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.*･｡. AN ODE TO CLARK KENT .*･｡.
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050.
BE WITH US.
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——

Lois Lane was little, again.

   Well, the version of Lois in the front of the car was little. As for the current version Lois in the back seat, she was still sixteen. But she wasn't actually there, so she supposed she was little again. Very little. Around the age she recalled her father started calling her by the nickname Little Lo.

   Her eyes glanced around the old car, hanging onto each feature that she remembered from her childhood. They were vague with passed time but she noticed a few things.

Like the dice on the mirror, and the smell of clean linen from a air freshener that her dad hated the smell of but was out ruled by the majority vote that it was nice. And she felt the same lumpiness of the middle seat beneath her bottom, and the headrest she had broken so it would only go up so far, as well as the scratches on the left door from when she and Stiles had accidentally caught it with his father's keys when they were playing driver. Her finger brushed over the small marks before travelling to the pocket on the back of the passenger seat, where several pieces of scrappaper were tucked into the net, all with bright colours of crayons and felt tip pens. Mostly drawings of her and Stiles, and Peter, but a couple had her family on, alongside a singular one of a large tree. A really large tree.

    "Yellow car! Yellow car!"

   She flinched.

Lois' head shot up, forgetting the tree drawing, and she let the scene in the front seats steal her attention away from it.

   Lois felt her lip twitch at the sight of herself; she was so little, so small compared to how she was now. She was still small, but back then she was smaller — not that she would have admitted it. Lois was a whole inch taller than Stiles, at this point.

    "Damn! You got me."

   Her smile dropped, heart lurching in the pit of her chest.

   She knew that voice. God, Lois knew that voice better than she'd know her own. Lois knew that voice and she knew who it belonged to, as well.

    "Mom...?" She whispered, quietly.

   Slowly, Lois edged forwards in her seat. She slipped her body in between the two front seats, leaning forwards to see the woman at a closer angle. Was it really her? There was no response, so she said it louder, but there was still nothing. The woman didn't turn, she didn't move — it was as if Lois wasn't even there. A frown leaving a crease in her brow, she looked to the rearview mirror and found herself staring at empty space. No one was sat in the back seats; it was empty, other than the two in the front. Lois had no reflection.

   Older Lois wasn't there.

   Taking it to her advantage, the sixteen year old pursed her lips and moved closer, as close as she could while in the confines of a car seat barrier. Her neck strained to see the woman from such a tight angle. She had the same hair, that was for sure: honey blonde strands framing her face.

"How long is left?" The nine year old Lois asked her mother, a grin on her face but sounding very rather impatiently. She danced in her seat and squirmed. Lois remembered being so proud when she spotted the fourth yellow car; Stiles' last victory was spotting a measly two. Four had trumped him by double, and he was going to be so jealous. Always competitive. "I wanna see Stiles!"

    "It's not too long now, sweetie." There it was, that voice again. It was definitely her voice, Lois was positive.

   Little Lois began to babble about almost everything, but bigger Lois wasn't listening. She strained to see the woman at the wheel, desperate to look at her face and confirm that it was her, that the driver was in fact her mother. Her mother rarely ever drove the car when her father was around, because she hated driving. It made her mother anxious and jittery, and she always worried too much so it was easier for her dad to drive.

   But, if it was her mother driving, Lois had an awful feeling. One that was dark and swam around in her stomach, and made her all sweaty and sickly. Lois didn't feel good about this. Not even a little.

    "—and me and Stiles are gonna play investigator—"

   Lois sighed, was she always so annoying?

   Was she still annoying?

   As little Lois chatted on, the woman suddenly turned her head to the left and beamed. It made bigger Lois freeze. Her breathing hitched in her throat, and her lips parted a fraction. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak, she couldn't do anything.

   It was her. With her blonde hair tickling her cheeks, and her eyes refracting the light, and her smile that made Lois feel fuzzy and so loved. Her cheeks were rosy and her teeth were straight. Her nose was the same nose Lois saw when she looked in the mirror, brows perfectly plucked. Looking at her made Lois' eyes burn with tears.

