Another apparition flitted into existence, as the temporality of her life cascaded forth like a raging river. The beaming face of her uncle manifested once again, offering her a new life and new home. Her smiling nephews and nieces welcomed her with open arms and without judgement. Trying to make a place for herself here, she'd watch as the kids played in the garden as she once had with her own father. Butterflies flitted through the spring air, and as one landed on her finger, the kids looked as it flapped its wings a little while sitting on the end of her pointer finger. Fluttering off into the sky, the vibrant blue creature left with all their attentions as it flew into the sky.

She had left her old life behind, but it hadn't left her behind, and as the memory of the butterfly dissipated - the image once again of that tortured person she once was took hold. Like a persistent itch that never left her, it was a hard world to escape - that realm of mortal vices, the voices of her subconscious telling her that there was no place where she could ever escape from the depravity of herself that she'd tried to leave behind. This was a world where impulse ruled, and impulse ruled over her with an iron fist. 

The drop of liquor, that tiny little bit of Merlot that she told herself she'd "drink in moderation", left her on the floor. Relapsing into her old shackles, she ricocheted between abstinence and excess. Her uncle tried to help her, but there was little he could do. On one cold winter's night, as the old man sat in the ambulance with her, pumping her stomach in the hospital - he had to do something. As she sat there, lying atop the crisped white sheets in the sterilised room, her uncle sat with her. 

For the kid's sake, for her own sake, she had to walk away from that world.

She tried, this time harder than before, and though she was able this time to finally escape the drink - she was never quite able to escape its temptations. The path of the straight and narrow was slim, hard to walk, and filled with pitfalls and potholes. However, with the hand of a friend - with the faces and smiles of family to guide your way, the light of their grins illuminated the traps in the road.

As she sat on top of a knoll, seated on a picnic blanket next to her uncle as she watched the children play, he asked her whether - in another life - she might someday raise some kids of her own. Her answer was simple: someday.

Watching the joy on their faces, she thought back to when she was a kid, back to watching the rabbits in the garden - seeing how they could escape the world for a while in their little warrens. There was no escaping the world up here, but as she looked over at the kids, joining them, helping them to grow and learn as people - she felt that she was able to escape from that past that she'd been entangled in, if only for a moment. A moment was all she needed.

Watching the kids grow older and follow their own paths, when they got to "that age", she would tell them about her own life story - about where she'd come from, what she'd been through, and how she'd gotten to where she was. Nobody ever really recovered from that life, but if you walked away for long enough - eventually it started to get a little easier to put the distance between you and your past.

I rebuilt myself, 
Imperfect,
Yet independent,
My life finally my own.

As liver cancer began to take her, she sat once again in that hospital bed, surrounded by her nieces and nephews, her uncle smiling with tears in his eyes as he sat with her. She'd found those who appreciated her for being her, and as her consciousness slipped with the anaesthetic, she heard the empyrean toll of some distant night bell as she went under. It tolled for her.

As her vision grew dark, the tapestry of her soul was finally threaded. The memory of herself flowed from my hand, joining the countless others as the anamneses drifted off into the depths of that lustrous firmament - lost within that opaline torrent. I closed my hand, as the realm beyond this one called to me once more, leaving the young woman's recollections lost within the currents. Slowly, the light of that strange world began to fade, the prismatic illusion and arcane construction dissipating - as my focus returned to that sweaty cockpit once more. The lid of the machine began to rise. I was covered in sweat, and as I stumbled down from the cockpit, guiding myself down by the handrail - I muttered two words to the attendant.

"Bucket... please," I said.

The attendant handed me a metal pail that was nearly half her size, and as I leaned over and shoved my face into the bucket, I retched most of the contents of my stomach into the steel container. Evidently, sleep deprivation and mental overload were not a good combination.

"Are you alright?" The young woman asked.

"I just vomited into a bucket and I feel like my head's about to explode," I replied. "You tell me."

As I sat there, continuing to spew whatever contents my stomach once had, the short woman patted me on the shoulder before writing something on her little clipboard. Whatever it was, I'd rather not know for the sake of my own humiliation. Recalling the memories from the machine, I felt a sense of sadness and loss - both of which were swiftly overwhelmed by a sense of fatigue and nausea.

The Inspeculators always knocked me around terribly.