In her dreams, really a waking mix of dreams, nightmare and memories, Candice's eyes came to rest on now a single door. A sickening green, She was compelled to see it, stare at it, even if that caused her very heart to ache. In the pit of her stomach Candice got the feeling that this was the end for her. She wouldn't give up without a fight, she'd try for as long as she had too.

As she grasped the knob, her sickness rising more memories flashed, her recent choices up to now. The cannibals, the prison, the fog and vines. Was she dying?

Yes, she thought, as she found she was able to, in a way not like she used to be. She had lost her body, she had lost herself. Everything was wrong. She wasn't herself, but all. She was the virus, a networking mass of the virus.

Knowing she had found a place to be, where everything else did not matter. Just knowledge, just the whole, it was somewhat comforting.

Something sparked in her. She was someone, a name, a person. She tried to fight, but it fought back.
She did not want to infect the living, to rip everything away from them. She was still too young to have a legacy! She struggled in the void, agianst the voice. She fought for her freedom, and so it was.

Candice felt as if she was waking up. She glanced around, checking herself, but she wasn't there. Terrified she searches her memories. She is Candice Wolf. She is!

Her assured realization calls the vines to her. They twist and wrap, creating a mockery of a body, but at least it was something. In the vines she catches sight of a face. Was it her?

Candice moved awkwardly, demanding the vines stay locked. She found the face and tried to remove it from the consuming vines. It was hers. But it wasn't. The face was familiar, but not her. This creature had saved her. She remembered flashes of the highway, the creature and the car. This creature had tried to save her! Candice, with extreme effort, began to dig the girl out.

She had tried to save her, even came to save her. She had to help, had to keep someone alive.

The vines moved away at her very touch allowing Candice to pick up the unconscious creature. She walked forward, determined to find the exit. She would get the creature out. Someone had to live!

As she progressed the vines began to unravel. Walking was harder, keeping herself together was an impossible battle. She had to find an exit. More and more of her vines fell away and Candice knew she could not progress much further. For once Candice could not run.

She descended the stairs, trying not to stumble as she was now a mess of loosely coiled vines. Fog invades the opening. Through the glass she can see shadows, not hostile. Not sick. Unraveling further Candice brings her rescuer toward the shadows. The creatures allies. Candice was glad it had friends. They took the creature, and Candice hurriedly retreated.

She gathered up her vines, re-twisting them around herself to form a more substantial body, Little of the building remained and Candice understood this was her last stand. Soon creation would devour it all, and she would return to the collective of incomplete knowledge. Inadequate memories.

Still, in this moment, she was partly herself, and still a single entity.