"James! Please! Wake up! Wake up!" Sara cried over her friend and new found lover as he layed on the floor, unmoving. She leaned over, checking his head, and screamed a terrified shriek when she touched his head where the bucket had hit. They had killed him. The only person who ever understood her, who had tried to help her, who had loved her, was gone. The blood soaked girl stood up, her angry and piercing blue eyes glowing ever so slightly as they fell upon the crowd. The sweet, shy, awkward little Sara was gone in that moment. The old Sara was not conscious, nor aware of what was going on.This was a new Sara.The lights above her cracked and exploded over everyone, making them scream.

They had reasons to scream yes, because they would soon lose their lives. Every single one of those unforgivable scum would soon be begging for mercy, just as she had so many times. But, just as mercy was never shown to neither she or James, she would not show it to them. She killed them all. Some were held down mentally to the floor while their classmates trampled over them in attempt to get to the doors they had no idea were locked, while others were crushed between the bleachers she pushed together on them in their struggles to escape. Some where caught on fire from ripped electrical wires. Some were thrown against walls and tables. Once the more disposable ones(over one hundred students) were out of the way, she moved onto the few whom had caused her and James the most pain through out their years. A group of just twenty people. She took her time with these. The ones who had just been the lackeys she slowly and mentally choked until they fell to the floor lifeless. The leaders though, oh she had fun with them. She levitated broken shards of glass and slowly cut them, every inch of their skin, and when she grew tired of ones screams, she would slit their throat and move on to the next one.

The very last one trembled there. This was the most hated one. A pretty little bitch who had made her life miserable. The one who had taken the video of her and laughed, only to later post it on the internet for everyone to see.The one who had planned the prank that had killed her beloved James. This girl had ruined her life. The girl looked up at her, begging her for her life to be spared, "Sara! Y-you don't want to do this! You'll regret this! All of this! For the rest of your life!"

"And what about James's life? WHAT ABOUT HIS LIFE!? YOU THINK HE'LL REGRET THIS?!" Sara's face suddenly grew darker as she stood over the girl, "Oh yes, that's right. He won't have a chance to. Because you killed him." With a snarl she swiped her hand through the air and a sickening crack sounded as the girls neck was broken. With her last victim out of the way, she had just stumbled her way back home. She walked through the front door, finding her mother had broken out of the closet, and unable to find her, went to wash the horrid blood from her skin. She filled the tub and stripped down, slipping in. The blood filled the tub and looking down at her arms, still wet with the blood that had not only been poured over her, but the blood of the people she had killed, the emotional and scarred Sara suddenly snapped back into place and she began screaming.

The screams that escaped her filled her bedroom and woke her up, the young blonde woman siting up in her bed quickly, hysterical, biting down hard on her arm to muffle her screams and cries of fear at the painful memories that haunted her dreams. She laid back, sobbing and yelling into her pillow, trying to tell herself that what happened was all in the past. That it wasn't even her. That had been Sara. She wasn't Sara anymore. She had decided right after leaving her burning home she wouldn't be that girl anymore. She would be someone new. She was Annabella now. Anna wouldn't do anything like that. Anna was a new person. Anna hadn't killed anyone. She hadn't killed anyone. No, that was Sara who had done the deed. But even then, all the lights about her hotel room flickered widely and busted, things about her room, including her bed levitating.

She clawed at her pillow, ripping them by accident with her finger nails in attempt to clam and sooth herself. It didn't help. Her screams continued to flow from her and into the pillow, and the more she screams, the more things in the hotel room broke. The things that floated about grew faster in speed and soon it was like a mad whirlwind of energy all around her, mimicking the swirl of emotions she was feeling in that moment, and would surely feel more and more of the longer she thought about what had happened merely hours earlier.

It was... cold. At least, if there was any name to give to the sensation that would be it: cold. A dry freezing where nothing moved nor lived because it was all, in fact... nothing. It was the first thing he became aware of, this absence of anything else including any true awareness of self. That came a few minutes (hours, days, years?) later when he did focus on the masculinity. It was a dim realization. Everything was in a fog for him, distant and intangible while still managing to obscure even his image of self. Self. Who was he?? A young man, scrawny in build with a thatch of unruly blond hair and ash blue eyes, and with a plain but honest face. Just another face, he had always thought, one that you'd never pick out from the crowd even if he'd had a crowd to stand in. He remembered loneliness, then. A long line of loneliness and self mutilation on his pipe cleaner biceps to give him some sense of control over his life; it was pain, but it had been his pain, not the pain received at the hands and belts and tongues of others. But then... there had been a moment... just a few oh-so-short days... where everything was different.

