw his shadow writhe freely and travel across the ruined house and walls, leaving it black wherever it touched. Horrified, she recognized the dark man that she had seen in her mirror.

Kezoa opened her mouth to scream, but before she could let out a breath the shadow man cut her off:

"Quiet!" He barked, "Your screaming is useless!"

Kezoa moved to try and get away, but she found that she could not. She turned toward what was holding her to the wall and came face-to-face with a grotesque looking shadow. It looked up at her and grinned. Kezoa opened her mouth to scream again.

"DON'T!"

Kezoa's mouth shut with an audible snap.

"Listen to me:" the cloaked man began, "My name is Maltegere. I am a servant of Makuta Teridax, the master of shadows. He has a request for you, and you will obey it. You are to track down his brother, Mata Nui, and assist us in destroying him. Failure to accept will end in your death."

"Huh? What?" Kezoa quavered.

The cloaked man—Maltegere—growled lowly and shook his head in displeasure, "There is no time. I will not say it again," Maltegere extended his hand, "Accept the request or your doom."

"Hold on!" Kezoa tried desperately, "I don't want to die! But…but I can't track anyone! I came in last today at the neighborhood's yearly scavenger hunt! How am I going to be able to find this Mata Nui guy?!"

Maltegere shook his head again.

"Your feeble human form will not do this. But another form will…" Maltegere extended his hand and grabbed Kezoa's forearm faster than a snake striking, and his shadows holding her down dissipated. Kezoa felt tiny needles jab into her skin where Maltegere's hand laid, soon his touch burned like acid, and Kezoa shrieked in pain.

"Hush. It will all end soon. You are coming with me; to home!" Maltegere yelled in triumph, and in a brilliant flash, the world Kezoa knew had disappeared.

A second later, with Maltegere holding her arm tightly, Kezoa found herself flying through a bizarre space of melting and intertwining colors, it was like being inside of a cauldron filled to the brim with melted crayons. Kezoa's shrieks went from pain to fear as she flailed around.

"Stop moving!" Maltegere shouted, "Believe me, you don't want me to drop you! You could end up in a different part of the universe if I—!"

Maltegere's head snapped upward, as if he was looking at something. Kezoa followed his gaze and almost began screaming again.

From the sky, to great yellow eyes stared down at them.

"He's found us already!" Maltegere roared, he reached into his cloak and pulled out a large orb of what looked like shadows. It gave out wisps of the stuff and from within a pulsating purple core. Maltegere retracted his hand and tossed the ball with a mighty yell. It carried on for five seconds, as the ball itself drifted through the space towards the great yellow eyes, and then Kezoa heard an impact sound.

"That did it!" Maltegere stated proudly. But the great yellow eyes didn't go away. They didn't even blink.

Matter of fact, they grew brighter.

A shockwave grew from the eyes; they cascaded in an outward circular motion across the bizarre space and came at an alarming speed towards Kezoa and her kidnapper.

Maltegere's confidence was visibly shattered, and he threw an arm in front of his face as he swore. A mighty blast of wind caught Kezoa and—needless to say—Maltegere off-guard. His grip slipped off of her forearm and Kezoa shrieked as she found herself tumbling through this bizarre world, blood from the pin-needle wounds painting the air behind her.

Kezoa heard a bizarre pop, and everything went silent and black. She couldn't even hear herself screaming, though she could feel the air whistling through her throat.

CRACK!

Abruptly, her vision and her hearing came crashing back to her as she landed on what felt like solid ground. Colors flooded into her brain and a deep voice was speaking to her in garbled speech, Kezoa shrieked and fell on her back, her hands clapped over her ears and she squeezed her eyes shut, but to no avail.

Kezoa curled into a fetal position on her side as sweat broke out from her body. Maltegere's venom pulsated through her body, her head felt like it was going to split open, or that someone was trying to do that already with a cleaver. This was beyond any hell her face had put her through this past month. Her eyes wide, Kezoa's eyes darted around as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. Everything looked so foreign to her.

She was deep inside a jungle. The trees were gnarled and twisted in ways that they did not look like she was in the rainforest; the foliage didn't even look organic! To make matters worse, she could see large silhouettes creeping in and out of the foreground and large, luminescent eyes gleaming at her from the shadows.

Kezoa felt utter fear.

"Where am I…?" she squeaked, she whipped her head from side to side so much that she thought she would get whiplash.

"Where am I? Where am I?" Kezoa scooted backward into a tree. She clasped her arms around her shoulders, warm liquid flooded over them. Kezoa squeaked and her hands flew to her face. They were obscured in blood.

