Disclaimer:I currently have - $0.86 in my bank account. That should be telling you something



Author's note: I thought I'd try an interlude, So that people can get an taste of one of the main characters...her powers are a bit 'odd' so there will be a lot of stream of consciousness when she uses them



Enjoy (

OOOOOOO The room was a blinding shade of white. It was absent of all smells and sounds but not touch...the white room was unbearably hot, she could still feel that, but then again touch is always the last thing to go



She was standing smack in the middle of this white room, although how she knew it was the middle with those white walls that went on forever was a mystery to her



And then suddenly, out of nowhere, the room began to change. Small screens began to pop out from the white walls, floating in the nothingness...these small screens began to show her images...of places and people she had never seen before...there where hundreds of them, thousands, millions, billons.....they were all playing a different program.

She blinked. The longer she stared at the screens, the more she realized that some of them had begun to play the same program. One after another, the scene changed until thousands, millions, billions were are playing the same program...as if it were stuck on a loop



A man...no a young man...handsome, all-American face...blue eyes...clear blue eyes...grinning at her (the face not the eyes but maybe it was the eyes)...behind him everything was burning, destroyed...a city in ruins...but he was smiling...holding his hand out to her and saying...something.

There was no sound.

And suddenly she was in the scene, part of the program...she reached her hand out to him



OOOOOOO

"You know if you're that tired you should just get up and go to bed," Anya jumped as her older brother's smirk entered her vision.

Slowly the world came into focus again. 'The study,' she thought to herself, 'I must have fallen asleep...again.'

She grinned sheepishly at Jordan. "Mom really has to stop buying such comfortable chairs...what does that make it, three, four times I've fallen asleep in here this week?"

"Don't blame the chairs on your poor sleeping habits, it's actually the ninth, and you weren't actually asleep were you?" Jordan's smirk turned sour as he watched his little sister take off her reading glasses to rub her eyes tiredly. "Did you see more....things?"

"Things? Oh yes Jordan, I saw more 'things'," she replied sarcastically. "What a lovely way to describe..."

"Things?" he smartly supplied.

"No you ass, I was going to use 'it'." She heavily lifted herself out of the comfort of the overtly large chair as she gathered the remnants of her homework.

"Isn't 'it' the same thing as 'things'," Jordan frowned as his sister made a bee-line for the door. Before she was out of reach, he grabbed her by her elbow. "Ani...I really think we should talk about this..."

"What's to talk about...'hey Jordan...by the way, I am complete insane and I see things before they happen...just thought you should know in case you haven't noticed'" Anya felt all of her anger slump out of her in a rush all at once, as if admitting out loud that she thought she was insane took some of the weight off her mind.

Jordan eyed her with concern. "Number one, you are not insane. Maybe a bit high strung but not insane. Number two...you have a very special gift...one that I think you have been hiding for too long. This leads me to number three...I don't know why, but this gift is starting to make you sick. Ani, you're not sleeping anymore...not really...and your body is starting to suffer because of it. It's far past time you told Mom."

"Its hard Jordy," she reverted to using her pet name for him in a small child-like voice. "I feel like my mind isn't even mine anymore. It's...suffocating...does that make sense?" She looked up at her brother, not even realizing she had been staring at the floor



How many days had it been since she had last slept normally. Since she couldn't come up with an answer immediately, she knew it had been more like weeks...or months even.

Anya felt her brother ruffle her hair as he sighed. "Look, when Mom gets back, we'll have a nice long chat about all the wackiness that is you but in the meantime will you try to get some sleep? Thinking about this constantly WILL make you crazy. So for now, just get your ass up to bed. I'll be up to tuck you in after I grab something..."

"More 'special tea'?" She gave her brother a wry smile. She often thought her brother would have made a good 'medicine' salesman back in the old west, the way he thought alcohol was a cure-all



"What...not interested in tea? Find, I'll just grab a bottle...ordinarily I would peruse Mom's 'stash' but after the last party...she locked up her stuff pretty good."

"Well what did you expect, handing out the Zanex samples she gets from the pharmaceutical company is not particularly bright not to mention highly illegal." Anya massaged her brow in the attempts at hiding a smile at the memory of her brother's antics.

"Ah my lovely sister the moralist. Won't even use her powers for the benefit of her own darling brother," he began to lead his sister out of the door by the shoulders.

"Jordan, I am not giving you lottery numbers. Doesn't this family have enough money?"

He shook his head. "Ani, I love you to death. You're so simple."

Ani broke free from her brother's grasp to swat him. "You're such a goon."

Jordan's laughter could be heard down the hall. "Now I really know you need sleep. If the only insult you can throw at me is 'goon'..."

"Find how does 'narcissistic prick' sound?" She yelled down the hallway before he was able to round the corner.

"A bit dated, actually."

She resisted the urge to run after him to wipe the smirk off his face, but fatigue had finally taken its toll. As Anya made her way up the grand staircase and down the hall to her room, she wondered how much longer it would be before it became too much of an effort to banter like this with him. As she lay down onto her plush bed, tears of frustration began to well up in her eyes. She was very close to losing it and mentally she did agree with her brother that she did need help. But how and in what help that form that help would make itself known, she did not know.

'I just want to be normal again'

By the time Jordan came upstairs, she was already fast asleep.

OOOOOOO

And thus ends the interlude...r/r please....