A/N: Thanks for the love, guys. Though these author's notes tend to get long because of the love. Don't stop bringing the love!

-x-.'Somebody's Nobody'.-x-: Thanks for all the support. I appreciate that you can appreciate a good read. And I had a lot of fun writing the last chapter. I think my forte lies with dark stuff anyway. I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks. You know I'm notoriously known for my artistic skills with OCs. And a big ego. XD At first, I was kind of conflicted with having her powers be water-based. Water isn't an original ability to control at all, but I tried to make it as interesting as possible.

Eugar: You know I've got mad respect for your thoughts and comments all ready. I hope you approve of everything that happens in this chapter, and keep giving me those important thoughts of yours.

The Messaged: Cool. I'm glad I opened your eyes. I hope you like this chapter.

JessiKa xoxo: XD Your review made me smile. Insanly. And blush a little. Thank you for your kind comments. Awww. I'm glad you like my stuff.

Infected Vulpine: Thanks. And I say this from the bottom of my heart. But I'm not an adult. I'm just fifteen. XD And Latin. I'm willing to help you anytime you need help!

And now, the chapter!

-: Chapter Two: Going In Blind :-

This life is*not* like you wanted it.
His eyes I can see again, I need you here.
In your mind nobody's listening.
It's alright not to feel again,
Just breath again...

Time after time I walk the fine line,
But something keeps bringing me back.
Time after time I'm going in blind,
I don't know which way I need to go...

--- "Going In Blind" -- POD

It's true: Everyone needs a reason to stay alive—someone who justifies your existence. Someone who loves you. Not beyond all reason. Just loves you. Even just shows an interest. Even someone who doesn't exist, or isn't yours. No, no. They don't even have to love you! They just have to be there to love. Target for your arrows. Magnetic Pole to drag on your compass needle and stop it spinning and spinning and tell you where you're heading and… Someone to soak up all the yearning. That's what I think.

Grotesque, bizarre, uncanny, étrange… some things just defy the tight, little categories into which we stuff our conceptual realities. And when they do, all hell breaks loose. Minds crack, institutions buckle. The power of grotesqueries and other irrational artifacts of the human world lies in their challenge to the collective moral order of what we consider to be "natural."

So, yes. I didn't get too far away from the man I saved. … When faced with an image that contradicts our sense of what is natural or what is morally "right," we give into either psychic paranoia or desire. Some of us will be hijacked by our anxiety over negotiating the dark terrors prescribed by cultural consensus; others of us will enjoy the seduction of palpable uncertainty. I turned a corner, my arms folded behind my head nonchalantly. Usually, I didn't get too caught up in whatever the hell the Reapers were conducting. As long as they didn't bother me. It wasn't like I could take them on if they did, anyway.

I am old. Well, not that old. I am a twenty-six-year old woman, mind you. I could have taken on maybe one or two gang punks, but not a slew of them.

That was exactly what I saw right before my eyes.

But they weren't Reapers. No, they were different. And along with them, there was a large group of men surrounding something. There was no way in hell I was going to risk my life because I turned a bad street corner. So, I did the smart thing and hid behind a dumpster, crouching down on my knees. Standing alongside the gang members were about five males in white lab coats.

Dreaming was easier than screaming, and screaming was easier than worrying, and worrying was easier than crying, which was what I knew I would be reduced to if I didn't keep a hard eye on myself. I could barely see the men, but one of the scientist had shoulder-length jet-black hair. He looked like he took care of his hair meticulously. Not one strand of hair was out of place. He had his arms folded, letting me know spot on that this man was an arrogant piece of garbage. And if that wasn't enough, he had a smirk dancing across his lips.

"Kessler would be pleased with himself, don't you think?" the man chortled, laughing up a storm. "And to think, we just changed guns and bombs to simplistic little toys. Water guns, to be precise." I wiped a strand of my black hair out of my eyes. I didn't quite understand what they were saying. I knew it had nothing to do with me, but I was afraid of leaving. Of making a sound. Of making the wrong move. And besides, I wasn't sure how'd these guys would react to a woman wearing a baggy hoodie that her friend bought her, a frilly skirt, and baggy leg-warmers just jumping out of nowhere.

There's a part of me that loves to go out in the world looking like a total slob. I guess it's my way of saying, "Fuck it. I don't give a shit about what anyone thinks I look like." And yet, another part of me knows that under the defiance, the way I look is a reflection of the way I feel, a walking advertisement of myself as a loser. One of the gang grunts moved, and there I saw a man. Probably in his late-twenties. He looked oddly familiar. All I knew was that he was still alive, giving everyone around him dangerous looks. But he was weak. The man just laid there, unable to do anything.

