"Wh-who's there?" I sat up straight in my bed. Laughing lightly, the dark silhouette of a woman - definitely a woman because in profile you can tell, and I'll leave it at that - slipped off the table and walked silently over to me. "Get away!"

Kai sat up sleepily and looked around. "Gray? Wh't're you yellin' about?"

"Can't you see her?" I held my arms out, fingers clearly pointing the intruder out to him.

He looked all around then flopped back onto the bed to sleep.

Nonplussed, I said, "Um…apparently not."

"You're kind of slow on the uptake, aren't you?" the aforesaid intruder asked, not disturbing my roommates in the least. She sat on the foot on my bed and, in a stage whisper, confided, "I'm in your head. They can't hear, see, or interact with me. Lucky me, huh?"

Very carefully, I got up, dressed in the dark, walked slowly downstairs, and out the door. When I was standing in the still, silent street, I took a steadying breath and turned around soon enough to see her standing at the top of the step.

She stepped down, but it was a little off - like she had forgotten to let gravity help for a moment. She was a little too graceful to be real.

Of course, she wasn't real. She was in my head. I had a niggling feeling that that should have been more important, but it wasn't. Not after the metal was bending backwards for me, and certainly not after I'd had the dream about the Harvest Goddess. "Who are you?"

"I am one that you should know," her laughter echoed eerily, and she stayed out of the circle of the streetlamp's light. I still didn't know what she looked like.

"Are you the Harvest Goddess again?"

She made a tsk-ing sound and waggled her finger in mock austerity. "Close, but no burning tobacco stick. You got it right the first time you answered that question, love."

I slapped my hand tiredly over my eyes. "I don't believe this. Suraia?"

"Well, aren't we a clever one?" She bounced into the light so I could see her.

I must live a blessed life, to meet so many beautiful women.

Her hair was light, light blonde, and it was tied up in a loose bun high on her head. Her eyes were a clear, cool grey, framed by thin, spunky, silver-rimmed glasses that made her look smart.

They made me feel that I had the basic mentality of a six-year-old and I was being scolded by a teacher.

A really pretty teacher.

And she was only half an inch shorter than me, while everyone else in town was at least two. She was wearing a silver-embroidered, dark green corset - don't those go under the clothes? - and a matching green skirt that fanned out and overlapped in too many layers to comprehend.

"Um…you really are Suraia?" I felt myself swallow nervously.

She shrugged and smiled with so much energy it should have been illegal, this early in the morning. "Well, last time I checked, but I'm in your head, remember."

"So this is how I imagined Suraia to be?"

She beamed at me, congratulations on figuring it out. "Probably. Let's go with that for now, what say you to that?"

I started walking away, muttering, "Wait, no. You're not how I thought Suraia would be. She would be more…depressed, I suppose. All that stuff happened to her."

"It's disconcerting to be referred to in the third person when it should be in the second," she said thoughtfully, running to catch up. "Wouldn't Gray think so?"

"What?"

She went ahead and walked backwards, looking at me. "Nothing, you weren't listening. Oh, and about what you were saying - I'm probably really her then, aren't I?"

"What?" I stopped abruptly, startled out of my thoughts.

She stopped and tilted her head from side to side, considering it. "Well, I am who she was back then. She's changed now, but hey, you've still got me, haven't you? I'll bet you're ecstatic. I'll bet you can't wait to ask me things like the meaning of life and whatnot. Oh, and just so you know, I won't say forty-two. It's been done already. What do you get when you multiply six by nine?"

"Fifty-four?"

"Close. You must really not like those burning tobacco sticks. So? Do you have any questions? What wisdom shall I impart?"

"Um…where are we going?"

"Of course," she nodded sagely, "One of the tricky ones."

So, needless to say, I was insane. At first, I rationalized it away as a side effect of sleep deprivation, but I avidly kept a healthy schedule for a good month and she wouldn't stop following me around. It had been difficult to ignore her when I was talking to other people, but after I was at the receiving end of some very odd looks, I decided that I would only respond to her in private.

