Sandry.

She was in the dark. She didn't know what to do because she was in. the. dark.

The blackness rose up like black ooze, sliding like a second skin over her ankles and up her calves. It made her skin prickle with fear and chill before it climbed upwards. Over her thighs, over her stomach... up her ribs until it cradled her neck. It slid slowly, almost imperceptible over her lips, twisting around her nose to slowly choke her air off. Then she'd suffocate, suffocation by the darkness. Death by fear.

It climbed over her eyes and... she screamed.

"...it's definitely PTSD." a soft voice murmured near her ear. Sandry's small nose twitched as it acclimated itself to the smells she quickly identified as a hospital. She blinked, opening blue eyes. Or the only clinic in the small town of Summersea, home to 1,243 souls, the biggest town in Emelan County, Massachusetts. "As well as a healthy dose of depression, I'd say."

Sandry turned to look from her bed towards the voices, meeting the warm eyes of her uncle and docter as she did so. "Uncle." she said, as warmly as she could manage.

"Sandraline." he smiled, leaving the docter in a stride, coming over to sit at her bedside. "How are you feeling?"

"What happened?" she asked, frowning. She couldn't quite remember...

"The power went off, my dear." her uncle explained softly. "You had an... episode."

Sandry felt her cheeks color with shame. Oh, she remembered now.

"Why didn't you tell me?" her uncle asked softly, and Sandry shook her head. But she knew exactly why.

No one wants to tell their uncle that their parents, against the warnings of older, more experienced travelers, and gone straight into the center of an African civil war. They had expected, as always, to pay their way through. Daddy had been a CEO worth billions, after all. There hadn't been a time yet when money hadn't gotten her families way, no time when the seas hadn't parted for Mattin or Amiliane Toren. Except of course, when they had gotten caught up in the genocide that ensued when the country broke into violence.

Sandry closed her eyes briefly. Two shots to the back of the head, execution style, the autopsy report had said. They hadn't suffered.

But she had.

She remembered the laughing faces of the rebels, happy as they took their freedom for the oppressive warlord that ruled their country with and iron fist, happy to harm the Americans who gave him funds in order to enjoy luxuries that they had never even heard of. They took her to a closet and locked her in, leaving her there to rot. It had been mere luck that the UN had stumbled across her parents corpses and ID them; and knew to look for a little girl.

"It's nothing." she said, opening her eyes finally. "Really, just a... flashback. That's all."

"Well..." Uncle frowned, staring down at the pale face of his niece. "I doubt all this sitting indoors is helping, either. After I sign for your prescription, I'm sending you to Discipline."

"I'm... in trouble?" Sandry asked, confused and slightly hurt.

"No, Sandraline." Uncle grinned. "Rather the opposite, I think. I'm acquainted with the place vaguely, but think of it as more of a vacation getaway. This place," he gestured to the Clinic. "and the Citadel are no places for lonely girls."

Sandry rolled her eyes. "It's the town hall, Uncle, not a Citadel. Honestly, you make yourself sound like the King of Emelan- we are part of a democracy you know."

"Hmm, King? I'm rather partial to Duke, myself." he looked thoughtful. "Duke Vedris IV... I like the sound of that."

Sandry rolled here eyes, feeling her spirits lift a little, even as her Uncle filled out the forms for enough anti-depressants to make her buoyant for days.

Perhaps Discipline wouldn't be so bad.