Rebuilt Anew 2. 4

Asynca

Past the piles of surprisingly sterile-smelling cadavers there was a small alcove that was only accessible through a crawlspace. Despite the fact I doubted anywhere inside the entrance to Helheim was actually safe, there was a claustrophobia about the space that put me at ease. Whilst I felt like we should probably be pressing on to prevent my Doppelgänger from getting too much of a head start on us, it was a stupid idea to be running around while I was waiting for my head to stop bleeding. Additionally, I figured I should probably start water loading to replace the volume of blood I'd lost.

I sat myself down carefully against the short wall, drinking deeply from my canteen and offering it to Amanda. She didn't notice, however, because she was too busy fussing over the stains on her coat. "It's ruined," she declared finally, and threw it against the far wall. "You're still bleeding anyway, and now I'm going to freeze."

I put the canteen away, tentatively touching the bandage over the wound. My fingertips were dry for now. I looked from my hands to Amanda's arms, which were still covered in goose bumps. Well, she'd make the sacrifice for me, I figured. Trying to avoid jarring my arms yet again, I removed my backpack, and unzipped my parka.

Amanda watched me. "What are you doing?"

Shrugging it off, I held it toward her. "Here." From the way she looked at it, you would have thought it was coated in poison. I shook it at her. "Amanda, take the parka and put it on."

She received it from me somewhat reluctantly. "Shouldn't you be trying to keep warm?"

I looked down at my arms. "My drysuit's good to minus five, I expect I'll be fine."

She pressed her lips together, and slipped it on and zipped it up.

"Better?" I asked her dryly.

She didn't reply, crossing her arms.

Bloody ungrateful, I thought. I'd at least thanked her for hers. While I was reflecting on her reaction, I figured I'd take a second look at those runes. I unhooked the handycam from my belt, flipped it open, and watched the footage I'd taken of the iron plate. As the film ran over the separate runes I read them, spotting familiar words like 'Odin' and 'Ohk'. Many of the runes were similar to the more recent Germanic system I was familiar with, and the more I watched the footage, the more I was able to spot the similarities between them. The language was very similar, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for me to learn it, I decided.

"It's odd that there are two writing systems still in use at the same time," I observed, turning off the camera. "It normally takes hundreds of years for an alphabet to evolve."

Amanda shrugged. She was absently picking at what I assumed was a small bloodstain on my parka as she thought. "Rituals are normally conducted using more traditional language. I don't think it's surprising at all they use the old alphabet for divination."

I considered what she said. I had to concede I'd experienced that myself during the rare occasions I'd not managed to avoid going to church. "What are they called, then, these runes that effect change?"

Amanda flashed a lopsided smile at her crossed legs. "As far as I know they don't really have a name. I've only ever read them described as 'Odin's Runes of Divination'."

"That's rather awkward. Could we call them, 'Power Runes', or something of the sort?"

She frowned and then turned a squint on me. "'We call them'? You'd better not be expecting to take credit for these. Without me, you'd still be stuck in that room."

"Without me, you'd be down there—" I gestured below, "—in Jörmungandr's Poison," I pointed out. "And you can't publish your own research papers from the grave, as far as I'm aware."

"Without you I wouldn't have fallen anyway! I would have walked down here and been peacefully testing out the Runes."

"You wouldn't even have had the Thrall Stone if my father hadn't found it, and I hadn't discovered where he'd hidden it under the manor. You stole it from me!" I neglected to mention that I wouldn't have even found the hiding place if Amanda hadn't ordered my Doppelgänger to blow up the centre of my house. Regardless, I could feel my pulse climb at her ire, and again, with each beat, it made my head pound. I didn't even care about who published what, I hadn't published anything in years and I didn't care to. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was making me so angry.

She looked absolutely scandalised that I'd even suggest that the stone wasn't her property; it was infuriating. "You weren't going to do anything with it!" she accused me, leaning aggressively inward and shouting in a shrill voice that strained my ears. "You would've just put it in a glass case hidden it in some secret compartment somewhere and left it to gather dust!"

"You think I should have put it on a pendant around my neck, then, and used it to attack my friends?"

The glare she directed at me was nothing short of murderous. I don't believe I'd ever felt someone look at me with so much pure hatred. "The Wraith Stone saved my life, Lara," she put a hand to her neck and curled her fingers around it, "unlike my 'friends'." She leant heavily on the word in a way that contradicted it.

I opened my mouth to blast her and then closed it again. "I'm not going to discuss this again, Amanda. How many times do I need to say I tried as hard as I could? I saw rubble fall on you, I saw you drown. I had no reason to believe you were alive. End of story!"

She leant back against the wall, resigned. "Of your story, maybe," she muttered sullenly.

My head was throbbing like one giant artery. There weren't enough bullets in the world, I felt at that moment. I was so angry, I could have emptied all my magazines into her chest and then kicked her body. I took a deep breath to calm myself before I spoke. "What do you want, exactly? You want to know how many days, hours, minutes I spent wondering if there was something else I could have done to save you? You want me to do an audit of how my life changed after you 'died'?" I shifted to face her. She was staring mutely ahead at the wall, pretending I wasn't yelling at her. "Are you going to keep robbing my house and stalking me until you've punished me enough?"

My voice echoed off the walls in the small alcove. As the ring faded, a silence hung between us.

"I didn't take the stone to punish you," she said, much more subduedly that I had expected her to.

"You bloody well did!" I contradicted her immediately. "Maybe it gives you some sick pleasure to see me suffer, but blowing up my house? Killing Alister?"

"...are unrelated to how much I've wanted to burn you alive, then and now!" She looked towards me, a sneer twisting her mouth. After a moment of coldly watching me, she shook her head. "It's pointless. You'll never understand."

"Not if you don't explain it to me, I won't!" I threw my hands toward the low ceiling in defeat. "Amanda, we were talking about runes, and now somehow I'm evil incarnate for not being able to save you, again. Clearly I'm missing something!"

She laughed once, humourlessly. "You are," she told me conclusively but, to my exasperation, she didn't elaborate. "'Power Runes' is okay, and you're bleeding again."

I groaned, patting my bandage; she was right.

I tended to my head while Amanda turned onto her side – away from me – and feigned taking a nap.