Life was hard on Jesse. It always had been. Ever since she was a little girl, her parents would drink and fight and hit her, until she ran away to live on the streets as best she could.

That had been hard, but not as hard as losing the only people she considered family, the only people she had ever been close to. There was a fight, guns, and lots of death, and she hadn’t been there to help. If she had, she probably wouldn’t have survived herself, but guilt still gnawed at her. How much greater the guilt was now.

That had been hard, but she had lived, and found joy in living once again. Nothing had ever been as hard as this. Nothing, not in the entire history of her long, despondent, jaded life. Nothing had been as hard as facing this, facing the knowledge day to day, that Matt was gone.

Dead, supplied her mind insistently. Not just gone, dead. It whispered the word over and over until it made her want to die herself.

No! He isn’t dead! He could still be alive! There’s no way to know . . .

Nobody could have lived through a fall like that. He’s dead, and you know it.

But they never found—

—his body? That doesn’t mean anything. He still couldn’t have survived.

But he had to have! He can’t be dead! He’s alive! He’s ALIVE!

She repeated the thought like a mantra, until she was screaming it at the top of her lungs so that it echoed off the apartment walls, reverberating, beating itself on the plaster like a bird against the bars of its cage. She screamed it again and again until her throat was raw and hoarse, and she was gripping her ears to blot out the horrible sound of her own voice. Her eyes were so tightly shut that it shot pain through her skull, but she didn’t even notice it.

The door burst open and three people rushed inside. One of them gripped her wrists, trying to yank her hands from her ears, shouting persistently something she refused to hear. There was a pair of hands on her shoulders, and the voices of the two others rose to join the din.

She was no longer even repeating the words, just incoherent shrieking that hurt her, hurt her until she couldn’t think of anything else, couldn’t stop—

A slap rang out; a hand bruised her cheek with the force of the blow it delivered, and her throat closed of its own accord as memories of her parents’ abuse flooded her mind. She fell forward, sobbing into the sudden lull.

Arms encircled her, and she leaned into them unconsciously. The voices floated on the quiet.

“Shh, Jesse, it’s okay now. You’re going to be all right.”

“This is the first time it’s been this bad. Do you think we should—”

“No! I won’t let you! It would only make it worse, and you know it!”

“We have to do something for her, Chris.”

“I know. I just haven’t figured out what yet.”

The voices melted together, becoming a faint buzzing sound, as Jesse wept herself into unconsciousness.

The cliff . . . yes, she remembered the cliff all too well.

It was their place, their solitude, their haven in the Digiworld. It was the place they went to be together, just to breathe in each other’s scent, to fill each other’s eyes. It was their special place to just be.

And then, something had happened. It had been a quiet afternoon, an afternoon like many of the others she and he had spent in each other’s company on the cliff’s edge. But that day, the cliff had not remained the steady ground it had always been.

The edge had crumbled, and shaken. They had scrambled to get off, but he had not been fast enough, and he had fallen.

She had reached out for his hand, reached out, stretching her hand into forever, but she couldn’t touch, couldn’t catch him as he fell into the darkness, calling her name . . .

She awoke, coughing, choking on her own tears. Her throat felt so swollen. How could she have let herself sleep? Sleep took her back, made her relive it over and over again. She had promised herself she wouldn’t sleep.

“Jesse?”

At the quiet utterance of her name, she turned her head slowly. Chris, and Jaina. The tears came harder at the sight of Matt’s twin; he looked so much like his brother, so much like her love, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. He reached out a comforting hand to smooth away the hair from her forehead, where a cold sweat had plastered it to her skin, and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Don’t cry, Jesse, we’re here for you.” She swallowed, and gagged; her throat was nearly swollen shut. It hurt, but the pain was a distraction, and her tears ebbed as she concentrated on it. Pain was good, she had discovered. It helped when nothing else could. She knew she mustn’t sleep again, but she couldn’t help it; she needed it.

She fell again into a more restful sleep, a sleep without dreams.

Chris sighed with relief as Jesse drifted off into a peaceful slumber. He himself was holding back tears as he remembered when he had been told about Matt’s death, but he had always been strong, through anything. So had Jesse, but something had finally snapped, and was eating her up inside. A madness lurked behind her eyes, and it frightened him, frightened him more than anything else. He had to help her, for Matt’s sake. He was all Jesse had, now.

“I think we should go,” Jaina whispered in his ear.

“No, you go. I’ll sleep in the chair. I don’t want to leave her alone.”

His love nodded. “I understand.” And she rose quietly and left the room.

For Chris, sleep was a long time in coming.

It was days before Jesse could speak again, weeks before she could sing, if she had wanted to. She hadn’t sung since it had happened. The bouts of insanity were growing less and less frequent as she drew more and more into herself, until she no longer wanted to leave her apartment. She did so only to fulfill the necessities of urban life. She played on the street just outside the building, and paid her rent and bills with the money she earned; she went to the store to buy herself food; she went through her katas and drills every morning; she visited the cemetery every day, to lay a fresh flower on Matt’s grave. She performed each function with the precision and emotion of a machine, rarely talking to anyone.

Chris worried about her. The madness was gone, replaced by a vacancy, like there was something missing. The spark of life, the personality that made her Jesse, was gone. It was as if she just didn’t care anymore.

He vowed that he was going to do something about it. Only one thing, he knew, would help.

He had to go to the Digital world, and find out what had really happened to his twin.