LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK, LIKE A HOLE IN YOUR HEAD

She laid there, her mind threatening to drift into some lost and forgotten place, her very being beginning to unravel. But it is the soft, familiar voice that dissuades the darkness from taking her. At first she could not place it, perhaps it was the gentleness of the word. But when the voice spoke her name a second time, this one more forceful, Ehiyeh struggled against every instinct she had and willed her eyes to open. They met with the gaze of Eden, her father, and for a moment she was afraid. She did not know how he would react, to see his daughter lying and whimpering in the snow like a lost pup. But as she met his eyes, her own violet searching and scared, she felt comforted.

Ehiyeh steadied her breath, blinking away the tears that gathered at the corner of her eyes. "F-Father." Her voice was quiet and raspy, but there was willpower there- she had not given up, not yet. She did not hesitate to call him such a word, not now, when her body was broken and her mind was in shambles. She desired that safety, that security that the word brought, and in her own way she was reaching for something to hold on to. Something was tugging at her in the back of her mind, beckoning, almost, telling her that it was okay to let this consume her. That it was okay to give into the darkness, the fog, to let this break her. It would be easier, certainly- although the male had stolen something precious, he could not take her mind. She had been robbed of purity, of chastity and innocence, but he could not take from her what was wholly hers.

She cleared her throat, her violet eyes beginning to reclaim some of their intensity, no longer glazed over and distant. The darkness clawing at her began to ebb and it felt as though she could breathe more easily. Ehiyeh remembered how comforted she had felt after she had the accident with Amoxtli, how Eden had taken control, had assured her that he would protect her. It was a strange concept, protection. He could not protect her from this, he could not remove the bloody stain from the snow or the foulness from her body. It was a different kind of protection he needed to offer, this time.

"H-he had a face, like... like the moon." Her voice was a bit dreamier than usual, it sounded like she was reminiscing about a distant memory. "And... he had... eyes like embers." Ehiyeh shuddered again, her muscles tensing. "He... took... something... from me." Her violet gaze grew angry in an almost melancholic way. "He... stained... the snow."

ehiyeh