Watery voices. Who is that? Someone I know? I suppose. Don't they know I'm sleeping?

I mumble a little. They should scram.

I'm let alone, but now I'm awake. I open one eye, curious as to who attempted to waken me. I see Levy walking away to another table.

"Levy!" I call. She turns around, hope shining in her eyes. "Come sit here," I say. She is, after all, the only person I can handle speaking to after waking up that isn't part of my family. She skips over and plops into the wooden chair across from mine, and I shift into a position into which one arm is draped over the chair, and one leg is crossed over the other.

"Did you see that new girl who came earlier? She's really cute! I hope she'll be friends with all of us!" she says excitedly.

I bark out a laugh. "Maybe she'll bring some sanity into our household," I comment, briefly looking at my hands. No birds. No birds to take away my own sanity. I fear my Mind Magic when I possess my Shadow Soul, and fear the Shadow Magic when Mind Soul is dominant. I've had traumatic experiences with both.

Birds for the mind, and purple patterns like henna for the darkness. Only ever on the arms.

"Aw, don't say that Rosie! We're plenty sane!" Levy insists.

"HEY GUYS WE'RE BACK"

"Natsu, my head hurts."

"EH? YOU BOASTIN' AGAIN FLAME-FOR-BRAINS?!"

"IF YOU'RE A MAN YOU'LL FIGHT!"

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"

"Levy, I don't think we're sane," I tell her. She laughs, and I guess I do, too. I can't help it; this guild is full of such idiots. But, maybe that's why we all stay.

I check my watch; 7:30 pm. I sigh. I don't usually get a headache at this hour unprovoked, but if they fight, well... Then no one will be happy.

Levy sighs. "I guess not."

When they start fighting, and I can start to feel the beginnings of a pain in my head, I place my palm on the table.

"Rosie, are you...?" Levy trails off.

"Hell if I let them explode my head," I grumble. My physical hand goes deathly white, and a darker form of it rises above; a phantom, if you will.

I wiggle its fingers a little, making sure I have full use of them before I do anything drastic. It's separated from my body, you see, so I worry that it has a mind of its own. It never does, but I get paranoid, just like everyone else.

It grows. Larger, larger. The fingers look pointed and spindly; it looks truly like a shadow hand, pure black. I reach over and grab Natsu, the source of all the god damned noise.

"Oi," I say in a dangerous voice. "How about you be quiet for once, Spiky?"

"You wanna fight, you fuckin' Bat?!" He only calls me a bat when I'm a Shadow Mage. Lil shit.

"If you don't shut up, then hell yeah I'll kick your ass!" I growl. I throw him against the wall, and the phantom returns to my hand. Shadows coil around my body on their own. They do that when I'm about to fight. It's as normal as the pumping of adrenaline during, and the burst of dopamine after.

He jumps up and starts walking toward me with an idiotic, determined grin on his face. It'll be wiped off faster than he can say "Roar of the Fire Dragon".

Natsu's tired from his job, and I've got an incoming headache. I'm not in a great mood, and Natsu's got intense mood swings when he's tired. This fight could take a sour turn real fast.

I stand up, ready to fight. He stops abruptly, raising his fist.

"How about I fight you tomorrow, Bat? I'm kinda tired right now."

My temper flares even higher. I take an aggressive step forward when the patterns abruptly turn to birds, and I stop. Anger turns to horror, and I run.

I take refuge in an abandoned church in the middle of the woods. It was left due to some poor conditions (including the caving in of the ceilings), and I'm by no means religious, but it's a good place to hide when I want to be alone, and I don't seem crazy when I'm talking to myself in a church.

I seat myself in a pew somewhere in the middle. Light shines through the stained glass in such a smooth way that it reminds me of water running in a shallow creek.

"I just tried to injure my best friend. I frighten myself a lot, and I don't how to control it. No one taught me how to deal with all this. I would nix one of the magics, but I can't. It's ingrained into who I am, and the only way I've heard of as an escape is death. Gray wouldn't have anyone to clean his stupid dishes, so that option is out. For now, at least." I sigh. "You know, You could be really useful if You're actually there. Everyone clings to You like their lives depend on it. You say You only punish those who have sinned, but look who You're punishing; soldiers who have families, kids with mental illnesses, people who are happy with their lives, people starving and living in poverty. Have they done You wrong?

"My mother...used to take me and my younger brother to church a lot. They fed us the good stuff about You. Not about all the bad stuff in the Bible. Or about all the rape and murder, and who knows what else. But who cares about that now? We've gone our separate ways, You and I. Ever since my mother threw that bottle."

Suddenly I'm taken back to that big old house. It was me, my mother, and brother Caleb. Yeah, she named us odd names. Mostly because she thought we should have royal names. She changed mine from Ash once she and a faceless father separated, just to make me sound like a "lady." I hated it at first, but it stuck. The only person who calls me Ash is Gray, and even then it just slips out. I think.

I digress. Mother Dearest used to get headaches. They never used to be too frequent, but when it rained, it stormed. She would keep the pain to herself at first, taking pain-killers and taking a nap, asking one of us to play soothing piano. That was up until her pain partially transformed into anger and she started slapping me around. I didn't blame her too much at the time; everyone gets cranky when they're in pain, right? Just as long as she left Caleb alone, I would be fine. Then she tried slapping him around, too. I would try to distract her, since he was only a year younger than me and my closest friend. Time went on, and she was constantly hammered by her head pains, succumbing to alcohol to try to dull it. I had to learn to cook and clean, abandoning almost all of my studies for the sake of providing for my brother.

One day, I guess Mother got pissed at some phantom from years ago, and threw her half-full bottle at us. I ran, sensing danger, but Caleb wasn't so quick. He was struck in the head and collapsed on the spot. I took his limp body and ran to the hospital, my small arms barely holding onto him. They announced him dead. After that I retreated into myself and found Mind Magic. Staying in a dark room all the time, I didn't find Shadow Magic; it found me.

At the funeral, the weather matched my mood. It was like there was no sun, just gray, colorless, humid. I wanted it to rain already; I could sense it was about to. The atmosphere was about to start sobbing like I was.

The only other thing I remember is a boy older than me with dark hair and eyes to match coming over to me and introducing himself: Gray. I said I was Rose. I couldn't bring myself to call myself Angel. I wanted nothing to do with that woman ever again. I don't know why I didn't say I was Ash. I'd forgotten who I was.

I guess I'm over most of that stuff. Well, maybe not. If I was, I wouldn't be crying.

I wipe away my tears. They're not going to change anything.

I sit in the broken-down church for a while. Even if I'm agnostic, this place sort of comforts me, no matter what mark is on my arms.

I don't want to go back just yet. I'm just a little mortified about what my Shadow Self did, and I don't want to see the new blonde girl looking at me warily. I wonder what the others will say about me, though. I can hear it now.

"She's a splittie."
"Don't mind her, she lost her mind a long time ago."
"We all have baggage here."
"She fucked up a while ago, she'll get over it, don't worry."

I wipe away fresh tears. Yeah, I'm a fuck up. But maybe it's not my fault. They wouldn't know it either way.

I go home.

A/N

Ahahahahha I'm poop. Sorry.

bUT you kinda get a little background and who Caleb is and stuff. Also I couldn't find and slang terms for Multiple Personality Syndrome, so I just said Splittie _

Anyways, thanks for hanging around!

~Angelheat