Wind slips, skittering through empty window frames and the blackened holes where doors used to be, yawning upwards with the streaks of smoke smeared above them. It brushes past her too, a low and desolate whistle which pulls at her hair.

In her mind she is pulled too.

She feels an itch in her bones, unsettled as she stands still, watching for movement, watching for something.

Despite the wrongness she feels and the way her hearts cry out for her to move, to run, she stands as still as the universe before it came to be.

Then it's there.

There's a lick of horror which takes her over completely and she yelps, running over debris which rocks backwards and forwards and threatens to turn her ankles as she tries to evade their pursuit.

The city is gone but the people are still here, smudged with that same charcoal that mars the buildings, some missing limbs, some missing heads, some with gaping holes which haven't healed properly yet and they spill, spill out of themselves as they chase her and yet they keep coming, hungry.

For flesh? For revenge?

She doesn't know anything except that she needs to keep running, keep going, don't fall, don't fall, don't fall.

So she runs blind, just managing to stay upright, focus scattered like marbles across the ground.

Then there's a hand in hers and relief fights with fear as she pulls them along, trying to keep them away from the danger.

Their hand is cool in hers even as she burns up with exertion.

The next corner she takes comes to a dead end and she runs to it anyway, their hand falling from hers as she scrambles, looking for some way through, some way over or under, the pock-marked wall of concrete in front of her. Her fingers claw briefly at the surface before she slumps to the ground, breathing too fast, too fast, she doesn't need to breathe that much anyway but this is too much and she drops her head, her forehead coming to rest against the icy chill of the concrete and that's going to be her soon- that's going to be her.

She can hear them coming, the yelling and screaming and the way their feet hit the ground, the way the broken city responds and keeps her here, traps her here.

She takes a shuddering breath, trying to pull some level of composure over herself and turns, arms up to stop the blow of a metal pipe before it can hit her head but it doesn't come.

She blinks, taking another shivering breath and swallowing.

Her hearts beat relentlessly but there's nothing in front of her.

The crowd are gone and there's only wind, whistling through broken windows and moaning past the entrance of the alleyway she's cornered herself in.

There's a few plants growing, scraggly green in between broken chunks of concrete and cracked asphalt.

The Mistress remembers then the burn of looking into the time vortex and the way that she had started to itch with a need to burn, to kill, to destroy- that sweet whisper to annihilate everything in her path to-

Something.

He wasn't sure yet but- it had to be something.

---

She lies on her back, blinking slowly at the brilliant white of the stars in the void of the night sky.

Her hand clenches in on itself and out, nails in her palms breaking the hold of the memories which claw at her as she tries to breathe in and out, ragged and choked with the effort of fending off her own mind.

The crowd roars again and she knows it's not real- knows it can't be real but still she lets out a sob and is on her feet in moments, scraping her hands against the broken edge of an old wall as she pushes herself up and starts to run again, whole body aching.

She trips again, catching herself with an impact which shudders through her arms and knees and makes her cry out before she pushes herself up again.

Her head hurts and she trembles as she pushes herself up again, unable to see the things in front of her as she just goes- forwards, onwards, away.

She feels the wet heat of blood on her legs, on her hands, on her arms, the itch of frayed edges against her skin.

There's red smeared against black and grey but she goes on until she can't.

The world roars and the crowd behind her is swallowed by it.

She manages to look up and amidst the darkness crowding in on her she sees blue. That blue which only belongs to one thing.

Her head drops again to the concrete and with the last of her energy she finds herself whispering thanks to the stars, to her hearts, to Them.