Where the hell am I?

Michael couldn't even see himself... but he could see everything going on in the dream.

Is this real? Where am...

Daria?

Curiously, he watched, waiting for his body to take form.

Daria heard his voice faintly but marked him off as someone in the park. She jumped from the tree branch to cut the couple off, but as the ground neared she lost her....balance and rolled over landing heavily on her shoulder. The 'pain' surged through her. She hadn't expected that she wouldn't land on her feet.

"Is she okay?" the girl with Sean asked.

"I don't know, chill, lemme check." Sean approached her and helped her stand. "Are you alright, Ma?"

Daria focused her eyes on him, they were their old color now, brown but still beautiful. Sean stared for a moment and Daria instinctivly leaned in to kiss him. He moved back.

"What are you doing?" the girl with him asked.

"Sean.." was all Daria could say.

Sean shook his head. "Do I know you?"

Daria's heart exploded. "Yes...Yes you know me. I'm your girl.."

"She's your what?"

"Baby, chill" Sean said to the other girl "I don't know this chick."

Daria's tears welled up inside as she backed away.

Mike watched, his body taking form quietly up in the tree. He didn't belong here, but he had no idea how to back out... and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

Not having any choice, he watched.

And suddenly Daria was her Cat-self again, reliving that horrible moment, when Sean was really fearful of her. Seeing her ears and tail he backed away, the girl clining tightly to him.

"What the hell are you?"

"What the hell are you?" she asked him in a hissing, raspy tone. "You know you heard it on the news, Sean. You knew I was in a car accident and you didn't even try to find me."

"You know this freak?" the girl asked boldly.

"I will rip the weave right out of your hair, bitch. Don't mess with me." Daria cracked her tail and focused her eyes on Sean. "Why didn't you care, Sean? IS this the girl you were just friends with right before the accident. Were you happy I was gone so you could just...move on?"

Sean shook his head, he knew he was in for it now. "It's nit like that baby, I lo-"

"Baby?!" The girl demanded. She had a high, loud voice that was already irritating Daria. But she was pretty and she knew why Sean was really with her. "Oh hell no!" the girl began to take off her earings.

"Don't baby me, Sean." Daria said walking forward. Sean back up and so did the girl he was with but her grabbed her and pushed her towards Daria before he ran.

The girl looked at Daria nervously, tears forming. Daria looked back, her eyes glazed over; her first frenzy. With inhuman speed and precision she shot her hand out and her claws dug into the girl's throat. With one swift movement, Daria threw the limp body like a rag doll against the tree trunk and took off after Sean.

And here's where I step in, Mike thought, getting down and following slowly behind her, trying to discern which parts were memories and which parts, if any, were being made up on the spot.

And then, like clockwork, Daria'ss powers kicked in once more. She had just gotten them when this happened in real life and had she been in her present Mindset, she never would've chased after the boy. But she'd been young and she was scared.

She teleported in front of Sean who skidded to a stop, screaming. "Holy shit! How the fuck did you do that?"

Daria was too deep in her frenzy to understand what he was saying but she smelled fear, and she smelled blood. She lunged forward tackling him to the ground.

"How could you?" she hissed. "How could you?"

"Daria. Baby I'm sorry. Chill shortie, we can-"

"Shut ....Up." she said between gritted teeth. It was as if she was in the past and was releasing her anger fro mthe present. "Do you know how much I loved you Sean? Do you? I don't think you do..." She was digging her claws easily into his shoulders and his shirt was darkening with blood.

He couldn't beathe beacuse she was sitting on his torso, deliberatly pressing her body against him, her face so close she was almost sucking the air out of him. "Please..I'm.."

"Sorry?" Daria finsished. "That just doesn't....CUT it." she said. What she then proceeded to do stemmed from a pain so deep that it hurt to have to do it again. Now that she was older she understood she'd done somehing terribly wrong, not in the legal sense but in the moral sense. She subjected Sean to a gruesome torture, she didn't kill him, no she loved him, but she ruined his beatiful frame. She scarred his face and body permanently.

If she couldn't have him, she'd make it so no one would want him.

When it had happened a few years ago, Daria had teleported from fear and was never caught. But now,, she couldn't move, she could on stare at the finished product, bloody and unconcious.

And then Michael was behind her, having watched the entire episode. There wasn't any sort of judgement in his eyes when he turned her around, only the kindness and love that always lay there when he looked at her. In truth he WAS shocked... but honestly, was this any worse than anything he'd ever done?

"There's no use in staring at the past, Kitten," he said quietly. His hands were solid enough, turning her around, but his mind was slippery enough that, should she try to slash at him in panic, her hands would pass right through him.

Daria couldn't hear him; she was still in frenzy mode. her ears were filled with a static and her eyes weren't focused enough to make out details. Her sense of smell recognized him though and, althoug hse couldn't calm down yet, she didn't attack him.

She stood there in a sort of trance mode, and did what she usually did, but that Mike had had the luxury of not seeing last time. She hungrily licked the blood from her fingers.

Michael took her hand in his, gently, and pulled it toward him, wiping the blood off on his shirt, then gently closing it and kissing it. Rolling waves of calm washed over her, eating away at her frenzy, as he gently brushed his hand against her cheek, the most familiar action he could give her right now. "Daria... it's all right... talk to me."

She squinted as her eyes cleared up a bit. Mike was less fuzzy, and a purr arose in her throat at his touch.

"M...Mmmm" She was having trouble speaking as another scene change came and Mike morphed into Johnny through her eyes. She hissed and slapped his hand away crouching low like some feral creature.

She hissed.

"No, baby, it's really me."

With that, memories flashed through her mind, literally passing before their eyes. Their meeting on the rooftop, the night in the infirmary, their sparring match and midnight flight... and on up to their most recent times.

"It's me, baby. It's Mike. I love you," he said quietly.

And as he said it, she could feel it.

So the frenzy died down once more. Though her mind was almost 20, her body was still 15, all was the same as it had been that crazy night, except Mike was here.

Daria sniffed him, and the air and slowly turned to look once more at Sean's body. She realized that this didn't look good.


"I..." she began then hung her head. Oddly, she didn't cry. She just stared at the black asphault beneath her converse. How was it that this was happening all over again...was she..

"How did you get in my nightmare?" she asked, her voice a bit higher than Mike was used to.

"I really don't know," Mike answered honestly. "I was just... here all of a sudden."

"Is this all real? Well... you know what I mean." Again, there wasn't anything judgemental in his voice.

"I loved him so much." Daria said as she nodded. "And I thought he felt the same way. I gave so much of myself to be with him and he..." she hissed in anger before continuing. "He totally threw it out the window as if he didn't care about me at all."

She looked up at Mike. "I think it must've been why it was so easy for Johnny to affect me. I was suspecting eventually that something would go wrong with us eventually. Because things were too perfect." she raised a hand to his shirt and ran her fingers slowly over the blood stains. "But I guess I was wrong."

He caught her hand, squeezing it as he smiled slightly. "Johnny can catch our fears and our joys and use them against us. Anything can be used to hurt... even love." He squeezed her hand a little tighter. "But few things are as worth the risk as love is... which I suppose makes it hurt more when it goes wrong."