Dr Marr had wheeled me in on a bed. My hair fell down the side of the sheets in a long, billowing veil. My eyes were closed. My hands were limp, still gloved.
What is happening?
A tremor passed through the white, as if my question had weight.
You are seeing what I see, the presence whispered.
I recognised her, like I could feel her.
Echo.
The brightness pulsed, sharpening into edges again. The blurry figure on the bed — me — flickered like an overexposed photograph.
This isn’t your sight,Echo murmured.It’s mine.
My breath caught, or it would have, if I could feel my lungs.
Yours?
My thoughts wobbled.
Why does everything look like— this?
The white quivered, thickening at the edges like tears in a lens.
Because I do not see the way you do,Echo said softly. I see light. I feel shape. I feel… you.
The echo of her hand brushed my cheek again — not skin, not real, but a memory of touch.
You slipped into me when they hurt you,she whispered.And now you’re looking through me.
Below us, the world shifted — cold metal, Marr’s voice, straps tightening across my wrists — all of it warped into the too-bright nothing that Echo perceived.
I watched it like a ghost inside a ghost.
Dr Marr lifted my body from the bed and shackled me to a harness against the wall.
My limbs dangled for a moment before the leather restraints were fastened into place, forcing me upright.
My head was pinned by a cold leather band, my chin locked forward.
Wires and tubes slithered along my arms and legs like veins that didn’t belong to me.
Each one led somewhere else.
To whereInow existed.
To Echo.
What is he doing?I whispered into the white.
Echo didn’t answer at first.
But I felt it.
Her misery.
Her fear.
