Updated version. :3 I love you guys so much for waiting LITERALLY YEARS. My shit needed getting together XDD Without further ado:

Lady of the Little Eagles

O_O~O_O~O_O

"But if you close your eyes, does almost feel like nothing changed at all?"

"So wake me up when it's all over, when I'm wiser and I'm older."

O_O~O_O~O_O

Chapter 1: Wake Me Up, Pompeii

First of all, let me get one thing straight: I'm not psychic.

Sure: sometimes I get dreams that can tell whether tomorrow would be a slow day at the café or not; sometimes when I'm asked to "guess" how many children a pregnant woman will have, I get it right; sometimes I can even see the ghostly figure of a small child in the corner of my eye, running around the park where a murderer shot him between the eyes.

But I don't like using the term "psychic". Whenever I think about that term, I immediately imagine myself going all "Jean Grey" and lifting up all the cars and the coffee cups and the water that flows through the Hudson—I pass it every time I take my morning jog.

Nope, I'm not psychic. I'm just… sensitive. Yeah, let's go with that.

My name is Dominique Arnetta and I'm a sensitive. Well, it'll have to do.

I live in a lofty apartment just near upstate New York (I'm not telling you where exactly, I'm cautious like that) and I love playing video games, hanging out, writing down my dreams, and coffee. I work as a barista at the coffee shop down the block and I write novels to pay the rent. I love animals and I have a pet Siberian husky—I know, big right? But he's a softie and the clean-up of hair and dog shit is well worth for the cuddles and playtime.

But that's not important.

I'm here today to tell you my story, the story of how I discovered something amazing and awesome… but also something terrible.

The story of how I discovered the Apple of Eden was real.

God, where do I even begin?

Okay, wait a minute, now I sound like some chick from a drama-rama or something. I know exactly where to start: at the beginning.

I can still remember the day I first had my vision of the Apple: it was the first day I played Assassin's Creed.

I had taken a short break and gone to the bathroom to relieve myself (playing for six hours straight can do that to you). I was washing my hands when I felt the back of my neck begin to tingle. I had looked behind me, expecting to see a face or hear a whisper, but there was nothing.

Still, I became afraid. Knowing that my ghosts were real didn't make them go away.

But there was nothing, no one there.

I closed the door behind me and washed my face. But just as I was drying up, I caught a glimpse of my reflection.

Only it wasn't me staring back at me.

It was Altair.

I've never jumped so high, nor gasped so painfully in my life. It was a good thing the floor was carpeted or I would have broken my neck. When I finally regained my bearings, I rubbed my eyes and looked again: he was gone.

I briefly considered taking a break from playing after that.

But then I thought: "Nah."

I wouldn't mind having Altair Ibn-Lahad's face be the first thing I see in the morning.

Yes, I'm a psychic, gamer girl who doesn't mind having a sexy, Arabic man's face staring at me be the first thing I see every morning. I'm slightly messed up like that. Sue me.

But it was while I was playing the second game did I begin having doubts about the nature of my—"hallucinations" was the term I used back then.

I had been eating at the time when I heard someone knocking on the door. I was confused; Marcus had a shift at the factory he was working at (what factory he was working at, I'm not really sure) and Jenna and Trixie were on a shopping trip together. They invited me to come along, but I turned them down.

I finished doing one hot, Arabic assassin. I told them I was excited to play with my new, sexy, Italian assassin next.

Can you tell I like my men imported?

Okay, wait. Shit, I'm losing track of the story.

So I heard a knock, right? I felt confused because I wasn't expecting anyone. I opened the door to an empty hallway.

"Hello?" I called out. My voice bounced off the walls, an echo that eventually faded into nonexistence. At the end of the hall, just before the path turned to lead to the elevators, the lights began to flicker.

I felt something tingle at the back of my neck. I never shut the door so fast, and so loudly, in my life.

