All she sees is white.
Her vision is obscured by a thick mask of what seems to be fog, but it doesn't roll or billow. There is no dampness, no scent of laden vegetation, no whisper of wind. Abbie winces. The intense brightness stabs at her eyes. She is unable to blink; she has no hands to shield her face. The pain pulses inside her skull.
Her instinct is to duck and run. Keep your head down, Mills. Find a way out of this. What is the terrain here? Is her weapon still clipped to her belt? Maybe there's a road nearby…
Her thoughts are fleeting, for she suddenly realizes that she hasn't moved. She feels no spasm of muscle nor extension of bone. Is she paralyzed? She cannot determine if her toes have been sheared off or if her legs are severed. Is she even standing up? All she knows is the agony of the unrelenting light.
Abbie gulps as naked panic surges in her. She cannot expand her chest to suck in her next breath. When she was five, Abbie had wound herself in a down comforter during a game of hide-and-seek; she wasn't found until two hours later, bawling and shaking. She had inadvertently rolled under her parents' bed and pinned herself between the frame and the floor, utterly helpless. That petrifying smother of claustrophobia surfaced in countless nightmares since, including the current one into which she has fallen. She grits her teeth and lashes out, desperate to flail her limbs, to strike wood or stone. She HAS to get out. She twists and claws, kicks and pulls, emptying every ounce of will she has left.
Nothing.
Silent screams rip from her. "WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?"
You're alone, Abbie. What a pity.
The voice resonates in her head, it's smug mocking familiar: Pandora.
You failed in your mission. Your sister really should have known you would. I mean, that's your pattern, isn't it? Oh, well, no matter. She served her purpose.
Abbie's eyes scorch with unshed tears.
It's too bad about your fellow Witness, though. We could've had such fun with him! But you ruined it. It's your fault he's dead.
"LIAR!" Abbie's desperate shriek dies in her throat.
Pandora's girlish chuckle spreads like glass shards through her brain. So much for your lover's galant rescue! More delighted giggles slice her. I have to go now, Abbie. I hate to leave you, but you had to know it would end this way, right? You—alone, abandoned…forgotten.
The silence returns.
Abbie's mind is shredded. To save Jenny, she had marched willingly into another tortuous realm; she'd chosen this fate, whatever it was. That she could accept. But not…
Crane.
Crane is dead?
That could not be true.
Not him. No. No no no no…
He was her miracle. Their entwined path was the one treasure granted them in requital of all else; of the normal, careful lives each had once imagined; of the freedom offered by blissful ignorance to apocalyptic evil. Despite the bizarre dangers that surrounded them daily, they had stumbled into true happiness. Tenderness, laughter, fire, love: it was all she'd ever wanted, and far more than she ever thought she'd find. Could all of that—could he—really be gone?
Abbie scrapes together whatever remains of her wits. Images spark in her unblinking eyes: a cocked eyebrow, long fingers folding around hers, a protective forearm encircling her waist; pale legs tangled with her own; a hypnotic deep blue stare, searching.
Vaguely a coherent thought dawns: her heart still must beat, or it would be impossible for it now to break. And if she had survived this against any conceivable odds, then maybe, just maybe…
Tendrils of fragile hope seep from her depths and into the irrepressible fog. Ichabod, I'm here...Please come, please find me…Ichabod…
The crushing pain behind her eyes finally simmers and explodes, and the bright white overtakes all.