A/N: Hello there! (: This is my second Code Lyoko fanfic, and once again it is for Xana's Lair! The theme is "Cliffhanger", so hopefully I'll do it justice.

Also, thank you to Cyanide 6, AwesomeFanFictionAuthor, LegendOfTheSky and HoldTheTruthForever for your lovely reviews ^^ It made me so happy to read what you had to say about my fic (especially LegendOfTheSky, who analysed my writing in extreme detail. I was amazed at how much you'd picked up and was really pleased you'd taken time out of your schedule to let me know).

Even though I didn't win I'm not disappointed because I came in second place, which was a huge honour for little ol' me, as this was the first challenge on Xana's Lair I'd ever entered. Well done to Soul_Jelly for winning first place. :3

Inspired by the song "Between" by Vienna Teng. (:

Summary: How is it possible to help somebody if the one who needs saving the most is yourself? It seems that even in your dreams there is always a seed of reality.

Demise

Help.

That one simple word can mean so many things.

I'm having a little trouble with my history homework… can you help me out, please?

I need help with moving this desk, can you lend me a hand?

Please help me understand.

Help me start on dinner.

I'm drowning… help.

Just help me, please.

Help.

Nobody understands what it means to lose what you've been waiting to hold all this time the way I do. As he slips away from you, as he falls to his knees and chokes out a sob, clutching at his chest, heaving and wondering why you've brought him outside when it's cold and he's ill and you already know that it's not allowed…

Why did you allow yourself to let go and do that? Why did you try and save him, even though it was you who was crying out for help?

I ask myself this as the sky swallows me whole, shrouding my vision with darkness. I'm suddenly plunged into a sea of confusion and hurried movements and electrical shocks, the hurt slowly slipping away.

I'm falling as I fly, drowning as I drift on an endless tide.

Through blind eyes I see the sun's rays shining through, it's rays bouncing off of choppy seas that swirl and churn, and yet feel so calming at the same time.

My body is at peace, whilst my mind won't slow down.

Yumi woke up with a start, the curve of her back doused in a cold sweat that made her feel slimy and disgusting. With a sigh she rolled out of bed, glaring at the rare cracks of winter light streaming through her curtains. It was earlier than normal for her to awaken but she couldn't care less; she just needed to wash away those awful memories.

But how could they be memories if she'd never experienced them? It wasn't her life that she was dreaming about - rather, the life of somebody she didn't know, didn't feel.

The same dream had been imprinted on her mind for weeks now. The same unsettled snow, shifting about beneath white boots stained with mud, the same white stockings, same creamy coat. Same small boy clutching at his chest and struggling to breathe, shivering with blue lips and haunted eyes.

It reminded her vaguely of a Creepypasta story Odd had once sent her via IM while she was trying to revise for a science midterm; that Pokemon Silver Easter Egg still made her shudder, just thinking about it.

Sighing, she undressed and stepped into the bath, slipping further and further down until her head was submerged and she held her breath, the water trickling up her nose and stinging her eyes.

For a moment she wondered whether the same would happen in reality; if she were to drown, would she be thrown into a flurry of suns shining through blind eyes and crashing onto waves? Would she see the phenomena she'd envisioned in her dream?

As her lungs begged for air, she resisted the urge, even as her arms began to thrash around and her chest throbbed.

And then, she felt it. An electrical pulse, like a static shock.

She shot up in surprise, head rising from the water as she coughed and spluttered.

Well, that certainly wasn't normal.

For a moment she contemplated whether she could've imagined it, before pushing the thoughts aside and lathering her hair in shampoo. What did it even matter if what she'd felt was static? What did it even matter if she couldn't bring herself to drown?

Perhaps that was a good thing. Through all the tears and grieving, she knew if she had gone through with it her parents would be disappointed in her, and she'd hate that.

As she dressed, as she ate, as she left the house and began her tedious walk to school, everything felt unnaturally black and white, blurry, distorted, unreal. Even with her younger brother Hiroki chattering away to her happily, she still felt uneasy, questioning anything and everything as she walked, acting like nothing was wrong.

Even as the sharp and flat notes played unevenly in her head, she stared ahead and continued to trudge on, forcing each step with all her might so she didn't fall down and kneel, the weight of the world pushing her down into a heroic bow.

It sounded so stupid, so pointless, yet made so much sense.

