I can tell my lips are swollen before even getting out of bed. An arm is slung around my waist, preventing me from getting my day started and completing my chores before the rooster crows.

If I skip my morning delivery of wine to Hercules or my dead language class with Korma, I'll have to deal with some kind of punishment courtesy of the man sleeping beside me. I can't believe he actually slept here, giving me back the memories he stole, the memories of the last years of my life, must've been as draining as he had told me it would be.

I lift his arm so I can slide out of bed. Uninvited bunk mate or not, I don't want to wake him up. I'm grateful he made good on his promise to tell me everything, to give me my memory back when I asked for it. Him being a psychic, and knowing all of my thoughts at any given moment, he didn't have to. He could have infused the long kisses with lies, and I wouldn't have known. It's not like it would have been completely out of his character. Just a month ago, when I began my afterlife here in Near Elysium, he took my memory, poisoned my food, and convinced me and the Council that governs this world that I was strainless. That I had no power at all.

Now, thanks to the supreme jerkiness of a predatory narcissist, everyone on campus has heard it. But, what they don't know is that it's just another lie.

I have a strain, a powerful one, one that can tear holes in space, and return me and any unfortunate soul in my vicinity, back to the living world. It's too strong a power for anyone to know about. Teacher and I are the only two in Near Elysium that know what strain I have.

And it's going to stay that way, provided I remember to take my medication. I open my desk drawer and take one of the pills out of an unmarked orange bottle. After the pill dissolves on my tongue, the white lines that blur my vision begin to disappear. That's what makes it so easy to remember. If I skip even one, thin annoying strands like spider silk fade in and out of my view until I take it.

I assume it's like the drawback Teacher had when he first showed up. He has amazing control of his strain now, but when he first came here, he couldn't block out the inner monologues of anyone around him; so much so that it gave him headaches. I don't really understand the correlation between my eye issue and opening portals to Topside, but it doesn't matter as long as I take my medicine.

I'm still fully dressed in the navy blue dress that is my academy uniform from the night before, so I simply tie my hair back and exit my room as quietly as possible. Luckily, my room is tucked underneath the academy administration building and not the regular dorms, so no one should see Teacher leave whenever he wakes up. Rule #127 in the handbook forbids facilitators and their students from having a romantic relationship, and my reputation isn't the best. If anyone sees Teacher leave here, it won't be good. Thank god no one will ever find out about what we did when we were drunk and thought we were stuck in the living world forever. Those kisses would've gotten us banished for sure.

In the basement hallway, I have to shoo away the child-sized tarantula trying to squeeze under my door. I've named him Steve.

Steve is indestructible. No matter how many books I throw at him, he is quick to dust himself off and try to infiltrate my room on another day. Sometimes it's funny. But hearing his hairy legs scratch against my floor in the middle of the night? That is downright terrifying. And I doubt Teacher would want to wake up that way.

Once he's gone to wherever he retreats to, I shove open the door that opens onto campus.

The air outside is chilly and not unlike the early fall mornings I remember from Topside. God, thinking about our time in Topside always makes me hot. But, uncomfortable warmth or not, I'm going to need to buy a sweater with my allowance soon. My quarter sleeves are not going to cut it once winter rolls in. I wonder if it snows here. On the coast where I lived, it never snowed, and I'd like to see it. I like getting these new memories, even though I'm dead.

They're a little better than the ones I remember.

But I'm not going to let those bother me, I won't let them taint who I am now.

I head to the dining hall and enter through the back door of the kitchen. It's early, and the kitchen is alive with the movement of inanimate objects. Chef Floy is standing in a sea of white floating sheets and directing them with his hands like a magician. Every piece of cloth moves pots and chops vegetables in preparation for the breakfast buffet.

I tell him 'Good morning' and accept his half nod while I go to the wine cellar. It's gotten easier to go down here, and I'm proud that my chest doesn't tighten as I descend the stairs. I grab one of the many crates of wine set aside for Hercules. It's heavy, and honestly, enough alcohol to send a normal person here to an arrival point.