Someone was shouting something just then. No, not shouting but crying! It was name over and over again, name that stirred recollections: James. James Chandler. It was his name. Only why was this person crying it so, and for that matter why was she crying at all? He could hear her quite clearly now, so obviously he must be close by to her.

Her. It was about a girl. No, that wasn't quite right, it was a young woman. Shy, awkward, innocent, naive, frightened. Those were words that helped to form an image in his mind, clarifying it all the more he concentrated on them. Yes, those words applied, only there were so many others that drowned those first few out! Charming, pretty, honest, loving, kind, empathetic, understanding... the list went on from there. As that list went on, James discovered a form of warmth. It was like swimming against a current in darkness to reach a far, distant shore where someone waited for him, wanted him.

Sara. It was Sara who was sobbing and yelling. He grabbed that thought like a lifeline to pull himself up and out of the nothingness and into-

It was a hotel room, nighttime. James was having a hard time reconciling how he had come to be there, his memories faint and indistinct. He was feeling indistinct himself, as though he was walking through some twisted dream where everything was real except for him. Even his thoughts had a peculiar echo to them. It was surprising to find himself dressed as he did normally: untucked flannel shirt, second hand jeans, tough black workbooks that never quite fit his large feet right... James oddly thought he should still be dressed in his rented tuxedo! Still? Had there been an occasion to wear a black tux?? Some dark memory, something he couldn't quite bring to the forefront of his consciousness hinted that there had been and he was better off not knowing about it.

The room was filled with flying bits of feather and foam, a cyclone of power that centered around the figure in the bed. There was more to it, though. He could see flashes of blue and green energies within that miniature maelstrom, and those flashes of power seemed far more solid and real to him than anything else. Oddly enough, he wasn't afraid. He wasn't really... anything. Curious, perhaps, but that was all. The lack of emotion also was curious, and the more he dwelt on that topic the more emotions slowly trudged forward reluctantly for him to call upon.

Cocking his head (Head? He had a head? Why did seem so strange to have one?), he hovered near the bed as he watched her rant in bursts of raw emotion and power that he somehow envied. Had James looked down, that same curiosity as before would have arisen at the fact that his feet did not seem to quite touch the cheap carpeting. Right now Sara was far more important... for some reason.... and he focused instead on her.

"Sara?"

Why did his voice come out as such a pitiful whisper? It was almost like a whimper, if anything else! James grew disgusted with himself, an emotional state that was incredibly familiar now that he had a grasp of it again. Summoning his all, he tried again.

"Sara?" A little better, but not much. He could only hope that she could hear him. "Where are we? And why is it so cold, Sara? Why is it so very, very cold?"

Anna wasn't all too aware when he spoke her name the first time. The voice reached her ears, but that was all. There was no comprehension of it.The only thing that remained on her mind at that moment was the horrible memories that flashed before her eyes, making her scream louder. She just wanted those horrible feeling to go away. She didn't want to feel like a monster. Did killing all those people....killing her mother...did that make her a monster? Maybe her mother had been right. Maybe she was a witch who needed to burn in hell. She sobbed in between her screams, and as she knelled there on her bed, her face buried against the pillow, to muffle her own frightened sounds, she heard the sweetest and softest voice, and this time, the voice reached her through her meltdown. Everything in the air suddenly froze in place, just hovering there for a moment, before it all dropped to the floor in loud thuds and smashes, the mattress falling to the floor with both of them still on it.

Anna slowly sat up on the mattress, eyes wide and tear filled as she looked to see none other than James. Different emotions swept through Anna and that was present on her face. Sadness, regret, anger, happiness. With a trembling hand, she reached out, brushing some of his blonde hair from his face as she had down so many times before, only this time she didn't do it teasingly. She did it as if to really see if he was real. The hand that brushed his hair away, moved slowly to let her fingertips run across his cheek and she found he was solid. He was here, and he was in front of her.

