I can feel.

No, that isn't right. I haven't felt in so long. But there it is! I can feel the fingertips. The muscles twitch in excitement. I can feel! But why does it not feel like me? Not my muscles...the muscles. The fingertips.Am I waking up? Or is this a dream? No, I've never had dreams. Besides, it's too empty to be a dream. Just the fingertips. Why can't I feel the rest? Where is me?

I try to search for my body, for anything. But how do I do that? How do I search without eyes, without ears? I want to sigh in exasperation, but I don't have a mouth either. I clench my hands into irritated fists. Hands! I can feel my hands! There they are. The whole fingers, the palm, the wrist. It ends there. No arms. I try to feel my body out slowly, looking for small bits and pieces to work with.

"It will take you a while to wake up. We will try to be nice and not rush the process. You may lose something, like feeling in a leg or something. Do not be worried. If you wake up, it will be fine."

I remember those words. I remember an old man saying them. I feel fear at that. If I wake up, I think slowly. If. If I don't find myself I won't wake up. I have to work harder! I just find my toes when suddenly, unexpectedly, my whole body comes back to me. And with it, a barrage of senses and feelings and pain. Why did this happen? A heavy weight is holding my body, pinning it down. Water. Dark, solid water that is choking me. Is this death? I've heard of peacxeful death. Slipping away in sleep and such. This is not peace. This is the choking, painful hold of a killer. Only mine is invisible, some force bent on my demise. Why would they wake me up for this? Why didn't they kill me while I slept, when I would feel no pain? When I couldn't feel this painful cold or bone breaking pressure? When I could scream in my head and have it be enough.

My senses are new, sharp even in the torture. So long I've been dulled, so long I;ve been sleeping. Now my hearing is perfect, though my ears ring too loud for that to be any good. Now I can taste such sweetness, but that's my blood and makes my stomach roll uncomfortably. But still I do not see. I have so many senses. I'm supposed to have five, right? I think I have six...but then it is hard to count through this pain. This torture, this pressure. Hear, sight, taste, feel...which am I missing? I can't think. The agony is all-consuming.

Then it is gone. As if it had never been. As suddenly as it came, the pressure leaves. The torture, most of pain. There is still the cold, but now it is numbing. Now it feels almost good. Except I hate the cold. But it numbs. My brain clouds. Why? I realize distantly that I'm not going to die. I'm waking up. My mind clouds but I struggle through the drug induced haze. I had been told it would be difficult to wake. I had been told I might not. I had been warned.

Of course, there are some things I hadn;t been told. Like my memory. Why can't I remember my name? I should know my name. Do I remember an 'e'? Is there an 'a'? I can't remember, and this fog cloud doesn't help. I push against the mist, I try to remember...Beth? Was that my name? No, it doesn't sound right. It doesn't sound right.

I also hadn't been told how going to sleep would feel. The people, the ones who operated on me...scientists? Doctors? I can't remember. The people said it would be like falling asleep. They said I would dream, but I hadn't. They said I would fall asleep and wake up as if I had just slept a rather long night's sleep. They said it would feel right, natural. They said that, I remember.

They lied.

I hadn't fallen asleep. I had died. I was dead until just a few minutes. No dreams. I feel as if my heart had slowed until the beating stopped and someone had just brought me to life. Painfully. It was there in the ache in my bones, the sting in my veins. The return of life to a body long dead. Even if the heart had continued to beat. But how long? How long have I been disconnected from the world, from myself? There is no way to know yet. I can feel everything. I feel cold. I try to hug myself, an immediate reaction to the chill hanging on my body, nut my muscles don't move. Why don't they move? I can't find my eyes. How can I open my eyes if I can't find them? How can I scream for help if my lips are lost in the jumble that used to be my face?

"She is waking." The piercingly high voice, a girl's, breaks through my sudden panic. There is someone nearby. Maybe she can help e find my eyes. Maybe she can help me figure out who I am.

"We shouldn't have done this." Deep, male, now. "She shouldn't have brought her up, not now. Not like this. She is going to be traumatized."

"She has what no one else does. She can do what no one else can. We need-"

"I know, I know! That doesn't make it right." The man sounds bitter, shamed. Disgusted, I realize hollowly. I find my lips at the exact moment I connect the dots. The exact moment I realize that I shouldn't be awake right now, realize that I'm the object of conversation. And that I'm going to be traumatized. So many questions run through my head. I have so many to ask, but not one of them come out. What if I don't want to know? Their tones, the feeling of the room, gives me the vibe I don't want to know. That I want to go back to sleep. But that's impossible. I'm awake.

"Why am I awake?"

"Why am I awake?" I doubt I want to know the answer. What could I possibly have that they would traumatize me to get? I, who has been asleep for an undetermined amount of time, have nothing. Not even a name.

"Elizabeth," he said. Elizabeth. Yes, that is my name. It feels good, having that part of my identity back. Elizabeth. I like it. "Elizabeth, I-"

"I hope the transition has not been too stressful," the girl interrupts in a sweet tone. To my unused ears it sounds false. "We did try to wake you as kind as possible, but we are short on time, after all. You could hardly expect more than a day..."

"Why am I awake?" I repeat. I know my whole name now. Elizabeth Marie Cooper. I am...eighteen. At least, I was before I had died. Now how old am I? How long have I been sleeping?

"I need you to tell me some things," the girl says immediately I open my eyes in time to see the man nudge the girl. He is so big that she actually falls to the side a little before righting herself. She is perhaps sixteen, though she is small enough to be twelve. Her eyes are a clear gold that seems a little too perfect to be real and her hair is such a pale blonde it could be mistaken for white.

