Aw jeez, I was doing so well and then I left you guys for 2 months. I'm just really sorry. Sometimes life gets in the way hahaaa but I will not leave you guys. Tbh I love and appreciate my readers too much to leave you hanging like that. So even if life gets in the way, I will still update. This is probably the one fanfic I've vowed not to abandon until it's done because I've put too much time and energy into it to just leave it. Like how long has it been? 4 years?

[Soundtrack: Engineering - System Shock 2]

The mood in the submarine was more somber than ever after the grim revelation from Pegasus's meeting. We were relieved that none of us were murderers, but the fact that Lia had killed herself and made it look like a murder… Who would do that? I mean, I didn't like to speak ill of the dead, but fuck it we're all dead, and without even a hint of guilt, I could say fuck that crazy bitch and what she put us all through. Lia was one sick motherfucker. Somehow, this felt even worse than murder.

Our group was forced to stay in the meeting room as Kemo escorted Leon out of the room. With the intensity of Lia's death still making us dizzy, we had all forgotten about Pegasus's immunity rule. I had hoped Rex would get the immunity, but the fact that the youngest one of us gained immunity was still a pretty good outcome all things considered and nobody really complained; we were all rather relieved. This kind of "game" was no place for a kid anyway.

After being released, the first course of action for Serenity and me was searching for Rex, Malik, and Ryou; the three of them were still missing. We were even joined by everyone else, even Rafael, Zephyr, and Sun to our surprise. I guess they were just curious or were hoping to catch the three of them red-handed. I mean, it was no secret that they didn't trust us and we didn't trust them.

The first places Serenity and I checked were their rooms, but all three of them seemed to be empty. The rest of the crew let us check inside their rooms as well; including the bathrooms and inside their closets. The cafeteria was closed so there was no way they were in there… unless it was locked while Rex, Ryou, and Malik were still in there, but I was pretty sure the cafeteria closed just before we all found Malik in the chest of drawers in Lia's room. The public showers were also empty, which meant we had searched up and down the incredibly limited area we were trapped in, but still no sign of our friends.

I couldn't stop the throbbing organ in my chest from climbing up my throat and cutting off my oxygen. Rex and Weevil were the only people I had in this damn universe, and I wasn't going to lose 50% of my world because of Pegasus. I began to slam open bedroom doors with complete disregard to their occupants, wondering if there was anything I had missed, or some area I had forgotten to check. How could three grown teenage boys just disappear?

It was around the time of Pegasus's 8pm dinner time announcement that I found myself collapsing at Rex's door, defeated. I could feel my stomach growling at the idea of the mess hall being open again, but I couldn't find it in me to eat when I still hadn't found Rex. I sighed and buried my face in my hands. "Sera, you goddamn idiot… If I had just left right before the meeting to look for them…"

"You wouldn't have found them," a stern but otherwise friendly voice remarked from beside me. I turned to find someone I didn't even expect settling down beside me against Rex's door. With that shaggy black hair and untrimmed goatee, it was obviously Zephyr. "This game isn't what it seems," he told me, leaning down to meet my gaze.

"What do you want, Zephyr?" I asked sharply, glaring at him.

He rolled his eyes before leaning back against the door and looking ahead at the opposite dorm room -Ryou's room. "I'm trying to be nice, doofus."

"Oh, and I'm supposed to believe you and your weird culty friends after the way you treated me before?" I snapped back. What was his game? Did he just forget the past 12 hours?

He groaned. "Oh, geez. You mean us suspecting you for murder and all? Well, I mean, wouldn't you think that would be understandable all things considered? Fuckin' hell; how were we supposed to know the crazy bitch would off herself? You were the most suspicious person. But now that we know you're innocent, it's all water under the bridge."

I scoffed, but kept listening anyway. "Water under the bridge, huh?"

I saw him grin from the corner of my eye. "And the weird culty outfits? Not my idea, personally, but my boss has a pretty interesting aesthetic."

"Boss?" I asked. "Is your boss Cthulhu?"

For the first time since I met him, Zephyr let out a genuine laugh, using the back of his bony wrist to cover his mouth. "That's actually pretty close!" Once his laughter had died down, he mumbled, "You actually really remind me of her, y'know?"

