Was it really that easy for me to accept I'm dead? Maybe I should be angry at myself, but I'm not. It feels like during this war, being dead is a right of passage. Like we all gotta die someway before we can survive this, if that makes any sense. I dunno, I still feel like shit, what am I talkin about anyway. My fingertips are sticky and sweaty, and there's sleep in my eyes...I feel hungover and I'm not. Damn, now that's something you won't see from me every day. This is all so surreal, what she said to me, what's happening now. Shouldn't alarm bells be going off in my head, over anything? Tellin me to stop drinking or find Zara or get outta here or throw up or something? They ain't...it's like just total silence inside my head.

You know the funny thing is the bees finally made it inside. I guess they have a nest on the outside of the building or something, because they come in through the window and buzz back o ut again as soon as they can find the hole. Takes em a while some days. But it's like living inside one of those glass walled beehives that they set up in school classrooms for kindergardeners. I wonder why I'm a bee. Sandwiched inbetween glass walls so everyone sees my life. Tap on the glass to see if I skitter in a circle or something. Hell, what am I, a drone? Why am I not flying the hell out of here? I got wings...even drones have wings.

My brain must be starved for thought if it keeps coming back to the bees. Should think about somethin else, but its hard to think of anything else. Cept maybe her. I'm not even sure what happened...it's like this one event took something that was just a nudge in my brain and brought it up to the front of everything where I gotta see it all night and day long. She's so strange, so completely ice. That's all you can call her, even in description. Ice. It's kinda obvious her family must have come from one of the southern continents...Maybe the Humans just don't get that fact about Hekshanians, we can tell the difference in region just like they can with their own. All bees look the same unless you're a bee, right? Hell, there I go again.

I don't understand this at all. I mean before, Zara Nikko was just there. Sure, she was deffinitly something to look at but I never really connected on that level we don't see. It's like between all people there's this unseen communication line that we keep closed, the one we use for talking without words. All in a second, all in a flashing instant after they told me what was happening, when she came in, it cracked and opened. The girl who was kicking and screaming being dragged down a hall, glaring at me through glass...Her eyes are like the living thing beating inside the ice to get out. But then, we only felt a spark along that wire. It wasn't open. So it's open now, so Zara's suddenly all that's in my brain.

Maybe I'm just desperate, clingin to all I can find in a hurricane. I mean you think bout it, I don't have much else. Except Juudai, who's mooning the survelance cams. Gotta hand it to that kid, nothing seems to phase him. But then again he's hardly even counted as being part of our universe regardless. Ehh...

I gotta see her. That's all I know, that it hurts to be away. It's a different kind of hurt for loss than I get when I don't drink, but at the same time it's almost exactly the same. It's like rampaging drums and guitars and synthetic instruments are jamming away in my heart, life size, and its trying to pound itself to peices. Hurts...I think about Zara and it hurts because I'm not there with her, she's not here with me. I gotta get to her. I gotta find her. I just don't know how...

Kyotoshi had a peculiar habit of scrubbing his scars when he washed. Not in a frantic skin-tearing way, in a carressing loving way. The yellow furred Hekshanian took care of the scars, he didn't regret them when he could see them by himself. It was when others stared, examined, glared that he regretted the scars...but alone, by himself, without the hindrace of other prying eyes, Kyotoshi liked what he had done to himself. They all meant something, every scar meant something to him. There were none without meaning, and that was why he cared for them. Keep them clean, smooth, watch them glow a faint rose red from soap and water through his light fur. It didn't make sense, he thought. If I know what I've done, if I respect what I've done and care for what I've done...why do they all have to treat it as an atrocity? Shaking his head rapidly under the fall of the shower head, Kyotoshi sprayed water and suds across the small tiled shower stall.

Despite his fear of being monitered, it didn't make sense to wash in his boxers. With that much fur, you needed to wash diligantly. It was just nasty when a Hekshanian didn't...moving the bar of soap across his stomach and up onto his chest in the shape of a Y, Kyotoshi watched the soap bubbles froth up from the yellow fur and wash away in a current down his body, pooling around his hindclaws.

A creak of rungs on a shower curtain rod brought Kyotoshi spinning around and away from the wall, the leathery point on the tip of his tail slapping against the tile with a faint clap. Instinctively he backed away and raised his hands, mixed feelings of confusion, contempt, curiosity and fear blasting any other reaction out of the way. Water sprayed out of the open shower stall onto the bathroom floor and pooled at the brindled feet of Juudai Arano.

