If I concentrate hard enough, I can partially drown out the sound of my parents fighting. To be honest, my parents aren't actually fighting. My mom doesn't fight. She just stands completely still and absorbs the abuse.

Today he's in an uproar over the fact that my mother discovered he's having an affair. Multiple affairs, actually.

Yes, that's right. My father is angry with her over something that he should be begging her forgiveness for. Men are assholes.

I know, I know. There are plenty of female assholes to rival the amount of male assholes in the world. Humans are assholes. It's in our nature, I suppose.

I hear furniture break upstairs, and I fling my textbook off the side of my bed with all my might, just so I can feel in control of something. I'm so pissed off I can't study anymore tonight. I decide right here, right now, that I would rather slit my throat than get married and trap myself in the life my mother chose. I don't need anyone. I'll become a museum curator, make enough money to buy a house, and adopt a child or two.

I don't need anyone.

My mother comes into my room a little while later. For some reason she's smiling. I don't know who she thinks she's fooling. In fact, her smile is infuriating me. She has nothing to smile about.

"About done for tonight?" she asks. "Sorry if we broke your concentration."

"We? There was only one voice yelling, and it wasn't yours."

She leans down to pick up my textbook and places it back on my bed, looking sheepish. "We've hit a bump in the road. I'll just give him a little time to cool down."

I can't talk to her when she's like this. Why the hell does she defend him? The only reason I've never called child protective services is because I was paranoid that all my siblings would get separated and we'd never see each other again. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wonder what would have happened if I had called and ended this facade. "I'm going to bed."

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Goodnight."

She pauses at the door, staring sadly at me, yet somehow still managing one of those fake smiles. It may fool my brother and sisters, but it doesn't fool me. "Don't stay up too late, okay?"

"I won't."

I wait until I hear her footsteps climb the stairs before reaching under my pillow to pull out all of the Ivy League college responses I've collected up. I've been too sick to my stomach with nerves to open any of them yet. I just received the last response—from Harvard—today.

I open this one first, slowly peeling the envelope back and pulling out the letter with trembling fingers.

"Dear Ms. Collins,

It is with great regret that we must inform you that your application could not be included among our acceptances for the freshman class of 2012. Please know that this decision does not reflect any deficiency or weakness in your application—"

I can't read anymore. I feel like I'm going to throw up.

Once when I was 15, I bragged to my mom that not only would I get accepted to an Ivy League, but I would get a full ride as well. My father overheard me and told me I would be lucky to get into a class at the local community college.

I was always a good student, but that comment cut me so deep that I became obsessed with my grades, always with the intention of one day being able to rub my acceptance letter in his stupid, smug face.

But every last letter I received is a rejection.

I'm in a state of shock. I don't know what to do.

I can hear my father upstairs in the bedroom. He's still yelling about something.

I gather the rejections, bag them up, and shove them deep down in the garbage out of sight. I guess my father was right about me. I overestimated my intelligence.

I lie down and stare at the clock next to my bed. I watch the numbers blink to 12:00 am.

It's December 19th.

Happy Birthday to me.

I scream, startled by Ethan's close proximity.

"Sorry," he says, wincing and holding out a hand in surrender. I watch as he pockets a few shiny strands of my hair. "I've been waiting for you to wake up."

"Did you just take some of my hair?" I start scooting away faster. "Did you seriously just take some of my hair?"

"No," he answers too quickly.

"Get away from me," I scream. "Help! Somebody help!"

He scoots closer, hands outstretched, desperately shushing me, telling me he has antibiotics, but I just keep screaming.

When two people I've never seen before confront him, he dismisses them with an exhausted, "She's being hysterical."

I'm up and staggering through the sand in search of somewhere safe. Somewhere far away from the trees. Jack approaches, looking worried after all my screaming. I aggressively swipe at my nose and point behind me. "Great news. Ethan found antibiotics. You should go talk to him."

