||6-8||

Just as a cold wave swept over 6-8, the door swung open with a loud bang, causing three things to happen almost simultaneously. First, the young brown haired woman retracted her hand and disappeared, then Doctor Agreste let out a great yell of despair causing three more people to run into the room. The last thing to happen was the most frightening experience that the small girl had ever thought possible. 6-8 completely vanished.

||6-8||

Fire.
Absolute burning fire was the only way to describe what the scared child was feeling as she tumbled to the floor of wherever she was and began to scream.
Everything hurt. Her arms and legs felt as though some unseen force was stretching them out as far as they would go and her chest... her chest was the epicentre of the fire, all the tendrils reaching out from the inside to burn the rest of her body.
Her mind was trying its hardest to understand what was going on but she quickly realised that it wasn't working properly, everything being barred off with a vicious wall of white flame. She was able to formulate only a few thoughts but continued to scream throughout, as though screaming would take away the pain.
Why was everything on fire?
Why was it burning white inside her head.

"Help me!!"

Wherever she was, some very distant part of her noted with interest, she could still speak and could hear her voice as it echoed off the hard surface that she had tumbled onto. That didn't matter to her in the present moment, the only thing that mattered was stopping the fire.

"Help!!"

The burning rippled out across her skin now, not just in her blood. It hurt. There seemed to be no end to whatever was happening to her, until she realised with only the slightest bit of bewilderment that the fire was becoming more like boiling water and slowly began to feel like almost cold water rushing over her.

She peeled her eyelids open and looked at the strange place that she had landed in. It was almost the exact same place as she had left, from what she could see from her position on the floor, although this time it did look to be a bit darker and even... dustier? That couldn't be right? She had left it only a few seconds ago, hadn't she?

It didn't matter, she had already made a mess of herself, and she now had to try to figure out why the pain, the burning fire that was so, so much hotter than what Doctor Rauclez had ever exposed her to, had even occurred.

6-8 tried to piece together what little thoughts she could but only managed to come to one conclusion: perhaps she had been put under pressure again and had been moved cells. Perhaps the people she could have sworn she had met, if they were even real, had merely been doctors coming to see how HERSELF was progressing. Yes, that made sense.

Complete sense. Absolutely no holes in that idea...

6-8 brushed her hand cautiously over her face, just to check that all her features were still there. It wasn't like she had completely disappeared then, perhaps just a wonky teleport... even though she hadn't had one of those for more than nine visits.

It was just too much for one day. She could vaguely remember the bunker going under lockdown and seeing two strange people coming to her door, but that felt like such a long time ago. Years, maybe. But that couldn't be right, her reasoning must have been a little off.

Before she could start to question herself even more than she already was, she looked up to the open door where she thought she could see a face. A pale face from the blue light glowing just below the door frame.

"Lyra?" Her voice was soft, and oddly kind. "Lyra? Are you okay? We're here for us now."

Lyra? Who the hell was Lyra? We? There is no we. There was never any we.

The girl at the doorway stepped further into the room and from the glow, 6-8 could see her features. White hair tied back in an odd hairstyle that looked complicated, small but piercing blue eyes and a sad smile gracing her lips.

"Hey, I haven't been here for far too long. And, at a guess," she paused and looked 6-8 over, taking in the girl's ill fitting wrinkled greyed nightgown style rags. "I would say that you've just met... Avis? No, that looks far more like my reaction to Owen. Well, who knows?! This is always a bit of a gamble."

Who the hell is Owen? 6-8 moved a little, almost into a sitting position but immediately flinched at the pain in her head caused by the jostling.

"Actually, I can remember this. First time then. Huh-" the taller girl nealt down, reaching out a hand to brush 6-8's hair out of her face. "My poor little head. You're really gonna need some of Agreste's meds when you go back."

No no no. This wasn't right. It HURT to look at the older girl, it HURT to have her touch 6-8, it HURT when she mentioned things in such a calm and mildly inquisitive tone. The fire, that had only just cooled down, flared up again.

"And this would be us going then. Nice to meet me. Hey, when you meet her, say hi to Shuri for me. Well, us." The older girl's hand began to look like particles, and she waved around them with interest. "Good luck for the future."

6-8 could only look on in horror as the girl began to disappear in front of her eyes. What the hell was happening? Who was she?

Just before she completely disappeared, the other girl opened her mouth and said six fateful words. "Save them but trust no one."

Ok. That happened, right? Maybe. Perhaps? Yes. No?

Who cared anyway? The budding river of fire was starting up again, ripping all sane thought away from 6-8's grasp. She couldn't even cry out this time, her mouth sealing itself and her eyes shutting completely.

It wasn't even a conscious decision, she realised far later in her life. She had shut her eyes, not out of choice, but it felt almost as if someone had forcefully shut them, ramming them closed for fear of seeing the white fire engulf her completely.
But in the moment, it mattered very little to her. In fact, most of her concern was directed to cooling the raging fire surging through her body, a concept which completely and utterly failed.

And for he second time that day, 6-8 became nothing more than falling particles, vanishing from the room.

~
Sooo... what do you think?
This is kinda jumpy and abrupt, I know, but I think that this is a pretty accurate description of how I feel when my anxiety starts to get a hold of me, although, (obviously) the concept is still hard to put into words, so please excuse the whole fire analogy.

~ MallaHarkness04 xx

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