I've completely lost all sense of time… There have been so many times where they've had me completely unconscious for extended periods of time.
But…
Those are the times I prefer.
Because the other times… Those are when Ilios deals the most pain doing his sick experiments.
There was a while that I think I was catatonic from everything… I don't remember much, but now if I just act it, they leave me in the quiet and dark cell for a while. Although, I have also learned some things about myself that I wouldn't have learnt otherwise… Not that I needed to learn them. For the past while it seems as though Ilios has been testing limits and my adaptability. Which exceed what I even thought possible… He's tested starvation, drowning, freezing, and other extreme conditions that I had never intended on exposing myself to.
I can go huge amounts of time without eating; where at some point I enter a sort of comatose state until nutrients are reintroduced to my system. I can last for a few hours under water before my body enters a similar state until I am brought to air. There were similar results with extreme cold, where I go through all the typical stages of hypothermia for an extended timeline until again, I enter a sort of sleep until my body is warmed back up.
He has also tested how well I heal. I already knew that I heal better than any human does. Not instantly, mind you, but minor cuts and bruises would be gone in a few hours instead of a few days.
Ilios, again, went for the extremes. He has inflicted progressively worsening wounds just to see how long it takes them to fully heal. Each time, I wonder if this is the time he maims me permanently. If perhaps this is the time that he severs a limb. I have a feeling that I can't grow back limbs…
Luckily, after inflicting a wound he leaves me alone, only having his servants do a check of my body while he processes data from his experiment. Hence my current isolation. And in my times alone I have developing another skill. It is something I had noticed a few times in sparring matches or testing other skills. But the time I've had in this dark cell has made it easier to hone. So far as I can tell, it is a way to extend my senses. Every time I use it I can 'see' farther. As I am, I can see the way to the main areas of Ilios' secret lab, including one main exit as well as a few smaller exits that are presumably used by the human servants he deems unworthy of using the same paths as a higher being such as himself.
And he treats them horribly. Arguably worse than any Illuminat caste member I've ever seen. Another thing that he had done to deceive me was to treat humans fairly… Apparently all this time he has been just another prideful, arrogant Isu, only pretending otherwise to earn my trust. And to my own irritation and self-disappointment I believed it all. Quite completely.
Although, there is no sign that Ilios has noticed this ability I've been nurturing on the sly. And so I intend on using it in my escape. I tried twice nearer the beginning to escape, both ending in failure and a change of scenery; presumably making my cell deeper into the mountain. At the beginning, I'd been getting taken quite a distance downwards to the main lab, but now it is only a few levels below me. Ilios explained that his reasons for a lab deep in a mountain were twofold. Firstly, so that none could feel the energy of his equipment from the surface. And secondly, to use energy from inside the earth as part of his power supply. He quite marveled at his own cleverness when he recounted it all to me.
"Thank you…" I pass the empty tray to the young slave girl who comes to collect it, these slaves have it rough here, and they don't need me being harsh. They aren't to blame for my imprisonment. The Isu guards on the other hand…
"Did you need any water?" The slave asks holding a pitcher of water towards me.
"Yes, thank you…" She pours some into a cup and places it on the small table before bowing and leaving the cell.
I hadn't eaten any of the food on the tray, nor do I intend on drinking the water. Not for distrust of the slave girl but I know that Ilios has an unfortunately tight hold over his slaves. The important part is that I made it seem as though I had both eaten and accepted the water. I want it to seem as though I had given up by obeying, not resisting any experiments, for at least the last few months so far as I could track anyway. I've also work to this end by seeming mostly unresponsive to any goading from either Isu guards or Ilios himself. I suppose I must have been convincing enough because the guards, on the sly from Ilios, have gotten lazy by simply leaving my cell open. And I have made the conditions perfect for my escape by not taking advantage of it right away… The arrogance of some Isu is boundless. These Isu, who are not as powerful as those I have trained with, have to feel superior somehow; so they take it out on the slaves as they meekly take care of their tasks… And on me for simply having been held above them by being adopted by Astraeus and Eos, two of the more well known Isu nobles. In fact, the other night… I think… I heard them whispering to one another about how Ilios holds me in such high regard through his constant reminders not to underestimate me. It upsets them because they've never seen me so much as lift a finger against them, which they see as weakness. Therefore, I must be a true weakling. Unable to defend myself at all, completely helpless against their innate power as Isu.
