Quinn stilled.

When she'd heard that the eye was gone—[i]oh no[/i]—she'd expected panic. More panic, more blinding nightmarish panic. 

But instead, everything went completely and utterly quiet in her head, but for a high ringing. She felt for a moment like she was back there on the lake, back in the dream. And she thought.

She'd felt something when she pressed her hand deep into her eye socket, she'd thought. Something hard. Something that shouldn't [i]be[/i] there. She didn't know if she wanted to ask. She didn't know if it was there at all. So she didn't touch it again. But the thought burrowed into her mind, taking root all the way in the back. And what was displaced, what came forward through that—floating like a bubble in water to the surface—was a simple thought. One that she hadn't ever expected to think. It felt wrong to even entertain it; but it didn't make sense anymore, her eye breaking from [i]looking outside.[/i] It had never made sense. It wasn't just wrong. It wasn't just [i]stupid.[/i] 

[color=black]Rotten place, full of [i]rotten[/i] people.[/color]

The thought crystallized then, into five words:

[b]They had [i]lied[/i] to her.[/b]

And then, another thought. And this one carried with it the bitter smell and dark tint of water. The twisting of a sick stomach. The image of a door with no knob and four white walls and only a screen for sixteen years. It carried an echo of the wonder she'd felt stepping out for the first time. That first talk with Besca. The clarity and sweetness of...of [i]normal[/i] water. The terrible feeling of [i]terror[/i] that she'd felt as she'd emptied herself in the lake, the first [color=black]RUN[/color] that had beaten through her head. The giant with the cannon, staring at her. Hunting her. HER.

[b][color=black]Rotten place, full of [i]rotten[/i] people.[/color][/b]

She stared at the ceiling still, as all these images played behind her eye. Her voice had lost all inflection, all emotion, blank and toneless. Hollow, as the thought rushed through her. 

And that thought, she spoke.

"[color=FFE63D]What did they do to me?[/color]"