Author's Note: Well, how did this happen? I sat down to plan this chapter and the next thing I know it's been five hours and it's done!
So since this story is, after all, based on a war game, this chapter is rather combat-heavy in recognition of that.
I mentioned last time that Jim and Sarah will have some time together. I haven't changed that, but they've got something to sort out first...
Bridge, Hyperion (music - Mega Man X: Maverick Appears)
"En Taro Tassadar, Executor Selendis. I'm sorry, but I won't hand Sarah over. At least let us accompany her to Aiur." Sarah cursed as she heard the words leave Jim's mouth as she dashed onto the bridge. If the executor was in a bad mood they would be stardust.
Fortunately, Selendis's temper held. "Your services to Aiur do not discount her atrocities against our kind, James Raynor."
Jim was about to open his mouth when Sarah stepped in. "It's okay, Jim. I'll talk to her."
Had it not been for that statement, Selendis would not have known it was Kerrigan that stood before her. It made her pause before responding; had they truly been holding the right person accountable?
Selendis dropped the thought and replied. "And what would you have to say to me, Kerrigan?"
Sarah was aware that the Protoss would look for the slightest excuse to kill her now, but she nonetheless tried to keep herself from shaking as she took a step forward. "Executor, I have a proposition to make to the Hierarchy."
Selendis's expression didn't change, but she nodded for the former to continue.
"I discovered relics that the xel'naga left on Zerus detailing how the hive mind was formed," Sarah said slowly, choosing her words carefully. "With some scientific knowledge from Jim I've found a way to break a Zerg's link with it for good."
"You plan...to destroy the Swarm...?" Selendis couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"Eventually. For now, I'm focusing on curing the remaining infested Terrans in the Swarm. They deserve it the most. All I'm asking of your kind is to give me time."
"A most intriguing turn of events. Kerrigan, I am not in a position to make such judgements. I will report this to the Hierarchy, and they shall decide."
With that, Selendis cut the transmission. The fleet, however, did not lower their defenses and all on the bridge had noticed that they were slowly moving to encircle the Hyperion.
"What have I done?" Sarah whispered as the Protoss ships drew closer. "I should've just surrendered myself..." she turned away from the stares of the bridge crew and lowered her head, unable to meet the eyes of men and women she had likely given a death sentence to.
After a few minutes, Selendis hailed them. "The Hierarchy has decided to grant your request, Kerrigan. However, they would like to see for themselves whether this process can work. Be warned, any exploitation of our generosity, and nothing will stop our fleets from finding you."
Sarah nodded, a look of relief on her face. "Thank you, Selendis. Give the Hierarchy my thanks for their time as well."
Selendis looked at the young Terran for a few seconds before cutting the transmission. Now that she was human, it wasn't as difficult to see Kerrigan as a different personality from the Queen of Blades. Selendis still didn't believe that they were separate entities, but she could see why Raynor was willing to.
Then again, Kerrigan's behavior hadn't changed since Raynor claimed he'd brought her back. Maybe that had been the true Kerrigan the Daelaam had been watching for the past few months. Regardless of whether the Queen was a separate entity within her, Zeratul had attested that Kerrigan had been under the Fallen One's influence during her original infestation, and Selendis could believe that. She'd heard from Raynor that Kerrigan was a ghost before she became the Queen, and knew enough about the shadowy operatives to see that they were ruthless killers who often appeared brainwashed. If that was what her nature had become by the time she was infested, then the Fallen One's influence might have simply amplified it. The question remained though: was she in control, both before and after her capture and infestation?
Bel'shir, the next day (music - Mega Man: The Wily Wars: Buster Rod G stage)
The Raiders' command center and other buildings touched down with a thud that was quickly lost in the wet splattering of sacs at another nearby resource node.
"Alright, fellas, stay sharp. Let's get our base set up; you know what to do. Prioritize the perimeter: I want Bunkers, Perditions, and Missile Turrets set up ASAP. Get that factory on producing Siege Tanks too. The Tal'darim ain't likely to take kindly to us being here again. Remember, do this right and we won't have to worry about the Zerg ever."
They already knew that, but Jim said it anyway on the chance that combat would change their minds. He himself wasn't expecting too much trouble as he noticed the Tal'darim still hadn't rebuilt the base that the Zerg now occupied after he had destroyed it when he had come here on Tosh's behalf. He'd also heard that the Dominion had been staging raids here every now and then when their supply of Terrazine ran low in their haste to remove neural resocialization of their ghost operatives. He had to applaud Junior for being so eager to humanize the Ghost program.
