Dreams come to me like they have every night since I ran. It was like my soul was freed that night, like I was conscious for the first time ever. Both awake and asleep.

    Tonight I dream of drowning. Of Dana, more specifically.

    Dana came from a rich family in the inner city. Her mom was a pilot and her dad was on a board of some rich, green company. They were decent people, by scandinavic standards. Loved their three kids, went to yoga retreats and ski trips with the whole family. Active, polished, minimalistic. Dana hated them with a burning passion. Oliver, her boyfriend, would confide in me sometimes, tell me about his worries for her. That’s how I learned about the long list of therapists, of medicine she tried to take but her parents took her off of. They believed in natural healing, in finding peace within. They didn't like the long names and unnatural calm their daughter felt when properly taken care of. To them, she wasn't herself. To Oliver, she was some version of free that she had never been.

    She ran away, like we all did. We were a group of homeless runaways. Some of us, like myself, didn't have any family to go back to. Some of us, like Dana, went back and forth. She missed her family and came back, she hated them and left. She loved Oliver, she hated him. She loved me, she hated me. I was her best friend, other than Oliver. I walked her home from clubs she had gotten into without being 18. I saved her from a fight in an alleyway. I held her as she relapsed. 

    But she hated me. She hated me so much sometimes that all other emotions in the world faded to nothing. Her reds were deeper, richer, than any there ever was. She would yell, claw, fight. Use mean names and tear at people’s worst sides.

    That night was different. The fight had gone out of her, but the anger was still there. Not a devouring fire, but a suffocating, invisible gas.

    She took me the long way home from a house party. We didn't talk, but she kept looking at me. I wanted to take her hand, I didn't.

    Finally, she stopped beside the canal, looked at me and said, “Stop pretending you like me.”

    She was forward like that, but so was I. I said, “I never pretend. Honesty is everything.”

    “Then why don't you like me?” She said calmly, level headed. But she was furious, I could feel it on my skin. And she was honest.

    “I do like you,” I told her, “I trust you. You know that is everything for us.”

    I meant our group. We had our own problems, we knew how important trust was.

    “You don't like me like Oliver,” She pointed out, “And you are always so, so awful. You never do anything about your feelings, you never act on anything. You just run and pretend you are a better Lost Case than us, just because your parents are gone. You think I am so selfish because I just leave the only people who love me, just because I want to be bad? You think I want this? You think I want this?”

    She jabbed in the chest, hard. I took a step back.

    “I don't think you do this on purpose,” I told her. I am talking about her outburst. She is just like this, that is not her fault.

    “You are such a liar,” She yelled. I saw a light switch on in a window on the other side of the canal. She always managed to cause a scene, even when there is no one around.

    She pushed me. I stood my ground. I didn't want to fight her, I am not a fighter. She grabbed the collar of my jacket, leaning close to me. “Everyone thinks I am doing this.”

    “No one thinks that,” I tried to reason with her.

    Tears fell down her cheeks, her breathing hiked up. “I am not doing this on purpose.”

    Then she kissed me. Hard. Her lips were a fist colliding with my mouth, and the impact pushed me over the edge and into the water. She pushed me into the water. I tried to get her off of me, but she held on. Kissing turned to biting. Iron grip turned to desperate clawing, scratching. She was trying to drown us both. I didn't want to die.

    Then I was on land.

    I can't remember the pieces, I just remember seeing her drown with me, and then heaving for air and coughing up blood.

    I think this is the thing Erika meant. Unexplainable, abnormal happenings. I wasn't a fighter, I was just surviving.

    I wake up from the dream, and for a second I think I see Dana in the picture on the wall opposite the bed. I blink, and her face turns into something else. Brown hair turns blonde, beach waves becomes rich curls. It’s Erika, smiling or laughing, with a boy I don't recognize. He’s wearing a blue denim jacket with fluffy, white lining on the collars, like fur but not quite. The same jacket is laying out on the bed I am sleeping in. It wasn't there last night. I get up and check my stuff. If someone was in here while I was asleep, they could have been through my backpack. Everything I own is cramped in there, and although I hate sentimental stuff, I couldn't stop myself from carrying around items of feelings. Like the key to my childhood home, or the purple journal me and my mom shared, with drawings I did when I was young  and encouraging notes she left me. We would trade it back and fourth each week, leaving small parts of ourselves in it. It was our little world.

    Our little world is still there, in the bottom of the back pocket. She is still there. Her ashes and remains never mattered to me, but this was her soul, it was everything. I laugh out, feeling foolish in my own terror. Why would anybody steal this, a six year old journal with childish drawings in it? I have cash in my backpack, I have even a knife, both of which are way more likely to be stolen by the members of this boat.

   I put back the journal and get up to assess the jacket situation. Neither Aiden nor Erika wore this, or anything like it, yesterday. I’ve hung out with enough alternative teenagers and young adults to recognize personal styles. Erika is too feminine, too smooth. Both outfits I’ve seen her in as of now have been black, yellow or gold. She reminds me of a bee, or honey cakes. Aiden on the other hand likes the black ensemble with heavy jewelry and cut out jeans. This jacket is different. It isn't them. I take it up and turn it in my hands, feeling the fabric. It’s well worn, the color faded from being out in the sun.

    I look at the picture again. The boy, if you can call him that, is tanned and slightly freckled, his cheeks red from the sun that is shining in him and Erika’s face. He has boyish curls, like a coffee brown storm cloud around his head, along with the thickest eyebrows I’ve ever seen.

    Erika did mention there were more of them, more of us. I wonder if he is like us too? What word is there to describe this thing I am? Magical? Immortal?

    Inside my head, a tiny voice whispers god. I laugh, I remember all too well what I have been through in my life, the horrors I’ve witnessed, that is not the life of a god, that is the life of a human.