"I'll see you later, sis," Hiroki called, giving her a small wave before rushing over to find his friend Johnny. Yumi offered him a tiny smile back without feeling it. Shivering in the cool November air, she buttoned up her dark winter coat some more, before heading towards the cafeteria.

As she was about to open the door it opened for her, and she was met by the kind, easygoing smile of William Dunbar.

"Morning, Yumi," he said eagerly. She forced a smile back, though in perfect honesty his annoying, lovesick and eager to please way around her made her lip curl.

"Morning, William," she said dismissively, scanning the room for her friends. She was surprised to find they weren't there.

"Can't find your friends, huh?" he asked, a hint of smugness in his voice. She turned to him sourly.

"Where are they, William?" she asked shortly, quickly running out of patience with him. He shrugged.

"Beats me. Want to sit down?" He motioned to a table beside them, and with little enthusiasm, she reluctantly took a seat. After declining his offer of a hot chocolate and croissant, she glanced out of the window and her eyes widened.

"Wow, it's snowing."

"Already?" William seemed just as surprised. "It's only mid November. Man, climate change, huh?"

"Yeah…" What had once been a common occurrence to her now felt foreign, awkward, wrong. There was a time when her and William had always done this, sitting at a table in the mornings before the others awoke. She'd forgotten to check the rooms for signs of Jeremy, Odd, Ulrich and Aelita, but now it just seemed rude to leave William all alone.

"I remember when we did this a lot, back when I first came here," William mused, as if reading her thoughts. "Back when you were into me…"

"I was never into you," Yumi said a little too defensively. "You were a nice guy until you got all clingy on me."

He chuckled. "Is that so? I don't recall ever asking you where you went all those times when you ran off and left me on my lonesome."

"Oh, you asked. Plenty of times."

"And yet you never gave me an answer," he sighed. "'O Juliet, where hast thou gone?' 'None of thou's business, O Romeo!'"

Yumi rolled her eyes, though felt a giggle tickling her throat anyway. It had been a while since she' d spoken to William, but at this moment it was a comfort.

"…William, have you ever almost drowned?" she found herself asking. His eyes widened in disbelief.

"Unless you include the time when I was five and jumped into the deep end of the pool without my armbands on… no. Why d'you ask?"

"I was in the bath this morning and, this sounds silly, but… I wondered whether dying would feel like it does when you dream."

His face clouded over.

"You tried to kill yourself, Yumi?"

"No!" She was horrified. "I didn't- NO! I wasn't doing it to try and die… I just felt…" She tried to come up with words, but his blunt statement had left her at a loss. "…I don't even know what I was doing. But I stopped myself. I think."

William's face said it all; he was disturbed.

"Um…"

"Look, I'm going to get going now," she said quickly, standing up. "I'll see you around, William."

"Uh, Yumi-"

She turned to him, speaking again more firmly. "Bye, William."

XXX

She didn't want to tell her friends about that morning. What had seemed a reasonably curious thing to do that morning in the bath now seemed like a seriously frightening thing… practically suicide, even if that little phantom static shock had dragged her out of it.

Their day continued on as normal, the odd joke thrown in here and there, Jeremy murmuring something about having to work on programming, when Odd piped up with something strange.

"Hey guys… something really weird happened to me this morning."

"Really? Did you actually score higher than a D on your English exam?" Ulrich asked, quirking an eyebrow. Odd threw him a dirty look.

"Go on, laugh it up, whatever. That wasn't what I was going to say." He cleared his throat, ignoring Ulrich's stifled laugher, before continuing. "I'd just woken up, and was about to take a shower, when the faucet… I don't know… flickered, or something…"

"Flickered?" Jeremy furrowed his brow. "I don't understand, Odd."

"Me neither," he admitted. "I thought I was seeing things, but… but as I was handing in my final film piece to Mr Chardin, it happened again! The whole room flickered!"

"Do you think this is XANA's doing?" Yumi asked, shivering as she remembered the events of almost drowning. "This has happened before, hasn't it?"

"You mean when we were stuck in XANA's alternative universe?" Ulrich offered, shivering at the memory. Jeremy shook his head.

"Guys, it can't be… XANA hasn't launched an attack since last week, and there's no activated tower. It can't be," he repeated, opening his laptop and pointing at the screen with his index finger as proof. True enough, there was no sign of an activated tower whatsoever.