My walk to deliver the crate is uphill, refreshing, and a decent warm-up for my other morning exercises. Hercules is already beating on his heavy bag outside when I get to his cottage.

"Mornin Squirt!"

"Good morning, Hercules," I say as I set the wine on his stoop.

"Ready for a run?" He asks.

My mind reflexively rushes to remember the runs I did on a treadmill in Topside, but when I look at Hercules and the goofy grin plastered on his face, the runs with him wash over all the other memories. I am so ready. Ready to do whatever it takes to push those memories further and further away.

"Let's do it."

***

When I get back to my room, sweaty and slightly dirty from my run, Teacher is still there. I come into my room as he is tying his shoes.

I'm not sure what to say to him. I wish he wasn't here. Seeing him is a reminder of how I got here.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

He doesn't take his eyes off his laces.

"I should be asking you that," he says quietly.

"I told you I could handle it, or at least, I'm going to do my best to. Honestly, I thought it would've been worse."

"Is that really it?"

He could listen to my thoughts right now and know what is really going on in my mind, but I'm happy he doesn't.

"It still doesn't answer the question I've always had. That's what bugs me the most, I think."

He stands up from my bed.

"Still wondering 'why'?"

I shrug.

"No one but Fate could answer a question like that, and don't forget, he's an asshole." He takes me by the shoulders and looks me over. He's so worried that we might have come back to Near Elysium with some kind of imperfection that we didn't have before we went to Topside. As if someone would really guess that we got there even with the portal completely sealed off.

He finally pauses when he gets to my face.

"Your lips," he says.

"I'm the campus whore, remember? No one is going to say anything I haven't already heard."

His brows furrow.

"Those rumors still haven't let up?"

I shake my head.

"It's okay though, really. You should worry about explaining away your own."

He goes into my bathroom and checks himself out in the mirror. He chuckles.

"You are an aggressive kisser."

I scoff. We only kissed so he could give me back my memory. I wasn't conscious of the kiss at all, which, honestly, bugs me a little bit.

"Me?"

"Yes you, I wasn't the one who broke skin, was I?"

Doubtful, I join him in the bathroom and look closely at his face. He's right. There is the slightest cut on his bottom lip. It's hardly worth mentioning, but it might burn at dinner.

"I don't remember doing that. You probably did it yourself."

"Is that what you're going with instead of 'sorry'?"

"Well neither of us can prove anything," I say. Then I remember our last kiss, the one on a hotel room floor in Topside. Where I kissed him first, but he pulled me in further. "Besides, you're the one with priors," I say, reminiscing on the way he tugged on my hair.

He goes silent and I realize that I just screwed up. We don't talk about the time we spent in Topside much, or at all. It's a distant memory, pushed there by us and not time. It was only a few weeks ago.

"I think it's best if we try and forget about Topside, alright? If you think too hard on something you might open a portal. You want to stay here, right?"

I nod. "Yes, sir."

"Good."

He steps around my fluffy rug and towards the door.

"Hey, Teacher?"

He turns back with one hand on the doorknob. Using his strain must've taken a toll on him, his dark hair looks drab and the green flecks in his brown eyes aren't sparkling like they usually do. I didn't realize he had to work for those princely good looks. He smirks the same devilish grin that reminds me that if he is a prince, it's only a prince of darkness.

"Yes, Princess?"

I narrow my eyes at him even though I know it can get me punished.

"I can only ignore you so much when you think so loudly. So, what is it?"

I cross my arms. Damn psychic. "I just wanted to say thank you. For everything."

His smirk shifts to a subdued smile.

"You're welcome. Make sure you're on time for class, I'm tired of Ms. Korma griping about you."

He goes out of the door, and I see him rubbing his hands over his chin. He can lecture me all he wants, but the reality is that I get to choose if I want to go to class or not. I've read enough of the ridiculously huge student handbook to know he'd have to catch me in the act of ditching to actually punish me for it.

Classes were designed so the students fail and, because I'm no different than the rest of my superpowered peers, I'm failing most of them. So why even show up?