Jim suddenly looked up as the Tal'darim executor hailed him. "You return once more to steal the Breath of Creation, James Raynor? And you bring the abomonations to do your work?! This time, you shall not escape our fury!"
"Nice to see you too, Nyon. Shouldn't have pissed me off the last time I was here or sided with Amon, 'cause this time we're going after all your altars." He'd always hated the Tal'darim, not because he had to fight them, but because they claimed to be Protoss when in reality they were anything but under the influence of Sundrop. The fact that the majority of them had also fought on Amon's behalf didn't help.
"You dare speak the master's name?! That alone is insult enough to see you eviscerated and scattered to the winds! Tal'darim warriors! Take the fight to them now, while they are weak! Drive the abomonations and thieves from our sacred soil!" Jim sighed and cut the transmission. There was no reasoning with Nyon to begin with, but now he would look stupid just trying to converse with this degenerate Protoss.
"About time. Let's get off this vegetized rock; I'm already getting sick of this prick," Sarah grumbled. She was outside with a contingent of marines.
Jim smiled slightly at her enthusiasm and there was a smattering of laughter over the radio at the remark as the SCVs continued their work. Slowly the ranks of marines thinned as they were dispatched into newly-finished bunkers until there was only Sarah left standing rather awkwardly in the small clearing the Raiders were using as a staging area.
"Jim, you're such a pig," she teased and as she noticed one of the Command Center's cameras focused on her. She blew a kiss at it before walking over and forcibly turning it away.
Jim sighed and joined in the round of laughter on the radio with a smile. "Don't think I'm the only one here, darlin'," he replied with a casually suggestive tone. That drew more snickering at several marines' expense.
"Telepath's privelage," Sarah replied cheekily, not realizing she had said it over an open channel. Several marines catcalled over the radio at that and he saw Sarah blushing through the corner of the camera. Jim left the camera be and smiled. He felt bad for baiting her into saying that openly, but Jim was glad that the Raiders were starting to see Sarah as more human than Queen of Blades.
"Stay sharp, people," Jim reminded them. Right on cue, Izsha spoke.
(music - your choice)
"Protoss strike force approaching the base!" Jim was grateful for the Zerg adjutant's psionic perception, which gave the Raiders an early-warning system compared to an adjutant's radar.
He had expected the remainder of the Tal'darim had put up a fanatical sturggle with few numbers to being cut off from the basis of Sundrop, but not a small fleet. Jim's eyes widened as a huge cluster of Protoss ships appeared on radar, supported by a sizable army on the ground.
"Jim...?" Sarah asked nervously. "I'm counting at least seven Carriers, 40 Scouts, 14 Phoenixes, 12 Void Rays, and eight Corsairs. We're not ready for this..."
Thanks to Swann's construction AI upgrade and resource drops from the Hyperion, the Raiders already had over three dozen turrets spaced around their base, along with eight bunkers loaded with marines and six Perdition turrets. Their sheer numbers would be the only thing that gave their defenses a chance against such a large strike force. Jim silently thanked the Hierarchy for not providing the Tal'darim with Tempests.
Jim sighed. "Zagara, how's the anti-air on your end?" Sarah had decided to let the broodmother take point at the latter's request and only take control should the situation become dire for them both.
"Four Corrupters, sixteen Mutalisks, and twelve Hydralisks along with me and a Queen," the broodmother replied. "The Leviathan is sending reinforcements into atmosphere now."
That was better than the small group of four Wraiths, two Vikings, and six Goliaths that they had, but Jim still didn't like the odds. He hadn't liked using the Zerg as bait - their numbers in such short-order battles weren't infinte by a long shot - but in this case, he was hoping their presence would draw off the majority of the Protoss fleet.
"Sarah, try not to take them head on or stay within turret range if you do; they're probably smart enough to bring along Observers."
She knew that already, but she was grateful that Jim was watching out for her regardless. "Acknowledged. Thanks, Jim."
To their dismay, the majority of the Tal'darim's fleet went straight for the Raider's base, while the ground forces attacked the Zerg with half the fighters craft and one Carrier.
