Abigail jolted awake, her heart pounding, her lungs heaving, and Senteron's screeching cries deafening her ears.
Fear was on her like a rabid dog, setting her veins on fire with adrenaline as she struggled to breathe past the terror in her throat.
Nothing, nothing, she had been nothing.
Her breath shuddered in on a sob, and she wrapped her arms around her head, trying to block out the sound of the silence that had weighed upon her for what felt like centuries.
Her heart raced in her chest and rushed audibly in her ears, and she wanted to cry with relief.
Senteron pressed himself into her side, trembling with horror, his cries abruptly silenced by a sob.
She lowered her arms away from her ears, and wrapped them around him without a moment of hesitation, his warm fur grounding her fully in the present so abruptly that she resisted the urge to fall back onto the pillows, feeling like a speeding car that had suddenly slammed on the brakes.
At that moment, the door to their room was hesitantly cracked open, and one of the nurses poked their heads inside.
"Everything all right?" He asked, looking concerned and stepping fully into the room before Abigail could protest, his fingers moving along with the words to help her get used to sign language.
She nodded jerkily, trying to ignore the way her hands were still trembling when she lifted them away from Senteron to create the sign for "nightmare" by bringing one hand to her mouth, then moving it down and forward, and touching a finger to the side of her head and drawing it away as though trying to loosen the horrible thoughts that were being pulled out by an invisible thread wrapped around her finger.
Reality was starting to slip away from her again, and each movement seemed misplaced, like it wasn't really her controlling her body.
The nurse-the one that had been hired specifically to help her, but whose name Abigail refused to learn-nodded in sympathy, and signed, this time without speaking, "Want to talk about it?"
Abigail shook her head, feeling the motion as though from a thousand miles away, and hugged Senteron once more with numb arms, looking away towards the window to end the conversation before she flew apart completely.
She didn't want to use sign language, she wanted to scream. For the silence that haunted her dreams, for the sight of her throat every time she looked in the mirror, for the fear that had settled deep in her chest behind her lungs that had been there since she could remember.
But she couldn't, because that same fear had robbed her of her voice, and she felt defenseless without it, and now it was trying to steal her body, too.
She bit her lip when it seemed that the ground beneath her was tilting to the side, and resisted the urge to grab onto the railing to stop herself from falling.
For a moment longer, the nurse stood inside her room, and Abigail felt her heart starting to pound again, the sound muffled in her ears. What if they didn't leave? What if they forced her to explain her dream?
A sudden spike of fear stabbed at her chest, and she tensed, suddenly and breathtakingly terrified of trying to force her rebelling hands to shape the words that haunted her dreams.
But then the nurse said softly, "Let me know if you change your mind," and left without another word, shutting the door behind them.
Abigail turned her head back towards the door as soon as it was closed, her eyes fearfully scanning the surfaces near it to make sure that the nurse's ant daemon hadn't stayed behind to spy.
Struggling to bring her breathing back to a steady pace once she had confirmed they were alone, Abigail closed her eyes, and pressed her forehead to Senteron's, fighting to bring her body back under her command.
It felt light, as though she would float away at any moment, and she shuddered, remembering the voice that had whispered to her in the night, even as her senses slowly began to pull back into their normal positions.
Hannibal had been in her room. She didn't know how, and she didn't know why, but she knew that he had been the one to inject her with...with something that forced her to sleep.
Suddenly dizzy as another wave of fear-because it would never end, she would never be safe-washed over her, she shuddered again, as, with a jolting sensation, her body regained its normal heavyness, she reached one blind hand out to grip the railing of her bed, desperate to prove that whatever was wrong with her wasn't permenant.
But something inside her shifted before her fingers could find the cool railing, different from the falling sensations of before, and the next thing she knew-
There was a flash of light-warm light, like a blanket being draped over her shoulders-and then...
Abigail stared.
The hands she had reached out toward at he railing was now being weighed down by...something.
A short length of dark wood hummed beneath her fingers, fitting to her hand so perfectly that for a single, frightening moment she felt a sense of dysphasia, unsure where she stopped, and it began.
As though triggered by her fear, the thing began to change.
