Kiera

Isidor had talked throughout the night. Dawn was fast approaching, but the storm still raged outside, and the heavy, black clouds gave the impression that it was still night. Isidor suddenly stopped talking, and apart from the sound of the wind screaming outside and the sudden burst of thunder, the waiting room had fallen into a hushed silence.

Isidor sat across from me, his head down, crossbow in his lap. His story had left me feeling shocked and upset, and I looked around the waiting room at the others. Kayla sat at the end of the bench where Sam still lay asleep, and Potter sat on the floor, his back against the wall. I think all of us had been affected by Isidor's story. Kayla slowly got up from her seat, and sitting next to Isidor, she put her arm around his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Isidor, that you lost Melody," she said.

"I didn't lose her, she was murdered," Isidor said numbly. "Sometimes, I miss her so much that I wish I had never met her. I went above ground for an adventure, to see those faces in the clouds, to feel the sun against me, to watch cars pass by, and see those machines that soar through the sky. But instead, I only discovered monsters."

"Not all humans are monsters..." I started, but before I could finish Isidor cut in.

"Sometimes, Kiera, I wish you had made that decision back in The Hollows and chosen the Vampyrus to live!" he shouted.

"Isidor, you don't really mean that," I whispered.

"My mother told me if the humans found out that I was different to them, they would cut me open to see how I worked," he snapped. "But it's not the Vampyrus who are the monsters  -  it's the humans."

"But, Isidor, like me, you are a half and half," I said softly, understanding his anger and frustration.

"And that's what I can't reconcile," he said. "I hate myself for being part human."

"But you fell in love with a human," Potter said, staring at Isidor. "Melody wasn't evil. You yourself said she was an angel."

"And now she's a dead angel, thanks to a human," he said bitterly.

No one said anything for a while after this. When the silence became too uncomfortable to bear, and wanting to know more about the picture that Melody had left in the grate for Isidor, I looked at him and asked, "Have you still got that photograph?"

Without saying a word, Isidor reached inside his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to me. Taking it very carefully in my hands, as I knew it must have been very special to him, I unfolded the picture. It was Isidor, just as he looked now. He stood beside the girl he had called Melody and she was beautiful  -  how could anyone have ever thought otherwise? Her long, blond hair was just how Isidor had described it, long, thick, and curly. Her arms were covered in the most realistic tattoos. The roses looked almost real, as if they were swaying in a gentle breeze that was obviously blowing around Melody and Isidor in the photo. I could have stared at those tattoos for hours, believing at any moment those roses were going to open and flower. Then, turning the photo over in my hands, I saw the word PUSH! which had been written in ink across the back.

Handing the picture to Potter, I looked at Isidor and said, "So you have no idea where that picture was taken?"

"No," he said, shaking his head.

"So you haven't met up with her since she was driven away that day by her mum?" Potter asked, inspecting the photo.

"I've told you already that she is dead," Isidor said.

"But the tattoos," Kayla breathed, peering over Potter's shoulder at the picture. "You must have seen her again since having your tattoos done."

"I had those done because of the photograph," Isidor said, taking the picture from Potter and placing it carefully back into his coat pocket.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"I was so desperate to see Melody again, that I did everything that I could think of to make sure that day would come," he told us. "So I went and had the tattoos done. I took the photograph along to the tattooist. He worked from the picture. I then had my eyebrow pierced and trained myself in the art of using a crossbow. I didn't know why I needed to do any of these things, but that's how I looked in that photograph  -  so I made sure I copied it."

"So you never met with her again?" Potter asked a second time.

"Look, how many ways have I got to tell you?" Isidor sighed. "I've not seen Melody since the day her mother snatched her away from me. She's dead."

"But she can't be," Kayla said. "She's in that picture with you and you're very much alive."

Then, looking at the three of them, I gasped and said, "But that's the whole point don't you see? We're not alive  -  we're dead."

Isidor looked at me, and leaning forward on the bench, he said, "You mean Melody might be here? Just because she's dead in the other world, it doesn't mean that she is dead here."

"This world has been pushed," Kayla gasped. "That's what she was trying to say when she wrote that word across the back of the picture!"

I listened to what Kayla had said, and I thought of my own dad. He was dead in the other world  -  but what about here? He could still be alive! I looked at Potter and our eyes fixed on one another's momentarily.

As if knowing what I was thinking, he looked at me and said, "Don't go getting any funny ideas, Kiera."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked him.

"All I'm trying to say is, don't give Isidor false hope," he said, lighting up a cigarette. "Just because that girl died before the world got pushed, it doesn't mean that she is alive here."

"But what about my dad..." I started.

"Don't go there, Kiera," he cut over me. "You'll only get hurt."

"How can you be so sure?" I asked him with a frown.

"I'm not sure about anything, but we haven't come back to go waking the dead," he said, and sucked on the end of his cigarette.

"But he might not be dead..."

Again Potter spoke over me and said, "Look, we don't know anything for sure and raising ghosts isn't what I call a good idea."

I looked at Potter and I got a feeling that perhaps he knew more about this world, which had been pushed, than he was telling me.

"What I want to know is," Kayla piped up, "how did the photograph end up in that grate if it came from this world which has been pushed?"

"How should I freaking know?" Potter shrugged, blowing out a mouthful of smoke.

"Pictures, postcards and stuff like that shouldn't be able to slip between the two different worlds, should they?" she asked him.

Potter paused for a moment, as if he had been slapped across the face. Then, recovering quickly, he barked, "Why are you asking me? I don't know every goddamn thing."

Again, I got that sinking feeling that he was keeping something from us.

But before I'd the chance to question him further, Potter turned on Isidor and said, "So, you sure you didn't see Melody again?"

"No," Isidor insisted. "After what happened to Melody, I spent most of my time on my own. I felt utterly lost without her being around. I looked at the picture constantly, and in my heart I knew that one day we would meet each other again. We had to  -  we were in the picture together. I just didn't know where or when that would be. A couple of years later, I was about sixteen, I went back to the lake and the bushes where we had our camp. To my surprise, I found one of the old eyeliners that Melody had stolen from the shop, and the comic she had first brought me. They were hidden in the camp beneath some dry leaves and twigs. But it wasn't the same without Melody. I would wait for hours, sometimes days hoping she would come back, just like the photograph suggested she would. Eventually, it became too painful to go there.

"I returned to The Hollows, where I would lie on my bed writing stories and rereading that comic she had given to me. But in my heart, I just couldn't stop wondering where Melody was or what she was doing. I just hoped she was happy. I only went back to look for Melody once more, and that time, I went to the house where she had lived with her mum.

"The windows were all boarded over. The front garden was overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. The house looked derelict and abandoned. I wanted to know what had happened, so I returned to the library and checked the local newspapers. I didn't have to look for very long, as I soon came across an article about a local woman who had hung herself in a chapel constructed in the basement of her house. There was other stuff written about her but I didn't need to read it. I knew she had sacrificed herself in search of the redemption she hoped to find. Did I feel bad about what had happened to her? No more than she felt bad about punishing her daughter in that chapel," Isidor said.

"But what about that word Pushed?" I asked again. "How did she know about that?"

Before anyone had a chance to even consider the answer to my question, Kayla had placed a finger over her lips and said, "Shhh!"

We all watched as she went to the window and peered out.

"What's wrong?" I whispered.

"I can hear them coming," she said, staring out into the dark.

"Hear who?" Potter asked.

"Those Berserkers, and there's a lot of them," she said, turning to look at us, her eyes wide.