Just this realization seemed to have some kind of a power that threatened to bend her to its will, so that it could have its way and leave behind a broken, dead husk of the person she had once been.
Desperation drove her to try all the means available to her to try and break that wall. She knew that salvation was somehow behind it, but try as she might, she couldn't find any way to even interact with it. It was inside her mind, and it looked as if she couldn't approach it in any way.
Helplessness. Fear. Pain.
As she almost began to shake due to being wracked by many emotions, she felt something that distracted her.
Looking down, Cassandra saw the two tiny hands that were hugging her thigh from behind.
To her left, she saw a wrinkled hand that had all the warmth in the world. It was her mother's, and she had always vowed when she was little that she would never let her mother wash any more clothes, so that her hands wouldn't always be so wrinkled and rough.