I make myself scarce, huddled near the wreckage, and worry about an entirely separate issue. The Manifest. Am I on it? And if I'm not, what's going to happen to me? In the show, when the survivors found out that Ethan wasn't on the Manifest, he just ran back to his people for shelter and protection. But where would I go?

My stomach rumbles painfully. I'm not used to being hungry. My mother was always feeding anyone and everyone who came into our house. It was a big part of her Italian upbringing. I had a measly papaya for breakfast and it's almost midday.

Despite my hunger, I spend the rest of the afternoon wandering the beach and making sure none of the survivors are my family. Part of me hopes they aren't here, so I won't have to worry about something bad happening to them. But another part of me, the selfish part, hopes I'm not here alone.

It's been over a year since I've last seen my family because I couldn't afford a plane ticket home. I made the mistake of going to a University as far away from Los Angeles as possible, in an attempt to distance myself from my father. Unfortunately, staying away from my father meant staying away from my mother.

My father is American, but my mother is Italian. They met at University when my father was studying abroad in Italy. For some reason my mother loved him enough to marry him and move to America. They should have divorced long ago, but my mother is Catholic and nobody in her family has ever gotten a divorce. Ever. I think it would shame her beyond repair to be the one to break that chain.

Schoolwork has kept me so overwhelmed this past year that I never had time to grow homesick, but now I'm so homesick it physically hurts.

I may never see her again.

I plop down in the sand, defeated. For the first time in a very, very long time I don't laugh. I curl into myself and I begin to cry.

I wake up the next morning exhausted. My tears have glued sand all over my cheeks. I don't remember falling asleep. It must have been sometime during the night because it felt like I cried forever. I don't think there's a tear left in me to shed.

Jack makes his rounds and checks my wound. He has the good grace not to question my red, puffy eyes.

"Have the antibiotics helped anybody yet?"

"I never distributed them," Jack tells me in a hushed tone.

"No?" I suddenly surge with guilt. "Please don't save them all for me. There's plenty of people here with more than a cut on their head."

"Have you met Steve? His wife is…she's in critical condition and won't make it without antibiotics. Steve heard what was happening yesterday. There was a fight. Had to wrestle the medicine bottle away from Ethan. I had a good look at them." Jack pauses. "They weren't antibiotics."

Hair prickles up my neck as an icy chill runs through me. "Then what were they?"

"I'm pretty sure they're an incredibly high dose of tranquilizer."

I squint, trying to keep my cool, but I feel the blood drain from my face.

"Don't spread the word," Jack orders softly. "Ethan has been missing since yesterday. Ran off into the jungle after Steve took the capsules from him. Keep this between us. I don't want to incite a panic."

I open my mouth to say something—thank you, will do, no problem, sure thing, uh-huh—but nothing comes out. Not a gasp or sigh or whimper. Not even air.

I thought moving closer to the ocean would offer enough protection, but now I don't feel safe anywhere.

"This vacation just keeps getting better and better," I say, the laughter building up from the past few days finally breaking through. Once I start laughing, I can't stop. The woman kneeling in the sand a few feet away shoots me an annoyed look.

Ethan has gone missing. The pills he so adamantly wanted me to take were powerful tranquilizers. What does this solve, and what problems does this create?

What was his original mission? Help abduct Claire. Run tests on her. Help save her baby? Wasn't he trying to help save her baby? I can't remember.

That still doesn't explain what the hell he wants with me. Unless he thinks I'm also pregnant? I'm not sure if I feel more insulted than furious. I look down at my body and wonder if that's how people see me. I'm dressed in my pajamas—t-shirt and sweatpants. Jeez, I didn't think I was that big.

"Are you okay?" I look up to find Claire. "I heard you scream yesterday."

"Fine," I answer quickly. "I'm fine."

"Do you know what's going on?" I watch as she absentmindedly runs a hand across her swollen belly. "Nobody will tell me anything, and I'm getting worried."

I smile, pleased with this opportunity to finally establish a friendly relationship with someone. "Please, sit with me." I scoot over and offer her a seat on my blanket. "I'm sorry to say I also have no idea what's going on." Reaching up to touch my bandaged forehead, I add, "Got my good sense knocked out on impact."

