The girl’s small body is hunched near the foot of the bed, her shoulders shaking violently as tears streak down her cheeks. They’re real tears, that shimmer faintly in the low light of the cabin. Her sobs are high and breathless, like something torn free from long-suppressed silence. The floor groans beneath them, a low rumble building in the walls. Glass rattles in the windows. A ceramic lamp topples off the dresser and crashes to the floor, shattering into a hundred sharp pieces.
"Shino!" Nadia stumbles upright, scrambling across the bed to take the girl in her arms. She reaches for her and instantly feels it, ‘heat’. Not like fever or flame, but energy. The kind that shifts the world itself. Shino’s aura pulses outward in invisible waves, nearly uncontained. Nadia wraps her arms around her tightly. "I’m here! I’m here, sweetheart, it’s okay. You're ok love…."