Because it was her. Centimetres away, it was her: it was Lois' own mother, her dead mother, perfectly alive and smiling. It was Emily Lane, and Lois couldn't believe it. The moment was soft, and Lois felt her heart blossom. That was her mom. Her mom was inches away from her, and she wasn't the cruel hallucination from Lydia's party. She was exactly how she remembered her. Exactly. Watching her head turn back to the road, the girl tried to blink back all the water brimming her bottom lashes. Lois was overwhelmed. Part of her couldn't believe it — she was getting the chance to see her, to see her mother one last time, to see her before she was dead, to get a new memory.

"Lois, honey, sit back please." Emily chastised, eyes flickering to watch what her daughter was doing and then back to the road.

Lois frowned. For a moment she thought that she was talking to her, that she could see her and was looking at her, but the woman's eyes went through her.

Her head turned to the smaller of the Lois', who shook her head and continued to struggle in her seat, smacking her palm about in hopes of gripping the object she was reaching for. A groan passed her lips, as she missed it for a third time, and stretched across even further. Big Lois' gaze travelled to see what she was reaching for in such desperation, and her heart stopped.

The GAMEBOY.

She knew what was coming. This was the bad feeling.

Because this wasn't just one of the times that Emily Lane had driven the car — this was the only time, and the last time. The last time that she had driven a car, the last time she had seen her child and husband. It was the last time Lois had seen her mother alive; it was that day.

"Lois! I said, sit back! I can't see the mirror—!"

"Wait—" Big Lois yelled, pushing her body through the gap as far as she could, trying to grasp the GAMEBOY. "Stop—!"

And just as the GAMEBOY brushed both Lois' fingertips, all too fast did the headlights blink and the horns scream, foreshadowing what was too happen only moments later. It was so fast. So, so fast.

Before they could process it, the car that they sat in was knocked off of the road, colliding with multiple objects and toppling over the barriers that were supposed to keep vehicles on land. Their lives had been put in high jeopardy, snatched into the hands of a twisted game that no one ever wished to play — Lois really didn't want to play, anymore. She had only wanted her GAMEBOY. That stupid GAMEBOY. It was all because of that GAMEBOY. All of it! It was that blasted thing! Why had she tried to get it? Why hadn't she listened? Her mother had told her not to get it and she hadn't listened. Big Lois wanted to throttle little Lois, to strangle her dead, but when the little girl let out a high pitched scream, she couldn't bring herself to feel angry.

She was a kid.

Lois was just a kid, and she was afraid.

The rest was like clockwork: the window smashing, being thrust around like a rag doll, her head hurting, the feeling like she could not breathe. It was like a panic attack. With an overwhelming and crushing fear in your chest, feeling almost as though it was forcing your lungs up and out of your rib cage all together. Her heart was racing and her mind was blank, yet somehow in overdrive at the very same time. Lois was scared, so terribly scared for her life but she could do nothing.

It was all the way she remembered it, how it relived itself in each nightmare. Screams of fear, metal on metal, smoke.

Lightyears passed before the world finally came to a halt and the car had stopped tumbling. The sound of terror had paused and been replaced with the sickening sound of water. Their car had hit water.

This was it — this was when everything changed.

Little Lois let out a panicked cry, turning to face the drivers seat through her salty tears.

"Mommy! Mommy! Help!"

But the woman didn't stir at the sound of her voice, instead a groan passed her lips as the sensation of cold water tickled at her legs when it began to pool at the peddles by her feat. Her mother didn't come running to her side, ready to make everything better, because she couldn't. She couldn't help her.

Lois blinked, trying to regain her senses, too caught up in the old memory to process the trickle of water. She let out a curse, shaking her head.

Another scream, "Mommy— please!"

It was heart wrenching. It hurt. For Lois, it cut deep to watch the scene of her life play out from a third person's perspective. But at the same time, she couldn't look away. Like a horror film.

"Lois?"

"Mommy!"

"Open the door, Lois!" Emily shouted desperately through grit teeth, eyeing the little brunette fearfully, "Open the door, honey!"

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Lois tried to make it go away. It was all too real, too painful, too raw. She couldn't live it again, why was she living it again? How was this fair? How was any of this at all fair? Why did she have to live it, again?

Wasn't once enough?

She knew what happened next, of course she did; Lois had been the one to live through it, and she knew far better than anyone what happened next. She didn't want to watch it. It made her stomach churn more than the rapid influx of water did. Little Lois' pants of panic didn't help, nor did the clicking of her seatbelt.

