Chapter Two
Tears of the Lamb
The days wore emptily on after that, one after the next. Ilya had locked herself in her and her parents' rooms, refusing to come out no matter how much Elke beat on the door with that broom. But then she withdrew, it seemed at Grandfather Acht's behest, leaving Ilya alone with her whirling thoughts and desperate prayers.
She had been told that her father had decided to not come back for her after all, like he'd promised, that he was abandoning her, abandoning her so she would have to follow her mother's fate in becoming the Grail. Instead of claiming the Grail, he had tried to destroy it, and failed, abandoning her mother as well as her.
Why would he do all that? Ilya could not believe him of such things. She knew him differently. The only reason he wouldn't come back was because something was keeping him out, and she put that blame on her forbidding grandfather, naturally.
Still, that didn't mean that the days of waiting that followed didn't wear on her. Nor did it help that, after finally being readmitted at least to serve her meals to her, Elke would drop things like, "As I understand it, Kiritsugu Emiya was very skilled in breaking through things like barriers. Breaking through one like Grandfather Acht's should be no problem if he really wished to break through and return. Or so logic would say."
All in that emotionless, blank voice of hers.
Such things nibbled at the back of Ilya's worried mind. They burrowed into her heart, where they wouldn't let go, making her toss and turn when night came on in the wake of another colorless day where Kiritsugu had not returned.
Even so, she was determined not to give up, to stay strong, to endure the hours on end in which she would sit at the window, hugging Klara tight to her, touching the frosted window with her little finger, tracing the kanji and hiragna symbols her father had taught her from Japan, whispering, "Daddy…Daddy…please come home soon…" all like she were casting magic charms to summon him home.
One day she was tracing like this, the kanji for "father" over and over again, and Elke, working along the wall and washing the windows in all the bedrooms, picked her up without hesitation and proceeded to wash away what Ilya had traced on the glass with soap and water.
"Hey! Stop that!" Ilya snapped at her, curling her tiny hands into fists.
Elke turned and blinked at her. "Miss, what is the meaning of this behavior? It's unseemly for a lady of the Einzbern."
But Ilya felt that anger rise up like bile, churning in her stomach, unable to express it in anything more coherent than a yell and smack after smack at Elke's hands to stop her from wiping away the words she had written. She felt strangely like if Elke did that, somehow it would stop her father from being able to come back, completely caught up in the idea that tracing these patterns would act as powerful spells to return him to her.
Elke however unapologetically took Ilya by the ear and pulled hard, boxing it. It hurt so much that Ilya was rather easily subdued. However, this only served to increase her anger, and though it hurt even more to do it, she tried to pull away regardless, even with Elke pinching her ear as she was.
"Miss Ilyasviel, this is no way for the new Vessel of the Grail to act."
"But I'm not the Vessel!" Ilya snapped, still struggling. "Mama promised I wouldn't have to, because she was going to do it! She was going to be brave and become the Grail, and Daddy was going to use the Grail to make the world a happy place, and then he'd come take me with him to Japan!"
Elke released her ear such that Ilya overbalanced and fell.
Whimpering over the pain in her tailbone and the throbbing in her ear, Ilya looked quizzically up at this homunculus who had been charged with watching over her in Kiritsugu's absence. And though Elke had her usual blank returning stare, there was something…frighteningly intense now in the emptiness of her eyes.
Ilya shrank back, in spite of herself.
Then Elke turned away from her and swept from the room, disposing of the washcloth she'd been using in its bucket of soap and water. The ringing silence of the door to the bedroom slamming consumed Ilya, buried deep within her, reminding her all the more of the hollow emptiness of this place, now that she was alone here.
She drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs, but still, she refused to cave and start crying.
Kiritsugu will come soon. Daddy, he'll be here soon, and I can't let him see that I was crying.
Even so, she buried her face in her knees and trembled, curling into herself as much as she could.
Just as she was starting to rock back and forth as she became devoured once more by the painful restlessness within her heart, Mieke and Nele arrived, and Ilya was actually kind of glad to see them.
"Why don't we take a nice hot bath, eh, Miss Ilyasviel?" Nele suggested, and Mieke made another attempt at a smile. They were a little more like her mother had been, and unlike Elke, neither of them ever ran the water too hot, or were too rough when drying her off with the towel.
Ilya relaxed once she was soaking in the bath, and felt a little better even when she stepped ouy and was dried off and put into her gown for being presented in front of Grandfather.
