"Save us, merciful Father."
She did not pray to the suspicious Eternal Father, but whispered a plea to Holy Father Khaine.
"Save us from all of this."
Julia lowered her head in sorrow, then held her breath in surprise.
She saw Esmeralda tremble, then open her eyes like someone waking from sleep.
Julia slowly reached out, afraid that if she moved too quickly, she might shatter this fragile miracle.
Then she clasped those icy hands.
"Esmeralda..."
She spoke softly.
"Can you hear me?"
The pale, corpse-like girl opened her mouth, then screamed in terror the next second.
The scream was like lightning, jolting the doctor awake from his sleep. He felt his heart hammering against his chest in panic.
"What—"
Before he could finish, he saw Esmeralda sitting bolt upright in bed, screaming as though she meant to tear her lungs apart.
The doctor hurriedly scrambled up, while Julia tried to hold her screaming sister.
But Esmeralda twisted wildly. The doctor rushed forward with his arms open as if to embrace both of them, though in truth he intended to use sorcery to calm the girl.
Yet the instant his fingers touched Esmeralda, he felt the blazing heat radiating from her body. The pain made him want to recoil, but his hands seemed locked onto her.
He met the girl's eyes, and the terror in them told him that she felt the same thing.
The doctor groaned. Darkness closed in before his eyes, and his vision blurred as if he were suffering a sudden heart attack.
Visions churned through his mind, dark and horrifying. Images of pure distortion battered him so violently that he could barely defend his sanity.
Corruption, like a boiling black curtain, covered everything.
The doctor saw Esmeralda's delicate, pale face consumed by a swarm of cloud-like