The ends of the wood grew outward, and she could feel every new molecule of it forming as though it were actually a part of her. The ends of the now-slightly-longer pole stopped growing abruptly, and split into two before arcing around her hand and connecting to the other side in a single a single smooth transition, forming what she suddenly realized was a protective hilt that followed the same direction as the handle she held.
And then she felt something new beginning to form from the end of the handle that was pointed away from her, and with a sudden jolt of horrified recognition, Abigail dropped the thing as though she'd been burned, and frantically drew her knees to her chest as it began to fall toward the bed, petrified at the thought of it touching her again.
She watched, frozen and hardly daring to breathe, as the thing - the hilt, and the weapon it was growing-disappeared in a small flash of light before it could strike the mattress.
The moment it was gone, her heart began to pound, and before she even had time to think about what she was doing, she was scrambling to untangle her legs from the blanket as Senteron grabbed hold of her arm, and threw herself bodily to the floor so that her hands and knees struck it before she was on her feet and rushing towards the door that had so recently been shut.
She didn't care about anything but getting away.
Senteron hung from her neck with his hands, his feet gripping the fabric of her shirt to hold himself in place, his forehead pressed against the cut on her neck she was afraid would never heal.
She hadn't thought to grab a scarf before fleeing her room.
And now she had her bare feet pressed firmly into the cold tile floor, the plastic of the chair she sat in feeling more like a cage than a comfort.
She felt naked in just her white pajamas, and kept her gaze fixed on her feet as the other patients took their turns talking about what had happened to them.
She couldn't focus on what any of them were saying no matter how hard she tried, terrified that if she took her attention away from her hands that that thing would appear again. And this time she wouldn't be able to let go of it in time to make it stop growing what she knew it wanted to.
And it wanted to. She could feel it at the edge of her awareness, somewhere next to her head, like a limb she hadn't known she'd possessed.
It wanted to show her something.
"-igail?"
It could sense her fear, she knew it. She could almost hear it.
"Abigail?"
Abigail?
Something touched her arm, and she jerked away as though struck, a gasp of alarm breaking past her lips without her permission as her mind conjured images she didn't want to think about. Her eyes squeezed themselves shut almost automatically as she flinched, sure that at any moment she would hear the words she had grown to hate whispered in her ear.
"S-sorry!" But it wasn't her father's voice that stuttered the apology, and after a moment of fear where the thing at the edge of her awareness shifted and writhed, wanting nothing more than to break free from her control, she dared to open an eye, and peered warily out from behind the curtain of her hair.
It was one of the other patients. The crazy one, the one no one but the councellors talked to.
Abigail struggled with her entire being not to flinch back again, and quickly averted her eyes, feeling sick to her stomach.
She had only caught a glimpse in the moment before she'd looked away, but what she'd seen was now burned into her mind like a physical weight that made the thing flare brighter in agitation.
The crazy girl-Abigail didn't know her name, didn't want to know her name-had long, dark hair that framed her face in shadow, but did nothing to hide her missing eye, or the scars and scars and scars that overlapped every visible inch of her skin.
"Abigail, is there anything you'd like to talk about?" The councellor's voice was gentle, but succeeded in drawing her attention away from the horrifying images playing through her mind.
The nurse with the ant daemon stepped closer, preparing to translate.
She didn't want to think about what the other girl must have gone through, so she drew in a shaky breath, and lifted her gaze slowly away from where it had been locked against the floor.
Her fingers twitched in her lap, almost about to start forming words-I think I'm going insane-before she remembered again the thing that had appeared so suddenly earlier, and she had to swallow back her revulsion, her hands clenching until her fingernails dug into her palms.
She shook her head, struggling not to cry.
Senteron's fingers dug tighter into her neck, and he buried his nose against her shoulder.
The other girl couldn't hide her scars, but she wasn't Abigail.
Jack Crawford stood in her doorway, bloodhound at his feet.
He gazed at her as though peering at bacteria through a microscope, and despite the automatic fear that sparked at his presence, she sat up straighter in her bed in defiance, and met his gaze without hesitation.
For the first time that day, the thing at the edge of her mind seemed calm.
"May I come in?" The words were clipped, formal. Perfectly respectful and yet holding the slightest edge of condescension. His hands were folded behind his back, and his daemon lay with paws crossed regally infront of her.
