"NO! NO! NO! LET ME GO! LEAVE ME ALONE!" a little girl's agonized screams echoed the dorm hall and every single other girl on that floor woke with a fright, terrified, hiding under bedsheets in case whatever was hurting the screaming girl came for them next. Only one child had the courage to leave her bed and run to the aid of the girl in trouble. Her name was Anna, and the girl she was running to rescue was her best and only friend, Lucie. Everyone knew Lucie suffered from severe PTSD and hallucinations, but when she woke in the middle of the night, screaming about blood, torture, monsters and hidden chambers under basements, everyone got scared. Even the older girls who liked to brag about their bravery quailed in the face of Lucie's night terrors. But not Anna. Never Anna. She hopped right out of bed and sprinted over to Lucie.

"Hey! Hey! Shhh, shhh! Lucie, Lucie! It's ok, it's alright!" Anna pleaded, holding out her arms comfortingly as her friend continued to thrash. It broke Anna's heart to see Lucie like this, but in times like this, all anyone could do was wait for the storm to pass. It never worked, trying to wake Lucie up. If anything, it made things worse! So Anna was forced to sit quietly and patiently by Lucie's side, like always, and hold her until the dreamworld gave her back to the land of the living.

Just as always, Anna's patient nature won out and, at long last, Lucie woke up from her nightmare. Her eyes were wild and angry for a moment and she continued to thrash around, this time trying to hurt instead of flee, but then she saw Anna. Lucie saw her face and, all at once, all of that anger, hatred and fear seemed to leave her body like an invisible hand had pulled it all away from her. Anna seemed to have this strange, powerful, natural effect on Lucie, and it was almost like magic. Everyone, Lucie included, was amazed at the profound impact Anna's mere presence could make upon Lucie, but it never failed. Not once. All Lucie needed was to see Anna, to see her face, and everything was alright.

"Hey, hey, shh, shh, there, there, everything's ok, everything's alright," Anna breathed into Lucie's long brown locks, kissing her hair and caressing her back as she held the terrified girl in her arms. Lucie was still petrified by the dream, but she forced herself to focus on Anna and her arms and face and love. She forced the fear back down and focused on Anna's steady caresses until her breathing and heartbeat had returned to normal and the last of her screams had turned into sniffles. Anna, meanwhile, continued to play this role of a protector, just drinking in the sight, sound and smell of Lucie, memorizing every last detail.

Most importantly, though, Anna remembered her face. She saw Lucie's face the clearest of all in her memories, sometimes bright, sometimes sad, sometimes scared, usually sullen. But then, in the moments like now, Anna loved to remember Lucie's face as the fear and hatred, the suffering, turned into peace and love. Anna loved to see the way all of the stress and torture of Lucie's past would seem to melt right out of her face when they two were together like this. Anna loved to see Lucie's face when smiles replaced frowns. A smile graced her own face as Lucie finally fell asleep again, this time curled up safely in Anna's arms.

"I promise, I won't let anyone hurt you, I promise," the girl whispered, then she kissed Lucie one last time before curling up against the girl. Sharing beds technically wasn't allowed, but no one was going to begrudge either child this one simple act of love.

And in the years to pass, the bond between Lucie and Anna only grew. Every second, the two were together. Whether it was during class or during mass, whether it was inside a bed our outside on the playset, the two were never apart. Eyes, hands, minds and hearts were forever locked and sometimes there would be long moments of silence between the two girls where they would just sit and stare at one another, too overcome by the perceived beauty of the other to do more than just bask. Anna loved to stare at Lucie's face, all of the seriousness and power was so refined. And Lucie loved to stare at Anna's, so full of the warmth and love no one else had ever given her before.

Then when the girls grew into their teenage years, their lips locked as well. Stolen kisses behind the church and under the bedsheets were the new norm. While other girls studied the Bible, Lucie and Anna studied the body. While the other girls made daisy chains with their friends. Lucie and Anna made love to their partner. While other girls fantasized about boys and talked with the girls about them, Lucie and Anna fantasized about and spoke only to one another. While other girls went outside to play, Lucie and Anna stayed in bed to do the same. They were inseparable.