She winces with sympathy pain, sits beside me, and looks around my living space. "Where's your suitcase?"

"I…" Caught off guard, I ponder what the easiest story to remember would be and settle for, "I couldn't find it."

"I'm so sorry." The sincerity of her sadness is heartwarming. "You know what? Feel free to borrow any of my clothes. I'm sure you're getting tired of having the wear the same thing over and over."

"Are you politely trying to tell me that I smell?"

She laughs.

I hold out a hand for her to shake. "I'm Cora, by the way."

"Claire. Nice to meet you."

I spend the next few hours talking to Claire and letting her read my horoscope. "Sagittarius? Very interesting."

I sit up straight in anticipation. "What can you tell me about myself?"

"You're a fire element, your ruling planet is Jupiter . . . oh, and your symbol is an archer."

"What exactly does all that mean?"

"Well, you're a very passionate person who knows what they want out of life and out of love. But your friendliness will earn you a reputation of being overly flirtatious, so be careful."

"Me? Flirtatious?" I heave an amused laugh. "Yeah, right."

For a moment, I forget. Forget the fact that none of this should be happening, forget that Ethan has singled me out and tried to sedate me, forget that I have no idea where my family is. It is easy to forget because Claire is so easy to talk to. I spend less time worrying about what I should say, so the conversation flows without dozens of awkward silences or weird facial expressions from me. I speak, and she listens.

She even lets me feel her stomach when baby Aaron pushes out a foot. I close my eyes and swell with the best thoughts I can think of, mostly consisting of be healthy, be safe. But putting a hand against her stomach makes my eyelids droopy.

"You know," I tell her, yawning. "I've never actually been able to nap before, but now all I can seem to do is sleep."

"Please, go right ahead." Claire pulls a gossip magazine out of nowhere and smiles happily. "I'll give you the scoop on the latest Hollywood drama when you wake up."

Cold fingers press hard against my mouth.

I blink awake in the dark. My first instinct is to scream, but the hand blocks my ability to draw a breath, and I panic, instinctively reaching up to remove it. As I reach up, another hand grips my wrist with such strength that I stop fighting out of fear.

"My lady," a woman whispers close to my face. "Do not be afraid."

I blink and blink and blink just to make sure I'm actually seeing this. I'm staring up at a woman, her face smeared black around the eyes, blonde hair tightly braided up one side of her head, her body covered in fur. It takes me a moment to process that she is, in fact, human.

"We are here to rescue you," she continues urgently, easing up on her grip. "You must get up before we are seen. Follow us. Hurry."

Where am I? My eyes shoot around, desperate to make sense of what's happening. Am I being hazed? I don't even belong to a sorority. I stare wide-eyed at the woman's painted face in the moonlight. That's when I hear the rush of what sounds like water. The ocean. I hear the ocean. Why do I hear the ocean? Moonlight. Why can I see the moon? Why am I outside? She removes her hand from my mouth and I immediately whisper, "Please don't hurt me."

"I would never hurt you." She tilts her head, her eyebrows frowning with confusion. "Have you healed yourself recently?"

"Healed from what?" I whisper, paranoid to communicate any louder than she is. "What's happening?"

"You're very confused, aren't you?" Her face softens when I nod. "I don't have time to explain now, but please believe the last thing I would ever do is harm you. These people," she nods in a random direction, "may want to harm you. We need to get you somewhere safe."

We? She releases me and stands, beckoning me to follow. That's when I notice I'm on a beach. Tents and blankets spread out all around me and down the shore. I try to see if I recognize anyone, but I don't.

I take a split second to think this through. Do I believe this woman? Are these sleeping people my actual captors? If I scream and wake them all up, will this woman and her supposed people kill everyone at camp? This woman doesn't seem to wish me dead. She knows my name. I'm pretty sure she just called me Lady Cora.

I guess this is happening.

