She wasn’t ready, she wasn’t whole. She didn’t even have a name.

Names didn’t matter. Names were part of what had been taken.

She missed what was lost. She needed to find it. She wasn’t whole.

She wandered, searching, looking for the pieces of herself. Or something to fill in the empty space- she wasn’t sure. She needed to be whole, she needed to be her. She could hardly remember who she was. She had to be there, somewhere, with all the rest. She had to be among the vines. The vines had taken her memories, and she desperately wished to have them back. She needed them to be whole.

Maybe it was her desperation to be whole, to be complete that did it. She hadn’t even known it was happening until it was done. Vines moving, forming a shape that mimicked memories, allowed for some form of solid movement. It still wasn’t her.. She needed to find herself. At least with the vines she could move, she could search. She hated this. Whatever it was she had become, she hated it. She hated that she’d had herself stolen. Why? Why had it happened? What was the purpose? Where was she—

A body. Her body? No…but another face she remembered, like some sort of dream. A woman she’d seen before. A woman who had…tried to help her.

There was a sigh and a twinge of regret. They were both here, they were both lost. Unless… it was possible the other woman still had a chance. That she was still whole inside herself.

It was a deep-set drive, a need to help that set it in motion. Pulling the other woman out and away from the vines. Carrying her down the stairs. The other woman had tried, she had tried, and failed. It was okay though. There was no reason they both should have to suffer through this. No reason at all. One of them would be saved, even if they both couldn’t be. That was enough. That was just.

She noticed that the vines fell away as she walked, she could feel herself coming apart. Ah. So that was it. There was no escape for her after all, not that she had expected there would be.

Her would be rescuer seemed to be breathing easier as she was handed off to her allies. The thing that used to have a name gave one last longing look at where freedom was, at where help had tried to be, and then returned up the stairs. There was no hope of leaving. She knew her fate. Eventually she would cease. Everything that was her would be taken. She was not okay with this, but she saw no other choice. She simply returned to center, intending to fight as long as she could.

She could hardly say why she wanted to fight, but she did. She wished to continue- that had been the essence of life, after all, hadn’t it? She found that she was not sure. She found that she knew very little by way of anything.

She did see that she was not alone in this place. Other shapes moving. Other shapes she recognized as being as lost and confused as she was. Pieces of them were missing, too. No one was whole, were they? The legacy would take them all, piece by little piece.

She looked around all of the others. Who were they? Was that even a question that could be answered? She doubted she would remember them if she knew who they were. So much had been taken. So much had been lost.

Not all lost, not yet. The pieces that were left of _________ ____ clung to one another, in a desperate attempt to hold out, and last just a moment longer. She wasn’t ready to give in. She wasn’t ready to give up. She wasn’t whole, but she wasn’t gone either.

She would linger as long as she could.