Her mind burned on like an ember, charring everything around it.
There were needles. Little pricks she hardly felt, then large agonising lances of pain that punctured her arms.
The pain in her head grew until it blotted out all thought.
Finally, she slipped away, her mind untethering itself in a free fall.
There was blood everywhere.
She was in the hospital in Headquarters. The bells were ringing. There were bodies being rushed in by nurses and medics whose faces blurred as they passed.
There was a boy in her arms, dying. She tried to calm him, trying to focus, not to feel the building panic of the room catching like claws through her lungs, but he wouldn’t let her heal him. No matter how she tried, he’d shove her back. Blood kept pouring out in dark spurts. The sticky warmth seeping
