Jaya arrived at the bus station in Colorado, got off, and stopped at the gas station nearby to pick up some snacks and a couple gatorades for the trip. She was in small-town Colorado, the kind of place you might have never visited before, but somehow felt like you were a part of... or at least you could be, if you were a part of anything anymore.

With a sigh, Jaya hoisted her bag over her shoulder and began her walk, up the road and toward the only road that made its way, one winding lane, into the mountain area, the place her friend from long ago had told her to meet her at. In code they called it Crystal, but Jaya never actually knew what the place was called, just where to find it. Crystal was a completely uninhabitated area of the old mountains, the ones that weren't popular with the tourists and hikers, the ones that weren't overly exciting, and weren't anywhere near any towns. The closest thing was a bus stop and gas station, where you could fill up if you were going to drive the road. She was going to walk the road, all thirty miles toward the distant peaks, then leave it and hike into those peaks, following the landmarks given her by her friend.
....
Three days later Jaya was there. She had reached Crystal, the beautiful, emerald lake surrounded by peaks and the occasional drift of snow. The shack facade that surrounded the opening of a cave, a cave she knew went deep into the mountain and provided a great shelter, a great place to live, was caving in a bit and looking rather weather-worn. Jaya took a deep breath and walked over, pushing open the door to see what would lie in her future, what would she find on the other side of it...

Overcast waited in the dark. She was always in the dark, it was her blessing, it was her curse, she had made the choice long ago and it could not be reversed: she would not be exposed to light anymore, not for as long as she lived. She kept herself in a coccoon of darkness, and she would not come out. The light from the door as it creaked open cast a white line accross the floor of the cave mouth. She saw the beanpole of a girl that was her old friend, Jaya O'Riley, her hair was just as short and scraggly as it had always been, and in this moment Overcast felt regret for the first time: if only she could see that grass-green hue of her comrade's hair, the thing that she had been so proud of when they had been younger.

"How's it goin' Shroty?" Overcast called out, grinning a bit as she saw Jaya jump a bit. The girl relaxed and smiled as well.

"As I recall, I'm taller than you are," Jaya said. It felt so good to hear Jaya's slight drawl again, it had been so long....

"Well, get in here and shut the door, we haven't got all day," Overcast hurried her. It wasn't true, of course, they had more than enough time. Neither held jobs and they were pretty much planning on holing up in this cave for as long as they needed to, to figure out... well, they'd get to that eventually, right now Overcast figured her and Jaya had some catching up to do.

Jaya could barely contain her happiness at seeing Mory. It had been several years sense her friend had sent her off to New York with a new name and hopes of finding a better way to control her power. And now, here she was in the flesh! Blue hair and all! Mory had talked often of dying her hair blue, sort of a tribute to Jaya's own green hair, and it would appear that she had finally gone and done it.

Jaya stepped in a bit further and shut the door behind her. She stood a moment or so, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She knew that Mory could see fine, but Jaya needed the light to thrive, how opposite they were.... Jaya could see a tiny bit from the ambient light present in the cave, mostly given off by the cracks in the facade, and so she went over and sat opposite Mory in the narrow opening before the main cavern of the cave.

"How'd you find this place Mory?" she asked, looking around in awe.

Overcast smiled, relaxing a little more against the stone wall of the cave. "You know me Jaya, always poking around where I shouldn't, trying to see things that aren't meant to be seen," she started. She stretched a moment, then relaxed again. "I was sort of in exile, and I needed to find somewhere to stay. I thought, 'Oh, I always liked Colorado,' and I just started walking. I made it to some little town in the middle of nowhere and prodded about why people didn't go to this area of the mountains. Apparently it's haunted or cursed or some such."

She saw Jaya shift uneasily and let out a laugh. "Oh, come off it Jaya," she said, trying not to laugh too much at her friend. "Ghosts aren't real, and you know it just as well as I do. Hasn't life in the city been enough to knock that small-town superstitious mumbo-jumbo out of you? And here I thought you were all growed up now." She couldn't help but tease her, she never could, she probably always should have, but it now was, and always had been, a habit of Overcast's to tease Jaya a little too much, push her to the edge, and then maybe a little bit more, if only to study her reactions like some deranged scientist of some sort.

Jaya was bothered by Overcast, she was always like that, pushing her, well, now she could fight back a bit. Jaya relaxed a second and let a bit of energy store up. With a flash she let it off in a burst of light. Overcast jumped, instictively throwing off the unsuspected light. In response to Mory's angry pout Jaya only gave a shy, "hey, you deserved it."

Jaya sat there for a moment and decided to try getting back to business. "So, I take it you've been having the dreams to," she said. "I mean, that is why you asked me to come here, right?"

Overcast tried to look mad, but inside she was thinking over what she had just seen. Not only had Jaya figured out a way to control her power, she had caused it to come out in a specific form, something she had wanted, instead of just some random burst of energy. She's come a lot further than I would have hoped, Overcast thought to herself.

Jaya's question brought her back from scheming mode and into the situation. The dreams. She'd been having them for a few weeks now. They were horrible, graphic dreams that made her stomach turn and twist, and Overcast was the kind of person who could stomach shooting a person to smitherines in reality. The dreams depicted a battle, and some sort of a holocaust, and then there she was. It wasn't Overcast, it wasn't Jaya, it was her. A person Overcast was sure had died several years ago.

