Yay! Another chapter. I had lots of time to make this long since it was a long weekend! Thanks for reading…

----Unfurling the Truth----

My cell phone rang as I entered the front door after school.

I jumped as it vibrated against my skin. Pulling it out, I saw it was CeeCee. "Hi Cee," I said, dropping my keys in my purse and slipping my shoes off.

"Suze, you left school so quickly I never got a chance to invite you to Adam's for a scary movie," she said.

I was about to, once again, decline when her voice came back through the phone, "And don't you dare try and ditch us again. I've been inviting you out for the past two weeks and every time you've said no."

Two weeks. That's how long it's been since I had my so called mental breakdown. For some unknown reason I didn't believe that that was the reason I'd collapsed as I did.

But I can't even remember what happened before I collapsed or what stress I would have even been under. The last thing I can remember was going to the beach after Paul left me to pick up my car. I don't remember going home, or going to bed. Just the beach and waking up in the hospital.

Waking up confused and dazed. Feeling empty inside.

I blinked and realized CeeCee was waiting for an answer. "Yeah, I guess I'll be over," I said, unsure of my voice.

"Bring Jesse, too," she said, before saying a quick goodbye and hanging up.

Jesse. Things between us just weren't the same. Something was different. In me and in him. He acted like he had a secret and I don't have enough strength to get it out of him.

Susannah Simon has lost her strength.

I was weak and as much I never wanted to admit it, it was the truth.

I walked down the hall towards the kitchen where my mom was sitting drinking some sort of beverage and reading the morning paper.

Which baffles me. She has to report the news and yet she reads the paper.

I tossed my bag on the floor, and sat down beside her. "Hi Mom," I said, softly. She looked up at me and smiled. Realizing something wasn't quite right; she folded her paper, put her beverage down, and gazed at me affectionately.

"How was your day, Susie?" she asked me, motherly.

"Good, I guess. It was school after all." I smiled, softly. "Any news from the news woman?" I asked.

She laughed gently, "Actually. I was looking into some information and I found that you have the mediator genes on both sides of your family."

She paused looking at me, "Continue," I said, making a face at her for holding back on the information.

"Well, your great grandfather—on your father's side—knew of mediators, because he claimed, one day that he could see spirits or presences that others couldn't. When they thought he was crazy he played it off as a joke and kept his trap shut ever since," she grabbed an apple from the fruit dish and walked over to the sink.

"So that's how Dad knew what I was?" I asked her as she washed the apple under the tap, peeling the oval sticker off and planting it on the counter.

"Yes, I'd say so," she smiled, and looked down to cut the apple. I could tell her eyes were watering, and I heard a slight sniffle. She looked up at me after a moment, "Was he happy?" she asked, her eyes glassy.

I looked over at her with a sideways glance. I knew she was talking about Dad. They were in love from just after High School, and they will be forever. Even if Mom has found herself a new companion.

"Very," I said, with a half-sided grin. "He was always coming to check on us. He wanted to make sure Andy was good enough for you."

Dad was always silly like that.

"And what did he say?" she asked, as a single tear slid down her cheek.

"That you did well," I said, softening my smile.

"You know, I could never replace how perfect your dad was," I watched her smile fade just a bit as a second tear followed the trail of the first.

I thought of how good Andy has been for her, and how kind he is to me.

"I know," I said, walking to her side, "but Andy does just fine." I wiped the tear off her cheek and pulled her into a hug.

I love my mother. No matter what happens, it's always just us.

We pulled away, and my mother laughed at herself. "Oh, look at the mess I am," she grinned at me as a quick hand wiped the new tears away.

"It's fine," I said. She went back to cutting the apple into slices. "So, that's Dad's side," I said, after a moment, "What about you?"

"Um," she said, as she put the knife away and went to the fridge for the bottle of caramel I knew we had in there. "Right, well my great aunt—your great, great aunt—Debra, believed there was more to the dead. I'm guessing, because she could see ghosts. She wrote something about it in her journal. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble figuring it out, something about a distorter, but I don't actually have the journal."

