Disclaimer: I think you can guess.
Note: This story takes place about one year after Talpa's defeat. Due to instances of graphic violence, language, and sexual innuendos, I'm rating it PG13, so don't say I didn't warn ya.

His eyes floated open unbidden, allowing the harsh light of day streaming through the window in and forcing him to wake up against his greatest wishes. His body groaned and creaked at the simple feat of sitting up, but he was feeling little else otherwise, by way of the physical and the emotional.

With a glance down at himself, he noticed that someone had been kind enough to clothe him in a clean pair of his own boxers and a t-shirt.

Looking around at his surroundings, he immediately recognized Mia's room back at the house and the thought sent a shock of relief more refreshing than a cool summer breeze down his spine in the form of a pleasant tingling sensation. It was the best feeling Rowen had had in weeks.

As he wandered down the hallway, peering in doors and listening for sounds of life in the house, it began to sink in. He was home. He'd been in the clutches of his greatest nemesis, and escaped with his life. Yet for some reason, he couldn't let himself be happy about it.

He was so busy searching himself for reasons during the following period of time that he neglected to observe perhaps the single most unique thing about his current position: the house was in utter silence. This house. If not for the light padding of his bare feet on the carpet and the low, steady thumping of his heart, there wouldn't be a single solitary sound to be heard. Now there was something...

It wasn't until he spotted Sage at the end of one hallway that his thoughts were interrupted. The blond's back was turned to Rowen as he stared out a window, but there was no one else it could have been.

"Sage," he said, maintaining as nonchalant a tone as he possibly could.

There was no reaction.

"Sage," he tried again, coming up behind him.

Still, nothing so much as a twitch of muscle.

"Sage? Can't you hear me?" he asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. Or he would have, if it hadn't passed right through Sage's body. In the same instant, Sage's form transformed into fog.

Sage - no, the creature - whipped around, revealing what Rowen had thought his friend to be an abomination, nothing more than Satan's handiwork. Its body was a dense grey fog that seemed to suck the warmth and light straight from the room, its face a mask of pure evil, something akin to living roadkill that was oozing puss and unidentifiable slime with three vacuums for eyes in a triangular arrangement and a gaping hole for a mouth. Three long, ooze-covered sticks for arms pushed out through random points in the fog body, each with six stubby ooz sticks at the end to serve as fingers that immediately unleashed a fury of swipes at Rowen's body.

Rowen jumped backwards out of well-honed intinct and nothing else. However, his shock clouded his perception and he miscalculated the distance. Two of the clumsy arms lashed across his torso before he even recognized the classic mistake, searing his flesh and causing multiple clean, long lascerations in his abdomen.

The pain burned like fire, and the nearly shell-shocked Ronin stared at the gashes in incomprehension. The skin where he'd been cut was slathered in ooz, and the slime appeared to be searing his flesh, blackening and blistering it, and causing a smell that would have made him retch with its stench if he'd been able to sense it.

Whatever the beast was, it had a powerful weapon as potent as sulfuric acid on its side.

The demonic being released a sonic shriek that was like scratching on a blackboard magnified by one hundred times its normal volume, then began to advance on its prey.

Still stunned and now in severe pain, Rowen rolled backwards a safe distance before hopping to his feet and running like mad down the hallway.

The demon shrieked in fury.

Rowen dashed around the corner just before an acidic fireball launched itself into the wall he'd just passed at the intersection. Not even pausing, he kept running down the hallway. Only when he reached the end of this one, there was a brick wall in the place there should have been a staircase. Rowen turned to face his persecutor. It rounded the corner at the pace of lightning, not even having to slow to make the turn. It rushed straight for him, its face twisted into the ugliest expression of anger he'd ever laid eyes on and the horrible shrieking was piercing the air, painfully loud.

Knowing that his number was up after all, Rowen closed his eyes and braced himself for the end.

The sudden halt of the sound struck Rowen as one of the odder things that had happened to him in his life as of late, so he opened his eyes, fully expecting to find himself at the gates to eternity, but definitely not expecting to find himself standing downstairs in the kitchen. Yet, there he was.

Rowen blinked in surprise. In front of him, sitting at the kitchen table and blankly staring at the wall to Rowen's right, sat Cye. His usually bright, cheery face was ashen and drawn, his mouth was turned down into a grim frown and his eyes were baggy and heavily circled. His hair was dingy and flat and his back was curved indolently, as if there were gigantic boulders being mounted on his shoulders but he didn't even care.

Rowen looked down at his stomach. The pain was gone. The cloth and flesh that was torn, bloodied and burned moments ago was whole and fresh now.

This was too much. Rowen felt a cold chill settle over him. Still, he had to get out of this.

