Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist I Chapter 5: Apocalypse Pretty Much Now, a homestuck fanfic

Chapter Five: Apocalypse Pretty Much Now

I pulled open the door to my room and stepped out into the corridor. Two orderlies and a nurse were rushing a stretcher past, with a bleeding woman lying on top. From what the hospital staff were saying, the woman must have just come from a car crash.

That woman was not the only one. There were others on stretchers as well, being rushed to operating rooms. The onslaught of meteors really seemed to be wreaking havoc outside—I could only imagine what it would be like in the cities, in the dense, closed-in places.

I think there may have been orderlies outside my door, but they had certainly been called away with the chaos that these meteors were bringing into the hospital. I was able to make it all the way down the corridor without being noticed. After all, when fire and brimstone started falling, who would care about one patient wandering the halls when there were so many who needed attention?

I made it to the elevators and pressed the down button. It lit up, but none of the elevators showed any signs of moving. I pressed the button several more times until my patience finally dissipated, and I ended up taking the stairs. My room had been on the fourth floor, so I had to clamber down eight flights of stairs before reaching the ground floor.

I jogged through the corridors, dodging other patients and the hospital staff. I blew through the emergency room and down another corridor until I found myself at the front reception desk. I didn't stop running.

I heard voices call out after me, felt someone try to grab my shoulder, but I shrugged out of the grip, sprinted out through the sliding glass doors. When I stumbled out onto the roadway, I felt like I was in a dream. The clouds in the sky hung low and heavy, and there was a hellish red glow about them. Streaks of fire seared down through the veil of storm clouds, meteors making their way down to the earth.

It was just odd…seeing the meteors falling to the earth, the red glow of their fire lending that hellish aspect to the day…but having it rain at the same time. I paused for a moment when I made it outside, looking up to the sky and closing my eyes, savoring the feeling of the rain on my face.

There was the sound of a motor, the screech of tires, the smell of heated rubber. A car door opened.

I opened my eyes. Little Blue was sitting in front of me, the passenger seat door open, my Sis behind the wheel. "Oh my God, I've never been so glad to see you before in my life," I said, jumping into the passenger seat. I gripped the sides of my seat, waiting for the acceleration…but it never came. I turned to my Sis, who was still looking at me. "What the fuck are you waiting for?" I nearly screamed at her. "We have to get home!"

Sis arched an eyebrow. She pointed down to my seatbelt—I had forgotten to fasten it.

I muttered something under my breath, grabbing the seatbelt and fastening it. The moment it clicked, Sis pounded the gas and Little Blue screamed forward down the parking lot and out onto the main road. Sis put on the windshield wipers and hit the radio, but all that came out was static. Whatever transmitted the shit for those radio stations probably got hit by one of the apocalypse meteors.

There were a few stations that were still working, but they were some kind of emergency channel get-ups. I caught snippets of some military guy talking about a national state of emergency being declared, impacts of objects of 'celestial origin' occurring worldwide, blah blah blah. I don't know why they couldn't just say 'fucking meteor shower from hell' over the airwaves—that would get the message across in a much clearer manner.

I could only watch as more and more of the 'objects of celestial origin' screamed down through the veil of storm clouds. Though it was still mid-late afternoon, the rainstorm had plunged the area into a premature darkness. And all those meteors looked much more frightening in the darkness. Every few seconds, the thunder would clap and a flash of lightning would illuminate the destruction raining down from above, like a brief moment of freeze-frame.

I watched all of this while Sis stomped on the gas and sent us screeching down the road at upwards of eighty miles per hour, brushing ninety on several occasions. We blew past more car accidents than I cared to count—unfortunate vehicles driven by people not quite as skilled behind the wheel as Sis. Even I'll confess that I probably would have gotten us wrecked at least a dozen times, by now.

There were a few parts of the main road where a meteor had actually impacted, blowing out sizeable chunks of asphalt into giant craters. Sis sent Little Blue into dangerous swerves to avoid these craters—swerves that made me hug my seat belt tight, squeeze my eyes shut, and promise God over and over again that I'd be a better student and quit smoking weed.

I'm not very good at keeping my promises, I guess.

Then I saw the twin red lights blaring out of the rainy darkness, like the eyes of a demon. I pointed at the lights, screamed, "Traffic light!"

Sis did not say a word. She only tightened her grip on the wheel and punched the gas even further. We roared towards the red light, pushing at one hundred miles per hour. My grip on the sides of my chair was hard enough to turn my knuckles the color of snow.