She in that instant threw her arms around him, hugging herself tightly to him, her hands clinging at the fabric of his shirt, as if she were afraid he was disappear if she didn't do so. Sobs mixed with a relieved laughter racked through her body, "I....It is you....James...you're ali--" She stopped mid sentence, feeling something strange and pulled back to look at him and it was then that she noticed something....odd about him. He was hovering, and definitely not due to her powers. She looked at him, shocked and confused, trying to piece together what exactly was going on. He couldn't do that before. So why was it now that was going on?

She didn't even have to think another moment because she knew the answer. He wasn't alive as she had thought moments ago. He was dead. This was either something she was imagining or he was some sort of a....ghost in a way. And since she didn't think she was imagining him, as she had hugged him, she was going with the ghost idea.

With her mind swirling with this new information, things in the room began to levitate again as if in sync with the changing of her emotions. As the things around the room began moving about quickly and the mattress lifted up from the floor again., She couldn't concentrate on just one certain item. They all moved about in speratic ways, some things even smashing against the walls. Thats when a lamp brushed passed her, barely missing her on head and going to hit James in the head. A small squeak of fright escape her and jolted forward, as if ready to push him out of the way of the object, but she was too slow. The lamp hit him and....went right through him. She froze, lowering herself to sit back down and the objects around thing, still floating, at least slowed down, gliding harmlessly threw the air.

She sat there on the floating mattress trembling, curling up there with her knees curled to her chest, eyes wide with the fear of herself, her hands nervously scratching at the skin of her arms, drawing blood in the process. She was hyperventilating slightly, speaking quietly in barely a whisper in between her gasps of breath, T-This is all my fault......James.....I'm so sorry....they wouldn't have pranked you if it weren't for me.....that bucket wouldn't have hit your head......its my fault you're like this....." She whispered.The hand that scratched at her skin now scratched harder, smearing blood over her arm, she herself unaware she was even doing this.

It felt good to have her in his arms. Sara felt... alive! That was the word! Alive! It was a warmth he found strangely absent in himself and he wanted to cling to it tenaciously. It was also nice to physically feel something, as well! James still could not piece things together in his mind but had come to the realization that very few things felt... real. Only why did she looked so confused, so frightened? Something had obviously terrified her. While she seemed happy to see him at first, Sara backed away to sit down as though something was horribly wrong. He didn't even notice the lamp passing through him. Her words made even less sense.

As she scratched at her arms and drew blood, he hurriedly knelt down before her and tried to grab her arms. Only his hands never quite connected with her arms. Was she moving that fast as to avoid him? There was something about the sight and smell of the blood that fascinated him, something that he had read about once but couldn't recall. Why was his memory such a mess right now? "What are you talking about? What's your fault? Look, Sara, stop, just... please, stop that! Please! Listen to me!"

James gave up trying to catch up her hands and attempted to look her straight in the eye. "Sara, listen! I've got something important I want to ask you, alright? I was going to wait until after the prom," (Wait, hadn't they already gone to the prom?) "but now seems as good a time as any. Sara. Will you marry me?"

At her look he shook his head. "No, seriously! We've been friends for years, and we've got a lot in common. Who understands us better than each other? I've loved you for... a long time now, I just... couldn't find the courage to say it until now! We can do this! After we graduate, right after we walk across the stage, we'll go to your house and grab whatever you want to bring. I've got an offer at Cornell, Sara. Cornell! You could come with me to New York, I've got a lead on a cheap apartment in Ithaca and we could... we could leave all of this behind us! Your mother, my father, all the shitheads at school. It'll be a fresh start for both of us! So what do you say? Will you marry me, Sara?"

When he begged her to stop scratching at her skin, she didn't quite listen at first. Not until he managed to look her straight in the eyes with a big seriousness did she stop tearing at her skin to listen to him. And what he said both shocked her and saddened her at the same time. They could have had this together. He was going to ask her after prom. They could have gotten married and went off to start a new life together. But now they couldn't have that. They could never have the marriage both of them apparently desired. After all, she couldn't marry someone who was dead. She loved him. She loved him more than anyone and anything in the whole world, but she couldn't exactly go to a court house and saw she wanted to marry someone who didn't technically exist anymore on anything other than a death certificate.

