Hello, again! Thanks everyone for the favorites and follows! It makes me glad to see that others are actually reading this. I know that the Jane/Bella pairing doesn't have a very large following (at least, that's what it looks like), but it's encouraging that there are definitely a few of you out there! Please enjoy this latest installment :) Happy reading!

Chapter 2: A Series of Mistakes

The chubby-cheeked doctor did not return. He was, apparently, afraid of me. Not sure why, and no one seemed especially inclined to tell me, which was okay since I had a lot of other stuff on my mind at the moment, as it so happened. Maybe he'd up and run because I'd been in a coma and suddenly – in their words, "for no discernible medical reason" – woken up?

Hard to say.

There were tubes snaking out of my arms, bandages on my head, and loud, beeping machines circling me like steel vultures. They were oddly intimidating for inanimate objects.

I'd been unconscious for a solid six hours. The doctors (my new, impressively unafraid ones, of course) said it was a combination of dehydration and exhaustion. Which was strange because I'd taken a two-hour nap earlier that day, before my walk down Buckets-hill Road. Whatever. I was so over this whole thing the second I discovered my mom and the doctors didn't believe that I'd somehow been transported several miles across town in the space of a few eye blinks. It was difficult to believe, but was it really that difficult?

"You bumped your head pretty hard, hon," Renee said slowly, giving me a really concerned side-eye. I wasn't sure why she felt she couldn't look at me directly. Also, she was chewing gum, and she was being very obnoxious about it. Pop-pop-POP. The half-formed gum bubbles snapped like tiny gunshots.

"Yeah, I know I did," I snapped, pointing to the bandages wrapped thrice around my head. "Can't you see the blood? Anyway, that's irrelevant. Didn't you hear me?"

"Yes," Dr. Cullen replied crisply. He seemed like a total no-nonsense guy. Fitting, for a doctor. "But you are confused. None of that happened. You did not blink and find yourself in Mike Newton's field. You did not blink and find yourself lying in the middle of Oven Road. You fell and hit your head, and the impact must have jarred your mind. You were semi-conscious at that point, and probably hallucinating."

"Oh, you know this?" I asked snidely. "You were there?" He was ticking me off. That wasn't what I was saying at all. Sure, I'd been a little confused (I was still confused, but I thought it inadvisable to mention now), but I know what I saw. My mind hadn't been 'jarred' and I hadn't 'hallucinated.' It was obvious they were trying to pass me off as crazy. No way, Jose, that wasn't going to happen.

Dr. Cullen sighed. "Please, Ms. Swan, I'm just trying to help."

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled. My mother threw me a scalding-hot glare. She was a stickler for politeness, even faked politeness.

The doctor and my mother talked for a few more minutes while I determinedly tuned them out. Apparently it was decided that I'd be released later that day. Whatever. No one was going to listen to me one way or the other, so why bother opening my mouth? Besides, I was used to it. Being ignored.

"Did you tell Dad?" I asked when my mother returned to my bedside.

"Left a message on his voicemail." Pop-pop!

I nodded, my left eye twitching faintly. "He still in Deutschland?" My dad traveled a lot. For business. And by a lot I meant three-hundred-twenty days out of the year, in case you were wondering. Sometimes I referred to him as Charlie. My mother hadn't bothered to yell at me for this. I think this was our way of bonding.

She nodded in answer to my question and gazed out the window, her thoughts obviously elsewhere.

After a moment of truly uncomfortable silence, I cleared my throat. "So. When am I getting out?"

"'Round seven or so." My mother shrugged. Renee Dwyer was a woman of few words and fewer details, that was for sure.

"Okay, so, can you get me some food or something? I'm dehydrated, after all."

"That means you need water, Amelia, not food. Anybody knows that."

I scowled. "Can you just find something for me to ingest?"

She waved her hand impatiently and sauntered out of the room. Her jean shorts were frayed and just a little too short for a woman fast approaching forty. She and my dad were seven years apart, and it became instantly obvious that they weren't from the same background at all. He was polished and clean-shaven; she was a tick above trailer trash. Why they ever got married in the first place is the eighth wonder of the world. Now, why they were getting a divorce – that made total sense. No idea why it'd taken so long, though.

Now that I was finally alone, my mind wandered back to the events that led me here. I'd been walking, right? That was pretty normal. A storm was looming – I remember noticing that. For some reason, that's the one thing that's really vivid. Everything else paled in comparison to the memory of that monster of a thunderstorm.

Then I'd…fallen? Tripped over a wayward branch or something? I don't know. I was in a field of sweet corn for a moment, I think. "You did not blink and find yourself in Mike Newton's field." Except that I did. "You did not blink and find yourself lying in the middle of Oven Road." Except that I had.

Was I going crazy? I sure hoped not. Like, I really could not deal with that right now.

Four hours later and my release papers were signed, stamped, and shoved into my mom's knockoff Coach purse. I was unceremoniously wheeled to the hospital front doors, where I was forced to my feet. (I say forced because I didn't want to get up. Don't get me wrong, nothing hurt. I was just feeling lazy). My mom's beat-up lime-green hatchback was parked crookedly in the third row. On the way back to our one-story ranch home (well-kept and magazine-ready but too small, according to Charlie), we stopped at McDonalds.

