It's quite amazing, how the human mind works. It can retain information on how cell transport works yet aid in forgetting where you put your car keys. It's also quite amazing how vague memories of incidents can somehow stealthily creep into your subconscious. It could be compared to how food dye diffused throughout a glass of water.

Emma tossed and turned in her sleep as these memories crept through her subconscious and lit up her dreams. She was stuck in a realistic dreamland that took place on the corner of subconscious and conscious. All of these vivid flashbacks made a rather addled Emma feel as though everything that was taking place in her deep slumber was real. Well, yes, it was real, but it felt as though everything was happening allover again. It was as if she had watched a movie over and over again.

"So, why are you here, Nelson," a masculine blonde figure asked as Emma and him sat in neighboring lawn chairs. It was Emma's sophomore year at Degrassi and somehow JT had convinced her to come to the "most happening party" of the year with him. Unfortunately, the girl that JT had his eyes on was there and with Emma's consent, he had trotted off to talk to her. At that point, Emma was ready and raring to go home. Of course, she was then reminded about how the only reason she went to the party was to get away from her crumbling household.

"Please, don't refer to me by my last name," Emma rolled her eyes while daintily playing with a strand of limp blonde hair.

"Fine, fine," he growled. "Why are you here, Emma?"

"I have no clue why you're suddenly interested in why I'm here. I never really thought it had any effect on you," Emma stated somewhat callously while lying back in the lawn chair, a bit too much. She soon learned the durability of the chair and how far to lean back in it when it flipped over with her in it. This caused her male companion to let out a hearty chuckle before glancing over the side of his chair.

"Are you okay," He questioned while making a feeble attempt to stop laughing as Emma tried to get up. "I don't think your chair likes you that much. Like I was saying, what brings you here? Don't you have that environmental marathon thing to be studying for?"

"That would be next week," Emma informed him. "But yeah, I'm here because JT practically begged me to go with him."

"Really," the blonde raised an eyebrow. "So, you got the hots for him? Wait, wait, wait, he has the hots for you?"

"No," Emma pointed out. "He actually ditched me with my permission for that Hillary Jones girl from Arizona."

"Smart man," he nodded while running a hand through his messy blonde hair as he slid down from the tacky avocado green lawn chair next to Emma, who was sitting Indian style on the dewy grass. "Every guy who likes chicks likes Hillary."

His last statement made Emma feel slightly inadequate at the moment, but she quickly brushed it off. Plus, she couldn't go home and sulk about it, since it was too loud in her house for her to sulk.

"Thanks for that confidence boost," Emma chimed sadly. "God, it seems as though all guys want is a girl who is deemed attractive. Has the concept by the name of 'personality' been discovered by you yet?"

"Are you like...PMSing or something," He asked curiously. "You take things way too seriously, more than usual. Do you have a stick wedged up your ass or something?"

At this point, Emma felt like brutally murdering this complete idiot. Her blood was boiling throughout her veins and ready to melt the polar ice caps and drown the world. The fact that he had even approached her was simply beyond her.

"Why are you here," Emma narrowed her eyes at him. She was filled to the brim with annoyance at this point. "Don't you have that girlfriend of yours around here somewhere?"

He looked at her with a dumbfounded expression and shook his head, "She's sick right now, it's not fun when she's sick. Yeah, I'm here hanging with friends. Such an exciting life I lead, I know."

"I barely know what an exciting life would be," Emma muttered under her breath while twisting a piece of blonde hair around her finger. Her companion stared at her for a minute, as this look of anxiousness washed over her. The twirling of her hair became faster and faster.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," He chimed while practically tearing her arm off by getting her hand away from her hair. "You know, you're going to pull a clump of hair out, scream, and possibly kill me in the process." As he held her hand so she wouldn't feel the need to go into her nervous habit again, there was some kind of peculiar feeling that diffused through him. "Is…something wrong?"

"No shit, Sherlock," Emma replied acrimoniously without looking him in the eye. The blonde boy glanced over at her with a look of concern in his eyes. Even though he wasn't particularly fond of the girl and her controlling tendencies on how everything had to be absolutely perfect, he still was a human who had a single shred of sympathy. However, this sympathy could be compared to a single crumb that broke loose from a cracker. Out of all the sympathy he could possibly give her, he was giving her only a crumb of the cracker.

At least it was something.

"Oh, that probably sucks," was all he could possibly offer the lanky blonde girl next to him. "I mean, my parents fight sometimes and that sucks. My girlfriend is a bitch to me at times and that sucks. Things just kind of…suck sometimes."

Emma rolled her eyes while sending him a vicious glare that could kill a person if they were to look directly in her flaming eyes. He got rather scared about how her eyes were completely pulling at his heart and making him feel actual sympathy for Emma. Though she had the tendency to be a complete anal retentive bitch at times, there was something that just tugged at his heart.