Against my will, my right hand started to pulse. For a long time, I believed the opposite of passion was death. I was wrong. Passion and death are implicit, one in the other. Past the border of a fiery life lies the netherworld. I can trace this road, which took me through places so hot the very air burned the lungs. I did not turn back. I pressed on, and eventually passed over the border, beyond which lies a place that is wordless and cold, so cold that it, like mercury, burns a freezing blue flame. Whatever the hell those men were doing, I didn't like it. But first I had to figure out what they were planning. They arrogant guy with the girly hair held something. A book bag, I believe. And he was handling it as if he didn't care about the contents inside.

"You think you can just take me down with a little water," the man said, and then the oddest thing happened. Sparks began to fly through the air from both of his hands. "I've got enough energy to charge a shitload of cars. I'd suggest you leave before things get ugly."

"Sonofabitch," I whispered. My body didn't take well to seeing all that electricity. In fact, I'd say it didn't like that show at all. Just the sight of blue, pure electricity sent my body into a panic attack. All the same, my depression and self-hatred, my desire to mutilate myself with broken bottles, my numbness and crying fits, my inability to get out of bed for days and days, the feeling of the world moving in to crush me, went on and on. But I knew I wouldn't go mad, even if that release, that letting-go, was a freedom I desired. I was waiting for myself to heal. "That's that guy. The guy with the weird powers." And at the point, I wanted to smack myself. At least now I knew that there was someone in the city that had what I had. And I could ask him questions. I needed this guy alive. I needed to at least try to save him. For my daughter.

"Cole MacGrath," the brunette guy hissed. "I wouldn't be the one making wagers. I assume you know what happened to Trish."

"Shut the hell up. You weren't the cause of that," Cole spat, sarcastically. "Now, I'm not going to ask again. Leave. And how do you know Trish? I don't even think I know your ass!" Cole rolled painfully to his side, pushing himself up and leaning heavily on his arm, electricity radiating off of him. Again, my body response wasn't a normal one. I'll never escape. It drives me mad. I must, must, must do something. I feel as if I'm at the earth's heart. I've got the weight of the whole earth pressing in on this little box. It grows smaller and I can feel it contracting. I want to scream sometimes. Till my voice is raw. To death. I can't write it. There aren't the words. Utter despair. I've been like that all day. A kind of endless panic in slow motion.

"How could I forget, Cole MacGrath?" the man mused, pushing up his glasses with his free hand. "Why, yes, I'm Doctor Hudson. I found some papers that belong to Kessler—and you're going to come with us. Won't you help us, Cole? I can promise you whatever you desire."

"Like hell." Cole answered. Hudson looked at Cole with an amused expression on his face. Cole climbed first to his knees, and then unsteadily to his feet. "I don't want anything to do with Kessler. He's dead. And if this has anything to do with the Ray Sphere, that's gone too. Get off my back before I fry you guys like fish in an ocean. Last chance."

"You don't want to take my army on, Cole," Hudson spoke, extending his arms to all the grunts around him. "Gangs just don't expand and never come back, Cole. These Dustman are far superior than they were when you first encountered them. Please. It'll be such a shame to bring you back harmed." Cole didn't even care about what came out of Hudson's mouth. Cole flexed his arms, lighting literally screaming from his body. It was an amazing site. Sparks danced into the sky. No, no. There were too many of them. Cole couldn't possibly bring them down at such a close position. I closed my eyes for a bit, absorbing the water molecules in the air. It was my time to shine. Though I knew I couldn't do anything.

Blues like this lives out of sight of the world, I think. It seems more a solid organic mass than a mood that can blow away or be lifted. It lies there and says, Go ahead, try to budge me. ... Blues like this doesn't have ears. It can't be disturbed. It has nothing to do with sadness or even grief—which at least are imaginable emotions.

One of the many things I hate about the word "depression" is the assumption of blankness attached to it, as if the experience of depression is as absent on the inside as it looks to be from the outside. That is wrong. Depression is a place that teems with nightmarish activity. It's a one-industry town, a psychic megalopolis devoted to a single twenty-four-hour-we-never-close product. You work misery as a teeth-grinding muscle-straining job (is that why it's so physically exhausting?), proving your shameful failures to yourself over and over again. Depression says you can get blood from a stone, and so that's what you do. Competing voices are an irritating distraction from the work. No wonder depression doesn't get invited out much. Not because it's not the life of the party, it knows it's not that, but because self-absorption as a work ethic is so prickly and one-eyed. That's okay with depression—it figures, who'd want to be friends with it, anyway?