"Let her be a moment," the man says. My eyes widen as I take in the full six feet and five inches of him. He is black hair is cropped to his ear and his brown eyes are dark with stress. Concern. For me. How sweet. I linger on his muscular arms and chest unconsciously. Both of them wore flawless white leotard adaptations that cover them from the neck to the bottom of the feet, excluding the hands.

"We have wasted enough time already. The Enemy could come at any moment." A shot of ice runs through my veins at that. It solidifies to freeze my veins at his glare that confirms I don't want to know.

"We are secure. They won't come for another day, and we'll be gone by then," he argues.

"Uh, what Enemy?" I interrupt timidly. I don't want to know...but I need to. "What's going on? What year is it?"

"I understand you have a lot of questions," the man begins.

"But we don't have time right now," the girl finishes bluntly. "I need you to tell me everything you know about the Diadem and then we'll have to leave. You can ask questions once we reach the next secure spot."

"Diadem?" I try to remember the word but it draws a blank. I'll have to come back to that one. "I don't about any Diadem. Why do you think I know? Who are you people?"

"I am Jay, and my rather blunt colleague is Karma." Jay holds out his hand and I hesitantly take it. My hand looks so tiny and frail, pale in his large and tanned grip. Karma's hand fits better and is such a pale white that it makes my skin look almost dark.

"This is no time to be kind," Karma says bitterly. "We have no time! Just tell us what you know about the Diadem! Tell us what you know."

"I don't know anything." I recoil from Karma's angry gaze, jumping off the bed. The feral growl that rips from my chest startles me. Karma draws back abruptly, as if electrocuted.

"I told you not to startle her," Jay muttered. That's when I realize I can hear too much. I can hear the quiet wind outside of whatever building we are in, the blood pulsing in an even beat in Karma's body, water dripping almost too fast to be natural, and, very far away, a droning buzz sound. Like a large swarm of insects angered into life.

"What's wrong with me?" My voice breaks and I can feel my arms shaking. Something's very wrong.

"Nothing," Jay assures me immediately. I glower at him, disbelieving. Karma nudges him. "Nothing that isn't to expected, that is," he amends. I take that in slowly.

"I don't understand," I admit. Jay turns and paces to the edge of the small room while Karma makes a face. "What does he mean?" I ask her in a low voice, staring hard at her face.

"Well, you have been asleep for sixteen years, so-"

"Sixteen years?" I ask incredulously. I know my voice sounds high and screechy but I don't care. Sixteen years. I have been disconnected from the world around me for sixteen years. I probably missed the next Superman movie. I laughed inwardly at my own silly thoughts, but it doesn't lighten my mood. Sixteen years. "What year is it?"

"We don't have time," Karma mutters at the same time Jay says, "2029."

2029. My heart drops to where my stomach used to be. The year 2029. I have been dead sixteen years. I'm different. Changed. I could feel it in my arms, longer than before. I could see it in my wrinkles, not there before. The world has changed as well. New, with an Enemy. The insect buzz breaks into my thoughts suddenly. That buzzing noise annoys me as it grows louder.

"Liz, you need to the remember the Diadem-"

"I don't!" I pull back, gripping my head. The insect buzz grows to an irritating background noise. 2029. "I don't want to be here. Put me back to sleep. Make me go back to sleep!"

"Eliz-"

"Put me back to sleep!" I release my head, noticing briefly that my nails have sharpened slightly to a more claw shape. That aggravating buzzing grows louder. "I don't belong. You had no right to wake me up!"

"I had every right," Karma says coldly. She draws herself up to her whole height-which isn't much-and glares fiercely at me. "I have an important mission that just happens to be internationally-"

"I don't care," I scream. The buzzing piques my anger to make my voice break as if I were about to cry. I remember that for some reason when I get angry I cry. An embarrassing habit. "Solve it by yourself and put me back to sleep!"

"Maybe I should never have-" Karma begins to shout as well, but I guess I don't get to hear what she shouldn't have done because she cuts off suddenly. That insistent buzzing is very audible, even to the two people who don't have freakish hearing. Jay runs his hands through his short hair, dark eyes darting wildly around the room.

"They're coming," he whispers in an eery tone. I look around as he did, startled by his tone. What is coming? Karma curses loudly and reaches towards me. I flinch back.

"Don't be a baby," she says in a disgusted tone. Her hand wraps around my upper arm and she drags me towards her with surprising force. "We need to go. Or, you could stay here and get killed."

I shake my head fervently and she nods once. She drops my arm and leads me from the room I didn't really see. I don't even remember the colour of the walls. Jay leads the way down a long, twisting corridor. Karma follows close behind, leaving me to bring up the rear. I guess I expected to be out of shape or something, but instead I feel as if I do this run every day. I soon catch up with Karma and then start gaining on Jay. I feel good about it, like it's some kind of race, until I reach the finish line.

The arch that leads out of this old relic of a building is the gate to hell. I look at the devastation and wish suddenly I was out of shape. Still inside the old crumbly building and haven't reached this barren wastleand. It must have been a town at some point. Now all the buildings have twisted and blackened, decaying into gnarled and unrecognizable shapes. There are no streets or sidewalks or anything you'd expect to see in a populated area. Lik a a desert, only scorched. A burned wasteland where once people had lived.

 "No time," Karma hisses into my ear. But I can't just walk through this hell as if it's nothing.

"Is this...?"

"It's like this across the whole planet," Jay confirmed my unfinished question. I realize with a sharp pang that I missed the apocalypse.