Jasmine blinked rapidly, the swarm of visions hitting like a brick wall only to vanish like a vapor cloud.

Vapor? Now why did that seem important? She shook her head. It had to be the stress. She couldn't seem to remember anything, anyway. Just flashes of robots and . . . humans?

Miko . . . That tiny shred stayed with her.

"Hey Tracy! Saturday morning dune bashing! Get your lazy butt out of bed!" She saw a small flash of a girl of oriental descent, bright eyes . . . She looked so happy . . . and then a flash of black. Of a funeral. And Miko walking away from the fresh burial site and-.

Jasmine: "Mother fragging lugnut!"

She'd tripped, hitting the ground hard, knee first. Her palms scraped in the process of breaking her fall, leaving the skin reddened and raw, a few drops of blood surfacing.

She winced slightly, a few faint words coming back to her. "I have this . . . really, really stupid . . . 'dislike' of blood."

Jasmine shook her head. This was ridiculous. Her mind was fabricating things to fill in the lost time of her past.

Jasmine: "Just pull yourself together, girl. You're losing it."

She took a deep breath, trying to blank her mind and began the walk back towards Daniel's car. She knew it would take a while, so she quickly broke into a brisk jog, the journey back expected to take just as long as the one there, if not longer. She tried to distract herself with thoughts of a short return, the small teasing, fleeting images she'd seen just a moment ago.

Usually, the tactic worked quite well and it didn't take as long in comparison to when she couldn't stop thinking. But today, she allowed herself a brief thought of the Soul Strings -- the silvery, shimmering strands only she saw, that allowed her control over others much like a puppeteer -- and she found herself somewhere else. In a place she couldn't identify . . . for an instant, anyway, but that instant lasted too long.

Jasmine stared at the dark expanse decorate with purple and blue wave-like lines brightening the black, and tiny, shimmering dots that mimicked stars. They were everywhere.

~First-Person Narration: Jasmine~

I tried to scream. Nothing came out. It was terrifying. This wasn't normal. This wasn't right. I was hallucinating. I was overstressed. Someone had slipped a roofie in my water bottle or something. This was wrong. I knew my eyes were wide, and I couldn't do anything about it. I was shaken.

It was a dream. It had to be a dream. This sort of thing didn't happen, didn't exist, but-.

???: "Mom . . . ?"

I looked over and saw this . . . robot . . . a . . . femme . . . near her . . . a mech . . .

Jasmine: "NO!"

I don't know why that was the word that came forth, but it didn't seem quite right . . . nothing did. I took off running again, trying so hard to get away. All I wanted was to go back, to go home. To the normal, natural world, the one I belonged to, the one I'd known forever-.

???: "MOM, NO!"

The shriek hit me like a frying pan to the back of the skull, and for a flash, I knew everything, remembered everything, but in a sensation that I can only describe as running through tearing fabric, it was gone. And so was that place.

I fell to the rocky ground, in a fashion similar to before - knees and hands scraping in an attempt to break my fall. To reduce the pain of the impact. Of course, when I was already injured, that didn't seem to be very helpful logic. More blood sprang forth and my flesh stung.

Jasmine: "Fragging lugnut . . ."

I winced, but not before I heard Daniel's voice.

Daniel: "Jas!"

I looked up, seeing Daniel jogging towards me. And everything vanished. Except . . .

"MOM, NO!" The sound echoed in my mind. What was that . . . ? More importantly, how on Earth had I gotten back here in minutes instead of hours?

I stared up at Daniel, my mind blank despite all the questions running through it, running my mental network like a treadmill.

Jasmine: "Danny . . . ?"

He knelt down in front of me, but I couldn't formulate any solid thoughts, and I was sure he could tell from the look in my eyes. He examined me in my entirety. Not in a way that said he was attracted, but that he was concerned.

Daniel: "Let's get you home, Jas."

I nodded weakly, and he led me back to the car, helping me in before walking around and starting it up, pulling a U-turn on the old road and heading back the way we came. It was a while before he spoke up.

Daniel: "Jas . . . did you find what you needed . . . ?"

I was quiet for a while. Had I? I knew the place I'd run from had been blown to smithereens, and for some reason that didn't make me happy like it should've . . . on top of that, I'd had brief flashes of things I couldn't remember, and that was stressful in it's own right, and then I kept hearing the voice of a girl screaming my name, like she was begging me to come back . . . like she was begging me to come home . . .