Logic told her to say no, to refuse his presence. If he wanted to talk to her, interrogate her, then he would have to arrest her first. She shouldn't talk to him, not alone. Alana had warned her not to talk to him until she felt ready. Freddie had told her not to talk to him. Even Will had subtly warned her away.
If there was one thing she knew, it was that she definitely didn't feel ready to talk about her father, and especially not to a man like Jack Crawford.
She nodded anyways.
Logic told her to say no, but every instinct in her body urged her to trust him.
She was going to need allies if she wanted to survive, and the looming presence of the man seemed capable of warding off any danger that came for her.
Agent Crawford smiled, and inclined his head. "Thank you, Abigail." He said, Unclasping his hands and stepping fully into the room, looking around with a careful eye.
She didn't have any personal objects, not anymore, except for the clothes Dr. Bloom had given her. And they were all neatly folded away in the small dresser set against the wall.
He would see nothing but empty spaces and blank walls.
Finally, his eyes came to a rest on her.
"Would you like me to call in your translator?"
She blinked, for a moment completely puzzled at the thought of needing a translator to speak to him, then vehemently shook her head, and reached for the notebook and pen Alana had left for her.
She didn't want someone else speaking for her.
Realizing that he was still standing just inside the door, she looked around quickly for a moment before finally locating the chair the others usually sat in, and gestured for him to take it.
He strode over with a confidence like he owned the place, and turned the chair to face her bed, taking a seat in it and crossing his arms casually over his chest.
"So." He said, leaning back casually in the chair, "I heard Dr. Lecter took you out of here without Dr. Bloom's permission."
He asked what had happened at Hannibal's house, and she told him.
Or at least, she told him what she could remember.
His daemon sleeping, the tea, the food he made that he knew, and told her that he knew made her anxious, the way Hannibal had wanted Will Graham to be there, instead of Dr. Bloom. The argument they'd almost gotten into, and the way Dr. Bloom had wasted no time taking them back to the hospital once Senteron spoke up.
"Your daemon can talk?" The question was accompanied by a raised eyebrow, and surprise in his voice.
Senteron-still holding onto her neck-pulled himself up onto her shoulder, leaving his tail hang down to keep her scar out of sight. He shrank back a bit against her shoulder, then whispered shyly, not meeting his gaze, "I don't like to."
Agent Crawford nodded, as though he understood perfectly, and she saw his daemon sit up a little straighter by his feet.
She gripped the pen tightly, and pressed it as carefully as she could into the paper, trying to keep her emotions from making the words illegible. She wrote, as clearly and neatly as possible, "Keep him away from me."
Jack Crawford took the paper from her, and read the words in silence. After a moment, his eyes turned to meet hers. "I'll make sure he doesn't come near you." He said finally.
After Crawford left, it was time for lunch, and visiting time, but Abigail didn't feel much like eating, and no one else had plans to visit her that day.
She sat alone at one of the small tables in one of the emptier common areas, picking half-heartedly at the sandwhich infront of her, and feeling with excruciating awareness the thing slowly twisting and turning at the edge of her mind.
The shape it wanted to take, the elements and molecules it wanted to form, they were almost like a scream in her head, begging for permission.
But she wouldn't let it, she couldn't let it.
She didn't want to...
A shadow fell over her table, and Senteron flinched back into her chest. Abigail knew who it was without having to look up. She didn't want to look up.
"C-can I sit with you?" The words wavered somewhere inbetween being loud and quiet, but held no animosity.
How could she say no?
I'm sorry, you can't sit with me, you're scary, and I'm slowly going insane and looking at you makes it worse?
She shrugged one shoulder weakly, all thoughts of eating now completely gone, though she kept her eyes locked onto the abandoned food infront of her.
There came the scrape of chair legs over the tiled floor, and the sound of a tray being set down. Abigail was dimly aware of the fact that there was someone else with the crazy girl, but they hadn't yet taken a seat. She heard the soft click of nails that she recognized as a dog walking-and then something touched her arm.
Like a jolt of electricity, pain, and grief, and absolute, gut-wrenching horror stabbed at her mind like a knife and twisted.
Broken glass slicing deep into an old man's feet, cutting his legs, cutting his chest as he fell. The pool of blood that formed around him that he didn't care about, and the limp hand he still reached toward the window above the sink.
