All changed, I stepped into the hall, gasping as I nearly walked into Guardsman Shaw. I started walking, keeping my head down. He could be just as angry and rude as Redfield for all I knew. It was best to keep my head low.

"Miss, wait," he called, boots pounding along behind me. I pushed past him.

"Please, I need to tell you something." At this, I looked back.

Guardsman Shaw tapped a hand on his hip anxiously. "Have you heard of Soul Traitors?"

"'All those who betray their Soulmates betray the Doctrines and thusly are Soul Traitors'," I quoted the Doctrines directly. " What does that have to do with anything? There have been none since the Counseling began." Guardsman Shaw's face darkened, his eyebrows furrowed sharply.

"For the most part, there are none. Sometimes," he hesitated, glancing around nervously, "there are Traitors that can hide from the Counselors and do awful things. There's one in the cell next to yours at Dr. Thornbury's request. Be honest and clear; the doctor is looking for something."

"Thank you for the help, but I can save my own Soul." I kept walking, preparing to hide all response to the monster I would soon be face to face with. No emotional response would be best.

I rounded the corner, Guardsman Shaw close behind. My head tilted. A woman laid on a bed in the cell beside me. How was she a Traitor? As we neared her, my heart dropped.

"Mom?" I whispered, fearing it really was her. She sat up, her white blond hair and lined face confirming my fear.

"Melanie? They took you too?" She was here and completely lucid. I moved closer, pressing my hand against the glass door.

"Yes, but I'm fine. Are you alright?" Tears rose in my eyes, they were calling my mother a Soul Traitor. What had she done but love my father? She had loved him so much that I was left out. There was no rule against neglecting your daughter so why was she a Traitor?

"I am. Better than I have been in years," she said, her own eyes trembling with emotion. "Only, I don't know where your father is. Have you seen him here?" My mom began to rock back and forth, clutching her legs close to her chest.

She hadn't changed. He was still dead, but to her, he was more alive than me. She was not a Traitor, but she wasn't a good mother either.

I sighed heavily and turned back to Guardsman Shaw. He stared over my head at her, captivated by my poor, lost mother who I desperately wanted to flee from.

"Is there anywhere else I can go? Please, I can't be here." I said urgently, feeling even more confined with my mother here.

"Melanie, I asked you a question! Are you hiding him from me?" she shrieked harshly from behind me. Guardsman Shaw's face flickered with pity, but he shook his head and pointed to my cell.

I turned towards it, desperate to find an escape, some place to hide from the anger that I was sure took over my mom's eyes. The bed would provide little protection from her. Down the hall were more cells with clear walls but I could run until she was a blur in my memory.

I took off, my feet pounding against the floor. Her screams drowned my footsteps. Guardsman Shaw sprinted towards me with hard determination in his tight lips.

My breathing grew shallow, I wasn't prepared to outrun someone. I had made it a ways down the hall, but the cells continued on seemingly forever. Then, my shoulder was clipped with fire and I collapsed.

I lay sprawled for a second. Guardsman Shaw stood over me with a sad look on his face.

"You gave me no choice," he said as he put away his shock-baton. My arm still stung, but my mind stung worse. I would have to live here with her, the opposite of why I had risked everything in the first place.

Guardsman Shaw hoisted me up by the arm and led me back down the hall. His hand wrapped tightly around my arm, an immovable force that pressured me to move past the empty cells and near the screaming woman I called my mother.

"Why did you leave me, Melanie?" she whined, her hair wild from her frenzy. I ignored her, and stood mutely in front of my cell, waiting for Guardsman Shaw to open the door.

I kept my gaze away from either of them and walked straight to my desk. There, I lost myself in thought as I opened the book to a blank page. I was well practiced at ignoring my mother's cries, and immediately submerged myself into the perfect expulsion of this memory.

I captured her dead eyes and crazed movements perfectly. I would not become her; I was here to find my Soulmate and become True again.

Only, when my hand had finished moving, I had created a nightmare. In my memory, my mother had wailed uncontrollably when she saw my father, but in my drawing she simply sat numbly, ignoring her distraught child.

How hadn't she felt his sadness? Bonds make two people inseparable, more unified than anything possible. Your Soulmate feels every feeling you do. But my mother had been just as surprised as I had. Or had she?

"Melanie, please. I need him!" she screeched again from behind me.

"Stop! If you miss him so much, why didn't you stop him? He would still be here if you hadn't ignored him!" I yelled back, tired of her self-pity. I was here to move past my tragic past and focus on some shimmering future

"Why did you keep him all to yourself?" she screamed, her rage reaching a peak that would have frightened me if we were at home.