True, this was actually the first time in not just days but weeks that she was actually seeing him again, since she'd outright refused since that horrible day he'd tried to tell her the horrible lie that her father was really never going to come back for her.
How stupid.
So there they were, in the Summoning Chamber again, and there Grandfather was, poring over another ancient text. And he lifted his cold, narrow eyes to Ilya upon Mieke and Nele presenting her.
And there stood Elke beside him, and just looking at her now, Ilya knew without having to put it into any kind of concrete wording that she was the heart of the reason that she couldn't stand dolls. There was nothing further that needed to be thought of on that matter.
"Well now," said Acht, straightening and steepling his fingers as he surveyed Ilya, who unabashedly scowled right back up at him. "Have we had some time to calm down? Are we ready at last to face reality and assume the duties of your role as the new Vessel of the Grail?"
Elke's eyes shifted his direction, and then snapped right back to staring straight ahead.
"I won't be your Vessel, because Kiritsugu's coming for me," Ilya growled, her hands clenching into fists as they clutched the skirts of her little white gown that was just like her mother's gold and white one had been—a design her father had picked out, she'd been told.
Acht met her scowl, and then he titled his head to one side. The corners of his mouth twitched oddly.
But he did not smile.
"I wonder…do you fancy yourself a damsel-in-distress, and Kiritsugu Emiya your knight, who will come to save you? Like in those fairy tales your mother would insist on reading? Lies that your father…fed her…?"
"I know they're just stories," Ilya argued at once, "but…they're true too…that's what…Mama taught me…because…Daddy taught her that…the way they make you feel…that's what makes them true…."
Ilya closed her eyes as she said this, lifting her chin, relaxing her face, breathing in deep, gaining a kind of regal poise, as she focused everything she had on how she felt about her father, about how he had expressed his love for her in return.
The man who had hugged her close in his arms as though to shield her from the world, from the moment she had been born…who had smiled at her like he was the happiest person in the world to be with her, and she likewise with him…who had lifted her up in the air or on his shoulders and made her laugh, laughing with her…who gave her presents and told her wonderful stories…who taught her lovely things about the world beyond Einzbern Castle…who had rescued her as a small child from freezing and drowning when she'd fallen through thin ice, wrapping her in his warm coat to protect her from the cold, saving her life the same way he'd saved her mother when they'd first met….
Those things…those marvelous things…they couldn't be lies.
Never.
"He has abandoned you," Acht repeated coldly. "And now, as I understand it, for another child."
Ilya's eyes flicked open, her heart and breathing stopping, just for a moment.
"Another…child…?" she echoed, frowning.
Acht looked away, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his robes again and assuming an indifferent air. "I have learned…from my seeing eyes within the city of Fuyuki…that he has taken up residence in a house there, and has adopted a small boy as his son."
"Adopted a…son…?" Ilya shook her head. "It's a brother for me. That's all!"
That was as easy an explanation as anything, and she believed that implicitly the instant she'd thought of it. After all, it was true that there had been times she'd timidly expressed that longing interest to play with kids her own age to her parents, to which her mother had always smiled sympathetically and stroked her hair, agreeing that it would indeed be nice to have friends, while her father would tell her, "Ilya, when we go to Japan, you'll meet lots of other kids. I promise. We'll put it on our list…."
And that had been the end of that.
Still, Acht remained steadfast.
"No," he said. "You see, your father is giving his love to another, that boy. He no longer cares…about what happens to you."
"But that…doesn't…make sense…."
"If he did care, do you not think he would keep something like…this…from happening….?"
On the word, "this", he nodded curiously and almost imperceptibly in Elke's direction. And before Ilya could dodge and try to get away, Elke came down on her quite swiftly and grabbed her, whipping out a syringe from a pocket in her skirts.
Ilya could only give a small squeak of fear and protest as the needle stuck in her neck, her last thought, of all things, being, Is this what it's like…to get stung…by a bee…I wonder…?
"Miss Ilyasviel!" yelled Nele as Mieke caught her in her arms, and that was the last thing Ilya was aware of before she blacked out.
When she came to, she felt that her wrists and ankles were bound together by cold metal, and that she was lying out on an icy, hard surface, and she'd been taken out of her pretty dress and put into some kind of paper gown. Blinking her eyes open blearily, she quickly grew more awake when memories of this room she was in came flooding back, along with her fear.