[Soundtrack: Clarification - Zero Time Dilemma]

I felt my heart skip a beat -and not in the gross romantic way, because lord knows I hadn't been romantically interested in a man since I punched little Owen for stealing my Sailor Moon pen in the 2nd grade -in an uneasy sense of recognition. "Her? Who are you talking about?" I fucking knew exactly who he was talking about, but I was fascinated; I wanted to know more… This girl that everyone knew but me… Just who was she?

"Lorna… She passed away a couple of months ago… I'm sure your friends can tell you all about her. They knew her much better than I did."

"Please just tell me what you know," I pleaded. "She may not be here, but I know she's at the heart of this. She must be related to this mess we're in."

Zephyr flexed his shoulders and sighed. "Not much to tell. Besides she's the lucky one. She got out of this and got to die like a normal person. We're all stuck here. Talking about the past is irrelevant anyway…"

His answer wasn't helping me at all. I had to push him more. "Zephyr, before Malik went missing, he said he saw Lorna on this submarine somewhere. Whether she's dead or not, she's not irrelevant."

"Then Malik was hallucinating. You said he was bonked over the head, right?" he said, pointing to his temple. "Malik was in love with her, or at least that's what it looked like. Lorna wasn't the best duelist, but that guy… He bailed her out more than once. She would have died long before I met her if Malik wasn't looking out for her, but her clumsiness caught up to her. She didn't deserve what happened to her -not by a long shot -but you could see it coming a mile away." He paused for a moment as if recalling Lorna's last moments. "Anyway, when a guy loves a girl that much, his mind's gonna show him what he wants to see."

"So you saw it? The moment Lorna died?" I asked, my curiosity whizzing through my brain like rollercoaster in a loop.

"Nope," he replied curtly. "I got my ass out of there before that happened. We all did so we wouldn't die with her, but she was too late and so she went down with the ship. She's gone for sure. I've even been back there… That realm, the Solitude, it doesn't exist anymore."

"What if he was telling the truth though?" I insisted. "What if Malik was telling the truth and he really saw Lorna here? Would that even be possible?" I was skeptical of course, but I had to cover all my bases.

He grunted and made a noncommittal gesture. "I mean, I can't really be sure. I heard her friends buried her, though, so if by some miracle her soul pieced itself back together and got back into her body, she'd be six feet under and probably die again. For her sake, though, I hope she really did die. I hope she moved on. Being alive sucks. I didn't come back here by choice."

"I don't know…"I muttered looking at the floor. "I was murdered. I wish I hadn't been, but it is what it is, y'know. I figured this was God's way of telling me that He knows it was unfair that I died so soon, and that I really did deserve a second chance."

"You believe in God?" Zephyr replied dismissively.

"Well, I was raised Catholic," I informed him. "I wasn't sure whether God was still on my side after I came out, but the fact that I'm here means He has to be real, right? Like all this afterlife stuff… it's real, right?"

"Well, if He took you from being a murder victim to being another potential murder victim, you really gotta wonder," he mused. "Anyway, I'm not the type to tell anyone what to believe. I'm not even sure what I believe. Y'see, I wasn't murdered. I killed myself. I hoped there wasn't an afterlife and that it would just be nothing, and yet here I am."

A pang of grief shot through me. Sure, I didn't know this guy that well, but you wouldn't be human if someone told you that and you felt absolutely nothing. "Why would you do that? I-If you don't mind my asking."

He shrugged, speaking calmly as if he was simply telling me about the plot to a TV show he'd seen. "I dunno. Rough childhood? Bad breakup? Mental health issues? Money issues? Long story short; I was a broke transgender gay dude. Went off my depression meds because I couldn't afford them anymore -and that backfired magnificently." He chuckled as if he had just told a joke only he could understand, but I could sense something dark underneath.

"Thank you for sharing…" I told him quietly, putting a hand on his arm. "I guess everyone here has gone through some shit… Maybe that's why Lia did it."

Zephyr shrugged. "Nah, I don't think she did it for that reason. I know suicide, and that shit wasn't suicide. She definitely wanted to implicate someone; that's a fact. Now, what she'd stand to gain from doing that is a different story altogether. Unless she had some unfinished business or personal vendetta against one of us, I doubt she'd go to all that trouble."

