[b]Heather - Reality? - Hank[/b]

Voices. Shapes. Time.
They all passed before her. All meaningless.

She was poked and prodded, hit, yelled at, laughed at, moved from one place to another like a piece on a chess board. She might had been raped by their captors but in truth she didn't know. She couldn't seperate nightmares from reality anymore. That was what happened when your reality became a nightmare.

She didn't eat, barely slept, didn't move without force and didn't make a sound. If she hadn't breathed and blinked she could have been mistaken for a doll or a statue, just as lifeless.

Aaliyah... Seth... Jennifer... Imogen... Floyd... DeSean...

Gone...
All... gone...

She watched their faces go by in her mind like a neverending loop. Aaliyah's laugh... Jennifer and DeSean holding hands... Seth's shy smile... Floyd's gruff voice...

All gone now...

She had screamed herself hoarse and cried herself sick when they'd been forced to watch Aaliyah and Jennifer's deaths. One of the murderous demons had smacked her so hard she had lost a tooth. After that she'd shut down. Not even Hank could reach her. Nothing registered. It was all meaningless white noise, like she was watching static on a TV screen.
Gentle, kind Aaliyah...
Beautiful, strong Jennifer...
Gone. Their lives snuffed out quickly and brutally.

The liberation of her and Hank and been equally as meaningless to her. They were taken from one kind of captivity to another. The nurse's part of her mind recognized that she had been placed in some kind of medical area and was being observed and treated for PTSD. Some woman who thought she was a doctor tried to get her to talk about what she had been through but Heather spoke to no one. Not even Imogen. In truth Heather hadn't even recognized the girl as Imogen, but as another faceless person that wouldn't leave her alone.
They kept them together, her and Hank. He spoke to her, told her things, tried to reach her, but it was all still white noise to her. She never responded or gave an indication she even understood what he said, which she didn't. But hearing his voice every day kept her from finding a way to slit her wrists. It was her lifeboat, the one thing she recognized as familiar in the surrounding haze.

Then his voice changed. He spoke to her in desperation, wanting her to come back. It was hard to struggle back. She didn't want to. It was easier to stay in the void of white noise, of meaningless existence where nothing mattered anymore.
But the strong did not take the easy way.
So she struggled. For him, she struggled back through the white noise and the haze. She focused on his hands taking hers, on his head touching her own, on his voice guiding her back to him.

And, for the first time in days, her eyes focused. 
He came into view.
"Hank..." she said, her voice nearly a whisper from disuse. When he looked at her and she was able to see his eyes her own teared up. Moving slowly, she lifted her arms and wrapped them around him, pressing her forehead against his shoulder.

They were broken, but not ruined.
They could survive.
And maybe... maybe they could live again...