Lois knew what she had to do. In order for this to play out the same, she had to do it. There was no changing fate. She couldn't risk any alteration of the future. If she wanted to find her father, then this had to play out the exact same way. No matter how much she wanted to try and get her mother out of there, to use all of the strength she hadn't possessed as a child to save her mother's life, it was useless. Lois wasn't really there.

The Nemeton was going to expose her to traumatic memories, that was what Deaton had said. This one was the trauma that had sculpted Lois' life — he had been right when he had said she would be confused, terrified, but she had to let it play out how it was supposed to. She couldn't change anything. There was nothing she could do. What would she do, anyway? Even if Lois could change the nature of time and course of history, would she? If Lois could have saved her mother right then, would she willingly sacrifice her father to do it? Would she let him die, to save her mother? Would she turn her back on the man who had raised her, who had loved her, for a woman that she hardly even knew?

There was no changing fate; there was no playing god.

To save her father, she had to let go.

"Open the door— do it, Lo!"

Without another thought, Lois' fist blindly wrapped itself around the handle. She threw the door open, using the last of her strength and willpower, and with a weak cry, her body was sucked into the navy blue abyss.

   A moment passed, a dizzy swirl and haze, and she panicked. Her body flailed and flapped as she span in circles, and her brain got so fuzzy that it threatened to explode. But, she wasn't a kid anymore.

   She wasn't a weak, defenceless child. Lois wasn't the same kid, a little girl who had lost her mother, the same little girl that was out in the void like she had been years ago. That was Lois then, and it ended up okay. She knew that little Lois would be okay. She would hurt, but she would be alright. Finally, Lois let go of all the trauma that followed her like a shadow. Her body stilled, and she shut her eyes.

   When she opened them, they were a bright white.

   And, for the first time in years, Lois swam.

   Her legs kicked until she broke through the water's surface, gasps for air passing her lips. She kept kicking, even when she was laying on dry land, unable to believe that she had done it. Lois swam. She let go, something she hadn't been able to do in years. Lois let go of the past because she wasn't a kid anymore, and it wasn't her fault.

   It wasn't her fault.

   Eventually she stopped kicking, and instead let her body hit the grassy bank. Lois crawled up it the best she could, until she found herself scraping dirt beneath her shaky hands. Blinking slowly, the girl peered up from the ground and realised she was in a forest. A very familiar forest, at that.

   Mouth gaping in shock, the girl stumbled up and turned to look at the stream she had washed up in.

   But the stream was long gone.

   Lois stepped backwards, knees knocking, but soon found herself bumping into something. The backs of her legs hit it with a hallow thunk! and she felt right over it, landing on the rough surface, arms scraping.

   Her bones stiffened, and slowly, Lois turned onto her knees. She looked down at the surface and allowed a hand to run over the run of wood grain, ignoring the splinter in her finger.

   Carefully, Lois stood.

   She looked down at it, eyes wide.

   The Nemeton.

• • •

"You never get less weird, Sti. This just proves it."

She could see herself, again.

This time, Lois wasn't little. In fact — she wasn't much younger than she currently was. Lois was fifteen years old while out in the preserve at night, two boys flanking either side.

Lois glanced away from their trio, peering down at the ground beneath her bare feet. The leaves crunched under her soles. That feeling made her grimace but she ignored it, returning her gaze to the familiar teenagers that slipped through the night like they had a million times before. Her brow furrowed slightly, why was she back at the start of sophomore year?

"I take that as a compliment," he said.

"You shouldn't."

"She's right," Scott agreed. "You definitely shouldn't."

Stiles made some sort of sound of protest, as he usually would, and current Lois watched from between the trees as the trio made their way through the dark night. It was strange, to see them from an outsider's perspective. Very strange.

Was she really that short?

Shaking off the thought, Lois continued to watch the three kids stumble their way across the muddy, beaten tracks.

"I wish I wore better shoes," past Lois huffed, "They're getting ruined— I wanted to wear them tomorrow," she whined. Lois had no trouble recollecting what shoes they were: the cute sneakers she had bought the week prior with Lydia. Turns out they were ruined that night, and her outfit was totally thrown off the next day. She'd spent the entire first day of Junior year with Lydia telling her a sad homeless man could dress better— which Lois had told her was an awful thing to say.

