Disclaimer: same as before, and I don't own The Wizard of Oz or Nancy Drew, either.

Mood Shift, Incoming Anger

Just one question, God:

Why? Why me? Why the bloody hell me?

Yes, technically that was three questions, but who flippin' cared?

If this whole thing was some kind of cosmic joke, I wasn't laughing. Not at all. Get to the punch line already, and get to it now. Yes, okay, sure, I'll admit I was… kinda' bored with my life, back where my life made sense, but that's the point:

It made sense. As screwy and confusing as it was, it made sense. HA! I thought things were confusing before, but I had no idea. Even with everything in my family, with all those still living or known to me (with the exception of my grandmother) being either related by marriage, adoption, or half-blood relations, none of it was like this. I thought keeping track of who was what to me and trying to remember all of their names was tough. Ha, ha ha, ha.

On the confusion scale, this was off the charts. As my dearly departed mother would have said, this "took the cake and ate it, too". Why does the power behind the universe get to have it both ways? Why does it get to laugh at my misery while, at the same time, it's allowed to believe it was doing me some sort of kindness?

I could see the logic in that, too. Making me fear (and not for the first time) and worry about just how hard I'd hit either that tree, or the ground when I fainted, if you want to say I never hit the damn thing to begin with.

The universe may have (in some twisted, sick, demented way) thought it was doing me a favor, adding more adventure to my life, making Jena Tashi slightly less boring… if not also slightly less sane. I'd had my mental breakdowns before, but they never happened with something like this. Before, it was safe to break down. Safe to cuss and curse, rant and rave, about nothing in particular but it sure as shit made me feel better. My friends knew I wasn't serious, that more than half the things I'd say would later be forgotten and regretted, and more than likely (on the very rare occasions they occurred) my friends had been there for what had pissed me off and understood that I do NOT get that way over nothing.

And this wasn't "nothing", and there wasn't anyone else around that had been there; hitting/not hitting the tree, "crash" landing in the cemetery, crying and fainting in front of a guy I'd not only never met, but had told my life story to, and –oh, yeah- I still wasn't sure if I was dead or not, and still not entirely convinced the guy with red hair- called Kurama by the blue haired girl Botan- wasn't an angel.

Or my worst nightmare, but I was hoping against that. I hoped he really was an angel, or at the very least a good guy, who wouldn't use my entirely too vocal temporary lapse of judgment against me. I didn't know the first thing about him, or these friends of his, who damn well might be angels or figments of my imagination, too.

I may have been sitting in a kitchen with three other people who appeared to be genuinely willing to help, who were all sipping on the same hot tea I was, who were all staring at me with different colored eyes, awaiting what I would tell them, what I didn't believe for a moment they would understand or be able to help despite their (supposed) best intentions, but I'd never felt more alone in my life.

God, next time you want to do me any more favors: Don't. I'd really appreciate that.

"So what happened?" One of the guys asked, I didn't notice which one. Granted, their voices were a lot different, but I was too far gone in my own thoughts to care.

And I told them, but not everything, like I had done to Kurama. I told them the barest, most honest facts as I knew them. I told them about running over a fallen branch because I wasn't paying attention, and about the tree and getting my jeans caught in the gears, and finally, how I'd woken up in the cemetery. I didn't tell them why I'd fainted. I let them think about it for themselves, possibly thinking that I'd stood up too fast and blacked out because of that. I didn't remember, but I felt almost sure I hadn't said anything to Kurama about the cemeteries. It was still my one secret. They didn't need to know everything.

As expected, they didn't know what to make of my story. But as unexpected, they didn't… do anything. They sat there, looking at each other, as if sharing the unspoken knowledge that they didn't know what had happened. But not like they thought I was crazy. I could see it; they didn't think I was crazy at all.

So I asked them, "Are you going to have me committed to the asylum now?"

"No," They all said, seeming surprised I had asked.

"Why not?" I asked. "Not to sound ungrateful, but I think I've lost my mind here. And none of you, forgive me if I'm wrong, seem to share my opinion. So, I have to ask, who are you people?"

They all got quiet and looked at each other again.

I wished they'd stop doing that.

Then they opened their mouths again, and tried to tell me they were armature private detectives, working for this crazy agency called "Underworld" as trainees (kinda' like Nancy Drew), they had just gotten off their last assignment when I'd shown up, and they had taken my case. Oh, and they were sorry they didn't really know what to do. But they might be able to talk to their boss, who Yusuke affectionately referred to as "pacifier breath" before he was hit by Botan.

