CHAPTER 2: Shadow Man

A/N: Yo, merry Christmas, people! First new thing actually written in 3 months! I'm still recovering from a severe form of writer's block, in which I have a plot but when I open up MS Word, the words won't come out. So updates in general will still be VERY sporadic, but I'll try my best. I am willing and able to SACRIFICE myself and endure major headaches JUST for you devoted fans! So be sure to give me some Advil or something XD JUST KIDDING, I ain't gonna put that burden on your shoulders, so without further ado, let's get on with the story!

I woke up to bright sunlight streaming through my window in a hazy, golden color at 7:30 AM. The light of the new day filled me with confidence and strength, but it didn't erase the pain of countless days before. I smiled softly, before glancing at Peater, who was still asleep with a peaceful look on his face. For a few seconds, I envied him, wishing that I was always this peaceful inside. Putting my inner struggles aside, I nudged him awake.

"Morning, love." I whispered.

"Morning, Elyssia." he yawned as he stretched and sat up.

"You feeling all right today? Because I know that yesterday was a bit of a . . ." He trailed off as soon as he saw my change in expression. For if I had any hopes of not having a breakdown of some sort today, they were vanquished with those very words.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Perfectly fine." I lied quickly in a tone of voice that was colder than usual.

"Are you sure? Because —"

"Look, do you want to have another fight today?" I snapped, before regaining my bearings.

"Elyssia . . . are you okay?" Peater whispered as he put his arm around me.

"Y . . . no . . . I dunno." I mumbled as my eyes found the floor, too ashamed to meet his.

"Listen — I want you to be happy, Elyssia. To be peaceful. And keeping it all inside ain't gonna help." he whispered.

I didn't answer, for now wasn't the time to cough up my blood.

"Look, I think we should just wipe this slate clean, you know? Let's just pass off this morning as a rough start to the day. All right?" Peater suggested as he hugged me.

"Now let's try again."

After washing up, I returned to my room, only to find that special, silver necklace that Peater gave to me. I picked it up and held it to my heart, letting a single tear roll down my scarred cheek as I remembered the promise he and I had made over a year ago.

"Promise me you'll never get hurt, kidnapped or killed."

Ha. I didn't just break that promise — I shattered it into a million pieces. Sure, I got kidnapped. And oh yeah, let's not forget all those cuts, scrapes and gashes. But the worst form of me breaking this promise was not nearly getting killed. It was getting hurt. Emotionally. Sure, all my wounds on the outside have healed and stuff, but that didn't mean that I wasn't bleeding half to death inside. I promised that I wouldn't get hurt in any way, shape or form. And yet I allowed my past and my inner demons treat me like a punching bag, or a shooting target.

Or a willing victim.

And you wanna know the worst part?

I still am.

I'm still letting my inner demons get the best of me and cut me up inside, and I'm still breaking that promise by allowing that.

And I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to make it stop.

Putting that necklace around my neck helped me feel a bit better. I was confused as to why as I descended the stairs, and I was still pondering it as I silently ate my oatmeal. But as Peater and I were about to exit through the door, our eyes suddenly met, giving me the answer.

There's still hope. There's an answer floating around somewhere out there, and you just gotta find it.

Even the hardest math equations are simplified. Even the toughest rocks are eventually decomposed, eroded away by time and nature itself. And even the worst wounds can heal. Even if it takes forever.

And so, as I grasped Peater's leaf and we headed towards the subway station, I felt a bit more optimistic, a bit happier. No, all my problems weren't gone. But I had taken one step out of what could be hundreds, maybe thousands on my journey to solving them.

Work was rather boring, as was the case lately. Yes, even peacetime jobs get boring after a while, especially if you're doing pretty much the same thing over and over and over.

"Hey, Elyssia?"

Someone tapped my shoulder as I typed away at a report. Now, normally, I don't like being disturbed when I'm working hard at anything, so it would be something of an understatement to say that I was a bit more than mildly irritated.

"What is it?" I asked as I reluctantly paused my typing and turned around. The plant that had disturbed me was none other than Peater himself.

"Hey, uh . . . can I talk to you for a sec?" he asked.

