Ugh—why are tears dancing down my cheeks? I think it's from pain, but it could be from something internal, something else. That why, why, just why can there never be a single moment of peace?

I shriek again as another punctures my leg, like it's trying to impale me. Tearing it out, I fling it aside, but with a hole in my leg where blood freely gushes out. The pool of red steadily grows bigger, and they just keep coming.

Panicking from the puddle of blood, something happens that I can't explain. I mean to make a watershield with my Eletrol to slow the rest down; but instead of water, smoky silver vapour floats around me and vapourizes anymore that come. My eyes are wide with horror. My hands...I realise that they're trembling. Deep in my subconcsious, I know vaguely that these hands carry more power than I can control.

Is that a good or a bad thing?

I collapse as my leg gives way while I rip out the barb from my arm. The ground around the willow is streaked scarlet like it's covered with poppy petals.

Clasping my arm and leg, still underneath the protection of the silver vapour, my blood and my life slowly flow out of me—again. Whatever. If this is how it's going to be, then this is how it's going to be. And I finally know who's the real me that Anton had asked me to search for.

The true me is a girl who can't protect anybody, not even herself.

Look at it this way. I had tried to protect Hataki and Desna, but I failed—because I was Snatched away for who knows why. After healing Anton and Seamus and Amisha, I went out because of exhaustion. I had tried to protect Coral's truth of existence, but I got myself killed. Now I'm alone, and even now, I still can't protect myself.

Are the others alright, though? Because if they aren't...my asking Darryl to help them instead of me would have been for nothing.

A grim smile flicks across my face. My sacrifice. Like how I had planned just a few days ago, even though those few days felt like a few years. I remember my codename, given to me without my knowledge in the dusky, twilight land beyond the River, the Lingerance. Eclipse Fatal. My name, Ersline—the Tweltian word for eclipse. And that's why I'm better off dead. Because if I'm fatal—the world would do better without me.

I lie there for what seems like an eternity multiplied by a million, waiting, waiting, for the blood to leak out of me. Stars twinkle in front of my eyes. Those stars mean that I'm finally going out of it, right?

My arm starts to twitch. Then my leg. Then my whole body's racked with spasms, like some glitching robot. I panic—is this normal? Were those barbs covered with some slow-acting poison? Bouncing around, I clamber into a sitting position at the base of the willow, my grey dress now pretty much permanently decorated with red. Smoky silver stuff drifts in front of my eyes like a visible Pariah.

Well, for one, I'm not dead. For another, though, I don't seem to be in the best alive condition either. I'm tired, had died once, starved, dehydrated, injured, perhaps mortally wounded—actually, scratch that last one. Even through the jerking, it's as clear as the blood on the ground that my puncture wounds are...gone. And though the splattered ground screams otherwise, I feel like I've hardly lost any blood at all.

Silver vapour entwines itself around my wrists like a grotesque snake.

Is that silverassium? Like the silverassium in the River? If it really is, then why's it pouring out of my fingertips?

I hold my hands away from me like they carry a disease. It's crazy, really, because how can my Eletrol suddenly extend beyond the bridge between Life and Death? But the proof is there. My Eletrol apparently does extend, and now I'm scared of my own power.

If it actually is me controlling the silverassium, I need to confirm it. Concentrating like I normally do with my Eletrol, I visualise a growing mass of silverassium inside me, and horrifyingly naturally, I become one with the silverassium and send it all back to the River.

I was scared of my Eletrol before, but this conclusion is a whole new level. I can control elements in Death. One of the freakiest living nightmares—ever.

As I get up with surprising ease, trying to ignore the pools of my own blood, I realise that the thumbtack assault has stopped and that the thumbtacks themselves lie scattered on the ground. Dancing and hopping around them like an Irish dancer gone wrong, I make my way in the direction of West Brook.

It's a longer walk to West Brook than I had imagined, not counting the fact that I'm playing a dangerous game of hopscotch: tacks on the ground, spike side up, barefoot, rocky ground. I'm growing more and more exhausted with each leap and bound, before the number of tacks on the ground finally thins out. Collapsing, I sit down on an un-tacked piece of land to regain my breath.

His presence in my head warns me before I even hear him.

Kristen—for the love of the Lingerance how are you in my head!!! I tele-shriek.

ERSLINE! He sounds so relieved. Ersline, where've you been, Clutchem-Like-A-Vice is livid, she thinks you somehow escaped the Downs—

Whoa, wait, I say, stalling him. Clutchem's mad that I'm not there?

Well, duh, yeah, of course she would be.

A smile breaks out onto my face, ignoring the fact that the Dracondese cameras would be puzzling their little head over it. It fades quickly, though. If Clutchem's mad, then she isn't the one who had gotten me Snatched.

So who did?

Ersline, still connected?

Huh? Oh. Yeah. Still here.

That thing you said earlier... 'for the love of the Lingerance'. What even is the Lingerance?

I bite my lip, hoping that the cameras won't pick it up. It's a little hard to explain.

Explain, then. Please.

Okay, but...tell me this first—if it came down to it, would you ever join resistance movements against the Puritans?

He hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering. Ersline, I—no, I don't think I would. It's too risky.

Thank the Void, I sigh, then realise that I've used another weird expression subconsciously. Guess that's what the Lingerance does to you. Look, I don't have long, so please, just listen, okay?

Okay—and explain what the Void is while you're at it.

Right. So here's the thing—I got Snatched a few days back—

You WHAT?

Yeah...and then I got myself caught in a bomb and temporarily left life and—KRISTEN WHAT'S GOING ON? I tele-shriek as I bolt upright, eyes wide as dishpans as Kristen tele-yells (unconsciously I think) WHO ARE YOU? GET BACK—GET BACK—

Panic rages through my veins and I wonder if he can feel it—KRISTEN WHAT IN NORTON'S NAME IS GOING ON?

Static rasps through the Telecoustic, then I fall into a pit of silence.