The Corpusant waits at the bottom of the stairs.

(two hundred seconds)

The man-child said he would be back in eighteen hundred seconds. So the Corpusant counts them off.

The woman, Leah, long ago taught it how to mark this thing called Time, which regulates the activities of the organisms of this world. Where the Corpusant comes from – the place Deville called The Outside – there is no Time. Nor is there space. Even light does not travel there. All of the Outside's radiation, visible or otherwise, is concentrated in its inhabitants: the Corpusants. Deville descibed all of these things mathematically, with equations and diagrams. But the Corpusant can't fathom such devices, their purpose, or even the concept of purpose itself.

(four hundred)

It didn't come wittingly into this world. It simply found itself here. The rent these organisms tore in the fabric between their universe and the Outside created a differential that sucked the Corpusant through. And as fresh water freezes into ice, so did the Corpusant's state fundamentally change. It suddenly found itself occupying both space and time. This was an enormous shock to it, and it would have winked out of existence in that moment, but for one thing: the creatures here were conscious. Like a fire seeking oxygen the Corpusant was drawn into one of them, clinging like a sailor to the wreckage of her consciousness, so similar and yet so different to its own. It learned to exist in a whole new way: as a parasite.

(six hundred)

Leah calls this consciousness The Soul. She speaks of it as being inside her. But for corpusants this thing is like an exoskeleton, forming a protective shell around the concentration of energy that is their being. They are in effect held together by their souls.

(eight hundred)

The man-child has promised to release the Corpusant back into the Outside, and the Corpusant has no doubt that it will. It comprehends lies no more than it could the equations and diagrams of Deville. It only knows that it has to get back. Like water down a mountainside, it is drawn towards a state of rest – Deville called this the Law of Conservation of Energy. The Corpusant knows only that it doesn't belong here. It belongs there.

(one thousand)

The Corpusant doesn't understand why living creatures were for centuries flung into the leaden chamber to be consumed by it. The concepts of justice and injustice are alien to it. That this might be a punishment these creatures visit upon each other has never crossed its mind.

(twelve hundred)

Apart from Deville and this man-child, there had been one other whom the Corpusant had not been able to see. The Corpusant had watched on indifferently as that creature's mind had wrestled with the choice between releasing the woman and leaving her secured in the leaden room. It had chosen the latter. The Corpusant didn't resent it for this. It doesn't know what resentment is. A thousand years chained to a chair is nothing. It only becomes conscious of time when it counts it off, like now. Even then it is not something to be endured, but a mere curiosity.

(fourteen hundred)

It occurs to the Corpusant that the woman is dying. That the conscious it clings to – that keeps it alive – is failing. She was talkative in the beginning. They would have long conversations, each understanding little of what the other said – not because of any linguistic barrier, for they communicated directly and did not need to parse each other's words as humans do even among each other – but because their thoughts were so alien to each other. But as time went on she spoke less and less, and for years now she has been silent.

(sixteen hundred)

Her body was turned to ash the instant the Corpusant sought refuge in her consciousness, but she maintains a memory of the body: a projection. She seems either unable or unwilling to part with this memory. It is a mystery to the Corpusant – not the body-memory itself, but her attachment to it.

(eighteen hundred)

The man-child is not back. The Corpusant hasn't expected this. How could it be?

(Leah, he is not back.)

The woman floats slowly to the surface. The Corpusant can sense the effort it takes her to speak. Her great weariness.

(He has deserted us)

(What doth thou mean?)

But the effort required to transmit that single thought has exhausted her, and she sinks back into unconsciousness.

The Corpusant is alone.

It sends its light forth into the tunnel ahead, seeking the man-child. The only organisms it finds are the simple things the man-child calls snokeys. Beyond them lies the dark stretch of water which it cannot pass through.

Nevertheless, it sets off up the tunnel again.

This was a hard chapter to write. If you found anything particularly difficult to understand or poorly explained, well, that comments section is there for a reason. Go forth.