Young Writers Society

Eddie sniffled, wiping his nose, "I did?" He looked down and realized he was much higher off the ground than he used to be. "I did!" He grinned down at them, "What do I do now?" If he could do this, he could do anything! Meggie would be so surprised when she saw him!

I couldn't help but grin a little, too.

"You need to get back to normal," I said. "It's good that you can do it, but it's hard to tell if it was because you were emotional or because you wanted to. Try imagining what you're normally like."

He pouted, "But I want to surprise Meggie! She'll be here soon! She always is. I want to surprise her by showing her what I can do!" These people weren't the boss of him, they couldn't tell him what to do. They probably weren't the boss of Meggie either. He bet that Meggie was the boss of them! If she told them to do something they'd have to do it, so he didn't have to do what they said.

This was going to be more difficult than I thought it would be.

I opened my mouth to say something - catching Nathaniel and Asmira exchanging a worried look nearby - but then I caught a glimpse outside the nearest window. I turned away from Eddie and approached it, peering down outside to see what caught my eye.

There was a person out there.

...A person I knew all too well.

"Megara?" I managed to get out. There was no way for her to hear me, but I couldn't help it. She was dead, too. It made a pit form in my stomach, just like when I had realized Nikko was dead. Nikko and Megara were different people, but they were still people I cared about.

I turned and started to head towards the door.

"Megara's here," I said.

Eddie's eyes went wide, "Meggie!" he exclaimed and in a second he was out the door.



Megara was having a terrible day. Everything ached, or maybe that was her imagination. She wouldn't be surprised. She didn't know what kind of hell she was in, but she was sure it was hell.

There were thoughts in her head. Not her thoughts. And feelings, so many feelings. Hatred, love, anger, frustration, fear, doubt, joy, all of it swirling ni her head at once and she couldn't tell which ones were hers and which ones were... someones. People's emotions, which were in her head. Bits of thoughts, wishes,

Then there were suddenly arms around her and she was practically being knocked over. Whoever it was who grabbed her - hugged her? - managed to keep them both from falling. She didn't have the energy to resist. She was already dead, there wasn't much else to be done to her.

"Meggie!"

Her eyes flew open. She didn't recognize the man with his arms around her. She tried to pull away to get a better look at him.

"Look, Meggie, look what I did!" the guy suddenly let her go, dropping her so suddenly she was all too aware that he'd been holding her several inches off the ground. Confusion - hers, she was sure of it - dulled the din of feelings in her head enough for her to register what the guy was saying.

The guy held his arms out and turned around in a circle, "I made myself big!" His face screwed up suddenly in concentration, and in a flash he was suddenly very short and very familiar.

"Eddie," she said dumbly. The emotions were coming back. She brought one hand up to her head, bunching up her fist in her hair. Why did all of it have to hurt so much?

I darted out after Eddie. If anyone had asked, I would have said it was to prevent Megara from attacking him when a unrecognizable man went barreling into him. But the truth was that I just had to see Megara - I had to prove that she was really here, and I had to make sure that she was alright now. And part of me felt horrible that she had died to begin with; even though she was right in front of me when I went skidding to a halt outside of the building, I couldn't help but feel grief when I saw her.

Nathaniel and Asmira hurried out after me, but they weren't nearly as fast as Eddie and I were with getting out.

"Megara?" I managed to get out, shock seeping into my quiet voice as I stared at her. I had seen her through the window, but it was entirely different seeing her now. Even though my goal had been to reunite Eddie and Megara, I wished she wasn't here - she didn't deserve to die, despite all of our arguments in the past.

Megara placed a hand deftly on Eddie's head as he clung to her. She saw Skull, but she didn't fully process him. Emotions, grief, sadness, worry, all of them overwhelmed her at once. She didn't even notice when she sank to her knees. Eddie said something, but she could only make out his worried tone through the ringing in her ears. She pulled him close and hugged him with whatever strength she had left.

She was crying, she noticed after a second. Not sobbing, she didn't have the energy for sobs. Just silent tears as she held Eddie close. He was here. He was here. She found him.

I stood a few feet away, watching Megara cry. There was more guilt, now. I couldn't help but feel like I should have been doing more than standing on the sidelines, but I knew I couldn't intrude. Or, maybe, I could have, but I knew it would break the little sense of normalcy Megara and I still had left.

Megara closed her eyes, fighting back the tears and trying to sort out which emotions were which in her head. With enough focus, she discovered she could 'feel' where an emotion was coming from.

She opened her eyes and looking the direction the strongest emotions were coming from. Skull.

She gently released Eddie and stood, glaring at Skull, "What the hell do you have to grieve about?" she growled. She wasn't angry, or, it wasn't her anger she was feeling. Her head hurt and she was so confused. She didn't know up from down anymore, it felt like.

I faltered.

Nothing on my face should have betrayed my emotions. I was good at masking them when I had to, and I had been masking them the entire time I had been watching Megara. If she had been able to tell that I was grieving - of all the emotions I was feeling right now, that wasn't the most obvious - then she had to know from something else.

...Like a newly awakened power, courtesy of dying.

I gave her a long, hard look.

"You died," I said.

I didn't say anything else.

She set her jaw. Don't fucking remind me. She glared at him. "Yes, any other stellar observations, Skull," she said through gritted teeth. She didn't know if she could kill him here, but she wanted too. Or maybe that was someone else. Someone else was feeling an intense hatred right now and she was the one showing it.

She took a shaky breath and rubbed Eddie's back, reminding herself that he was here. If he was here, this couldn't be hell. Unless...unless she was the reason he was here. She'd corrupted him and now that he was dead he was stuck...here.

She closed her eyes again for a moment and tried to steady herself with a breath, get rid of those thoughts, but the din in her head was too much, and the breath did nothing. Useless, useless deep breaths.

"You were the one who asked about me grieving," I protested. "How did you figure that out, by the way? Grief wasn't exactly the emotion I had on my face."

A second later, I heard Nathaniel and Asmira leave the building and stop a few feet behind me. Neither knew how to approach Megara; I was the one who had interacted with her the most.

Megara clutched her head with her free hand, the one that wasn't on Eddie. "It's in your head," she said, hardly registering her own words as another wave of emotions, too many to be hers, filled her head with a roaring racket, "It's so loud."

Eddie looked up at her, "Meggie? Are you hurt?" he looked at Skull, his eyes wide, "Meggie's hurt!" he exclaimed without waiting for an answer.

"She's not hurt," I reassured him. I tried to push down my feelings, but repression didn't really help. All that led to was feeling guilty and worried, which probably wasn't what Megara was hoping for. "She's just testing out her power."

Eddie bounced up and down excitedly, "Meggie got a power too?!" He turned to her without waiting for an answer, "What can you do?! Are you doing it now? Show me! Show me!"

"Shhh, Eddie," she half-groaned, squeezing her eyes shut.

Eddie furrowed his brow with worry. He trotted up to Skull and loudly whispered, "She looks really hurt, how do you help her?"

Megara registered that vaguely. It all felt like white noise to her, lost in the crowded, colorful everything that was happening in her mind.

"Tell me what's going on, Skull," she said, forcing her voice to remain steady, "or I am going to rip out your throat in about ten seconds." She really, really meant that, even if she didn't think she was capable with the state her mind was in.