"Shut up!" Guardsman Shaw roared, breaking up the argument. I turned to look at him, nervous that he would intervene physically. His face had reddened, turning purplish in the blue light.

He shut off the lights with an audible click, leaving us in semi-darkness. I could no longer draw, so I retreated to my bed in hopes of sleep distracting me from her.

Curled up in bed, my mind drifted through various Lessons, trying to find some evidence that I would be spared my mother's madness. I wasn't Severed, or named a Traitor so maybe I was safe.

'Before the counseling began, Soul traitors were a fact of life. Their personalities made life difficult for their Soulmates and many murders resulted from their malice. Those were the Dark Days,' was what we had learned. My mother had allowed my father's End, but I hadn't. Had I?

Her voice was a murmur, the last thing I heard before I fell asleep. "Oh, my poor Melanie. I should have protected you for him. Now look at us."

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With a few panting breaths, my heart slowed and I began to rise. I felt lethargic, either I had slept too much or too little. I didn't dare to turn my head to my right. I couldn't face my mother.

Sitting straight up, it appeared Guardswoman Jenson stood by the door now. Having three guards ruined any chance of me defining time and the false light that clicked on with my movement didn't give me the time either.

"Doctor Thornbury would like to see you now," Guardswoman Jenson said as she turned to look at me. "She isn't pleased." I paled, was she mad that I had tried to run? Surely she would understand I had ran from my mother and not her!

I looked to my mother's cell, steeling myself for another glance at her cruel reminder of a face. She was gone.

My chest filled with relief, but there was still a twinge of worry. What would they do to her?

"Miss Baird?" I turned to see Guardswoman Jenson holding out cuffs. Sighing, I held out my wrists for the familiar wing-clipping sense of the cuffs.

On our way out of the cell, she scooped up my sketchbook, but I knew better than to ask questions this time. We followed the same route Redfield had taken me, around the corner and down the hall to the doctor's office.

She opened the door, ushering me in to the same room as before, only Doctor Thornbury was already seated behind the desk this time.

I dropped into the soft cream chair, head hung low.

"Miss Baird. You've violated the Doctoral Intervention. May I ask why?" Her voice was smooth with acid. Had I really violated the Intervention?

I shifted in my seat nervously. I wasn't trying to run from treatment, but I couldn't stay so close to my mother. How could I explain?

"Dr. Thornbury, I didn't mean to violate the Intervention I just couldn't bear to be there anymore with her!" I spoke quickly, twisting my thumb in my lap.

The doctor typed into her interface slowly, taking in my words with a tense silence. I sat still, wishing the treatment would start already. Finally, she sat up and stared me straight in the eye.

"My Soulmate, the other half of this operation, is advising me to proceed with the treatment. I, on the other hand, am worried that you do not appreciate what we are doing for you," she said precisely, her every word digging for some flaw in my mind.

"I do," I said hurriedly. "I lived for eight years pretending my father was still alive. I went to the Counseling to escape my mother's delusions."

She still looked skeptical. Didn't she see how badly I wanted to see my Soulmate?

"Please, I would do anything to become a True Soul! If the Gathering could save my Soul, I would never doubt again," I pleaded.

"Alright," she said, moving to stand. "Just remember that 'Sacrifice, however painful, is the only path to truth.'" I stood, weak with relief. They would give me some medicine, and i would be true again. The Recitation was a mere formality because another Recitation stated that 'The Gathering harms not those seeking truth.'

Only Redfield had harmed me. Worry grew in my stomach, a wild, untamable beast. Then the following Recitation burst out of my memory. 'Fear does nought but distort the truth' They were afraid. It justified everything.

Didn't it?

She walked out the door, her red smock fluttering over her plain white clothes. I followed closely, wondering where my quest for salvation would take me.

Barely five steps in the hall lead us to a window revealing a dimly lit room with a large chair in the center. Standing beside it was silver haired man, dressed in the same plain white clothes as Doctor Thornbury with the red smock. He had a haughty look on his face, the way some look before the long-awaited Counseling.

Doctor Thornbury opened the door and gestured for me to enter. My palms were slick with sweat; the blue lit room looked like a nightmare. Shaking, I stepped through to the dim world.

The man standing beside the chair had disappeared, leaving me alone with the scary contraption. Childlike curiosity took over, leading me to circle the almost artistic creation.

With its complex wires and diodes, it was more science than art but my mind whirled with interpretations. The tall back was imposing like the thrones of the cruel kings of the Dark Days. From there, my brain built him, a metallic man who ruled his land with a tight fist and a sharp blade.

Then my eyes settled on the leather restraints attached to the massive throne. My shield of art fell, leaving me frightened in reality.