A/N: Some ideas just come to you, fully formed. This idea did when I was fourteen, as a result of too much boredom during Maths and my obsession for the Mediator, and the characters within the series. This story has been a long time in progress, that's for sure. I am now nearly twenty-one. My maths has never been good, but I believe that is nearly seven years. I am a poor excuse for a writer.

This story has actually been completed for a while, and it was only the messages, reviews and favourites this story has received, even four years later, that spurred me into uploading it all again.

Through Her Eyes has undergone a facelift that only graduating high school and being four years through a university degree will cause. It is overhauled and re-edited, with added characters, different personalities, scenes, plot points and…well, an ending.

So. It's been a while (understatement). I've really appreciated all the kind words and reviews I have ever received for this story for the time it has existed. For all who are reading this now (if there are any), I appreciate you re-investing your time in this story after all these years. If not, I'm sorry this took so long.

So. This is the story I've had planned since the beginning. I'm still not happy with the prologue or chapter one, something that hasn't changed. Constructive criticism will always be appreciated.

Now…awhn with eet.

PS – Some character photos and the music playlist are on my profile.

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters, settings and plot points belong to the goddess Meg Cabot, who I still bow down to. Everything else is mine.

Note: For new readers, this is very Alternate Universe. The characters you recognise may have been tweaked personality-wise, slightly, but this is for the sake of the story.

Prologue

Carmel Mental Health Hospital.

My home for the last four years. It never wanes, it never ceases, and each day runs into the next…a constant stream of monotony.

Sometimes I'm woken at night by screams, but it is the silence that slowly erodes your mind. My "previous life", as I like to refer to it, feels like another dimension—one which I barely existed in. My memories grow vaguer everyday. The only grip on my old life is remembering what happened to get me in here in the first place.

I am told on a daily basis that I am in denial. When I speak the truth, it goes ignored. Words spoken by a person legally declared as insane are never acknowledged, let alone believed. The more I try to convince them otherwise, the more deeply entrenched they become in their diagnosis.

They tell me that it's not real, what I remember. If it wasn't for my tenacity, I may have begun to believe them. It's an easy thought to entertain late at night while I'm being kept awake by someone else's nightmares. When you are surrounded by people who think you are crazy—and people who actually are—the line blurs. The idea that my life was a subconscious rendition of things that hadn't actually happened, and never would, is sometimes a promising one. Oblivion doesn't sound so bad, and it would probably be a little quieter.

And despite it all, I can't help but hope. Misplaced hope, maybe, but hope all the same. I have lost everything else, and it is the only thing that remains.

People from my previous life sometimes said that it is hard to accept life the way it is. I can tell you from experience that they are wrong. It's not just life. When you are like me, and I have met a few who are, you get both ends of the deal. You have to accept the dead the same way you accept the living, and you are able to do so when you are plagued by those from both sides.

I see the dead. The doctors and nurses say that I think I can, but I know I can. I know, because I've been able to for a very long time. I can see, speak to, and even touch the dead and I use my ability to make both planes of existence more peaceful for those involved. I had been doing it—quietly, unsuspecting—for twenty-three years, which was how old I was when my ability was discovered. I was driven by the idea that there should be peace when you moved on. I hated the idea of people suffering in limbo, if I had the ability to stop it.

I suppose you can call it ironic. My ability had been my undoing, in the end. For someone whose karma reading should be off the charts, it certainly seemed like a kick in the pants. Public humiliation, and then sent a hospital with more similarities to that of a prison—except no one is bailing me out for good behaviour.

And only one name remains, only one person reminding me my previous life was real, that he is real, and that what happened was real.

Michael Hindler.