White rooms, white rooms, white rooms, white dress, white sheath, white eyes, white-

When she could see again, she knew the color was bleeding out of her eyes. She remembered who she was, and what role she'd played in this little game. She watched the lines separate, colors shifting in and out of focus, as the worlds both collided and separated.

She was a human. She was a mindflayer.

She was a priestess. She was a monster.

She wanted peace. She wanted blood. She wanted everything dead at her feet, dead and gone and bleeding and red, red not white but red red red-

She couldn't tell when she'd started screaming, because her hands flew to her face, where the sound should have been coming from, and she felt it all sealing away. Her fingers touched flat skin, and her screams intensified until she could swear they still made a sound.

The woman left in that book on the table was fading away, but the memories wouldn't leave, her memories wouldn't leave her and Riley wanted to scratch them out with her nails until she couldn't hear them anymore - she couldn't hear him anymore, or feel him or see him behind eyelids that refused to close another time. He touched her, he kissed her, he loved her, and she let him, because she was weak and soft and filthy with innocence.

NOT AGAIN. Riley screamed, reaching out for the book and slamming it closed with a violent push. She'd slammed it so hard, the book bounced back open, and pages of Anna's life began to fill before her very eyes. Riley couldn't help but bend in and watch, as a story that disgusted her unfolded.

Anna remained in Avalon, and she defended it her entire life. She loved him, with all of that pathetic, mushy little heart that could have been so easily crushed in Riley's hands. She'd even married him and oh, Jack help her there we so many disgusting, revolting little wretches coming forth from her body. Riley's stomach churned, threatening to expel itself through her tentacles. Sweet Jack, she'd missed her tentacles. She wrapped them around her body and scratched at her skin to forget the way she could still feel his tender touch wrapping around her waist, where no one else was meant to hold her -

But it wasn't her, she tried to remind herself. The woman's name was Anna. Anna was not Riley. Anna was a filthy scum of a human, who'd done nothing more than cry and be used and breed and - breed.

Riley's eyes widened and she began to flip the pages quickly. Her expression paled with horror the longer she read. Children. Grandchildren. Great-grandchildren. It kept going. It kept going until - until there they were, the nasty, white coated heathens who'd killed her over and over and tortured her until she could take no more.

The Hunters.

Riley wished, more than anything she'd ever wished before, that she could simply have one minute in Anna's mind, the way she had in the Red Kingdom. Just one minute, enough to slit that pretty little throat. Just one minute to snap the necks of every one of those tiny little weedlings that she'd spawned. Just one minute to skewer a blade through that man's chest and feel his warm, lovely heart cover her skin with the heat of his blood-

Riley slammed the book shut again, and backed away, stumbling, falling, tumbling, losing, losing, losing-

As soon as she woke up from the dream, Riley's screaming began anew. They tore through her own mind as she pulled her sword out from it's sheath beside her, and began to destroy the tree she'd been sleeping in. She dropped to the ground and hacked away, still screaming as she chopped and splintered and hacked until the tree was a stump and she was covered in it's remains. Her skin was punctured with wood all over, and she dropped to her knees, and stared at her splintered hands.

Splintered hands.

They began to shake.

I thought I had killed you. She whispered, though she knew no one else could hear. But you'd come before my time, hadn't you? You were there before I was even born, just waiting. Waiting to destroy me, and all that I am. It was you, this entire time. You, weak and soft. You, kind and gentle. You, filled with love and joy and nurture. It was always you.

The sword glimmered, reminding her that there would always be a way out. She slowly laid down beside the blade, comforted by it's hard, cold metal, and stared at the reflection of the monster she thought she'd been. She was chaos, and war, and destruction all at once, a whirlwind of unrelenting pain. And she'd been bested by a simple little human woman.

And love. Always, it came down to love.