"Then what's happening?" Odd asked, sounding a little frightened. "This is freaking me out…"

"You and me both, Odd," Yumi agreed, glancing around the group worriedly. As her gaze fell upon Aelita, her entire body stiffened.

The small girl had been unusually quiet throughout the day and Yumi had yet to ask if Aelita was alright; it seemed as though she'd been lost in thought since first meeting up with the group outside, a little distracted, glancing over in the corner of the courtyard.

Where William always stood.

Yumi frowned. Supposing William had told Aelita about Yumi's bath incident and Aelita was scared by it, scared by Yumi herself? But that still wouldn't explain why she'd been quiet around the others too…

Even if that was the case, why would Aelita seem so stoic at this present moment? Nobody had noticed as of yet; as far as they were concerned, she might as well have not even been present.

Silently, she stood up and slipped away, going unnoticed by everybody but Yumi.

Like a wallflower, she left the room and wasn't missed.

After the situation continued unsolved, Jeremy promised to look into it further before the group parted, Yumi heading home to her family and their warm, cosy house.

They ate, talked, laughed, watched television, did their work, the usual behaviour in the Ishiyama residence. And that night, she dreamt of the same snow, same white boots, same heaving young boy, the same ocean of electrical shocks.

It was all so strange, how familiar it felt to when she was in the bath, the water streaming up her nose and into her mouth, a suffering feeling and yet still so mysterious and intriguing, so calming and frightening at the same time.

Terrifyingly enough, it was a sensation she grew to love in those dreams.

The days and nights continued. The flickering movements that soon the others could feel, too, and yet still they could not figure out why it was there. They tried everything; going to Lyoko, launching return trips, staying up late to do full scans and so on… but their results were inconclusive. There was nothing wrong, so it said.

And yet they all knew there was.

Then, two weeks later, Yumi was sat in science class making brief notes when her mobile buzzed beside her. Looking up to check Ms Hertz hadn't seen, she reached for her phone and pressed it to her ear, allowing her hair to fall over the side of her face to hide her cell.

"Hello?" she whispered.

"Yumi! Get to the factory, now! XANA's launched an attack and he's trapped us in lab so we can't virtualise anybody on Lyoko… Yumi, come quickly!"

Jeremy's suddenly urgent voice startled her a little, making her flinch.

"I-I'll be there as soon as I can," she promised in a hushed voice, before hanging up. She glanced out of the room nervously; William was the only absent member of the class, his seat beside her feeling oddly empty.

Hurriedly, she raised her hand.

"Yes, Yumi?" Ms Hertz asked.

"Can I go to the nurse's office please?" she asked, shoving her cell phone into her pocket. Ms Hertz raised an eyebrow.

"…Very well. Don't be too long now."

Gratefully Yumi made her way down the empty corridors, glancing around for any signs of monsters or electrical mishaps.

Nothing.

That said, this was one of the most confusing XANA attacks yet. Normally he'd be jumping at the chance to trap Aelita on Lyoko, where he could release the Scyphozoa… but he wasn't even letting them into the scanner room?

Rushing through the woods, she lifted the manhole lid and climbed down the ladder to the sewers, mind ticking. Even as she crossed the bridge and scrambled into the elevator, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Then, when the doors opened, she saw.

"…William?"

"He's under the influence of XANA!"

Her gaze fell on Ulrich, who was constricted against the lab wall by various thick, snake-like wires protruding from the floor. The others were in similar positions - all except Aelita, who simply stood in the centre of the room beside William.

The worst part of all was the fact that William's hands were on her shoulder. And she wasn't resisting.

"Aelita…?" Yumi murmured. She took a step out of the elevator and heard it fall shut with a sharp clang. "So William wasn't good enough? You had to get them both?"

"Oh, nothing like that," William grinned. She stared. XANA had spoken… as William? "Don't look so surprised, Yumi. This has been coming for a long time."

Her heart began to race faster.

"…What… What are you talking about…?"

William shrugged, a twisted smile creeping onto his face. "Lets just say that you kids are a part of a grand experiment of mine." He let go of Aelita and took a seat on the supercomputer seat, twisting round to his back was to them. He stared at the complex keyboard but, surprisingly, folded his arms and then stared straight ahead of him.

"Remember what you told me two weeks ago, Yumi? About drowning?" Her blood ran cold.

"I didn't tell you that… I told William!"