Until they weren't. When Lucie's demons caught up with her, even angelic Anna could not free her from their Hellish grip. Instead, they ensnared Lucie's very mind and soul. The body was easy to protect, but the mind and soul were not. Anna could only watch as all of Lucie's progress began to regress and she became sullen, depressed, bitter, introverted and withdrawn again. Anna tried every day to rekindle their bond, but Lucie refused. She suddenly shut herself off and away from Anna, despite Anna's begging her not to. Suddenly, there were no more kisses or hand-holding, there were no more shared nights or meals, there were no endless walks and talks. There was only silence and distance. The one thing Anna had of Lucie now was a memory, just one, and of her face. Anna remembered Lucie's face when it smiled at her, when it closed its eyes and lean in to kiss her. When it shone with gratitude, love and trust, the truest and deepest traits of any solid relationship. But now it was only that, a memory, because Lucie was withdrawing further and further every day.

Then, when she finally came back out, she was a changed girl, blood and gun on her hands.

"What did you do?!" Anna gasped, nearly collapsing from shock to see the dead man and woman on the floor and Lucie's bloody figure standing over them. Lucie's eyes were dark and wild. Her face was no longer the one Anna knew and loved. It belonged to that of a real monster.

"They were guilty. They were the ones, Anna, the ones who hurt me, who tortured me!" Lucie replied, softly at first, but then louder and louder when she realized that Anna was losing faith in her. She brandished the gun in one last agonized attempt to justify her murders.

"They were guilty, Anna! They all knew!" she cried.

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you anymore," Anna sobbed once, then she turned and fled. This was not her Lucie, that was not the face she would spend hours staring into. This was one far more vacant and horrible. But then she heard Lucie call out to her one last time.

"Anna? I thought when I showed you their faces that you would love me again..." and it was so broken and soft, just like when they were kids, that it took all of Anna's willpower not to turn around right then and there and hug and kiss Lucie and never let go again.

Lucie, meanwhile, felt much the same. Although she understood how wild and vile she must've appeared, to see that Anna was starting to disbelieve her was the one thing Lucie could not bear to think about. After all of the Hell Lucie had been forced to put up with for nearly her entire life, the one thing she could not stand, could not even think about, was Anna losing faith in her. But she already knew that from the moment she went to try and find the family that had tortured her brutally enough to cause all of that PTSD and hallucination, that it would involve severing a few ties from their bond. Those had been agony to cut, but to see just how fast Anna's trust in her was deteriorating in her now was the straw that broke the camel's back and Lucie's heart shattered the moment she looked into Anna's face and saw nothing but fear and distrust.

No! That was for the other people! That was for the rest of the world! Those that didn't understand... That fear and distrust of Lucie? That wasn't Anna! That was everyone else! That wasn't the girl Lucie wanted so badly to please and be good for! That wasn't the girl Lucie loved. That was someone else, someone faceless and heartless. Her face, Anna's face, was no longer her own when Lucie looked at her. And Lucie hated herself even more for driving Anna away. The whole reason she'd even tried to find this horrible family again was to prevent them from ever harming another and she hoped that, by killing them, she would kill her demons as well. She would stop the hallucinations and cure the PTSD if she achieved vengeance. Then she could be the girlfriend someone like Anna deserved. Right? But no... Her face no longer smiled when she saw Lucie, and Lucie wasn't dumb enough to miss all of the other subtle changes in Anna's behavior around her.

At last, however, Anna did manage to compromise with herself, reasoning that no matter what Lucie did, Anna would always love her first and most. Because of that, she agreed with herself that she would help Lucie escape whatever punishment would surely follow the discovery of this slaughter. Anna did still love Lucie, no matter what Lucie thought. Lucie's barbaric behaviors had just frightened her, that was all. But Anna could still see Lucie, her face, clearly. She could see the shy smile, the uncertain frown, the way her eyebrows knit together when she thought, the way her eyes would fall when she was about to ask a favor. Anna could still see humanity in her face and that was how she knew.