    Something in between then.

    Someone knocks on the door.

    “Good morning,” Erika calls out cheerfully.

    I open the door and show her the jacket, “What is this?”

    “Oh,” Erika takes it, shakes her head, “He told me about this. He must have forgotten to take it. You kinda crashed in his cabin, which he didn't know, so he came in late at night to sleep, only to find you way past gone in his bed.”

    “Who is he?” I ask, crossing my arms. I feel like a mess. Waking up in a real bed made me suddenly realize how long it’s been since I’ve done normal stuff, like showering or washing my clothes.

    “Sorry,” Erika smacks her head lightly, “I’m so tired. Zeph, he’s one of us. We picked him up around three am. He was on a recon mission in Spain, so it was on the way.”

    “Zeph,” I repeat, “How old is he?”

    “At least 70,”Erika says, “We actually don't really know with him.”

    “Why not?” I ask. 

    “It’s kind of a touchy subject,” Erika admits, “But he lost his memory. Before any of us found him. We were a lot worse at tracking, plus he was from an area that a Drifter was occupying, so we weren't exactly looking. But his earliest memory is from 1962, and by then he was already grown, so we assume he is from the forties.”

    “Can't you just,” I say, swirling my hands to better explain myself, “Put back his memories with magic?”

    “We have tried,” Erika shrugs, “But none of us knows how to. We don't exactly have a person who specialises in memories, and learning new skills takes time. Zeph might not like talking about his amnesia, but he has learned to live with it.”

    “I hear you are talking about me” Someone yells from up stairs. I hear his footsteps on the stairs as he comes down. It’s the same man in the picture, now without the jacket. He’s wearing a white shirt and faded blue jeans. He smiles at me, two dimples peeking out on his cheeks, and he reaches his hand out to shake mine.

    I simply look at it, then at him. I don't want him to get any idea of me being a friend. I don't have time to befriend these people, I just need to learn to do what they do. I need to be powerful.

    “Not a hand shaker then,” Zeph jokes lightheartedly, drawing back from me respectfully, “That’s alright. Just tell me if I ever get too touchy, I get where you are coming from.”

    “No you don't,” I tell him, because he doesn't. He can't.

    “Yeah you’re properly right,” He looks away, scratching his brown curls, “Hey, we should get breakfast. I think Aiden made something.”

    “Oh no,” Erika sighs, “He’s a terrible cook.”

    “We are all terrible cooks,” Zeph points out as he starts walking further into the boat, towards where I assume the kitchen and dining area must be, “Our good cook died.”

    “Too soon,” Erika grimaces, opening a door, a sweet aroma drifting out of it.

    “Somebody died?” I ask, stopping right in the doorway, Zeph standing behind me and Erika already inside and finding a place to sit by the table.

    “Four years ago,” Erika tells me, looking at me with sad eyes, “Our leader and healer were both killed, barely a year apart. We are still looking for whoever did it.”

    “Don't worry though,” Aiden yells hurriedly from the stove, flipping pancakes, “It was properly a Drifter or something. It might even have been suicide. It happens.”

    “So there is absolutely no danger of being randomly murdered inside your base?” I ask. They all three exchange what can only be described as a sorrowful glance. I sit down by the table, head in my hands, “I thought you said you guys were immortal?”

    “We are,” Erika says, righting her back and starting to talk. She loves lecturing, informating, or so I’ve come to learn, “We can only be killed by other Tethered. So whenever one of us dies, it’s either a murder or suicide. That’s why it’s a rule among us to always leave a suicide note when we think our time is up. That way the others will know not to start a whole investigation.”

    “And Miriam and Javier didn't leave a note,” Zeph sighs, sitting down in front of me and rubbing his eyes, “But no one could have done it. We have tried everything.”

    Aiden laughs once, quietly. It’s not even a real laugh, just a loud exhale of air. Erika and Zeph both turn to look at him slowly.

    “What?” He says as he comes over with the plate of freshly baked pancakes, “We all know one of us did it.”

    “There’s not enough proof,” Erika defends angrily.

    “There’s too much proof,” Aiden jolts back.

    “There’s dirt on you too, dickhead,” Zeph accuses, grabbing a pancake and pouring brown sugar on it.

    “Oh, like how I was watching a movie with Shira while Miriam died?” Aiden says, “Or how I was at the base, in the middle of the Atlantic, when Javier was killed in Germany, on a mission with you?”

    “You know I didn't kill him,” Zeph yells, standing up suddenly, pointing his fork at Aiden.

    “How should I know that?” Aiden asks calmly, “You think just because the two of you were runaway activists together, that you couldn't develop sour feelings? It was thirty years ago you two were last happy together, a lot of things changed when you joined the Organisation. Of course little newbie  Aiden wouldn’t know about that, because he is young and stupid. Come on, even I could see that the two of you were falling apart in the end.”

   “That’s enough,” Erika says quietly, placing her hand on Aiden’s. He draws back, leaning in the chair, looking away.

    “So two people died,” I conclude.

    Zeph picks up a beer can and downs the whole thing.

    “Yes,” Erika nods, looking at me, “One in Germany, his heart growing out of his chest, and one outside of our base, her lungs burst with water.”

    “Where did the water come from?” I ask, taking a bite of my pancake. It’s heavenly, I don't understand why Erika and Zeph would think Aiden’s cooking is bad. Or maybe it’s just because it’s been years since I’ve had decent food.

    “You’ll see now,” Erika smiles, a little sad, and looks at her watch, “We should be there now.”

    “I love this boat,” Zeph smiles brightly, his whole demeanor having changed with the subject. The only one who still looks like an argument happened is Aiden, who is barely touching his food.

    “Come,” Erika gets up, taking the plates. I hadn't even finished my pancake, “get your stuff and meet us on the deck.”