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Then the dream from the gold door was gone as well and she was left once again in the room with the doors.

Only this time, there was just one of them. A green door, no less ominous than the rest - or was that just her bias talking? The dream from the blue door had been pretty terrible, but the one from the gold door had been less so.

None of those doors had made her feel sick just by looking at them, though. This one did, made her tremble even in what she now knew was a dream. Her heart was pounding and her head was throbbing and she knew, without a doubt, that this was the end. This was what it'd all been leading up to, even when she hadn't been aware of it.

She'd never wake up from these dreams.

Gingerly she held out a hand, touched the doorknob and memories overwhelmed her; her life, again, before and after Day Zero, the moment she found out she was Infected and again, all these threads leading here, to this -

- there was nothing to do but accept it. Strangely, she found she already had, though she couldn't remember realising it before this moment.

The virus already had her, there was nothing she could do about it and this was the end.

__

She stirred, and then again not. There were two of her now, she understood, like everyone else who'd gone before - her body wasn't really hers anymore, devoid of the mind that made her her.

She was the virus now, seeing the world in new and abstract ways.

Whatever she'd been before, whoever she'd been before, it made no difference now. She was simply one in the collection of memories that made up the virus, whose purpose was now to infect more people, spread their gift -

- and then there was a voice not hers, arguing, things she understood and didn't really and then there was an awful, awful tearing as her mind was pulled apart, but not quite and then -

- she was waking up. She was free but formless, had no body to return to; would she be able to? She couldn't imagine how, but moments ago she hadn't been able to fathom ever being a person again so maybe...

But not now. She needed something in the meantime, something before she figured out how to return - half on an instinct she didn't recognize, she pulled and some of the thousand vines surrounding her obeyed, twining together to make a form that resembled hers. Well. A form that vaguely resembled someone human, at least. It would do.

She moved, flexing a hand - or what was supposed to be a hand - stuggled to walk around in a small circle, just to check that everything worked; it was hard to tell when she couldn't see herself, only the surroundings.

The surroundings she hadn't taken notice of before now. There were... vines, everywhere. Not hers, the ones that made up her vine-body, but other ones, covering a long hallway entirely in green.

She needed to find her own body, as soon as possible. Steeling her determination, Sylvi began moving forward, struggling mightily to keep her vines together in a cohesive form. It was difficult when every little piece of the puzzle had to be watched at all times lest it simply fall away; and moving was far more difficult than it'd ever been as a human. Everything needed separate commands to function in the way she wanted it to, everything needed a little push and a lot of mental fortitude.

Still, she moved forward. It got slightly easier once she got the hang of it and for a while she just moved down the corridor, focused on keeping going.

Then a flash to the side caught her eye, the look of fair skin and blonde hair in an otherwise green corridor. Hope instantly brightened inside Sylvi; her body?

No, someone else. The girl who'd - Sylvi stopped, would have taken a shuddering breath had she been able. The girl who'd saved her from the highway, the one who'd talked weird but been so determined to save her charge.

Gently she reached out, touching the vines around the other blonde's face. The vines retracted, revealing more of her body - at least she was in one piece.

Reaching down, she clumsily lifted the other blonde before adjusting her grip to be a more gentle princess-carry. Maybe she hadn't been able to save Sylvi, but Sylvi would save her.

Down the corridor they moved, further out of the building and away from the heart of the vines. The further they got, the harder it was to hold on to her form, but she was determined and struggled onwards. Someone should be saved in all of this, at least, even if it couldn't be her. This girl had been weird, but kind in her own way and far too young for something like this to happen to her.

They came upon a set of stairs with what looked like an exit at the end and started descending, Sylvi losing more and more of her body as she went. She doubted she looked anything like a human anymore, even by loose standards.

Still she held on, determined even as more vines fell away, and finally she was close, could see the fog seeping in from the entrance and the shadowed shapes moving about through the glass. People, but they didn't feel like her, didn't feel contaminated by the virus - they saw her, saw her charge and moved closer. With the very rest of her will, she held out the blonde girl to them, watching gratefully as they swarmed and took her from her hands.

She was safe. She'd done it, she'd saved someone - Sylvi felt relief and then the quick unravelling of the rest of her body. She couldn't go any further than this, couldn't go to find her body. But maybe... maybe there more people in the building that she could still save.

Or maybe she just wanted to hold on for a bit longer.

Either way, she moved back up the stairs, back into the building, gaining more vines and a more robust body as she went. This was all that was left of her now, and it would soon be gone, back into the virus. Other shapes were moving about in the corridors and brushing against one, she felt that they were the same as her. They would soon be gone as well.

But for now, she still had a bit of time to be herself, to simply exist.