"'Bout what? And please, make this quick. I got a report to finish, and —" He didn't give me a chance to finish, for he had cut me off with a look.

"Look — rumour has it that the zombies might be coming back. Didn't you hear about the shooting in the Sheppard-Yonge subway station?"

At that statement, my eyes widened to the size of quarters.

"Where'd you hear about that? 'Cause I don't remember —"

"It's big talk all over, Elyssia. The main targets were plants, and the shooters were suspected to be zombies. They couldn't tell because they were wearing ski masks. Those attackers could've been zombies —"

"Or crazed plants!" I finished briskly.

"Look, I don't get why we should get ourselves all wound up over something that's probably not a big threat —"

"But we should keep our guard up, just in case it is!"

"Look, can't we talk about this sometime else? Because there's a time and a place for everything, you know."

After I'd said that, he let out a sigh and left me to my work. But as I was finishing the rest of the report, I began to take Peater's words into a bit of consideration. It could be crazy people behind this . . .

Or zombies.

Oh well. So much for thinking that we'd be rid of those goddamn bastards and all that goddamn grief.

As soon as the bell rang to signal the end of the work day, I practically flew down the stairs and found Peater in the lobby.

"We have training tonight, you know?" he reminded me.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I sighed as we headed out.

"You seem very edgy today, Elyssia. Maybe we should take it easy —"

"Or maybe we should forget about it and pretend that NOTHING happened." I cut him off curtly, before going my own way.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Kensington. I'll meet you back home, all right?" I muttered as I continued walking.

I was about to walk into the crowded marketplace when I bumped into someone. I looked up, only to find that it was one of my coworkers.

"Hey, Ashley." I said, shaking her leaf.

"Hi, Elyssia." she replied with a smile.

As I looked at her, I thought back to one of my sisters. Adria. She looked and sounded just like her. Maybe . . .

No. We weren't that close at work. We rarely saw each other, for Christ's sake. And if we did bump into one another, we'd exchange greetings, maybe have a small conversation, but that was about it. Besides . . . if she was my sister in disguise, then we'd be a bit closer . . . right?

"What's up, Ashley?" I mumbled, shaking myself out of my thoughts.

"Not much. Just decided to give these to ya." She handed me a pair of rollerblades, which I immediately donned.

"Thank you so much, Ashley. But why —"

"For the girl who's as fast as the wind." she replied, before turning around and walking away. Shrugging her words off, I decided to skate over to the Bay subway station so that I could get home.

I practically flew from the Rosedale subway station and to my home. I opened the door, stepped carefully inside, and made sure to lock the door behind me.

"Hi, Elyssia." Peater greeted me as he sat down on the floor beside me.

"Look . . . I'm really sorry for the way I acted today, Peater. I'm shocked you even still want to look at me, let alone speak to me, or give me the time of day, or —" He cut me off with a hug and a patient smile.

"I know you got a lot going on, and you don't want me to pry. But remember, if you feel you're all alone, you can always talk to me." he reassured me.

"Even if it hurts you?" I muttered as I began to untie my rollerblades.

"What?"

"Oh . . . nothing. Nothing."

Training took place at Mosspark Armory, as per usual. Our trainer, a young, hip Commando Pea named Jackson, took attendance, and warmed us up. We punched and kicked some training dummies. We practiced our shooting. And then, it was time for the real training to commence.

"Today, we're gonna learn about fighting with blades. Elyssia, give me a couple of ways that this skill would be useful."

"Well, being able to throw knives would be useful. And of course, blade-to-blade combat is pretty common when you're fighting zombies."

"Thank you, Elyssia! Everyone, I'm gonna throw a knife at you, and you're gonna catch it. Ready?"

We all nodded, and less than a second later, knives were coming our way. I caught mine with one leaf, and cringed as I saw some of the other, less experienced plants get themselves grazed by a blade.

"Not bad for a start. From what I can see, only 5 out of 40 of us are bleeding." Jackson said.

"Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Perhaps we should just focus on improving our throwing skills." he suggested, before he blew his whistle.

And with that, we spent the next five minutes throwing knives at targets.