He had it all planned out. Now he couldn't go through with those plans. It hurt her to know that. He had worked so hard and had suffered just as much from his dad as she had from her mother. Now all that suffering and hard work would be for nothing. It was too late. It was too late for him to go after his dreams. And it was too late for them. They had waited too long to tell each other they loved one another. Why hadn't she spoken up sooner? What she wouldn't give to go back in time and tell him how she felt before all of this. To stop them from going to the prom. Then they wouldn't have any problems. And everything would be fine.

Anna reached over and gently took her face in his hands, concentrating her powers so she could do so, and kissed him gently before puling back, tears streaming down her face, "I'm not Sara anymore, James. Sara did so many horrible things. I don't want to be that monster. I'm Anna now." She took a deep breath, a pained look on her face, "And...I.....I can't marry you James...because.....you're dead."

James blinked at her response. She may as well have said he was purple or a llama for all the sense it made to him. Dead? It didn't make any sense at all!

"What?" he gasped in astonishment. "What are you talking about? What horrible things?" There game a glint of understanding in his eyes, and he shook his head while holding up both hands as if in protest. "Is this some guilt trip your mother put you on, us spending time together being a sin or something? Crap, she found out about us in the classroom, didn't she? Well... Fuck her! It's none of her business! Look, I know we should have used protection but we both got caught up in the moment and the chances of-"

Memories started to finally slide into place. James paused. A frown flickered across his face as he tried again to reconcile the timing of events... They HAD been at the prom. Hadn't they? He and Sara had danced, he was sure of that because it had been a slow dance to some song from the 50's. That was the problem with letting the school janitor be the school's DJ. "Devil or Angel" was playing and they were swaying together in time to the music because neither one of them knew how to actually dance, and then they had kissed. She had led them off after a few lights popped for no reason. That's right, they WERE at the prom! They snuck out and gave each other to one another in the science lab, right up on one of the lab counters. It had been all fumbling and mistakes and apologies and giggling as they worked it all out, and while the experience was quick for both of them it was definitely memorable! Not just the sex, but also the confessions, she as to her powers and him as to his love for her. So how had he forgotten? And what had happened afterwards?

There were flashes, hints of what followed. James spoke hesitantly then, trying to use verbal cues to connect the dots. "We... went back afterwards, didn't we? Back to the prom. And... something about the King and Queen?" Looking up at her with confused eyes and a mouth slightly agape, he tried to soldier onwards. "Only... something happened... They pranked us. Blood. Somehow... they doused us in blood." More flashbacks, scenes of a nasty video depicting Sara in a panic within the shower room, being taunted and mocked in her nakedness as she bled. That truly despicable moment had been shared with the entirety of the prom-goers and teachers, and he had... he had been about to pull her off the stage and out the nearest exit only...

Blood. It all kept coming back to blood somehow: blood in the shower room, blood from his self-mutilation, blood from the prom, blood on her arms now. As he knelt there, the back of his head felt curiously damp. A trickle of something wet was running down the back of his neck. Sweat? His mind was still not making all the connections it needed to yet.

"Sara?" No, she had said to call her something else, and James could never deny her anything. "Anna? Anna, what happened? After... And why can't I remember?"

The look on his face was truly pitiable as he looked up into her teary eyes for answers.

"No, this isn't about something my mother said....well it kind of is, but that's not why I can't marry you." Her voice was cracking now, tears running down her face. He seemed to pause, thinking about something before he continued on to say what he happened at the prom. Only he couldn't remember what happened after they both drenched in blood. It was a good thing too. Because what happened was a massacre. She wouldn't have wanted him to see or remember that side of her. Or that side of her that had once been her anyway. That had been Sara. She was Anna now. She continued to tell herself that. That she hadn't been the one to do all those horrid things. It had been another girl completely separate from her. And yet, it didn't help, because she knew she had done it, and nothing could take that back.

