Snippets of words and half-forgotten memories, foggy dreams and half-remembered touches cloud her once clear mind. She glides in and out of reality, never knowing which is which, light and dark mixing, lone figures standing in her peripheral vision that shift and disappear if she even so much as blinks. Lost in time and space, with not so much as a clear thought, she glides away, her body numb and not willing to listen to her.

She's trying to speak but her lips don't move, no noise escapes her mouth. Somehow, it feels important to say something, anything, but there's no one here she could talk to, no one to listen to her. So what's the point? She doesn't know and still, it's important that she speaks out loud. Her head – or at least she thinks it's her head – hurts, she can't concentrate. She also doesn't know what to concentrate on, so she just drifts through sleep and consciousness, never truly waking up but not falling asleep either.

Something's tugging at her arm and her chest and she tries to lift a hand but her body doesn't move at all. For a moment, she thinks that someone is calling her name but maybe it's just her imagination. She's not even sure if she's real herself. Maybe she's a dream, a foggy memory or a half-forgotten ghost of somebody? She doesn't know and she doesn't care because nothing ever changes, not the twilight and not the night and the sun never goes down just as she never understands. She's confused and alone and there's no one here while she's half-sure someone's supposed to be there, someone very important to her but she just can't remember who it is or why they're important. She also doesn't remember what her name even is, so maybe nobody is calling her after all, maybe none of this is real. But maybe it is real and she's stranded somewhere between life and death, caught in light and darkness, scattered between past, future and present.

And suddenly, there's pain blooming in her chest while the space around her explodes and she's caught in fire and ice and blood, too much blood, and it's all her fault because she was the one who shed it, so many times before. She hears screams and whispers, gunfire and explosions and the booming voice of something big, something giant and evil and dangerous –

You cannot win

and she screams, screams with pain and rage and frustration and why doesn't it ever stop –

You cannot escape

she doesn't want this to be real and it hurts so much and why the hell is no one here to help her. She's falling apart and being repaired, burning in hellfire and freezing to death and there's just no end to it –

She awakes with a start, sweating and her breath too loud in the too silent room. She looks around, frantically, until she realizes she's not alone. His sleeping figure shifts and moves until he blinks his eyes open at her.

"What's wrong?"

"I…" Her voice is hoarse and sounds wrong, unlike her own. She winces away as he gently touches her shoulder and his gaze becomes soft in the dim blue light of her fish tank.

"Bad dream?" He watches her until she nods weakly. With a sigh, he reaches for her, pulls her close to his chest where it's warm and safe.

"It's all over now," he says and presses a soft kiss to her temple, her hair, her cheek. "We made it, remember? They're gone." She nods. Then, she asks quietly,

"… Who are they?"

You cannot escape the Cycle