And now that the human servant has taken the tray, all I have to do is seem like I've fallen victim to the sedatives I know they lace the food with when the evening guard comes by.
Since the guards are Isu, all I have to do is make myself seem as incompetent as possible. Unfortunately, Ilios had seen me spar many times and I would be unlikely to fool him, but his guards can only rely on second-hand or maybe even third-hand accounts. As such, they are less likely to believe them. Which is the case for most of the guards that are usually posted between my location and the way to the slave's passage. If I can make it there, I should practically be home free. Through the servants passage I can retrieve slaves' clothing and hopefully meekly walk out as though I'm on orders from a guard.
Thankfully, I don't have the appearance of the Isu, with their towering frames and intricately beautiful markings.
I feel the guard making his way towards the entrance of the cell with the use of my enhanced senses, it also reveals that he isn't alone tonight.
I slow my breathing right down and let myself slump against the wall making sure that the cup of water is near my open hand.
"See? What did I tell you? She ate the whole meal and had some of the water. She'll be out at least until tomorrow morning right before they come to check on her progress. Now we shouldn't have to even check on her at all…"
"That is pretty impressive… But how can you be so sure of the dosage? I mean even after all this time that you've been dosing the food and water, Master Ilios still hasn't found you out…"
"Skill, my friend. Skill. Now let's see if yours has improved with that game I taught you."
They laugh as they get further down the hall to the guard's quarters. According to that conversation, Ilios has not been behind the sedatives in my meals… But I cannot discount that he could have meant for me to hear them say that in hopes that he earns some modicum of trust again… He isn't beneath such underhanded tactics. He did spend fifteen years gaining my trust to pull off this bullshit, after all.
I wait until all sounds from the guard's area has ceased, then I wait a little longer. I don't want to rush and then get caught. And in this place the servant humans are constantly milling about with chores and other duties… They seem to be on a fuller rotation than the guards around here.
Once it's quiet all around me I make my move.
I keep my senses sharp in order to spot problems before I come across them. For the most part the whole facility seems to be very quiet, to the exception of the occasional slave cleaning, or moving something. I avoid each one fairly easily and avoid being seen at all.
I make my way to where the slaves all sleep and find a rack with 'clean' slave's clothes. Clean being a relative term because Ilios seems to like making the gap between him and them as wide as he possibly can. With unfortunate success.
I go into a dark corner and slip out of the gossamer clothes he had been keeping me in, then I pull on the rough fabric of the slaves' tunics. I snatch a robe to cover my head since most of the humans around this area have dark hair and mine is a vibrantly warm blonde.
I pause around a corner from the long hallway leading to my freedom as I wait for a guard to stroll by during his watch cycle. As he passes my shadowy hiding place, I hear him yawn. Without looking around the corner, I use my sharpened senses to watch his route for a few rounds until he passes me again for the next long hallway and I dash for the exit. The scent of fresh air luring me forward.
Luckily, I keep my sense sharp and notice one more guard just on the other side of the entrance. I slow down as I near the entrance and realize that he is completely asleep. I watch each step carefully as I slip by him and keep my noise down as well as I can until I think I'm far enough away.
I skulk through the trees worried that there could still be guards in the shadows of the trees where the moonlight can't expose them. Then I come to a break in the tree line created by a sheer cliff revealing a stunning view of a moonlit valley. A moonlit valley that is empty as far as my eyes can see. I look to the stars to gather my bearings but as I take in the display of the constellations a sinister chuckle fills the area.
"I didn't think you'd actually make it this far." I whip myself around to see a smirking Ilios, "Come now, don't look so shocked. Did you really believe that I would just let you stroll out of here? Give me some credit. I have kept this facility hidden from prying eyes for near on a century. I've even managed to keep it hidden with all those powerful Isu searching for you… They've obviously underestimated me. Much like how my guards thoroughly underestimated you. Not even one of them caught so much as a glimpse of you throughout my whole facility. It wasn't until the monitoring system in the forest picked you up that we figured out which entrance you had decided to try… I admit I can't figure out how you learnt about this…" He casually strolls up to me guards appearing from the deeply shadowed forest, I take a few steps backwards until I feel the edge of the cliff at my heels and he places a hand on my cheek and turns my face side to side, "But I will find out." His hand turns to grip my neck almost too tightly, I grab his hand with my hands in an attempt to keep him from gripping any tighter, and he pulls me in, "I will never let you leave this place. Breathe deeply of this free air… Let it fill your lungs, for it's the last you will ever feel." My whole body goes cold and I think of the now welcoming death drop only inches behind me…
I pull myself downward and push back with feet while wrenching with my hands against his to release me. Fighting his grip and almost growling at him to release me. Then he lifts me up to his height, and all I can do is hold onto his arm to keep from choking. He steps forward holding me out over the drop that I can't see but know is there by the new wind at my legs.