A few weeks ago, my attendance was decent, but that was when I had hope I could actually pass. Now that I've flunked my midterms, there's zero hope of that. So, what do I do in my spare time?

I walk off campus. There's a path behind the administration building that leads to the athletic field where I'll have class with Hercules later. I won't be skipping that one. Before the field is a bridge that runs over a small stream that begins in a flower garden. It's a grey area. The other gate and the library a little ways further aren't considered part of the academy grounds anymore.

I go there to cut camellias and send them down the river, just like my friend Caiden used to. Teacher won't come here. Even though Caiden is Topside now and left on okay terms, I think he still feels uncomfortable coming here. I don't blame him. Teacher had trapped his friend, and Caiden's lover, Catherine in the place between Near Elysium and Topside, ultimately turning her into a monster. He lived with Caiden hating him and his own guilt for a hundred years before we were able to save her and have Fate send her to Heaven or wherever she was meant to go.

Still, even though she is gone, and I heard her forgive him, he hasn't been the same since we got back. I mean, he pretends well enough, but he does seem off.

Like Caiden used to, I toss a flower into the water for Catherine. I set another adrift for Caiden and one more for me. Now that I know how I died, it seems appropriate.

I look out the back of the garden. I can barely make out the gothic towers of the library from here, and I'm tempted to go and finally open the windows to the sunlight Caiden had shut out a hundred years ago.

But I won't. Not today. I'm not all the way sure I can handle those emotions on top of my memories.

"Here to meet someone?" A voice calls from over the sound of the bubbling stream. I look over to find another student, in the classic white uniform of Legacy Academy. The lapels and emblem on his chest are gold, meaning he's a Spark, one of the energy-wielders on campus.

"Nope. Just leaving actually. Are you here to get in my way?" I tightly grip the pair of scissors in my hand. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the fighting I'm forced into on a near-daily basis. Since death here is temporary, the stakes are different. Missing lunch would suck, but if I die now, I risk being late to Hercules' class later. And if I piss him off, I might miss dinner tonight too and that will piss Teacher off and I'll be late to class tomorrow all over again.

So, while I won't be dying permanently, it's still incredibly inconvenient. But I don't want to kill anyone. I just need to get away.

The Spark doesn't hesitate to walk towards me even though I see him acknowledge the weapon in my hands.

"Did Theron send you specifically or are you just doing this for extra credit?" I ask, using the words to ease myself away from the bushes.

"Why do you care, human?"

Idiot. Just like all of the others who call me 'human' as an insult because they believe I'm strainless. As if having a superpower that we can't use to help anyone makes us something more than human. We're dead. We exist just to exist. We're trapped here where our powers have no purpose. If anything, we're less than human. Cockroaches serve more of a purpose than we do.

I don't expect any of Theron's students to understand that. They're taught by the same man who tried not only to kill me but rape me on multiple occasions. I don't understand why he's sicked his students on me, it isn't like he got punished for what he did.

That doesn't matter now. I don't mind being a substitute teacher to the Sparks.

I pull my scissors apart at the joint and wield them as dual blades. The Spark pulls out one of Chef Floy's carving forks. The stainless steel gleams in the light, and most likely is just a stolen conduit for an electric type strain.

How original.

"Your facilitator tried the same trick on me a few weeks ago, do you honestly think it'll turn out any different for you?"

As they always do, the Spark charges forward, swinging the utensil wildly. I duck and dodge without issue. There is only a single class that comes close to teaching combat at Legacy Academy, the one I'll have with Hercules later, and most students are only enrolled in it as a punishment. I kept getting beat up, so Teacher taught me self-defense, those few weeks make me an expert compared to most of my peers, since they usually overly rely on their strains in fights.

They can't parry a blow like I just did. Weapons just make them forget about defending themselves. I throw the blunt side of my blade into his neck. He stumbles backward and gags. I could thrust both ends of the scissors into his chest, like Teacher taught me, right now if I wanted to. Hell, I could kick him square in the balls like I did to his facilitator a few weeks ago.

But I don't.

Instead, I run out of the garden and shut the gate behind me.