Bury all your secrets in my skin

3. Symptomatic

All Beatrice could hear was blood rushing in her ears as she stared at what used to be her hand.

This couldn't be real.

Her heart thundered in her chest, her breathing was heavy, labored, she tried to make sense of what she was looking at.

I'm dreaming... I've got to be dreaming...

Taking a staggering step backwards, a sharp sting at the ball of her foot broke her from her stupor. She hissed in pain. Lifting that leg, Beatrice winced when she saw the sole of her foot. Blood welled around the large piece of glass protruding from just under her big toe, dripping to the tiled floor.

"Fuck." She breathed.

The pain definitely felt real enough.

Careful not to step on any more shards, Beatrice hopped over to the toilet and perched on the edge of its seat, using her shaky, non-skeletal left hand to pull the triangular blood-smeared fragment out.

Free of glass, the wound closed up right in front of her eyes.

Oh my God...

The shard she was holding dropped to the floor.

She looked between her hand and her foot a few times, shock and adrenaline warring with each other in her body. This was not normal, actually this was as far removed from normal as you could possibly get. Though Beatrice was still not completely sure this wasn't a dream, she made a decision; she needed help. Someone had to know what was going on with her... right?

She stood, snatching the grey hand towel from the rail and wrapped her ghostly hand up as tightly as she could. Taking a ginger step forward, Beatrice didn't know if she should be happy or disturbed by the lack of pain in her still blood smeared foot. Shaking her head, the sister warrior did her best to pull herself together and hurried out of the bathroom to head down the hall, trying not to run.

~

She was nearly there.

So far, Beatrice had thankfully avoided anyone wandering the corridors of the Cradle. Though that wasn't hard, it was only two in the morning after all.

Without really thinking about it, the sister warrior's feet had automatically started carrying her toward Mother Superion's quarters. She was the closest thing Beatrice had to a mentor, a parent, and surely the matriarch would know what to do about Beatrice's situation. She always knew what to do.

It can't have been the first time this had happened. The OCS had been fighting wraiths and wraith possessed people for centuries. The chances of someone else experiencing what she was, had to be high.

Beatrice was so deep in thought, when she rounded the next corner of the corridor, she nearly collided with a group of nuns walking back in the opposite direction.

"Oh, sorry..." She mumbled, not really looking at the group as she instinctively hid her towel covered hand behind her back.

A strange sensation tugged at her gut, but Beatrice didn't think much of it as she ducked her head to avoid eye contact and made to scoot round the group. A hand landed on her shoulder sending an electric shock-like jolt zapping through her body at the contact.

She flinched hard, glancing up with her eyes wide to see Sister Dora looking back at her.

"Beatrice, hey... I thought you'd be with Ava." Dora murmured, she looked worried for her.