All he'd wanted was to touch the sunlight one last time.
Abigail didn't even realize she was falling until she hit the ground, and pain slammed into her shoulder and head at the same time that her chair collided with the floor with a clatter loud enough to cause everyone in the room to jump.
"Skaldin!" The word was shrieked, so loudly Abigail had to cover her ears even as she struggled to push herself away from the floor that was slowly turning red with blood-the old man's blood, her blood, her blood, her blood!
It was on her hands, and staining the white of her clothes red, and all over Senteron's fur, and he was screaming, and reaching for her, but she couldn't reach down to grab him up from the floor, because the red was rising up, soaking her feet and flooding higher and higher until it was almost to her knees.
She stumbled backwards frantically, terror clogging her throat until she could barely breathe with fear as she finally noticed the shapes swimming through the blood, swimming towards her.
Senteron was screaming. People were shouting. She couldn't breathe. The coppery smell of the blood was too thick for her lungs to escape. Her back hit a wall, and she pressed herself into it, a scream building in her throat and a screech like tearing metal filling her mind.
The thing at the edge of her mind ripped itself into existance in a blinding flash of light just as something she could barely see lunged for her throat.
The thing, the weapon, the blade rose of its own accord, dragging her hand through the air just in time to deflect the object flying toward her face, every thought in her mind screaming, dull, dull, dull, dull! She didn't want anything sharp, she didn't want a knife, she didn't want a sword, she wanted a shield.
There came a yelp-of shock, not pain, of confusion, not fear, because she didn't have a knife, she didn't have a sword, she had a shield, because she somehow knew the thing didn't really want to hurt her but that didn't make her any less afraid-and something landed without a splash in the blood still rising past her knees and toward her waist.
Her vision was clearing slowly, but she couldn't bring herself to look at her attacker.
Her focus was on the thing-weapon still, even if it shielded her-that held itself defensively out infront of her, gleaming in the fluorescent lights, simultaneously beautiful and horrifying.
Bone, flattened and pressed, running up from the hilt and widening into a square toward the end, with three long protrusions branching out like antlers from one side, and a jagged, viciously sharp and hooked fourth from the other.
Something like metal a dark grey verging on black, forming wedged teeth between the three spines, and running back down the length of the blade beside the bone.
More metal, bolted together and zig-zagging up the blade, that seemed to catch all the light thrown on it, reflecting it away again in a swirl of silver iridescence.
The barrel of a hunting rifle, emerging from the center of the blade, and darker than she could comprehend.
Each material was layered, each a distinct part of it, and each side of the blade was symmetrical. And yet it was light, and barely an inch thick.
She realized too late what her distraction cost her when the blood at her feet swirled with movement, and the shadows she had seen before rose from the liquid, impossibly dark but for their glowing yellow eyes, their bodies constantly twitching, like insects.
Short, thin antennae atop large, circular heads devoid of any mouth she could see. Round bodies that posed on thin bent legs and huge, flat feet. Spidery arms that ended in short, hooked claws.
They moved as one, moving through the blood that still rose from the floor. Their clawed hands reached out for her-
-Just as the dog, the crazy girl's daemon, the one who had touched her, scrambled back to its feet-its two feet, because that was all it had, because the rest were useless stumps where fur no longer grew-and lunged toward the arm that wasn't holding the weapon.
It's jaws wrapped around her wrist, and pulled her down before she even had a chance to draw in a breath for a scream that would never come, her eyes closing instinctively as she felt its teeth against her arm.
She was prepared to struggle, to fight against the blood that she was sure would try to drown her, but found that she struck the hard floor without any sort of cushion or pause, and the sudden pain in her shoulder and knee came like a slap to the face.
She opened her eyes just in time to see the dog-the mangled, two legged dog that shouldn't have even been able to walk, the dog that she suddenly remembered was blind, because it's eyes were completely gone-release her wrist from its mouth, and leap away out of her reach with shocking dexterity, realizing with sudden clarity that it hadn't actually bitten her.
And with the realization that her wrist wasn't hurt, that she wasn't bleeding, that the blood she had seen before was gone, came the further realization that she still gripped the thing in her other hand.
And people were staring at her.