"Is this what you want? Is it really so bad helping all of Isukind forward?" I gaze up at the stars, I only want away from this… I want to be free from whatever I am… "Tsk." He turns and tosses me past his line of guards. The landing knocks the wind out of me and when I turn gasping to face him, I see the horizon beginning to lighten to grey.
"Knock her out." I hear before a foot flies into my stomach and as I curl up in pain from the impact another foot cracks against my head causing a consuming blackness to take over.
"Why won't you eat anything? You know what will happen if you don't eat something. And then how will I get honest results from any of these tests?" Ilios chides me as he brings my meal into the tiny caged off area of the lab that he now keeps me in, "These meals are perfectly balanced in all the nutrition that a body like yours could need… How can I know if you're truly to your full potential if you in a constant state of starvation?" I glare up at him.
"You realize that saying that just makes me want to starve myself more, right? Plus, would you want to eat a meal full of sedatives?"
"Now, now… I may have used sedatives a little at the beginning when you were being completely uncooperative. But I have not put in any sedatives into your meals for some time now." Ilios tries to reason with me, he is really laying it on thick…
"Seriously? After all your bullshit, you're just going to keep this lie up?" His eyes narrow at me and he looks at the plate in his hand. No way. There is no way that he hasn't known all this time that they've kept putting sedatives in the meals…
He walks out and a guard activates the barrier keeping me inside of the restrictive space.
I wake up to the sounds of people rushing around and something crashing as it gets knocked over by a careless guard.
"Hurry up. Leave most of this and take only what we can carry. Well… What you can carry." Ilios strides over to the barrier and deactivates it. Two guards come in and grab my arms and pull me out: holding me in front of my jailer.
"What? Did someone start a fire finally? Oh, is the mountain erupting?"
"Silence. Your persistent crew of handlers is narrowing in on this location. I had hoped that with this whole Human-Isu war going on, that they would get caught up in the fighting… But alas… So, I'm leaving with all of my staff." It sounds like I'm staying… Is he letting them find me, finally? An unsettling chuckle comes from him, "Don't look so hopeful. We are leaving here to draw them away." He nods to the guards and begins to walk to the opposite corner of the lab to where a large circle is raised from the rest of the lab. I've always wondered what it was for… Something tells me I won't be happy finding out, "You will be staying right here." He gestures to the dais and the guards walk me onto it and Ilios uses the energy that many of the powerful Isu have to keep me there while his guards get off the circle and a barrier is activated making it impossible for me to leave.
He strides over to the console that presumably controls this contraption and puts in some commands that change the barrier's colour from blue to a sparkling gold. Then he walks back to it and taps his knuckle on the now solid glass-like surface shimmering with gold. I place my own hand on it for a moment in wonder. Then I pound on the shimmering wall, but it only absorbs the impact without bending or even making a sound.
"I have worked long and hard on this… I had hoped that it would be something of a stasis pod for Isu, like myself… To stay young and powerful for millennia longer than we normally would… I used your powers to develop it. You could say it's the fruit of your labors…" He walks along the circle dragging a finger over its surface, "But no matter what I tried I could not get Isu DNA to stop aging while inside. Although, from all my tests it seems that for you it will make it so that you come out of it in the exact state you go in… So, while I lure your hunting party away from you… You will wait here for me to return." He steps back and I see that all activity in the lab had ended and the only ones left were me, him, and his two guards. He returns to the console and inputs a few more commands and the bottom of the circle begins to fill with a shimmering liquid, "And you best hope I return… Or you will be here for eternity."