"Oh boo fucking hoo," She snapped while her words dripped in acid that would burn the thickest skinned person. "You honestly think that you have it worse off than me?! Let me give you a reality check. There are people worse off than the both of us! There are people starving in third world countries and you go off and complain when you don't have any damn cheese doodles in the house! I very well know you're type, you take everything for granted! You can't even appreciate what you have. And for that, you are a pathetic materialistic bastard."

The blonde guy looked at Emma with a completely deadpanned expression on his face. How dare her, seriously! He did appreciate things! And she was just some psycho wench who he had to stop feeling sympathy for before he wanted to jump off a cliff. It seemed as though Emma was playing some kind of sick mind game with him; tricking him into actually handing her a speck of compassion for free. He just couldn't believe her complete audacity. But for some twisted reason, it was kind of…refreshing. Okay, what the hell was going on?

"At least I'm not tricking people into giving me sympathetic bullshit all the time," He retorted though his voice lacked the conviction of an actual hate filled comment that one would serve on a poison covered platter. "Yeah, I know shit has been tough for you lately. I know that with Mr. Simpson dying and Chris moving that you've been kind of down lately. I know. But you don't have to be such a drama queen about it. Seriously, it gets so annoying after a while. Yeah, we feel bad for you. But then we start to feel bad about us feeling bad for you."

That stung Emma, it really did. It was a harsh twist of reality and Emma absolutely hated it. Even though she had felt immense pain, she had made it worse. With each tale she wove, she amplified the details so that people would give more sympathy. As the story got worse and worse, her need for sympathy just went off of the charts. It was a horrid habit that she couldn't just stop at the drop of a hat. The oxygen rich sympathy was needed for her to be able to function properly. Without it, depression and pity would be the cause of her untimely demise as they sucked every sign of life away from her and into the sea of emptiness.

"Oh yeah, it's just so hard for you," Emma snapped before wrenching her hand loose from his slight grip. "Do you know how many people would want to be in your shoes? Do you?!"

He scoffed and looked at the blonde as if her question was the most idiotic in the world. "You know, I bet more people want to be Brad Pitt rather than yours truly. You'd be an idiot if you didn't think I was in demand, you know? But I don't go around with a sign on my ass saying that I'm the greatest." He couldn't help but crack a slight smirk as techno music flowed out of the expensive plastic stereos inside the house which was about one hundred and fifty feet away from where they were. "Are you suggesting I do so? If you are, just give me ten bucks and I'd be glad to, Nelson. Does it have to be all prissy and glittery? I'm just not down with that, seriously. Then we're looking at twenty dollars, at least."

She couldn't help but casting him a glare that suggest he was an idiot, and if it were completely wrong to consider anything other than what she thought. Emma was quite like that. Once she got an opinion, she tried to force it on others. If you didn't agree with her, then you'd be subjected to a rousing and aggravating around of mudslinging and debating with the determined blonde.

"You're such an egomaniac," She snorted before flipping a chunk of blonde hair over her shoulder. It was almost as if a single hair flip cast his completely inane comment aside; into the depths of her conscious and never to be remembered again. Except, of course, at some random time where she would have no clue what she was recalling. That would result in her digging to China and never arriving at her destination. "Can't you think of someone other than yourself for a while? Or is your brain too simple to think that hard? Hmm?"

He stared at her with a completely deadpanned expression slowly washing his face. The look on his face made Emma's statement completely legitimate, it seemed. But he was not going to thrown in the towel this early in the game. It was only the sixth round and he wasn't going to go down until he said he was going to. In fact, he was just as pushy as she had the ability of being. As much as they liked to think of themselves as complete polar opposites, they really did share the same qualities. Of course, if you were two mention that to either of them, they'd probably want to end up silencing you in any way possible.

"Why did I even bother coming out here," He asked no one in particular. "I could've just stayed home and heard complaining from the rental units. Thanks, Emma, I really appreciate it. Your insults towards me I could've just stayed home for. I'm an idiot, okay? I get it. I freaking get it. Yet you and every one of my relatives like to throw it in my face that I'm not on the honor roll like my parents were. Thanks, I really appreciate it." The blonde male started to attempt to get up from the lawn chair. His action wasn't fully carried out. This was due to the fact that Emma currently was holding onto his arm and preventing him from moving. Also because her nails were digging into his flesh and probably leaving crimson colored marks on his lightly toned skin.