The Missile Turrets opened up on the first wave of Scouts, their Longbolt missiles bringing down several fighters before they got within weapons range and the secondary Hellstorm batteries damaging the shielding on several others. The craft responded with a battery of anti-matter missiles, taking down a pair of surprised Goliaths. Jim cursed the Tal'darim's ingenuity at modifying the potent AA weapons into ground-attack munitions as the remaining defenders opened up.
In the time that the turrets were focused on the Protoss fighters, the Tal'darim Carriers had closed the distance and unleashed their Interceptors. The SCVs repairing the turrets were incinterated where they stood by the swarm of drones, and the structures themselves began to fold under the punishment.
"Wraiths, move!" The agile craft had been cloaking on and off to conserve energy while firing back at the Scouts, and now they went dark for good as they moved to attack the Carriers. While the Gemini missile salvos dealt heavy damage to the shielding and hulls, the Tal'darim had moved Observers into the area as the Interceptors destroyed the Missile Turrets in the area. Once the interceptors were on them, even the Wraith's agility didn't help them survive the furious drones for long and the squadron fell, taking only one of the capital ships with them.
Sarah cursed as the flaming wreckage of one of the Wraiths crashed near her. Her rifle and psionic abilities were nigh-impossible to use against the fast-moving Protoss fighters, and the capital ships were out of reach now that Observers had been brought in and their own detection lost. An idea suddenly struck her and she loaded an EMP round, blindly firing it underneath the capital ships. The pulse revealed three Observers in a ring underneath them, and Sarah quickly took them out with precision sniping.
Now she could use her cloak to sneak close enough to use her powers. Seizing one of the Void Rays with her mind, she threw it into another, consuming both craft in an explosion. She heard the distinctive sound of Corsairs casting Disruption Webs and saw two Missile Turrets immobilized by them while Scouts and Void Rays assaulted the hardy structure. Sarah threw a psionic blast as a group of three Corsairs retreated to recharge their energy reserves, knocking the craft out of the sky, where they crashed next to a Terrazine altar. An explosion behind her knocked her to the ground and she saw the remains of a bunker landing around her. Without protection, the marines were fleeing the Scouts and Phoenixes chasing them down, but it was a futile flight...
Until Sarah intervened, using her mind to take control of the Scouts. The Phoenix pilots watched in horror as their allies turned their missiles onto them unwillingly. Once the Phoenixes were gone the Scouts turned their weapons on each other before heading on a suicide charge against the remaining Void Rays.
Just as it looked like the Raiders might stand a chance, the Tal'darim Carriers began launching Escorts from their hangar bays. Though the Daelaam had discarded the design as Escorts had a very finite endurance and were therefore highly dependent on their mother ships, the Tal'darim had found them the perfect replacement for their aging Corsairs as they were less expensive, much faster, more powerful, and could still cast Disruption Webs, albiet at the cost of their hull and shield strength. Most importantly to the manpower-strapped Tal'darim, they were controlled from the Carrier rather than piloted.
Exhausted from controlling three Scouts at once, Sarah almost didn't notice six of the Escorts augering towards her position. The Tal'darim had brought in more Observers. The clank of auto-turrets landing near her shook her out of her daze. The heavy gauss cannons quickly dispatched two of the fragile fighters, but the craft had inherited a toned-down version of the devastating phase disrupters on Immortal, and the three turrets fell quickly to the Protoss counterfire.
"I will cover us. Move!" The Raven threw a Point Defense Drone and another auto-turret down to cover them as the small craft and Sarah quickly retreated. The PDD's energy reserves didn't last long against the furious fire of the Escorts and it was soon shot down and the turret destroyed, though two more Escorts had been lost. Suddenly the nible fighters were shot out of the sky by a barrage of spines, and Sarah saw Corrupter and Mutalisks moving to engage the Carriers and Void Rays.
"Hell, about time!" yelled a marine over the radio as the Tal'darim fleet pulled away and engaged the Zerg.
"Get SCVs repairing those buildings and our defenses set up again!" Jim ordered. "They'll be back soon."
Izsha spoke again. "Warning! The Tal'darim are sealing off a Terrazine altar."
"Goddammit!" Another marine cursed over the comm. "These bastards need to learn when to quit!"
"Calm down, soldier, we have something they don't. Are you up to it, Sarah?"
She wasn't after that battle and he knew it, but they didn't have a choice. They already had to wait for each altar to collect a second full canister's worth of Terrazine, and if one altar was sealed that meant they had to wait even longer and weather more attacks with potentially more casualties.
