Author's Note:: …Of course I'm awesome, why do you ask? No, I'm kidding. I just reread chapter two. Well, in chapter seven, I apologized because Karena "magically" turned fifteen. She did not. In chapter two, I realized that she was twelve and then a time skip revealed she was fifteen. …Carry on!

D. Gray-man © Katsura Hoshino

I'm a kid again. A gun is pointed to my head. My eyes widen, tears brimming the edges. And just as the perpetrator shoots, a light succumbs my mind and I see Ashton. The room is dark, pitch-black. It's only me and Ashton. No, wait…There's Daisya, Kanda, Lenalee, Sol, all of my Exorcist friends. They smile at me.

Ashton – he's alive again. I'm so happy! But then…Lenalee collapses, bloody, dead. And then Kanda falls, too. All around me, my friends are dying. Ashton is the last to fall. He tells me he loves me, and then turns to dust in my arms.

"Karena," says a voice behind me. I stand slowly, spin around, and…

Run right into the arms of Tyki Mikk. He holds me, strokes my hair. I'm a teenager again, my regular self. Tyki smells sweet, wearing cologne. He kisses my head. "You're forever in my debt now…You belong to me…"

I woke up with a start. The first thing I saw was a monitor by my side. An infirmary. Not just any infirmary either. I was back at the Order! Immediately, I shot up from the bed. Yes, it was the same infirmary at the Black Order. I was home.

Pain shot through my body, mostly my back. I ached all over. Collapsing back down on the bed and going back to sleep sounded like the best thing in the world. But I was awake, and didn't want to go back to the darkness of my nightmares. Just then, it all came back to me. Ashton is dead. Ashton is…

I exhaled shakily, tangling my fingers in my hair, bringing up my knees close and I cried. My head hurt – bad. The pain in my heart wouldn't go away, like a hand was squeezing it. It was only when I became silent did I hear faint tumult somewhere off. When I turned to the door, my eyes caught sight of the bow and arrows on the desk beside me. Even though I fell from the sky, I still was able to protect Ashton's arrows. That made a little of the pain in my heart go away, but not all.

Carefully, I removed the IV from my arm. I barely noticed what I was wearing – my tank-top and Capris. Bandages were wrapped around my head; the pain was from stitches on my head. I must have hit my head hard. Where I had cuts from my own attack, those were bandaged up, too. I sighed deeply and put on my boots, which were by the door. My coat hung on the chair, but I didn't need that just yet.

Hurrying out of the infirmary, I rushed for the commotion. What I found, I despised. The Order's chapel was filled with coffins. People all around were crying, injured. I found Lenalee by a white coffin – different from the others. The Head Nurse was by her side, trying to get her back to the infirmary because she was badly hurt. Tears streamed down Lenalee's cheeks; she refused to go. I felt a pang in my heart for her.

As I made my way through the crowd of people, I pushed forward to her. "Lenalee!" I called out to her. The young girl looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes so jaded. Prying my eyes from hers, I saw that the white coffin had a large Rose Cross on it and my heart stopped. This was Ashton's coffin – I knew it. Tears stung my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I fell to the floor on my knees, hanging my head low, and cried. Lenalee wrapped her arms around me in an embrace and cried on my shoulder. Head Nurse looked away.

How would I go on now with it just me and Master? We needed Ashton to be a team. I couldn't go on without my best friend. Memories of our travels together played in my mind like a film: the nights we'd sleep under the stars together, the times we fought over food Master made, and especially the nights I would have nightmares – those nights, Ashton would hold me close and pet my hair until I fell asleep. And it was so heavenly to be in his arms.

Now who would do that for me? Now who would be like the older brother I never had? Now who would I depend on when I needed help most? Myself? No!

I was shivering, from cold, from crying. I wanted to lose myself in my tears. Never did I want to leave his side. But Komui evacuated everyone away from the coffins in the chapel. And I stood upstairs, with tears grudgingly falling from my eyes, the flames of God's cruelty eating away at someone I loved most. The flickers of the blaze were the only things lighting my eyes. After the cremation was over, everyone departed to the infirmary to get their wounds checked, or maybe to their rooms to cry, maybe even to the cafeteria to eat away the pain. I was the only one who remained. Ashton was gone forever and so was his white coffin, his ashes, but I didn't want to leave.

I wish I could say that I could feel Ashton here – with me. His ghost holds me and comforts me, tells me not to cry. His lingering spirit tells me he loves me. I wish I could say that. But that's a hackneyed scenario that I won't believe because it didn't happen – no matter how much I wish it did.

"Hey!" someone called. I didn't recognize the voice – young, male; thought maybe he was a Finder or a new Exorcist that might have come when I was gone. I didn't look at him, just stood there. "Are you Karena?" He called from the doorway down the hall. I remained silent, my throat sore and tight. The boy sighed loudly. "Look, the Matron is looking for you…" His footsteps echoed in the hallway as he approached me.

After a moment, I shifted my brown eyes to meet green – one green eye, actually. I was faced by a boy around my age: messy red hair, one green eye, another eye hidden by an eye patch, wearing odd clothes. He didn't wear the white uniforms of the Finders nor the black cloaks of the Exorcists. Who was this boy then? I was curious about him, but my eyes obviously looked too dull for him to notice. After giving me a once-over, he exhaled a bit. "Look, your wounds have opened again. That Head Nurse lady says she wants to see you to tend to your wounds, OK?"

I didn't notice the sting of the cuts on my body until he mentioned it. Lost in my thoughts, I guess. With nothing but a simple nod, I stepped around the boy and walked on to the sanatorium. If this boy would be staying with us, would I grow attached to him, too, just to lose him?