Aloha loving readers: Hmm, I like this chapter—it was pretty fun. From this point forward all the fun stuff comes in :) Anyway, after 3 chapters, I decided to respond to some of your reviews before I set you guys loose on this chapter!

Draguna: Thank you for your reviews and you're welcome for the mention. I have indirectly pulled out some concepts from the chapter you wrote, including her working with kids, though in a different way, and how she pours her heart out to an individual.

Aquasage and Thomas Drovin: Usually I don't reply to two people at once like this, but you guys pulled out very similar things in your reviews. Honestly, I really didn't intend for Toshi to be the android 17 type—forgive me if I've been that misleading. Toshi indeed meant to be considerate towards her, and although yes he has a large crush on her, he's not someone that's feeding off her anguish to get what he wants. He's trying, but he might not come across right, which is what I mean. Thomas, that's okay you didn't say anything in the last chapters of the first story—I understand! As long as you got to read the ending, that's all that matters to me. And Aquasage, I did finish the book thanks to sparknotes (never did read a whole page of the actual novel), although today it was due and he didn't even bring it up. I was a little displeased, but I'm free from it nonetheless.

Black Mors: I honestly didn't think I'd be able to write a sequel—I was like you; I kept losing out on creating different scenarios, which disappointed me because I wanted to further the story (it was so much fun before!) I will tell everyone the basics on how it came to be at the end of chapter 5. I agree on having it interesting on seeing Layrial's feelings—for some reason I get a kick out of tormenting the poor girl. And thank you for the suggestion! It is actually structurally correct to break extremely long quotations like I did, but I forgot about how it'd appear on FFnet; on MS Word it looks fine. I usually don't do such a thing unless the speaker is really going on about something. I'll try to keep the way the website creates it in mind in the future.

Reindeer Sausage and SuperSanne: A huge thanks for your returning support and the reviews. They are greatly appreciated.

Chapter 4: The Monster in My Dreams

I wasn't mad at Toshi…in fact, what he had said had actually made me think about a lot of things that night. I wondered if that's exactly what had happened to me—had it all been because I had unknowingly wanted some guy to have a way to sweep me off my feet, no matter what the circumstances and outcome could have been? It was hard to compare my life now to what Toshi's response to what had happened so long ago. I couldn't justify it and I didn't want to fight an inner battle with myself.

Instead I went to bed and got up the next morning to start the day with the normal routine once again. It felt no different than any other day and I would make sure it would go on as I expected it to—I wouldn't let any thoughts of the previous day or the past interfere with how I wanted to live my life.

Toshi had been getting a cup of coffee in the teacher's lounge when I arrived. He nodded a greeting as he took a large sip; he leaned against the counter and watched me put my lunch away.

"How are you?" I asked to break up the uncomfortable silence.

"The question is how you are?" he asked.

"Fine," I replied truthfully. "Why?"

"Well, I'm a bit worried about you, Layrial," he admitted. "I was thinking about it last night—that Cell guy really left his mark on you. I mean, it's been eight years and you're still thinking about him."

"Not so much about him," I said, "but rather the thought that I had lived through such a thing. Honestly it wasn't until the last day or two of my time out there that I realized he had grown on me. Before that it was pure misery and I hated every moment I had to put up with him. I remember even begging him just to kill me so it could be over and done with it."

"Then why not remember that that's how it had been and that you probably weren't thinking straight by the end of it?"

I knew where he was going with this. I simply nodded and pretended to look through my bag of books and papers. I had neglected to tell him that I had been released by Cell and he had brought me to a hospital because I passed out soon after I started my journey home; that meant I also hadn't told him that it was my own fault that I was at the tournament…I had chosen to go back.

"Layrial, all I'm saying is that you need to forget about him and that tournament," Toshi stated. "I mean, I'd ask you out again, but I'm afraid you'd bite my head off because you think I'm telling you this."

I waited for my temper to cool off after he said I needed to forget about it. But I couldn't let that slide completely. "Don't you think I tried to forget it? Every time it had pretty much disappeared something had come up, whether it'd be a news story on Hercule where he mentioned his oh-so-big success, someone stopping me and asking if they knew me not because I had been a reporter, but because I had been 'the reporter kidnapped by Cell.' It gets tiring, Toshi…and it makes me think too much."