"You're right… But if she had an agenda, what's the point if she's not around to stick it through? Unless she's working for someone."

I felt him detatch his arm from my grip and wrap it around his knees. "You asked if it was possible for Lorna to still be around earlier, right?" he questioned, and not even waiting for my reply he said, "Something actually crossed my mind. A way for her to be both alive and dead at the same time, but I'd need to ask Malik a few questions about this 'Lorna' he said he saw."

"Too bad we can't find him," I grumbled.

Zephyr nodded solemnly. "Right… Did he by any chance tell you guys anything about Lorna? Anything out of the ordinary?"

I immediately recalled his lightheaded state when he first woke up. He was saying all kinds of weird shit, but I still remembered what he told us. "Well, he started calling talking to Serenity as if she was Lorna… I figure that's normal because I understand Serenity was her anchor before she died. But he did say one weird thing that I'm still confused about…"

"Weird like what?" he pressed.

I leaned my head back against the door and looked up at the dark ceiling in thought. "She had blood all over the front of her clothes… and she chased him down and attacked him. He said that she was the one that killed Lia. Obviously he was delusional because we saw the security footage and we know that Lia killed herself. But if he really did see Lorna covered in blood, then whose blood was it?"

"And where is she hiding?" Zephyr added.

I put a finger under my chin thoughtfully and said, "D'ya think it's her blood? Like maybe when Lorna died, she stayed in the same clothes and just woke up like that or -"

"Uh uh," Zephyr shook his head. "Not possible. She didn't die in this world; she died in the Inbetween. So on this side, it would have looked like she died in her sleep. No blood."

"In the Inbetween, huh? And how did she die exactly?"

He sighed. "It's a long story, and I think we should prioritize finding Malik, Rex, and Ryou, don't you agree?"

My curiosity still burned at the back of my mind, but he was right; we didn't have time to keep talking about Lorna. It was time to act. "So what were you saying earlier about Lorna being alive and dead at the same time and what does it have to do with Malik?"

He began to rise to his feet, extending a hand to help me up as well. "It's just something about the way Malik's body works. You might have noticed, but Malik doesn't have his own body; he shares it with his anchor."

"Right… I see what you mean." I absolutely did not see where he was going with this.

He raised his brows and scoffed. "Anyway, I just need to ask him what he saw exactly. There's a chance she's 'around' but not alive." Around? I wasn't really certain what he meant, but he seemed to be onto something even if I didn't know what that something was.

"And does her being alive or around or whatever change anything for our situation at all?" I asked, struggling to keep up with Zephyr as he began walking down the hall. I wasn't sure where he was going, but I didn't want to go have dinner with everyone else.

He glanced back at me, stopping briefly in his tracks. "It changes everything."

"I don't see…"

"It's not a good thing," he interrupted me. "Putting it simply, last time we all saw Lorna, she was possessed and trying to kill us."

"O-Oh…" I mumbled. "How'd that happen? Long story?"

Zephyr smiled apologetically. "Pretty much. That's why we need to find Malik, Rex, and Ryou and let's hope it's not too late."

"Are you saying Lorna's going to kill them?" I asked, my legs dragging me after him as he continued walking down the hall. I soon realized he was trying to take us both to the showers.

"Pretty much."

"Okay… it's a solid 'yikes' from me." This past day, everyone had been building Lorna up, but I decided I would rather not ever interact with her. I wasn't sure how I came back to life, but Domino City wasn't such a bad place, and I would rather stay there and not die prematurely; and if avoiding anything relating to Lorna was the way to do it, then that was the plan. The only greater good I cared about was my own.

Zephyr pushed open the door to the showers and gave me a sort of "ladies first" gesture. I gave him a puzzled expression but went into the showers nonetheless, hearing the door shut behind me as he entered as well. For a moment, it crossed my mind that he and I were on different teams, meaning that this could very well be a ploy to get me on my own and murder me. The lights were still on, though, so I assumed that, for the moment, I was safe.

"So what are we doing in the showers? We already looked for the boys in here. Is there some sort of hidden passage we missed?" I asked, leaning against the tiled wall beside the door and crossing my arms over my chest.

