You can fix my heart
And I don't have to run anymore
Open my eyes, let me see
Give me hope and set me free  

∞XIII∞

Several people gathered in front of me. They were all wearing suits and black frocks like those we used to wear during missions. A dismal air filled us despite the bright rays from the sun that bounced off the verdant, carefully trimmed lawn.

I was surprised that I, myself, was wearing a black dress. A white rose was in my hand and I stared at it in an attempt to make sense of what was happening.

Max was standing beside me. He was in this black cassock and stole like he was some kind of priest. He placed a hand on my back and gently said, "Now, a few parting words from Aramis Rayne."

"W-what?" I looked down and saw a rectangular patch of freshly dug earth. In front of the hole was a dais on which a white coffin rested. Luci was standing beside it, crying her eyes out. So were Madame Roselle and Mr. S. From the sidelines, Vladimir peered at us from behind his thick glasses, his face unreadable.

I froze, feeling the tears trickle down my cheeks. I couldn't see who was lying in that coffin, but I knew. I just knew.

"Come on," Max encouraged, giving my shoulder a squeeze. "You were the last person Vincent ever talked to. You can work from that."

"I didn't... I should have seen it coming," I choked out before the uncontrollable sobs rendered me unable to speak. I caught my face with my hands and tried to muffle it to no avail.

Max stepped forward and read some bible passages. Then he said, "Suicide is not to be condoned. It is a cry for help..."

I couldn't stand listening to him anymore so I ran away. I ran as fast as I could, weaving between the tombstones in the graveyard, wishing this was all a very bad dream.

Vincent's gone.

I thought I would lose my mind hearing those words echo inside my head over and over. The thing about Vincent is, you would think he would always be around. Like he was somehow indestructible. But I was wrong. Even he had his limits.

When I slowed down to catch my breath, I saw Rosario watching the funeral from afar. As if sensing that I saw her, she looked at me long and hard before backing away.

"Wait!" I shouted at her.

It was like she hadn't heard me. She just disappeared all of a sudden.

In despair, I slumped on the ground and watched impassively as my tears fell onto the grass. I didn't know how much time had passed. The tears just kept falling until I couldn't cry anymore.

Not until I saw a firefly flutter right before my eyes that I found the will to move. Beating the numbness out of my legs, I got up.

I hurried toward Vincent's grave and found Mr. S standing there alone. Just the person I was hoping to find.

His lotus-shaped eyes lingered on me for a moment before he spun on his heels and started walking away.

"Mr. S! I need your help."

He stopped. "I can't help you."

"You said I can go back if I want to," I rasped, forcing back the sobs. "How do I go back, Mr. S? Please, I want to go back. I refuse to accept that he's gone forever. This..."—I pointed at the fresh mound of dirt behind me—"This can't be real. A world without Vincent is not my world. There's another world out there and I... I have to go back because I know he's waiting for me there."

Finally, he twisted to face me. "That's the real problem here, ain't it? No matter what life throws at us, we'll never really accept things as they truly are. We'll always want to change something."

"You don't understand!" I cried, tears obscuring my view. "There are still a million things I need to tell him."

With his expression becoming dark, Mr. S turned his back on me. "Well, you should've grabbed the chance when you had one."

∞XIII∞

I couldn't wait for the bell to ring, signaling the end of classes. All I did all day was stare at the window and rack my brains for a way to go back to my old world.

When, at last, the bell rang, I automatically slung my backpack over my left shoulder and headed for the door.

"Goin' home already?" Carter asked, blocking my way.

"Yeah," I answered, managing a smile.

Lindsay rolled her eyes, folding her arms in front of her. "Yeah? Whatever do you do at home that requires you to leave so early, Aramis?"

I looked down. "Homework."

"Right," Carter snickered malignantly, leaning closer to poke his thumb on the side of my head. "Because you always cared so much about homework. That's just the type of person you are, Aramis Rayne. Are you shitting me now?"

"We know you've been going to the woods all week," Lindsay explained. "I mean, I know you're so emo but this is a whole new level. What are you trying to do? Raise the dead back to life? Since that stupid jock killed himself, all you ever do is obsess over him."

I clenched my teeth. "He's not stupid."

"Yeah? Well, he is stupid," Lindsay scoffed. "And you've turned into a complete nutso because of him."

Before I could lose my temper and rip them both a new one, I nudged my way past them. I marched along the hallway. I ignored it when they called me back. I kept telling myself that this couldn't be real. This was all just a big crappy nightmare that I would wake up from.

I was about to head out when I saw a firefly flutter across the hallway. Without second thoughts, I went after it, elbowing my way against the tide of students heading to the exit.

The firefly dawdled in front of a room before entering. I realized it was Rosario's classroom.

I pushed the door open and came in.

"You're late," Rosario muttered.

She put down the paper she was reading on her table and removed her horn-rimmed glasses.

"I've been waiting for your answer this whole time," she explained. "But I'm afraid your time is up."

"I... still don't know how to answer your question."

She pushed herself up from her seat and walked up to me. "Just humor me, Aramis Rayne. What's matters to you the most right now? And don't answer 'his happiness' because 'he' is already dead."

