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avatoph3: I came up with the term 'spirit-world' because it just seemed like a spirit-world to me. Everything's all crazy, and she's there in dream, not in reality.

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And suddenly, I was back, and whole, with Heath in 'The Otherworld'. I was very confused now. I looked at him, he looked at me, and we both spoke at the same time.

"What the Heck?"


Heath shoved the end of his fishing pole into a pipe sticking out of the dock he was on and ran to me.

"I didn't mean for you to pass out, Zo," he whispered into my ear between kisses, his words becoming a metallic green essence that enveloped us both. I heard the distant zip! of Heath's fishing line, but Heath's presence distracted me.

"Heath, I-I'm so sorry I couldn't save you!" I said softly, because it was hard to be anything but happy when sparkly, purple words were surrounding and tickling you.

"Hey, it's not your fault. I shouldn't have been snooping around." Heath however, seemed to have no problem being something other than happy, and his sadness made his metallic green words become chilly and blurry. We broke apart, his chilled words parting us. I glared at him.

"You are not going to blame this on yourself!" I snapped, my sudden anger giving the sparkles in my words a red tinge. He glanced at them, and twirled his finger around in them distractedly, causing them to disperse into a sparkly purpley-red mist.

"Let's just forget everything, okay? Who knows when you'll be gone again, and I won't see you." His green words made me remember how I had just appeared here, and this time didn't feel fatigued at all.

"'Kay," I agreed solemnly. He took my hand and we walked back onto the dock. The line on his fishing pole was as drawn out as it could be now, and the rod was bent. We sat down and he took it from it's perch. He started reeling in, and he looked really excited. Heath noticed my confused look, and just said, "You just wait," in a devious way.

He'd reeled it in almost all the way, and I saw a flicker of something jump out of the water, and slide back in without splash nor sound. This, of course, drew my attention.

The bobber slipped out of the water in front of the dock, and I could see something underneath us. Heath tugged on the line and I almost jumped up in surprise at what was on the end.

It was a fish, but that's not what surprised me. It looked like it was made out of water, but somehow stayed in the shape of a fish. It was all the colors of the rainbow, the different colors just drifting around, but not mixing. The edges of it's scales and fins had traces of silver; just enough to define each one. But strangest of all was it's eyes. They were gold, and they glimmered with intellegence. Those eyes seemed to be smiling as if the fish was happy to have brought me happiness.

"It's…it's—" I stammered not knowing what to say. Heath took it off the line, I noticed he wasn't using a hook, and held it in his hand. He threw it into the air, where it transformed into a bird and flew around us. It was still rainbow, and each feather, talon and it's beak was now edged and distinguished with silver. I stared in wonder. "Beautiful," I continued.

Heath put his arm around my shoulder and looked into my eyes.

"Just like my Zo."

I blushed, and leaned into him, just watching the strange fish—no, bird—fly around in his metallic words. We sat there, enjoying each other's company. We just sat there and talked, remembering old times for who knows how long. And then it was time to go.

"Heath…" I trailed off as I began to glow and break down, but still hold my shape.

"Yeah," he sounded disappointed, but not scared. "You did that after you passed out. When I tried to touch you, you kinda blew up."

I giggled like a schoolgirl at his straightforwardness.

"Love ya, Heath."

"You too, Zoey."

I leaned over to kiss him one last time, and when our lips met I disintegrated into shiny pieces, again,—now how many people can say that?—and blew…somewhere.


This time I was conscious while floating around. My mind was weak in this strange state I was in, but I could still think. I wondered for the first time what was happening to me. I hadn't given it much thought before, but I wanted to know why I hadn't woken up yet. Was I on my way out of this…dream?

I opened my eyes. It was weird how I was just suddenly was somewhere else, and back in my body. At first I thought I had woken up, but was soon proved wrong. I didn't know where I was, but all I could see was me running towards Heath and Kalona, spirit in my hands. I watched myself stumble as Kalona snapped Heath's neck, and I hurled spirit at him. I saw myself fall to the ground, and Stark was suddenly at my side.

It was a strange experience. Here I was, watching my last waking moments as if they were a movie. I slowly walked closer to myself—no, my body; I could tell that I was no longer there—and saw my friends running toward Stark, who was now clutching my body. As I grew near enough to see my body clearly, I froze. Fear and shock overcame me as I realized why my body didn't look quite right; the Nyx-given designs that should have bordered my face and covered my shoulders were gone!

I immediately looked at my shoulder—the real me—and gasped when I saw the sad, empty space where my beautiful tattoos should have been. Tears stung my eyes and I wrenched my gaze away. Had Nyx disowned me? Was she angry that I had fallen for Kalona's trickery?

I heard Stark speaking beside me, and realized that everything and everyone else had disappeared, and it was just Stark holding my body, and me, whom he didn't seem to see. I listened to what he was saying. Did he know what had happened to me?

"When she threw spirit at Kalona, Zoey knew she was too late, and her soul shattered. I know because I'm bound to her soul and I felt it shatter. Zoey's not here anymore. This is just her empty shell."