My eyes surveyed the room again and I couldn't help but notice something I had missed the first time around. "Hey wait," I muttered, walking over to the pristine sinks and kneeling down. One of them looked like it had been used recently, but that wasn't too out of the ordinary; however, what really stuck out, was the fact that the solid porcelain edge of the sink seemed to have a slight dark smudge on it -something we hadn't really looked at before.

"What's up?" Zephyr asked, his form, more akin to a skyscraper than an actual human being, looming over my crouching self.

I rubbed my thumb over the smudge. It wasn't just dark, but there was a sort of maroon shade to it. "Is this blood?" I mumbled. "I mean, Malik said he was attacked in here…"

"But it could be Rex's or Ryou's," he replied.

"Right…" I mused. "But where are they?" I got to my feet and half-heartedly eyed the doors to the shower stalls, looking for more hints of blood or anything really.

"Well, I know one way to find out," I heard him say. However, as I turned my body to face him, I felt a strong force push against the side of my head, causing it to abruptly slam against the tiled wall between the shower stalls. Before my shock could even register, the world around me faded to black.

[Soundtrack: Forest - Fran Bow]

Sera?

"H-Huh?"

Sera? You up?

"Who's there?"

It was pitch black around me and cold as ice. I didn't like anything about this. Abort fucking mission.

Get the fuck up!

I couldn't even reply before I felt a sharp blow hit the side of my ribs. I let out a yelp and shuddered to full awareness, forcing my eyes to open. "What the fuck?"

I sat up, and began to take in my surroundings, and immediately I was aware of one thing: I was definitely not in Kansas anymore -or Pegasus's submarine. The world around me was vibrant and haunting, a melancholy mixture of mossy greens, deep browns, and shadowy blues. I was in a clearing in the middle of the forest.

Of course, it would be foolish to forget one more thing: I wasn't alone. There was someone else here with me. Fucking Zephyr. Immediately, my curiosity turned to white hot rage.

"You piece of shit!" I ranted, getting to my feet and straightening my back to make myself feel taller. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

He didn't look the least bit surprised at my reaction or even taken aback. In fact, he looked rather bored, as he rubbed the back of his head and averted his gaze. "Oh, you mean knocking you out? Well, I had to get you here somehow, yeah?"

"There are more civil ways, asshole!" I complained.

He shrugged. "Well, this way worked, so stop complaining."

"Where's here anyway? Where did you take me?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips and surveying the area again. How long had I been unconscious?

He let out a short gasp and then looked into my eyes. "You… didn't figure it out already? We're in the Inbetween obviously."

My heart leaped into my chest and my jaw froze. "Shut. Up."

"Why do you look so surprised?" he asked with a frown.

I cleared my throat and looked down at the dew-soaked grass under my boots. "I -erm -haven't been here before."

"Haven't been where?"

"The Inbetween," I confessed. "I haven't been here before. I'm just gonna need a minute…"

There was a look of stark disbelief on his face. "What do you mean you've never been to the Inbetween before? Literally all of us have been here."

I shrugged. "Well, not me and Rex."

"Well… that's bizarre."

"Okay, you can stop rubbing it in now," I said. "And you can tell me what we're doing here."

"We're gonna try and find Marik."

"You mean Malik?"

"No," Zephyr insisted sternly. "Marik with an R. If there's anyone who can help us find Malik, it's him. But he's been lost in the Inbetween for a couple of weeks now."

"Wait… is he Malik's anchor?" I asked, feeling uncomfortable. Zephyr mentioned earlier that Malik was sharing a body with his anchor, meaning that the body Malik had been using to interact with me and everyone else wasn't actually his own body.

He nodded solemnly. "I don't know if this world exists as a fictional world in your original universe, but in mine, it's a TV show," he said. "At some point during the Battle City finals, Marik does end up leaving his body and replaced by an alternate version of himself, but at this point in the series, he should be a completely normal guy in his own body. Our interference caused him to get lost. His character arc was never fully completed because of Malik's presence. And if Zorc is also dead like I've heard he is, then we've possibly irreparably altered the course of the entire show."

I nodded as I took this all in. "Except this isn't actually a show. These are people's lives," I reminded him.

He scratched the scruff on his chin and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess things were much easier when I knew what would happen in the future, y'know?"

