Kimmie Albano was there that night. She saw the flash. She felt the house explode.

She was there that night.

She knew exactly what the glass felt like slashing through her skin. She knew exactly how it sounded when her hearing was lost.

She was there that night.

She knew exactly what it was like to feel your bones break, one by one, slowly, dreadfully, until you couldn't feel anything except pain, until you knew the throbbing in your arm was two breaks and your ankle is so far beyond pain - what a stupid, merciless word that fails to describe even the beginnings of the feelings one could have - that it has dissolved into fire, fire that has taken you and has consumed you and you don't know what to do except scream, scream, scream.

She was there that night.

And that's why she was here now. Raising one hand, vision blurring at the edges, Kimmie Albano hesitated. Her hand was still bright red from the burns, still twinged with every drop of blood that flowed through it. It was constant and consistent and for the first time in her life she was happy for a hint of pain because it kept he realising she could feel something, real something, that it hadn't been her imagination and she was still alive somehow, possibly, maybe, if only she could just feel more than pain.

She was there that night.

The door was white. Her door is white, too. Or, well, was. Possibly. She thought. When she had gained enough consciousness to have some semblance of sight as medics had lifted her out, what she had assumed was her white door was not white at all. It was red, and dripping, dripping, dripping.

She was there that night.

There were birds outside that were making noise and there was a landscaper in the distance and someone was getting their house painting next door and the smell permeated the air. It was quiet and normal and Kimmie could feel her heart begin to pound in her ears. The cracks in her arm didn't even hurt anymore, they just were, and the burns were throbbing and her ankle, oh God her ankle -

She was there that night.

The door opened without her having knocked. There was a woman in the doorway who looked like a painting that had been in her house, a painting that was pretty and nice but also a painting from before the night.

She was there that night.

Kimmie began to be unable to hear the landscaper anymore and suddenly the air was filled with smoke. Her lungs were tight. Her eyes screwed shut. Her breathing accelerated.

She was there that night.

Only one thought managed to get through her head and that was her worry for the other woman. Does she know what was going to happen? Was she accustomed to panic attacks? Would she even be able to understand the thoughts that dripped, raced, threw themselves around her own mind?

She was there that night.

A warm hand ripped her from her thoughts and brought her into the house. Her eyes were still screwed shut, her ears straining to hear something she didn't know she was looking for. She could barely feel herself stumble and trip and crash into items as her attention focused on the hand, the warm hand, the hand that was on her arm the hand that was all she could think about.

She was there that night.

Her chest began to tighten and her eyes crinkled shut and her world was black and she couldn't hear anything except her thoughts that were in her mind like poison, over and over and over and over until she was thinking one line and she was crying and she couldn't breathe and the world was crashing around her as it seems to do all the time - oh was nothing stable anymore, where were her rock pillars and her ceiling and her furniture and everything she owned and where, oh where did that warm hand go?

She was there that night.

Kimmie was lost. There was fire in her veins and throbbing in the place of blood, there was a scream in her ear and breathe caught in her throat, there was, there was, there was a warm hand back on her arm.

She was there that night.

The warm hand remained there as she became still, listening to the screams in her ears and the words in her minds and the darkness in her bones and the fear that became anew every time she closed her eyes. But Kimmie could feel the hand, just the hand, and the hand wasn't going to move, oh she hoped not, how quickly she threw herself into new hope.

She was there that night.

She was still a long while, long enough for her to realise by the time the scream had dissipated that it had been her worst panic attack yet and that it was perhaps a very bad idea at all to leave her new residence. She was deathly afraid.

She was there that night.

But she was already there, and the hand on her arm was still warm. Her mind chose before her emotions could, and she opened her eyes into the room where the owner of the hand was seated right in front of her.

She was there that night.

"Hello, Kimmie." The woman smiled, using her free hand to hand over a glass of water. "Thank you for coming today. You're already halfway there."