I'm cold.

*******************************************************************************

"You're a what?" he called after her. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I'm a reincarnated soul. Or totally crazy, depending on how you want to see it." She sat down on the couch and rested her forehead on the base of her palms. "I remember my past life. In excruciating detail. Said life where I was not a plant, had a family, and died a horrible death after a long and not terribly well-lived existence.

"Sometimes I wonder if this planet is supposed to be heaven or hell for me," she muttered. In a normal tone she continued, "But it's just another life for me."

"Say that again," he asked, sitting beside her. "I'm not sure I heard you right."

"I lived. I died. I came here to start the cycle again." She sat back in the couch and rested her head against the wall, closing her eyes.

"That's… crazy."

"Yeah, that's the other option."

"But… I mean, how?"

"A being that span dimensions brought me here, chucked me in Knives' ship, then sat back to watch the fun times that ensued."

"A what?"

"I called her Dream Dancer. Isn't that trite? When I was… dying…the only thing that kept me from breaking was my hope that after that life I might find a place where my dreams could come true. I believed in her with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind. Everything. And when I died, she collected my soul, told me that she loved me, and then said that my dreams lay here. Lying bitch," she said without heat.

"Your dreams?"

"Silly things. Love. Peace. Nothing I've found yet. I was supposed to fall in love with the first person I saw. That was Knives." She snorted. "And peace? What part of peace has you and Effie and Mr. Herman in it? I'm tired of fighting, but that's the only thing I do. The only thing I know how to do, I guess." She tried to keep her tone light, but her feelings betrayed her, twisting what she said from a joke into how she truly felt.

"That's… impossible."

"Then explain to me how I know what rain smells like. It doesn't rain here. Tell me how I know what a forest feels like, an old forest, filled with trees hundreds of years old. Tell me how I know what the ocean tastes like, the feel of brine in a cut, the sharp sting of water against your skin. Tell me how I know these things, if my last life wasn't real.

"Tell me why I'm so messed up in this one if I didn't live my last one. Tell me that."

"I… you want me to believe that not only are you a plant, you're not even a normal one of those?"

"What's normal, Mark?" she asked, lifting her head and looking him in the eye. "I'm just me. That's all I know how to be."

"This is insane. Or you are." He stood and began to pace the room. "Another life? You?" he asked turning his head to shoot her an incredulous look before he returned to looking at his feet as he paced. "The woman with the least life in the lab? The most boring person around, the colorless mouse. You know that's what they call you; not all of them are kind enough to say it behind your back. You. A full life? And died? How did you die?"

"Torture."

He stopped pacing and shot her a startled look. "Torture?"

"Yes. Death by torture."

"That's what you meant, when you said that you had recently undergone a course in torture, back then, wasn't it?"

She shrugged. "Yeah. It was. I thought it sounded better if I seemed to have been being trained in the finer use of the art and not been shown."

"Tortured. To death. Did you deserve it?"

"They thought so."

"Did you?"

She didn't answer.

He walked over and put his hands on her shoulders. "Tell me. Do you think you deserved to be tortured to death?"

She didn't meet his eyes. "Yes," she whispered.

"Damn." He pushed back and resumed his pacing, repeating the word with each step he took. "What did you do?"

"I killed people."

"Well, at least you've stayed in character in this life."

Her eyes flashed angrily, but she kept her mouth shut. The anger died away almost as swiftly as it arose, to be replaced with a dull apathy. She knew what it was like to not have a soul. It felt a lot like this.

"How many?"

"How many what?" she repeated dully, her mind having shut itself out of the conversation already.

"How many people did you kill?"

"Ten thousand," she barked out, the direct question sparking the anger again. "All up close and personal. Each died close enough for me to see the life drain out of their eyes." Then the tinder for the spark of feeling guttered and died, and she returned to feeling listless.

"My… god…." He fell silent and turned to face the far wall, mind racing as he tried to comprehend death on that scale.

"I thought I was doing the right thing. Then I found I had been wrong. Feel free to hate me," she said diffidently as she stood up from the couch. "I need to get back to work."