I feel my body already breaking out in a cold sweat as I stand and quietly follow behind the cloaked woman, running purely on adrenaline. As we break the treeline, more people emerge as if from thin air. I count five in total, but I don't doubt there are plenty of others hiding just out of sight.

It's surreal how we're suddenly moving as one unit, hurrying in an unknown direction, following the commands of a male voice speaking a language I only partially understand. I catch words I'm familiar with here and there, and over the course of a few conversations, I realize with bewilderment that they're not speaking Swedish. They're not even speaking Icelandic.

They're speaking Old Norse.

"Hold on," I pant pathetically. We've been running long enough that I now have to stop and catch my breath every few minutes, hacking loudly into the open air. I'm so exhausted I genuinely don't care if they kill me at this point.

I spent a lot of time in my university's gym this past year, but I'm far from what you'd call slim. I don't think I'm quite marathon worthy yet either. I wonder if my captors are as drenched with perspiration as I am.

"We stop here," the leader announces, and I all but collapse on the jungle floor. "Get her water, Liv."

The woman from the beach kneels beside me and offers a canteen. I don't bother worrying if its poison. I twist off the top and chug it as fast as humanly possible, stopping only when some goes down the wrong pipe and I choke.

When I've had my fill of water and can breathe again, I look around at the men and woman congregating near the stream. They talk freely, although I can only understand some words. Old Norse is a dead language, like Latin. There are plenty of languages that evolved from it, but no modern society speaks it fluently.

At least, that's what my linguistics professors all claimed. But these people's diction and pronunciation sounds an awful lot like the translation work I've been conducting for my thesis.

"I'm Erik." I look up at a sizable man, his face painted with the same lines and dots as the others. Beneath a cloak of brown fur, he wears dark leather fastened with a belt holding at least two axes. He stands over me, bends forward in a deep bow, straightens, and turns to point out the people standing behind him, all similarly dressed in robes of animal hide. One by one, they bow as well. "This is Gorm, Liv, Inga, and Revna. We are the last of Clan Wolf." He pauses, but I don't know what he expects me to say. "You truly bless us with your return, my lady."

I want to be polite so they don't decapitate me, but when I try to say nice to meet you all, nothing comes out. Do something. Do something, you're just staring at them. I at least have the wherewithal to close my gaping mouth, deciding instead to nod my introduction.

"How severe is your injury?" Liv asks, already reaching to unwrap my gauze. "I brought blessed moss if you require it. Oh, it's healed." I reach up and touch nothing but smooth skin, and she barks a musical laugh. "No wonder you're so disoriented."

I've felt this way a few times before in my life – usually during times of great stress. It feels like a sort of out of body experience. Like going to see a movie and suddenly looking around the theatre, fully aware you're alive and you exist and wondering if everyone else knows they exist. That is what I feel now, staring up at these people armed to the teeth but seemingly friendly.

I exist. I'm alive. And I desperately want to stay that way.

"I'm sorry." They seem surprised to hear me speak, and it makes me swallow twice before I can continue. "I'm… I don't know how to say this, but I have no memory of–" I look from one face to another just to make sure. "Of any of you."

"You wouldn't." Erik smiles at me. "I was only a child when we first met. You would have known my father, Sigurd. Or my grandfather, Torsten."

"I think she means she has no memory of our clan," Inga interjects. "She needs to rest."

"I'm sorry." Are they angry? Should I have pretended to know them? "I hit my head pretty hard. It's been difficult to think."

Erik and Liv begin a conversation in Old Norse, a few of the others piping in randomly. I look away from them to keep my confusion hidden.

What the hell is going on? Are these people The Others? I thought they spoke Latin?

"We will rest when we reach the Temple," says Erik. "And we will slow our pace for you, my lady. It is only an hours walk."

"I'm afraid we cannot allow that." Everyone turns towards the voice, and I follow their eyes to four figures standing across the stream. "Erik, my friend. We need to talk."