"Nobody cares about your shoes, Lo." Stiles told her, "That's so not important, right now!"

"People care!" Lois shot back.

"No we don't!"

"I care," Scott said.

Stiles groaned.

"Thanks, Scotty boy." Past Lois beamed, despite it being tough to see her smile through the darkness. Scott moved himself toward her and returned the very look.

Lois watched fondly, and hurried on her feet to follow behind as the trio ventured on.

   Sometimes she forgot what it was like to be a normal kid.

   To be fifteen and to be normal.

   But, as she watched herself and her friends bicker and laugh at each other as they stumbled around the preserve on a hunt for the dead body of Laura Hale, she realised that not much had changed in the last year. At least, not as much as she always felt it had. That night was just an insight of what else was to come.

   Who would've thought that they'd be wandering about Beacon Hills in the dead of night, looking for dead bodies and discovering more about the supernatural forever?

   In a way, nothing had changed since that night.

   In a way, everything stayed the same.

She remembered it all clearly: their last night before sophomore year began, when Lois had been in a call with Lydia and deciding on outfits for the first day back; she had been going through all the skirts she had owned at the time, admittedly not many, and looking for the perfect one that Lydia would finally approve of, only for it to be interrupted by Stiles Stilinski — whom unsurprisingly had given her zero notice before clambering through her window, swiping her phone, and hanging up on Lydia as he exclaimed about how all of the cops from the station were out in the preserve searching for half a dead body. He heard it through his dad's police scanner and thus promptly decided they should go look for it. They being the regular trio of herself, him and Scott. And they did. After hanging headfirst from Scott's patio, where he very nearly bludgeoned them with the baseball bat he never even used. It was him who always bitched this town never had anything exciting going on, anyways. So really, that was what had jinxed it.

"Just outta curiosity..." Scott asked as he followed behind Lois as she followed behind Stiles, "Which half of the body are we looking for, right now?"

"Huh," Stiles hummed, "Didn't even think about that."

"I don't even know which half would be better..." Lois grumpily muttered as she rubbed at her face.

"And, uh— what if whoever killed the body is still out here?"

"Also something I didn't think about," Stiles said.

"You're not so good at that, are ya, Stiles?" Glaring at his back through the darkness, Lois hissed out her next words; "Thinking. It seems pretty difficult for you,"

He scoffed.

"It's good to know you've planned all of this out with your usual attention to detail," Scott grunted as they began to climb a mound of dirt. He occasionally waited for Lois to get high enough for him to continue moving.

"I know," Stiles smiled.

"Maybe the severe asthmatic should be the one holding up the flashlight— huh?" Scott pitched that idea to the two of his friends.

Current Lois resisted the urge to chuckle.

He wouldn't be needing it, soon.

She climbed after them, passing by Scott as he stopped to catch his breath with a puff of his inhaler, while past Lois joined him for a moment and asked if he was alright — to which he nodded, and smiled at her softly like he always did.

Current Lois watched the past fondly, then hurried to get up the mound so she could watch what happened next. From that point it was fairly blurry in her mind. It had happened so quickly and their lives hadn't been the same, since. Perhaps it was selfish, and maybe it was delaying what she was there to do, but Lois wanted to see all of it. She wanted to finally see it all happen.

As the three friends flung themselves to the ground, lights off in hope of remaining unnoticed, current Lois hid herself in the trees and watched with knowing eyes. It didn't take long for Stiles to feel too eager to wait and jump up, rushing after the search party while the other two trailed behind, calling out his name in hushed scorns for running off without them. Lois took her chance and darted her way after them, tailing the wheezing Scott as her old self made the valiant dash to catch up to Stiles.

She watched the boy huff and puff and turn purple in the face, and perhaps she would've felt sorry for him had she not known his fate and his future.

Or, perhaps she still did.

   After all, no asthma and getting skilled at lacrosse didn't cancel out everything else— it didn't cancel out all of the danger and the death, and the murderous alphas and the dark druids, and the loss of normal life, and the grief for innocent lives stolen. None of that was cancelled out by the super senses, the super strength, the super speed. It wasn't the life Scott had wanted. It had been forced upon him. Peter had chosen for him, and Lois sometimes wondered what life would have been like if he hadn't. If they had just gone to look for a body and never found it. If she and Stiles hadn't taken it upon themselves to take the fall and leave Scott out in the preserve so his mother wouldn't find out. If the pair had just dragged him to catch up, if they had just let him get in trouble, then life would've been so different for them. Everything would have been so freakin' different.

