“Hello! Earth to Aya! Man, you sure like to zone out don’t ‘cha?”

     “Is it okay if we keep having days like this? I don’t want go through life and not make any memories with my friends.”

     “I think any day above the ground is a good start.”

     “Whaddya want? If you don’t want anything, then leave me alone.”

     “Mom! Mom, wake up Mom! Please wake up!”

     I hear these words in my head every day. I try not to think about it, but sometimes wonder if I suffered from amnesia from when I was a little kid and if my brain was trying to get me to remember something from the past. I guess you can say it sounds a little farfetched, but I think about this. Is there something from my past that I can’t remember or recall? Whenever I think about this idea, I try to see if there really is any point in trying to remember why I hear these voices and what I could be forgetting. Eventually I just shake off the idea, but unfortunately the more I try to ignore the voices and the visions in my dreams, the more they start to keep popping up. It’s like the more I try to forget the more the voices and the visions keep trying to force their way back to the front of my mind. It’s almost like my memories are trying to force me to remember.

     When I close my eyes, I can hear each word as clear as day. Sometimes I hear them at random during the day, or when I close my eyes to sleep at night I hear those words over and over again. There are faces with these words. Although I can’t see them too clearly, I can still recognize the voices. I’ve been hearing these voices so much in my head that I can identify them by their tone and pitch. I just wish that I could see the faces clearly and identify who these voices belonged to.

     I haven’t shared this with my parents, (I don’t want them to think that I’m going crazy at a young age) so I tell my older brother Traverence about it. He told me not to worry about anything and he thinks that, what’s going on in my head isn’t anything to be concerned with. He said if it becomes worse to tell mom and dad about it so I can so see a doctor or get some form of help. The last thing I need would be to go to the doctor and have them prescribe me with antipsychotic meds because I’m hearing voices.

Aside from the voices and the vision episodes I’ve been having, I can say that overall, I’m pretty much normal.

     Yet there is something within me that makes me wonder. . .

     A young woman stood on a building’s rooftop in the middle of the city. She had her hands on her hips and bore a big smile that stretched across her face. She closed her eyes and continued to smile. The more she did so, the more her confidence grew, which could be seen in her expression.

  “This is going to be fun!” She exclaimed looking over the buildings extending her arms as the morning breeze blew through her fire truck red hair. Her medium brown skin lightly sparkled in the sun, complementing her cheerful personality.

     “Do you always have to be this loud Tia? It’s so early and you’re so loud.” A young man appeared next to her. He glared at her with his dark purple eyes and brushed back a couple strands of his purple hair out of his face. His smooth, pale skin made his hair and his eyes stand out. He tilted his head, narrowing his brows. His no-nonsense attitude rivaled her eccentric, quirky attitude and his soft English accent added to his calm, cool, and poised persona.

     “Ah, Carlisle, why must you always be so grumpy-wumpy?” She said in a mock-like manner, putting an arm around his neck and poking his cheek. “You’re never in a good mood. You’re just like your brother Soniq. It almost makes me wonder who influenced who with their attitude.” She added with a slight chuckle as she continued to poke his cheek.

   Carlisle swatted her hand away and shoved her off of him. “Don’t touch me today, tomorrow, not ever.” He said through gritted teeth as he crossed his arms in annoyance. “How many times do I have to keep telling you that?”

     Tia sighed. “This is no good! Why do I have to work with you?!” She shook her head in disbelief. Her big, bright red, curls gently bouncing against her face. “I don’t like this at all!” She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. Her cheerful expression quickly morphed into one full of disgust. Her eyebrows furrowed and the corners of her mouth turned downwards to make her expression more defined. “Can I switch partners?”

     “Calm down Tia, there’s nothing to get excited about. You two aren’t mandatory partners, you’re free to work with whomever you want to work with or you can work by yourself. You’re always so quick to over react.” A pale woman with piercing blue eyes sat on the fence on the roof top. Her long jet black hair flowed with the breeze. She looked out over Metrole City, speaking to Tia, but acting as if she were ignoring her comrade’s existence at the same time.  

     “Oh, screw you Izusa. You always play the role of someone serene, yet we all know it’s just an act.” Tia stuck her tongue out at her. “On top of that, you’re a bully.”

     “Will you please sojourn your rant?” Carlisle asked, pinching his glabella in annoyance. He huffed sharply. “When you start talking, you go on and on about absolute nonsense. To be honest, I find it quite overbearing.”

     “I’ll keep talking if I want to Carly!” Tia stuck her tongue out at him.