"How do you—"

She cut in before I could finish. "You chose to take the easy road. People always do. And now everything that has happened so far is all on you. For once, Aramis, stop being a hypocrite and accept things as they are."

Shaking her head in disappointment, she left the room.

I stood there, wallowing in her words. It didn't take long before I found the answer Rosario was looking for.

Frantically, I practically flew from one hallway to another looking for her. I must have opened every room to see if she was there. But there was no Rosario.

It was getting dark. I was beginning to give up. But then, there was this tiny flicker of light at the end of the corridor I had just gone into. From the dark, Rosario emerged. She just stood there with her arms crossed in front of her as if waiting.

"I... know the... answer," I panted, pausing to catch my breath. "What matters most to me... What I really want is—"

She wagged an index finger and motioned me to close my mouth. "Everyone already knows, Aramis. Everyone but you."

My mouth opened, but no words came out.

With a sly grin, she inclined her head toward the door to my right.

"Go on," said she, rolling her eyeballs.

Hesitantly, I reached for the door's handle. Bright light gushed down the hallway as soon as I opened it. I looked to Rosario, unable to shake off the confusion. To my dismay, she had somehow disappeared.

All of a sudden, she emerged right behind me.

"Get lost already, will you?" she whispered over my shoulder. Giving me a light push, she said, "Go."

∞XIII∞

And there was light.

I blinked fast to let my eyes adjust to my surroundings. For a moment, I was disoriented. All I knew was the heaviness in my chest, the rawness of my throat, the chill from the metallic clamps attached to my wrists and ankles.

"Oh, Eldest," a girlish voice sighed in relief. "That was close."

A freckly heart-shaped face framed by straw-colored hair blocked my view of the white ceiling. Her gooseberry-green eyes probed into mine.

"I thought for a minute there, we would have to explain to Vincent how we killed his familiar. And I do not want to do that. I really don't," someone said, this time a male. "Let's please not do this again."

He pulled my lids up and shone a light over my eyes before checking the monitors bolstered on the walls of the white room.

Someone else was in the room, standing close to the wall, away from the controls. Away from me. But from the way his wild eyes swept me from head to toe, it wasn't hard to see that he very much wanted to get hands on.

"Heh. That's what I've been telling you for the nth time now, mate," he spat. "I hate to say I told you so."

The girl's eyes narrowed.

"Go face the wall, Hector," she barked, pointing an index finger at the glass panel opposite us. "And think about what you have done to Aramis."

Hector grinned, raising both his arms before doing as he was told. "I already told you, Luci dear. I am smart but I don't have the memory of a supercomputer. If Alex here didn't just destroy my lab computers and deleted all the data I've gathered, we'd have discovered a way to fix Aramis by now."

Alex just blinked as if in realization of something important. "Fair point. If it makes any difference, I backed up all your findings. The problem here is how we can simulate your experiment so we could reverse it and perhaps, restore Aramis' soul to its previous state."

"That's impossible, mate," Hector snickered. "If you've broken a mirror, can you put it back together without a single crack? Besides, even if we use all that data, you can't easily simulate the experiment without my equipment. I say, we use a Helci—"

"Don't even say it," Alexis interjected, fidgeting with his fingers, seemingly more anxious now. "I have seen how she reacted to those tanks. She would never agree."

"She doesn't have to agree," Hector smirked. "That's the beauty of it."

"I'm right here," I said, my voice shaking. I felt tears slide down the outer corners of my eyes. "I'm really here."

After throwing each other meaningful looks, Luci and Alex quickly unclamped my restraints. Carefully, Alex slid a hand on my back and helped me to a sitting position. Luci busied herself removing some kind of IV catheter from the back of my hand.

"How are you feeling?" Alexis asked, focusing his reflective eyes on me.

I couldn't form words. Whimpers just came uncontrollably from my mouth. I caught my face with my hands and let it all out.

For what seemed like several minutes, none of them said a word. Hector just faced the wall. Luci sat on the side of the bed watching. And Alex—sweet, sweet Alex—could do nothing but rub my back.

During those silent minutes, the puzzle pieces slowly fell back into place until everything started to make sense to me.

Vincent walked out on me after that argument when he thought I had somehow became Hector's loyal ally. We took the opportunity while he was still busy between getting angry at me and his training.

Luci told me that she and Alex may have found a way to fix my soul. It wasn't a surefire way but I agreed, of course. As long as it didn't involve tanks, it was a go for me.

"Where's Vincent?" was the first thing I could say.

"Training. Fuming," Luci answered.

"Good," I sighed, smiling to myself.

"Good?" Alex voiced doubt. "How is that good?"

"Vince thinks she's in cahoots with me," Hector butted in from across the room. "That's jolly good fun, yes?"

"Yeah," I agreed absently, laughing a little as I did. "Good."

Alex and Luci had this secret conversation with their eyes. To me, they both just looked like little kids who ruined their dad's favorite coffee mug.

Hector, still facing the wall, raised a hand, wanting to answer the question that wasn't spoken aloud. "Mates, I think we broke her."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So there. I hope this had been a fun new year for all of you familiars out there! Regular chapters will resume after this. :)