A/N: Damn, my mind hates me. Lol. Ideas for this are not flowing – I'm forcing them. Yeah, it's bad. I wish I could talk to the characters and tell them to stop letting me do all the work and take the plot into their own hands more often…When that happens, my stories get good. When it doesn't, they're forced. Grr. Darn all you charries involved in this fic…*Glares at them*
Cali: Well that's not nice…it's not our fault you have writer's block!
Me: There is no such thing. *Sticks my tongue out* Besides, you're supposed to help me write this!
Cali: …Oh.
Me: *Eyeroll*
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Chapter 5: Trapped
**Cali/Aria**
Okay. This sucks. I'm trapped in my new life's head. God, does this suck. How do I get out? I can't talk to Jesse or Suze because we're so deep in meditation I have no control over my- her body. Damn this.
"How do we get out of this?" That airhead asked me.
If I knew, do you think we'd still be here?! Yeah, I was being a total bitch to her, but I was scared, okay? This has never happened before. I've never been trapped in my own body in meditation. Jesse, wake me up…I called to him, praying with all my might that he could hear me. Then I thought of something – how was he going to wake me up? He couldn't…Crap. When I'm in light meditation, it's hard to wake me up. Deep in it, it's nearly impossible. Something big would have to happen to wake me. I even had trouble pulling myself out of it. I sighed. Aria, try to open your eyes.
I felt her straining. "I can't. I can't – they won't open!" Wonderful. Now she was starting to get scared. I had to calm down. Both of us scared out of our wits was not going to help. I took some deep breaths, forcing my pulse to slow down. It had been going really fast – if I hadn't slowed it, I would've started hyperventilating. I really hated being dead. I really, really, really hated it. I wasn't even a ghost! I was stuck in this airhead's body…Grrrrrrrrr…
"Would you stop calling me an airhead?"
Would you stop acting like one? Okay, shut up for a while. I have to figure out how to get us out of this, I snapped. God, she was pissing me off…Fuck. I'm so screwed…
**Suze**
"How do we get them out of this?" I asked Jesse. I didn't expect him to know, but I was starting to get a little panicky myself. Cali was a) trapped in someone's body, b) stuck in meditation, and c) stuck with Aria in meditation. I could only imagine how annoyed she was. Aria had been bothering me, and Cali has…had less of a tolerance for airheaded people than I do.
"I don't know, querida. We have to wake them up…or something. They can't just stay that way…Calixte – Cali herself said not to let her pass out," Jesse remembered for, like, the eight-thousandth time.
"Obviously!" I said, exasperated.
"Wait a minute…" He looked struck with an idea. "This meditation is induced by her power, right?" I shrugged and nodded, saying I guessed so. "If she used her power to start it, all I have to do is figure out how to use my power to stop it. That's it – that's our answer! Alright. Now the question is what do I do?"
I bit my lip. "I don't know…Um…Didn't Cali say something about pushing mentally? Try that," I suggested.
**Jesse**
I nodded, and cupped my hands around an invisible ball, intending to try and make a sphere of power. I hoped this would work. I mentally pushed, and immediately felt heat scorching its way through my veins. I yelped, but stopped when I saw a sphere of mint green power forming between my hands. "Nombre de dios," I breathed. This was, as Susannah would say, "freaky."
And then she said it. "Freaky…"
I couldn't help but smile slightly. We were evidently on the same wavelength… "Right." I pulled it back into my hands, and this time it felt icy, not hot. Weird. Of course, Calix-Cali had lived with this her whole life, so it wasn't weird to her. It was definitely weird to me. "How do I do this? Um…"
"'Um' is right. Ah…try putting your fingers to her temples…maybe that'll bring her back," she suggested. "Shock her with energy."
I shrugged and touched two fingers to Cali's – Aria's? Temples and pushed a little energy into my hands, which immediately started to get very hot. I yelped and pulled them away, shaking them. "Maybe I should learn to control the amount of power before I try reviving her?"
"Yeah, that's probably a good plan," Susannah said awkwardly. I suspected she hadn't thought about there being different power levels either. How did Cali remember all these little details? Nombre de dios. I looked at my hand and thought about a sieve, one with tiny holes. My hand glowed mint green, but not nearly as brightly as before. It wasn't as hot as it had been either. I pushed the same amount of power into my left hand and touched Cali/Aria's temples.