     Carlisle’s face darkened. “I told you never to call me that!” he exclaimed with a anger sparked tongue. “I despise a frivolous name such as that!”

     A curvaceous woman with dark skin and black dreads with dark blue tips appeared next to Izusa. “Instead of fighting we should think logically about how we are going to carry out our plan.” She leaned back and looked at Tia. “It would be in all of our best interest to find the Dream Shards quickly. We don’t have time for this petty drivel you two are spitting out.”

     “You were always good with coming up with plans Tallis.” A young man with bright blonde hair said smiling. “It’ll be interesting to see what you come up with this time.” His green eyes sparkled with fascination towards his comrade.

     “’Were’?” Tallis said coldly. “I still am. What I do in a single day, Andrej, it would take someone, with below average intelligence-such as yourself-to do in a single year.” Her dark blue eyes reflected the coldness in her tone. She tilted her head upwards as if she were to give herself a boost of arrogance.

     “Ouch,” He said scratching his head. “That  absolutely hurt.”

     “I swear every time I show up I’m always walking in on you guys bickering or something.” A young man that looked almost identical to Carlisle appeared and stood a little ways away from the group. His messy, waist long hair slightly covered his eyes. He brushed some loose strands behind his ears. “You guys can be such a burden at times.” He looked to Tia and faintly blushed. “Tia.”

     “Soniq!” she greeted in a friendly tone “Nice to see you’re just as cold as ever.” She ended with sarcasm, an annoyed look on her face.

     “I’m…cold?” He closed his eyes, slightly tilted his head downward

     “It’s so nice to see all of you here together finally.” A slightly deep voice with a thick Russian accent spoke. “I’m sure all of you here are aware of what it is that you need to do?” His dark, hollow grey eyes scanned over all of them as if he were looking to get assurance that his intimidation was effective. He cocked his head to the side and his lips curled into somewhat of a cocky smile. An eyebrow raised and his arms crossed made his well-defined and well-toned muscular figure more intimidating.

     “Laurente, allow me to go first. I will use my illusions to draw out the holders of the Dream Shards.” Carlisle bowed part way crossing an arm over his chest. “It would be my honor.”

     Laurente closed his eyes and nodded. “Go, ahead Carlisle, and prove yourself. I will expect nothing more than a fine display of your talent.”

     Carlisle teleported away from the rooftop and vanished into the city.

     “As for the rest of you,” Laurente said gazing about at them “You have other assigned tasks to take care of.” He looked at Tallis. “I want you to thoroughly research more about those dream shards.”

He focused his gaze at the whole. “Any other information we can get on them, the better it’ll be for us.”

     “Understood.” They all said in unison and teleported from the rooftop.

     “Watching from the shadows again are we?” Laurente placed his hands on his hips and softly chuckled before turning around to face the young man behind him. “You don’t even have to say anything I can see it on your face. You don’t have any confidence in me, do you Tolya?”

     Tolya shook his head. His messy, shoulder length, grey bangs gently touched his face and his knee length grey twin ponytails, that hung from the nape of his neck, gently swung as he shook his head. His arms were crossed and he stepped forward, slightly holding his head down. “I have more than enough confidence in you, you already know that Laurente.” He had the same accent and intimidation in his voice like Laurente, but his voice was a bit softer and had more of a dead coldness to it. Despite the softness, it couldn’t hide the cold tone. His dark grey eyes complimented his tone. They held no expression and they looked as if they had seen everything bad in the world and had become emotionally detached to their surroundings. He showed no emotion when he spoke.

     Laurente tilted his head. “Then might I ask why you have such an expression? You may hide your emotion, but I can still read you.”  

     Tolya leaned against the fence and turned his head away from Laurente. “Don’t show off. And to make it very clear, it’s not you I doubt. It’s what we’re doing. Does he honestly believe these Dream Shards will hold the key to what we’re searching for? Who is to say that these Dream Shards even exist-“

     Laurente placed a hand on Tolya’s cheeks and squeezed them hard and forcibly turned his head to face him. He looked into his eyes deep as if he could burn him from the inside out with his eyes and tilted his head. “We have only one mission and that’s to collect the Dream Shards. We will find them. We both might be the frontrunners in this game, but even if it means degrading myself to crush anyone who stands in my way I won’t hesitate to do it.” He exhaled a sharply “even if it is you. Whatever his goals are, whatever his plans are, I have plans myself that I will carry out and there will be results.” He pushed Tolya against the fence and walked away from him. He looked over his shoulder and smirked. “Even if you don’t show it I can see the fear in you The fear that has been festering in you for the past several years. I’m sure that you don’t want to see his bad side again. It will be in your best interest not to question or to try anything stupid.” He chuckled. “Why don’t you take in the view? It’s gorgeous from up here. Enjoy it while you can; this run of the mill place won’t be here for much longer.” He turned and walked on, fading with each step.