She put the plate of sliced apples and caramel in front of me. "Where'd you find all this?" I asked her. She handed me a piece of paper and a can of coke.

Deborah Suet. Born 1911 – Death 1941.

"Never married, no children. Just disappeared one day," my mother said, as I gazed downward at the page.

It didn't say much. Talked about the schools she went to, where she grew up, her parents. At the bottom of the page though, there was one line written in someone's messy hand scribbles.

"VSD Distorter. The day of doom shall come when she freely walks as the evil menace."

"What does this mean, Mom?" I asked as she sat down beside me, again.

"I don't know. I don't even know how true it is. She was thought to be crazy and she did disappear, but at least I know where you got your gift from," she grinned at me and picked her mug back up.

Right, gift. Only sometimes, I guess. The only good thing was Jesse, and lately, he wasn't such a good thing. I shook my head, as if to shake the terrible thoughts.

"Maybe, this is how you see ghosts now. It was there all along, just the…incident triggered it," I said, quickly. Almost amazed at how genius it sounded.

"That does make sense," she said, taking a sip. I finished the rest of the apple slices on the plate and glanced at the time.

"Well, I'm gonna catch a quick nap before heading out. CeeCee and Adam are having a movie night," I back out of the kitchen, watching my mother's cautious eyes on me. "Mind if I keep the paper?" I asked, already stuffing it in the pocket of my gray sweatshirt. She nodded.

I smiled, before taking off up the stairs to my bedroom. I don't remember making it there. Just collapsing on my bed and washing into the darkness. The darkness was becoming more familiar to me than it should.

The darkness that hid behind my eyelids was my treasure.

------------

I woke up to the blaring sound of Dopey's music and taking a quick glance at the clock, realized I'd been out for two hours.

I grabbed my phone, and dialed Jesse's number. He answered on the second ring, "Hey."

I wanted to laugh, but I didn't. Since when did Jesse say 'Hey'. Once I used it and I swear to god that he said, "Hay is for horses."

I know, and this is the guy I fell in love with.

"Hi Jesse, I'm going to Adam's to watch a scary movie and we wanted you to come. You could swing by and pick me…"

"Can't, busy, homework," he interrupted.

"Oh, well I never got to tell you…" I started to say, but the click of his phone stopped me.

I waited until the dial-tone before I myself hung up and walked dazedly to my bathroom. Jesse was acting so strange.

In all the time Jesse had been alive he'd never answered the phone and said 'Hey' nor had he ever hung up on me without saying I love you.

I stared at myself in the mirror and realized that I don't really know what I look like, anymore. Sure, green eyes, brown hair, fair skin, but how well do I really know my own face.

The face in the mirror moved. My face moved in the mirror, yet I was standing completely still. I passed it off as if I'd just been imagining it, but something made me wonder if really, it did happen. If there really was something in the mirror.

I began to do my hair and make up when my phone rang. I heard the ringing before I actually realized what was happening. I couldn't remember even turning the ringer on.

"Hello," I said, absently. I was watching my lips move as I spoke into the phone.

"Hey, it's Cee, by the way. Your still coming to Adam's right. We're waiting for you."

I blinked a couple times before answering her, "I don't know if I feel like it, Cee," I said, hoping I could get out of it and just go back to the place beneath my eyelids.

"Oh Suze, come on. Adam and I want you to come, besides I insist," she said, matter-a-fact.

"And if I don't?" I asked partly coming out of my daze, grinning just a bit.

"I'll tell everyone that time you slipped on the mud and kicked that guy in the…"

"Okay," I interrupted, "I'm coming. I'll be over in a few," I said, barely hearing Adam snickering in the background.

I finished in the bathroom, grabbing my jacket and purse, I said goodbye to Mom and left keys in hand.

I stopped on the doorstep, thinking about Jesse. "Am I okay," I asked the chilly night air, "Are we okay?"