The crazy girl, an orderly, and the man that had been visiting with her.
Senteron leapt toward her then, cutting off all thoughts but that she was safe.
"It wasn't real, Abigail, it wasn't real." Senteron whispered, pressing his face to hers as she clung to him with one arm.
The thing disappeared in a small flash of light, and resumed its hum at the edge of her mind.
Silence fell over the room.
It felt like an eternity passed before anyone spoke.
The visitor stepped forward, towering over Abigail where she sat huddled on the floor trying to contain her rising panic, and knelt down infront of her, bringing their eyes almost level.
His hair was somewhere in between brown and blonde, and pulled back in a tight ponytail against his neck. His eyes were some color she couldn't even begin to describe.
His daemon-a fox with black fur instead of orange-curled behind his back, half hiding herself as she lay down, her nose pillow over her paws and her eyes and expression gentle.
The man reached a hand out toward her, and she shrank back without even thinking, clutching Senteron closer to her chest.
"Hey, hey, it's alright." He said quickly, voice low and soothing, even as he kept his hand where he had put it, a few inches away from her own, "You're safe here, no one in this room is going to reveal your secret."
Her heart clenched inside her chest as though it were being squeezed by a clawed and vicious hand.
He seemed to realize that was the wrong thing to say, because he held up one hand in a calming gesture. "Look, my name's Sam." He said, "And my friend Maris, she's been through a lot, and sometimes Skaldin gets confused. He didn't mean to frighten you, and believe me when I say I know it isn't much comfort, but whatever you just saw, it wasn't real, alright? It was one of his nightmares, and you're safe now."
Throughout the explanation, her hands spasmed, struggling to form too many words and letters at once. It made sense, she'd heard of stuff like that happening before. But it, it didn't explain anything else.
She finally managed to sign, "What is happening to me?" Her hands trembling the entire time.
Confusion crossed Sam's face, and the orderly suddenly jolted, taking a step forward, sparrow daemon fluttering her wings to keep herself in place on her shoulder. "She can't talk, Sam." He said, looking both concerned and guilty, "Her-" he cut his words off suddenly, as though realizing she was still there.
Abigail knew what he'd been about to say.
Her father had robbed her of her voice, and had tried to steal her life, too.
And now she couldn't talk. Couldn't speak, couldn't scream, couldn't beg for forgiveness or even confess.
"I hate him!" Her hands said, motions vicious and cutting as tears began to fill her eyes, making the world waver and blur. "I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!"
Her mouth opened, and the air rushed from her lungs without shape. Her stupid, useless lungs that couldn't even let her scream.
But no, the problem wasn't in her lungs, was it?
Her hands balled into fists, and she slammed them against the floor with all her strength, desperation and horror and guilt and rage making her lift them back up, only to bring them back down again and again, beating against the ground as though it were at fault for all that had happened to her.
For all that she had done.
Pain flared, sharp and angry, but not angrier than her.
Senteron had leapt up to her shoulder, and was tugging on her hair, trying to make her stop.
But she wouldn't. She hadn't been able to do anything before, but now she was in control, and she needed to feel pain, because while she was safe and happy, girls had been murdered.
By her father.
By her.
Tears blinded her, and when large hands enveloped hers, stopping them in mid-air, she couldn't see or even think clearly enough to resist.
Sobs tore themselves from her chest, painful and loud and completely out of her control.
Her face twisting, she struggled to pull her hands free from the ones still keeping them in place, but they held firm, strong enough to stop her from doing anything, but gentle enough that she couldn't hurt herself further.
She managed to bare her teeth past the tears still pouring from her eyes and the sobs wracking her frame, and forced a low, snarling hiss from her mouth. With her hands trapped, she had no way else to communicate.
It wasn't intimidating, or frightening, not with her breathing hitching every other second on hiccups, but it got the message across.
She felt him flinch.
As though he'd suddenly remembered that she couldn't talk, Sam gently shifted his grip from her hands to her wrists, and kept his touch light enough that she could move freely, but he could still stop her if she tried anything violent.
Breathing heavily, her entire body trembling, Abigail kept her teeth bared, seething with emotions she wasn't allowed to express.
Senteron laid himself close to her neck, suddenly realizing how visible the scar was.
