Classified light- a criminal minds fan fiction

Empty realisations

Cameron stood in a place she never thought she would return, in a place she didn't know was even there anymore.

She stood in her childhood home but instead of the burnt, empty and gutted shack that she had last saw it as, it was different- it was just like how her mother made it when she was a child.

It was warm, it was full of light and music, it was full of love and the smell of sweet treats on the rare occasion her mother found enough extra rations to create them.

"Mama? Pa?" She looked around with confusion- how did she get here? Where was her family?

She was still in her bloodied clothes but her new half dyed hair was tied back in a messy braid of her childhood- a braid her mother would do for her as the two sat by the last flickering candle light.

Cameron walked out into the land, the warm breeze of Russian summer brushing against her skin and coddling her more than any arms could.

The familiar smell of the farm wrapped around her and brought her home more than physically being in that place could.

She walked with her hands brushing the long grass just as she did when she was a child, feeling the dew from the last spring showers still on the longest pieces in between her fingers.

She let herself smile and forget everything- forget all the pain- and for a split second wondered if it all had been some kind of intense, crazy long nightmare.

All the pain, all the hurt, all the fear- just gone.

Suddenly it was all back when she stopped in her tracks and saw the gate open.

The gate.

The gate that was never left open, the gate that was always locked- the gate she thought that she had mistakenly left open before and paid a price for it. The gate that when open only meant bad news.

Suddenly the fear was back, the woods around her house turned dark, the house itself seemed to collapse into itself into a haunted, hollowed out version of her childhood home.

No more light, no more love, no more warmth or music- except a bitter song that sent chills down her spine. A song from a piano, a song from the cruelest hands;

A song from him.

She turned to the wide open gate and almost screamed when she saw the tall figure stood in front of it.

A figure with dark hair and a streak of white in its curls that she had come to learn was from being struck by lightning as a child, the figure with a sharp jawline that sat below a cruel sinister smirk- the beautiful face of a horrific monster.

The face of a man capable of such evil that his presence alone made the woods around them die.

The face of a man who could blacken any soul with one touch.

"Hello my little bird" his words coursed through her and suddenly she wasn't in that woods or near her home- she was back with him.

Back in that room, back in that damned place, back under his grip.

She screamed, she cried, she tried everything but he was still there.

The fear, the pain, the monster.

How had he found her? How had he gotten her back? How was he over the top of her again? How had he-

Cameron bolted up in the bed in a cold sweat, gasping for air as her hands dug into her thighs just as his had before she woke up.

She felt the tears on her warm cheeks before her vision came back and she realised where she was- or more where she wasn't.