Her sad blue eyes looked back to him and his pitiful look made this all the more harder. Feeling the need to comfort him, she leaned forward, pressing a kiss softly to his lips before closed her eyes to calm herself, and when opened her eyes again a moment later to look at him, a pained look was on her face, tears streaming down her cheeks once again, "We were soaked in blood. They were playing that video and you grabbed my hand, I guess to try and take me away from there but....the bucket that had poured the blood on us fell..... I saw you hit in the head.You were dead, James. I...I lost it. I couldn't help it." She looked t her trembling hands, "My powers snapped just as much as I did. I wasn't myself. I....I killed them. Every single one of them. I crushed them. Cut them. Threw them against walls. And worse, I enjoyed it. At the time I enjoyed getting back at the for everything they had done to us. I felt like they all deserved death because they had brought it upon you."

She sat up again, wrapping her arms around herself, taking deep breaths, struggling to control her emotions and her powers at the same time. She wasn't even sure how she felt about it anymore.She hated the people she had killed. And at the same time she felt bad that she killed them. And even more so, she feared herself. She had never known she was capable of so much destruction. Capable to killing and torturing people in such ways. She took another shaky breath, rocking back and forth slightly now in nervousness and fear of the memories, "I took my time.....with the ones that tortured us most....especially Christine. She's the one who planned the blood prank. The one who dropped the bucket on your head. I killed her the slowest."

She refused to look at him by now. She feared his reaction. Feared he would think the same thing as her mother. That she was a monster. That she deserved to die even more than those people in the school. She moved a hand to her mouth to muffle the sobs that escaped her now, "After that, they were all dead. I went inside and washed all the blood off of me....but....but it didn't help." She frantically moved her hands to her ears, "I could still hear their screams. I knew I killed all those people and nothing can change that." She was sobbing more now, her whole body trembling, "When I got out of the bath, momma found me. I thought she was okay, that she wanted to help me....but.....but she didn't.....she stabbed me James. She called me a witch and said I needed to go back to hell. She tried to kill me." She could still feel the pain in her back from her the knife had entered her. It wasn't a dire wound, but it still hurt like hell, "I didn't know what to do...I was so scared...I....I.....I killed momma....." She sobbed more now, curling up there.

James could only blink in bewilderment as she confessed to everything that happened after his... death. Sara had killed all of them, all of the people who had made their lives a living hell for the past several years. And her mother, too. Searching his own soul for any sort of emotional response, all he could find was a savage satisfaction. Revenge. Revenge had been served! True, it had taken his death for it to come about, but what was done was done! James still wasn't quite sure how he felt about having been killed himself, although he sensed a rising bitterness about the whole thing that further enflamed the savage acceptance of all those deaths. A hundred and fifty-some students, a handful of teachers and chaperones that failed to protect James and Sara and her witch of a mother?

"Good," he finally said distantly. Then with a great deal more force, "Good!"

He knelt down before her on the mattress (how had he gotten there?) and tried to look into her eyes again. "Anna? Listen to me. It's good that they're dead. D'you understand? Can you think of anyone who deserved to die more?! How many years did they... did they hate us? How many times did they beat us and tease us and put us down like we were less than human? And what did we ever do to them, huh?! What did you and I ever do to deserve that?! And the ones who didn't bully us? They were just as fucking guilty. They could have stepped in at any time to help us out, but no! No, they just shook their heads and looked the other way. Sometimes they laughed, too, I saw them. I'm glad you killed them! Not just for us, but for society as well! Can you imagine them out in the real world? How many people's lives and spirits they would have crushed and broken over the years? Maybe you didn't plan it, but it sure as fuck couldn't have happened to more deserving assholes."

"And your mother?" James snorted hatefully. "What love did she ever show you? Cramming you into that God forsaken closet all the time? And you know how much of the Bible she twisted? Seriously? Shit, my father thought the Bible was only good for hitting me with, but even I know your mother used it to keep you afraid and weak. She was a manipulative hag who was nothing but ignorant and deranged. She was sick, Anna. Sick in the head and sick in the heart, and you should be glad to be fucking rid of her. I only wish you had offed my old man in the bargain!"

James shook his head violently, ghostly jaw firmly clenched in anger and a frightful snarl on his face. "If you need to be Anna, then be Anna. I love you whatever you call yourself, and that's not going to change. But don't feel bad about what you did. You didn't kill people. You put down a bunch of animals that would have just spread their fucking poison around even more after graduation."