"You got a pretty good aim, Elyssia. Keep it up." Jackson remarked as I managed to land the 20th knife in where the dummy's heart would be.

"How am I supposed to do this?" Peater complained as he missed for the umpteenth time.

"First, stop shaking. Second, don't lob the knife. You're supposed to throw it as if you're punching something." I suggested. He followed my direction, and finally managed to get a knife into the dummy's head.

After a few more minutes, Jackson blew his whistle again.

"Good job. For the last few minutes, all of you could land a fatal blow on the dummies." Jackson commented with an approving nod.

"Seems like we've finished phase one of this unit. Guess we should work a little more on our hand-to-hand combat skills. Looks like we need a bit more improvement in that field. Emelia, come up here for a sec, would you?"

A shy, trembling Mystic Flower stepped up to the front.

"Now show me how you would, say, restrain and/or hold back a defective plant."

She took a deep breath, and ran at Jackson with all her might. She looked like she was going to kick him down, but in a split second, she was the one in a restraint.

"And this, my friends, is how you should not restrain anybody." Jackson stated.

And so, we spent the next half hour practicing restraints and headlocks on one another, taking into consideration the weak points in certain plants, how to render them unable to attack you with their abilities, and so on and so forth. After I unintentionally started to strangle Emelia while I had her in a headlock, Jackson blew his whistle rather sheepishly.

"That's enough for tonight, I think. Same time tomorrow. And don't try to kill anybody." Jackson announced, giving me a knowing look. All of us, however, cracked up at our trainer's words as we left the building.

"That was something, wasn't it?" Peater remarked as we started our walk home.

"I guess. But I've seen funnier." I replied with a shrug.

"By the way, where'd you get those skates?"

"Oh, Ashley gave them to me. Y'know . . . she's my coworker and stuff."

"Just wondering, that's all. And by the way?"

"Yeah?" By this time, we were already pretty close to our house.

"I just wanted to say . . . thank you." Peater whispered as we came to our doorstep.

"For what?" I asked.

"For . . . being in my life. I feel really lucky to be close to you." he answered as he wrapped his arms around me in a close embrace. I felt something that I hadn't felt in a while: peaceful.

"Thanks for being in my life as well." I murmured as I returned the hug.

After I took off my rollerblades, Peater and I went up into our room to sleep. The day had worn both of us out, and we wanted nothing more than to get a well-deserved forty winks. But as soon as the light was turned out, the shadows in my room began to morph into monsters and beasts. I turned to my window, and saw the shadowy outline of a tall man wearing a cape. And you wanna know the worst part?

He had red eyes.

The red eyes that the monsters and beasts in my room and in my nightmares notoriously possessed.

The red eyes that Dr. Zomboss possessed.

I let out a little cry as I began to feel the monsters closing in on me. And then, as if he knew what was happening, Peater turned around and wrapped me in a warm embrace.

"I know you see the monsters, Elyssia. But remember, I'm here. I'll protect you." he whispered, calming me down almost instantaneously. Feeling a bit safer, I managed to slip easily into the world of my dreams.

A/N: First update in three months, and damn, I'm proud of myself! Another thing I'd like to say is that this is the first time I've included PVZGW characters in my stories. The only reason as to why that's the case is because I haven't played the game yet, because apparently, THE NEAREST EB GAMES IS TEN YEARS AWAY! (It isn't actually, but STILL!) }:(
Also, I'd like to say thank you for almost 6000 views on TTTBAF as of 10/15/16 BECAUSE THAT'S A LOT OF VIEWS! Had no idea one story could get that much attention!*o*
And one last thing that I thought I should bring to your attention: I have a poll up on my profile asking all y'all what you'd like to see after I finish this story, TGBOQS, ANNND SOMC (God, haven't gotten back to that one in a year O_O). The reason why I have this up is because I've got a million projects that I wanna start, but then I'm afraid I'll get sidetracked, as is usually the case with an ADHD victim such as myself. So now, I want YOUR opinion on what should be up next!
So until next time, take care of yourselves and each other!

GamerGirl is OUTTA HERE!