But although Lucie's face might've still born traces of humanity, other faces did not. It turns out, Lucie's torture was not an isolated incident. There were others, just like Lucie, and families, just like this one, all across the country that did the same exact thing. It was an elite organization, and Lucie and Anna were both sucked back into their clutches after that violent slaughter. From then on, the two were kept in adjoining cells in the dead family's basement, an ironic punishment to be sure. But the most agonizing part, for either girl, was the adjoining cell part. They were close enough to hear one another screaming in agony every time a fresh wave of torture was brought down against them, but because of the thick walls between them, there was no way for them to see or feel one another. They could not comfort one another except through sound, and Anna tried, but Lucie was unable to cope.

"Are you there?" Anna had asked once. "Please... be there... I need you... to be there..." then Anna broke down crying. She could still hear the echoes of Lucie screaming. She was silent now, and Anna feared that she was dead, but she had no way of knowing because Lucie wasn't responding now and Anna could not see her. She could not see Lucie. She could not see her face. But it was a face that hung forever in Anna's mind, in all of its expressions. She could see the anger, fear, blame and torment and nothing would blot out the visions. Anna continued to cry, pleading with the girl who might not even be there to stay with her for just a bit longer, no matter how selfish that was.

"I need you," Anna repeated. "Please. I need to see you. I need to feel you. I need to be with you. I need to see your face again, please!" Anna would get her wish one day, though it would not be nearly in the way that she hoped.

After what must've been at least a month of a torture-then-isolation cycle, Anna was finally taken up to meet the woman in charge of this evil circus ring. Her name was Eleanor and she was studying martyrs. It was her twisted belief that when someone was on the brink of death after suffering "all of the weight of the sins of the Earth", that those blessed few would be allowed to see what was coming before they passed over. Eleanor didn't just want to prove this theory, however, she wanted to know what they saw. She wanted to know what these mysterious martyrs saw before expiring, and so she was intentionally recreating every violent, brutal torture method known to man in order to create a new martyr.

"You won't get away with this!" Anna spat, too furious and outraged to even breathe. To hear what this woman was doing and to hear how unrepentant she was made Anna wrathful beyond belief. There wasn't even a word to describe the amount of rage and hatred she felt for this lady. Even after she had been dragged off for execution, the anger still boiled Anna's blood...

And then it gave her the strength to survive Eleanor's murder attempt and then actively return to that awful place to save Lucie. As broken as Anna was now, as injured and messed up, Lucie was forever on her mind. That was the one thing that had never changed about her in all of their time spent in this literal Hell of tortures. Even now, Anna could still see her face, imprinted clearly on her eyelids. She could see Lucie and, foolish as it was, she could see a future with her. Anna could still she Lucie and her face, waiting for her to come back.

"I will," Anna promised through clenched teeth. "I will come back for you..." and then, with Lucie's old gun that had been lost during the initial tussle that got her and Anna caught in the first place, Anna descended back down into the torture chambers.

Lucie, meanwhile, had been lying comatose. After doctors expertly managed to keep her alive and feeling for every single little last torture, including the flaying of her skin, Lucie had nothing left. She was sure that even if some divine miracle did save her body, her soul and mind would be too far damaged for anything other than death to be a reasonable option. Her whole body burned in agony, but she had screamed so loudly that her vocal chords were bleeding. She coughed up blood and no longer had the strength to scream, lungs weak from all of the other tortures inflicted upon her. A few of her ribs, broken slowly by hand, poked into her lungs, cutting them open so that every new breath of air was a bit less full than the last. It was a strangulation death. But even though Lucie's torture had been so complete, so thorough and deep, there was one pinnacle of light that kept her going through all of it. It was the one and only reason she'd made it this far. Anna.

In all of their time together, locked away in those torture chambers, Lucie had never once stopped thinking about Anna. Sure, maybe she hadn't ever really responded to Anna's calls, but the one reason Lucie never gave up the will to live was because she did not want to leave Anna alone in a place like this. For all of her psychological problems, Anna's love had saved enough of Lucie's mind for Lucie to find it within herself to perform the highest act of sacrifice and willingly stay in a place like this just so Anna would not have to face the same tortures she did. And every single time the torturers returned, their new weapons and devices in hand and spinning and buzzing with life, Lucie would focus on that image in her head of Anna's face. Every time the torture began, Lucie called Anna into mind and simply stared at her face and into her eyes, for hours on end, in a world all their own. It was just like when they were kids...