"No…" He turns and walks out of the lab, the liquid reaching my ankles, "NOO!" I pound on the silent glass and I see him on the other side of a window at a control console. I see him wave his hand over the console and the lights go out and the power to the other consoles is cut. Leaving the only active thing in the room this stasis device and its control console. "ILIOS!" I pound on the barrier, the liquid rising to my hips. I kick the wall but with no better result.
I look around desperately for any kind of control on the inside of this contraption, but the whole space I'm in is completely isolated from the rest of the lab…
I don't die from drowning in water, but I don't know what this is…
I begin to tread as it rises above where my head would be. It being thicker than water makes keeping my head out of it difficult, it seems to want to pull me under. The gossamer clothing Ilios always keeps me in begins to bellow out around me as I get closer and closer to the top of the containment area.
Finally, I'm at the top and breathing the last of the air as the liquid reaches my face. I take one last gulp of air and close my eyes before the liquid finishes filling the space.
I slowly open my eyes until a jolt goes through me. Causing me to gasp and lose my breath to the increasingly viscous liquid.
Then everything goes away as I sink into a warm, dark sleep.
I hear the sound of rushing water and then a worried voice… I know this voice… I open my eyes to see a curtain of chestnut hair and warm amber eyes looking down at me as a woman leans over me.
"Astraea? Come on… Wake up…" My eyes continuing to flutter for a moment before I am able to hold them open and get a solid look at her. She has undulating marks going down her arms and a few that frame her face, "That's it, come on…" She raises me to a sitting position against the wall.
I know her… But… I can't think of how…
I feel a tidal wave of exhaustion hit me, how am I tired? I just woke up…
"No… I can't let you fall asleep… Not yet. Please, eat first." The woman reaches behind her and brings back a small loaf of bread, she tears a few pieces of and holds one out to me, I try to reach out for it but my arm won't move, "Oh, you probably can't move on your own yet… You haven't eaten in… A while." She moves the bread to my mouth.
"I…" I try to squeeze out a few words, mostly because I don't know if anything I eat will stay down…
"Don't worry… You'll get your strength back. You just need to eat first." She moves the bread towards my mouth again, but this time I take a bite. As soon as I swallow the bread all nausea ebbs away and is replaced by a ravenous hunger. She feeds me a few more pieces of bread and then brings a water skin to my mouth. Then it hits me.
"Dike…" She jumps at the sound of her name before turning back to me from her pack and smiling with tears in her eyes.
"That's right." She pulls me into a long hug, "We looked for you for so long… I can't believe I finally found you." I feel tears stinging my eyes before they flow freely until Dike releases me from her hold.
"Where…" I still can't form all the words I want to say.
"You don't quite remember yet? I guess it's from this contraption that Ilios put you in…" As she says the name a dam blocking memories shatters and a flood reminds me of what led up to me being in this room.
"Ilios… Lab…"
"Yes. This is the lab he took you to… A long time ago. He meant to return here… But…" She sets the water down and holds another loaf of bread up, this time my arms obey when I reach out to take it, my stomaching growling boisterously. "Eat up really well first. This will be a lot to take in…"
"Okay…" We sit in silence for a while as I eat the bread. Taking a better look at her now reveals that something has clearly changed. There are a few scars that hadn't been there before. The radiant clothing she used to wear has been replaced with a more practical look robe and the crown she once wore with the typical Isu headdress has been swapped for a simple diadem. I remember Ilios mentioning a war between humans and Isu… It had been a long time coming but… What have I missed? And where is everyone else? Like Astraeus, Eos, and their children… My family…
I reach for the water skin and she passes it to me wordlessly, I can feel myself getting stronger with each bite of the plain but incredibly satisfying bread.
"Here…" Dikes stands and holds her hand out to me, "Let's leave this room… I saw an empty one on my way in that we can use to camp in."
"Why camp?" I manage to get out, because there were whole sections of this facility full of beds and comfortable places to sleep, why camp when we can use those?
"I'll explain after you've rested…" I take her hand and she helps me stand up and half carries me through ruined areas of the facility that, for me, were whole only yesterday. And what was once some of the lowest floors of the facility now have cracks and breaks… Some of which are letting in a small amount of natural light and trickles of water.
Dike sits me down on some ruined pillar and goes about setting up a couple of sleeping rolls and a small fire.
"I'll wake you up once morning comes around…"
And what I thought would be difficult turns out to be beyond easy, when my head hits the pillow of the bedroll and I immediately fall to sleep.