That one day that she remembered her mother collapsing, and Kiritsugu carrying her to this room so Acht could fix her—
The Alchemy Chamber!
Seeing that she was tied down on the same table where they had laid Irisviel to get examined, Ilya began to panic as she imagined the horrors of getting stuck with more needles, and the fact that she was strapped down to begin with.
Still, she kept the tears at bay.
So what if they did horrible things to her? She could endure that too, until Kiritsugu came. It didn't matter what Grandfather Acht said. She knew if her father were here, he certainly wouldn't let such things happen to her, not without doing something about it, not without fighting to protect her. She remembered…she remembered…those times when Acht would try to bring her here before, and her mother would argue against it, and Kiritsugu…he would get that scary look in his eyes, far scarier than those moments when he'd had to discipline her for misbehaving…and he'd show that scary look to Acht…because he'd been protecting her….
He had promised her…promised her that no matter what, he would always be there to do whatever it took to save her, from that day she'd hurt her knee while they'd been playing their walnut game, to that time she fell through that freezing ice….
She would not let Acht take that away from her.
As for this son he said Kiritsugu had adopted, well…she was more than willing to stick with the idea that he was just getting her a brother to play with. He wouldn't just replace her with another child. He had called her, "his precious Ilya" more than once. She would never forget such words from him, any more than the words, "I love you". They were carved forever in her heart. The Kiritsugu she knew from birth—the father she knew, would never decide to break his promise to her and leave her here alone to suffer, to cast her aside for a different child. After all, they had even sealed such things with pinky promises, and though she could never abide forcing her father to eat a thousand needles for breaking a promise to her, there was still no doubt in her mind that he stood by these promises much as he had any other.
Because he was her father, and he loved her as dearly as she loved him.
Still…he was taking an awfully long time…and so she'd been given to understand, he was quite apt at breaking through Bounded Fields…the one around Einzbern Castle should have been no different so…if he wanted to come back…he'd have already….
No! I can't think that way about Daddy. It's just too horrible….
She might have succeeded then in not shedding a single tear, but even so, she could not deny that there was a painfully growing impatience in her heart, mixing with the anger she felt towards her grandfather, all of it germinating crookedly and gnarled within her, if very agonizingly slowly.
Hurry, Daddy, hurry…please hurry….
And, growing tired, Ilya actually fell asleep, almost lulled by the grim ceiling above her as it actually grew tedious to stare up at, lying strapped down on that slab, alone in the gloomy Alchemy Chamber, full of its shining tubes and beakers and sharp instruments. As she slept though, she had wicked, troubling dreams of her father walking away from her, never turning around even when she called out his name and tried to run after him, unable to catch up with her tiny, tiny legs—
Only to wake, and still be strapped down.
Then the lamps came on and the door to the Alchemy Chamber creaked forbiddingly open.
Ilya's heart began to pound, both with anxiety and with the flame of hope still burning that that might be her father, coming for her after having stormed the castle to reach her.
But it was only Grandfather Acht, followed by Elke, Mieke, and Nele. While Acht and Elke looked as cold and impassive as ever, Mieke and Nele actually had their heads bowed, as though ashamed.
Ilya flinched against her will when her grandfather loomed over her, his white brow furrowed as he stroked the frozen waterfall of his beard.
"Grandfather…" she croaked, in spite of herself, "where's Kiritsugu? Where's my daddy?"
Acht ignored her, asking Elke to pass him a "scalpel".
A bucket of ice dropped in Ilya's stomach as Elke passed Acht what looked like a knife. It didn't matter that the blade was thin and tiny—it was still sharp.
"Should we not…sedate her again?" Nele's voice suggested nearby, a little tremulously.
"Nele, she needs to be conscious for these procedures," Elke admonished in her usual monotone. "We only sedated her to bring her here since it was clear she would resist." Her blank red eyes found Ilya's frightened ones. "The time has come to begin her on the path to follow her mother and sisters."
Ilya felt her pupils shrink within her eyes as they widened out, deepening into her skull. Her entire body grew tense as she saw the blade of the scalpel in Grandfather Acht's hand come her way.
"No, please don't do it…it'll hurt…" Ilya moaned, scarcely able to breathe.
An image of Kiritsugu's face flashed in her mind, and she remembered the dream, how he'd walked away from her, no matter how much she'd cried out—
"Daddy…Daddy, come back…!"