     Tolya zoned out narrowing his eyes and faced the city. His mind became blank and he had completely shut out his surroundings. The morning sun still rising on the horizon, peeking through the dark grey clouds that hung over them. The cold air of the early winter morning stung his nose as he breathed in and exhaled. He wrapped his thin fingers around the metal wires in the fence and gently pressed his face against the cold metal. Closing his eyes he sighed and pressed the rest of his body against the fence as his breaths became visible in the cold air. He slowly opened his eyes and looked into the sun as he slowly came back to his senses. He kept his eyes narrowed as the sun became brighter as it rose and he could feel his body starting to become cold form the air and tilted his head back. Looking up at the sky he fully came back to his senses and realized he was still on the rooftop and he was still in the current situation he was in. Feeling a sharp pain in his chest he started to breathe heavily and grabbed onto the collar of his shirt. He could hear Laurente’s cynical laugh, despite him not being there.

     “Aya. . . Aya. . .”

     “. . .”

     “Wake up Aya!”

      Aya’s eyes shot wide open and she sat up immediately. “I’m up! I’m awake!” she looked into the dark green eyes that greeted her when she woke. “Oh Danielle. . . Ha ha. . . Did I fall asleep again?”

     Danielle crossed her arms and leaned on her right side. “Yeah, class is almost over and you passed right out.” She gave a quick chuckle and save Aya a small smile. “Have you been feeling alright? It seems like you’ve been getting more and more tired lately. Are you getting enough sleep?”

     Aya rubbed her eyes and stood up pushing her chair in at her desk. “Yeah, I’ve just been having some weird dreams lately.”

     “Well, try to stay awake at least Aya. You’re lucky that Mr. Fields let the last couple of minutes of class be open for us to do whatever. If he didn’t give us free time you would’ve been given a detention.”

     Aya softly chuckled and rubbed the back of her head. “Yeah, I know, but thanks for waking me up Danielle.”

     The bell rang and the students, ranging from the ages of thirteen and nineteen, exited their classrooms and flooded into the corridor of Litcher Building. Some students lingered in the corridor to hang out with friends before walking to their next class and others were trying to squeeze past classmates and other students to get to the other classrooms in the building.

     Aya turned left and squeezed past a couple making on in front of the flight of stairs leading up to the library to make her way up the stairs to the library. She walked half way up the stairs before turning around to see Danielle making her way out of the building.

     “See you after school Danielle!” Aya called out to her friend giving her a small wave. Danielle returned the wave with a quick one of her own and hurried out of the building to make it in time to her next class on the other side of the high school campus.

     Aya continued to make her way up the stairs and opened the door to the school library. She made her way to her favorite seat at a desk by the window at the farthest side of the library. Placing her backpack on the desk she sighed happily and pulled out her seat and sat down. She pulled out her textbooks and her notepads, but became distracted by her view from the window.

     A wad of paper hit the side of her head and she looked down at the desk. She looked around the library to see where it came from and saw a group of guys chuckling and laughing. Feeling her heart racing, and shaking with anger, she crunched the paper more in her hand. Slowly she stood up and started to get her body in motion to approach their table and stopped when he felt a hand on her shoulder firmly grip onto her shoulder.

     “Hello! Earth to Aya! You sure like to zone out don’t ‘cha?”

     “Why the heck did that pop in my head all of a sudden? Man, these voices and visions are seriously starting to mess with me. Maybe I should tell my parents and go see a psych or something. . .” she thought shaking her head.

     “I got this.” A handsome young man looked into her eyes with his light purple ones and smiled. He smiled the cutest smile she had ever seen on a guy. His softly toasted, light brown skin complemented his eyes and it made his smile stand out more. He let go of her shoulder and approached the table of guys. “Hey, you guys wouldn’t like it if your girlfriends were being treated like a joke by some punks. So why do it to someone else’s?” he tilted his head to the side and smirked raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms. His height, of six feet and two inches, intimidated the group of boys. He bent over and his smirk grew. “Would you like me to come down to your level?” The boys got up from their table and, hurriedly, walked out of the library. “Heh, that was too easy.” He turned around and gave Aya a thumbs up. She nodded and gave him a small smile.

