"Yech..." the doctor mumbled to himself as he examined my throat again. "Guess the mic's out." Yeah, I figured as much. You know your voice is really gone when you start coughing up blood by breathing. It's alright I guess. I just stood from my place on the couch and walked into my room. I would need to pack for about a week for the next time we go out to the cave. I reached under my bed to get my suitcase. I guess it was time to put my clothes into my closet.

When I opened my suitcase, I found nothing in it.

"I unpacked for you," Paul said. "I figured you didn't have the time to do it or something." I smiled at him gratefully. He fell gracefully onto his bed, reading a magazine.

"You know, that training's tough shit, but you'll get through it." I just nodded. "And once school starts, we're taking Sign Language classes."

My head shot over to him. Sign Language?

"What?" he asked, looking over the edge of his magazine. "You didn't think we'd just ignore you, did you?" Well, no, I didn't quite think that, but I'd never thought of sign language. I just shrugged. I stuffed my suitcase full of T-shirts and ratty jeans that I knew could be turned into shorts for my training. As I closed my suitcase and turned around to leave the room, I was suddenly crushed into something really really hard.

"Take care of yourself buddy!" Paul said as he squeezed me so hard I thought something broke. When he finnaly let go, I felt as if I'd been put inbetween two rocks and left there as they slowly grew larger... I wobbled a little as I exited our room.

When I came to the den, something wasn't quite right. Of course, nothing was ever right to me anymore, but I could easily tell something was off. I'd been here long enough to know what the normal was, and this wasn't it. An eerie silence fell over the room. I caugh Anne's blue eyes and stared at her until she realized that I was asking 'What's up?'

"Come sit," she told me, patting the couch cusion. I obeyed silently. She looked nervous, so she must have thought that whatever she was going to say to me would send me into hysterics. I didn't like the idea of that. She heaved a big sigh before coninuing. "I have some bad news," she said solemnly. Oh, shocker. "We just found out that about a week ago, your house was...burned down."

At first I didn't think I'd heard her correctly. It wasn't what I was expecting her to say, so I had to do a double take.

"We didn't find out earlier because your house was isolated... It didn't really help that you didn't have any neighbors, sweetie." Sweetie, I would have to tell her never to call me that again. "Some things were salvaged, though... Here."

The thing she handed me almost caused me to almost have a seizure. My old guitar was one of them. It's cherry coloring was a deep burgundy now, having been in the middle of a fire... It's strings would need replacing, but aside from that, and the charred strap, it would be fine. The other thing she handed me almost made me cry. However, I'm too macho to ever cry infront of a female.

The frame was blackened from smoke, and the glass was a foggy gray, but through it I could still see the picture. My mom was sitting on a bench with a fake, but ever beautiful smile on her slightly wrinkled face. She was plump, but not overly so. She wasn't obsessed with diets like Jason's mom. Her red hair looked a little frizzy in the photo, but it still looked amazing.

She was touching my father's veiny hand that was placed on her shoulder. His hair was a deep brown, and plastered to his head. I remembered he was running right before the picture was taken, so he was out of breath. He looked uncomfortable in his sports jacket. Dad preferred T-shirts over dress shirts. I couldn't blame him. His brown eyes twinkled in the picture almost as much as they did when he was alive. That last word made me cringe.

The last person in the picture was a 14 year old me. I was sitting next to my mother, my face a little rounder than it was now. I admit it, I was a fat baby. My mom always said some meat on the bones was cute. I just thought it was disgusting. Mom's arm was wrapped around my shoulder, and Dad's hand was on my upper arm. My smile looked more like a smirk since they had all but pointed a gun at my head to even get me in the car to go.

Anne looked worriedly at me. As I met her gaze, I gave her a soft smile. She smiled back as she realized that I was trying my hardest to hold back tears. She laughed a little at my attempts and left the room. I cried silently to myself.

---

Paul and I were battling it out on the basketball court. I was holding back because Paul still sucked. He was more macho than I was, and it would hurt his precious ego to get creamed by someone almost a foot shorter than him. I let him fly past me again and het his slam dunk in.

"WHOO! One more for the P-man! Maybe I should teach you how to play, Markie," Paul teased me. If he didn't suck so bad, I would have shoved the ball in his face and played for real.

Sam had been watching us for sometime, but he hadn't said anything until now.

"Y'know," Sam started. "I'd be willing to bet that Mark is holding back, that or he doesn't know the difference between a basket and the laundery." I smiled a little.

"Yeah, right!" Paul retorted. "He sucks SO bad!"

"If you think so," Sam replied. "Mark, play as best as you can this time."

Alright, if he wanted me to... I just hoped that Paul wouldn't jump off the cliff once he realized what I'd been doing... or throw me off it...

Paul started up at thhe top of the black top. He dribbled through his shakey legs a few times, then attempted to fake me out and go right past me. He'd gotten about 5 feet from the basket when he realized I'd grabbed the ball from him and made a lay-up on the left hand side. He was dumbfounded. I smirked.

Sam was yukking it up. "Atta boy, Mark." Then he went inside. Paul stared at me like a gold fish with his mouth hanging open. I just shrugged and followed Sam inside.

Anne was making something for lunch. I didn't know what it was but it made my mouth water.

"Hungry?" Anne asked as Paul came in as well. I shook my hand in front of my face, saying 'a little' with the gesture. She smiled and turned to continue making what ever she was making. I stared at the food for a while. I had never been so interested with food preperation before, but it memorized me now. It was rather amazing.

Because of my stupid distraction, I didn't notive when Paul came back in from the den. I jumped when he grabbed my shoulders.

"Hey, dude, you play?!" he almost yelled. He had my guitar in his hands and another utterly amazed look on his face. What a predictable fool. I nodded slowly, as if saying 'duh'. "Well then play something!" He almost threw the thing at me.

I shook my head no.

"Why not?" he asked with a little puppy dog face. I pointed to the bridge of the guitar. No strings. "Oh," was all he said. I took off the burned strings. I would replace them soon enough. "Well, you any good?" I smirked.

I handed him the red thing as I went into our room and fetched my laptop. On the way back in, I had typed:

I don't know how good I am, but I was in a band... Y'kno, b4 the 'accident'.

"Oh!" Paul replied. "Well, you can still be apart of the band! That shouldn't change your ability to play or whatever." I was already typing before he finished his sentence.

I was the lead singer

Anne sucked her teeth to make a hissing noise. I think that's what it's called. If it's not, well, I never claimed to be great with English. I just shrugged and sat down at the bar. I was hungry. Anne put a bowl of soup infront of me and I gladly ate it.

That night, I don't think I dreamed. If I did, it was the most pleasant dream I'd had in long time. Given my luck, it would probably be the best sleep I would ever have again. Ok, that's a bit melodramatic, but knowing me, it's true.