The darkness rolled away from her in silent tendrils, revealing the walls, the window, all lit warmly by the lamp beside her bed. As it went a tendril of blackness actually nudged the glass bottle on the windowsill with a soft 'tink', tipping it over and off the sill--she lunged forward to catch it.

Seeming to have gathered itself now into a roiling mass of flame-like shapes, the blackness rushed out of the room, through the open door just beyond her lamplight--she heard the door snap loudly shut of its own accord, and whipped around to look.

The room was empty. The lamplight and the firelight from the hearth weren't quite enough to illuminate the whole place, but she could even see the far wall now. The hallway door was still closed, the murals wrapped around it smudged in the dim lighting.

She cautiously replaced the glass bottle on the windowsill and shifted around.

"Yoshi?" she called finally. "Was...was that you?"

A quiet "yes" came right away, to Liya's surprise. She scrambled out of bed, making for the newly closed door.

"How??" she asked, intensely curious. "I mean--what was that? That was amazing!"

The door stayed closed, and no answer came--just a terse sort of silence. Liya put her ear up to the door.

"...Are you okay?"