Even with her eyes still blurred with her slowing tears, she still caught Sam tracking the movement. His expression tightened, as though in pain, and then he turned to look her directly in the eye.
"You don't deserve to be punished." He said softly, firmly.
Her snarl turned to a broken smile, sure she could feel her heart shattering inside her chest.
She ripped her hands free from his, and leapt to her feet before he could react.
She wanted to run, flee from the room, but the orderly was still there, and watching her carefully. She had no doubt he would have intervened already if not for Sam's presence. They knew each other, and he trusted Sam's judgement.
She backed away, hating her father more and more with every step she took.
"I do." She signed, hating her hands for shaking, "I deserve to be punished."
She hated them, that they couldn't understand her.
"It should have been me."
She hated her father for killing them. For wanting to kill her.
She hated herself, for being alive.
She hated herself, because they were dead.
But most of all, she hated herself because she had killed them.
She reached the far wall of the room, and pressed her back against it, and sank to the ground, and covered her face with hands that should have been covered in blood, but weren't.
She'd never touched their blood, but she was drowning in it.
And she could see clearly now, even as her body began to grow heavy and her eyes weighted.
Inside her shadow against the floor huddled a deeper darkness, sixteen eyes closed to hide their glow, sixteen antennae flattened and squashed, eight twitching bodies all piled ontop of one another to hide them in their fear.
Abigail closed her eyes, and allowed the weight of the world to drag her into the depths of oblivion.
Voices came at her from a distance...and faded into silence.
And she fell.
Water cold as ice and black as pitch enveloped her in swirling currents tinged green and silver, and pulled her down into their depths.
The harsh call of carrion crows, bursting away from the darkness with buffetting wings and feathers, revealing the light beneath.
Stained glass below her as she fell growing closer with every moment.
Yellow as the sun, and edged in purest silver. A picture of her, fractured and cut with lines of red, posed on the edge of the abyss, eyes closed in slumber.
Opposite her lurked a creature of dark fur and a skull face. Sickle-claws and protruding ribs. Twisted limbs and a single antler arching over a muscled back.
Its eyes like lanterns were open, staring wide.
She fell, and her feet touched the glass as light as a feather.
The thing, the weapon, the shield appeared in her hand, and a voice without sound whispered in her ear.
The power of the Guardian guides your hand.
You will be a light in the darkness, a shield to defend the helpless.
What will you give up in return?
The glass beneath her feet began to drain of color.
In two flashes of light, twin pedestals appeared before her. One bore as word of shining silver and gold, the other a staff of deep blue and violet.
She moved without hesitation toward the sword, and it shattered beneath her touch as if it were glass, the shards fading into nothingness.
Then the ground beneath her feet dropped out from below her, and she was plunged into darkness once more.
Stained glass beneath her feet, dark as night and red as blood. Lines of yellow cut through the red and black, forming images. Marissa. Her father, her mother. Alana Bloom and Will Graham. Jack Crawford and Beverly Katz. Two women she didn't recognize, and a crowd of figures too many to count, fading into nothing but silhouettes without faces.
At the edge of the circular platform, forming a ring, were nine girls, their skin pale, their hair dark. Their eyes open, blank and yellow.
A name was etched beneath each picture.
Diane Woodward.
Angelo Anderson.
Rowen Winn.
Summer Olsen.
Loraine Sorenson.
Demi Latimer.
Petra Cohen.
Elise Nichols.
Abigail Hobbs.
There is darkness within you. Whispered the voice. But do not lose sight of the light.
Eight of the nine closed their eyes. Darkness arose from their place. Shadows that grew, reaching up from the ground and pulling themselves into moving, living creatures.
Twitching bodies and sharp claws. Yellow eyes peering from the darkness.
Diane Woodward.
Angelo Anderson.
Rowen Winn.
Summer Olsen.
Loraine Sorenson.
Demi Latimer.
Petra Cohen.
Elise Nichols.
As one, their eyes locked onto her. As one, their twitching became directed and focused.
As one, the leapt into the air, and reached out for her with clawed hands outstretched.
Onto her arms they latched themselves. Around her legs, around her chest and neck. She stumbled under their weight, then found the strength to stand. Their claws wrapped around her, dull and careful not to cut.