The sleep this time though, it isn't dark and lonely… It is full of life and memories.
A woman with wildly curly strawberry-blonde hair embraces me and places a hand on my cheek, "My Raea… My ray of light…"
I'm a child and a man lifts me up and spins me around, "Higher daddy!" I shout as he holds me up above his head, I look down to see him grinning widely, eyes full of love.
At elementary school, my third day of first grade and some older boys stop me in the hallway and push me to the ground laughing. Four boys all from fifth grade… Then two more boys launch at them and a girl helps me stand up and puts herself between me and the brawl. Afterwards our parents and all of their younger kids in the principal's office discussing the incident as the two boys who look the same and the girl all smile at me. My brothers and one of my sisters…
Ten, my siblings have shunned me to the attic room… But I'll be okay…
Fifteen and my heart's been broken… A young woman holding me tightly on my bed as I cry away the pain… My older sister…
Twentieth birthday… We are all together posing for the Victorian-style photo with me at the center of the picture and them all around me. I couldn't be happier to have all my family in one place again…
I bolt up from the bedroll, gasping for air.
"Astraea! Are you okay?" I look over to the source of the voice and I see Dike. Then the reality of what happened sets in and I cannot stop the flood of tears that comes to me. Dike comes and holds me as I release everything from the return of my memories…
After I finish crying and Dike backs away, I stand up and hold my head between my hands. How on Earth did this happen? Is it even real?
I look at my arms and see the scars left from some of Ilios' twisted experiments… There's now way that wasn't real…
"Astraea… What's the problem?" I look over at my impossible friend.
"Dike…" I look her up and down, towering height and glowing markings… Things that without my memories from my earlier life seemed normal… And I can now identify as most definitely not normal. "Dike… I remember everything." Her eyes get wide and she stands up.
"Everything… You remember your childhood and where you are from then?"
"Yes…" I look at my hands and then around the room.
"Well? Where are you from?"
"This is going to sound absolutely crazy… You might not even believe me… But I think I might be from another Earth… Maybe some kind of alternate dimension where the gods and mythology is real… Because there are no Isu where I'm from… And… Dike, I was born a human. I don't know what exactly happened to me, but I wasn't like this before. And where I'm from Atlantis is a myth, and Athena and Zeus are a few of the others are known as gods of the ancient world…" Or what if… Could this be the past? No… I don't remember ever learning anything about any advanced society of super-beings like the Isu in any history book… And I grew up around history books.
"That… That is pretty radical sounding… But at the same time…" I see the gears turning in her mind as she processes.
"Athena… She is one of the best scientists… We need to talk to her. Maybe we can figure this all out…"
"Well… I can bring you to her but… There are things I need to tell you first." She sits down on the piece of broken pillar nearby and motions for me to sit with her, after I sit down, she begins, "It was around sixty years after Ilios abducted you from Atlantis… But two hybrids, Adam and Eve, finally started the war between humans and Isu."
"When did you all find out that it was Ilios?" I ask.
"It was a month or two after he took you… But by then all traces of him were gone… No one knew where he had gone. No one had seen him since Atlantis. And none of his staff at his home in Feyan even knew about this place…"
"He did say that he had been working on this facility for almost a century before acting.. Anyway, sorry, the war between humans and Isu…"
"Well, many on both sides were dying. There were only a few factions of Isu, and the humans connected to them, who stayed away from the fighting…" She pauses.
"You're talking all in past tense… So, the war is over then?" She takes a deep breath before continuing.
"About ten years after the war began… The sun's energy shot out at the planet. It was pure devastation. Athena and my father had been trying to find a way to protect us all… But with so many fighting in the war, there hadn't been enough time or resources to do anything... Ultimately, the Earth was ravaged, and it burnt for weeks. It was awful." I look at her, and she looks at me, "Astraeus, Eos, and their children all survived along with most of the more powerful Isu, but with the remaining Isu… It is likely that within the next few millennia that Isu will have died out completely."
"So, is that how this place got so… Ruined? How did that stasis device that intact?"