I didn't get an answer, or any sign of one. So I climbed into the front seat of my car and headed towards Adam's house.

--------

It was just the three of us, hanging out on the couch in Adam's den watching this month's scary movie.

I wasn't paying attention to the plot or to CeeCee who'd been moving closer and closer to Adam, or even to the fact that Paris Hilton's impending death scene was coming up.

Jesse's words kept rolling through my brain until I realized I felt like I was suffocating. I needed air and fast.

My lungs were slowly filling with toxic fumes and I needed out. "I'm gonna get some air," I muttered leaving the den.

I stepped out into the dark Californian night. Which was rather chilly from the waves of fog that were beginning to roll in. I didn't really know where I was heading, I just began walking. Eventually I came back around the block and sat on the curb at the foot of Adam's driveway.

I felt another presence, which was confirmed when the materialization of blue lights appeared before I saw the ghost from Father Dominic's office.

"What are you doing?" he asked softly.

"Whatever it looks like," I answered, mumbling through lazy lips.

"Buy why aren't you saving the world and its after-life?" he asked, yet another question.

"Because I don't know what to save it from," I answered, not focusing on what was really happening.

I sighed as I placed my palms on the thick grass behind me. Noticing my glum attitude Tom sank down beside me.

"Save the world, save him, save yourself," he said after a moment.

I looked over at him, but he had already disappeared.

I promise you, Tom, I would save the world, him and myself, if only I knew how and what from.

I liked the way the wind nipped at my flesh numbing it to a tingling sensation, causing me to linger outside longer. I sat there straining to hear the not-so-distant waves rolling against the shore in a violent-like matter.

I thought everything was going right. I had a mom who finally understood and knew everything about me, friends who care, the perfect boyfriend that I'm completely in love with, a cell phone, and a car.

What more could a girl ask for?

However, deep down, I knew something wasn't right. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach and it wasn't just about the last conversation we had.

I hadn't had a time where I could be surrounded by people and not feel lonely since Jesse came back to life, and yet, right now, sitting on the curb. I feel as lonely as I'll ever be.

Something was definitely wrong, but the question is what?

I couldn't figure out the doom of the world if I could hardly figure out who I was anymore.

I went home before the movie finished. I didn't care.

I lay in my bed that night, just starring at the ceiling, wondering where my life was going.

The feeling that lay deep in my body, made me nauseous to the point that I wanted to hurl my entire insides up my throat.

I didn't like who I was, or what was happening. I felt stupid for not being able to figure out the problem. I lay silent, waiting to slip back into the darkness, deep beneath my eyelids.

--------

Light.

Morning, sun, brightness.

Move, step, dress.

Goal. Goal.

Get through the days.

Act.

Fake.

Pretend.

Act normal.

Fake smiles.

Pretend to be fine.

Never. Never

Broken.

Unsure.

Black.

Black heart.

Dying, wheezing, waiting.

Impending doom.

Hate.

Gone.

Evil doesn't call.

Evil, is…

Evil.

Darkness.

Peaceful darkness.

Overwhelming darkness.

Taking me away from misery.

Fight for the goal.

Dead inside.

---

As my days continued in blurs. I called no one and no one called me. Jesse never spoke to me. Ignoring me more than ever.

I had stopped eating feeling weaker and less movable. Days and nights blurred to light and dark, dark being my favourite. The problem I was faced with kept pulling away pieces of my life and the faster I tried to pull them back and clutch them to my heart the faster they disappeared.

I felt jumpy and irritable all the time. As if something was going to hurt me suddenly and the feeling irritated me to the point of frustration and anger.

I kept feeling out of control and at a loss. Something more powerful was going on, as Tom had said. I just wanted to know what it was.

I knew absolutely nothing.

Days past and I never learned anything new. It wasn't like I could search it on the internet, or ask the local librarian.

They wouldn't know a thing.