They clung to her as her daemon would.
Like a dog's mouth around her wrist, holding on with lips and gums, teeth barely pressed together.
Her fear evaporated.
Yellow eyes stared up at her, twitching antennae ticked her skin.
She closed her eyes, and breathed out through her nose.
The shadows, the heart-less, all that remained of the girls she had killed, sank slowly beneath her skin, and into her bones, and traveled with her blood to curl inside her heart.
The floor drained of color, and a pathway appeared.
Shining metal, suspended in the darkness, a stairway leading to the sky.
She stepped onto the first platform feeling more confidant than she could ever remember.
Stained glass beneath her feet, midnight and blue, and scattered with stars.
The moon formed a ring around the edge, each phase detailed and bright.
You will awaken soon, dear one.
But you have one last task to complete.
A pit of shadows opened where the full moon once was, and slowly began to spread outward, cracking and threatening to shatter the floor beneath her feet.
There is darkness within you.
A figure slowly began to rise from thepit.
Antlers, pointed and sharp, sprouted from dark hair surrounding a face lit only by glowing, yellow eyes. Hands that ended in claws dangled from too-long arms, and legs bent at an unnatural angle supported a torso that was nothing more than skin and bones.
A gruesomely wide mouth opened to reveal gleaming teeth, the only white in the darkness.
You must not allow your light to be extinguished.
With a sound like the howl of a dying wolf, and the call of a deer, it dropped to all fours, and leapt toward her, teeth bared and gleaming.
She managed to leap out of the way, but only just. Its claws swiped furiously through the air after her, and one caught her arm, tearing deeply into skin and muscle and making her want to scream in fear and pain.
The weapon suddenly appeared in her hand, and when the creature charged again, she braced her feet against the floor, and lashed out with all her strength as it drew near.
Hands that she had wanted to bruise and smash now ached with a different kind of pain as the creature deflected her attack with its antlers, the strength of the retaliation sending every bone in her body trembling with the effort not to stumble beneath it.
She braced her free hand on the flat of the blade, shoving against it with all its strength. The creature pushed back, its antlers locked around the weapon, its teeth grinning viciously and its eyes gleaming with hunger.
Her strength alone wasn't enough.
One foot slipped against the glass floor, and the creature lunged for her throat with a howl of glee.
"Abigail, can you hear me?"
Alana's voice was suddenly audible.
Abigail's head hurt.
Her eyes hurt.
Her jaw hurt.
Her feet were on the floor.
Her hands were on the floor.
She was crouching.
Her head swung from side to side, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared.
Her teeth were bared silently.
Senteron lay draped across her shoulders, asleep.
The floor tilted.
Abigail opened her eyes just in time to see the floor rising up toward her face.
She couldn't react fast enough to catch herself, and toppled ungraciously onto her stomach.
Senteron jolted awake with the sudden impact, and was thrown from her shoulders and sent skidding across the floor with a screech of alarm, his fingers digging into the wood to slow his momentum.
Huffing out a pained breath, Abigail lifted herself from the floor on arms that ached with tiredness, and peered around with caution as Senteron hurried back to her side.
She was back in her room, though how she'd gotten there, she didn't know.
"Abigail?"
The sudden sound startled her so much she jolted violently, and felt the weapon at the edge of her awareness shift into something akin to a battle stance.
Alana suddenly appeared in front of her, hands raised calmingly, and steps slow and purposeful. She stood a few feet away, her daemon fluttering a few inches above her shoulder.
Abigail blinked, then lifted her hands, and mimed a butterfly flapping its wings. "Dr. Bloom?"
The woman's face had been pinched with worry, but cleared almost instantly into relief when she saw the sign.
"Abigail, are you alright?" She asked, keeping her voice low as she slowly began to more forward, hands still held up for peace.
Abigail furrowed her brow, not entirely sure how to respond.
Her entire body ached, as though she'd slept in a strange position, and her eyes couldn't seem to be able to decide if it was bright or not. The room kept swimming in and out of view, the sunlight getting brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding, before the shadows-inanimate, simple shadows-stretched across the floor and walls, making it almost impossible to see.
She was about to stand, but Alana must have read her intention, because she stepped smoothly to her side, and knelt down beside her, offering her arm for support.