Reaching up, he tried to take her in his arms to give what comfort he could then. To his horror, James found that his hands passed right through her as though she wasn't there at all. He blinked again in surprise as he drew back to stare at the offending limbs. She had touched him, kissed him. He had felt it! It had been a mix of love, tenderness and a sweet, sweet warmth that had briefly staved off the freezing blight that both surrounded and filled his core at the same time. "I can't touch you," he murmured sadly, "You can touch me... but I can't touch you..."

He only let that self pity last for a moment. It was a nightmare of a realization that not only was he dead, but that he couldn't touch the woman he loved anymore. It was... so unfair! James shook it off for now, focusing instead on Anna's needs.

"I'm dead. Fine." He held out his arms for her to take them if she wished. "But I'm still here, Anna, with you. I don't know how or why or if this was supposed to happen, but we're still together. I still love you and I won't leave you."

"Ever."

Anna looked up at him with tears still in her eyes as he spoke to her, telling her how he felt about her killing off all of those people. He, to her surprise, was okay with it. Glad she had done that to them even. He was convincing her that the people she had killed were the monsters in this situation, not her. And slowly, she began to see his reasoning. They had caused so much pain toward she and James. Maybe to even more people neither of them knew of. Now that they were dead and gone, they couldn't cause that pain to them or anyone else for that matter. They were gone and it was a good thing they were. But still, they didn't change the fact that SHE had killed them. Had she been upset if they had died in some other way? No, absolutely not. She would have been just as relieved as James was right now. But because it was her that had done the deed. Because she found she had it in her to kill a living being. That was what upset her the most.

Carefully wiping the tears from her eyes and looking back at him, she was prepared for his hug, only to have his hands go right through her. She looked at him in surprise, a confused look on her face. She knew she could touch him, as she had done it before. She had never really thought about it that touching worked both ways. She guessed they knew now that it didn't. Moving closer to him, she wrapped her arms around him, her face buried against his neck as she relaxed there, speaking softly to him, "It just.....it scares me James....I never would have thought I would ever have it in me to kill a person....what if it happens again? What if I kill someone with my powers who doesn't deserve to die like those people did?"

She was sure she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she did. She could already barely stand it that James was dead now because of her. They had poured that blood on them because of her. If it hadn't been for that, then that bucket wouldn't have landed on his head and he wouldn't be dead. In a way now, it was her fault he was dead. She couldn't help but blame herself for it. Holding herself tighter to him, she kissed him once again before burying her face against the front of his shirt, "I'm sorry James....that this happened to you....They wouldn't have done that to you if it hadn't been for me...."

He didn't have answers for her right then. James had ideas, certainly! Anna needed to train somehow, to practice so she could gain control and discipline her powers. Right now they were too tied to her emotions, and that could lead to serious difficulties in the near future if they didn't find a way to curb it. James was fairly positive that her emotions were the power behind her abilities, that the stronger the emotions then the stronger her talents would manifest themselves; only she needed to find a way to focus that power and channel it at her will. He needed to do what he was best at: research. He also had to figure out how he was going to do that research when he could't touch anything...

The feel of her again his corpus was heavenly, a warm summer's breeze that chased away the cold that continually surrounded and filled him. He closed his own eyes, only to realize that he could still see anyway. It was all... an illusion, he realized. His body, his clothes, his voice... These were things that didn't really exist while still managing to cling tenacious to his soul, a memory of what he had been that still clung to him. Was this what ghostly life was like? Were there other ghosts? Or was he some twisted manifestation of her powers, trapped by Anna unintentionally. There was another possibility, his mind whispered to him, a horrifying idea that he could only pray was only a passing fancy.

What if he wasn't James at all? What if he was only a memory of Anna's given awareness by those very same powers that killed everyone else?

He violently pushed that fear away, concentrating instead on awkwardly trying to hold what he couldn't touch. Anna needed comfort more than he did right now anyway. Besides, he was dead. What comfort could there really be for him?? Obviously Heaven was not an immediate option and Hell was thankfully not present either. "No," he whispered back soothingly, "It's not your fault. They'd been killing me for years even before I even met you, Anna. All they did was finish the job."

