Diana:

My eyes flutter open. First, I'm blinded by the bright lights shining down on my face. Instinctively I squint, waiting for my eyes to adjust from the darkness turned to light. The beeping noise from before drums on the background, surrounded by the humming of machines. False life, I think to myself, remembering the first time I'd met such a mechanism. Fase life.

My vision clears, bringing life to my surroundings. Besides the lights above me, there seems to be little light in the room. It's dark. the wall, the furniture are all colourless grays and blacks.

I try to sit up, but the struggle has me breathless. I raise my arm above my head. I'm not tied down. Why is this so hard? It is like someone has drained all the energy out of me, reducing me to nothing.  As I continue to move, I begin to struggle to keep my eyes open. The lights turn blurry before me as black spots start to dance around my vision.

No, I must stay awake! The darkness, those glowing eyes. The voices in my head. It all closes in, consuming me. I can't escape. I cannot run. I cannot fight it; I cannot do anything by lay here, letting it ravage my thoughts. Letting it cut me off from reality. From everywhere I want to be. From the people I so desperately want to see. 

I see the building in flames. It is taller, more infinite than before. "DIANA!" Ambrosine screams. She's standing at the top staring down at me, begging me to save her. I know she's crying. "Diana please." She sobs, sending a hot thin knife through my heart of stone and melting it away. I enter the building. I run, up one flight, then another. There are people here. 

"Save us Wonder Woman." They order. "Save us." They chant moving closer. "Save us." I would have, but Ambrosine screamed, and ear-piercing shriek that barely sounded human. So full of fear I vomit at the sound.

I turn away and run up the stairs. Two more flights. I should be at the top. Why am I not at the top? Hold on Ambrosine I'm coming. I'll keep you safe. I swear it. I keep on going up and up and up until I hit a wall.

A wall? I do not hit walls like this. I punch it but it refuses to even dent. I go down a few levels to get a running start. No Amazon shall be bested by the weak craftsmanship of mortal hands. I run. I hit the wall again, a sharp pain blazing up and down my arm. Have I broken it? The wall is still unharmed. Why won't it break?

I turn around, ready to attempt again when I see two girls staring at me. Their eyes are glowing and they stand hand in hand. 

Diana... Their voices ring in my eyes, bouncing around my brain like laughter. Diana. Diana.

"Diana!" Some speaks. Please, stranger, your voice, continue. It drives away the demons.  "Diana wake up please." My nightmares shake a crumble around me. The flaming school starts to collapse, the bricks and stones crumbling around me, threatening to bury me alive.

"You can do it, Diana. Come back to us." My cheerleader calls me forth. I will not die here today, a captive to my own imagination and fears. 

The noises stop. Everything disappears. I hear a piano in the background. Have I died?

"Diana, oh gods Diana are you alright?"

I open my eyes and scream. My hands fly up over my head, protecting my ears from the sound of my own agony. Get out of my head! I tell the girls, but they have already gone somewhere distant and can no longer hear me. 

I'm taken by a tremor. My tremor. My body trembles violently. I bring my arms back down to my sides, then wrap them around myself. Maybe if I squeeze hard enough the world will stop shaking. 

"Diana, please calm down. You're safe." I feel hands on me. Male hands. I try to brush them off but they're prepared and remain in place. I grab one and pull it down. The other one quickly follows, then the body of my assailant. He lands on the floor and groans, but I hear nothing crack. That should have broken some bones.

Get it together. My sisters would be so disappointed in me. My mother would be so disappointed in me. Had I performed like this, even acted like this on Themyscira, I would have disgraced her and opened a reason for someone to challenge her rule or my right as heir. My right as an Amazon even. I was crafted from clay. I had not died in battle the way some of my sisters had. I was not chosen to be one of them.

"Diana. If you don't stop this minute I will have not other option than to put you back under."

No, not that I again. I can't face them another time. I can't hear my innocent little Ambrosine cry in my nightmares anymore. I can't see those eyes every time I close mine. I need to stay conscious.

I tremble involuntarily at the thought. Please don't I want to beg, but I don't have the courage to do so.

"I don't think that's going to work." A voice from the corner says. "It'll make her worse." Listen to him I beg, covering my face again. Make it all stop.