I yearned to get better; I told myself I was getting better. In fact, the depression was still there, like a powerful undertow. Sometimes it grabbed me, yanked me under; other times, I swam free.

If I attacked the guys around Cole, would I hurt him? But more importantly, would I hurt myself? After all, he could control electricity. I could control water. Doesn't water conduct electricity? Very pure water is a very bad conductor of electricity, but even tiny amounts of ionic impurities can make it conduct. Seawater, for example, conducts water very well. In order to get rid of organic solvents which harm the ozone layer, electronic manufacturers have been washing things in very pure water, In this case, the conductivity of the water is a very good measure of how pure it is: as soon as it stats to conduct an appreciable amount of electricity, they know they have to change the water. Unless you know that it is extraordinarily pure, you should assume that water is conductive. Generally speaking, water and electricity should not mix. Would I kill us both?

Water danced between my fingers. Water danced around my arms. My hair started to disappear on its ends, somehow turning into water vapor. All eyes spun towards me as a came from behind the dumpster. Hudson looked bemused, but angry all the same. "Intruders come from intrusting places—" he paused, his body rippling in fear. Hudson glanced at the crystal-clear water surrounding me like clockwork. I glanced at Cole, who was just speechless. "Nérine! You were in Kessler's concealed reports. I was wondering what happened to you." I didn't know what the hell this guy was talking about. I didn't know a Kessler.

I smiled a bit, strengthening my stance. "Well, the only thing I know is that your name's Hudson. And your trying to start trouble. So, I'm going to ask you to leave this guy alone.

"That isn't possible, Nérine, Sweetheart," he answered. I threw up in my mouth a little bit. I didn't want to picture myself 'taken' because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anyone spoke to me, or looked at me too closely, the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I think there can be no greater suffering than the state of mind I find myself in at present. I am sane enough to know that I am no longer sane. Somewhere, somehow, I am being dragged over a line, a line which never even existed for me until now. It's I, not someone else, but I, who am crossing that line, and I see no way to stop myself.

I have become, inexplicably, a wandering and completely bewildered stranger in the realm of my emotions. I can no longer find my way back to my familiar and known world where I did dwell once in some harmony with myself. Everyone is on the other side of an impenetrable glass. We can see each other, but we cannot reach each other, and I am stretching out my hand in vain. I am alone and abandoned in the dark, and I am terrified, beyond any understanding, and the not understanding leaves me in a state of paralyzing panic.

I can't move in any direction. I am becoming more and more rigid physically. I am afraid that if I turn my head, even a little I will see my horrible terrors and they will overwhelm me. I think I'm being followed—I am running through endless, twisting, pitch-dark tunnels, and I can't find my way out. There is no light at the end of any turn I take. I can't turn back. I am being backed into the darkest and last corner of all. Oh, yes, I know it's not rational, but I can't stop thinking these monstrous thoughts.

I long to escape from these feelings that I can neither understand nor bear. Where is there a place for me, where can I go, where can I turn, save deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of my poor sick mind?

My mind is dying and I want to die with it. The pain is too much to bear. Even my body hurts. My terrors are crushing me, smothering me. I can't breathe—I can't communicate my fears to anyone with any hope that they will be understood. I am locking myself up in a prison of my own making, a horrible, painful prison, to which I have no key.

There is only one escape, and that is death. I wanted to plan—each day and night—how to take my life. It is hard to believe that I, who loved life so much, was planning to kill myself—find myself longing for death. I am obsessed with one desire—to blot out a mind that can harbor and play with such thoughts. Someone must help me—safe me from myself, for what will become of me?

Cole and I flinched at the sound of a helicopter reeling overhead us. Hudson walked nonchalantly towards me, while his lackeys watched Cole. "Can't hold an investigation without backup, can you, Nérine? Cole?" I didn't want to listen to a creep that I didn't even know. And the helicopter was packing some serious heat. It was apparent that Cole was a tad weak, despite the fact that he could radiate so much lightning.

"Shit," Cole mumbled, blasting a few Dustman with blood-lusting, frightening blue lightning. This lightning scared me. Whom can I talk to about my powers? Get advice from? No one. A psychiatrist is the god of our age. But they cost money. And I won't take advice, even if I want it. I am beyond help. No one here has time to probe, to aid me in understanding myself… so many others are worse off than I. How can I selfishly demand help, solace, guidance? No, it is my own mess, and even if now I have lost my sense of perspective, thereby my creative sense of humor, I will not let myself get sick, go mad, or retreat like a child into blubbering on someone else's shoulder. "Now I've got to baby-sit."

