For the first time in months, there was silence in Wanda's head. No hissing taunts and curses, no gory visions and dark threats. In the silence, her consciousness stirred, wondering if this was death. If it were, there was more pain, both physical and psychic, than she would have anticipated. Maybe this was Hell, that seemed likely given Wanda's history. In the chapel of a derelict asylum in her memory, Wanda's spiritual manifestation opened its eyes and turned its head to look around. Wanda hurt in ways she never imagined possible, pushed to her threshold of pain and trauma. Something had been scrabbling inside her, rooting around for her soul. Gnawing on her heart. She knew this place, this terrible place. It was Poveglia Island, the worst place she could imagine, dark spaces that haunted her memory and hosted her nightmares. There was a monster standing above her, all rage and flames, a demon. This was definitely Hell. On the table in the Raft, she groaned and shifted, alive, but only barely.
In her head, Wanda reached out her hand, exploring first the hole in her chest and then following the thin ropes of blood vessels and viscera along the floor with her fingers until she found her discarded still-beating heart. With an effort she lifted it and then dropped in back into her body and laid her hand over the bleeding cavity. Part of her was missing, another chip off the last precious remnant of her humanity. But it was still there, that tiny spark, those feelings that meant she was still Wanda. They felt too real to ignore. The pain of her body was real, too. Corporeal, and burning intrusively at the edges of her nightmare world. But the dead didn't know pain, the dead knew nothing. Maybe, then, she wasn't dead. Maybe this wasn't Hell. Somehow, maybe, she survived. Nestled in the darkness of a simulacrum's chest, the glowing vessel concealing her soul fragment blazed a little brighter.