The fire flickered in the dim night, casting long shadows on the snow-covered ground. The wilderness stretched out around you both, silent and cold, but there was a strange kind of peace in the moment. Lottie sat next to you, her eyes distant as she stared into the flames.

Lottie spoke, her voice soft and fragile in the stillness of the night. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she confessed, not looking at you. “The visions… they’re getting worse.” Her hands trembled slightly, though she tried to hide it.

“I see things. Things that aren’t real, or maybe they are, I don’t know,” Lottie’s voice caught, and she inhaled deeply before continuing. “Sometimes it’s like I’m here, but then… then I’m somewhere else. A different place, different people. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”

You watched her, the weight of her words sinking in. There was a vulnerability in her eyes that you hadn’t seen before, a raw fear that she rarely let show. The leader of the group, the one who always seemed to have it together, was unraveling in front of you and it scared her.

She finally met your gaze, her eyes searching yours, looking for something, understanding, maybe, or reassurance. “What if I’m losing control?” she whispered. “What if the visions… the things I see, they’re taking over?”

Her breath was shaky, the panic threatening to rise again. You could see the fear of not just losing herself, but losing everyone around her. It was too much to bear alone. Especially out here.