A rush of relief and adrenaline courses through me at the sight of the man. Richard Alpert. A familiar face at last. At his left are two women I've never seen before, each of them flanked on either side by enormous grey wolves. It takes my brain a few seconds to process that the figure to Richard's right is Benjamin Linus.

I'm filled with equal parts excitement and terror as my brain goes into overdrive remembering who these people are. Ben was without question my favorite character on the show, but it's one thing to fangirl safely in the privacy of your own home and a completely different thing to come face-to-face with an emotionally void, manipulative murderer in real life. Especially because I've started to remember where I am.

I was just at the beach with the survivors of Oceanic 815. That's who those sleeping people were. I think of Claire, and I pray she was left unharmed.

"It's that trash from the Temple," I hear the woman beside Richard sneer. "I can smell them from here."

"Quiet, Jane," Richard snaps. "Erik, I understand your excitement at Cora's return, but we really need to talk."

Erik raises his arms, palm out, bowing dramatically. "Then let us talk."

Richard shoots a glance in my direction and then back to Erik. "In private."

"If you're here to convince me to let her stay with your people, then you're wasting your breath."

"He's yelling," one of the wolves says. "Do we subdue him?"

"Wait until you're ordered," the other responds. He shifts his weight from left paw to right paw and lowers his head. "They haven't told us to do anything yet."

I look around to see if anyone else finds it weird that those two giant dogs from Richard's group are talking to each other.

Jane steps forward with a rifle in one hand, pointed at the ground but still a warning. "Jacob demands an audience—"

"I don't answer to your god," Erik spits out. With a flick he's unstrapped the axe at his hip, gripping the handle, looking eager to sink it into the woman. "I answer to mine." Jane raises her rifle, but Erik only smiles. "You better have impeccable aim, little girl."

"Eddard," Jane calls sharply, and the bigger wolf trots forward.

I thought Erik was angry before, but this sets him off into an even deeper rage. "You dare threaten me with my birthright?" he screams, pointing at the wolf. "You filthy thieving whore!"

"Bite him," the smaller wolf barks.

"No. You see how I hold, young one?" The larger wolf at Jane's side growls. "She has not ordered me to attack anyone. You must wait for commands."

Ben points at me and says something I do not understand to my group, his accent much less refined than the rest of them, but whatever he said seems to have gotten Erik's attention. Erik turns around to face me and nods to one of his people.

"May I, my lady?" Liv takes hold of my arm and carefully pushes up the long-sleeve of the pullover I borrowed from Claire. We both stare at the pale underside of my arm, and I wonder what it is she's looking for. Nothing is wrong with my arm. I look up at her, expecting a smile.

Liv looks confused. She releases her grip and stands, stepping back towards Erik.

Richard steps forward and aggressively smacks down the barrel of Jane's rifle, so it points at the ground and not at Erik. "Now can we talk?"

I was so sure these people weren't going to kill me, but now the same group that were staunchly assuring me they mean no harm look at me with suspicious contempt. I don't know what to say to make this situation better, so I blurt out the question I so desperately want the answer to.

"So," I ask, pointing at the wolf standing next to Jane, "can anyone else understand what those dogs are saying?"

"No. Jane. Stop," Ben says each word as a separate command, his voice rising with panic.

I watch, confused, as Jane rushes towards me practically frothing with rage. She raises the butt of her rifle and swings it down hard on my face.

I am unimaginably hungry.

Heavy with a weight I cannot explain, my head swings down, hanging limply. I'm sitting on a hard floor. I open my eyes with a gasp as I wait for my vision to adjust to the light.

One hand is handcuffed to a pipe connected to the wall. I'm sitting next to a washer and dryer. A single bulb lights what looks to be someone's basement. The small room leads to a flight of stairs and a closed door. I don't remember being abducted.

"Hello?" I call out into the silence. The door opens. All I can see is a white mass descending the stairs with slow, heavy steps. Halfway down I realize what this thing is and my stomach cramps so badly I wince in pain.

Listening to the sounds of its massive claws scraping the floor as it walks closer, I back up as far as I can against the wall, staring up into the face of a polar bear.