HI, IT'S ME, IM NOT DEAD! *pulls off disembodied hand from clothes* I definitely wasn't fighting zombies. Anyway, here's chapter 9! I've also got a head's up for the next chapter; n, then a kinda epilogue thing.

Enjoy this new chapter dudes!

Emily wasn't in.

Emily wasn't in.

Now that was a sentence I never thought I'd hear. Emily would rather die than not be in school. I'd never known someone so devoted to learning, it was actually incredible.

But she wasn't in today.

I walked down the halls with my head down low, not looking up as I walked to my locker. Where was she?

I hindsight, I should have looked up as I was walking. I crashed into someone, knocking their books out of their arms. I dropped to the floor to pick up the scattered paper. As I straightened up to hand the books back, as I heard a voice say, "Oh, uh, hi Summer."

I froze. I knew that voice.

I looked at the person properly.

"Oliver?"

Oliver was one of the popular kids in my year. Actually, he wasn't really, he was just on the outskirts, but if he wanted to be a popular kid he could really be, really easily.

"Sorry I knocked your books over," I said, conscious of time. It was about 5 minutes until class was meant to start, and my next lesson was right over the other side of the school.

"It's ok," he responded. Was he blushing?

"Sorry Oliver, but I've got to get going to class," I said, starting to walk away, "maybe talk later?"

He grabbed my arm and pulled me back round. "You have History next, right?"

I nodded, slightly caught off guard.

"I'm in your History class. Can we walk together?" he asked. His voice sounded really hopeful.

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could, my surroundings changed.

I was now curled in a ball in the corner of an alleyway. Girls towered over me, looking like giants. Searing pain was in my stomach. Legs and neck. I couldn't tell if there was blood, and if there was, then it was pooled around me.

"What have I ever done to you?" I whispered out, loud enough for them to hear.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe exist?" the one at the front snarled. I shuddered; the voice sounded like nails down a chalkboard.

"Just because your Dad's the Special doesn't mean you're worth anything, Brickowski," another sniggered, "in fact you're even more worthless than your Mom."

I don't know why, but in that moment, I didn't think about consequences. I jumped up, not caring about the pain in my torso and lunged at the girls.

Caught off guard, they gasped as I grabbed the girl's collar and shouted, "Don't you DARE, say that about my Mom!"

But suddenly all my strength left me. I fell to the floor, knees scraping on the pebble tar.

"Pathetic," I heard one of them say as I drifted unconscious, "she's pathetic."

I gasped, and sat up in the hammock. I was clutching my sides, like it was happening all over again.

Why did I keep getting dreams of those days? I probably should have told Dad, but I never did.

Should I?

'Even if it's 3 in the morning, you come find me and tell me.' I heard his voice echo around my head.

Carefully, ever so carefully, I stepped out of the hammock, and walked over to the door. As I got out into the corridor, I started to run. I ran through the wooden-walled corridors, past Benny's cabin, past Metalbeatd's past lots of cabins. But, as I slowed to reach Dad's door, my knees buckled, and my head hit the ground. The last thing I remember seeing was the bleached wood of Dad's cabin.

We're back by the sea again, but this time, in a broken building. Benches are stacked against the walls like in a stadium. The woman from before, this time with her hoodie tied around her waist, is lying in the centre on a slightly raised podium. She's writing on a worn scrap of paper.

We watch her for a few minutes, before she sits up straight, fidgets a bit, and begins to sing:

"Everything is awesome,

Everything is cool when you're part of a team,

Everything is awesome,

When we live in our dream."

Her voice sounds hauntingly beautiful, the kind of voice that you hear in dreams.

She stays still for a minute, mumbling more lyrics to herself (or what we can assume are lyrics).

Suddenly, the woman shifts her weight and looks up and out one of the huge windows in eh top half of the dilapidated structure. She hesitates, but begins to speak out loud, not to herself, even though there's no-one else there.

"To Emmet…" her voice trails off, but she continues after a moment.

"I miss you. A lot. I wish I could have told you why I came here. You probably blamed yourself for it. I-I wouldn't put it past you. Knowing you. You know, it's kinda scary that I genuinely don't know whether you've stayed the same or turned back into some sort of Rex person, but I don't think you'd do that, because you've got Summer."

She's now crying, tears rolling down her face. She hesitates before saying her next part.

"A-And I hope you're ok," she sobs, "and all that stuff, you know I've never been good with feelings."

She wipes her eyes on her sleeve.

She cries silently for a minute or two, until she starts again.

"Summer, I feel really bad for being here. You deserve a Mom. Like, a lot. And I've been gone for 5 years. That's 5 years I'll never get back, we'll never get back. If I- When I get back, we can watch as much as much Gravity Falls, and Sanders Sides, and any other tv show we used to watch together. But, y'know, I'd just like to say…"

She looks up and breathes out her nose.

"I'm sorry. I want to come back, but there's no way out. So, if I never see you again, or Emmet, or anyone else, I hope you'll forgive me."

She talks for a bit longer, before our vision starts to fade to black out.

"Summer, you better wake up, otherwise I'll pour water over your head."

I opened my eyes to see Dad sitting over me on the floor. He was sitting over me on the floor. He was wearing stripy blue pyjamas, and his hair was pretty scruffy.

"Whuh…?" I groaned, propping myself up on my elbows. My head was swimming.

He rolled his eyes. "You just passed out. I'm going to be worried, it's literally in my job description as a Dad."

Normally I would have giggled at his comment, but just then I was focusing on remembering why I'd fallen down in the middle of some corridor somewhere.

It definitely wasn't home; we didn't have wooden flooring. And it wasn't school, obviously. Why would Dad be in his pyjamas at school?

Oh, yeah.

Metalbeard's ship.

Saving Mom.

Everything else that had happened in the space of like 3 days.

"I had a vision," I said carefully, not mentioning the dream that had led me to having the vision in the first place. I didn't want to tell Dad about that just yet.

So, I told him about the vision. He listened intently, and when I finished he closed his eyes and mumbled something under his breath. "I swear, Lucy- "

My head snapped up. "Don't say anything bad about Mom, we've come this far!"

He frowned. "I was going to say 'I forgive you'. You do know I would never, ever say anything bad about your Mom, right? I love her too much."

I looked into his eyes.

He looked tired. Really tired. He had bags under his eyes, he was slumping, looked like he was dead.

But there was a spark in his eyes I hadn't seen since I was 7. He was excited. Why wouldn't he be? We were going to find his wife, for goodness sake.

Get your act together, Summer.

I rubbed my eyes and checked my watch (I hadn't taken it off last might).

"It's 4 in the morning…" I groaned while hitching myself to my feet. "We should both go back to bed. It's too early for morning coffee."

He chuckled and stood up. I started to walk away, snickering under my breath.

"wAIT!"

I skidded round, shocked. Dad looked so deadly serious I thought he'd tell me the world would end in 5 minutes.

"How do you like your coffee?" He asked with a grave seriousness I thought he could never achieve.

I answered immediately. "Black but with a touch of cream on top."

He sighed out of relief. "Phew, thank The Man Upstairs you don't have my taste in coffee."

I smiled, and walked back to my room.

I'm really happy to tell you that I didn't have any more dreams that night.