"I'm sorry," he said with a big sigh. "I shouldn't have brought it up again. I should've just stuck with my original plan to ask you to have dinner with me tonight."

I wanted to bang my head against the wall. Toshi was a great guy, honestly he was, and I knew he really meant well and was trying to help me…but his other purpose was to ask me out. I know it wasn't for him to just have a "good time" with me or anything, but sometimes I felt as if I was trying to make a rock float.

"Not tonight," was my answer. "I don't feel like doing anything right now."

I had to thank the clock because my eyes caught site of the time and I realized I was now behind my schedule—I had only two more papers to get through and I could hand them back to the kids.

"Look, I'll talk to you later, okay?" Regrettably I didn't give him much of a chance to reply because I hurried out of the room to avoid anything else that he could possibly say or ask.

-.-.-.-.-

My students were taking a test when the vice principal knocked on my classroom door and waved me over. All eyes were on me as I made my way over and quietly opened the door; I knew ears were straining to hear what was being said, so I stepped out and softly shut the door behind me.

Mr. Teo looked concerned, if not a little nervous and displaced. He saw the questioning look in my eyes and let out a big sigh. "Layrial, we're dismissing the students in about ten minutes."

I stared at him with disbelief and tried to quickly think of an explanation before I had to ask, "What's going on?"

Mr. Teo placed his thin hands on his hips beneath his suit jacket. I thought the man was going to pass out. "There's something major going on in Eastern City, and its spreading over the whole country. I just got a report from the town hall and they want everyone sent home."

"What are you talking about? Are we being attacked or something?"

Teo looked down at his feet and waited for a student coming out of the lavatory to pass by and turn the corner. "I don't know—it's something like that, but they don't know what organization is behind it. We turned on the radio in the office and they were saying something about tanks and armies—ancient and more recent—just appearing in the city streets. It's a total mess out there."

My heart was pounding. What the hell could possibly be going on out there? All I knew is that I wanted to be in a safe place, but to me sending people home wasn't the right move. If I had my choice I'd stay here instead of going outside where people were possibly and most likely getting hurt.

"Just tell your students to pack up there things, okay?" He said and quickly hurried off to the next room.

I stood there alone for a moment completely unsure as to what to do with myself. How the hell was I supposed to gently break such news to a bunch of teenagers? And what was I supposed to say when they started asking me questions?

I returned to the classroom and folded my hands in front of me. "You guys can stop with the test and start packing your things up, please. You're being sent home early." Okay, so it wasn't the smoothest way of telling them; and as I suspected, inquisitive expressions glared in my direction and a few hands jumped into the air.

"Why? What's wrong?" The girl who sat front and center asked rather loudly.

I pretended my eardrums hadn't heard the volume correctly and I sat on the edge of my desk. "Mr. Teo said that there's something going out within the city and we're to all go home under the orders of the police. I just ask you guys to please do it in an orderly fashion…you can leave your tests on my desk on your way out."

They did as I asked and the papers piled up. I frowned when I thought of the fact that they had seen the test and knew what to go home and look up. I had about twenty-four hours to make the decision on weather to create a new test and make them start over or be a nice teacher and let them continue what they already had done.

After the last student hurried out I too began to pack up my things. I decided that if there was such an emergency I should get home as soon as I could; therefore I didn't make my normal stop to the teacher's lounge to pick up my lunch bag—it could stay there until tomorrow. I stepped out into an extremely crowded and slow moving hallway, students and teachers filing out the front doors to get to their cars or start walking home. There were no school buses since the district was so small, therefore I knew that all the kids were out to defend themselves on whatever phenomenon was striking us this time.

As I finally made it through the door I heard my name being shouted over the crowed of heads still making their way through the exit. "Layrial, wait up!" I turned and saw Toshi squeezing his way through the bodies of students and jogging over to me. "I don't think you should try driving home."

"Why not?" I asked a little shocked. "I can't walk that distance!"

"No, I mean you can stick this out in my place if you want," he replied. He then pointed to the road. "Look, there's no way you'll ever get home in one piece in a timely fashion. Just leave your car here—it's only a two mile walk to my house."

