Quoted By:
"Charlotte is not perfect (imagine!) and so she hugged me like she meant to pop my ribs. I have been ruined and so I hugged her back and ruffled her hair and murmured to the back of her head that I was glad she's safe, and that was what mattered, more than any arbitrary tournament. The Crown we'd be obtaining was worth a thousand of the machine's. In the end, this was a temporary diversion.
"I don't know if she heard me. She went on hugging, and I thought that it wasn't me she actually meant to hug. I thought that if she knew she wouldn't hug me like this at all. It wasn't mine and didn't belong to me.
"I thought that regretting it meant, maybe, that I still deserved it. In one sense or another.
"I don't know what I thought, because space and time were slipping, and Charlotte was liquefying in my arms. I breathed her in and coughed: saline. The ground was liquifying too and gurgled upward and enveloped me, and took my skin off with it. I floated, denuded and lengthened and noncomprehending, until by chance I twisted my neck and banged against the tube and remembered.
"I was back. If I had ever left: if it was not just a vivid IV-dream, an increasingly plausible explanation, and one that required far fewer questions answered. That was not Charlotte; I had not seen her in days. A cruel figment only. But I would see her soon, if she was alive, if she was well, and if she did not know. She would not want me if she knew. I cross my fingers.
"Richard"
I was going to update but then this ended up being... uhh... you see how long it is. Update-length. I'll try to get out a quick actual update out tomorrow.