"Three double cheeseburgers, two Diet Cokes, and two small fries," Renee barked at the intercom, ordering off the dollar menu. While I munched on my burgers, I found myself wondering, not for the first or twentieth time, what the hell had happened to me on Buckets-hill Road.

There'd been light – bright, impossibly blinding light – and I'm pretty sure it hit me. But that couldn't be right because the hospital hadn't said a single thing about me getting struck by lightning. I was almost positive (I say almost because you never could know for sure with those government-type people) that they would've told me and my mom if something that extreme happened. They were kinda obligated to, I think. Weren't they? I mean, you would think. Right?

Anyway.

When we got home my mom took her bag of fries to the living room in the back of the house, where her DVR waited with all two-hundred-thirty-six episodes of Friends. She was re-watching them. (For the sixth time. Why she didn't just invest in a new show was beyond my understanding.)

I trudged down the hall to my room, dragging my feet. Now that I was home again and all the excitement was over, boredom was bound to take over, as it normally did. That's why I went on a walk in the first place. And why I'd taken a nap before I'd taken a walk. There was nothing to do here. Ever. Whittleston worked in a gray, monotonous cycle that felt a little like deja vu. In fact, I frequently asked myself: Are you experiencing the same thing every day? Or are you experiencing subtle variations of the same thing every day? Don't try to figure it out, I usually answered. You'll never be able to tell. It'll only drive you closer to insanity.

That was the horror of monotony.

My room had white walls, black carpet, and a gray ceiling. Uniform colors for a uniform life, you could say. (I wouldn't disagree.) There were some second-hand books in a half-filled bookcase that seemed on the verge of collapsing in one corner, a pile of dirty flip-flops blocking the entrance to my closet, and heaps of coloring books in the other corner. Yes, coloring books, the kind you could only use sharp and pointy colored-pencils with, the kind you really, really had to concentrate on or you'd make an irreversible mistake and spend hours mulling over what could've been.

I called this activity art therapy. My parents called it pointless and childish.

Was it? No, it wasn't. They just didn't understand. Anything they didn't understand was immediately shoved into categories labeled USELESS and NOT WORTH THINKING ABOUT. Actually, that was the motto for most adults around here.

I frowned and sat down on my bed. The springs creaked, and I shifted my weight a little. The mattress was older than me, and the frame? Older than the Stone Age, probably. Leaning back, I stared up at my blank ceiling, squinting. I didn't like to think too much when I didn't have to, but I was starting to believe that I would have to.

I knew the facts, even if no one else wanted to believe them: I'd been struck by lightning, or some sort of weird light source that came from the sky. I was perfectly fine – body, mind, emotions (I guess?) – but I must've blacked out because I didn't remember the drive over to the hospital or getting hooked up to all that equipment. But I did remember where I'd been.

First on my stomach on Buckets-hill Road.

Then on my side in the Newton's sweet corn field.

And finally in the middle of Oven Road, broken cement digging into my back.

I knew this. Did I know it for sure though? For absolutely sure? No, and there was only one way to find out for certain.

Breathing deep, I closed my eyes and stilled my whole being. My body, my brain, my thoughts, everything. This was no easy feat, considering the crazy-fast rate at which my thoughts usually spun. But I was determined. I concentrated on my heartbeat, concentrated so hard I felt it pounding in my temples. I willed myself into a place of nothingness, of nonexistence.

Other, I thought, not knowing what I meant but thinking it anyway. Other. Let's go elsewhere. Anywhere. Somewhere other than here. The Land of Other. The Land of Take-Me-Away-From-This-Hellhole.

I breathed in the stale air of my bedroom…and breathed out something entirely different. A scent I couldn't identify. Clouds? No. Leaves? Sort of, but not quite. The air just smelled…wet.

The instant I opened my eyes, I realized that I had made several mistakes, one of them quite grievous.

The first mistake: attempting to tell the doctors and other medical personnel (plus my mother) about the blinking-and-finding-myself-in-other-places phenomenon.

The second: not spending more time thinking very, very deeply about why I remembered being struck by lightning and yet having no signs or evidence to prove this theory.

The third: wolfing down two McDonalds double cheeseburgers and a small fry and a Diet Coke in under ten minutes.

The fourth, and probably most grievous, mistake: opening my eyes. This was seemingly insignificant, but not when you considered that A) I was suddenly, somehow, in a wet forest, B) I had no idea where I was other than suddenly, somehow, in a wet forest, and C) I was staring at a tiny blonde-haired angel with red eyes and a floor-sweeping black cloak. An archangel? A demon-spawn?

No time to decide. She was staring right at me.

Very mysterious (and off-canon) things happening, eh? Don't worry, all will be revealed soon. Feedback, as always, is much appreciated! Even if it's just a simple observation or sentence. These comments let me know that people are reading and paying attention. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed! Until next time!~