"Est-ce que ce la vie où vous voulez est pour mener, Nérine?" Hudson began, blending in with the group of scientists. He was talking to me in French, oddly. I had taken French in high school. I wasn't exactly good at it, but I could make out what he was saying. Hudson basically said, Is this the life you want to lead, Nérine? "Vous pouvez sauver le monde, ou détruisez-le, amoureux. Bien, peut-être pas. Mais Cole peut. Entretien à lui pour moi. Svp. Le monde a besoin de ceci." You can save the world, or destroy it, Sweetheart. Well, maybe not. But Cole can. Talk to him for me. Please. The world needs this.

Now I stand here, crying almost, afraid, seeing the finger writing my hollow futility on the wall, damning me—God, where is the integrating force going to come from? My life up till now seems messy, inconclusive, disorganized: I arranged my courses wrong, played my strategy without unifying rules—got excited at my own potentialities, yet amputated some to serve others. I am drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness… I go plodding on, afraid that the blank hell in back of my eyes will break through, spewing forth like a dark pestilence, afraid that the disease which eats away the pith of my body with merciless impersonality will break forth in obvious sores and warts, screaming "Traitor, sinner, imposter."

I'd been depressed before, of course. But I'm talking about really depressed. Not just feeling a bit down or sad, a depression that has something to do with biorhythms. I'm talking about the kind of depressed that floats in upon you like a fog. You can feel it coming and you can see where it is going to take you but you are powerless, utterly powerless to stop it. I know now.

"Hey! Move!"

I didn't know if Cole was talking to me or not, but my body instantly dropped. An upsetting bolt of dancing lightning was aimed at Hudson. I came towards the ground with a vicious thud, my cell-phone and I-Pod falling out of the pocket of my hoodie. Amazingly, Cole had taken care of all the Dustman. But the other scientists had vanished. With inhuman speed and provision, Cole extended both of his hands and literally sucked the life out of my i-Pod. It was weird. Hudson snickered as the lighting that was suppose to hit him totally disappeared.

"How the hell did you do that?!" Cole asked, somewhat irritated.

"Technology, MacGrath. I don't need the Ray Sphere. I don't need to rebuild it. But I do need you, Infâme Cole." After Hudson finished his sentence, the helicopter that was above us started to rain bullets at us. I was mortified. I had never been shot at before.

But I had been shot now.

Cole put up a shield, but there was just one problem. I didn't know how—of even if I could—make a shield of my own. A bullet landed in my leg, causing me extreme pain. I bit my lower lip to stop from screaming. No one needed to hear that.

Cole let his shield down, and the helicopter and Hudson were gone. The only things left were dead bodies. There was a long pause, neither one of us wanting to acknowledge the situation.

"You realize… if I try to heal you, you'll probably burn up like the sun, right?" Came the raspy voice of Cole. He was looking over me, as if he was taking some type of pity on me. …Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. Beautiful in the concept, if we're lucky, but frequently tedious or regrettable as we flesh ourselves out.

And then my phone starts to ring. Slowly, I make my way over to where it had landed by crawling. As soon as I see my daughter's face on the screen, all of my pain disappeared. I flipped my phone open.

"Mother… when are you coming back? Jack's getting weird! He keeps failing at playing cards with me! It's boring over here!" Even her nagging was enough to warm my heart. I forced a smile.

"Yvonne? Yvonne. I can't talk to you right now."

"But, Mom…"

"Really. Play nice. I'll be back to tuck you in. Bye." And I clicked the receiver.

"Your kid?" Cole asked. I nodded my head. I wanted to scream. My daughter was so close to me, but then so far away. I felt like saying something, but I didn't want to say anything! I felt like… I felt like…

"Is everyone in my life fuckin' bananas?!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, trying to sit up. Alone, we are alive. Alone does not necessarily mean in solitude: we are not just the lone figure on the far shore. This is a populous world, and we are most often alone in a crowd. It is a state less of body than mind. The word alone should not, for us, ring cold and hollow, but hot. Pulsing with potentiality. Alone as in distinct. Alone as in, alone in his field. As in, stand alone. As in, like it or not, leave me alone. This word wants rescuing, this word wants pride. This word wants to be washed and shined.

I don't like to open up to people.

The people around me think I am maladjusted. Of course I am adjusted just fine, just not to their frequency. They take it personally.