"Fuck," I breathed out. I felt my hands trembling on the vice-like grip had on the doorknob. I let go of the doorknob slowly, steadily unclenching my fingers to try and get the blood circulating again. I remember feeling pain because I bit my lip so hard it had begun to bleed.

I took one step… two steps… five steps back from the door when—

Knock, knock…

And cue the suspense music.

The peephole never looked so terrifying in the four years I've been living in this apartment.

I felt my heart stop beating when my eye fell on the empty hallway. My chest pounded as anger and fear rushed through me. I shouted: "What do you want?!"

I threw the door open and came face to face with a Templar, sword-hand raised and weapon glinting in the fluorescence. I felt my scream get stuck in my throat as its hand twitched and the blade drop.

I jumped back, and I tumbled gracelessly over the back of the sofa and onto the hard, unforgiving wood of my coffee table. I heard glass shattering and Sam barking… but no metal footsteps charging.

With heaving breaths, I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the nearest thing I could get my hands on: a children's encyclopedia on plants (don't ask me why an encyclopedia on plants was sitting on the coffee table—my apartment is a mess of books, video games, and random junk I would find at the bottom of age-old toy chests and dusty, cardboard boxes).

The book felt solid and heavy in my hand. In the back of my mind, I knew that this would no good whatsoever. But the illusion of safety was enough for me. I ran on fumes, but that was enough.

But the Templar was gone.

I remember dropping the book in frustration, and crying out in pain and frustration because it had landed on my foot and damn, that book had been heavy.

My visions of the game didn't stop there. But I didn't see the Apple until that one, fateful day.

The day my life, as I knew it, ended.

I can't even begin to stress how my life had been so… so normal before this whole Apple of Eden brouhaha began: I had made a lot of friends when I came to the city, but only Marcus, Jenna and Trixie only stood out as my besties. The barista job had covered up the expenses that the lull in my writing career and book publishing could not. My books (so far, only two) were the works that tended to get shoved at the back of the shelves in bookstores, behind big names like "Harry Potter" or "Percy Jackson and the Olympians". But that was okay.

And I was content with my home, which had a fairly large flat screen TV with a PS3 and X-Box console.

I also liked to make mash-ups. I loved making them, listening to other people's mash-ups… I've loved them ever since I first heard DJ Earworm's United State of Pop 2008 (Viva la Pop). But I only learned how when I watched Pitch Perfect when it came out a few months ago.

Ever since then, it became a hobby.

Yep, my life was good, fun… safe.

But that, of course, was when Life would want to pull you of your shell and beat the living shit out of you.

The day my life ended was the day Ezio looked at me while I was playing Assassin's Creed 2.

I was running away from a group of guards who saw me kill a corrupt official—I fucking hate those guys—and I was about to take a Leap of Faith after synchronizing from a viewpoint atop a church tower in some nameless part of Venice, when instead of the camera panning around the city and flashing back to the perching assassin, it panned to his face.

And then Ezio looked at me. I mean, he freaking broke the third wall and looked at me!

I didn't even bother quitting the game. I just shut off the console and let the controller fall out of my hands.

I am getting too old for this shit. And I just turned 22!

I groaned, sitting up and massaged my throbbing temples. I got up and I poured myself a glass of water and some aspirin. I gulped it down and looked at my watch. It was 3:25 PM. I still had two hours to kill before Trixie, Jenna, and Marcus came knocking on my door to watch City of Bones.

Ah, Jenna… she never did get over the fact that she couldn't get her hands on the second book because the bookstores she normally frequented were always out of stock. Poor girl.

I was just about to move to my bed when, suddenly, I felt the entire room tilt. My body fell victim to gravity as I fell limp on the kitchen floor. Black spots danced in my eyes, threatening to pull me into unconsciousness. I vaguely heard the sound of shattering glass beside me as my eyes struggled to remain open, the pounding in my head increasing.

I crawled over to the telephone on the coffee table beside the couch.

Just a few more feet…

The darkness gave one, final tug. And I gave in, letting the black spots consume my vision.