She did, however, keep up a helpful running commentary on all my mistakes in life. And she highly disapproved of Mary. She was rooting for Jack, and announced it regularly. I was either coming on too strong, or backing off too easily, or giving her too much space, or being clingy…and he was apparently the king of all things romantic.

Oh, isn't that just adorable, he's brought her earrings on her birthday. Oh, it's just sweet how he never fails to stop in for a visit with her, isn't it? Shouldn't you just give up? You can't win against him. You can't win her heart.

It was getting me down, just a bit.

And my necklace was annoying me. It had been a birthday present, given me by Grandpa the year before, and it was a chain with links in a pattern of metals - as in, bronzed linked to silver linked to gold linked to mithril linked to adamantite linked to bronze again - with a silver hammer pendant.

Ever since my dream, though, the pendant on the chain had turned into a human likeness of the Harvest Goddess, just as I had seen her in my dream. It was disconcerting. I decided that I must have done it in my sleep; 'it' being the metal-molding trick.

"Gray, don't fall asleep," Grandpa admonished me. I had been nodding off with the pendant in my hand.

On the other side of me, smiling happily, Suraia joked, "Quite a feat to fall asleep whilst sitting straight in these dead pews." She looked around at the interior of the Church, and shook her head sadly. "I don't like it here. It reminds me of someone."

I was going to ask who, but Grandpa would have thought I was a loony, and she saw my question in my expression anyway.

She waved her hand lazily, saying, "Your Harvest Goddess. We don't get along. She's all grave and introverted, and I'm such a delectable social butterfly. Irreconcilable differences, though I fear it to be true."

Just then, Carter began his sermon. "Welcome, all, to the annual Harvest Goddess Festival. Some of our more imaginative youngsters in town may call it the Pray-a-Thon, but none of those of us present do so, I'm sure. Now, everyone, please kneel and begin the Festival."

Trying to keep a straight face as he said 'Pray-a-Thon' with such distaste, I kneeled down and pretended to mouth some sort of supplication as I listened to Suraia's constant chatter.

She finally stopped laughing - she had felt no need to contain herself as I had - and walked all around the room. Usually I hated this festival, but maybe she could make the hours pass more quickly.

"Karen's intoxicated and I think she's just passed out," she announced decisively seconds later. "And Rick's trying to wake her quietly. Good luck to him, I say."

She kept walking, every step echoing only in my ears. "Popuri is fiddling with a tear at the hem of her dress, Cliff is outright snoring, and the lovely Mary is scribbling something or other in her novel thingy. Jack's sitting right next to her, but I can't see where his hand - oh, never mind, I found it. Jack, you sly dog! Mary seems pretty comfortable, if I do say so myself.

"Oh sorry, am I not helping you achieve a Zen state?" she said innocently when I thunked my head against the pew in front of me to get the mental image out of my head.

Half the people started and looked over at me, but I was back in normal prayer position, head bowed and hands clasped together.

Suraia walked back and sat down next me, saying affably, "You don't even believe in her. What're you doing here, anyway?"

I sent her a look that I hoped spoke volumes about appearances and the need to keep them up.

She apparently didn't receive it. Smiling, she looked around in boredom and said, "So, is this going to take very long?"

I nodded stiffly.

"And you'll have to be quiet and sit there?"

I rolled my eyes and tried to ocularly plead with her not to do anything.

"Now this I like." She proceeded to give a well-thought-out thesis based on the prompt 'you are not suited for Mary because blank.'

Since it was a festival day, I was free from my familial bonds. I strolled down the street, smiling happily, set on visiting Mary at home - she wouldn't be at the Library. Thinking on Suraia's words, I turned to her and said, "Why do you think Mary and I are so ill-matched, anyway?"

