A wave of aggression flooded her with the urge to fight. To devour. To kill. It distorted her thoughts and chilled her skin. Her own emotions fluttered against these urges, trying to reclaim space against the alien impulses pressing at her from outside her own mind. Her feelings could help her stay connected with herself, help her temper her actions, but right now what she felt most of all was fear, and that fear made her want to fight just as badly. It was like this every time one of those monsters appeared, and if she could never get used to it, at least she knew what it meant. There were wraith here.
She twisted against the dream, felt her arms flop limply in her bed, the sensation of smooth material breaking into her senses and vanishing again. It was never easy to sleep when you were afraid.
The people around her hadn't noticed yet. They carried on, oblivious to the threat about to destroy their lives. She didn't know any of their faces, but she had to warn them all the same. This simple village had no defenses she could see. The best these people could hope for was to run. Was there a stargate close enough for them to escape through, or had it already been blocked by the wraith?
Teyla stopped the first person in reach, a woman with curious black tattoos down her face, and a long white dress swirling around her legs. "Your people need to leave. There are wraith somewhere nearby."
"Of course there are," She agreed, nodding placatingly as if Teyla were silly.
"Don't you understand? You are in danger if you stay here. If you have anywhere to hide at all-"
A drone walked by, pushing between Teyla and the woman, and disappearing again. The woman smiled at her gently, her eyes yellow and her teeth jagged. She reached out toward Teyla, the gesture soothing, but her hand was bisected by a raw opening like a mouth. Teyla knocked her hand aside, but the woman only continued to smile.
No one else was startled by this woman, this wraith in disguise. Everywhere Teyla looked blue eyes suddenly flicked to yellow, or brown curls knotted into white dreadlocks. The humans here had wraith hands, and they reached out, pulling people from the crowds to feed on them. Some even fed on wraith. Which were truly humans and which were actually wraith? They warped back and forth before her so she couldn't tell one from another.
This was a dream. These were her thoughts, and she would control them. She focused on one person, picturing him as human, and made him stay that way. A galaxy without wraith was no nightmare. They were all human. It didn't matter how they started out. What mattered was now. She would not be - she was not afraid of them.
She opened her eyes, but the fear didn't leave, nor the sense of a wraith's presence. That sense had become weaker, and was fading more each hour, but it was still only on faith that she believed it would one day disappear entirely. Doctor Beckett was determined there was humanity buried somewhere in wraith genome, and he would bring it out. That didn't mean it was easy, for anyone.
In this city a wraith screamed for his freedom, living through a nightmare of his own. His suffering reverberated through her own skin, and while she didn't know if the sense was telepathic or imagined, she did know his pain was real. She didn't have to try imagining how frightened he must be right now.
She wouldn't be afraid of this wraith, this Michael. She would speak to him, and let her eyes and her mind see him as human, and once she did, she would stop being afraid.