"There is no William, you imbecile!" XANA roared. "I am William Dunbar! You kids are so slow! When my old pal Franz created Lyoko I took control of him, tipped off the feds, made him run for his life… he escaped to Lyoko and I imprisoned him there. It felt so good.

"As for little Aelita Hopper, the real Aelita Hopper… well, lets just say, she died long ago, in a shooting when they took her mother. He spiralled into madness upon the death of his wife and daughter, and created Aelita2, a digital copy of his daughter using strands of her DNA. In reality, the DNA you found from Lyoko was the real Aelita Hopper's, the dead twelve-year-old Aelita Hopper who is long gone. This Aelita Hopper has no feeling, no memories. She is the puppet to which I am pulling the strings!"

Jeremy choked out a sob and tried to pull away from the wires that were holding him in a vice grip.

"How could you?" he screamed. In all their time as friends, the group had never heard Jeremy shout like that, a heart-wrenching, raw cry that chilled them to the bone. "She was a living human being! How could you… how could you abuse her control like that?"

"Oh, it was easy," William continued. "The easiest part was how simply I convinced you all Aelita was a real girl with emotions that were sincere. Or rather, you all convinced yourselves."

"What?" Odd demanded. "You're sick! We didn't… you…!"

"Tell me… the whole reason you guys met was because you wished to free Aelita from the supercomputer… right?" He turned to face them all, expression amused. "Because you allowed yourselves to be accepted by her for who you were, and you all embraced that feeling. I'll tell you why that is."

"We're listening," Ulrich said through gritted teeth.

"When I trapped good old Franz on Lyoko, I took his information. I took all the information I could find and created a new world, where entities like me couldn't be shunned. I created a human form because Franz told me I could never be a human being, as he was. We need more humans to walk this planet, New Earth, and make it a home for people and superhumans alike to live in their own peace of mind. A weak motive coming from somebody like me, but your world was so dirty, so impure. Full of war and death and hatred. Nobody wants to live in a world like that, not even me."

"Then where do we fit into this?" Ulrich hissed.

"In given time," XANA dismissed. "As the ruler of this new world, I needed to produce the population, and to do that I needed an Adam and Eve, so to speak. Aelita, emotionless as she may be, is the Eve. And you are the candidates to be the Adam. All of these attacks on Lyoko were your training, so I could see who would be the most worthy. I was prepared to give you a few more years to train, but…"

The group stared.

"…So that's your plan?" Odd spat. "That's so wrong! How could you even do something like this? We were ordinary people!"

"No you weren't," XANA scoffed. "This is where it gets interesting: you guys never knew each other before I brought you here."

The room fell silent as the Lyoko Warriors stared at each other, each wearing equally horrified expressions.

"That's… That's not true!" Jeremy tried. "That can't be… It's not true…!"

"Oh, but it is," XANA shot back, standing up. "The truth is, I hoped that it would take many years before you kids figured it out, but it only took two… in fact, I probably wouldn't have realised you'd caught on, until I learned about Yumi's drowning experience." He sighed casually. "Although, I'm assuming the electrical pulses I placed in this part of New Earth prevented you from actually drowning. It's a safety precaution I programmed in to prevent you all from dying while your test was still in place."

Yumi stared at him, heart thumping loudly in her chest. So she hadn't imagined it after all…

"What test?" she croaked out. "The test to become somebody we're not? The test to become the Adam of this world? But why me?" Her voice wavered. "…I'm not even male… How can I…?"

"You all needed saving," he said, staring down at the ground. When he looked up again, his eyes were, much to their surprise, almost holding a concerned look. "You needed saving from your old lives."

He turned his back to us before speaking again. "…You know, you all needed a girl like Aelita in your lives. A friend, a loved one, a role model, a cousin… you all needed her in order to be happy.

"You, Jeremy," he began, "are, in reality, sixteen years old. You were bullied to the point you couldn't take it, and I whisked you away before you reached out for your father's hunting rifle.

"You, Ulrich, are ten years old. You lived in Germany, with a mother who was too weak to protect you from your father. He hurt you, a lot, and one night he got so enraged he chased you. You were so afraid, and running for your life, and so… I saved you.

