The two of them walked through the hall towards their next class. Nadine had gone to the gym once they got back, and Ms. Wilkins had gone back to her own class. David's thoughts wandered, and she flushed a little, her mind drifting back to the events of the previous night. She was...still not quite certain how she felt about it...she didn't know that she really would have chosen to go there, but...she supposed one of her sisters was bound to, eventually...
"...if you don't try it one of your sisters will eventually." Where had she heard that before? That was...oh. That was when Rachel had told her she shouldn't repress herself, and then she'd...she'd...
She blushed brighter remembering the kiss. It wasn't...serious...was it? She hadn't been able to figure it out then, either, it hadn't felt like...and she hadn't known how she felt about it, partly because she couldn't tell whether to take it seriously or not...Rachel was so open in some ways, but in others...she was so here-and-there, always dancing on the borders of one thing and tip-toeing into another, that it was impossible to tell her motivations for sure, unless...well...
David didn't actually intend to ask, but she thought the words and they ended up coming out of her mouth anyway. "Rachel, why do you do what you do?"
She tensed up, unsure what the reaction to her unintended question would be, but the devil-girl cocked an eyebrow and laughed. "Depends," she said. "What's 'what I do?'"
"Y-you're always...so hard to f-figure out," David stammered. "One minute you're t-teasing me, then you're supporting me when I'm upset, then we're just hanging out like nothing's out of the ordinary..."
Rachel gave a warm but mischievous smile. "It's fun!" she said, her voice shifting seamlessly between different moods as she spoke. "People get funny when they can't figure out where to place you, or when they're confronted with something they..." She leaned in close, her breath a hot whisper, "...don't know how to handle." Then she pulled back and resumed her normal voice. "And you, David, you...are a nice person, but you're funny because you're amusingly shy and you - give - great - reactions~!" This last bit was in a lilting sing-song voice that would've sounded mocking if it wasn't so affectionate.
David smiled in spite of her confusion. "Y-you should be in theater, you know. It's just...there's so many different people I see out of you, I...don't know which one's real sometimes...it's hard to tell what you mean..."
Rachel smiled sympathetically. "Is it? I guess...but y'know, it's not like I ever stop being me. I'm a complex woman, hmm? But I never misrepresent myself..."
"You...don't?" the angel-girl asked. "Because...what you were telling me Saturday...you were right, I can't just keep everything I feel bottled up, and...neither could my sisters. Um...after that, when you..." She trailed off, hesitant to continue. She was only just realizing this now, but...it was the truth...
"When you kissed me...I liked that."
As the others around her saw Erica begin to flicker in and out of being, Erica herself began to perceive reality as doing the same. At first it was quick, almost-imperceptible flashes, instants where she didn't perceive anything at all. They began to grow more frequent. As she looked up at the sky, at its strange distortion, like looking at something through a lens, she began to see the lens itself, the effect contracting, showing visible edges as it seemed to descend upon them.
She didn't remember any of this, not from the first time. Maybe it was because she wasn't just walking through a portal in another world that led to her world in another time. Maybe this was what it was like to be drawn forward through time by Time itself.
As the lens descended, it continued to shrink, and the light of the sun seemed to grow more focused even the flashes got so close together that her perception made it seem like a giant, rainbow-colored strobe light. Then it was happening so fast that she only really experienced a blur. As the world began to grow fainter around her, she saw with relief that the lens was upon them, around them - and around all of them. She felt like she was being squeezed through the smallest possible hole, through a single point in space. Then everything was gone.
There was a brief moment in which Erica perceived nothing at all - not even the minute sensations of a sensory-deprivation chamber. Then, reeling, she felt the whole process unspool backwards, like a spring-loaded tape-measure screaming back into the case when the lock is opened. The sensation of falling was overpowering - and then it was gone, and she was standing in the cemetery again. Only now it was day, the iridescent Sun shining brightly, and the ringing of the bell had stopped...and the church looked older.
Erica felt like she should be out of breath, exhausted, but her body felt perfectly fine, aside from the tiredness of being up late and walking all the way to the church. She was trembling slightly at her recall of the experience, but that was it. She looked around - it was only her and Sam. But she'd seen the portal encompassing them, she knew it. She supposed Nikki must have been drawn back to her own time, but what about the others? Keith and the Indian girl...had they gone on ahead? Nikki said they were friends in the future, so they couldn't have gone to her own time, where she'd only just arrived, or she wouldn't have gotten to know them, but perhaps they were not far behind her - after all, Nikki hadn't even been born yet, she had to come from at least eleven years in the future (how old had she said she was? Had she said? Erica couldn't remember.) She wondered what they'd find, wherever they were. And where was Morgana? And...
Erica gasped as she realized that Sam had been exposed to the light. He must be changing, or about to start! She rushed over to him to see if he was alright.
The closer the portal came, the worse Morgana felt. In the presence of this temporal gale, time's effects on her seemed to be accelerating. Just before it reached her, she felt her heart stop; by the time it had passed over them all, her body was beginning to crumble away. This...this feeling...could this be death? No! No, it couldn't...she needed to be there, it was too important...
...and if it were death, why did she still feel? But if her body was falling to pieces, then...what else could await her?