A thought struck him then, causing him to laugh bitterly. "Fuck. You know... all those times I wished I was dead? All those times I failed to kill myself? All those times you and I talked about what it would be like to be dead so we wouldn't suffer anymore? And just when everything was finally looking up... Poof." James fell silent in her embrace, sorting through the emotions that began to wake up and war within him. "It's not like what we talked about, you know? Remember how we always hoped it would be like a long, sleep where nothing could touch us or disturb us ever again? It's not like that at all, Anna. Now I'm nothing but awake. It's like I've forgotten how to sleep. I don't think I can sleep. There's no escape from everything, no downtime, I don't think. I'm like a lightbulb that's always on but can't turn off."

He pulled back out of her arms to look at her, and then found to his surprise that he *could* pull back! For a moment, he had felt tangible resistance in the motion. "What the-?"

Looking down at himself and then back at her, his eyes grew wide. "Anna? Where's the blood? On your arms, you were scratching yourself up and bleeding and now..." Sure enough, her arms were clear of blood now. While the furrows that she had rent into her own flesh were still painfully visible, they were dried and weeping a healing plasma now instead of streaking bright red. Her self inflicted wounds weren't healed or closed by any definition of the word, not even scabbed over, but they were certainly not bleeding anymore. A thought that had escaped James' attention earlier returned as he stared at her forearms. Blood, something about blood. It always came back to blood, he remembered, and now here Anna was with arms as clean as though she had washed them and him slightly tangible just for a moment.

Anna listened to him as he spoke. About how he was always awake now and couldn't sleep, very much unlike their hopes of it being a long peaceful sleep where nothing and no one could bother them. There had been times indeed where she thought about killing herself, in attempt to reach what she thought was a good long sleep, but she never did. She had always been so reluctant too because she didn't want to leave James behind all by himself. And now James was dead. The irony of it was something that hurt. But, at least he was here with her for now. Neither of them were alone just yet. They still had each other for the time being, and she hoped that it stayed that way for a long time.

When he pulled back, she was confused at his, having thought that he couldn't even touch her. Yet here he was touching her. She blinked in surprise and looked down at her arms to see the blood was gone and grew even more bewildered at this. She looked back at him. He had something to do with this. There was some connection between him and blood. If she had to make a guess, she would have to say somehow her blood(or any blood could for all she knew) had made him able to touch and feel. She looked between him and her arm for a moment before she turned and crawled out of the bed.

Moving toward her bag she picked it up and walked back to the bed, pouring its constants onto the comforter. Among the every day things was a small pocket knife. James had given it to her a few years ago after finding out she walked home from school(and after finding out how crazy her mother was). She picked up the knife and flipped it open, speaking as she drew a slightly deep cut into her arm next to the other now clean scratches, watching as blood oozed out from the fresh gash, "James, I think I know how to fix your 'ghostly' problem. I think...I think blood makes it so you can touch things." She set the knife down and held out her bleeding arm to him, "We won't know if its true until we test that theory." When he seemed hesitant she sighed, looking at him, "If you don't then I've cut myself for no reason James."

James was not sure which puzzled him more: the conspicuous absence of blood from Anna's recent wounds or the alacrity with which she snatched up her purse to dump it contents out across the bed. What was she looking for? Only when she deftly grabbed the small pocket knife to flick its blade out and score her arm, he winced. It was only a small knife, true, but he had honed it to razor sharpness for her and watching her tender flesh part beneath that keen edge was somehow more terrifying than anything else he had experience that night. Considering he was dead, that was saying something. He had no real memory of his death or of the events that had followed, true, only his world view was that the mass murder of a hundred and some people should outweigh the shock of seeing a girl gash her arm open out of love. Should. It didn't.

At first principles, Anna's idea had merit. Her blood was gone, and he had become ever so slightly more tangible at the same time as its disappearance. The sight of his love now offering up her life's blood from a self-inflicted wound made him grimace and lean away, grimacing at the very thought that she would hurt herself for him. That, and even though something was tugging at his memory, it seemed like something out of a turgid vampire novella. "What?" he gasped in horror his hands held out before him in protest, "Am I supposed to drink that or..."

