A Broken Mind
I own nothing but the creativity to meld existing universes together, however unskillfully.
So don't sue me, because I'm poor, and I won't give you my truck.
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Everything, and everybody, dead all around me. I lift my eyes up to the sky, and see only ashes. The poetry of the Death of those I love, moving throughout me. I am the last of a heroic line, who here will save me? We witches three, who have brought the end of so many, now are reduced to but just one, and I can't stop the pain. Is there a spell to bring them back, or do I just die instead, for who can help the world now that its Charmed Ones are dead?
Are there yet others Charmed, charged with the fate of the world? There is a chapter in the Book of Shadows, that tells of a girl cursed, one in all the world imbued with the power she alone fights. I will find her because I must, and she must right this wrong, for the world is on the road to Hell, and I'm the one who paved it.
The witch's innermost thoughts were so poetic and full of pain that Willow quailed at the sight of her broken heart. She'd gone too deep, too soon, and was seeing the end result, the girl's nightmares returned to her. No, she'd better back off, and wait for the beginning to come. She knew that if she pushed too hard, too fast, she would crush the girl's will to live, with the state she was in. So she sat back and waited for the crashing tidal waves of Paige's mental agony to subside.
And then. . . Flash!
They were in the underworld, hiding amongst the hell-spawn, when Paige noticed a movement in the corner of her eye. On reflex she grabbed Phoebe and orbed a dozen feet away. Piper, who had been scouting the next cavern, was still gone, and Paige could only thank the gods that was the case, because not two feet from where her and Phoebe had been standing, her favorite homicidal niece teleported in, appearing in a mist that was so black that it hurt to look at it. She wasn't sure how she knew, but Paige was sure that she had just caught a glimpse of Uncreation.
Flash!
There was screaming. Horrible, inhuman screaming.
And there was fire. Everything was on fire!
Pain! So much pain!
Willow strove to make sense of the imagery she was given, to sort out the pieces of the puzzle of this girl's broken mind. She reached out in the ether of despair that clouded Paige's memory, and took her hand
Flash!
The screaming had been her own; she had orbed over to her sister, the flames spitting darkness as they raced toward Phoebe.
Flash!
"Go, Paige!" Phoebe shouted as she stared down her daughter. "Find Piper! See if she can't freeze Pru!"
"That won't work, Pheebs, and you know it. The heirs to the Charmed Line can't be frozen, just like us! I need to stay here with you and figure out a way to stop her!"
Phoebe only shook her head, the sorrow evident in her tear-filled eyes. "She's not my Pru anymore, Paige," she whispered, though Paige heard every word she spoke. "She's gone. She's not Charmed, and. . . and. . . we've got to try something!"
So she'd gone, orbed away. She'd found Piper, but she wouldn't come. Said something about the end of the universe. When Paige tried to orb her away, she'd resisted.
Her eyes. They were like looking into the vortex of oblivion.
Flash!
Phoebe, standing before her dead daughter, her arms open, as if welcoming the child she'd once born.
Flash!
Ash, flames, screaming.
Flash!
Piper, limp in her arms. Her head lying several feet away, staring up at her. Accusing her.
Why am I still alive
Flash!
Willow broke contact, gasping for breath. It was a good thing she'd done so, because she had been on the verge of drowning in the other girl's sorrow. Paige was broken on the inside so badly that her memories were a jumble. The only way she'd survived as well as she did was by using magic to block those memories from her immediate emotions. She could have done so without the use of magic, but it was a hell of a lot easier and faster with it.
"Paige?" Willow whispered in her ear. "I need you to look at me, k?"
The trembling witch wiped away the tears streaming from her eyes and willed herself to open them. What she saw when she did made her gasp.