Sarah nodded. "I'll handle it, Jim."
The altar wasn't that far, but Sarah had to traverse the battle that was still raging in the Zerg base to get to it. Cursing her luck, she cloaked and tried to pick a way through the melee of psi-blades, energy weapons, acid, and claws. Somehow she managed it, but then an Overlord dropped a Baneling on a nearby Zealot. Sarah yelped as some of the acid splashed onto her and burned through her suit, disabling the cloak but leaving her unharmed.
"Dammit..." she grumbled and cursed herself for not checking Zagara's mutation choice. Rupture was a poor option for dealing with the heavy armor and shielding of the Protoss and apparently Zagara had overlooked it. The Splitter's spawn followed her almost apologetically, but Sarah wasn't interested. She was now in sight of the altar being sealed. Lifting her rifle, she adjusted the scope to focus on the Probe's weak point: its particle beam projector.
Taking a steadying breath, she squeezed the trigger. The heavy round flew straight and true, smashing into the worker and disabling it. Without a worker to seal off the altar, the Tal'darim escorts turned and charged towards the Zerg base. Sarah raised her hand and cast a psionic storm towards the approaching Protoss, destroying the quadrupedal Stalkers but barely damaging the lone Immortal and only stripping the Scouts of their shielding.
(music - Mega Man X: Vile Battle)
Without their shields, she could easily take down the Scouts. The Immortal was going to be a problem. Feared by even Thor pilots, the machine's hardened shields and powerful phase disruptors completely masked and even made up for the crippled warrior inside. Sarah doubted she could erect a barrier to block the shots, and the machine could outrun her by a sizable margin. Not to mention her rifle bullets and psionic powers were almost completely nullified by the hardened shield.
Knowing the Immortal's hardened shield was best dealt with via Zerglings, Sarah began running back towards the hive cluster. But she forgot about the Scouts' anti-matter missiles and paid for it as the blasts knocked her off her feet. Thankfully the fighter pilots were more concerned with aiding their allies in assaulting the Zerg, but the Immortal was in range by the time she recovered. The two Splitter spawns that had been following her rushed the Immortal, but they were both destroyed before they could make contact. Sarah's psionic blast was deflected off the walker's hardened shields, and her rifle bullets yielded the same result.
The Immortal's phase disruptors had no such trouble. Sarah saw the muzzles glow cyan and erected a psionic barrier in the nick of time. The energy shells tore through the barrier and slammed into her, knocking her onto one of the entrances to the hive cluster. The breath was torn from her lungs by the horrible impact and she didn't dare look down at the mess her body had likely become upon getting hit. To top it off, her head felt like it would explode. With a concussion like that she wouldn't be using her psychic powers any time soon. As soon as the Immortal got another shot off it was over for her.
Fortunately, the immense knockback of the phase disruptors left her out of the Immortal's range, and the mechanical strider was moving slower than normal so as not to draw attention from the Zerg. Sarah lifted her head and immediately a wave of nausea overcame her. Before she knew it she was staring at the sky of Bel'shir again. Sarah felt an odd sense of peace despite her situation as the pain slowly faded. She'd always enjoyed watching clouds during her free days on TarKossia...how fitting that clouds would again be the last thing she would see.
As he watched Sarah head into the furball over by the Zerg base, Jim had an odd sense of foreboding. Sarah was the strongest being he'd ever seen; if anyone could survive anything it would be her. Yet his intuition kept nagging at him.
"Zagara, have you seen Sarah?"
The broodmother did not immediately reply. "I have not."
"Can you get some Zerglings down the ramp to the north? The Tal'darim were sealing an altar up there and I had her stop them."
Zagara suddenly roared in anger and the communication link faded to static. Jim wondered what he'd done before Zagara's image reappeared. "My apologies. Oracles that are destroying our larva."
So apparently Tal'darim had learned to use energies of the Void. Either that or there were also Nerazim defectors amongst their ranks. Neither thought helped improve Jim's perception of them. "I can send a pair of Wraiths over to deal with them. And forget about the Zerglings; I'll just have the Wraiths scout out the area."
Zagara nodded for him to do so and cut the communication. Curt as ever, but apparently she had learned to swallow her pride every now and then. Jim gave the order and a two-ship formation of Wraiths were soon headed for the Zerg hive cluster.