"So who's Zorc?" I asked. Whatever show this was, I never watched it. Even if it was a show in my dimension, I probably wouldn't have been interested.

Zephyr completely ignored that question however, as his gaze turns to the left into the thicket of trees. His face immediately twisted into a mix of concern and fear. "Sera, get down," he said in a hushed voice, grabbing me by my shoulders and forcing me to crouch with him.

"What the fu-"

He slapped a hand over my mouth and tried to still his own breathing.

I tried to look in the direction he was looking and spotted something completely out of this world. It was taller than even Zephyr and seemed to be completely made of black smoke, almost blending in with the trees in the darkness. In fact, if Zephyr hadn't noticed it first, I probably wouldn't have seen it. Just looking at it instilled a sense of wrongness in me, like this was something that wasn't supposed to exist. It was slender and anthropomorphic and reminded me of a demon. I could just imagine it being a being of pure hate, and even if I didn't understand completely what it was, I got the sense that if the wisps of black smoke that emanated from its body touched me, I'd get burned.

The creature walked -or perhaps drifted would be the more appropriate term here -towards Zephyr and me, but it didn't look like it had noticed us. In fact, its movements seemed to be more aimless than anything. I wondered what it wanted or what it was looking for. Did it want to hurt us? Even hidden by the shadows as we were, I feared for our lives. If I thought Pegasus's submarine was scary, compared to that, this shit was hard mode.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting with bated breath, the figure seemed to shudder, sigh, and dissipate, and suddenly, the entire atmosphere of the forest brightened.

I wasn't sure if it was safe to speak yet, so I turned to look at Zephyr, whose eyes were still fixed on the position where the demon once was. His arms around me made it hard to move, but I managed to move my arm just enough to poke him in the shoulder.

"She's gone…" he mumbled, his voice much weaker now.

I let out a sigh of relief. "What was that thing?"

He shook his head. "That's the spirit that created the Solitude, the Warden. She's the reason we're all here."

"What?" I gaped at him. "You mean she brought us here?"

"Well not her, specifically. She had a lackey do it for her…" His voice trailed off as he clutched his head, wincing in pain. "Ah sorry. Every time I try to remember how I know this, my head feels like it's going to burst."

I looked at him in concern, shrugging his arm off of me and trying to get to my feet. "Is it just that specifically?"

Still grimacing, he got to his feet as well. "No. It's more than that. It's like something was deleted from my brain, something that I was supposed to remember but can't. And whenever I try, it feels like I'm physically stretching my brain, or squeezing it like a wet sponge, but nothing is coming out."

"But what could you have forgotten?" I asked.

"The person who brought us here," he replied, inhaling sharply as if just saying those words was painful. "That much is blatantly clear. It's like that person in particular was deleted. I feel like I must have met them and talked to them to know what I know. I remember what they told me but not them specifically."

"Freaky," I replied, crossing my arms. "What would make you forget them?"

"The only thing I can think of is if they died, too," he said. "It's another one of those things I know about but don't remember being told. Like if you die in the Inbetween, your existence is just deleted. Maybe this means from our memories…"

I rattled my brain a bit for something to say in reply. "Okay, hold the phone a bit. This doesn't compute with me. You die here and people forget about you? That's fucking bullshit and you know it."

"Huh?"

"I may not know much about the Inbetween," I continued, "But I know for a fact that you don't get 'forgotten about' if you die here. I've been hearing about how great of a friend Lorna was to everyone and how tragic her death was from everyone and their mom! If it's like you say it is, why does everyone remember her? Either Lorna isn't dead, or whoever told you that was lying!"

For a moment, Zephyr is stunned to silence. I could see his eyes rolling around in their sockets almost as if he were thinking at the speed of light.

"You look like you just realized something," I remarked, putting a hand on my hip and cocking my head in curiosity.

"Sera, either you're an accidental genius or I'm a fucking moron!" he exclaimed.

I was surprised by the praise, my eyes widening, then I glared at him in realization. "Hey! What's with the backhanded compliment, you asshole?"

He completely ignored my anger and put his hands on my shoulders, looking deeply into my eyes. "It's been staring us in the face the entire time but we just haven't seen it!"

"What has?"

"Lorna! She's alive. That tenacious little shit is alive somewhere!"