They take offense. Feel hurt. Get angry. They do not blame owls for coming out at night, yet they blame me for being as I am. Because it involves them, or at least they believe it does. They assemble the troops and call us names.

Crazy. Cold. Stuck-up. Standoffish. Aloof. Afraid. Lacking in social skills. Bizarre. Unable to connect. Incapable of love. Freak. Geek. Sad. Lonely. Selfish. Secretive. Ungrateful. Unfriendly. Serial killer.

What's agitating about solitude is the inner voice telling you that you should be mated to somebody, that solitude is a mistake. The inner voice doesn't care about who you find. It just keeps pestering you, tormenting you …

"That's a very smart comment," Cole said, sarcasm dripping off his tongue. "From fear of touching you and myself burning up like the sun, I can't take you to the hospital, either. But I can't just leave you here wounded like this. What were you thinking? When most people see guys with guns, they run shitless."

"Didn't you notice? I'm not a normal person," I said, closing my eyes and absorbing what water was left floating around in the air. And amazingly, I was able to stand up. Slowly, but surely. "And you aren't, either. Cole, is it? My name's Nérine. Do you have any idea what's happening to me?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. All I know is that that Hudson guy has some beef with me. And just the fact that he knows who you are doesn't make you comfortable to be around. How do I know you won't pull some crazy shit and blast me with whatever you can do with water?"

"Forgive me. I don't mean to get upset. But you are taking my world away from me, piece by little piece, and sometimes it just pisses me off. Sorry." I paused, picking up my i-Pod. "And you owe me another one of these, Cole."

"Sorry Nérine, but people can't be trusted, period. I barely know what to think of my own best friend now. Let alone some strange woman who just happens to have control over the very thing that can kill me."

I wanted to be more mature, more reasonable, I wanted to have a big, fat, forgiving heart that could contain all this rage and still find room for kind, beneficent love, but I didn't have it in me. I just didn't.

"Cole, I just want answers. I woke up one day, and I just started acting funny. I don't know how to control these powers, truthfully. You've got to know what I mean, right? How did you get your powers? Because I have no idea in hell how I got mine." This hatred overtook me, and I couldn't help myself. I wanted so much to forget the past, but it wouldn't go away, it hung around like an open wound that refused to scar over, an open window that no amount of muscle could shut. "I don't know about you, but I have a daughter. And I can't be in her life if these powers take over everything around me. She's basically the only family I have left, Cole. And I'll do anything to protect her."

Rage keeps the person who feels it company. It moves into the hollows left by grief and loss, and turns inside you like a dark furred animal that grows and fills you; it kills off loneliness and takes its place. Rage gives you edge, keeps your blood pumping, gives you a reason to get up in the morning. I am angry nearly every day of my life… but I have learned not to show it; and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.

"This is just the thing I don't need. A detour," Cole snorted, folding his arms. "I'm telling you—crap. The bastard got my bag."

"Fantastic." I added, quirking my nose at the lightning-wielder. "So how are you going to get it back? I don't want anything to do with the guy. I'm not a superhero or some crap like that. What was in it? Can't you just get another one?"

"No, there was something important in there. If I get that bag back and anything's wrong with what's inside, his ass is done. I don't plan on taking anything from anyone, especially freaks like him." And then Cole turned around, as if he were ready to take off. I didn't want him to leave. At least, not yet anyway. After all, there's no point in hurting somebody who doesn't mean anything to you. My eyes just looked at him as he climbed a building. Once he made it to the top, he stopped. Would I be able to do that? "Try anything sneaky, and you light up like a firecracker. Though it is true that you can kill me, I can kill you just as easily. And I'm faster."

I rose a brow. "How do you think I'm getting up there?!" I half-yelled.

"You've got to be kiddin' me…" Cole carped, jumping down the building and landing with earth-shattering speed. The ground broke underneath him, and I let out a whistling sound.

"I take it you've got a plan?" I ask, putting my hands on my hips. "I don't feel too good about being next to you either, hot-shot. I don't exactly like the idea of death-by-lightning." I was just feeling lots of negative emotions. I don't think "negative emotions" is an accurate phrase. Emotions are emotions. We can't look at them as positive or negative, they are what they are. And they are your reality. All you have on your plate is your reality. You decide whether you look at your reality or live pretending these feelings don't exist.

"Hell," Cole muttered, pondering on what exactly should he do. "Like I said, I can't exactly touch you. We're going to have to walk. Since Professor Obnoxious has some goons, be prepared to fight."

"So, where you taking me?"

"To Zeke's."