"What's going on?" Kezoa cried, "What's happening? Mom! Dad! Someone! Anyone! HELP ME!"

Kezoa felt her skin suddenly split open, and things seemed to go quiet again. Red veins flashed in front of her vision as her flesh literally exploded off of her skeleton. Kezoa did the only thing anyone would do if that happened to them.

She screamed.

()()()()()()()()()()

"Hey, Takanuva...did you quick-hear that?"

Takanuva looked up from his book to see Lewa—his brother of Air—gazing intently over the lookout patio of the coliseum toward the forest of Le-Koro. Takanuva rolled his scroll back to closed and looked over to where Lewa was staring. The Toa had stayed behind with the Turaga while they were gathering up the last of the artifacts and belongings, and Takanuva had found a scroll on ancient relics and, still having that Chronicler habit of his, decided to take a break and began to read through it. Takanuva joined Lewa in his sightseeing and scanned his glowing red eyes over the forest, the setting suns set his golden armor and mask aflame and turning the sky orange.

"Hear what, brother?" asked Takanuva.

"That sound…it sounded like someone cry-screaming…" Lewa said.

"From Le-Koro?"

Lewa turned to Takanuva and nodded rapidly, to which Takanuva responded by shaking his head.

"It can't be. We made sure all the Matoran were evacuated. Who could be still here?"

"We could wind-fly speedy-quick and be back before our Toa-brothers know we're gone-missing." Lewa suggested.

Takanuva hesitated, but he thought it over and wondered if it really was a Matoran. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to be on the safe side and go check…

"Alright, let's go and see."

()()()()()()()()()()

Kezoa was paralyzed, the only action she could do was gasp for oxygen and blink as rapidly as she could.

It's just a dream, she thought, trying to reassure herself, it's just a dream, it's just a dream...it's just...a dream…

Tears began to roll down Kezoa's face, but she felt completely numb and she barely knew the tears were there. Kezoa felt like she had been just struck by lightning and the electric currents were still coursing through her body, she couldn't scream for help, her throat was raw after she screamed and she came up in a bloody racking cough after she was finished.

"Someone…" Kezoa whispered.

"Lewa! Down there!"

Kezoa tried to get up but pain lanced through her body and all she could do was emit a hoarse cry and fall back against the tree, her vision was starting to cloud over and her head was swimming. I…think I'm going to pass out…Kezoa felt a vibration and heard a THUCK as if something just fell from the sky. Kezoa barely saw the silhouette of the figure of a man land in front of her and run toward her. Another one soon joined him.

"Hey, are you alright?" screamed the first figure. He fell to his knees in the pool of her blood and grabbed her shoulders.

"H-help me…" Kezoa whimpered, rasping. She tried to move her hands, but they refused to comply. "It hurts…it hurts—"

Kezoa suddenly let loose with more blood via her mouth and it splashed onto the brown dirt, feeding the tree that she leaned against. By this point she knew that she lost too much blood, she slumped back into the tree.

"Hey! HEY!" the first figure cried.

"Don't go fall-dying on us!" the second one yelled. The first one scooped her up in his arms and began to sprint.

"Brother, wait!" the second figure cried, however his voice just carried with no reply.

"Just hang on, sister," the first figure yelled over the howling wind, "don't go yet!"

Sister…? Kezoa thought distantly, what does he mean by sister…?

With that, she submitted to her subconscious.

AN: Okay, it's been a loooooong time since I've written this story (no exaggerations) and I felt so bad about that I decided to restart it! But it's been at least four years…when I re-read the story to come to grips on where I was at, I was like: "ACK! Holy cow! I can't believe I wrote that! Why'd I put a comma there?! What was I thinking?!"

So, I decided that the best thing to do was rewrite it [partially]!

That's what I did. I came up with a brand new opening sequence, took the white-out and erased some parts, edited the grammar and spelling and pacing, and voila! We have a newly edited story fresh and ready for the print out! (Thank heaven for Word…)

For a time, I considered changing Kezoa's full name to something a little more practical and human (it was supposed to be Cathy Sullivan), but after making the name change and reading through it again, it just didn't fit. Besides, I realized if I changed the name of the main heroine it made it sound completely different and unrecognizable by already following readers. Plus, "Toa Cathy" just didn't have a ring to it like "Toa Kezoa" did ;). So I switched back to Kezoa and just decided to have her "forget" her own last name.

See you next time!