knife was tearing her heart out. She had begun to feel the pain now. It was like a dragon fighting from within her, tearing her from top to bottom. She didn't want to wake up to this, couldn't bear what she was feeling, and beyond the pain, she knew that something terrible had happened. She opened her eyes finally, but there were lights everywhere, blinding her, searing through her mercilessly, just as the pain was. People were doing something to her, but she had no idea what they were doing, only that the pain devouring her was beyond bearing. She could not even seem to breathe now. And then suddenly, as a pain so terrible it could not be borne ripped through her, she remembered why she had come here… her mother had beaten her… and broken her doll… she killed Meredith, and nearly killed her… and she knew that her father must be here somewhere, watching.
“Gabriella!…” They were shouting her name again, and the people around her sounded angry. All she could see was still light and dark, and no matter how hard she tried, as the demons of pain devoured her, she could not see their faces. And as she fought to see them again, and listen to what they said, a single horrifying pain seemed to tear her body apart, as she fought desperately to free herself from it. But it would not loose her from its clutches. And then suddenly, with total clarity, she saw not her father, but Joe smiling down at her. He was holding out a hand and beckoning to her, saying something she could not hear… the other voices seemed to drown out what he was saying. But when she looked at him again, trying to ask him where she was, he was laughing.
“I can't hear you, Joe…” she kept saying to him again and again. And then he started to move away, and she shouted at him to wait for her, but she found her feet would not move as she struggled to go to him.
Everything about her was too heavy. He stood there, waiting for her, and then he shook his head and disappeared, and suddenly she was free and running toward him. But he was moving too fast for her, she couldn't keep up with him, and the people who were behind her now sounded very angry as they followed. They were still calling her name, and this time when she looked at them, she saw why she could not follow Joe. They had tied her down, with her legs strapped high in the air, and her body and arms strapped down, and everything around her was too bright now. “No… I have to go…” she shouted weakly at them… “He's waiting for me… he needs me…” Joe turned and waved, and he looked so happy that it frightened her. But in the room where she lay, the people around her were very angry, and she knew that they were doing something terrible to her. They were ripping out everything inside her, tearing her soul away, and keeping her from him. “No!” she kept shouting at them. “No!” But they wouldn't listen to her.
“It's all right, Gabriella… it's all right…” There were women and men, and they all seemed to have knives and were stabbing her, and when Gabriella looked at them, she saw that none of them had faces.
“Her blood pressure is dropping again,” a voice said from somewhere, and she had no idea who they were talking about, and to Gabriella, it no longer mattered.
“For God's sake,” a different voice said, “can't you stop it?” And like the others, he sounded angry at her. She had done something terrible, obviously, and they all knew what it was, but she didn't. She closed her eyes again, howling in pain this time, and in the distance she could hear the same sound she had heard before, and this time she knew it must be sirens. There had been an accident, someone was hurt, and in the darkness that engulfed her again, she could hear a woman screaming. And then more people came, they seemed to be everywhere, surrounding her, but she couldn't help them. Every part of her was too heavy, except the part of her where the demons of pain were raging. She tried to move her arms, to push them away, but they were still tied down, and she didn't doubt for a moment now that they