nadiathesaint | Room 507, Thursday, afternoon into evening

It wasn't something she usually did, but Nadia decided to take a nap that afternoon. It would turn out to be a mistake.

*You didn't exist until now.*

The brown fox stands in her room, but Nadia doesn't answer.

"Some people think your luck finally ran out." he says. "But I don't believe anyone could succeed that long on just luck. No no no, it takes talent. I don't know if anyone's said this to you but . . . you're special."

The brown fox turns red, and Nadia leaves him behind.

The sky is the kind of gray that doesn't exist in nature, and Nadia's in the middle of it. Lightning flashes a red <O> all around her and thunder rolls.

A stern woman stands on her right, Sophia on her left.

They're fighting over her, but the stern woman won't call Sophia by her name, and they speak a language Nadia doesn't know.

She looks in the mirror--

--and a red-eyed, dead reflection looks back.

She runs and enters a white room. The walls are all metal and glass and people buzz all around her. She searches for someone, and finds an empty room.

A kind-faced man sits behind the desk in the room.

He's tying his arm off with Nadia's life.

"That's mine," she says.

"I'll take care of it," he says.

A dark haired man has her hearts in his hand. He's doing a card trick with them.

"That's a nice trick," she says.

"No," he says. "It's a neiss trick."

Nadia doesn't understand, but before she can say she's a young girl again and she's running across a field. The man, Vaughn, who'd saved her all those years ago, pulls at her arm.

It's not him, though. It's someone else pretending to be him, someone who just looks like him and is taking her somewhere else. She tries to fight him, but he's stronger than she is and she's just a little girl now and it'salljustgoingtooquickly--

And it stops. Something has bitten her in the back. It's loud, and she turns and sees a figure--

*Dean Washbourne?*

--in the distance. She touches her back.

Her hand is red.

"You're special," a voice says. She looks up to protest, but it's no good, she's out of breath.

It's okay. He wasn't talking to her, though.

He was talking to the cheese.

"Porto il formaggio!"

Nadia woke up with a gasp. She stared around the room and gently touched her side.

She was fine.

Though she was probably never going to eat cheese again.