So I sat in the kitchen, staring down at the hot mug of steaming tea as the fumes invaded my nostrils, helping in some strange way to calm down my shaky nerves, and I read the saying on the cup over and over again. It was simple, yet so accurately described the crap I was being force fed by these new "acquaintances". (yeah, it was tea, not food, so they weren't good acquaintances yet, but they were making an attempt to listen to my far-fetched… oh, hell… my ludicrous story. Even if they were figments of my imagination, they were friendly figments. And who says you can't be acquainted with figments of your imagination?)

What it read was this:

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

And baffled I was, though I tried not to show it. I wasn't born yesterday, but I attempted to be patient. After all, they could be my very own illusions and therefore their trying to confuse me out of finding the "truth" could have been my own doing. I could've been trying to keep the fact that I had hit the tree and wound up in a hospital from myself. The human mind is a fascinating thing, and this was a most fascinating defense mechanism if I'd ever heard of one.

Yeah, that was it. That had to be what was happening. I wasn't dead, I was dreaming, sort of. The red head –Kurama – was the emergency room doctor whose name I had glimpsed (or made up, seriously, what kind of a name was "Kurama"? Sounded like something you might name a mountain… but I'm weird, so ignore me) right before I'd lost consciousness.

Two things were wrong with this theory, one: I wasn't that creative. I wouldn't have thought these places up no matter how sever my head trauma might have been; and two: how would my grandparents have found me? They didn't know I took those stupid trails home, for one thing, and for another, they were usually asleep when I got home anyway. Unless my grandpa was gone, but he'd have come back too drunk to care where I was unless I'd left a shirt or something on the floor of my room by mistake. Then he would have trashed my room in a rage then passed out on the couch till morning. Either way, I thought it highly improbable they would have found me. Which left me unconscious by the tree again, with my mangled bike. But I was on a roll, by this point. So I went with it.

Anyway, that was my theory. The doctor had been talking to me, asking questions and shining that annoying pen light in my eyes to check for a concussion. I then was in so much pain and felt so sick that I passed out from the pain in my head, hence the cemetery scene where I fainted.

And because I was confused and in a state of great bewilderment and shock, I turned my doctor into a kid my age and thus created my own imaginary world with one person from my "reality" whom I promptly told just about everything to because he was familiar. Which isn't what happened, and I knew that, but I was rolling with my new theory.

I'd then gone and created three others, one guy, a giant, and a girl with blue hair to protect me from the truth and pain of being in a hospital bed, possibly in a coma.

A tree may be a far cry from a tornado, and a soft orange cat is certainly nothing like a little black dog, Washington may be more than a stones throw away from Kansas, but I felt like I'd just landed myself in Oz. Without my little dog, too.

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore… Toto? Toto?"

Anyway, back to the kitchen.

The hot coffee mug was soothing in my jittery hands that I hadn't been aware where shaking. I stared down at the cup of tea as the steam rose up and continued to assault my nasal passages. I read again the saying written on it with curvy, looped lettering:

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

It really seemed to fit the absurdity of the story my new "friends" were trying to put off on me. It seemed a sever insult to my intelligence.

"Alright, cut the crap," I all but shouted. I was loosing the battle to keep my patience with them fast. I knew my story sounded just as bad, if not worse, but out-of-it as I may have been, I could still tell when these people were lying to me. I had almost thought I'd met some good people in my confused world (made up or not), honest people, truthful people who really believed me and would trust me with their truth; people who wouldn't confuse me with someone who needed to be lied to for their own protection,

Then they went and pulled a stunt like that.

They all three looked at me, Botan stunned, Yusuke with raised eyebrows, and Kuwabara like he'd been struck with a stupid stick.

"Sorry," I said with a sigh. I hadn't wanted to do that to them. "I appreciate that you're trying to help me, really. But I'm not lying, and I… would really be grateful if you would try to… be honest with me, too. I'm sorry, again. But I'm really confused and..."

Oh, great. I was chocking up again. Here come the water works…

"I don't like to be lied to," I lowered my voice to a whisper. I really didn't want to go this far, I was saying too much again, and on a normal day I wouldn't have given two licks if they had lied to me or not. I would have just left and tried to figure out this stupid thing on my own.

I hate being a girl sometimes, we're so emotional.

But I managed not to cry this time, I did.

Barely.

But I'll take what I can get.

They might have planned to say something after that, but no one got the chance.

Just at that moment, something happened –someone happened- to change my perception on reality again. Putting me in the current state of pissed-off I come to you in while writing this.