Chapter 21 - 18: Primal Rage
The medbay's sterile silence was deafening. Ellen lay motionless, her face pale and damp with sweat. Her body twitched violently, her breathing uneven as she sank deeper into the nightmare. There was no one there to hold her hand or watch over her—no one to wake her from the torment gripping her mind.
The screams clawed at her consciousness, starting faint and distorted, growing louder and sharper with each passing second. The sound was unmistakable now—a child's anguished cries. Mira's cries.
Ellen's vision shifted again, dragging her into the depths of the dream. She was small, vulnerable, and strapped to the cold, unforgiving surface of a metal table. Looming figures surrounded her, their faces hidden in darkness, their movements slow and methodical, like predators toying with their prey. The light above her was blinding, casting long shadows across their forms as they leaned closer.
"Stop..." Ellen whispered weakly in her dream, but the word felt hollow, swallowed by the suffocating air of the room.
The cold bite of a blade tore through her—no, Mira's—flesh, and Ellen convulsed in her cot, gripping the blanket in a deathly hold. Every cut, every probe, every wave of Ether surging through Mira's fragile body resonated in Ellen's own. The pain was unbearable, the helplessness suffocating.
"May the Creator refine you," a shadowed figure murmured. The words felt like a death sentence, each syllable dripping with cruel finality.
Ellen's vision shifted once more. She was no longer on the operating table but trapped in a containment cell. Mira was hunched in a corner, her small body trembling. Thick tubes jutted from her spine, pulsating with an ominous glow as Ether was forcibly pumped into her veins. The once-bright child Ellen had come to care for was now a shadow of herself, her form twisted into her oni-like Ethereal state.
"Mama..." Mira whimpered, her voice breaking as she clawed weakly at the tubes. Her eyes, with desperation, locked onto the cell door. "Save me... please... Mama..."
Ellen's breath hitched, her heart shattering at the sound of Mira's pleading voice. Her body burned with anger, a rage so primal and consuming that it made her chest ache.
Suddenly, the nightmare shattered, and Ellen's eyes shot open. The world around her was blurry, her senses dulled, but one thing was crystal clear—Mira's cries still echoed in her ears, and they wouldn't stop.
Her breathing was ragged, her chest rising and falling erratically as she sat up in the cot. Her mind was blank, her thoughts overridden by a single, overpowering instinct: Save Mira.