Sweet, lovely Anna, was skin smooth and face narrow and pointed. Her brown-green eyes that sparkled just so in the light. Her long, coppery hair that gleamed red, brown and gold. Everything! Whatever Lucie had of Anna, she thought of in those moments of agony. It was the one coping mechanism, the one buffer, she had against the pain. It was a very weak one, but it was more effective than anyone, even Lucie, could've ever imagined. It kept her alive, didn't it? Granted, the torturers were specifically instructed to keep her alive, but Lucie was certain that her love for Anna, and Anna's love for her, had some hand in what kept Lucie alive for so long. Lucie's desire to protect Anna and her strategy of holding Anna's face in her mind during all of those tortures were the one thing that kept Lucie sane.

Then the flaying happened, and they rolled Lucie out of her cell and past Anna's. The door was open and the cell was empty. In that moment, Lucie knew she was going to die. In that one little glimpse, as she was rolled along that long, dark hallway, Lucie knew she was going to die. From the very second she realized that Anna was gone, she lost her will to live and she physically felt her heartbeat slow down. It was like Anna really did have some magical effect on Lucie and now that she was gone, Lucie had nothing left to hope for and if she had nothing left to hope for, she had no reason to live. If Anna was gone, Lucie had nothing, and already, that image of her face was fading from Lucie's mind. Lucie let out one breath that would've been a sob, had she had the strength to do such a thing, and one name escaped her lips.

"Anna..." but Anna was gone. And Lucie knew she would follow, for she could not, would not, stay alive without Anna.

But Anna was not dead. Although that had been the goal, Anna's strength and determination carried her through once again. She found the courage to do what no one else ever would and, just like when they were kids, Anna ran to Lucie's rescue. She charged through the halls and battled off every enemy until she found the place Lucie had been taken to. Just like the day Anna arrived at the house to see Lucie's carnage, Anna nearly collapsed under the horror of what she was seeing. Lucie had been flayed and nailed to a cross. The only thing missing was the crown of thorns.

"TAKE HER DOWN!" Anna bellowed, voice cracking from all the force and emotion behind that command. She fired her gun a few times when people tried to protest. "Take her down..." Anna repeated, much softer now, but no less deadly. She approached the man daring to pray to God as he venerated Lucie's mutilated body. "Take her down..."

In the background, Anna could hear Eleanor protesting and it took all of Anna's self-control to keep from going crazy and shooting the woman down right then and there. Anna wanted dearly to hurt that woman and anyone else involved in this evil, monstrous plan, but she knew she couldn't. Not yet. Not when Lucie needed her more. Now at last, Anna understood how encompassing the thirst for vengeance could be, but not yet. Not when Lucie's life still hung in the balance, and just like Anna had promised, Lucie would always come first. So Anna, painfully, swallowed down her pride and her anger and pointed her gun at the priest.

"Take her down..." and the priest, gun at his forehead, finally conceded.

The cross was lowered and, at Anna's continued demands, the hammer used to shove the massive spikes through Lucie's skinless hands and feet was brought back. A man removed the nails before stepping back respectfully while Anna knelt down over Lucie's mutilated mass of muscle. Anna's heart broke again, one last time, in agony and horror and her mouth open and shut weakly as her mind tried to find words to express the things she felt as she looked down at Lucie's face, staring unseeingly upwards. The face was the only bit on Lucie that still had skin, and it was almost more horrific than if they had peeled that off as well. To see that perfect peachy color pressed against the angry red of muscle made Anna want to vomit, and the fact that Lucie wasn't even responding to her at this point made Anna want to vomit even more.

"Lucie?" she whimpered once, daring to brush the very tips of her fingers against Lucie's cheek. She wanted to kneel down further and kiss Lucie, but she didn't dare compromise her position. Instead, she continued to hunch protectively over Lucie's tortured, broken body, silently daring anyone to even look at her the wrong way at this point. Lucie responded to that one simple touch and her eyes flickered over to Anna's.

"Lucie..." Anna exhaled the name, something that was almost a smile of relief crossing her face as their eyes locked. Then, in that one single moment, Lucie's entire body tensed up and her eyes slowly rolled back into her head. Her mouth opened a little.

