Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again

It wasn't the first time she woke up, but it was probably the first time she was really aware of what was going on. Ofelia stared at the ceiling, at the white, and closed her eyes. There was no need to look around, no need to wonder if she was just mistaken in her thinking of where she was. The smells were the same, the sounds were the same.

A mixture of silence, a mixture of machines. The smell of medication amid the smell of blood and dying.

Oh yes, Ofelia knew where she was the second or third time around, but she didn't know how she got there. Did it matter though?

No, it didn't. She was still alive.

It was frustrating.

But then that made it sound like she wanted to die, like she'd gone off to do something with the intent of not making it back alive. No, no, she'd never do something like that. Even with her mind addled, even with her heart addled, Ofelia would never go somewhere with the intent to die.

Not anymore, not ever again. Too many had died, or were dying, or already dead long before her time. No, no, she couldn't and wouldn't be selfish.

No one would mourn her so being selfish would be a waste of time.

Her ego, it was poisonous. Did she want people to cry for her, to mourn her the way they did the boy with the white braid? Or to mourn like the did for the girl who had been a beast and then a stone? The lovers, a pair, forever turned gray by fog.

His name, Ofelia knew his name, but saying it - thinking it - hurt too much. Ofelia knew her name and it stung so much less to say or think it but the cruel fact in her heart was she didn't care enough to think over her. They had never met, she would not mourn her.

They would always be, that pair in her mind, lovers, forever gray and decayed. Perhaps once she got out of whatever she was doing here she would go ad see their graves in that cold cemetery. Killzone's death had somewhat taught her how to mourn, perhaps she'd be able to cry for them. Or maybe, just maybe, she would look down at their headstones and wonder if it was worth anything to talk to the dead.

The dead could not hear, the dead did not care. Mourning was for the living she had been told. Mourning did nothing but give closure.

There was no closure to give or get if she was dead, so Ofelia would not die.

That was why she knew where she was, which was inside the infirmary of Deus.

That was why she knew someone had come to see her once before, she may have spoken with them, but had fallen back into the darkness. Someone else had come, they had spoken, but that memory too was swirling in the dark waters. Who had those people been, why did she feel like it mattered? They had come to see her, come to speak with her, and yet the fog swirled in her mind and ate away their faces. She needed to be aware, needed to ask what was going on, but there was no on around to call for.

The white of the ceiling remained beneath her eyelids as she closed them tight, trying to block out the pure clean that threatened to blind her. She wanted to move her hands to properly cover her face but that wasn't going to happen, a screaming fire burning through her shoulders at just the thought of movement, and at the imagined pain it felt as though her throat seized as well and her breathing became harder.

Ofelia squeezed her eyes tighter shut, trying to drive away the white. She didn't want the white, she didn't want anything to be seen. Why was there such emptiness, why was there such a space that all she could think on was the echo that skipped through her memory and thoughts like a child at play?

Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping

It was her own fault she was here, her ego and pride and running off to do something reckless, but why had she run away? Was it really to get revenge, was it really to seek death? Ofelia didn't know, she honestly didn't know, and it was just the same as when she scalded herself in the shower shortly after everyone's return.

Was it a way to atone for something she did, even if her hands would never be clean?

She didn't want to think this way, she didn't want to focus. Why couldn't she get up, why couldn't she really remember?

Why did Ofelia only feel unease and a dark patch when trying to think of what happened?

Why was there silence?

There was a tablet.

Why.

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Where was Rue? Her screams and cackles, her chastising remarks and unending hatred? The teen and the weapon would never get along, even if they had met in a different time and place as different people, but there was a dependency there that had been beaten into Ofelia's body until she nearly broke from it. Her mind and heart would be bruised forever with the lesson, that the voices were always welcome.

Back at home she'd been scared of the voices, always calling to her at night from the barn, or calling to her during lessons from the shed. From bushes on the walks home, or from the woods while out adventuring alone. They were always calling, always flooding her ears with their sounds that ranged from breathtakingly beautiful to soul crushing terrifying. Some nights she'd lean out her window and listen, wondering just what could make those sounds, while many others she curled under her blankets, a flashlight her protection until the sun's rays draped over her huddled frame.

They had been voices, chimed in. Deus had been silent, she was accepting of that, if not a bit nervous, and then the silence was broken with anger and hatred unlike anything she'd ever felt. A hatred that could have been love the way it spread. A poisonous love set to seep into her veins and worm its way to her heart and destroy her from within. Rue's voice was always there, always talking. There were times when the Boo Hag was silent, watching and waiting, but that silence was a punishment and nothing permanent. Ofelia had enjoyed those times because she could sleep and relax, but Rue was always there still, so it was a strange sort of comfort.

When the voices in the fog came they drowned out Rue, who didn't fight them back.

When Rue took power she used Ofelia as a mouthpiece, screaming and singing and killing and flaying.

And then it was all gone, both Rue and the voices and Bix and Ceres. Empty chairs, empty tables. Broken tablets perhaps with future cold stones. Silence, just endless silence now.

Ofelia was terrified of the silence.

Help. Help. Help.

Help me.

Still remains

Before.

Nothing.

Within the sound of silence