No alpha, no hunters, no kanima, no druids, no Nemeton — no surrogate sacrifices.

Erica and Boyd would be alive, Cora wouldn't be dying, Jackson would've stayed in Beacon Hills... if Peter Hale had just kept those alpha teeth to himself, then everything would be different. Nothing terrible would have happened — but it had, all because of Peter. It all came back down to him, inevitably.

   One way or another, it would always be Peter Hale.

    "Guys! Wait!" Scott called in a hushed tone, failing to catch up with them no matter how hard he tried. "Guys!"

   But Lois and Stiles didn't slow down.

   They kept running; half too eager, half too far to hear to lessen their paces. In fact, Lois and Stiles kept running until there was an alarming set of yells and barking in the distance.

   And as if current Lois was perfectly mirroring past Lois, she felt a grip on the back of her shirt and she was suddenly flung back on the floor. Pain blossomed in her upper back, the pain when Stiles'd grabbed onto her in his tizzy.

   But, instead of staying put and having a light shone in her face, and foolishly trying to pet the angry police dog like past Lois who lay up ahead, current Lois was dragged across the muddy ground by an invisible force. She shrieked and reached out, hoping to grip onto the pant leg of Scott's hiding form, but her fingers only went straight through it.

   She continued to slide backwards, dirt riding up her clothes and  wood chippings slicing against her skin. As she went, the world she saw around her all but a blur, she heard growls in the night, a howl of pain, and her eyes suddenly shone their vibrant blue.

   It wasn't long until she stopped, slamming into something hard. Lois groaned out in pain, shaking her head, and slowly hauled her sore body to a stand. She stumbled and tripped backwards, knees knocking, but soon found herself bumping into something — that something that she had crashed into before and had left a good bit of pain in her shoulders. The backs of her legs hit it with a hallow thunk! and she felt right over it, landing on the rough surface, arms scraping and hands scuffing.

   Her bones stiffened, and slowly, Lois turned onto her knees. She looked down at the surface and allowed a hand to run over the run of wood grain, ignoring the splinter in her finger.

   Carefully, Lois stood.

   She looked down at it, eyes wide.

   The Nemeton.

• • •

Lois wasn't watching herself.

   Rather, she was herself. There was no third perspective — she wasn't watching from the sidelines, this was Lois Lane being Lois Lane. She was the one scrolling through an abundance of missed calls on her phone and scoffing, ignoring all of her friends who were trying to call her. She was the one who desperately wanted to be left alone after Heather's party.

   She knew why she was angry. Lois was angry because they had all ditched her at a party she hadn't wanted to go to, and so she'd left with an angry slam of her solo cup. There was no chance that Lois was going to stick around at a party she had been practically forced to come to. Homework was needing to be done, that she had thrown aside for Stiles, Scott and Luna when the trio of losers had knocked on her door and dragged her out of the house. Just when Lois had been getting into the swing of doing homework again, it had been swiped away from her.

   Lois just wanted to do homework, and be normal.

   That had been her ambition over summer and it had worked. It had been three months of normality; normality had been bliss and Lois intended to keep it.

   But they had ruined that. Things were happening again, and the trio had whisked her away to a party she didn't want to be at and then ditched her, when all she had wanted was to do her homework and be normal, again. Lois wanted to be normal. Like old times.

   All of that had been ruined the day Scott had been bitten. Now, she wasn't normal. Lois was tired, and angry, and lonely. So lonely that she had started missing Isaac Lahey when she had never really had him, or wanted to have him. Summer had been normal, she had wanted it to stay that way. With any more supernatural in her life, Lois was going to go mad. Insane.

   That was a future concern, however. As for now, Lois Lane was going to keep on walking.

   And she did.

   In fact, Lois walked for thirty minutes. She walked until her feet were hurting and her ankles sported new blisters and her tired eyes were slowly fluttering shut as she stumbled about in a tipsy mess.