"Cye?" he asked doubtfully, his voice filled with caution and just a hint of fear.

"The tide...the tide can't be broken," Cye mumbled absently, his expression never altering in the slightest. He looked up at Rowen, his clear eyes going wider than twin full moons. "It can't be! The tide will not break! You'll never break the tide! To try will only result in being crushed by it. But to evade it...that - that is the key!"

Rowen just stared at Cye in utter confusion. The mad scientist-like man Cye was at that time looked at him in exasperation.

"Come. Come, and I will teach you the ways of the tide!"

Cye dashed into the adjoining room. With a distaste-filled look over the kitchen before he turned away, Rowen followed.

He stepped into a large, dimly lit corridor, what should have been the dining room. Instead, it was narrow and of an indeterminate length, and the floor and walls were stone. Dirty, wet-looking rats scurried along the edges of the room and water dripped from the ceiling, creating a muggy, dirty smell as it accumulated into moss-like patches that made Rowen's face scrunch up in disgust. It was cold and torch-lit, and reminded him of nothing more than the corridors of a large underground dungeon. Not his top choice of places to be at the moment.

Seeing no way out - there was no door behind him - he crept stealthily down the hall, all defenses on. He nearly panicked when he realized almost immediately that the hall was too narrow to put up much of a fight in, but managed to force his cool in place.

After some time, the walls began to curve sharply. It was about the fourth change in direction when the corridor ended at a high, vaulted doorway made of charcoal gray stone. Inside the doorway was a circular room, about twenty feet in diameter with a high, curved ceiling. The lighting in here was even danker and darker than in the hall, and the vibes were remarkably colder.

From his standing point in the center of the room, Rowen saw three more doors, one on each side and directly before him.

I've had it, Rowen decided, his jaw set. I've been put through Hell and high waters, and I'll be damned if I keep playing these insane games. Whoever is creating all of this has to be hiding around here somewhere, and I'm not getting anywhere by looking.

Rowen took a long, scouring look at his surroundings. His mesmerizing, starry eyes were blazing.

"Whoever you are, come out here and face me! I know there's someone out there!" He paused, listening intently for a response. "Look. I am through with your games. You want something from me, you're gonna have to come and get it, 'cause I'm not moving from this spot any other way than by force."

With a rumble and clash of colliding rocks, the stone floor under his feet gave way, leaving nothing for Rowen to do but free fall until he slammed into something squishy and wet. He rolled onto his back with a groan, feeling the moist substance soak into his clothing immediately. The room was cold, and the combination made him shiver slightly.

Rowen stiffly climbed to his feet. The room he was in now was as black as the floor of the deepest ocean. Something about it gave it the same prescense of bone-crushing pressure as well, almost like being inside a pressure cooker.

"Now what?" he asked the empty air.

Lights flared on above him, illuminating the room for him. In the minutes to come, he would wish they never had.

"Master," Mandilyn addressed fretfully.

"What is it? Is the plan executing accordingly?" the voice rumbled impatiently.

"There is a slight, uh, complication," the witch stuttered.

"It had better not be a problem, Mandilyn...."

"No, m'lord. Certainly not. It's just that...."

"Spit it out! Before I lose my patience..." Talpa warned threateningly.

"Master, I am having..difficulties carrying out your orders. I've pulled Strata's consciousness into the Dream Realm, but I cannot control what is happening inside. I believe that Alex Hashiba has placed some sort of a protection spell over the place, one which refuses to allow any magickal influence over his brother's surroundings. Because of this, the dream has run rampant, being pushed on by the demons of the dark side of the Realm."

Mandilyn shrank away when the clouds of fury built behind her master's eyes, expecting to feel the pain of his blow at any moment. Instead the clouds dissapated as quick as they had come.

"There is still a hope. The demons of that place will discover and exploit his deepest fears with little resistance from the faeries of the Realm - for a time. When the faeries intervene and disspell the demons to the darkness from which they came, my Nether Soldiers will be standing by to attack. The faeries cannot stop beings in solid form, and Strata will offer little opposition to them after the demons have had their way with the boy for a time. They will finish the task of turning his soul to Darkness, and when he awakes in the Ningenkai..."

"He will be yours. Oh, brilliant, Lord!" Mandilyn cried. Naturally, she immediately made certain to wipe away all traces of her joy as Talpa studied her harshly.

"Do not take my leniency to mean I have forgotten your failure, witch. I am only allowing your continued existence because I believe you may still serve to be of use to me. Do not forget that, Mandilyn."

"No, Lord. Of course not," Mandilyn hastily agreed.

"Leave me. Inform one dozen troops that they are to infiltrate the Dream Realm and finish your task when the faeries come to Strata's rescue - and no sooner."

