"…Only she remains to be found. Awaken the sixth. Go. ALONE!"
He could feel himself falling to the floor but he couldn't care right now. All he cared about was Lucy.
Lucy who was falling with him, Lucy whose eyes were filled with confusion and pain. What had he done?
He wanted to look down and assess the damage, but he couldn't even do that. He was forced to carry on looking into her eyes as the life slipped away from them. He tried to shout to her, keep her awake; but still nothing. He could literally do nothing but lay there and watch her die, knowing that he had made it happen.
Somebody was screaming. Was it Rebecca? The sound grew louder and louder until it was all he could hear.
It took him a moment before he realised it was him. He was screaming.
He felt himself lurch upright into a sitting position from the floor, the echo of his screams reverberating around the large hall; though he couldn't work out if that was in his head or not. Without pausing to think, he turned to check that Lucy was safe in her sleeping bag and found himself panicking when he saw that her usual spot was empty.
"Lucy?" He half shouted out, not caring about how desperate he sounded.
"I'm over here." Her voice came over from the work area, she sounded tired. "Are you okay?"
Desmond heaved a sigh of relief and laid back down, his arms coming over his head as he tried to slow his breathing to a normal rate. "Yeah. Yeah I'm fine."
"You sure? You were screaming pretty loud there."
He scrunched up his face. Clearly the noise he'd been making wasn't all in his head.
"Yeah I'm good." He repeated, trying not to sound as disconcerted as he felt. "Just…dreams."
He heard her chair rolling out and her footsteps as she made her way towards him. "Do you wanna talk about it?" She sounded concerned, as always.
"No, I'm fine." He said almost automatically. He didn't need to worry her with this, it was just a dream. A really, really horrible dream.
"Okay." She hesitated for a moment. "I'm here if you need me, alright?"
He turned his back to the sound of her voice, trying to look as though he were about to go back to sleep. "Alright. Thanks Luce."
He waited until she had gone back over to her desk before he turned on his back to stare at the ceiling, the image of Lucy's lifeless eyes still strong in his mind.
What had that been about? Lately when he'd dreamt, it had always something to do with the Animus. He'd seen loading screens, flashes of Ezio's life; hell, he'd even seen Altair chasing Maria up to a tower to get busy on a haystack. But it had been a ridiculously long time since he'd dreamt about being himself.
Trust his mind to create a fantastically horrific scenario that involved him taking the life of someone he really cared about. And right after they'd gotten the Apple too.
But it was just a dream, he told himself, just a stupid dream. It didn't matter how real it felt, or how scared he'd been when he woke up. It wasn't real.
He'd promised to keep her safe and he would. Nothing was going to change that.