"Lalli Hotakainen!"
Tuuri and Onni looked at Lalli, who raised a hand and stood up so the mailman could find him. He recieved a small envelope, his address written with elegant letters he would recognise anywhere. Emil. His hands shook as he opened it, he hadn't heard from the other since they were done in Iceland one year earlier. He took a paper out fom the envelope, tried to read it. Swedish, he knew some of the words, but he had forgotten most of what he had learned. He looked at the letters, noticed them getting shakier as the letter went on, noticed some places where the ink had smeared. He offered the letter to Tuuri, leaned closer.
"Translate."
Tuuri looked at the letter, cleared her throat and started reading.
Dear Lalli.
She giggled and Lalli glared at her. She stopped giggling and continued reading.
How are you? I am fine. Work in the Cleansers is... It's incomparable to what we did. I hope you're still enjoying your work. Oh, and how is your Swedish? I hope you're able to read this. I mean, you could get someone to translate, but... You'd probably go to Tuuri and I don't really want her to
Tuuri stopped reading, looked at Lalli.
"I shouldn't read this."
Lalli nodded, but motioned for her to continue anyway. She let out a sigh.
I don't really want her to see this...
I'm sorry I'm contacting you, but I don't have anyone else to turn to. My family would get me locked up in the mental ward if they knew and my workmates... Former workmates I guess I should say. I got fired from the Cleansers. I couldn't... I wasn't good enough for them. But that's not...
I can't sleep. I keep having nightmares. I keep dreaming about death, about people I've never seen, about my family, about us, everyone dying. Shadows keep looming over my dreams and when I wake up... It is still there, watching me, waiting. It keeps following me, but there's nothing there.
Lalli, am I going crazy? Is it just my mind slowly processing what we went through? I don't know what to do anymore. I'm just so tired, I just want to sleep... I wish...
Tuuri fell quiet, squinted at the letter, her lips moving as she tried to dechiffer the smeared words. Lalli looked at the letter, trying to see if he could help.
"It looks like he's been crying all over this part", Tuuri said after a while. "I can't read it, I'm sorry."
"The rest?"
"He hopes me and Onni are doing good, he looks forward to hearing from you, the normal pleasantries people write in letters", she folded it and gave it to Lalli. "Do you want my help to write an answer?"
Lalli shook his head, put the letter in his pocket and left the table. He needed to figure out what to do.