I would earn myself more than enough stares, and sighs of people saying that I should probably see a physiatrist.

The thing that scared me the most, though, were the memory lapses. I remembered being one place and the next thing I knew I was elsewhere and it was a different time.

I would wake up feeling different. People would ask me something about an earlier conversation and I couldn't even remember it.

Some days I remembered every one of the slow minutes that ticked by and other days I couldn't even remember waking up and dealing with school.

I felt incredibly alone.

It was like every other Saturday night, lately. They didn't consist of movies on Jesse's couch, no just a dark, dark corner, where I get lost in my mind's thoughts.

I was isolated in the empty house. I don't remember where anyone else of my family had gone. I couldn't remember anything anymore.

The room was quiet, and yet my mind ached of loud thoughts. I watched the shadows slowly cross the room until the sun sunk into the ground and the room was left perfectly dark.

Like the dark beneath my eyelids.

But it was on this very precise day, right after the sun had sunk into the ground and the clock's minute hand at returned to the twelve, that I heard a noise.

Sure, I hear lots of noises, but lately I've been blocking them out.

No, this noise was different, this noise made me listen.

I saw something. I think I saw her.

How can I see her, if I don't know who she is?

The blonde hair flew across my room in a blur disappearing into the wall.

I don't even remember seeing a body; just the blonde, blonde hair glistening like it was sunny. Even though the sun had disappeared.

I jumped to my feet, shaking against my mind's protests.

I grabbed a pillow off my bed and clutched it to my shivering body. I wanted to know what I'd just seen; I wanted to see it again.

I wanted to know why I felt like I'd seen this blonde hair before, and why it felt so familiar.

But more than anything, I wanted to know why my fists clenched and I suddenly felt angry, like I wanted to beat something and hard.

I remember standing there, before I collapsed on the hard floor.

Washing back into the darkness. Always, the darkness.

---

Weak.

She's weak.

Not strong.

I'm strong, powerful.

In control.

In control until the beating of my heart returns.

Angry, fed up with evil.

Rage, coursed throughout my vessel.

Pick up, move.

Step, step.

Blink, breathe, door.

Step, step, stairs.

Door.

Air, trees, darkness.

Strong, not to fall.

Fall into the darkness.

Moving, walking, running.

Run.

Going, gone.

Blur of motion.

Going further, pushing harder.

Reaching, arriving.

Apartment complex.

Door, stairs, step, stairs.

Door.

Different Door.

Important door.

Wake Up.

Darkness…

---

My head throbbed and the deep smell of many people filled my nose.

Opening my eyes, I saw gray carpet. Thin carpet lying on top of concrete, bolted down.

The same smell was buried deep into my senses, the smell of an apartment. I sat up quickly, to quickly for my throbbing head.

Disentangled my legs and holding my hands to my head I began to stand up.

Once again, I'd suffered another memory lapse. I didn't know where I was, or how I got there. Just that, wherever I was, I was there.

After taking a look, I seemed to be in a long hallway, with white doors on either side. Small black numbers screwed to the entrance, just above a small circle looking glass.

I was in an apartment building, all right. I was in a familiar one. I'd been here before, plenty of times. I knew it like the back of my hand, but I hadn't been here for a while.

I shook my head, wishing for the memory of why I was here. Somehow, I knew I had to be here, and yet the memory of how I got where I was still didn't arrive to my brain.

It was lost.

My knuckles were cold, cold from the fog encrusted Carmel nights. That's how it always is, cold and foggy.

Jesse's door felt hard beneath my freezing knuckles. My breathing was fearful and frantic as I waited for the door to swing open.

My body felt angry, fuming and I couldn't understand why. I looked down at my body and asked silently what the hell was happening to me.

I heard the click of the dead bolt unlocking and the saw the door open in the hands of Jesse's. He saw me, and I began to realize that whatever my subconscious knew, there was a reason it was fuming. He began closing the door, right in my face.