"I'm sorry," She apologized in an ashamed voice that probably was enough to rattle his mind. Mostly because he had never heard her utter a single apology from her pale and lip balm covered lips in his life. Another befuddled expression fell upon his previously frustrated face. He looked at her with bewildered blue eyes as she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh man," He laughed dryly. "Call the presses! Emma Nelson actually apologized. Holy crap, I'm surprised, as well as a lucky man. Does anyone out here have a video camera?" That was sarcasm, of course, considering that the two blonde figures were the only people in the spacious backyard of Hazel Aden. It was quite a rarity that they were the only ones there. Almost as if some force brought them together to help them realize how much a like they were. This could be some calculated situation that they had both seen in movies that they had been forced to watch against their will. There was most certainly an intolerable cruelty between the two that was apparent. Each party had a reason for shooting daggers at the other and both reasons could be considered perfectly good arguments. However, there was this minute possibility that they could possibly learn a little something from the other. Of course, if you were to relay that information to either of the parties, that whole killing the messenger policy would be reinstated.

Shimmering light from the moon swam through the sky and danced across the chlorine scented water and created a blurry one way mirror for anyone wishing to see their reflection. Emma peered over the side of the lawn chair while her blonde companion resumed his position of sitting in the avocado colored chair right beside her. He glanced over at her, looking at the water. He noticed how she seemed to observe every ripple was formed and how she watched each ripple vanish into the five feet of transparent water. His eyes filled with curiosity as she began tracing imperfections on the arm rest of the chair with her finger out of complete boredom.

"Dude, are you okay? You're spacing out on me here," He stated worriedly yet jokingly at the same time. When she didn't seem to respond, he stuck his hefty hand in front of her face and waved it to try to get a reaction from her. It seemed to work, when she swiftly managed to tear her eyes away from the ripples being formed in the pool and back to him.

When she did look at him, her eyes sent a chill down his spine. They almost seemed to be empty and showed absolutely no emotion. Her pupils resembled a completely black canvas while the brown in her eyes crashed into a million pieces. The bits of brown no longer danced in the light when she was bragging about some accomplishment. There was no subtle hint at what she could possibly be thinking at this point in time. Yet, he never really took the time to ask himself what Emma Nelson was thinking. To do so, could possibly be somewhat dangerous. He could be diving into a tank of sharks. Even though she did tend to make it incredibly obvious about what she was thinking about, there always seemed to be some kind of cryptic meaning behind it. If you could figure out what that was, you unlocked a door to an assortment of thoughts, aspirations, worries, and pains of Emma Nelson. Her mind was a dark and thick Asian rain forest with a multitude of thoughts running to and fro as well as memories either growing or dying there as experiences crept through and caused everything to flourish. That was the desired effect anyway.

"I'm fine," She stated as her voice, much like her eyes, showed absolutely no emotion. "I really am."

He didn't believe an ounce of it. "Are you sure about that," He asked. "You almost seemed as though you kind of…died for a minute there. Maybe that whole apology thing kind of shocked you as much as it shocked me."

Finally, slight irritation started to diffuse through her eyes as the pieces of brown collected and darkened as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Ha, you're such a comedian," She grumbled sarcastically. "Maybe I should take back my apology. It could possibly be wasted on you."

"Do you ever shut up," He asked her with a groan while a slight smirk spread across her face.

"No," She replied simply without any shame. "I don't wish to be quiet, so I won't be. It's simple, really, it is."

"But there is a way to shut you up."

A confused look crept up Emma's face as she wrinkled an eyebrow in confusion. What was he talking about? There was no way for her to be quiet. She had freedom of speech and could talk whenever she pleased.

"Huh," She asked; deadpanned.

A smirk that resembled the one that Emma wore a moment ago was bought by him before he latched his lips onto hers and exchanged it for store credit. He didn't know why he had decided that this would be the best way to silence Emma. There was just some voice in the pit of his stomach that was simply screaming its head off at him to do this. He thought for sure that she would have slapped him for doing such a hideous thing. But instead, the warmth of his lips gave her a secure feeling. Her fingertips ran up the side of his face as they continued to engage in a heated lip lock.

But the engagement was about to be nullified as another blonde figure with long swishy hair came up behind Emma with a rather large hypodermic needle in hand. An angry look was spread across the figures face as it drove the gigantic needle into Emma's back, causing her to fall and fall down into an endless pit.

A demonic voice rang out as Emma continued to descend deeper and deeper into the hole.

"YOU WHORE," it screeched.

Before Emma knew it, she was sitting up and covered in sweat and starchy white sheets. Her heart was nearly going to explode out of her chest with each beat. Sweat dampened her body and blonde hair as her panting flowed into the darkness of the night. The funny thing was she had been having that dream every single night lately. The end would always be altered somehow but everything else…had really happened. All of these flashbacks haunted her so.

Mostly because if she hadn't gone to that stupid party, she probably wouldn't even be here right now.