   Deep down, Lois knew she shouldn't have left the party. A teeny, tiny conscious part of her mind was telling her that. Maybe it was the part of her mind that was coherent — the part that was in the ice tub, trying to find her memories, trying to find her father. That was the voice in the back of her head telling her to keep going on, even if her stomach told her otherwise. It was like she knew that a bad thing was going to happen, and she did. Lois knew what was going to happen, even if she didn't know how it did. Subconscious Lois knew the final result. And as much as she didn't want to face it, as much as she feared seeing what she went through, Lois knew there was no other choice if she wanted to know what happened that night, if she wanted to know who she was.

   She needed to know.

   This was who she was, now. This was apart of her. She needed to know what had happened, if she wanted any answers. Lois had to keep on walking, and she did.

   Lois kept on walking until she slipped.

   Down a bank and into a river, the world blurring around her.

   It was a bizarre moment of colours and sparkles, and she was positive that a glowing blue arrow had taken over her vision. Lois didn't see trees, or mud — in that moment as she fell, the world had slowed and Lois saw blinding light and blue. Blue, blue, blue.

   Was she tripping? Lois didn't think anyone had drugged her, and she hadn't been that drunk. Not drunk enough to see all of this.

Her fall was in slow motion, like something out of a book or in a movie; she watched the tunnel of blue travel through the air above her, neon lighting the sky and then dissipating, before another one had followed in suit. The blue streaks were mesmerising. It looked as though it had set the trees to watery flames, and the light was as bright as the starts in the sky. Brighter, even.

Then it stopped.

Lois Lane hit the water's surface with a smack!

Time passed by as it waited for no man; Lois had no idea how long she had been trapped under the water's surface for, but she did know that her body tingled. Her panic wasn't immediate, the alcohol slowing her reaction times.

   A heavy gasp passed her lips as she broke through the surface of the water, spluttering and coughing. The salt burned at her throat and stung her eyes, and Lois choked on the liquid that filled her mouth each time she panted for air — her lungs felt like they were sure to explode if she tried to take in sharp breaths for too long, so each was more of a wheeze than the last. She had never felt so much liquid filling her nostrils and drowning her ears. It created an immense amount of pressure at the front of her head, and the alcohol didn't help. Was it her imagination, or had there never been a body of water in the preserve?

   Her legs kicked about desperately in an attempt to keep the rest of her body afloat. Lois panicked then, thrashing about, unable to ignore memories of the last times she had waved around her arms in such a messy fashion, and she cried out in fear. She had been in this situation; twice, actually. She had survived.

   This time, however, she didn't think that she would. There was no one around. Lois was all alone.

    "Help—" she choked, "Help! Help—!"

   Lois kept going down. Bobbing up and down, up and down, until she felt that up was no longer an option. The girl couldn't swim and every time she blinked, she saw the face of her mother staring back at her. Blink. Matt with a gun. Blink. Stiles and Derek in the pool. Blink. The kanima. Blink. Her mother, again. Each blink was a game. A game that taunted her as she choked and she cried and she spluttered, losing her breath.

    "Please! Help—"

   Could anyone hear her? Did anyone know she was there?

   Would Lois die? Right there, in Beacon Hills preserve, where her crazy life with the supernatural had started? Had their story come full circle? Scott nearly died that night— was this where it ended?

   Was Lois the one who ended it?

   She gurgled on the water, and spat it out, only for it to repeat. It was painful and sad, and Lois wished she would die already.

   Lois wished that her body would just give in. She didn't need to fight it, anymore. Her time was almost up; soon, she was going to be gone. Fighting would only make it worse. This was it. There'd be no saving her.

    "Uh— Doc?"

   Wait— who's voice was that?
 
    "What about Lois?"

    That was different. Lois couldn't pinpoint how, but it was. There was something different about that voice. Something that didn't fit in right, something that felt strange. It was almost as though time slowed down and she was able to think, to listen out for the voice, to see if they spoke again. She recognised it, definitely. The voice was familiar, and it sounded close by, almost as if it was over her.

     "Why isn't she waking up, like they all did?"

   Perhaps it was her brain's oxygen depravity making her crazy in her last moments, but Lois was certain that voice was coming from somewhere above her, past the water's surface. She slowly raised her head to look towards the light rippling above the blue hue, at the very top, watching the bubbles pass her lips and float upwards; she reached out a sluggish hand, the tips of her fingers aching to break through the barrier.

    "Lois is on a different journey, to them. This may take longer than any of us anticipated, but it's important we don't rush her."