She was walking beside me, arm wrapped around mine, and I felt her shrug. "Oh, a lot of reasons; she's meant for another, she doesn't like you back but as a friend, mild jealousy. The usual things."

I wasn't listening, because I had just spotted Jack opening the door, laughing in good humor, for Mary - my Mary - to enter her house. My feet had frozen in their tracks.

Suraia looked on without amusement. "You shouldn't. She'll just reject you, and then you'll be all depressed and it will be real drag for me."

"I shouldn't do what?" I growled, beginning to stalk forward again.

She shook her head and did not follow.

All or nothing, I thought. All or nothing.

Pausing to knock on her door, I took a deep breath to calm down and smiled as she opened it wide. "Hi, Mary. Can I come in and hang out?"

She blushed and said, "Sure, Jack's here already…"

Jack appeared at her shoulder. "Actually, I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

She nodded and waved goodbye. Turning back, she nervously invited me in. When she wasn't looking, Jack waved to me - and I saw everything in that wave. Arrogance. Superiority.

Jerk.

I scowled in return, glanced at Suraia still standing down the street, and followed Mary. "Mary, I want to tell you something."

She was bustling around, trying to simultaneously prepare tea and clear the table of debris. "Oh?" she asked breathlessly, "What is it?"

All or nothing. "I like you."

She stopped and beamed at me, saying, "I like you, too, Gray." I choked and attempted to swallow my own tongue before she continued, "You're my best friend!"

Right in the gut. I smiled weakly and nodded, having difficultly breathing. Best friend, huh?

Apparently oblivious, she turned back and took up her tasks again. "You know, you and Jack are always coming by to visit, I hardly have time to feel lonely with my books anymore. Friends are wonderful, aren't they?"

"Oh," I gasped, trying to pay attention, "is Jack one of your best friends, too?" I hoped that he wasn't anything more to her than I was.

I hoped.

Please.

She put down her tray and stared at her shoes. She looked like it would be better to curl up and hide than to talk about it. "He's…not, really. I don't feel the same way around him as I do you. You're just so easy to talk to, Gray, but he's…"

I bit my knuckles with enough force to bring me to my senses and asked despondently, "You love him, don't you?"

"I-I think I do…" she blinked and giggled happily. "Gray, do you think that he might feel the same way?"

All or nothing, and I had gotten nothing.

I stumbled back to the door, ran into it before I could find the handle, forced myself to logic through the brain surgery of turning it, and fell to my knees at the bottom of the front steps.

Suraia was there, looking at me curiously. "I told you not to," she said bluntly.

I sighed and hung my head in despair. She didn't feel for me the same way I felt for her. Oh, gods, but it hurt… My heart felt as though it was shrinking and loosing sensation.

But my mind was expanding until I could feel every piece of metal, every tiny fleck of mineral, around me and I was starting to panic because it didn't scare me as much as it should have. I couldn't breathe because my lungs were filled with metal and, ha, metal didn't need to breathe, so why should I?

"Gray, no, listen to me! You aren't metal, you need air, come on!"

Suraia was yelling about something. I couldn't understand it. Hmm, I liked being metal. If I was metal, I wouldn't be able to feel this hurt, right?

"Gray!"

Shut up, Suraia. Everything's alright now.

"Gray, listen to me, you'll die if you don't breathe right now!"

So? My eyelids fluttered uselessly as I tried to blink.

"I know it hurts, but try to…try to focus it on something else. Like the streetlamp right there, alright? Focus everything on that, and please please please remember how to breathe!"

My vision was hazy, but I could make out a vaguely streetlamp-ish silhouette only a few feet to my right. I could feel it in the back of my mind, just one metal shape out of many around me. Even as I singled it out, the shape became more defined, and my sense of it heightened. So, I focused all of my being into this one thing, and saw it distort and change shape.

Then, I think I heard Mary screaming, and blonde hair was cascading all around me, and then lips were pressed to mine and I was being forced to breathe in. Everything was mixing and blending together.

Mercifully, the world turned off.