Sunlight drifted into the room between the white blinds. Slits of light turned the wall from dark to light grey.

The room was quiet and unmoving. Like the hushed moments at the beginning of a storm. When an alluring amalgamation of being able to hear nothing and everything all at the same time passed.

A small pattering of warm light ran beneath the closet door, not touching Diana's curled up frame on the closet floor. Over the course of the night she'd pulled herself into a small ball at the bottom of the closet. From the low floor the closet looked towering, like staring up at a skyscraper.

The pearly carpet made her skin run red in patches but Diana ignored it as she pulled herself from the carpet and into the twirling suburban road beyond her door.

There was a pitting in her feet that at first thought made Diana decide to go for a run. To twist herself around the neighbourhood she hadn't been in in years.

The pavement was hard against her feet, sending shock waves through her frame. She hadn't run in years, she wasn't even sure why she'd decided to take a run today.

Even as she ran, Diana couldn't feel the wind against her open skin. As it drifted right through her. As if she wasn't here anymore.

Maybe it had all been simply a nightmare. A palpable bone, chilling nightmare.

Beneath the growling sun, sweat ran down her back. Her legs felt like jelly but she kept herself running. Hoping and praying that  maybe if she ran far and fast enough she could restructure and rebuild herself from jelly into bone.

Her skin stopped melting as Diana rounded the corner and finished her run. The street was full of other people taking leisurely walks with their family or pets. She smiled awkwardly as each of them passed, ignoring the way their eyes widened as if they were looking at an extraterrestrial or God. Neither of which she felt like. Each time she'd smile, their eyes would stretch and Diana would turn her face to hide in the bright daylight.

Her mind ran amok with the environment that surrounded her. Everywhere she turned, in the puddles at her feet, peeking from behind the dwindling leaf bitten trees or in the glassy house windows she saw them. Their faces each mangled and bloody. Each person she'd been forced to pull the trigger. Each person she'd watched scatter to the ground clutching and grasping for their loved ones as he world went dark around them.

Diana didn't know their names. Only their faces. She had memorised them from their frequency in her dreams. The dripping blood from the burnt bullet hole in one man's forehead. The ripped throat from where her silky garrote had met hard bone.

She could see each of their faces, feel each of their eyes as they carved into her dirty heart. Their frames were standing figures in the park's fields.

Her legs crumbled beneath her, knees hitting the concrete beneath. Rocks and dirt pressed indentations into her scarred palms.

She brushed them away and pulled herself back into a run. Ignoring the hot blood dripping down her ghastly knees. The pain would cease if she kept running, it always did.

"Diana!" Her old neighbour, Lin, was standing on the front porch of her parent's house." Oh, honey! We were so happy to hear the news! John and I would've stopped by earlier but we've been so busy with the kids." She frowned slightly, creating ridges at the edges of her mouth.

Lin Sanders was a foster parent with at least five kids in her house since the moment the Winters had moved into the neighbourhood. Her bouncy curls framed her heart shaped face.

She was standing mirrored to her mother who had pulled her dark cardigan to a close despite the warm day. Her mother didn't greet her.

Diana pulled her face into a smile like a puppet and puppet master. "No problem, really. It's so nice to see you again Mrs. Sanders."

Her mother and Lin had been friends since they'd moved in. It was hard not to be friends with a woman like Lin Sanders who radiated the warmth of family and the brightness of the sun even from across the paved road. They had shared hot meals and talked about their days back then as if Diana hadn't spent the day soaking up the sun in their backyard. Diana and Lin's oldest foster daughter, Tina, had been friends when they were kids.

They didn't talk anymore. Not since Diana had joined the Company.

Lin smiled with a comfort in her eyes that made Diana wonder if she'd attended her funeral. "Oh! Almost forgot, we brought these for you. My super secret recipe for Apple Crumble." In her hands, Lin held out a deep oven dish that filled Diana's nostrils with brown sugar and warm sweet apples.

Diana limped forward as her shaking hands reached out and held the blue baking dish. She saw her mother's eyes drop to her knee. The ripped leggings and blood soaked knee.

"宝贝, What happened?!" Her mother's arms outstretched to touch the wound, to tend to it.

Instead, Diana stepped back, like a reflex she ripped herself further from her mother’s grasp, "I fell." Feeling bad she mustered another smile to her mother.

Her mother didn't smile back.

Out of the corner of her eye, Diana saw Lin step back towards the stairs. Perhaps she was becoming as afraid of her as everyone else was. Except for Phoebe of course, she was much too angry at Diana to be scared of her.

Lin gave a rapid smile, "Let's get the kids together sometime alright? We'll properly welcome Diana back."

Her mother smiled, even though both her and Diana knew that that was a bad idea. There was no 'getting together' not anymore, not while the throbbing and dripping blood still pulsed from Diana's knee.