"Yes, I have been having them, and I figured that if I was, so were you," Overcast grinned ryely. "You don't think she would torment just one of us, do you?" It was harsh, but Overcast had to ask the question, even if she wasn't saying it directly, she knew that Jaya understood what she meant. It's your fault as well as mine, was the phrase she used after what seems so long ago now. We have to agree on that.

Jaya sighed, she knew what Mory meant by the question, and she was ready to accept her share of the blame, again. So, they were back to this now, she thought to herself. "Yes, yes, of course," Jaya replied rather wistfully. She did not want to let on to her that she was affected by this, she wanted to look stronger than she was.

Jaya sat there in silence, listening to the steady breathing of the two of them, filling the caverns of this hole in the earth, and imagined that there was a third, somewhere in the darkness, in the corners she could not see. The thougth almost made her jump in spite of herself, and she gave an involuntary shiver. She shook off the feeling, hoping that Overcast had not noticed.

"So, do you think that she, that she's back?" Jaya asked quietly.

Overcast mulled the question over. She already knew what her answer was: all the signs seemed to point in the same direction. It started with the sleeping: uneasy, tossing and turning, for no apparent reason, just out of the blue. And then it progressed: falling asleep when it wasn't time to fall asleep, falling asleep when you generally did it, and with little warning. Next it crept further into sleep, digging in its nails, starting to give her dreams, nightmares, her own private horror movies. And they got even worse after that, so that they began to fill her waking hours, she would close her eyes for a moment, and find herself among a rather horrific display of carnage, worse than she could imagine, more disgusting than she had ever experienced. She had torn people apart, and yet she could not stand these visions she was having. And then she started to see Jaya in them too, she noticed her green-haired friend, only because she was allowed to, for Jaya had never been able to see her in the dreams, although you could always tell by looking at her that she had a feeling that Overcast was there.

"Yes, I think she's back," Overcast said at last, breaking the uneasy silence between them, just to solidify it a bit more. The further they got on the topic, the less either of them wanted to talk, the more they retreated to their thoughts, afraid that what was spoken might make things worse, and that what was thought could somehow figure everything out for them.

..................
What Happened:
..................

After reaching a sort of agreement on the issue, Overcast and Jaya decided that their former conspirator, Morpheus, was back. Who is Morpheus? That's a completely different story. Back when Overcast and Jaya were still living in their little town in Colorado, back when Overcast wasn't colorblind yet, and when Jaya's name was still Martha, there was another girl their age who was discovering her own power. Mory called her Morpheus, because the girl could control dreams. And more than that, she could cause people to fall asleep and enter these dreams that she created for them. She could make them sleep restlessly, make them toss and turn, she could make sleep a sort of hell for people. But Morpheus had little control over her power, she was wild and a bit demented. When Overcast first discovered her, she tried to take the girl under her wing and teach her to control herself. But Morpheus was already mentally unstable, one of those problem children who can't act normally in the classroom, who keeps lashing out for no understandable reason. She drove her own parents mad, causing her father to commit suicide, and forcing her mother to admit herself for severe depression. Morpheus couldn't be controlled.

Try as she might, Overcast couldn't get past this. She kept trying to help her out, kept trying to make a connection that would give the girl something stable to hang onto, but nothing worked. Morpheus started to lash out at her, starting with simple acts of restless sleeping, but eventually torturing Overcast (who was then rather tame and had yet to hurt anyone) with dreams of deeds she would do in the future, and every dream got worse. Because Jaya was visiting all the time, Morpheus lashed out at her as well, giving her nightmares in which she would be left all alone, completely separated and abandoned by everyone. When Jaya started to tell Overcast about the dreams, she realized that Morpheus was attacking them, and that if she didn't put a stop to it, she would drive them both mad, like she had driven her parents mad.

Mory and Jaya got together and talked about it. Mory had a plan. Jaya had the power. Overcast was a horrible manipulator, and the task she gave Jaya was horrible and most certainly a product of the madness that Morpheus' induced dreams were imposing upon her. With a tunnel of light as her guide, Jaya was to wait and then release her power. She wouldn't see what she was aiming at, she just had to put her power through the tunnel. And at the other end? Overcast lined it all up, making for a perfect drill into Morpheus' brain while she slept. But when Jaya was about to release her energy, Morpheus awoke and saw Overcast and Jaya in her room. A look of realization washed over her face and she did something, something that made her body look vacant in the split second before she was "killed". When Overcast lifted the darkness, her and Jaya were in Morpheus' room, a dead body on their hands, and Overcast decided that it was time to send Jaya away. But not before she made sure that Jaya accepted her part in the blame. Overcast had never killed before, and she was a bit afraid of herself. She noticed something else as well though: when the flash of Jaya's energy had shot through the air, she had enveloped herself in compelte darkness, and it seemed as though all the color had left her world. The last bit of color she could remember was the green of Jaya's hair and the red shock of hair that partway concealed the waking face of Morpheus. The color that had been failing her had been wiped away completely by this one act. She had sealed her fate, and she knew it.