Snippet #1490182

Though she hadn't wanted to worry him at all, Katarina was still inexplicably relieved that they were heading back to where Nike was. She couldn't explain it in words that made any sense to herself or probably anyone else, but she felt some kind of... pull. A desire to be there, specifically, and at this very moment. She had heart the phrase "heartstrings" before, but always she had thought of them as she did everything else: in terms of music first, and so she had thought it more metaphorical. But no, now it was almost as though something was literally tugging her by some strand of rope inextricably bound up in her soul.

She was amused by Machai's strange happiness, and she thought to tell him that he should smile more; that it was contagious and fun and, well, rather handsome, too, if she were being honest with herself. And if there was one thing Kat considered herself to be above all others, it was straightforward. The thought was just uncomfortable enough that she didn't give voice to it, and instead they walked in companionable silence for a time until they arrived outside Nike's door. There was something just beyond it that there had not been before, and she wondered what it could possibly be.

All she knew was that it didn't feel right, that it introduced a grating, stark atonality to the melody that had been spinning in her head for some time now, and she frowned. Machai looked at her, his smile vanished, and she knew he could feel it too. The question was on the tip of her tongue, but like so many things, it receded into silence, this time because he left, entering without so much as a word to her, and she wondered if she should follow. The girl spent a precious moment in indecision, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. What of this was some private matter that she was not welcome to? The thought made her hesitate, but only for a brief second.

A low bass rumble resounded in not just her ears, but her head, and it shattered the thin veneer of hesitance, bringing Katarina with sure steps into the room. It held many more people than she would have thought, but her eyes were drawn first to a thin, drawn man with pale hair and paler skin. He radiated some kind of malevolence, and her vision swam for a moment. There was darkness, choking, freezing darkness, and she remembered with sudden, vivid clarity the blackness that restrained her in her dreams, prevented her from running to the aid of the fragile white woman, Nike. She knew, inexplicably but without doubt, that this man was the evil the Mother had spoken about.

Katarina swallowed thickly, but she would not let her gaze waver until she was certain she moved it not from fear, but a conscious choice. She moved, slowly, deliberately, to stand closer to Nike, as if to confirm to herself that what had happened in her nightmares could not impede her in reality. Her gaze flicked briefly over two other individuals; a woman who oozed seduction and grace very different than the sort Nike possessed, and a little girl, who by some strange twist of juxtaposition seemed almost more sinister than the woman.

But as soon as her eyes landed on the last figure, the tall man in the dark coat, it could go nowhere else, and for a long moment, Katarina was completely frozen. Red, red; all she saw was red. Blood, but whose? It was vivid and distinct the way a dream could never be but memory was by necessity. It was everywhere: it stained her white Sunday dress, the dress of a little girl, younger even than the one in the room now, and it stained the silky blond hair of a boy, a boy with a face that looked-

When the music had faded, stopped, she did not know, but Kat would not hesitate to guess that it had been as soon as she noticed him. It was gone, replaced by nothing but the pounding of drums in her head, playing a ricochet in her skull so fiercely that she wanted to clutch at her hair and double over with the sheer agony of it. It was right there- the answer was right there, and she could not see it! She knew she knew this man, and it frightened her that she could not remember how. She had known him as a boy, even, so well that she knew that the eyes behind those glasses were gray-violet, and she knew also that this was because his father's were gray and his mother's were the same shade as her own, and she remembered his mother's voice and his father's music so well because she knew that he was-

Pain lanced through her head, but Katarina was completely transfixed as the contest between her will and whatever caused her to see the pretty red lie instead of the truth of the matter played out in her cranium like the crash of so many colliding armies, and with all the noise. She had not realized it, but the symptoms of it were beginning to show on the outside; though she remained standing, her limbs started to quake fiercely, and her breathing grew dangerously shallow. But she did not know, because she could not care. There was an answer to be found, a truth she must remember, and she would have it if it took everything from her. The girl knew not what stopped her from seeing it, from peering past the red veil, only that it was wrong, and that it did not belong on her mind and she wanted it gone- now!

And inside her mind, Kat wailed and screamed and slammed her fists against the barrier, and slowly, slowly, she felt it begin to crack. It was painful, but she knew it had to come undone, that she had to see what was behind it all, and even as her unseeing eyes spilled salty tears and the skin on her knuckles inexplicably split open and bled onto the floor of Nike's chamber, still she knew of none of it.

And finally, under the determined assault of the girl who could give nothing less than everything she had, the wall of red shattered like so many pieces of glass, and Katarina knew.

"...Vincent," she whispered, and then she collapsed.