     “Uh thanks uhm. . . ?” Aya scratched the back of her head and tried to look away.

     “The name’s Quiet Storm. I hope you didn’t mind that little fib I just told.” He walked over to her gave her a gentle smile. “I have low tolerance for bullies. But you on the other hand, do you have anger management problems?”

     Aya had to catch her balance and felt her chest grow heavy. “Wow, you help me out then you turn around and ask me something like that. What the heck is wrong with people?!” she thought. “D-Do I have a-anger m-management problems? What made you ask that?” she stuttered nervously.

     Quiet Storm pointed at her and winked. “Just some advice, if you want to be taken seriously and if you don’t want things to escalate, it would be better for you if you don’t show your anger. When people piss you off or upset you, you gotta be calm and cool about it. If you go charging at people, like you were just a couple of minutes ago, you’re only going to make things worse and complicate them. I’m not trying to put myself on a pedestal or anything, but you gotta be a lot smoother when confronting people and you gotta know when it’s necessary to confront people. Don’t act before you think.” He smiled and placed his hands on his hips. “I guess it was a good thing that I happened to be around!”

     “So much for not putting yourself on a pedestal.” Aya thought raising an eyebrow. “That whole speech he just gave me, what a waste, it feels like it just went up in smoke. He just wanted to hear himself talk. Oh boy. .  I sure got lucky. A real winner this one.”

     Quiet Storm snapped his fingers. “By the way, I didn’t catch your name.”

     “It’s Aya Sapna.”

     “Oh that’s an . . . interesting sounding name.” he rubbed his chin and tilted his head to the side and looked her up and down slowly. “Ya know names have meanings, what does your name mean, if you don’t mind me asking that is.”

     “Nah, I don’t mind you asking. ‘Aya’ means beautiful and my last name ‘Sapna’ means dream.”

     Quiet Storm’s eyes widened with interest. “Aya Sapna means ‘beautiful dream’? That’s pretty cool! I like the way that sounds. Aya Sapna, Aya Sapna. . . I really like the way that sounds.”

     “And I’m guessing your first name is Quiet and your last name is Storm?”

     Quiet Storm let out a big laugh. He slightly bent over and wrapped his arms around his waist. “That’s cute, but no, Quiet Storm is my whole name. I don’t have a last name. I’m Native American.”

     Aya tilted her head and raised an eyebrow looking at him. “I guess that can explain your skin tone and the sound of your name. Oh, uhm, by the way, I really like your colored contacts. Where did you get them from?”

     Quiet Storm laughed harder. Aya took a step back and looked at him puzzled and didn’t quite understand why he was laughing at her question. She bit her bottom lip and watched him as he continued to laugh and was still trying to figure out what he was finding funny.

     He wiped tears coming from his eyes and caught his breath. “What colored contacts? I was born with this eyes color. It’s pretty unique huh?”

     “Y-yeah.” Aya smiled nervously. (Born with them? How old is this guy? This isn’t elementary school it’s high school.) “Well, I gotta get back to my school work. So, uhm, thanks again for having my back.” She sat back down at her desk.

    “Hey do ya mind if I join you? Hold on I’ll go grab my stuff from the table I was sitting at.”

    “He’s awfully friendly.” Aya thought. “A little too friendly.”

    Quiet Storm placed his backpack and his notebooks on the table in front of Aya smiling. “Ya know this is my first day here. You’re the first person that I’ve really talked to today.” He rested his chin on the back of his right hand and twirled his pen in his left. “At first I didn’t like it here because, I wasn’t able to grasp the whole idea of being on a campus like setting. Especially not for a high school environment at least and to be honest I’m not too crazy about the people here either.” He chuckled and softly sighed. “Sorry I didn’t mean to sound all depressing or to open my mouth and spit out all of that drivel at random like that.”

     “It’s fine. I didn’t think much of it and it’s not going to change my opinion of you. To be honest I didn’t like this place either when I first got here and I still don’t.” she gave a quick laugh.

     Quiet Storm looked out the window. “It’s kind of weird. I don’t know why but there’s something about you that’s different.”

     “Different? What different about me?”

     Quiet Storm shrugged. “There’s something about you that makes me just-“

      The last bell rang and the silence in the library become flooded with the sound of voices of students discussing plans for the weekend, other teenage discussions of idle gossip, and rumors that were the talk of the day as they lined up and made their way out of the library.

     Aya grabbed her stuff hurriedly and sped walked over to the library exit. “Hey wait up!” Quiet Storm called after her grabbing his belongings. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” he asked once he caught up to her.

