Took me so long to find out what to write and then a few nights ago, poof! there is was!

Now, it's small, but it has a point. Find it. (Actually I think it has a few...?)

Next chapter coming sooner. Like tomorrow perhaps...

Present Day

He sat up, blinking in the pale yellowish light, and looked around the room. There wasn't much to see; a thick purple curtain had been hung around his bed but from what he could see and feel, Aerrow was in a hospital. He shifted on the hard bed and winced at the pressure on his hand; there was a thin, white bandage all around it and he flexed his fingers experimentally.

Then he closed his eyes and put the other hand to his head and tried to remember what had happened; he shivered, opening his eyes again at some unremembered fear.

After a while a lady in a white cap stuck her head between a part in the curtain, looked shocked to see him awake, and then stepped between the purple folds. She was dressed as a nurse with the white cap pinned to her curly hair, and a white dress and apron with a red cross on it; she held a clipboard in her hand.

She stepped toward him, making a clicking sound and forced his head back, shining a small light into each eye, "Awake I see. Do you remember what happened to you?"

"Uh…no, not really, what happened?" he asked, and the nurse took the opportunity to shove a thermometer between his teeth.

"Hey!"

"Hold still. If you check out okay then you can leave, but if I can't do my job you'll stay in this bed for the rest of you life."

Aerrow stopped fidgeting and raised an eyebrow at her words. She took the thermometer out and wrote on her clipboard.

0o0o

"Okay, so what happened? Why was I in a hospital in the first place?"

He walked with Piper down the crowded main street on Atmosia; it was late afternoon, the sun shining in their eyes.

"Here," she grabbed his arm and pulled him onto a less crowded side street and out to the light forest. When they could no longer hear the sounds of the market she stopped and sat down, leaning against a tree trunk. He copied her, folding his legs up to his chin and waited.

"It's nice here," she said and began, "what's the last thing you remember?"

He thought back, "Monday, we were flying to Atmosia. Just after lunch, you and Finn were arguing about something."

"Right, okay. Finn just made some snappy comment about my work and I flipped out," she looked ashamed and paused; he nodded at her.

She continued, "I don't remember exactly what we said but I remember grabbing this and shoving it in his face," she fingered her blue crystal necklace, "and the rope snapped. You came over to stop the fight or something and…."

Images flashed through his mind and he remembered more than Piper described,

The blue crystal fell and Finn and Piper stopped shouting to watch it. It hit the metal deck with a tinkling sound and bounced toward him. Aerrow stooped to pick it up and there was a flash like lightening in his mind. His body went numb and limp; he fell. The Condor was blurring around him and a tremor wracked his body, his fist clenched around the crystal and he felt the skin break.

"You started mumbling things but your voice sounded weird and none of us could understand you…"

There was a voice in his head, a dark menacing voice that sent chills down his spine; it laughed.

"You have just opened the door to the eternal suffering of your world. This time I will not be defeated, and Cyclonis will suffer worst for what he did to me."

It was confusing; he could make no sense, no meaning behind the voice and it laughed again,

"You will soon understand. You will see what you have unleashed on Man and all the other species in this world. They will not die but they shall wish it, for there will be no joy, only pain and fear. Can you understand that? And you…you will be all mine. You will experience the thousand years of solitude and unrelenting pain you put me through and then I shall kill you. You will be my one exception."

The voice faded, became a whisper, "My one exception. I look forward to it."

"And then you just stopped all of a sudden and we couldn't wake you up…Aerrow!"

He jerked up when Piper touched his shoulder; she looked worried, "What?"

"Nothing, I thought maybe it was happening again."

They sat in silence for a few more moments.

"Piper?"

"Yes?"

"Have you ever…um; I think we should head back now. It's getting dark."

"Sure."

And just a heads up...if you wanted blood and violence and evil evil, sorry to disappoint. I don't know if it has anything to do with my being a Christian or not but I view 'evil' in my stories as…different.

My evil is Cartoon Evil, as in Cyclonis is evil but she never actually kills anyone or really physically wounds anyone, she's just diabolical. So I have Cartoon Evil in which the evil being just causes mostly intense fear and hate and bad stuff but is not really evil...I've explained that part and I have a quote coming in one of the later chapters that is my favourite and fits 'evil' perfectly.

You shall see.

Good night.