In Between Minds: Reduction

We didn't touch _Her_ directly, but instead became a beacon, pulsing out information, _Everybody was dead_.

_I don't think we're reaching her,_ Val whispered just below my attention.

I considered the colossal, primordial, broken facet of us and felt like a candle in a hurricane. Any hope I had vanished. _Val..._

_I will miss you,_ the grief in her words made me ache. Before I could ask her what she meant _we_ became _me_ and I remembered...

Lessons marched their way through my memory, bringing with them a depth to my power that I had not known I was missing. Growing into my new strength, I searched for an answer. Here...I had been taught specifically how to deal with a mind closed to me. It was simple in theory, impossibly difficult in practice.

I took the lie I had crafted and shaped it into a spear, shining and deadly. With a surgeon's precision, I hurled my spear, slicing through howling madness to reach the thoughts beneath.

The psychic maelstrom parted before me and I saw _Her_ for the first time.