No. No. She wasn't calling my name. She called me MOM. And that wasn't right . . . was it . . . ?

It felt right . . . It felt natural . . . Suddenly, I had a pang for the places I'd fled today . . . the place I'd fled over thirteen years ago . . .

I took a deep breath.

Jasmine: "I . . . found a lot more than I thought I would . . ."

And I couldn't piece together 99% of it, because I couldn't remember it. I stared at my scraped and bloody palms.

"I have this . . . really, really stupid . . . 'dislike' of blood."

"Oh, cool dude! Battle scars!"

Jasmine: "Em . . . Miko . . ."

My eyebrows stitched together slowly, trying to figure it all out, trying to piece it together.

Jasmine: "What happened . . . ?"

It was barely a whisper, and I hoped Daniel couldn't hear me, but I knew it was likely he did. Oh well, it wasn't like he didn't belong to the "talk to yourself several times a day" club . . . It was part of his eccentric personality . . . I was pretty sure I was just plain crazy . . .

At least he had the grace to realize I wasn't talking to him and managed to pretend it hadn't even happened. Bless the man for not intruding in CrazyVille.

And of course, bless him for getting me away from Akane. It would probably be one of the very few times I would manage that in the near future. And it was absolutely infuriating; I knew it was his job to keep me safe and everything, but still. I wasn't some defenseless little girl.

Well, if you asked him, I was apparently a defenseless grown woman. And that was being optimistic. Some days, I swear he still saw me as a little girl. As something to be protected, like an heirloom or something. I'm not going to break on impact. Scratch, maybe, I'd proved that twice today, but I would be fine on my own for a while, easily. I didn't know why he couldn't just accept that. I supposed it was in his nature, but still . . .

It was a long ride home, and when we got back, it was well after dark. We'd made a few stops and Daniel had driven slowly most of the way, giving me time to think, not that I could actually grasp a single thought. When Daniel pulled up to the curb and put the car in park, I simply nodded to him and stepped out. But I didn't go inside. I went around the outside of the house to the back, towards the treeline. A small stable was in construction, but I ignored it completely and kept going. I made my well into the small forest of trees, some of which I'd had brought in, desperate for the feel of the northern lands.

I went straight for an old pine, one of four I'd requested be brought here. It hadn't been easy or cheap, but I couldn't deny how much they comforted me. I climbed up the sturdy branches, going further and further until the canopy thinned out and I could see the stars. They were bright tonight, and I was grateful to be far enough from the city to actually make them out.

The shine tickled my memory faintly. Like a familiar smell, a familiar sound . . . like hearing a song you haven't heard for a decade, but knowing you'd heard it before, even if you couldn't place it . . .

"Mom . . . ?"

I mindlessly kept watching the stars as I worked my way into a hammock I'd had placed up here when I'd gotten the trees. It was supported by several branches through a network of supports, and was sturdy enough to hold five hundred pounds. Or at least, that's what the engineer said.

I closed my eyes slowly once I was in, still facing the dark expanse dotted with shimmering silver.

Jasmine: "I'm here, Baby . . ."

My eyes watered a little and I opened them again, staring at the lovely darkness. It felt right to say, and it had felt wrong to leave that place behind today. Whatever it had been . . . wherever it had been . . . I couldn't remember details but now it seemed mystical . . . magical . . . a place out of my reach but so close . . .

I felt like I was hallucinating again when I heard the quiet whisper of a girl sweep past me.

"Why do you run from us . . . ?"

I knew it had to be a figment of my imagination, but I couldn't stop myself from answering her.

Jasmine: "I don't know . . . I'm sorry . . ."

I studied the stars, looking for the constellations.

I faintly made out the corner of Taurus, but the main one I could see tonight was Gemini. The twins. I envisioned a little girl, serious and straightforward, accompanied by her brother, playful and outgoing. He irritated her sometimes, and he thought she could be a stick-in-the-mud, but they loved each other anyway, and they loved each other to death. They were so . . . adorable, even if they were just in my mind.

I couldn't help shedding a few tears thinking about it. 

Of course, I hadn't expected to pass out without warning. And I got a lovely wake-up call in the morning.