"Oh, what did you see in there?" One person asks me. I can't keep track of all the voices.

"Diana please snap out of it. We're worried sick about you, and it's not just us. Come on, please. Think of Ambrosine. She's scared stiff that you're going to bit the dust. I don't want to make you sleep again any more than you want me too."

I freeze. For the first time in what seems like forever, I'm no longer trembling. Ambrosine. She wasn't at the school. She was on a field trip. She's not trapped on top of the building with those girls. She's here. She's worried about me. I have to come back, to come back for her.

The clarity comes in waves. First, my hearing returns to normal, then my perception. I open my eyes and look around. Alfred and Bruce are standing away from me, two of the three voices I heard. Who was the third? The one I threw on the ground.

I look down. Clark! No wonder I hadn't heard his bones break. He's the strongest mortal I know.

"What happened? How long have I been out?" I ask Bruce.

He approaches me with caution. "We're not sure what happened, but we got you out of the hospital before too many tests were done. No one has said anything so we think you're in the clear. It's been a week. You've been having fitful dreams and were dangerous when not sedated."

"Where's Ambrosine?" I ask. I can't help but notice she isn't here.

"She's still in England," Bruse says. "A social worker came and took her back since you were incapable of being a guardian. They also rescheduled the final court hearing to tomorrow."

I pull the blanket around me. "Oh." 

"We're sorry Diana, but there wasn't much we could do," Alfred says.

"No, I mean I guess I always knew it was going to happen one day." She knew it more than I did, always being slightly distant, always spending the week at school. Never getting too attached. 

"She gave us this note," Cark says, now sitting upright. He hands me a letter.

I take it, my arm shaking. I slip open the seal, well aware of everyone eyes burning down on me.

Dear Diana,

If you're reading this, I'm glad you're not dead. I'd like to thank you for being a regularly nice and concerned human being, it speaks well to your character. You officially stuck with me longer than anyone who is not related to me and for that stability in my life, I am thankful. I thought my life as I knew was over last January but you made the final weeks up until this stupid trial fun, which I actually thought was impossible (I know, Murphy's Law but still everything sucked.) Also, don't feel bad about the weekend. I'd like you to know that I've known the identity of Wonder Woman since I was eight and saw a magazine about London's hero next to the one about London's richest woman. I'd never said a thing because I didn't want to explain that earlier comment about not liking superheroes very much. It's not that I don't support what they stand for, it's the way the media and the police handle it. Also, it always seemed like a great tidbit if I ever need to blackmail someone.

I've included a newspaper article to help that'll also clean up all the stuff you wanted to know about my mom's death. You deserve the knowledge for putting up with me and living through a building falling on you. Thank you again for being an amazing person and giving me something to think about before the trial.
Congratulations on being alive,
And remember Murphy's law,
Ambrosine Rosefsky.

I smile at how much she shines through the letter then I take out the newspaper article. It's dated January 4th, 2017. The header in bold is about me saving a cat. I look around the front page for some clues as to what Ambrosine wanted me to see.

Then I find it. Actress stabbed and killed in alleyway. The title reads. More on pg 15.

I flip to page 15. Last night, renowned theatrical actress Catalina Eloise Rosefsy was stabbed in an alleyway in front of her husband. The latter called the police immediately only to be informed that all units were dispatched. It was later determined that they were valiantly helping our hero in her quest to save Mr. Mittens from a tree. The cat and family are recovering but fine. Precautions are being put in place to keep Mr. Mittens out of trees in the future. Some are saying that it was possible this was a homicide, for the husband's fingerprints were all over the victim and she was found in his arms.

There is another article tapped onto it talking about the poor response time of the police force. Apparently, they'd arrive almost an hour later, Catalina long cold and dead. It was determined that had even a paramedic been present she would have had a 60% chance of surviving instead of bleeding out. The wound hadn't been lethal but the blood loss had been. And it was strongly defending Ambrosine's father from the ludicrous accusations. He loved her, of course, he held her as the life slipped out of her eyes!

I hadn't realized I was crying until the paper grew heavy and weak from the weight of my tears and ripped in my trembling hands.