As Ronon strode from the massacre in the lab, he was met with a strange surrealism that defied his rock-solid patch of reality. Déjà vu pitter-pattered across the backscape of his mind, whilst the foreground dealt with the handful of guards still left in the grounded Hive Ship, one arm cradling Murry to his chest and the other grasping the knife tightly and slashing veins, tearing flesh from bone, he moved silently through the corridors. Leaving a trail of corpses, he made his way to Sheppard's cell.

A/N (When Ronon disconnected the memory machine in the last chapter it created an echo of the being that Karitz was trying to retrieve from the depths of Moraine's mind, this echo is essentially Riain)

Murry stood in a blackness, there was no floor, no ceiling, nothing but a blackened void that surrounded all. In front of him, seeming to levitate in the blackness, was his reflection, or what it could have been. He was smirking, with long straight white hair and a calm in his eyes and a smoothness in his skin that openly mocked him. He wore the long dark coat of a true wraith warrior and did not have the pendant hanging around his neck, his nails were immaculately sharp and his movements graceful, strong, controlled. It was an image he'd seen so many times in his dreams and nightmares yet could never quite place his finger on. An image that he could never quite remember.

Riain.

Murry shuddered and the reflection moved out of turn, cold laughter rung through the endless absolute shadows above.

"Did you really think you could ever be rid of me? You are me. I am just better. Faster, smarter, more co-ordinated, more beautiful, better in almost every single way. You are nothing but the dregs of an awesome entity. You could have been what you see before you, if you had only paid greater attention. Arrogance was your downfall, expecting to win"

Riain laughed again but the glee never quite reached those eyes, like glass, they reflected nothing but Murry's fleeting disturbed face. Murry, whose hands wrung in confusion and his eyes flittering everywhere, searching desperately for an escape from this stranger. This stranger who was so familiar it pained him.

"There is no escape from me. I am you. I am your mind. I control you now, so long have you drowned me in your nightmares and your pain. No longer. Like a phoenix from the dying embers, I shall rise and it will be astounding. You will not see"

The voice was killing him. Murry struggled to breathe under the weight of the stranger's echoes, which seemed to be growing stronger every second they went unchallenged. A sequence of pictures flickered across the back of his eyelids.

A blonde child, female, human. Dead. Lying, broken, across the bough of a dart. A beautiful light-filled city in ruins. A once proud tall strong warrior lay withered on the ground in front of a Gateway, his gun still clutched tightly in his gnarled fist, a white pendant crushed beside him. Two teenage humans, collapsed, shot dead, defending the corpses of small children, cowering behind them. The dead littered the ground, left where they lay. An Athosian woman and a soldier were strung up by their entrails. Blood. Everywhere. It coated everything, blinded the colours.

Murry reeled from the images, physically gagging at the taste of sour death as it clung to the inside of his mouth like a mucus.

"Is it not magnificent? It is the future, their future. There will be no reprieve, I will avenge Karitz's death and retake command at the Queen's side. It will be a resurrection of such that has not been seen for centuries. A hero once more in their eyes. Not broken, not sullied. Not fallen from the graces of the elders"

Panic sent into Murry's system. A pure adrenaline soaked panic that couldn't be abated by mere thought. His fingers spasmed and his eye twitched. This stranger, this enemy, was going to destroy everything. It could not be allowed.

"Defiance? Hah, you are all but a faint and fading memory, a bad dream soon to be washed from my mind by the rays of dawn. For years I have had to watch as a clumsy, ugly, oaf of a wraith walked around in my skin. My skin. My scarred skin. No more of this bad impersonation of a true predator. No more!"

Murry could feel the colour and life draining from him, as it melded with the darkness and the dark chewed through him, fading him, reducing him.

"Soon to be no more"

He screamed but the noise produced was more of a static wailing. No. Could not be allowed. Fight. Fight. Fight the reality. Fight the dreams of being whole again. Fight the past, the perfect past. Fight the future, the bloody and victorious future. Fight. Ronon would die, the children, Devi and Turi. Charley. No. Cannot happen. Think, stay alive, keep the thoughts alive. Live. Breathe. He cannot win. The wishes must be abolished.

"Stop resisting, you are only delaying the inevitable"

Riain's voice did not sound as sure as it had done only moments ago.

Fight, for life, for breath, for the humans he'd become attached to, for the children, for every torture endured, for the scars.

Fight for the right to exist.

Ronon stared down at the wraith, bathed in sweat and twitching furiously in his arms, as if fighting some unseen enemy. He looked around and seeing no more opponents to fight, placed the squirming creature on the ground. Staring at his scared face, Ronon could see fear and pain painted liberally across it. He was fighting something inside that mangled mind of his. Sighing, Ronon flexed his shoulders and knowing that he could not do any more than protect Murry's physical body, picked him up and continued on.

Meanwhile In Atlantis…

Turi tapped his fingers against the arm rest of the chair, only half-listening to the sound of the doctor as he mumbled away about Charley's recent episodes of self-abuse and terror. He had already formed the conclusion quite soundly in his mind that she was connected to Murry in some fashion, a mind link that stretched across the galaxies. It was too strong a connection to be bestowed upon such a youngster, he thought to himself, a burden too potent for a human at all to have to carry at all.

"Why would Murry…" He started but realised he was talking to himself and waving the doctors pleas of sedation and gentle restraints, he began the walk to Charley's bed-side, feeling more of an adult than the men and women who rushed around the city, pretending to be of use. He also felt the cold, empty mantle of cynicism descend on his shoulders and with a tired sigh, did nothing to challenge it.