Jim watched as the Oracles immediately stopped roasting the Zerg Drones and larva and began fleeing as the fighter craft approached. Suddenly one of them halted and bobbed slightly in the air. Jim could make out the form of Zagara in a very odd position. As she returned to her normal posture, the Oracle she had immobilized went out of control and crashed.
He couldn't see it, but the broodmother had Consumed the pilot in order to refill her energy reserves. However, unlike Infestors and other specialist Zerg units, broodmothers could siphon energy from only a foe rather than consuming other Zerg. However, it could both refill energy reserves and regenerate health if the former were full, making it a vaunted skill in Zagara's arsenal. A risky move, to be certain as it required the broodmother's absolute concentration, but done right, it could turn the tide of battle single-handedly.
Zagara growled with relish at refilling her energy reserves. Though Sarah had taught her a number of ways to harness a broodmother's potent psionic energy, the broodmother didn't regenerate her reserves as fast as her queen and thus had to rely on Consumption.
"Forward!" she commanded. "Drive the Protoss back!" A force of Stalkers managed to blink through the Zerg lines and began attacking the Roaches from behind, but Zagara raised her claws and cast a psionic blast. The Stalkers were ripped off their feet as an invisible shockwave erupted from the center of the group and before they could regain their footing Zagara was tearing apart their particle disruptor casters, aided by several Devouring Ones that she kept as personal escorts.
"Disable the machines, but leave the Protoss be," she commanded. After Korhal, Sarah had put her lieutenant through several tests to make sure she understood her teacher's concept of vision. Though these Protoss were no better than the Zerg in the eyes of the Hierarchy and Daelaam, every bit of mercy on the Swarm's behalf would be an argument to keep the Protoss from going on a massive hunt for the disbanded members once the hive mind was shut down.
A blast shook the battlefield and Zagara saw a Colossus topple over, a gaping hole in its head where an ingenious Viper had repeatedly smashed the walker with its abduction tentacle. Zagara made a note to review the memories of that particular one after the battle: Ingenuity was something Sarah had tried to impress upon not just the leaders of the Swarm but also on its soldiers. Cunning, she had told them both as the Queen and as herself, often succeeded where brute force didn't.
Zagara growled in satisfaction as the remaining ground forces began a retreat. She ordered the Swarm not to pursue and immediately began draining a straggling High Templar of its energy reserves to ensure it could do no harm. The remaining Tal'darim air power was also in retreat, though Zagara and the Raiders gave the golden warships no quarter after all the damage they had caused. With the Tal'darim beaten back, they could get to harvesting Terrazine.
Sarah saw the remaining Protoss begin to flee through her dimming vision, but the lone Immortal advancing upon her did not follow its comrades. Instead, it had stopped upon seeing who it was fighting.
"The Queen of Blades!" The voice was one of disbelief and absolute hatred. "I was entombed in this exoskeleton because of you! I lost my brethren, my charge to you! I lost everything but myself to you, and now you come to take that too?!"
"W...What...?" in her daze of pain Sarah didn't realize what the Tal'darim was talking about.
"Do not lie! The Hierarchy may be persuaded by your kowtowing, but we Tal'darim know better! You destroyed our master so you may rule over this universe alone! As if upsetting the balance of creation was not enough, now you come here to wreak more suffering! "
"I...I'm not...a Zerg anymore..." Sarah groaned. She managed to lift her head and noticed her nausea was gone. "What's going on?"
"Indeed?!" roared the Immortal pilot. "You lie to my face, and expect me to swallow your pitifully weak lies like the mindless fanatic you take me to be?! You Zerg are the ones who do not change! Always a lying, deceptive, arrogant, filthy breed!"
"But..." Sarah protested, then looked down at her stomach as she noticed the Immortal pilot's gaze fixed upon the same place. While there had been a sight she refused to consider minutes earlier, now there was nothing save her skin. Her hostile environment suit was coated in blood, but...the wounds the phase disruptors had inflicted upon her were gone. "No..." she whispered sadly at taking in the sight and its implications. She then spoke to the Immortal pilot, noticing for the first time an executor's markings on the exterior shell. "Then end me...and my miserable existence. At the very least you shall have revenge for your lost body."
The reaction stunned the Tal'darim. Truth be told, Nyon had been expecting the former Queen of Blades to behave the same as she had previously, but this was unfathomable for him. It could, of course, be another attempt at deception, but he'd never seen the Queen feel despair before, and a mind probe confirmed the emotion genuine.
