Hey – I'm supper sorry that my computer has been in the shop. It still is actually. I'm using my mother's at the moment. So let's see if I can get back into this story, and finish it. Also – for anyone who read the necklace. I should be getting a sequel to it up soon, but I promise you it will come. Ok, on with the story.

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Previously on the shifter:

I lay down, and Paul came down beside me. "Give me your hand." He took a hold of my hand, and started to feel a little panicky. "Close your eyes and relax." I did as he said, and then I started to feel really light. "Open you eyes" I opened my eyes to find myself looking directly at Paul. He had a slight smile on his face, as if he had just accomplished something great.

"Look around you. This is the shadow land."

Chapter 5:

I noticed how cold it was up here, before anything else. I looked down to see that my feet were buried under a thick layer of fog. After I looked up, expecting to see a ceiling, I was shocked to see millions of stars. I don't know what stunned me more; the fact that it was in the middle of the day, or the fact that these stars were completely foreign to me. They definitely were not the stars that I see when looking up at them at night.

"This is the shadow land?" I asked Paul, who had wrapped his arms around me when he saw that I was shivering. "Yes, it's the first place that you go after you die, unless of course you are one of those few who have some unfinished business to take care of."

Right after he said this, a guy in a full out gladiator wardrobe appeared in front of us. "She doesn't belong here." He said talking to Paul as if forgetting that I was right in front if him.

"Don't worry, she's one of us." Paul said, than turned back to me. "Than you meet this guy who will tell you which one of the thousands of doors to choose form." It was then that I noticed that the corridor was lined with doors. Thousands of them beyond the eyes could see. "Each door apparently leads to every ones after life. Each person goes through a different door or something like. This is the guy that is in charge of all of that."

Paul waved his hand to dismiss the gladiator "you can go now. Don't worry." I watched as the guy nodded and dematerialized.

"What's his name?" I asked noticing that Paul had left that little bit of information out.

"I don't know" he said, "he would never tell me his name. That's why I'm always so short with him."

I stepped out of Paul's arms and towards the nearest door. "What's behind these doors?"

Before I could even finish my sentence, Paul had grabbed my hand and pulled me a way form the mysterious doors with a fierce tug.

"You are to never" he said, his face more serious than I had ever seen it before. "Open that door till it is your time. If you do you'll never be able to return. It is one of the only rules up here. That and don't head towards the light."

"Are you serious?" I said recalling that oh so famous line in the exorcist. 'Head towards the light.' A small smile emerged on Paul's lips, just lightly enough for some of the graveness to melt away. "Just seeing if you've seen the movie."

"Who hasn't?"

"Good point. We better be getting back to our bodies. We don't want anyone finding them and think that something is wrong. Plus this place gives me the creeps."

I had to agree with him there. This place got extremely eerie after the first few minutes of shock. Plus the fact that the hallways reminded me of a child hood night-mare that I hadn't thought of for years.

I was holding my mother's hand in my right hand and my father's in my left. We were walking through a park, and it started raining, so mom and dad raced me into this big old brick building with tons of doors, I turned around to reach for my mommy, but she was gone. When I turned around to ask dad where mommy was, he too was gone. I went racing through the hallways screaming for my mommy and daddy, but no one would answer me. I would check all of the doors, but none would open for me. Finally, mom stepped out of a door, crying. She walked up to me, and picked me up repeating the words, 'I'm so sorry, honey.' I asked her where daddy was, noticing his absence. And she would always reply. 'He's gone.'

I had that dream about 8 times the month before my dad died. It's almost like I was seeing the future. My dad went on a walk, never to return, just like in the dream. Funny how things work, don't you think?"

"So take us back." I said, walking back into Paul's arms.

"I was actually thinking that maybe you should take us back."

"What? But I can't do that, I don't know how!" I said, getting more nervous than before. Who knows where we would end up, if I tried to shift us out of here.

"Suze, that's why I'm here, to teach you how to do these things. You are a Shifter, Suze. This is one of the gifts that you were given. Now all you have to do is learn how to use it, along with all of your other abilities."

This is crazy, absolutely crazy. Why in the world does Paul think that I'm a shifter? I'm only a mediator.

"Suze, relax. You're here. Aren't you? You're a Shifter, I promise you."

"How... it's like you were just reading my thoughts."

"One of the powers, you'll learn too. Right now, let's just focus on getting out of here. Just relax and picture the surroundings that we were in before we shifted here. Picture the ocean, and the shore. Picture my body and your body lying right next to each other, you'll do fine."

My head started shacking a no; I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it. "I can't" it came out a whisper. I was afraid to admit, but at least I did. Paul tilted my head up so that I was looking straight into his beautiful reddish brown eyes that reminded me of a mahogany table that my mom used to have before we moved out here to California.