The pain sliced into her left arm, cutting into the vein running through the exposed inside crook of her elbow, sharp and fiery, reaching through her coldly pouring blood to her heart—
Ilya let out a scream, as another memory came to her, one of when she'd been really little, and she had cut her thumb on the thorn of a rosebush, and Kiritsugu had sucked the blood from the cut, while he'd done his best to reassure her in his kind, deep voice that everything would be all right—
The cut came again, and Ilya screamed again, this time shrieking out:
"DADDY! DAAAAAAAAAADDY! DADDY, PLEASE! PLEASE, DADDY!"
Even then though, no tears came. Ilya shrieked at the top of her lungs, and she struggled and squirmed and kicked as much as she could against her bonds—
But she did not cry.
She did, however, pass out from the pain before Acht had even finished with all the additional cutting he was doing into the incision he'd made into her arm.
The last thing she really caught through the haze of pain was him saying:
"...all over her body...would certainly give her an edge...Magic Circuits in the shape of a human..."
Then the world faded into blackness. Ilya escaped into the realm of sleeping dreams, where she was with her mother, speaking to her in a soft, happy voice as they sat together on her parents' bed.
"That's wonderful Ilya," her mother praised, stroking her cheek, her eyes full of glowing love for her precious daughter. Then she noticed something behind them and her smile grew.
Ilya looked too, and gave a gasp of delight, hopping off the bed. "Kiritsugu! Daddy! Welcome home, Daddy!"
Indeed he was there, and like always whenever she'd run to him full tilt, he caught her up in his arms. Without giving him a chance to speak, she threw her arms around him, exclaiming: "Oh, I'm so happy you're finally back! Mama and I were waiting!"
"Ilya..." Kiritsugu wrapped his arms tight but gentle around her, holding her close to his heart as if he never wanted to let her go.
And he was just as warm and tender as Ilya remembered, and at that moment she thought she might crack and cry after all she was so indescribably happy.
"Daddy!" She giggled in spite of herself and kissed his rough cheek, hugging him again.
"Oh Ilya..." Kiritsugu hugged her even tighter, stroking her hair. His voice cracked strangely.
Perturbed, Ilya pulled back, and was confused at how…off…her father's eyes seemed. They were...empty.
A cold ring of metal pressed underneath Ilya's chin with a loud click, and even though she couldn't really process what was going on, she was transfixed by the way her father was looking at her.
"Goodbye...Ilya..."
Goodbye?
But then the world exploded, taking Ilya with it, and the horrible realization surfaced in her mind, fuzzily at first, but then clarified into sharp and painful focus.
Daddy...you...you killed me...
As it sank in like a knife blade, Ilya heard a distant screaming in the darkness that surrounded her and that grew louder and louder, until her open mouth told her—
She was the one screaming.
Her eyes flew open, and she went on screaming, finding herself still bound on the table in the Alchemy Chamber. She screamed until her throat turned raw and she ran out of breath to keep screaming.
Still, she ground her teeth and kept any tears at bay, even as she gasped like she'd been running round and round, like those sunlit days her mother would chase her all over the library until the both of them could scarcely breathe for laughing. But here, once she caught her breath, there was only the gravity of her situation pressing in upon her.
I swear, I will not cry, she forced herself to think, even as her mind still reeled from that horrible nightmare of her father killing her. Why on earth had she had such a horrible dream? True, Ilya's experience with the concept of death was limited only to understanding the fact that when someone died, there was no way to see them again in this world. Her mother had had to forfeit her life in order to provide the Vessel to summon the Holy Grail. That this would result in her dying and Kiritsugu never being able to be with her again in their own lives, the sadness that her father had seemed to carry with him made more sense…until now.
If he had been so sad by the fact that her mother would have to die, then why had he tried to destroy the Grail in the end?
Had it all been…a lie…?
No! It was just a dream! It wasn't real!
But then, maybe it wasn't just a dream. Given what Ilya had learned about the nature of herself and her mother, and those other dreams she would have sometimes of Lord Justica…what if it was...the Grail…itself…contacting her somehow…?
You're beginning to understand now, aren't you, my love? That what Grandfather speaks of is true...that your father has betrayed us….
"M…Mama…?" Ilya shook all over as she'd never shook before, locked in a paroxysm of terror, almost like she'd climbed up high to the top of the tower on this castle, and was on the edge of falling off….
