[IC Inbox -- Snowblind]

[heavensreader]

Is it worki - oh. Ahem. This is Kesara Freamon. Please leave your message here and I will call back on you as soon as I can.







Wait, is it still - argh, how do I ma-

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[devoutish]

No tent?

[That's a big concern. The tent had served her well before.]

[heavensreader]

It was all dried out in the morning, the hide cracked, I left it... [She's starting to clear up enough to understand the problem.] Mr. Solomons - is there anywhere safe to stay - near the chapel?

[devoutish]

You're in a field, and near a pond. The nearest buildings are a third of a day's walk away, in normal weather.

It's not normal weather, right now. There's an awful storm.

[heavensreader]

[She's going to die again.

Kesara almost screams. She really thinks she might scream. Then she thinks it's not possible. It's too much. She can't think that. If she thinks that her mind will blank out completely and she will lie down and the snow will cover her like the sand did to the bodies in the desert.

Her voice rasps with the tight steadiness of desperation.] If there is - then - maybe the chapel will let me stay after all - sometimes you can stay.

[devoutish]

Try. For as long as you can. Keep yourself snug.

[She'd die in the snow no matter what, day or night - especially blind. Better to give staying inside a shot.]

[heavensreader]

I survived the tunnel.

[She had a tent then. She knew she was going to survive. This is nothing like that. This is completely different. This isn't on purpose. This isn't what she meant to do.]

Do you know if anyone is close? Even - even a little close?

[devoutish]

Put out a call, on the network. Find someone.

[He doesn't know of anyone off the top of his head, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.]

[heavensreader]

Someone will find me. Zach and Steph... Zach and Steph can't be far. They should be in the tunnels. We were all in the tunnels...

[She doesn't want to think of the tunnels, suddenly.]

Did you talk to them, after I...?

[devoutish]

Only to ask what had happened, when you were on the obituary.

[heavensreader]

[She hadn't thought of the obituary. She swallows another little distressed sound.]

They must have been - oah - I wish I'd been more careful!

[devoutish]

You'll do better next time, then. If you don't think you did well, then you learn from it.

[heavensreader]

I will - I think - I'd have to -

[Learn from her own death? It's absurd. She feels like she might laugh. The laughter feels like nausea.]

While I can - while it isn't really real - it's the very best lesson, isn't it?

[devoutish]

Mm. But we don't know that it isn't real, so don't go too far in the other direction and be reckless. Yeah?

[heavensreader]

But it's not real. If it were then I would be - I don't know what I would be. Maybe in heaven, or, but I haven't been so good with my prayers...

[devoutish]

It's real enough to matter. We don't always come back, do we.

[heavensreader]

It's not the same thing, then, is it? If someone really dies... it's not the same as this thing that only looks like it.

[devoutish]

I think of it as death and revival, myself. They look dead enough, lying in the morgues.

[heavensreader]

Do you... [she swallows hard.] Do you think it's magic?

[devoutish]

[His answer is tired.}

I don't know what I think it is, bubbeleh.

[heavensreader]

[Tired. She understands. She should stop for now, pull back... but how do you pull back from this?]

You came back twice, Mr. Solomons, you must think it's something.

[devoutish]

It did not feel like death. But we've been tricked here before.

[heavensreader]

It did not feel like death.

[She echoes it, and breathes out.]

If this is a trick then I am going to learn it. Learn how.

[devoutish]

How much do you care, compared to all the other things?

[heavensreader]

But it isn't the same. The other things are just, they're only these inventions that in the future we could make. The tablet is like a telegraph, isn't it? It isn't really so different. But souls are different. We aren't meant to toy with tings like death.

[devoutish]

I don't mean things like the tablet. Other things, Kesara; the most important things. The machines in our blood, the anomalies that look like us, the idea that we are not the first to be brought here and may not be the last. Death is only one of many things that we need to figure out.