"Ca-fuckin-raika!" Kyotoshi yelped and glared at his roommate a minute before throwing the bar of soap into Juudai's face. The brindled Hekshanian turned to the side too late as the bar smacked him across the cheek, leaving a square mark of white suds. Kyotoshi wasn't done venting. "What the hell are you doing, man! I'm showering in here!"

Juudai raised his voice to match Kyotoshi's in volume, wide ice blue eyes sparkling. "Searching for the Lion of Zion!"

"WHAT?"

For a moment, the brindled youth's face faultered and he seemed to collapse slightly backwards. Airborn instantly thereafter, Juudai's body slammed against Kyotoshi in the shower, the yellow furred Hekshanian pulling away and backpeddling out of the smaller space into the main room just as Juudai made another leap for him. "Take me!"

This time Kyotoshi reacted faster and pulled together into a ball as Juudai's impact knocked him to the ground, water and soap spattering in a ring around him. Rolling away and leaping to his feet, Kyotoshi glared darkly at the brindle and stalked across the room, snatching his white hospital pants from the bed and slipping into them, growling as his soaked fingers fumbled with the drawstring. Juudai remained where he had fallen on the floor, laughing and kicking his feet without aim. Kyotoshi glared at his roommate a moment longer before barking out a laugh of disbeleif. "Craika kid, what the hell are you on?"

Juudai was on his feet and in the air after Kyotoshi again before the Hekshaian could protest, but Kyotoshi was starting to catch on and dodged easily. Juudai jumped up again and dropped into a crouch, grinning split-face and giggling to himself. Kyotoshi dodged the next leap and made it to his bed, bouncing on it across the room to Juudai's cot before having to dodge the brindle intent on dragging him to the floor. At this point it had become a sort of game, albiet one that was arguing on the rim of terrifying and hilarious to Kyotoshi. Slip-sliding across the slick floor, Juudai tripped over his own feet in pursuit of his prey and Kyotoshi leapt onto a stainless steel chair, staring into a mirrored corner he was certain hid a camera. With a plaintive glance, he raised his eyebrows at whoever was watching. "Um...help?"

Kyotoshi's broadcast was cut short when Juudai's airborn body caught him in midsection, knocking him off the stool and to the tile floor harshly. Kyotoshi expected the cracking sound of his skull against the hard surface but instead felt the irregular bumps of a hand on impact...Juudai winced atop him and pulled his hand away, shaking it slightly. For a second, the facade of madness was gone as Juudai nursed his hand. Pinned to the ground as he was, Kyotoshi couldn't get away.

"What the hell are you doing?" he hissed at the brindled Hekshanian. A brown furred hand clapped over his mouth and Juudai's ice chip eyes glared darkly at him. Barely auidable, the younger Hekshanian's voice whispered harsh and perfectly sane to his ears.

"Shut up...and thank me later."

A slamming sound made Kyotoshi jerk his head to the side in time to see the door breaking open and pairs of feet rushing in. Lizard-quick, Juudai's hand clamped around Kyotoshi's jaw and pulled him to face the brindle again. There was a slight flash of fear in the younger alien's eyes, a flash which vanished as he grabbed Kyotoshi by the shoulders and kissed him forefully. Eyes flashing wide, the yellow furred Hekshanian scrambled to push Juudai off him, but the youth had an iron grip and dangerous determination to what he was doing. The fighting only encouraged Juudai, his tongue pushing past Kyotoshi's lips and teeth into his mouth. Kyotoshi tried to bite down, but now people were pulling Juudai away. Claw-like fingers grabbed at Kyotoshi's fur as the kiss was ripped apart, Juudai screaming and filling the room with the sound. Kyotoshi sat up and wiped his arm across his lips, staring at his roommate in total confusion. Two aids had him in the air, and Juudai twisted and fought like a fish on the line.

The door shut again a moment later, the brindled Hekshanian gone from sight. Kyotoshi still sat on the floor in shock. What was that? What the hell was that? Climbing to his feet slowly, his legs and arms shaking slightly, he looked across the room...on his pillow a stack of papers which constituted for his journal lay out in plain view. In a panicked moment, Kyotoshi grabbed at the papers, ruffling through them. None were missing...but the last page he had written on had another message, one written in Juudai's frantic erratic script.

You're owing me big time for this one. Check the side of the door...they usually throw off their jackets to get me. Go find Zara.
-Juu

Blinking in disbelief, Kyotoshi raised his eyes to the door again. Cast carelessly aside, thrown off when the aids had entered the room, a white lab coat was crumpled on the floor. A chill rushed up Kyotoshi's spine raising the wet fur. The world seemed to turn a metalic blue...

He would see Zara Nikko.