And then he started to cry, his heavy tears coming down to drip on my body's face. My body, which I now saw was totally vacant, dissolved form his arms and Stark cried harder and sank to the ground in despair.

His words startled me. My soul had shattered? What did that mean? I supposed that that was why I wasn't waking up, but wouldn't that mean I was dead?

"Am I dead?"

Stark's head snapped up when I spoke, and he stared at me, just standing there in front of him wondering if I was indeed alive or not. He slowly rose to his feet, and took a few hesitant steps toward me.

"I'm so sorry, Zoey," he whispered so quietly that I almost didn't hear him.

"It's not your fault," I answered him truthfully, "It's not."

He looked surprised that I replied. He swallowed, blinked the stream of tears out of his eyes, and looked closer at me.

"You—you've never responded to me before."

"Huh?"

"Every time I go to sleep, it's always this same dream—nightmare, and usually you walk away after I apologize, and I run after you, but no matter fast I go I can never keep up."

I stepped closer to him, feeling terrible that I was the cause of so much of his pain. I gently took his hand and drew him closer to me. I gave him a hug. It felt really good.

"I don't think this is a dream. Maybe it started out as one, but I think now it's more," I spoke softly into his ear, and to my surprise, his body shook with a sad laugh.

"Well, of course you'd say that, you are my dream."

"No," I replied, "I mean it. I've been wandering the Otherworld, or at least, that's what everyone keeps calling it, and I've been with…two others, so if this is anyone's dream, it's mine." I didn't mention that those two others were Heath and Kalona. Talk about awkward.

He dropped his arms from our embrace, but held onto my hand tightly; as if afraid I would disappear at any time.

"So…I saw what you were dreaming about before. W-what's happened since then?" I asked, nervous to find out the answer. I was afraid Nyx had cast me out. After all, she hadn't been in any of my visions, or whatever you want to call them, and all my tattoos were gone.

But you still have your affinities, so Nyx couldn't have turned her back on you, a voice in my head stubbornly pointed out.

Yeah, well, maybe I was born with them or something. If Nyx hadn't abandoned me, why else would my marks be gone and why hasn't she shown up yet? I argued, afterwards feeling silly for arguing with my mind.

"Well," Stark broke in through my mind chatter, "You're body is still alive, but you—your soul, spirit, whatever you wanna call it— aren't in it. You're breathing on your own, but we have to feed you through an IV, and you have a catheter." Stark blushed a little at this, bringing a pale pink color to his almost paper-white face. "Right now, you're in the infirmary laying on a hospital bed. I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you in case anything changes, but Darius said he'd take over for me. I hadn't realized I had gone four days without sleep until he mentioned it."

"Four days?" I demanded, angry at him and myself at the same time.

"Hey, you asked."

I grumbled a little at his remark, but just crossed my arms and waited for him to continue.

"After your soul first shattered," he glanced at me cautiously as if wondering how I'd react to this information. When I did nothing, he went on. "And you threw spirit at Kalona, he totally flipped out and came diving for you. The fear on his face looked almost genuine." Stark scowled, and I was startled.

"Kalona came after me?"

Stark scoffed at this.

"He was just playing his mind games. He almost took you away, but I caught up with him and wounded him." He looked really proud of himself. My inner A-ya wanted me to go apologize to Kalona more than ever, but I pushed her thoughts aside. Starks face grew inquisitive, and he continued. "His blood smelled like the most delicious thing you could imagine—even Darius had trouble resisting it. Some other vamps came outside looking for it, it smelled that was really weird…"

"That's...worrisome," I stated, pleading to the dear Goddess, Mary, and anyone else worth praying to that Kalona would never use this against me. Because of the A-ya in me, I was almost positive I would not be able to resist it. Just the thought gave me chills.

Just then, I noticed myself beginning to shine, and I began to feel lightheaded.

Hmm, that's new, I thought dreamily, refering to the wooziness, as I began the cycle of dissolving.

"Zoey? Zoey!" Starks voice was growing faint as I fragmented.

"I'll come back…promise…" Part of me knew there was no way to tell if I would—or could—keep this promise, but the other part of me knew it was what Stark need to hear. I squeezed the hand that was in mine before I had strted to glow, and Stark squeezed back, sending pieces of me into every direction.


I could, once again, sense things during this journey. I had no idea where I was headed, but I could only hope it was somewhere that would give me the answers I so dearly needed.

I looked up to see a beautiful sunset on the water, with distant rain clouds heading away. The tendrils of red, orange, and purple light generated from the setting sun danced on the waves caused by the wonderful-feeling sea breeze.

Dang! I thought as I realized that I was suddenly back in my form. This was seriously freaky! One minute I was in… wherever, and the next I was…wherever, back in my body!

I looked around to find out where I was, and, to my dismay, found myself to be back on the tower of my dreams.

Correction; Nightmares.

As if the word 'Nightmares' had summoned him, Kalona was suddenly beside me.


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