Chapter Two:

I have a story I'm going to tell you about. I used to have a normal life, well, a somewhat normal life, until my world turned upside-down. I remember what life was like before, exciting and terrible, but my innocence didn't let me see it; well, not much of it, at least. But, despite the war going on and the means of fighting it, it was nothing compared to what was about to happen to me. It happened what seemed to be an eternity ago.

I was almost seven, and happy to be, when everything started. My parents, Relena and Heero Yuy, were quite important people. My mom was the Vice Foreign Minister of the Preventers. I thought this made her very important and special, luckily I didn't know at the time that her organization hadn't been doing a very good job. My father was one of the pilots of the new model Gundams, NeoWing Zero.

That day, though, I remember sitting in the kitchen while my mom talked on the phone with someone important. I was playing with one of my Gundam toys—my father hated them so I wouldn't let him see me playing with them—when I had a strange thought. I felt like asking my mom for a Barbie doll. When I did ask her, though, she shushed me by waving her hand and giving me a look. I was about to remind myself to ask her for one later when I couldn't remember what it was I wanted.

My dad came through the door then and dropped his things on the kitchen table; including a gun that spun a few times when it hit the metal table. I glanced at the toys I was playing with and flung them aside then made a run for my dad's leg, which I clung to. He looked down at me with a muttered, "Hn." and pulled on one of my moss green pigtails. He then walked past me and went to talk to my mom. She finished up on the phone and gave him a warm hug. She asked how his day was and he shrugged with an added, "The usual."

"I should hope you didn't get injured in your suit today." My mom said to him as more of a question than a statement.

My dad shrugged and went into the other room. My mom told me to stay there while she had a private conversation with my dad in the other room. I nodded and continued to play with my toys, which I retrieved from where I had flung them. A while later, though it was probably just a few minutes, child perception of time not being very good, I went up to my room. When I opened my door, I could have sworn I saw soft pink instead of light purple painted on my walls. I shrugged it off and figured it was a trick of the mind with a quick thought that it would be cool if walls could change color whenever they wanted. I then went to my computer and logged on to the Internet. I tried to hack into my school's network but I couldn't figure it out. I decided I'd have to ask my dad how to do it again.

After playing games on the net for a while, my mom called me down. She said she had a meeting and my dad had a mission so I'd be staying at Hilde's for the night. I nodded to her; it was a pain when I couldn't have dinner with my parents, which happened all too often. I didn't want to make a scene, though, even though I wasn't too happy to be going to Hilde's with her four children.

We went into the limousine waiting for us and had a silent trip the whole way. When we arrived, Hilde was waiting with open arms and a couple of faces peaking out from behind her. The twins, Jesse and Joey, took either of my hands and asked me to play with them. I took my hands out of theirs and muttered, "Omae o korosu" to them. They exchanged glances and blinked; I remember it being fun to be somewhat bilingual, though I knew English much better than I did Japanese. I had picked that phrase up from my dad, though.

My mom was talking to Hilde as Duo walked over to my parents with his bag ready; he'd be joining my dad on his mission, I figured. I made my way to the room they let me stay in while I was there and went straight to my closet after shutting and locking the door. I used to keep a stash of things hidden in a space in my closet behind a few pairs of clothes. I went into my stash and pulled the box out. In it were a couple Gundam toys, a pocketknife, and a toy gun. I've always had a fascination with weapons, which my mom says I get from my dad.

I took the pocketknife and twirled it around in my hand a few times before putting it down. I picked up one of the Gundam toys and tried to pull its arm off just for the fun of it; it wasn't one of my favorites anyway. I then grabbed my toy gun after I couldn't get the arm off my toy and looked to see it was empty of caps. I threw it across the room in frustration; I was really starting to get bored now. I then picked up my knife again and started carving random things into the door of the closet. A knock came at the door then that startled me—I was startled because I knew I wasn't supposed to be doing that—and I by accidentally made a slash across my forehead. I did my best to stifle a yelp but a fair amount of the scream I was holding in got out.

"Drea! Are you all right in there? What's wrong?" I remember hearing worry taking over Hilde's voice from outside my door as I desperately tried to wipe away the blood that kept pouring from my skull.