"She sees it! She must! She's there, isn't she?!" Eleanor demanded, interrupting the moment. Once again, a violent wave of wrath and fury washed over Anna, but she quickly calmed her inner monster by reminding her that Lucie needed them more. Once again, she ignored the stirrings and the lady who caused them to turn back to face something far more precious. Lucie. Anna leaned down until her lips were at Lucie's ear and Lucie began to whisper.

She whispered horrible, cryptic, apocalyptic things about the life to come, about the world after the darkness settled in. They were things of horror and terror, unspeakable images of suffering and distortion. It was not exactly Hell in the sense that it was designed as a place for punishment, but it was still Hell in the sense that it was more endless agony, just in a more generalized sense. Anna felt her heart darken and freeze over with the implications of what was going to happen to Lucie and then her, because Anna knew she would not live without Lucie. She would be forced to take the darkness over a life without the one and only thing she'd ever truly loved. Anna brought her body back up from Lucie's ear, a defeated, resigned hunch in her shoulders now.

"What is it? What did she say? What did she see? She was there, wasn't she?!" Eleanor demanded.

"I heard her," the priest replied, then he grabbed the gun that had since slipped from Anna's fingers, now that she knew it was all over. Anna, however, was briefly brought back to life when she saw the priest take her gun. She instinctively knelt over Lucie, shielding Lucie's body with her own and even snarling up at the priest as though daring him to shoot either of them in retaliation. But he didn't. He pointed the butt at Anna and the nozzle at his mouth. Then he fired the gun. Anna felt her breath rip itself from her chest as the priest hit the ground, blood and brains spattering against the wall directly behind him.

"Father!" Eleanor shrieked, then she turned to Anna with wild eyes and continued to demand what Lucie had seen and said. It was in that moment that Anna realized her time of vengeance was here. This would be more of a torture than anything else to poor old Eleanor.

"You tell me," she said, then she shot Eleanor in the same place the priest had shot himself. Everyone else in the room began to flee in terror now that their leader had just been shot dead in front of them. They all ran for the door while Anna remained at Lucie's side.

"Lucie, Lucie, oh, Lucie!" Anna whispered softly in grief. Now was the moment she finally knelt down to kiss Lucie, their lips locking one last time. The kiss was not long but it conveyed so much that it felt like a lifetime, a wonderful lifetime, the one that they would never get to have. Maybe it was life's way of giving them something back. If Anna would never get to hold Lucie again and kiss her good morning every day, the least life could do was give her that one last kiss that seemed long enough to cover all the ones she'd never get to. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry that it's over, that I couldn't save you, that I failed you. I couldn't protect you after all. I'm so, so sorry..." Anna began to breathe out her apologies as the last of Lucie's life left her body. She continued to grieve over all they had lost and all they would never have, and through her tears, she couldn't even see that Lucie was trying to speak. At least not until Lucie managed to move a flayed hand over to Anna's, muscle touching skin.

The warmth shocked Anna back to life for a second time and she blinked away her tears to look into Lucie's eyes, into her face. She saw Lucie's lips move and obediently lowered her ear back down.

"I...lied..." she whispered.

"What?" Anna replied with a soft gasp.

"I...lied...about...what...I... said..." Lucie broke off in a wheeze.

"Shhh, shhh, it's ok, it's ok," Anna sat back up and touched Lucie's face again, careful not to brush the muscle. Although her mind was reeling at the implication of this confession and although she was, once more, dying to know what Lucie really saw, she was once again setting aside her own wants for Lucie's needs. Lucie was more important that a secret and Anna wasn't going to ask about that at a time like this. But Lucie seemed to want to share because she gestured for Anna to come back down one last time and Anna, of course, obeyed.

"I didn't see anything," Lucie whispered, voice weak and labored, each word staggered and soft. "'Least not what I said I did. But I did see something. I saw one something. The very and only thing that kept me going for so long. You Anna. I saw you. Up there on the cross, in my time of dying. I saw you. I saw your face. I saw you standing there, loving me, waiting for me. And then you did. You came for me. I heard you. You actually came for me..." Lucie trailed off like on in a rapture and tears burned Anna's eyes again as she finally lay down, curling up beside Lucie. Lucie continued to whisper like she wasn't all there, talking about how it was Anna that Lucie had seen there on the brink of death and Anna listened with tears in her eyes, finally understanding.