     “Sorry about that. It’s just that you know how you only have five minutes to get to your next class? It’s like that for getting to your bus and the bus drivers can get really nippy especially on Fridays.”

     “Aw man seriously?! This is gonna suck I don’t even know where my bus is at!”

     “Well what’s your bus number? I can point you in the direction to go.”

     “They told me in the office that my bus number is eleven.”

     “Eleven? Oh cool you ride my bus. So I guess you don’t have to worry about anything. Oh and just a warning, watch out for the couples when you’re trying to get to your bus. They get even more in the way when you’re trying to get to your bus.”

     “Watch out for-?” He walked into a couple making out on the walkway and lightly tripped. “I see what you mean now.” He tried to keep up with Aya while trying to catch his balance as he continued to squeeze past and shove his way through the sea of students that flooded the walkways on campus.

     Aya sat down in the first seat on the bus and sighed. “It’s quite a hassle after school.”

     “You don’t say! It seems like there are more people after school then there is during school hours! I don’t think I’ll be able to get used to this so easily.” He sat down next to her and leaned his head back in the seat and sighed.

     “Well, on the bright side you won’t have to worry about this much longer. This is senior year of High School after all.” Aya closed her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be glad to be out of here. I can’t wait to get out of the “High School life”.”

     “You and me both. I’m just glad it’s Friday and I get a two day break from all of this craziness so I can mentally digest everything.” Quiet Storm rubbed his face. “So what street do you live on?”

     “I live on sixteen Maplewood Road.”

     “Coincidences keep coming. I live on Maplewood too.”

     “Oh so you’re part of the new family that moved a couple of houses down? Then that girl I saw, with the blue hair and the dark skin, is she your sister or something?”

     “Girl with blue hair? Girl with. . . Oh! You mean my cousin Mizukuni! Ha ha! You’ve seen him walking around?”

     “Him?”

     “Yeah it’s a he. He’s my older cousin. We moved here from Poleck Town it’s a nice change of scenery, at least for him that is.”

     “If you’re living with your cousin, I take it that you moved out of your parent’s home?” 

     Quiet Storm shook his head. “Nah, I don’t have any parents. They ditched me when I was little. I lived with Mizu and his mother up until. . .” his voice trailed off. Aya turned her attention to him after a moment a silence when she realized that he had stopped talking. She looked at him with anticipation, waiting for him to continue his sentence. He was looking down at his hands and his eyebrows furrowed and his lips came tightly together to form a grimace. He looked as if he were struggling to find the words – or the right words – to say, but shook his head signaling that he didn’t want to talk about whatever it was that made his voice trail off.

     Aya nodded. “It’s alright I think I understand. You don’t need to say anything else.”

     “Do you have any plans this weekend?”

     “Me? Well I was planning on hanging out with my friend Danielle this weekend. We were going to go to Metrole City Park. We saw a poster about some magic show in the afternoon and we were gonna check it out. What about you?”

     “Nah, nothing really. I was going to finish helping Mizu set the house up and I was planning on finishing up on some school work. Nothing serious or anything worth talking about.” He smiled. “At least the weather will be nice this weekend. It’ll be a nice day to see a magic show in the park. I hope you two enjoy yourselves.”

     “Yeah thanks and I wish you guys luck on finishing up on your new home.”

     The bus went over a pot hole and Quiet Storm leaned on top of Aya with a gasp. Aya’s eyes widened and she saw a vision of her, when she was eight years old, sitting on a sidewalk by herself and watched the neighborhood kids playing. She looked down at her feet and bit on her bottom lip. Feeling a warm hand on her shoulder she looked up at a black figure and watched as it sat down next to her. “Ya know every time I see you, you always look like you have a lot on your mind.”

     “I don’t have a lot on my mind. My parents told me that it’s called zoning out. They told me I need to be careful about doing that.”

     “Zoning out huh?” the black figure poked her forehead.  “Alright, then, whenever I see you zoning out, I’ll say, ‘Hello! Earth to Aya!’ How does that sound?”

     Aya giggled and smiled. “ ----------- You’re so silly! But I guess that’ll work.”

     Aya came back to reality with a soft gasp blinking several times and shaking her head to knock the vision out of her head. “What the heck was that vision? A black figure and I couldn’t hear the name I spoke. Is there something that I’m trying to remember here?”

     Quiet Storm poked the side of her head. “Hello! Earth to Aya! You sure like to zone out don’t ‘cha?”

     Aya felt her heart grow heavy.