“Just before dawn,” Lauren had lowered her voice so that it barely audible through the thick stone wall. “About an hour after the horrible screaming has stopped, the escapees leave the palace through a secret, underground tunnel. Then they go and join the rebels.”

     “Only now there are no rebels to join.” Corazon put in.

     “Then they’ll start a new group.” Lauren said with certainty.

     “You’ve got an awful lot of faith in these rebels.” Corazon suggested.

     “Yeah, everyone does.” Lauren replied in a shrugging-of-shoulders kind of way. “We don’t have anything else to put our hope in.”

     “Oh.” Corazon felt sorry for the Drenk people with this last remark.

     In the break of conversation Corazon couldn’t help but be reminded of the torture going on somewhere nearby. She shuddered as a yell that might have resembled Twilight’s voice pierced the air. After a few moments more of listening to the yells and moans of the chamber, Corazon pounded her fist.

     “Why?” She cried out. “Why was I cursed with this sense?”

     “What sense?” Lauren inquired.

     “It’s weird.” Corazon said, trying hard not to cry. “When I hear someone else scream, I can’t help but feel like it’s my scream and that their pain is my pain, and the screams, themselves, gnaw at, at, some inner me and it hurts. Every time. Each time it gets worse than the last.”

     “How does it hurt?” The girl cautiously asked.

     “It hurts like,” Corazon paused while trying to think of some way to describe it. “Like something-a monster, has taken a bite out of that inner me-thing, and it’s eating it, and with every bite, I just, just, hurt. It’s not like a sting, it’s more, more like an emotion.”

     “You mean like anger, or fear?” Lauren supposed.

     “No,” Corazon replied thoughtfully. “It’s not really like any of the other emotions. It’s more like a feeling of pain, rather than the pain, itself. It’s like knowing the pain is there, but not physically. I don’t know how else to put it. That’s the one thing I could never describe clearly, no matter how many times I try, or different ways I try, it never comes out quite right.”

     “So it feels like pain, but it’s not pain.” Lauren said.

     “It’s like being blind,” Corazon said in a sudden revelation. “And feeling rather than seeing. Do you understand? It’s like, instead of seeing and understanding the pain, it’s like,” Corazon paused to search for the right words. “Feeling and knowing the pain. Do you get that?”

     “Yeah, I get it.” Lauren assured her. “So you feel like that all the time?”

     “Not all the time.” Corazon said. “I feel like that when I get bored and have nothing better to do than just think.” She sighed shakily as she remembered the first time that she had felt the horrible ‘pains’. “I was just ten, I think, the first time. I had just watched a movie where these aliens,” There was a self-assuring laugh on the word ‘aliens’. “Get these neighbors, people who are great friends, to kill each other. As I watched this, I-I couldn’t believe that these friends would get carried away so much that they would shoot each other.” Corazon paused and shook her head. “I mean, you know, it’s not the kind of thing that you’d expect to see everyday. In a movie, or otherwise. And at the end, these aliens started talking about all the hundreds of other neighborhoods where they could do this same thing in. And,” She stopped to swallow back a gulp of tears. “And, when I thought that it was actually possible for people to react so, so irrationally, I just burst. It hurt that way, and I just started crying. I cried and cried. It hurt me to think that best friends would kill each other. I can’t explain why.” Her voice was getting softer as she went into unsure thought. “I just know that when someone else gets hurt, I get hurt. That’s the best way that I can put it.”

     “I’m sorry.” Lauren said after a few minutes of silence in conversation (the screams still littered the background).

     “For what?”

     “That you hurt when someone else hurts.”

     “There’s nothing you could do to stop it.” Corazon explained.

     “I could not get hurt.”

     Corazon laughed.

     “What?” Lauren asked accusingly.

     “It’s just that no one has ever said that to me, before.” Corazon said. “You know who you remind me of?”

     “My little sister.”

     “Yeah.” Corazon leaned against the cold stone wall, grateful for the chance to get lost in thought and forget the torturous screams for a moment. “She’s about your age, and she talks a lot, and, well, you just remind of her. You’ve just got something about you that she’s got, too.”

     “Thanks.” Lauren said. “That makes me feel good.”

     “I thought it would.” Corazon replied. “So, what do you want to talk about, now?”

     “I don’t know.” Lauren paused for a moment to go into her own thought process. “Did you come with anyone?”

     “Yeah.” Corazon replied. “My friends. Tia, Dienna, Giselle, Felicia, Twilight and all of Twilight’s friends.”

     “Wow what?”

     “You’re friends with THE Twilight Wisher! That’s so cool!”

     “It is?”

     “It’s incredible! Twilight Wisher is the most famous man on this planet!” Lauren exclaimed.

     “No kidding.” A voice came from the other side of Corazon’s cell.

     “Dienna?” Corazon was surprised. “How long have you been listening?”

     “Only for the whole thing.” Dienna sarcastically replied. Then she added quickly, before Corazon could start yelling, “Corazon, I want to apologize.”

     “Apologize?” Corazon was surprised yet again. “For what?”

     “For being so mean to you.”

     “You’re mean to everyone, Dienna.” Corazon replied matter-of-factly.

     “Yeah, but I’m sorry for being mean to you.” Dienna replied.