Nevertheless, Nyon lowered his phase disruptors and the powerful cannons began charging another shot. He never got the chance to fire it as eight Raptors suddenly leaped over their fallen Queen and sprinted towards him, covered by two Wraiths. Cursing his luck, the Tal'darim executor hastily backed up as Sarah called the Raptors off. Seeing their allies break off was the cue for the Wraith pilots, who reported their findings to Jim before heading back to the Hyperion.
(music - StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty soundtrack: Better Tomorrow)
Jim raced through the hive cluster, trying his best to ignore the sounds of creep pulling off and splashing against his combat armor. When he reached Zagara, he quickly exchanged a word of thanks and a reminder that Matt was in charge while he was in the field before running on.
He found what, or more accurately, who he was looking for at the edge of the base. She was huddled with her arms around her legs.
"Sarah! Jesus, are you okay?" he asked at seeing her blood-covered hostile environment suit.
She turned with a pained expression on her face. "Jim...can you leave? Please?"
He was stunned. "What? Why, darlin'?"
She looked away, at a total loss for words. How could she explain to him that she was still a Zerg when she was human by any aspect?
He dropped his rifle on the edge of the creep and slowly walked forward. "It's okay, you can tell me," he tried to reassure her.
"No, it's not." Sarah scooted away from him. "Jim, I'm...I'm still a Zerg. Everything you've done's been for nothing."
"You aren't, Sarah. You're a beautiful Terran. The Queen of Blades is long gone."
"No, she's not!" Sarah didn't know why she was yelling. "I've still got Zerg DNA in me! I'm still her! Jim, please go!"
"What about your plan, darlin'? You've still got to follow through on that!"
"Stop calling me that! The woman you knew died on Tarsonis! I'm not the Sarah Kerrigan you knew any more!"
"You aren't. You're no longer Sarah Kerrigan the ghost; now you're Sarah Kerrigan, the savior of us all and the love of my life."
At any other time the words would have been comforting, but now, it just made Sarah even more distraught "Jim, just go! Please!" she turned again and Jim saw she was crying. "Please..."
"I can't, Sarah. I love you; I can't bear to see you hurting like this without trying to do something."
"Don't try! I'm endangering you all just by being here!" she was almost in hysterics as Jim grew closer. "Jim, I love you too! I don't want to hurt you!"
"Sarah, calm down. How could you hurt me when you're in control? Even the Queen of Blades couldn't while she had you trapped - Sarah! Sarah, come back!"
He reached his hand out, but she had already disappeared into the jungle foliage.
"Sarah..." he whispered, in shock over what had just happened. "...don't you...give up...on me..."
Sarah ran with abandon. All she cared about was getting away from Jim, the Zerg, the Tal'darim. She was putting them all in danger just by being there. And it wasn't even from the Hierarchy's wrath. When she'd been regenerating those wounds, she felt a hunger for something. She didn't know what it was, but what if it was for the power she'd given up? The thought had shook her to her core.
It had aroused her deepest fears. Irrational as some of them were, she fled from them just the same. What if the Zerg DNA in her meant she would be infested again? What if that lust for power was Amon still influencing her from beyond the stars, trying to make her commit more horrible atrocities against her will? What if she lost control after the Protoss took her for trial and convicted herself?
She had no idea how long she had been running for when her legs finally gave out and she collapsed, her chest heaving as much from the extortion of running as the sobs rocking her body. She wasn't aware that she'd pushed herself far beyond her limits or the toll that the sultry Bel'shir climate was taking on her in her single-minded and childish attempt to escape her fears. All she cared about was the futile escape.
"I...I can't stop now...!" she thought desperately and tried to get to her feet again. When that failed, she tried to drag herself along, but her body had given up.
"Come on!" she urged her body impatiently. She managed to get to her hands and knees but immediately collapsed again. What's the point in continuing when you don't know the way, her body asked.
Her mind had no answer for the question: it only cared about getting away from the fears tearing at its walls. Suddenly she looked up and saw a small rock, though to her tormented mind it was something totally different. She summoned the strength to crawl towards it and grasped it with one hand before her eyes closed and her body shut down. But even as she descended into darkness, one thought would not go quietly and forced itself to the forefront of her mind before being wrested back.
"Jim..."
Author's note: I hate to leave this chapter on a cliffhanger, but it's already so long.