I stood there staring at the traffic jam on the opposite side of the school yard fence. Horns were honking, people were leaning out their windows to yell at the people further up, and others were abandoning their vehicles to continue on foot. It would be a disaster trying to get home and I knew that…and at this point I didn't care where I went as long as I was indoors.

"Alright," I told him and he nodded. I followed him across the jammed intersection and up the next slightly-inclining road. We passed two cars that apparently smashed into each other and the drivers were on the sidewalk screaming at each other. It was pure chaos all around.

What I saw next, though, scared me beyond death. Three individuals—their gender undeterminable—were approaching us. Their skin was practically purple, their hair was dry and large patches were missing on their scalps, and more disturbing is that two of the three were missing an eye. They hobbled towards Toshi and I, their hands outstretched and there mouths opened to emit a drawling moan.

"Oh my dear God," I said as I quickly stopped and held on tightly to my purse. "Those look like…"

"Zombies," Toshi finished for me. "We'll go the other way. It's longer, but to me it's already safer."

We turned on our heels and started going back down the street to attempt a different route. As we turned the corner in front of the school, however, we hit the mass of people that were running from something, my guess being more Zombies. I stopped against the light post and watched as the swarm of people, young and old, crowed around us, climbing over cars and some even crawling under them.

"What the Hell is…" Toshi started, but suddenly he went white as a ghost. I turned to where he was staring and I felt my heart stop beating for a short moment. At least a hundred men on horseback were riding up the sidewalk and paved street, flags raised, shields out and swords swinging. Those not picking the right direction to run were being chased down and slaughtered as the horsemen galloped by.

"C'mon!" I yelled to Toshi. We ran side-by-side back up the street from where we had just come, the three Zombies now making their way along the center of the road. I paid them no attention as we continued to the top and turned the next corner. Then we hit another crowd of people running out of an office building.

"Stay with me, Layrial," Toshi said as he grabbed my hand. We followed along with the rest of the mob, but from over my shoulder I caught side of a dozen or more samurai dashing towards us.

I wasn't the only one who saw this, either. A few of the woman next to me jumped and screamed, one of them bumping into me hard enough where I nearly lost my balance and definitely lost hold of Toshi's hand. He turned and called for me, but I was pushed back and out of the crowd. I couldn't see where he was going anymore amongst the other heads and I quickly found myself in plain view of the samurais' path.

I made for the opposite direction the others were going, thinking if I was lucky and sneaky enough I could head back into the office building and take refuge under a desk if need be. When I heard the clopping of hooves behind me, I knew I was gravely mistaken and very foolish for thinking I was safer that way.

I ran as fast I could possibly go and finally turned down another street. I wanted to stop and catch my breath, but I knew if I did even for a split second it'd be over before I could face my assassins. The only thing, I figured, from them catching up was the fact that their horses had a great many obstacles to dash around (mainly cars) and that gave me the advantage because I was smaller. As I faltered in my steps, nearly falling straight forward, I looked ahead to see a pile-up of cars blocking the whole road. I figured their drivers had been amongst the crowd I had just been caught in, but whether they were or not I was trapped. I had a chance to climb over one of them, but if those horses could jump as well as they chased, I was most certainly doomed.

I tried though—I tried my damnedest not to slip on the smooth surface of the Honda's hood I was crawling over. I threw myself to the ground, but before I could gain my footing I heard the yells of the men on the horses. I looked up in time to see the first horse making a gigantic leap over the car next to where I sat and the only thing I could do was cover my head and hope to the Heavens that he wouldn't notice I was crouched next to a wheel.

Then, to my surprise, I heard a loud bang, several yells, and then what sounded like crashing armor. The smell of something burning and the shadow that suddenly loomed over me caught my curiosity enough where I chanced a peak. I looked up to see a dark gray cloud billowing over itself above my head, but no longer did I see or hear the samurai.

I stood up slowly and looked around; they were gone. There was no one in site, and that gave my nerves an extremely eerie feeling. I adjusted my purse over my shoulder and started to crawl back over the car….

That's when I heard something I never thought I'd ever hear again. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but after what I had just run from, I didn't put anything past fate. I waited to see if I heard it again, and when I didn't I was forced to check. When I turned, I saw the form of someone standing in front of the sun, creating a shadow in front of them that my eyes couldn't see past.

"Well, well," an elegant voice said. "Imagine meeting you here."