Heartbeat, heartbeat.

The feeling of being sick. [I]Misalignment.[/I] She lifts her arm to touch her cheek, and then she lifts her arm to touch her cheek, and then she lifts her arm to touch her cheek. And then the shadow of her arm reaches up and touches her cheek. Her skin feels rough. Slick. Smooth. Oily. She lifts her arm to touch her cheek. Her jaw hurts. 

Heartbeat, heartbeat.

When did this even happen to her? How had she missed it? All that time being obsessed with the moment of injection, the lethal sharpness of the needle, and somehow it went into her skin and back again while... what? She was daydreaming? Titanomachia was a witch, she just didn't let on. There wasn't another explanation.

Heartbeat, heartbeat.

This is indistinguishable from being possessed. Something has crawled inside her body and it is fighting her for control of it. The brights are too bright. The darks are too dark. Everything, everything, everything all around her is exactly the same as glass. She is going to throw up. She had better not. But she needs it. She refuses. She--

Heartbeat, heartbeat.

Even now, she can't stop watching Machia. Perched up there, not even looking at her, eyes attempting to pierce the unknowable future. Madeleine clenches her teeth. She can hear the clack, but then a grind. It has to be her imagination that she can smell something like smoke, right? Something white hot lances through her cheek and she can hear a crack. She spits. Red and white. Foam. Every joint she moves is popping, every muscle in her body is twitching. Something is trying to burst out of her back, she is convinced. 

Heartbreak, heartbreak.

The room is filled with the sound of shattering china. Most of a shelf is overturned and tumbling on top of Stripes, who is upside down and half a room away from her. Madeleine looks up at Machia again, and she is farther away as well. When did? How did? Her jaw is clenched tight again, and a tear is welling in her eye. 

"Ghnnnn!"

Heartbreak, heartbreak.

Her feet dig into the floor. This time she means to feel herself running. She feels her head hit the ceiling, instead. Everything is wrong. All of it. What had she done?