"Well… That may have started it… I think that the stasis device remained intact because of how deep this part of the facility is… The area is also very seismically stable… But there's still more…" She turns to face me, "You were taken in 2236 Isu Era… That was more than 40,000 years ago." The statement hits me like a titanium wall. That's when it hits me as I look at her, before in a human comparison she looked to be a fresh-faced twenty-year-old woman… Now, she looks as though she were in her late thirties…
"But then… Everyone else? You said that Astraeus and Eos survived the catastrophe that happened from the sun…"
"I'm sorry Astraea… They lived until around 9,000 years ago. Isu lives are longer by far than human's but not everlasting… I'm sure you can even see the changes in me…" Dike places a hand on my leg comfortingly, "They never gave up on you. They truly loved you as their own. It destroyed them when they found out you had been abducted… They blamed themselves for a long time. They always felt they could have done so much to prevent that."
"It wasn't their fault… It was mine for being stupid and trusting…"
"We all trusted Ilios. We never could have imagined that he had been able to have something like this." She gestures around us, "Or that he could have done things like this…" Dike traces a finger along one of the scars from the experiments, "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you better. Part of the fault is mine…"
"It's not your fault at all… Ilios… He was playing the long game… He fooled us all."
"That also means it isn't your fault." Dike says forcefully.
"You said that Athena is still around… I want to ask her something."
"Okay… It should be morning by now… Let's get moving, there is a fair distance to cover."
I run my hand over the console of the stasis device, and it comes to life.
Thank god it still works…
So much has happened…
Dike had taken me to Athena who had been on her last legs, desperately getting something she called 'the Vault' prepared for a human in the future who would be the called the Prophet and would open the Vault to learn everything about the Catastrophe and how it will happen again in 2012.
She had told me that in the time after the Catastrophe Astraeus and Eos came to her for help. She hadn't been able to spare them much time, but she had been able to tell them that they would never see me face-to-face again and if they wanted to, they could prepare something of a vault for me. They never did tell Athena where it was, but she is very skilled with looking into the future and told them that if they were to build a vault for me, that in time, I would find it.
Athena also confirmed with me that somehow, I had been brought backwards in time and altered in a way she didn't think possible. She told me that in being altered I had gained something that many Isu, not just Ilios, had been fighting to find… As true of immortality as had ever been seen. Athena told me that I should always trust my instincts, that they would lead me well through time and back to my family. She said that when Astraeus and Eos had come asking she had seen all the time leading up to when I would be reunited with my family… My birth family. As the family I had known for those years after losing my memories were all gone. She warned that I would face hardships unlike any other human had, and that I would need to find ways to hold onto my humanity or lose myself entirely…
After that, Dike and I looked for the vault that had been left for me… While looking we did our best to help guide the growing human societies along the road to a virtuous life. Not that it was helping. Over the years, despite however many single human communities we visited… Overall, humanity was growing into darkness. A part of me had begun wishing that I hadn't grown such a disdain for history growing up… Because if I hadn't perhaps, I would have been able to know what things I shouldn't get involved with…
I also learnt how to summon my power in a more primal way than Hephaestus and Hermes' weapons had me using it. I found that I could use it in many ways much like the Isu used energy for fighting, creating, and living. I found I could make plants thrive with it or kill them. I could heal minor wounds or close larger ones. I could create weapons out of energy if I found myself in need. But the use I found for that power that came most naturally to me? Creating wings to fly through the sky.
While the times with Dike weren't always easy… My time traveling with Dike was wonderful. Some many moments I will cherish even after the only trace of them having happened is my memory.
It had been some time after our meeting with Athena, who preferred being called Minerva then, that I realized a real conundrum. My parents had named me after the Starry Maiden. A Greek goddess who had been the daughter of the titan god of dusk, Astraeus, and the titan goddess of dawn, Eos. Meaning that I was named after myself.
"Now… Here I am again…" I put into the console for what I want it to do then go and step onto the circle.
I just don't want to live the whole time between now and my family… So far as I can tell humans have barely reached what I understand to be recorded history…
And now I don't have Dike anymore… The fresh hole in my heart gnaws at me, I can't stand to lose even one friend… Athena… Minerva had said I would experience loss many times, but if it feels like this every time… I don't want to. I would rather sleep history away.
The barrier appears and the bottom begins to fill with the shimmering liquid again.
It'll be easier just to sleep it all away…
I patiently let the space fill with the liquid. When it reaches the top, I take a small breath and let myself begin to sink through the thickening liquid, then the shock jolts through me.
Then, once again, I fall into the dark, warm sleep. Alone.