Without hesitation, as if my mind wasn't in control, my foot launched in to the door, kicking it out of Jesse's hands. With a bang, the door hit the wall and stopped.

I burst into his apartment and I knew that in the weeks that I hadn't been there, someone had and something had changed.

I could smell it in the air.

And I'm not talking about the dirty dishes that had taking refugee on his counter, or the piles of dirty clothes that were strewn throughout his disgusting apartment, no I'm talking about the gentle fragrance of expensive perfume wafting out to see me storming in, in blind fury.

"I think you should leave, now," Jesse said, still holding the door wide open.

I didn't answer, nor did I look at him. I kind of just stood there, gaping, waiting for something to happen.

As if right on cue, that same blonde hair showed. The body was here this time, the head poking out of Jesse's bedroom door. "Jesse, are you coming back to bed?" she asked, before noticing me, standing right there.

Practically in front of her.

The seductive voice she'd worn changed quickly into the perky voice of the cheerleading I'm assuming she is.

"So sorry, I didn't know you had company," she came out of the room to greet me. Exposing herself wearing one of Jesse's button-down shirts and a white mini skirt.

She ran a hand through her hair, trying to fix its lopsidedness.

I didn't have time to think, I just gaped at the blonde hair that look unnatural.

As if, I'd seen it.

And the next thing I knew, the darkness came back to greet me with peace.

----

Darkness.

Taking control again.

Goal, completed.

Truth unfurled.

Vessel feeling weaker.

Weaker and more tired.

Wake up.

Open eyes, blink, breathe,

Sit up, sharp.

Evil-beholder and evil-beholder's controller.

Black and white.

Evil weak under greater evil.

Evil not so evil.

Stand, look, leave.

Walking, downing, running.

Evening air, crisp fog.

Alone.

One answer.

Now.

Run…

---

I came back running.

Feeling the urge to scream, I did.

I let it come from deep inside of me, bellowing out, rippling throughout my body before it came out into the night as a shriek of fear, anger, frustration and pain.

Unexplained confusion.

Yet another black-out. And I still wasn't in control. One answer, that's all I had. Jesse is a cheating jerk, and, and…I hate…I can't do it.

I can't say it, it's not true.

I'm still running. My feet traveling quickly across the ground, smashing into the pavement. My sneakers squeaking slightly with each curled toe.

In a breathless rag, I looked towards the heaven and screamed—yet, again—letting it rip from my inner emotions.

Look what he did.

Look what I just did.

I ran until I came to a stop.

Jamming my eyes shut, I slithered to the ground, the mud soaking through the knees of my favourite jeans, and I didn't care.

I threw my head down, hurling it hard into the thick grass. Burying my face, and the mud continued to slither into my jeans, just like she slithered into my life.

He ruined everything.

How could he do this to me. I had given him love when he was dead, a companion when he was lonely and a life when he thought there was no future for him in this world.

No! I screamed to myself. I cursed myself. I would not taint the things we had with my defiant agony. I had given that to him out of pure love.

The pit that was buried deep within my stomach erupted into a million cursed chunks that rose through my mouth and onto the grass. My head throbbed like a thousand tiny daggers. My body shivered with the evening fog.

I wasn't whole. I was split. I was missing something, something of myself.

My life was once again crushed by some unforeseen circumstance. I just wanted peace, I just wanted happiness.

My whole world, right now, was being held by some other person. Because, that's what Jesse is to me, my whole world.

I feared to open my eyes and admit what really happened.

In fact, I didn't want to see the world, anymore.

Not with life as dull and faded as it was.

I could feel my life being sucked out of me without hesitation. That's when I saw him, amidst my closed eyes. Lurking in the corners, looking dark and eerie.

He'd come for me and his name was Death.

I picked myself up off the ground. And ran…

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Taa-dah! I'm quite pleased with this chapter, not only for its length but also for its content. I like where this is going. I'm just hoping that I don't run into any problems and get one of those annoying writers block. Thanks for the amazing reviews.

R&R