Hey everyone. I've got a second chapter for you! (P.s. This week's episode was awesome, wasn't it?)

2. Dream or Reality?

The next day nobody spoke a word about what had happened. There was a bitter atmosphere in Star Labs and everyone was in a sorrowful mood. The usual 'goodmorning's were skipped today as we went straight to our daily chores. Even Harry seemed a little down, which was more than surprising since he had never been one to share his feelings with anyone else.

Not knowing what to do with my own sadness, I decided to focus on my work. Lately this had revolved around the Velocity-9 serum. Jay might have shown that it works, I still had dozens of tests to run on it before I would accept that as a final result.

More than once Cisco asked me to go home for some sleep or join him for a coffee. I ignored all of his requests. I had to keep my mind focussed on my work. Going home would surely lead my thoughts back to yesterday's tragedy and I wanted to avoid that as long as I could. For some reason, he was the only one of the group unwilling to accept this.

Everything I did made him suspicious, even when I put some ice cubes in my glass of lemon juice. Something had happened to him on earth two. Something that had made paranoid. Something he wasn't telling me.

.

By the end of the day, I overheard a conversation between Barry and Harry on the hallway. It concerned the topic of returning to earth two.

"But isn't there a way to reverse the cork matter?"

This is what I liked so much about Barry. He never gave up on his friends. Harry on the other hand never seemed to care about anyone except his daughter. It's funny how their names are so alike, yet there personalities are so different.

"I told you before, I can't think of a way to do that."

"So we'll just have to live with Zoom getting away with it?"

"Yes Allen, we do. Cause if we don't, it'll chew on us until we go mad."

I knew Harry said that there was no opening the portals anymore and that even if we could, it wouldn't bring back Jay, but that answer didn't satisfied me at all. The thought of Zoom roaming free after killing my love interest made me angry. And with that anger came also the jitters in my hands again.

This new feeling intrigued me more each time I experienced it and with all the grief and hate of the past day, I had felt it many times over. What did it mean…

"Hey."

I was so deep in thoughts that I didn't notice Barry had entered the room.

"How're you doing?"

"Been better." I replied.

He smiled sadly and rubbed my shoulder with his hand. I knew he felt guilty for not being able to do anything for Jay. Not that he was to blame for anything, it was just who he was.

"Barry!" I said when he walked away.

He gave me a questioning look.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Doing everything you can."

He nodded a single time and proceeded down the hallway.

Alone again I found that having talked to Barry, the tingling had subsided. That was interesting. Apparently it was influenced by my mental state. Irritation was clearly a trigger, whereas Barry's kindness was a counter. I had to find out more on this on the web.

I sat down behind my desk and started searching the easiest way possible: Google. I came across various causes for my symptoms, most of which I was already familiar with, though none of them blamed it on emotional factors. I was able to dismiss most of them since I knew that those were surely not what triggered it.

"Still here Snow?"

I got a little scare by the unexpected voice. Immediately the stinging in my hands returned. It was Harry and my agitated fingers relaxed.

"Yea. I was just, you know..."

His stare made me nervous. I had never been a good liar, nor had I ever had to be, however I'd rather not share my current issue with him. Maybe because I didn't want to admit that as a doctor I couldn't even diagnose myself. Maybe it was something in my subconscious that warned me. Either way, I couldn't use him poking around in my business.

"Looking stuff up?"

I sounded like Cisco. Luckily Harry bought it.

"Okay, but don't make it too late."

I looked at the bottom corner of my screen. It was eleven o'clock. It was a good time to call it a day. Then my eye fell on a link titled: 'the dread of facing off with meta'.

It turned out to be one of Iris' articles. She described the moment she came across Geomancer quite recently. I decided to read a few lines.

... My heart throbbed in my head. It felt as if his glasses gazed right into my soul and found the place where to could exert to most anxiety. I'll never forget the moment he point his hand at me. That destructive hand with which he had previously used to turn buildings ten times my size into rubble. 'I love the tickling when I make the world tremble' he spoke menacingly. I had never been so petrified with fear in my entire life than that moment...

I stopped and read the second to last line again. My eyes got bigger.

'The tickling when I make the world tremble.'

Would I be...? No! Impossible. I wasn't a metahuman. Or was I? I was here when the particle accelerator exploded and Cisco had recently found out he had been affected too.

I looked at my hands. There were no titillations now. I closed my eyes and focussed on my hands as hard as I could. Not that I had any clue how to make something happen, let alone know what would happen if I did.

After a few seconds I decided that I was imagining things. I was no metahuman, I had been tested for that, even with Harry's metahuman-watch. No, it had to be an affliction I haven't thought of yet. I resumed my search for a non-paranormal disease, but in the back of my mind, Geomancer's quote echoed. What would the rest think of me when I turn out to actually be a metahuman?

I heard an electric surge and turned around. It was Barry, suited up.

"Hey what's wrong?" I asked.

"Don't play dumb Caitlin!" He shouted.

"What?" I let out shocked.

I stumbled out of my stair, luckily without falling. Behind him, Cisco and Harry appeared. The latter held out his watch and it started beeping and zooming.

"Yea, that's a positive." Harry said.

"I told you!" Cisco cried out.

"What? That's impossible, that watch is broken!" I retorted.

However, when by pointing at the allegedly erroneous equipment as I spoke, Harry got blown away with such force that he hit the wall and fell down unconscious. I looked in horror at my own hands as they tickled like crazy. What was happening to me?!

"See! She's evil! I saw it in my vision! Get her!" Cisco continued frantically.

Another surge and I was on my back with Barry holding me down. His hand started buzzing as he slowly brought it closer to my chest.

"No!" I yelled in panic. "Barry! What are you doing?!"

"You're too dangerous to be left alive."

"Please Barry. Don't kill me!"

"I'm sorry Caitlin." He said sadly.

"NOOO!" I screamed.

"Caitlin. Caitlin!"

"Wh-what?"

I rose upright in my chair. I was wide awake with, realizing in a split second that I wasn't dead after all. I panted heavily and looked around until I came across Barry's face. It gave me a fright as I recollected the image of him and his hand phasing though my ribcage.

"Hey, hey." Barry said concerned. "You're okay. It was just a dream."

I scanned the room a second time and reckoned he was right. I had been sleeping on my own desk. I heaved a sigh of relief and let myself fall in his arms. He patted me on the back. It had only been a nightmare. Off course it had been, Barry would never kill me. The real question was, where did reality stop and my dream start?

Once Barry let me go and went on with what he came here to do, I logged into my computer. I checked my browser history to see when I had fallen asleep. The last thing in the list was Iris's article. I skimmed the text to find the piece I had read last night. There it was.

'I love the tickling when I make the world tremble' he spoke menacingly.

At least I hadn't imagined that. The sentence began to roam my mind again. What if I truly had powers? I wondered what they would be…

No Caitlin! You're acting crazy, I said to myself. I'm not a metahuman and today I'm going to run some tests to confirm it. That would surely help me clear my head of these ludicrous fantasies. A pang shot through my skull. But before I was going to do anything, I was in need of some good coffee.