"You, Odd, are twenty-four and yet still living in the shadow of your five older sisters. Determined to take over the family business, only your mother says you're not good enough, you'll never be good enough. Her words taunted you and you grew tortured, so tortured… you reached for the knife as you cornered her in the kitchen, so I had to take you away…"

Shocked faces met other shocked faces as the group gazed around at one another in disbelief.

"No way…" Odd's face was ashen. "No freaking way…"

"But…" Ulrich shook his head, eyes wide.

Jeremy squeezed his lips together and said nothing, shutting his eyes tightly.

"Yes… it's most unfortunate that you poor boys were put through so much. Your lives were corrupted and believe it or not, I whole-heartedly pity you all. It's such a shame."

"A shame…?" Ulrich said quietly. "A shame?"

"Damn right it's a shame!" Odd spat, glaring at XANA through fresh tears. "It's more than just a shame, it's messed up! So, so messed up… how can you act like it's 'just a shame'?"

The room was silent.

"…And me?" Yumi asked, voice shaking. "Why me…? You had no need for a female in this world. You had Aelita. So why did you save me? What from?"

XANA watched her with a thin smile.

"You, my dear, my wonderful Yumi Ishiyama, are the same age you are now - fourteen. And, well… I was in love with you the moment I laid my eyes on you. You were so pure and honest and loving. And yet so hard done by."

"Wh…What…?"

"Your brother, Hiroki," XANA said softly, "was ill. He had weak health and had trouble breathing a lot of the time. Your parents were going through divorce at the time… and one day, the two of you couldn't take it. It was a cold winter's day, a lot like this one, I suppose. But then again, you know this part all too well."

Her eyes widened and her legs gave away beneath her, the ground greeting her knees with a loud thud.

"I broke him out of the hospital," she said as the cold realisation dawned on her. "I tried to help him and set him free. But it was so cold that day and he began having problems. He couldn't breathe, and I tried to help him, I did, but…"

Now I knew why I wore black. The colour always had compelled me, and now I knew why; I was in mourning, over my little brother who didn't make it. I wore white that day, and nothing made me hate myself more than wearing white and sensing the pain of remembering what happened when I did.

"Yes. And you cried for him so hard that day, because you knew it was your fault, but you felt such remorse. I fell in love with you that day, and I watched in dismay as you ran from the scene. You tripped, and fell into the canal beside the hospital. When you hit the ice it burnt your face all over. You lost your sight in an instant, and you couldn't make it to the surface again. You drowned, Yumi, and I had to take you to this world before it was too late. I wanted to make the pain go away so I tried to help you, tried to be your friend, tried to make you love me the way I loved you. You let me in for a while, but then you pushed me away and I didn't understand."

"You were smothering me," she cried, finally finding her voice. She let out a loose sob and covered her mouth as she tried to regain her composure. "I pushed you away because you got on my nerves. You wanted to be a part of everything and wanted me all to yourself. And I hated that!"

"You were messing with my candidates," he shrugged, "and besides, I wanted you for myself." He caught her eye. "I think I deserve that after saving your life."

"My brother needed saving more than I did!" she yelled, clenching her fists. "You should've saved him instead… made him another candidate…"

"But that's not the way I wanted it to go."

XANA released them from the wires and Jeremy, Ulrich and Odd fell to the ground, winded and exhausted.

Yumi found herself unable to bear the weight of the world, much like before, and fell to her hands and knees, finally beginning to cry, shaking sobs that were painful to hear.

When she finally wiped her eyes and looked up, XANA was looming above her. His eyes were glinting a glorious, glossy black.

"You'd better start counting your blessings for this life I gave you, even if it was short-lived. Would you rather accept what I have given you in this paradise, or face your demise with courage and grace? It's a choice, for all of you. A choice between life or death."

She held his gaze for a moment, every muscle in her body aching. His face contorted into that of rage.

"It's life or death, children… NOW CHOOSE!"

Yumi turned around and saw the factory was no longer there; it had ebbed away into space, replaced by the same snowy scene from so long ago. The scuffed white boots, stockings and soft creamy winter coat. The frozen-over water was such a pretty colour in the moonlight.

"So this is my choice?" she asked quietly. XANA reached out and patted her head.

"You can run away from your reality with me. My plan's a failure, after all." He offered her a sad, lopsided smile. "You and I can live in our paradise forever, or you can face what you left behind." Then, he lifted his hand and held it out to her instead. "It's always going to be your choice."

She nodded. "…I know."

And with one last sigh, she closed her eyes.