~Wake up, Cali,~ I called to her in mindspeak.
**Cali/Aria**
I heard a really faint voice calling my name. It sounded like…Jesse? Had he figured out how to use his powers? Thank god!! Now if only I could figure out how to talk to him…I couldn't mindspeak from inside Aria's head the way I'd been able to when I was awake. Whoa…lightheaded…
"I feel kind of lightheaded," Aria said to me.
I immediately stopped being such a bitch. So do I…this is bad. Ohh shit, this is bad… the process was starting already. We were dying. The lightheadedness was caused by a lack of oxygen. We lacked oxygen because we were too deep in meditation and/or were unconscious. If I'd been in my own body, I'd have been shaking like hell right now. Aria, you have to promise me you won't panic if you figure out what's going on right now – that's the worst thing you can do. Panicking makes the body want to hyperventilate and we can't because we can't get enough air – that'll kill us faster.
"'Kill us faster'?!" she yelled. Damn it…
STOP, Aria! Relax…I said in my most soothing siren voice. How to contact Jesse…? Umm…Okay, brace yourself. I took a deep (mental) breath. JESSE!! I screamed at the top of my lungs, the word tearing from my throat. Ow…~Cali, if you can hear me, move your right arm,~ I heard the faint voice say. Things were starting to spin…No way. I refuse to die again. No fucking way. Aria, move your right arm.
"But I –"
-Just DO it! Okay, I was going to apologize like hell to Aria if we ever got out of this, and if I get my own body back. If I don't, I will be serious pissed. I faintly felt our right arm twitch a little.
**Jesse**
Her right arm moved a little bit. Thank dios! They're still alive! Okay, now all I had to figure out how to do was wake them up…Maybe I could wake up Paul, and Paul could wake…no, that wouldn't work.
"Um…" Susannah was thinking, too. "I don't know what to do, Jesse. I hate not being able to do anything! I hate feeling helpless!" She slammed her fists into the mattress, almost angrier than I'd ever seen her. I wrapped my arms around her and stroked her back, trying to calm her down. She pushed me away. "No time, Jesse! What do we do?"
I recognized this anger as fear, so it didn't bother me. What to do? If I didn't do something, Cali and Aria would die. I had figured it out when I checked her pulse and found it weak. "Well…Calix –Cali can't talk to me through Aria's mind because Aria doesn't have telepathy. Wait a minute…What if Calixte could unlock the area of the brain used for telepathy? She'd be able to talk, wouldn't she?" From reading scientific articles, I had recently discovered that humans use bout ten percent of their brains. Calixte, as an angel, appeared to use all of it – or at least fifty percent of it. She was going to have to unlock that area of the mind, and I'd have to go on the assumption that she could hear me.
"You know, that just might work," Susannah said, in thought.
I nodded "Alright, let me try…" I switched to telepathy, or mindspeak as Calixte called it. ~Calix – Cali, if you can hear me, you have to go into Aria's mind and unlock the part of the human brain that uses telepathy. Once we can talk, you can talk me through pulling you out. When you unlock it, let me know,~ I told her, and crossed my fingers. All I could do now was wait.
**Cali/Aria**
Oh my god. Jesse is a genius. Alright, Aria, did you hear that? I asked her. "Hear what?" Grr… Okay, I have to go into your mind and unlock the part of the human mind that uses telepathy. Humans do only use ten percent of their brains. I'm gonna leave for awhile, alright? Try to stay relaxed, I told her.
"Alright," she said with a mental shrug. She had no idea how dangerous the situation was…We were dying and she was just like "Okay!" I shook my head and raced into her head. This was weird – it was like my conscious mind already stuck in meditation, going even deeper. This was a risk – I had to be fast. When I found her mind, it was a long hall. My first reaction was "OH MY GOD, it's the shadowland…" only there was no mist, and the doors were white. I took a glance inside the doors without opening them, thinking of telepathy. When something caught my mind's eye, I raced towards it. It was the door – I knew it. I tried to turn the knob and found it locked. I shot it with as much power as I thought I could afford. The lock on the door exploded, and I jumped backwards, letting myself fall to the floor as a wave of power washed over me. I raced back to Aria.
~I found it!~ I mindspoke to Jesse.