She shut her eyes, but to her horror, she saw things as if she were dreaming, only she was dreaming while she was awake. Already confused and frightened, she could only watch as the vision itself unfolded into that of her father with his hands around her mother's neck, her mother clawing at him as he pressed on her delicate throat, tighter and tighter, with those hands that had always been so strong, so reassuring before….
"My love…please…stop…!" Irisviel gasped in a terribly raspy voice.
But Kiritsugu pressed onward, wordless and cold. A monster.
Then Irisviel's neck snapped, and her fighting arms and whole body fell limp.
Like a doll.
Ilya felt a sudden urge to vomit.
Instead, only more screams came out, to the point that that was all she knew, until a soft yet urgent voice cut through.
"Miss Ilyasviel!"
Nele?
There was another pinprick in the side of her neck, and before she knew it, she was falling back into the gentle arms of a dark sleep again.
When she woke, she was at last tucked into her own bed in her own room, unbound and wrapped instead in her lovely blankets. In the little fireplace, there was a fire going. Beside her bed, Ilya made out the shape of a woman at her bedside.
"Mama?" she croaked groggily, her head still swimming and uncertain of what was real and what was a lie. But then she quickly came more awake and saw it was Nele, who had been making her usual failed attempts at knitting. With practice, Irisviel had eventually learned to make her own knits pretty. Nele's were still crooked, but Ilya had to admire her curiously human persistence.
"Ah, Nele." Ilya sighed, and Nele looked up.
"Oh! Miss Ilyasviel." Nele's voice had a quavery edge to it. She worked up a smile that she likely learned for herself from watching Irisviel when she'd been alive. She set aside her knitting and cleared her throat. "Ahem. How're you feeling?"
"Okay, I think." Ilya made an effort to sit up in bed, seeing that she'd been stripped of the paper gown they'd put her in and slid into her nightie.
There was a knock on the door, and Mieke's voice calling, "Excuse me."
"Come in!" said Nele rather brightly, and Mieke entered carrying a cloth and a bowl of water, which she set on the nightstand beside Ilya's bed.
"Did you…carry me here?" Ilya asked Nele and Mieke, starting to twist her blankets in her hands.
"Well, I stuck you with the tranquilizer, but…Mieke carried you," Nele said.
Mieke, who was a little quieter than Nele, nodded in affirmation.
Ilya looked between them and then said, "Thank you."
"Would you like to wash your face off?" Nele asked, nodding to the bowl of water and the cloth. "You've been asleep for several hours."
"Um…mm-hm." Ilya suddenly fell into melancholy as she began to reminisce about the aftermath of that day she'd fallen in the ice, and Kiritsugu had rescued her, and he and her mother had kept vigil while she'd recovered.
Her mother was dead, but…Kiritsugu….
Why aren't you back yet?
Quickly, Ilya grabbed the cloth and soaked it in the water before burying her face in it. The warm water soaking into her skin felt good, the same as a hot bath would when the water was just right. She scrubbed her face furiously, fighting back those accursed tears again.
Even so, when she dried her face off and was at least able to relish in that clean feeling on her face, the melancholy stayed with her. The melancholy of desperately missing her father.
She blinked up at Nele and Mieke, who both blinked back at her, Nele tilting her head to one side.
"Um…." Ilya put the cloth back in the bowl, drying her hands off with the dry end. "Do you…think my daddy would…leave me behind…? He wouldn't…. It's a lie…right…?" She couldn't help it. She began to speak faster. "It's a lie, right? Grandfather Acht is lying for some reason, right? Right?"
Nele and Mieke looked at each other.
Nele bit her lip.
Mieke heaved a sigh and then said, as they both turned back to Ilya, "We wouldn't like to believe such things of your father, Miss Ilyasviel. However, he was indeed very…secretive about why he was staying behind instead of returning with us to Einzbern Castle." She lowered her eyes, and looked mutedly regretful of her words.
"He…was…?" Ilya's mouth went dry.
Nele gave a little moan, regretful as well.
Ilya looked down at her hands as she fiddled with the blanket again. Why? Why would he…? She shut her eyes, and there was that horrible vision again of her father killing her mother with his own two hands. It clashed terribly with memories of him from before he left, that and that dream where he had taken…what was that thing called…? A gun? And killed her….
"Daddy," she whispered.
No…no…no….
