I woke up the morning confused and unsure. I was already used to the way my body felt, but I didn't dare look in the mirror. As I showered, I thought about my dream from the night before. You see, ever since my gift was awakened at the age of seven, I've had the same nightmare every night.

I'm walking down the center of a dark cave, with a vaulted ceiling above me and pillars of rock randomly spaced to my right and left. There is a blue light emenating from the back of the cave. Standing in front are five of...me. They are darker, more sinister, some even grotesque, but they're all me. They stand in a spear head formation, and the first raises his left hand and beckons me with his index finger, palms up. He even has a dark, twisted smile on. And thats usually when I wake up screaming. When I was younger, Zaak was always there to reassure me, although he never asked what I drempt about. But as I grew older, Zaak would come less and less, until eventually he might not even wake up, but he'd never admit that.

That first night I was at Zaak's, however, the dream was different. The cave was the same, except this time I stood with my back to the blue light. And beside me stood the leader of the other me's. We both turned to the entrance to the cave, and the other four me's walked in, chatting with each other, but no sound seemed to reach my ears. When the four saw the leader and I standing together, a look of shock crossed their face. They looked questioningly at the leader, who shook his head. The leader turned to me and stroked my hair just once, then walked over to the others. They began to talk amongst themselves, but once again I couldn't hear a word they were saying. It was then I noticed that the blue light at my back was beginning to brighten. As I turned to look at the source of the light, the light flashed, and then a hand grabbed my shoulder with an almost painful grip and yanked me backwards.

I hopped out the shower and quickly got dressed. I barely even noticed that my clothes fit a lot tighter on my new body, and I didn't stop to think of why Zaak would have clothes that fit me even though I hadn't lived with him in three years.

I slid down rail of the kitchen stairs like I always did, but Zaak wasn't in the kitchen. I stepped into the front living room to see him running around and cursing at the top of his lungs, an occurance that only happened once a month.
"Ian!" he yelled, "we have to leave!"