    "But is she going to be okay?"

   Slowly, her eyes started to flicker shut. She couldn't keep them open much longer. Her body started to spiral down, and the water around her started to grow darker, a deep navy hugging itself with a dark black. Lois noticed the bubbles of air lessen.

    "I can't make you any promises, Isaac."

   Isaac.

   That was the voice: it was Isaac's voice, and it was somewhere upwards, above the water's surface, somewhere Lois couldn't see but close enough that she could hear.

   Lois could hear it. She could hear him. Wherever Isaac was, Lois could hear him. And his voice was like sweet angels swinging, rain on a summers day, velvet brushing her cheeks. That was the voice Isaac Lahey, breaking through the darkness and playing her guide of light — just as he always did, recently. Isaac was the light that brought Lois back from the darkness. He was the thing that could bring her back when she was losing herself. Even if Lois couldn't see him, she could hear him, and his voice was lighting up her way home; it was a lifeline for her to grasp.

He was her light. As much as Lois refused to believe it, he was her light. She could deny it all she wanted. She could push him as far away as her arms could reach, but it wouldn't change anything that already was. Distance wouldn't break it. Isaac Lahey was her light, and it was proven in that moment when she heard his voice.

"She'll make it."

"Isaac—"

"I'm her tether, right? I'm the one who brings her back. So, if I say she's gonna make it, then she's gonna make it!"

   That was all Lois needed.

With that, her legs started to kick against the darkness and she paddled with everything she had, because she had to make it. She needed to get back to the top. Lois needed to see him.

Somehow, she made her way to the river bank, with her hands sinking into the wet mud. Lois gasped for air greedily, and she sat, swaying softly. Lois sat, cold and wet, tears streaming down both of her cheeks, for a long time. She was exhausted — drained out of any life she had left in her. As she sat, Lois felt drained mentally and physically, and she knew that it was time to go home. This was the time to leave, before she gave into any of her chaotic thoughts of the day she lost her mother and did some damage to herself, or before her father realised she was gone, and definitely before she'd have to go to school and pretend the night hadn't happened that way. No one would know about this. They would only worry and pester; maybe tell her she was mad.

   Streams of water? Blue light? It was insanity.

   Slowly, Lois pulled herself up from the ground and picked her phone up. She stuffed it into her pocket and turned to look back at the water, and the girl was surprised to see that it was still there. It was a large body of water, and it was bluer than anything she had seen in her life, and it was there.

The surprise caused Lois to step backwards, knees knocking, but soon found herself bumping into something. The backs of her legs hit it with a hallow thunk! and she felt right over it, landing on the rough surface, arms scraping against it.

    "Be with us..."

   It was a whisper in the breeze.

    "Be with us..."

   So soft, so light, so airy.

    "Be with us..."

   Who? She wanted to cry out, eyes boring into the sky above. All the stars seemed to shine brighter, be with who?!

    "Be with us, Lois."

   Jennifer?

   Her bones stiffened, and slowly, Lois turned onto her knees. She looked down at the surface and allowed a hand to run over the run of wood grain like it was habit, ignoring the splinter in her finger.

   Carefully, Lois stood.

   She looked down at it, eyes wide.

   The Nemeton.

   Lois felt a warmth overcome her, filling her with a blistering heat that she had never felt before, and she let out a scream as she fell back to her knees. Her eyes snapped shut as her skin burned, and she could feel her skin start to fry. It hurt. It hurt more than Lois ever could have imagined, and she suddenly regretted ever saying that there was no pain like drowning. Because, as her skin burned and singed at the edges, Lois changed her mind.

   This was the worst pain. It was agonising, and hot and fiery, and it felt like Lois was going to die. She couldn't think, or speak; and it eventually became too much, and Lois let her body crumble into a fatal position, falling onto her back and emptily staring up at the night sky as she succumbed to the embers. Amber eyes stared back down at her, the shape of a dog forming itself in the sparks of fire that danced around Lois' form, and her eyes suddenly gleamed the bright white that she had grown fearful of. A moment passed and the flames dwindled to ashes, and Lois was left watching the dog's fiery outline. Then, the fire was gone. As was the dog. It was only Lois, and her bright white eyes.

Burnt and broken, laying on the Nemeton.

Then, more water.

——