But then that voice…that had sounded like mother's but…eerily so….
Yes…that is the truth of things. He is our enemy. He must be punished. Punished for his betrayal. The Grail War will give you that power…my love….
"What's this…voice in my head?" she asked Nele and Mieke, a little detachedly, feeling like she was being pulled between two different realities.
Nele and Mieke looked at each other, exchanging worried glances.
She snapped back into the normal reality when there came a loud rapping at her door. It opened before anyone extended an invitation to enter, and there was Elke, emotionless as ever.
Or maybe….
Ilya tilted her head to one side as she looked at Elke, wondering if she didn't see something like contempt seething beneath that empty gaze as she observed Mieke and Nele.
Then her eyes flicked Ilya's way.
"Ah, you are awake, I see, Miss Ilyasviel." Then she looked at Nele and Mieke—rather accusatorially, actually—and then said, "Would you please leave the two of us in private?"
"Yes, Elke," said Nele and Mieke both, Mieke bobbing a curtsy, and Nele doing the same once she stood from the chair beside Ilya's bed.
After the two of them took their leave, Elke assumed the chair Nele had been occupying and met Ilya's quizzical gaze. Ilya did her best not to flinch though, even as she felt uncomprehendingly dizzy while doing nothing more than sitting up in bed.
"Elke…?" Ilya started to ask, twisting the blanket in her fingers once more.
"Enough, Miss Ilyasviel," Elke cut across her coldly. "This has all gone far enough."
"But…."
"I already know what it is you are going to ask, and I have nothing more to give you than the same truthful answer that I have already given you multiple times. Kiritsugu Emiya has no intention of returning to this place to take with him to Japan. He has abandoned you in favor of another child. Let this be the end of this matter."
"But…."
From what felt like a distance, Ilya started to hear a kind of ringing in her ears. It quickly intensified to the point that it grew painful, and, giving a cry, Ilya desperately hugged her ears, hunching over and shaking from head to toe.
"Stop it…stop it…make it stop…" she whispered, and those horrible visions of her father killing her mother, of killing her, assaulted her again.
"Accept the truth," she heard Elke say, as if from underwater.
Ilya looked up at the homunculus, and the way she was looking at her, the way she said those words…once again she felt that pull from this reality into another, a tearing of her soul between the two…and that voice that sounded like her mother but wasn't her mother in her head again….
Accept the truth, my love….
"Oh Mama…."
And then there it was.
It sank into Ilya's heart like a glass shard.
Ilya felt it split in two.
It hurt even worse than the ringing, than that rose thorn that had pricked her when she'd been smaller, than bruising her knee, than falling through that ice and plunging into that impossibly cold water, than any of those other bumps and scrapes and bruises and cuts she'd acquired in her growing up as a tiny child that possessed a free and strong spirit that was far larger than her body.
She must lock that all away now.
Because…because….
"Kiritsugu…Kiritsugu…oh Daddy…." And then she croaked, in a whisper that was like the breath of air that extinguished a candle: "How could you…? No Daddy…no, no, no, no, no Daddy…."
The ringing stopped, but the pain in her heart only sharpened to a point that it was utterly unbearable. Ilya clutched at her tiny chest, breathing in gasps until her prickling eyes could no longer hold back, and the hot tears came as she succumbed to the terrible truth of her beloved father's betrayal. Everything inside her became washed over in sadness, on a scale she had never before known until now. A terrible pull of the tide that she could no longer fight.
For the moment, she would be weak.
Because for the moment, it was all she could manage to be.
One choked sob after another tumbled out of her between little sniffles. With one last bid effort, she desperately wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tight, but it was no use. The grief only intensified, and, letting all of it go, she cried out, long and loud, wailing, lifting her face up as though she were trying to find her way up to the sky beyond the castle, while the room echoed with her howls.
Deaf to anything else beyond her own suffering, she went on screaming out this way, burying her face in her hands as she wept, over and over, "Daddy…no, Daddy…noooooooooo, Daddy…!" For a little while, she lost sense of time, until she vaguely felt that prick in the side of her neck again, and then she only had enough time to stop her crying and realize what had happened before she collapsed back on the bed, falling into the dark nothingness of the tranquilizer with which Elke had stuck her.
In this dark sea of serenity, Ilya was left floating helpless within it. But, at least temporarily, she was given respite from the nightmares she would never be able to wake from again.