The floor refused to stay completely still, so Abigail accepted with only the slightest moment of hesitation, Senteron quickly shifting from her shoulder to her neck.
With Alana's help, they made it back to the bed, though they wavered almost drunkenly the entire time. Abigail tried closing her eyes to get rid of the dizziness, but it only served to disorient her further.
"Abigail, I need you to listen to me carefully, alright?" Alana's voice was firm as she stepped back, allowing Abigail to lean back against the headboard, one of her hands still resting on her shoulder in case she fell.
Abigail nodded, trying to focus on the woman's face without much success.
"What you're experiencing right now is known as Rogyr's Syndrome." The name struck a faint bell of familiarity in the back of Abigail's mind, and she frowned, trying to place its meaning'even as Alana continued on, "You came in contact with another patient's daemon, do you remember that?"
Abigail nodded, shifting her weight uneasily.
Alana's expression tightened slightly. "Normally, touching someone else's daemon, if they're willing, and it's done with good intentions, has no harmful effects. But..." She hesitated, visibly debating on how to phrase her next words. "The girl whose daemon you touched...she's been through a lot of trauma, and through him...some of that trauma was passed onto you."
Abigail stared, uncomprehending.
Senteron dug his fingers into her neck slightly, and she suddenly realized what he wanted to do. What they should have done a long time ago, before it was too late. They had to do it now, while it was just Alana, before they lost their nerve. She didn't want to tell Will. She didn't want to tell Freddie. It had to be Alana.
Senteron let go of her neck, and hurried toward the edge of the bed so that he could perch on the bars, peering up earnestly at Alana and her butterfly.
"Dr. Bloom." He said, his voice firm despite the sudden trembling in his hands.
Alana looked down at him calmly, seemly unfazed by his sudden willingness to speak. After a moment she smiled slightly, as though trying to tell him it was alright to talk to her.
He clutched tighter to the bars, and Abigail suddenly noticed the shadows dancing about around his fingers. And for some reason, it wasn't hard to believe what her heard was telling her. It was them, encouraging him to speak. Encouraging her to tell the truth. To stop lying, to herself, and everyone else.
"We killed them." He said softly.
Alana's smile became sad.
Half an hour later, she left.
Abigail sat on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, and stared at her hands.
There was blood on them, even if she'd never touched it, even if...
Senteron rested his head on her knees and closed his eyes, leaning against her legs as she leaned against the bed.
She lifted one hand, and closed her fingers just the right amount-
-And the weapon appeared with a flash of light, the length of her arm from hilt to tip, and made out of metal, bone, life, and death.
Colors had appeared on the handle since she had last seen it. Yellow and orange and blue. Like the scarf Will had given her.
Time to let old things fall away. He'd said.
She'd tried to listen to him. Tried to let her fear fall away. Tried to confess to what she'd done.
Something else had been added to the blade. A thin, delicate chain that hung down from the very bottom of the hilt.
At the very end of it hung a small disk of onyx that shimmered with iridescence when it spun in the air. Two ivory antlers protruded from either side of it, and a single feather the color of dried blood was strung between them.
Eight shadows along her wall began to shift into a deeper darkness, and she saw them for what they were.
Their eyes were closed, their movements skittish.
They were hiding from her.
She set the weapon down next to her, and willed it to stay where it was.
She lifted her hands, and whispered in silence to the shadows crouched before her.
"You can come out now, I see you."
And she could see herself, too.
She was a murderer, or at least the accomplice of one.
There was blood on her hands, even if no one would ever believe her.
Because the old man she had seen in her vision had been dying, but Maris was the one that finally killed him. And Abigail could feel her fingernails biting into his skin, and her hands around his arm, and she could feel the snap of bones vibrating in her own.
Now when she closed her eyes, she couldn't remember if she had been the one lying on the floor, or the one who held the knife.
But she knew that Will Graham had shot her father. And she hadn't been shot.
She wasn't as confused as Dr. Bloom thought she was.
She had confessed to her crimes, but was allowed to walk free. A creature so drenched in blood, and no one could even see it.
She lifted the weapon again, and contemplated it in silence.
Every sword needed a name.
She closed her eyes, and a whisper without sound brushed past her ear.
Innocence Undone.