"You can do anything you set your mind to do." He said next thing I know, Paul's lips are on mine. He was kissing me. My first kiss ever was with the hottest guy I had ever seen.

"Now take us back." Paul said, breaking the connection, with a look of longing on his face. "This place gets freakier by the second."

With a little more encouragement I closed my eyes and pictured the beach we were just at. At first I thought that it wasn't working, but then I noticed that I was hearing something other than silence: the waves of the ocean crashing upon the shore. I felt a firm hand entwined with mine and glanced over to see Paul lying next to me. We were indeed back on the beach.

As if sensing my movement, Paul's grip got a little tighter, and he said with a guilty tone in his voice. "I forgot to tell you about the headaches, sorry." Just as I was about to say what headaches, a splitting pain shot through my head.

"I'm guessing you're talking about that headache."

"It comes after every time that you shift, I always forget about it though. Suze, I'm so sorry that I forgot to tell you."

"I've been through worse."

"I have some Advil in the car, but from past experience, getting up right after shifting just makes it worse."

"Fair enough." I said, and moved just a slight so I could rest my head on top of Paul's shoulder. I was a little nervous at first that Paul would think I was a freak and reject me or something, but when Paul wrapped his arm around me, pulling me closer, all doubt melted away.

"You'll never look like a freak to me." Paul said and then kissed the top of my forehead as I closed my eyes to try to rid the pain in my head.

Something was tickling my feet. I looked up to see a big black dog hovering over us. I heard someone give a loud whistle. The dog's owner I'm guessing since the dog went running off. It took me a minuet to realize that I had dozed off at the beach. At least Paul was still there. I could feel that his arm was still around me. How long had I been asleep for? My head wasn't hurting anywhere near as bad as it was before I fell asleep.

"Paul." I looked up to his face to see that he was in fact sleeping. Knowing that we had been here longer than intended, I lightly shook his shoulders.

"Paul. Wake up."

"uh, sorry, I guess I dozed off."

"it's okay, I did too. Do you know what time it is?" I watched him pull out a cell phone from his pocket. And look at it. "it's almost two, we've been asleep for about 2 hours. What time did you need to be home by?"

"about six or so to be home for dinner"

"how about we go get some Advil and a hamburger for lunch, than I'll take you home. I have to get some things done before school starts tomorrow."

"deal" I said as Paul got up and pulled me with him. We walked back to his car talking about how we were both anxious about school the next day.

"well, at least it wont be too lonely knowing that you're somewhere in the school."

"hey if we're lucky, we'll have a class together."

"you still got that headache?" Paul asked as he opened up the passenger door for me to get in.

"yeah, but it's no where near as bad as it used to be." He started laughing, and shut my door, making sure not to shut any body parts in with it. Which, I'll assure you hurts like heck. I watched Paul as he stopped to get something out of the trunk of his car. When he slid back into the driver's seat, he handed me a bottle of water and two pills. "take these, it'll help."

"it won't kill me will, or get me high or anything, will it?" I said a little skeptical. Paul snorted and looked at me like I had lost it.

"you've lived in New York for too long. And unless the Advil Company decided to add some new, unknown ingredient, it's perfectly fine."

He started the car and headed back towards town. "you did a good job up there, Suze."

"How long have you been going up there?" I had realized that he hadn't told me much about his Shifter history.

"A couple of years."

"how did you find out about it?" I asked, trying to get more information out of him.

"I had found a couple of articles about the subject, so with some more research; I learned what I know now. Though there is still a lot to learn." He glanced over at me with an intense gaze. "Suze, will you let me teach you what I know about being a shifter?"

I knew that this was a giant proposal, but the longing that I had in me to find out everything about Shifters and Mediators answered his question for me.

"yes."

"Glad to hear that. Now let's go get something to eat." I looked up to see that we were in front of another restaurant. Paul was getting out of the car and headed my way to open up the door for me. We walked into the restaurant, hand in hand. After we finished eating, Paul brought me back to my house. I walked up stairs happy to find my room empty, and just relaxed, thinking about everything that had happened today with Paul. At dinner, I was bombarded with questions about how I liked California, about Paul, and about how I was feeling about school this morning. I thought that it was going to be no big deal, just another day at school, even though it was in a new school on the other side of the continent. But I never really knew how I was feeling till I woke up the next morning.

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Ok, so I'm finally updating. My computer is still in the shop – borrowing one again, so I don't know when I'll update again, but I'll try to ASAP. As for now. Reviews would be greatly appreciated. If you have any ideas, tell me. I might just use them. Though I have an ending for this, and it's staying that way. so, yeah, review people. - Sky