She was in chaos.
Color swirled around her, while screams raked across her skin. Her own screams she realized. Each one ripped from the very core of her being. She was blind with the clashing waves of it. She was lost and there was no way out. No way home. She reached out in every direction at once, trying to find something. But nothing existed in this maelstrom, but her and her own screams and sobs. Her and him. His burning eyes were everywhere. "I will find you, Simone." His voice burrowed into her head and pain raged through her. "Sweet Simone, we are just alike." His words pulsed through her. She tried desperately to push it, him, away. But it pressed against her violating every part of her.
Then it was gone.
It his place she heard another voice. A cool soothing voice, calling her name. She turned listening for it above the roar of chaos."This way, Simone. Come home now…"
She surfaced as if she had been diving in deep deep water. She gasped and breathed, dragging the air into her tortured throat. She opened her eyes. But she was still blind. She floated in perfect silent darkness. A sob escaped her in despair. She called out into the silence, hoping for that voice again. Hoping for something to take her a little further. She saw something.
A shape in the distance, formless and changing. It was so dim. She squinted trying to see. The shape grew closer and clearer. A cacophony of screams rose behind the shapes: the howls of the dying and the damned. Simone struggled to move, to flee. The shapes came closer and began to resolve themselves.
They were tall and sinuous. They moved almost as if they were dancing to some hidden music to horrible for humans to comprehend. Eldar. They surrounded her their grins full of fangs and malice. Not just Eldar but Dark Eldar. She wept and tried to keep them at bay. But they were everywhere, all over her. She screamed like one of the damned on its descent into hell.
Simone sat bolt upright clawing at the sheets that covered her. The cries kept coming as she fought off her imaginary attackers. A gray haired Hospitaller rushed to her side and grabbed her arms, "Inquisitor!" she called, her voice calm and firm. "You are safe now. Settle down." She gently pushed Simone back into the bed, "You are all right, be calm." Simone looked around wild-eyed, "ELDAR" she gasped. "Eldar…" She slumped back her voice fading. The older Hospitaller checked the pressure bandages on Simone's shoulder and hummed a hymn softly as she fussed.
A few seconds later a woman appeared in the doorway, her hair wild from her pillow, an antique inferno pistol in her hand. She was dressed in a simple robe of crimson and white, holding her free hand over her ribs. One could just barely discern the pain that the motion had caused on her stoic face. Katherine's eyes flashed about the room in alarm, "Eldar?"
The Hospitaler turned from one patient to the other, "There are no cursed Eldar here Mother Superior, just an evil dream. And you should be back in your bed not up looking for a fight." She said not unkindly. Katherine inclined her head slightly, feigning indigence, "I rarely go in search of a fight, sister...yet I seem to find them all too often." She lowered the weapon and turned her attention to Simone. "Inquisitor Godschilde, I am Katherine, Canoness of the Order of Saint Magdalena." She gave her a slight nod of the head.
Simone turned bleary eyes to her visitor. Her head was spinning but she made an effort to focus. "Mother Superior." She sat a little straighter as the events of the last few hours came back to her. "I was unaware that you were here on Byzantium."
"Only recently arrived, Inquisitor," Katherine stepped in, placing the weapon on the nightstand. With a sharp look, she dismissed the Hospitaller and walked slowly to the foot of the bed. "We are here for the same purpose...to save Byzantium from the evil that threatens it." Simone felt a chill grasp her heart. She knew that evil now. "Gaius"