Eleanor had not been wrong about martyrs being very special and very hard to make. A true martyr was not just someone who survived or endured intense physical and mental pain. It was not just someone who "bore the sins of the Earth", it was someone who did so willingly. It was someone who had a cause. A true martyr did not just suffer, they suffered for a reason. And Lucie had done that. She had met that criteria, and Anna knew now who it was that Lucie had martyred herself for. And that was why it had been Anna that Lucie saw on death's door. Because Anna had been Lucie's cause, Anna was the reward and the afterlife that Lucie saw. It was the one reason she was able to remain lucid long enough just to make up the plan to deceive Eleanor and the others. Maybe a Hellhole did wait for them, but Lucie hadn't really seen it. She only claimed to as one last act of lucidity and defiance. Anna had been Lucie's cause from the very beginning and even unto the very end. It was what made her a true martyr, what allowed her a vision into death.

And Anna was beginning to see that she almost counted as one as well. Sure, she didn't endure even a fraction of the bodily suffering Lucie did, but she had spent her whole life sacrificing herself for Lucie. All of that goodness had accumulated until even today, when Anna was still willing to come back to this place if only it meant securing Lucie's safety. In the same way Anna's face had never left Lucie's, Lucie's face had never left Anna. They were both martyrs not because of torture, but because of sacrifice. True sacrifice was freely given, not taken. It was something Eleanor and her ruthless band never understood. It was why they'd never made a real martyr until now, and why they, themselves, probably never would have made the cut either. But Anna and Lucie? Well...

"You, Anna, I saw you!" Lucie continued. "I saw your face! In all my days and all my dreams down here, I saw you! And up on the cross you were smiling down at me! Then, when you came in, you were an avenging angel. I could see the wings and fire around you! Couldn't you? Oh, Anna, don't you see? You are my afterlife! I am sure of it! Oh, Anna, Anna...Anna..."

Lucie died then, Anna's name still on her lips. Anna was still curled up at her side, suddenly aware of her own fatal injury. She had been wounded during her assault upon the torture chambers, but pure adrenaline alone had kept her from realizing it until right now. She was suddenly aware of how weak she felt, and how much blood she had lost. She slowly surrendered her life, then, as she lay against Lucie's side. In her own mind's eye, she flashed back to a simpler, quieter, easier time, back when she and Lucie were still only just two best friends, two little schoolgirls riding the playset's merry-go-round.

"If you could travel the world, where would you wanna go?" Anna had asked as she and Lucie spun around and around.

"Wherever you go," Lucie had promised. Now, as Anna lay dying, with Lucie's slowly cooling body pressed up against her own, Anna could see Lucie's face. Her eyes were rolled back into her head again, in a martyr's death, but they were still open. Just for a moment, though, Lucie's real face became transposed upon the corpse's.

"If you could travel the world, where would you wanna go?" her face asked, brown eyes wide with affection.

"Wherever you go," Anna promised, hearing her voice from today and from all those years ago speaking in unison, and then she, just like her cause, slipped quietly into the endless abyss.

AN: Again, while I think the 2015 film is awful when compared to the original, I think that, as a standalone, it was really good. Sure, it was a bit unrealistic, idealistic, cliché and sappy, but I really did love the love between the two girls and this fic was just inspired off of a shipping headcanon of mine that the only reason either of the two could conceivably be martyrs is because of their great love for the other, something all other victims lacked (though I am aware that, in the movie's definition, "martyr" only means "witness" and not "person with a cause"). Also, yes, I rewrote a few things such as the flaying scene and crucifixion.

Also, if it's not clear, I'm implying that Lucie's real death-vision was Anna (more specifically, that dying dream that Anna, herself, has at the very end of the film), predicting that they will stay together even after death. Sappy? Yes? My choice of ending? Also yes. Or you could take it that the "martyr" theory is just BS and what Lucie was seeing was nothing more than the normal dying dream and we still don't know what lies beyond the grave because nobody has ever really seen it. It's like all those people who "died" and then went to Heaven or Hell. We can't be sure.