Twisted Returns

"I know that face."

"What?"

"I know that face."

"How? Where?" Dean asks. "This could be the key to everything."

"That's the thing," I say. "I - I don't know. But I recognize him.:

"Past life or present?"

"Not sure."

"Well, that's helpful."

I stare at the picture. Blond hair, blue eyes. The dates say that he was twenty, but he looks much younger. He looks kind of like someone I once knew. Someone I still miss. Someone I could have had.

Dean seems to notice this too. "Maybe you think you know him because he kind of looks like... Connor."

"I know, but... I've seen this exact face before."

"Try your best to remember."

When I try to remember, I can feel the heartbreak. It's most likely the memories of Connor, others would say. But something tells me it isn't that, not exactly. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to recall the image.

I remember seeing him. I don't know where. But I can see his face clearly. His expression of confusion. I realize that I can see it very clearly. Meaning that I was not human when I saw him.

"I didn't see him in my human life."

"Didn't think so, since he was never on Earth," he says. "But was it before or after?"

"I... I don't know."

"Can you guess?"

"I think after. It's still really clear. Other memories are still kind of fuzzy."

"Think, Dana," Dean says. I can tell he's getting excited. "This could solve everything."

I replay every day we've been here. Well, every day I've been in this body. My memories are clearer than they ever were when I was still human. I notice myself recalling little details, remembering more. Yet, at the same time, it's also less.

Then I realize where I know him from.

"I saw him that day," I say weakly.

"What day? The bombing? The lock down? Was he attacking when you went to that village?"

"No... that day. Lynda."

"The day that she was injured? When you found out that she..." he trails off, and I'm grateful for that.

"Yeah." I rack my brain for exactly when I saw him. It takes a few moments, but then I realize it. "I saw him in the hospital. He was working. I asked him what room Lynda was in, and he told me."

Dean nods slowly. "Is that all? Because it doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know. At least we figured it out, though."

I think back to that day, seeing Kellis. He was there - I had seen him, talked to him. It makes me wonder what kind of person he was if I had bothered to get to know him. Did he want to kill me? Or would we have been friends? But these thoughts don't matter. I will never know him.

However, I did know Ashlee. It's not that I feel nothing for her, because I do. She was my acquaintance, maybe even my friend. It's not that I don't care. It just doesn't devastate me. And I can't say I'll really miss her, because I have to be real - I won't.

As for Nicole... I hadn't known her. Too young for actually knowing. It was more of Lorraine's loss. All that suffering for... nothing. I had never wanted a child. I don't know how she feels right now. If she'll ever be okay. I can't sympathize, but I can empathize.

There's also all those other people I never knew. Seen, probably. Maybe even acknowledged at one point or another. But I haven't known them. How do I know they were real people?

"Dana," Dean says, breaking my thoughts. "Dana, we have to go."

"Go? Go where?"

"The temporary hospital," he says. "There's more people wounded."

----

"Everything tastes like... dog shit."

"How do you know what that tastes like?" I ask.

"Someone always asks that," Elise says, rolling her eyes. And I don't - it's just what I imagine it to taste like. Except worse."

"What kind of curse is that?"

"I dunno, but I guess it's bad enough. They decided to send me in here when I kept vomiting every two seconds."

"Sounds... fun."

"It's funny cause you think I'm joking."

"Well, you don't look that bad right now," I point out. She looks healthy enough, other than the fact that she's skinnier than before (if that's possible).

"They gave me this weird medicine, which helped a bit. But I can't eat anything unless I want to throw up everywhere," she explains. "How did you guys get here so fast anyways?"

"I don't know, Dean told me. He must have some way of knowing."

"Huh. Weird."

At that point, Katalina enters the room. From where I sit on the hospital bed, she looks perfectly fine. Gorgeous, as usual. And then she turns her head.

On the left side of her face is a long gash, reaching from hairline to chin. It's not a normal cut, either. It's quite nasty, actually.

Instead of a normal, bloody red color, it's a sickly green that probably reminds Elise of her own vomit. And instead of oozing blood, the wound leaves a viscous, yellowish fluid. In all honesty, it makes me want to pry the bucket from Elise's hands, just in case.

"Something cut me," she says. She grabs a white towel, holding it up to her face. I feel sorry for the towel. "I do not know what it was, but it was hideous. Like I am now."

"You aren't hideous," Elise and I say automatically.

"I am. This... they say it will not heal. I am stuck with this. They can not fix it, as I am still human."

Elise and I don't say anything, because it's Katalina's own fault. She had chosen to give up her magic for beauty. If she kept herself, she would not be wounded like this. She might not have been wounded at all. She gave it all up for nothing.

I wonder if I'll end up the same way.