I called out to her, "I'm all right, I just scratched myself a bit and it hurt."

"Well, are you bleeding? Are you O.K.? Please, let me in, Andrea, so I can have a look at it. Please." I couldn't remember if it was the concern in her voice or the dizziness that was overwhelming me, but I stumbled over to the door and unlocked it a second before collapsing. I was very vaguely aware of being picked up by Hilde and taken to the nearest bathroom where she washed off the blood and tried to stop the bleeding.

It eventually stopped, although I felt more dizzy then ever by the end. When it did Hilde continuously muttered to either me of herself about getting fluids in me fast as she carried me down the stairs to the kitchen. She gave me a glass of apple juice and all but poured it down my throat to get it in me, though some still didn't make it in and soaked my shirt instead.

She put me to rest then and told me I needed a good night's sleep to regain my strength and blood. She also said that she would make sure no one bothered me while I slept. I remember my only response was a quiet moan before sleep over took me. I figured Hilde left the room after a few moments; I don't think she even saw what I had done to her wall.

My dreams were definitely not pleasant ones, possibly because of my lack of blood. I remembered dreaming about my dad piloting his Gundam, which seemed to switch to a different dream all of a sudden. My other dream was still of my dad, though he was a spy who got shot in the heart.

I was awoken in the middle of the night when my dad arrived to take me home. I was groggy from sleep and a lack of energy so at first I was a bit panicky about being awoken in the middle of the night and carried off by my dad, despite Hilde's protests. I slept once we reached the car and I didn't wake until the morning.

The next day went much like the one before. I had a short scolding followed by a lecture of the same length about playing with weapons that weren't toys. I then went to the private school that my mom made me go to and barely paid attention the whole day. After school, my dad was waiting outside to pick me up and take me to the building where my mom worked. I had dinner there along with some of my mom's coworkers and hated it. Not only did I not care much for any of them, but the conversations were always to different than the ones I was used to. Although, when just the three of us had dinner together, chances were no one would be talking anyway.

I thought back to my day at school while I ate my microwaved meal and frowned unconsciously in thought. A peculiar thing had happened; I had asked my teacher when we would be using the box of blocks to help us with the math work. She gave me an annoyed frown and told me that no such things were needed for the learning of math. When I got back to my seat, I couldn't quite remember what I had asked of her. I felt better, though, when she read the story I had been waiting to hear.

That night I had almost the same dream as before, except when my regular nightmare was interrupted by a stranger one, it involved my mom speaking on a podium as someone fired a gun at her and my dad took the shot instead. He seemed to die again. I woke up shivering from that dream and knocked on my parents door. My dad told me to go away the same time my mom told me to come in.

I kept the dream to myself but told them it was a bad one so my mom let me sleep beside her for the night. I couldn't remember any other dreams I had after that.

The next day was when it all really started. It was a Saturday so I didn't need to go to school. My dad was on a mission and my mom was busy in meetings all day, though. I roamed the Preventer's base for a long time before sneaking my way outside. I was sure I would be able to easily find my way back so I started walking.

I paused for a moment when I heard loud noises somewhere far off. I turned and ran towards the noise expecting to find my dad piloting his Gundam. I was exactly right and quite thrilled to be able to finally see this in real life. I took safety behind the corner of a building and watched in total fascination. I slowly took steps closer and closer to the action, mostly unconsciously, but when I realized what I was doing, I couldn't make my legs go in any other direction. That's when it happened right in front of me.

NeoWing Zero pulled out this laser beam, at least that's what I remember what I thought it was, and shot fire at a line of enemy mobile suits. It easily cut through each one that was in the way and winked out right when it made it past the mobile suit in it's aim. My eyes nearly popped out of my head; I was more excited right then than I had ever been. But that wasn't all.

Where the shot winked out, a rip seemed to form right in the air itself. Inside I could see what I thought looked like a circus. I was surprised to find myself quite close to the rip and a strange breeze seemed to blow out of the rip and tried to suck me in. As hard as I tried to get out of the current of the breeze, it seemed to grab me and pull me right through the rip. No one even noticed the rip, or me being sucked into it, as darkness hit me.

That's when my world turned upside down, and in more ways than one.

            -End Chapter 2