"Yes, sir."

"Hey! Tai, over here!" a smooth voice with an air of Brooklyn to it called out over the dull roar of voices crammed into the tiny cafeteria. Tai turned toward the owner of the unique New York stained voice and was greeted with a host of expectant faces.

The one who had called to her stood out the most, in Tai's experienced opinion. Like Tai herself, Maria was in the minority at Roosevelt High, the minority being kids who had the luck of the draw to be ethnically different from most of the other teens attending the small Midwestern school. While Tai was - for all anyone knew - full-blooded Korean and adopted, Maria was half Spanish, half caucasian. She had hair darker than pitch that fell in thick waves which had been vengefully whipped back into a pony tail with a scrunchie that was clashing interestingly with her outfit of green and white pull away pan ts with a white jersey. Tai didn't recognize the team it depicted, but she wasn't much for sports, anyway. Maria's skin was a clear, smooth golden brown that only served to accentuate her large, curious brown eyes. Those eyes missed nothing when they were on the prowl, and Tai could tell just at a glance that they most certainly were right now.

Maria sat at the center of a lunch table with a group of kids who were rounded up from every grade, every class, every school "clique" one could come up with in a high school. There were nearly a dozen, and Tai thought she could probably name them all, if she gave it a try.

The lithe Asian girl was just about to sit down with the welcoming bunch when she realized where she was about to sit, and the reason there was one spot left at the table today, as there had been every day for two weeks. Randi wasn't here. These were her friends, the people she hung out with when Tai wasn't around. But of course, they'd never notice the connection.

"Hey, Tai, sit down. What're ya doin' here? I thought you had A lunch?" Maria greeted exuberantly, as usual.

"I missed my lunch period, so my fourth hour teacher said I could skip class and eat now," she responded quietly.

"How's Andi?" another girl, Annie, asked her sincerely.

Annie was a mega tomboy with an attitude who generally fit into the category of class clown, along with half of the others seated at the table, and from what Tai understood, one of Randi's oldest friends. They'd lived in the same neighborhood since they were toddlers, and had gotten to know each other in elementary school. Tai knew her pretty well, but they were completely different and had never been more than mutual friends of Ri's. This was maybe the first time she'd ever seen the energetic misfit dead serious, and she found that depressing.

"No change. I saw her again this morning and she was still comatose. Stable, and even perhaps a fraction of a bit stronger, but more vegetable-ish than broccoli on Friday." Tai was dead serious, her full pink lips a grim line of helplessness.

A heavy cloud of depression hung low over their heads, but the kids around them all went on with their daily routine of gossip, eating and general mischief. No one said anything for a few moments, each knowing that there was nothing to say that would make a single person there feel an ounce better for more than an instant or two.

Finally the bell to signal the end of lunch rang, and everyone was glad to escape the tension for the time being. Maria and another good friend of Randi's named Chris were the only ones who held back and walked with Tai as she emptied her still-full lunch tray and trudged wearily behind the crowd.

"Are you going to be okay, Tai?" Chris, a naturally tan, laid-back skater who was typically the only guy in school to tease everyone cruelly and constantly but still be one of the most popular kids around, asked her with a genuine concern that defied almost everything Tai knew about the 17 year old.

"I wish I could say for sure," answered Tai more honestly than she really wanted to. "But you know I can't, now can I? I won't be anymore okay than Andi if she doesn't recover soon."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Chris stopped her and demanded.

"Nothing," she backed away, both physically and emotionally. She wasn't a person who was accustomed to parading her emotions, and she had been doing it a lot lately.

"Don't give me tha-"

"Look, Tai," Maria put a hand up to stop Chris. "We know that this isn't easy. It hasn't been easy for us, either. But you really don't solve jack shit by keeping everything from us. We're friends..remember?"

"No," Tai shook her head, "You're Randi's friends. I don't know you any more than you know me, and that doesn't put us very high on each other's lists."

She backed away further, until she bumped into a tall freak with a purple mohawk. Seconds later, Maria and Chris watched in shock as Tai's body went rigid, then crumbled into a heap on the floor. The panicked teens sprinted to her side. Chris turned her onto her back. The attractive Asian girl took one look into his eyes, whispered a single word, then let herself be swallowed by oblivion.

"What did she say?" Maria asked, her eyes round with fear. "Chris, what did she say?"

"She said...'Randi'."

Randi awoke easily, the gentle lull of lapping water nearby greeting her pleasantly as birds chirped above. She pulled herself to her feet, working out the kinks in her muscles and stretching lazily as a cat. She looked around at her surroundings, wondering sleepily why she was in the middle of a forest. Last she remembered she was....uh oh.

