"She's not getting any better," the voice floated into her dead mind, her fingers tightening around the coarse sheet. Her mouth was dry, eye numb, body aching. Occasionally the unfamiliar wetness of a tear would run down the side of her face as spasms overcame her body, thrashing madly in the covers under IV sedation.

"I need it..." Ashenai practically begged, her voice a wheeze from underneath the sheet. It was so cold, so dark, so numb. Ice was running through her veins, voices picking away at her ears. She wanted to be warm again. To be in the warm embrace of the sewers' thick air, lying on the grimy floor listening to the water drip and tap in the tunnel, not be in this cold world of people and pain.

"In fact, I think she's getting worse," her mother growled, making her daughter flinch under the sheets. Her voice so sharp, slicing ears like a dagger. The familiar thrashing of her leg began, the cot rocking with her weight as the seizure began to take her over. More talking, more needles- didn't they know she just wanted to be gone into blessed darkness? Forever.

She tried to tell them, her lips parting in an attempt to speak, but nothing came out the way she wanted it to. Arms grasped at her arms and legs, trying to hold her still. Didn't they know that wouldn't work? They'd done it before, but there seemed to be something different about it this time.

Something plastic digging into her face, senses dulling. A needle poked into her- more ice. Confused blips, hysterical yells. People touching her everywhere, skin going numb.

Let me go...