Through his fear and disgust, James could feel the cold in him stir. It was the first thing he could claim he truly felt at all, the rise of his essence as the warm, bright blood called out to him. It was then that the folktales he'd read in the town library answered his confusion. His crack about vampires hadn't been all that far off, he realized. Vampires and other undead creatures craved blood not for sustenance to fill their bodies but to steal life back. Only living things truly bled and the restless dead sought out that precious vitae to push away the cold and gain even just a memory of life. Japanese ghosts were almost always described as hungry. In Caribbean cultures and spiritual practices, the spirits of the dead were summoned with rum, candy and blood. Even in badly scripted movies and cheap fantasy novels, blood sacrifices brought spirits to life and called forth gods and demons alike. In his rational and logical mindset, James had always dismissed these notions as literary gimmicks or quaint cultural stories to be read for amusement. Now, with the input of this new and very personal data, he began to make the connections.

He reached out tentatively to lay what he perceived of as his fingers upon her arms, the ghostly tips dipping into the oozing blood. A touch that began gingerly soon became very, very solid. The heat of it rushed in to fill that core of cold that was central to his current existence. It was more than warmth; it was pleasure. Pleasure at feeling alive again, even if only for a few precious moments. The bleeding quickly stopped as his incorporeal form sopped it eagerly, leaving her arm clean if cut. James could sense that the warmth he had been granted would not last long, that he would quickly revert back to being intangible save at her will. How long did he have? Minutes? Seconds? More importantly, was there any food to be had, for he found that just as had been portrayed in that idiotic pirate movie by Disney, he craved the taste of an apple or a even a drink of water! With nothing in sight, he looked down at the hotel sheets. Closing his eyes, he removed his fingers from her arm to lightly touch the fabric.

It was nothing more than cheap, mass produced cloth suitable only for hotels of dubious quality. The fabric was worn thin from use and thousands of washings and bleachings. In fact, he could smell the bleach faintly upon them still! It was a harsh, caustic odor that ate at the nose and wrinkled the brow and he LOVED it! Every single thread could be felt in that small circle beneath his forefinger. James could make out exactly how they were woven together, crossing over and around and it was GLORIOUS! This ragged, ill used sheet that in its time had no doubt been slept upon, eaten upon, screw upon, bled upon, shat upon, pissed upon was REAL, almost overwhelmingly so! Had he been still alive, he doubted he would have noticed or even cared about the sheet save for a faint hope it had been washed really well. Now that he was dead, he was realizing exactly how much the living took for granted.

It was only a few moments that passed before the sensation began to quickly fade. It didn't last nearly long enough, and in desperation James could only hope it lasted long enough for one quick thing: he looked up to lean in close to Anna, his lips finding hers hastily to snatch a loving kiss before he faded back into the cold oblivion of nothingness. The touch of his mouth upon hers vanished only a second after contact with her oh-so-soft lips, the smell of her making him heady even as smell vanished altogether. In that second, he savored the taste of her. He had never thought of people having taste before; not in regards to eating or devouring people, but moreover in the realization that just as people could smell or look or sound in such and such a way, they could also have a flavor to them that was uniquely their own.

And then it was gone. Even the memory of that precious, brief instant that had just occurred faded a little to make him wonder. James could only recall that she had a taste, the sheets had a smell and the blood had felt wondrous within him... but the details of it were gone. He simply knew these things existed now, as though he had read them in a book but never experience them. Only there was this yearning to feel them all again.

And more.

For now, though, James controlled himself. Sighing, he shook his head. "We're gonna need a lot more blood if that's going to work, Anna. Let's just... think on that a bit, alright?" With a pleading look, he held his hands out to her in supplication. "And please don't slice yourself up like that again without warning me first?"

'Cause I don't know what I'll do if you offer me more, Anna. The words were unspoken but hung in the air all the same.

Looking around the shattered remains of the hotel room, he pursed his lips as he steeled himself to keep calm. No doubt the hotel owners were not going to be happy come the morning. Not that he really cared himself, for after all there was little they could do to him. Only all of Anna's plans could be in jeopardy if they called the cops on her. Thinking of plans, he then asked, "So what now? Were you headed somewhere specific or did you have any ideas in mind?" He chuckled quietly as he surveyed the destruction. "I know we used to joke about all the places we'd run away to as kids: the circus, Disneyland, England, Alaska. Then there was that carrousel museum, the puppet show, the zoo. Ah... I'd rather skip that one church with all the skulls in Europe, if you don't mind though. Hits a little too close to home right now."