I'm dead, aren't I? Well, by the looks of this place, it doesn't appear to be Hell, so...

Suddenly a cry of sheer pain sliced through the air in deafening capacity. "Nooooooo!" it cried, a sound that was more human than anything she'd ever heard in her life. And that made it all the more terrifying.

"Nevermind. I thought too soon," she sighed dejectedly, heading off at a speedy pace for the voice she'd heard.

The room, the entire room, was soaked in red with the blood of the damned. It streaked, thick and dark, down the stone walls, settling in puddles on the dirt floor - or it would have been dirt, had it been visible.

Mangled, torn, ravaged bodies blanketed the ground with their death. Decomposing inards were strewn in all directions. Limbs bent in the most peculiar fashions lay bodyless and alone. Crushed ribcages, decapitated heads, bloody spines seperated from their flesh, all and more embellished the large, circular room.

The stench was awful. Dozens of limbs and torsos, still covered in or stuffed with the flesh and organs of life were being attacked by rigamortis. It sent out a transparent cloud of venom that stung Rowen's eyes and squeezed his insides until he emptied them on a gruesome chunk of sinewy muscle drenched with blood, only some its own.

Rowen stepped back subconsciously. His heel struck something hard, and he turned to see what it was, unsuspecting as to its true nature.

Down at his feet, the nearly disembodied head of Cye lay, bone and grey matter protruding from the skull, and tiny bubbles - red bubbles - popping from his mouth. The head was held onto the body by nothing more than a flap of flesh and the membranous tissue of his esophagous, even those barely existant for the hole gouged out of the throat. The popping of the blood bubbles grew until it made a gurgling sound, then a voice.

"You.......killed.......us..." it rasped.

"No," Rowen whispered, his horror wrenching his insides into a tight knot. "Nooooooo!"

Rowen backstepped and stumbled. As he felt himself land on a slimy pile of meat and bone, he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to close off the images of the room. But, contrary to his most desperate wishes, the images grew clearer and clearer, bolder and brighter than a star under a telescope, until they filled his mind, shoving all inferior thoughts and memories aside.

He cried out, opening his eyes and scrambling to his feet. When Rowen had just begun to feel that his horror could increase no more, he was taught never to doubt the limitless versatility of his own imagination. No terror can ever reach beyond that which the victim is able to create for themselves, at least not in this place.

Suddenly, the bits and pieces of bodies began to stir. A low, droning growl escaped from green lips as limbs dragged themselves over to their vertabrae and skulls. As Rowen watched in petrified terror, the bodies began to reassemble. Eventually all parts remet their own in a heap. One of the gruesome piles even had dampened tufts of red and black striped fur gathered together in the place of skin. Femurs and humorus popped back into their sockets with a sickening sucking and popping noise as newly attached hands searched for intestines and ribs, awkwardly replacing them in their appropriate positions - or as close as conditions allowed, what with crushed spines, ribcages, missing pieces and the like.

Slowly and noisily, half formed, mutilated imitations of human beings - and one tiger - raised up off the ground. Most were missing pieces, and their skin was still a grey-green and rotting. Muscle and organ still protruded from large lascerations in the gangrene flesh, often leaving trails of intestines to hang from opened stomachs like so many spoiled hot dogs.

And as the zombified beings walked, crawled, and dragged themselves to where he sat backed up against a wall, cowering in terror, Rowen was certain of his impending doom for already the second time since entering this nightmarish world. The last images imprinted on his brain were those of his friends and family, anyone who meant something to him, superimposed over the trail of death that most resembled them.

Then there was nothing. No sound. No sight. No emotion, all swept away with the last gasping breath of air before the cold forced itself into his lungs. Rowen never fought it.

Hey! This one got a bit gross, don't ya think? Well, I've been warning you, haven't I?

Anyway, one note I have to be sure to add before we go on any further has to do with the new characters I've been adding. As some may have guessed, they've all been loosely based around people in my life. And Randi, of course, is me. Not neccesarily the most accurate depiction, but that's who she's based on. The rest, although not solely, are interpretations of some of the friends who are closer to me. I've only introduced a few so far, but there will be more. Trust me. And in order to not recieve any serious death threats in the near future, I'm not going to say who's who. So if you don't really know me, you're stuck. But if you do, you may be able to guess.

One other thing: Hehehe. The Suspense Queen shall now leave you in turmoil until the next chapter. And a fun one it'll be - at least for me. Oh, and I told you that this chapter was going to include another fighting scene. The reason you didn't see one is because this chapter got too long on me too fast and I had to save it for the next part. It'll be there though, I promise.

Send all comments here.

Ja ne!
Aleksa ~~~<~~@