I ran down the final hallway, my shoes screeching on the rubber tiled floor, leaving many black marks to join the hundreds of others that layered the floor like squashed bugs. I could hear him closing the gap behind me, I could hear the squeaks of his own shoes just behind me, only overshadowed by my laboured breathing. I looked behind me, a lopsided grin plastered on my face. I looked at his face in curiosity, his features contorted with horror, I saw him begin to shout something. Then a sickening crunch filled my ears followed with a ringing noise, my eyes crunched up as I felt a warm liquid drip down my face, and then…… nothing, blackness, silence.

Connie walked through the corridors aimlessly, well not quite, she was looking for Col. The canteen had been shut for cleaning. She heard sirens (the man-made kind) in the distance, but thought nothing of it until she heard a scream just ahead of her; she quickly doused all thoughts of Col as she rushed to find out what the commotion was about. She stopped suddenly to raise her shield when she felt a light presence in her mind and repelled it, she shook herself and carried on, more determined than ever as she had a strange feeling that it came from the direction of the noise. Her eyes grew wide as she saw a limp body being taken away on a stretcher, an oxygen mask obscuring his face. Her gaze drifted to the splatter of red and grey on the wall, radiating from a nail that stuck out from the gritty wall

I was standing on an island, black cloud was hanging overhead like an evil fog, and the surrounding waters were raging as if there was a violent storm brewing. The golden sands were flecked with reds and greys. I looked over my self and found that I was bruised and scraped but nothing serious. Then the realisation hit me as a roll of thunder sparked through the sky, this was my subconscious, my mind. I shook myself and looked across the horizon and saw a silver orb in the far distance, it looked like the rising sun in my world, I wondered what it was. Hope? Death? I had no way of knowing so I decided to try and sleep,.

Connie waited In the sterile room, hoping to be let through, she may have hated the feel of medical alcohol on her hands but she was sure he was a companion, Even if he wasn't she felt sure that there was something she could do.

"Miss Lionheart?" asked the nurse

"Yes" she replied hopefully

"You can go through now, but I must warn you he probably cant hear you" the nurse said

"I don't think that's going to be a problem" she said under her breath.

She walked into the white tiled room and was immediately repulsed by a wave of that antiseptic. She shrugged it off and looked at the limp and pale form collapsed on the bed in front of her, she gulped down the bile rising in her throat as she saw the tubes connecting him to a life support machine, she slowly reached out and tentatively entered his mind. She squinted, a fog was covering her view, something was seriously wrong. She gasped in a mixture of horror and wonder as the maelstrom of his mind was revealed as the aura of silver light that surrounded her pierced the choking fog, she looked, trying to find him.

I opened my minds eye in an instant, something was different, there was something else. Something new. I lifted my arm and noticed an almost ghostly after trail of black smoke that drifted from my mindself. I looked towards the horizon towards where the silver glow was when I fell asleep, I jumped up, it was gone, I turned around trying to find it. I saw it again to the left of me, nearly at the edge of the isle I tried to shout, but my throat wouldn't work. Suddenly the light began to dissipate and a silhouette emerged, as the after glow finally disappeared I saw that it was Col's "girlfriend" I swore in a mixture of disbelief and surprise. Well tried to any way, my throat still wouldn't work.

She looked at the the figures mindself first in relief at finding him, then in shock and horror as his arm moved and it wasn't that he could move, it was the ghostly smoke his body left. Then he lunged for her leg she instinctively jumped back but couldn't get far enough and he grabbed her ankle. She screamed in pure animal terror as a flash of white light flooded her view. She woke up in the centre of her mind opposite the mark of Kullervo. A form slowly began forming down the corridor, condensing from black smoke like a mind ghost. She hurriedly brought the universals shield but he just walked through it as if it wasn't there, she stood there stunned into inactivity, that had never happened. She shook herself and brought her bow to bear she put in a weak bolt from storm-bird, hoping it would shock him out of her mind. She pulled back on the string, hoping against hope that this would work, she hadn't the strength or the time to summon another weapon. She released the bolt and watched fly straight and true, directly though the ghostly figure body. She felt a jolt of pain course through her exhausted body as the arrow bit into the wall, she suddenly remembered about the minotaur, why hadn't he arrived? That thought was quenched as he walked straight through her

I couldn't stop myself, it was like something was controlling me, I somehow knew what I was going to and I was appalled but I was like a zombie. My arm was lunging towards a mark almost inhumanly fast I tried to pull it back but I knew I couldn't, I wasn't in control of my limbs, my arm sank through the darkness as if it was a liquid. I tried to scream, but I couldn't even mouth a scream, I was a deer in the headlamps as I felt a darker angrier consciousness begin to leak into my mind before I came to my senses and tried to fight it

"So This One Will Resist?" an echoey voice reverberated inside my skull

"Yes. I. Will." I said struggling to even form these words in my mind

"Don't worry, you aren't alone" said a strangely reassuring voice as I felt a surge of strength pass through me as a I felt a hand on my shoulder. I roared my defiance to the voice

"It Will Take More Than The Sword And Another Human Who's Not Even A Companion To Stop Me" The voice said with a sneer

"No. It. Wont" I said this time straining because most of my energy was concentrated on fighting it. That hideous despicable voice………………..