There were a couple cars stopped at the red light, and there was a steady stream of traffic traveling on the road perpendicular to us. That was what we were flying towards. "Sis, what are you doing? Slow us down!" my voice almost cracked.

She did not waver. Instead, Sis yanked the wheel to the left, putting us into the wrong side of the road. From there, we cut diagonally across the intersection and back into the right lane at the other side. I watched the red traffic lights streak past overhead, watched the headlights of the other cars going in all directions as we blew right through them, and the only thing I could really do was scream, "SIIIIS!" at the very top of my lungs, until my throat felt raw.

I found myself sitting so far back into my seat I wondered how I hadn't simply burst out the back. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax my grip on the sides of the passenger seat. Now, we had cleared the traffic light, and we were back on a long, open stretch of road. I looked over to Sis, who was glancing at me.

Upon seeing me look at her, Sis flashed me a grin, a twinkle of amusement gleaming in her eyes, and she turned her attention back to the road. That was typical Sis…scare the living shit out of me, then have a good laugh about it.

But still…she was here. When it seemed like I wouldn't be able to find a way back home, Sis had come for me. She was here now, breaking more laws than I would care to count, risking her own life to get me home relatively intact—this here was the kind of love known only to siblings who would walk through fire for each other. And if she wanted to take some small measure of enjoyment from scaring me shitless…well, I guess she had kind of earned it.

Maybe.

Don't quote me on that, though, because I'll just deny it.

Leaving the traffic light far behind us, we continued along this road until we finally Route 113. This part of 113 was nowhere near my home, though—it was a pretty long road. The good thing was that we wouldn't have to make any turns until we reached the road we lived on; Sis could put the pedal to the metal all the way back.

And she did…god damn, did she ever.

I know, the whole idea of flying down main roads at ridiculously high speeds may sound like fun…but when you find yourself in the passenger seat? With a firestorm of meteors raining down on your head like fucking Revelations? Not so fun, anymore. I might have even thrown up at one point, but I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast—there was nothing to throw up.

Finally, we started coming up on the intersection between Routes 113 and Route 401—Conestoga Road, which was where I lived. There was a Sunoco here, as well as a restaurant called Vinny's. All we had to do here was hang a left until we reached our home. Sis actually slowed us down as we neared the intersection, even taking the time to flick on the turn signal—Route 401 ran up a steep hillside at this intersection, so we couldn't just speed right through the turn. There were giant columns of smoke rising into the air in the near distance—some of the meteors had fallen in this area, evidenced by the fires.

There was a multi-car pileup at the opposite corner of the intersection, as well, just in front of the Vinny's restaurant. There were a couple dazed people standing around the wrecks, and a few more simply sitting in the cars. Some of them weren't moving.

I was busy watching the wreck as we started to make the turn, so I didn't actually see the impact. All I knew was that the world was suddenly plunged into a blazing white light, and I was thrown against the window by a sudden…well, I don't even know what it was. Some kind of shock wave?

I looked up, saw only flashes, quick images. The hillside was gone. The Sunoco was in flames…an entire gas station, gone up in flames… No wonder the explosion had been so violent. I saw Sis hunched over the wheel, her amusement and playful manner gone, replaced with grim determination. I have no idea how the hell she kept it all together—that explosion had been enough to make me want to curl up and die for the rest of the day.

Sis wrenched the wheel back to the right, sending us skidding across the intersection back onto Route 113. We nearly went careening off the side of the road as we came out of that swerve, but Sis managed to yank us back on track using her skill at being awesome. She started accelerating once more, gaining momentum. This part of the road ran at a bit of an incline, so we needed the gas.

I glanced over to the left, saw a familiar street coming up. The name of the road made me quickly think of an alternate way back home that would be faster than getting over to Route 100. "Sis, take Davis," I suggested.

She glanced at me, raising an eyebrow once again.

"Davis leads to Pine Creek, which'll dump us back onto 401," I explained so fast that it sounded like I'd just spoken a single, really long word. By then, Davis Road was right on top of us, so I grabbed the wheel and turned it with Sis. "Left, Sis! Make the left!"

She turned the wheel with me before losing control, sending us whipping across the left lane and onto Davis Road. As I'd explained before, this road eventually came out in an intersection in the middle of the woods between Davis and Pine Creek Road. Sis took these roads a bit slower—they were back roads, much windier and twistier than the main arteries we'd been sticking to so far. If we roared down these roads, we wouldn't make it fifty feet before flying into a tree.

Once we made it back onto Route 401, Sis revved the engines right back to fever pitch, and we blew right through the final half mile or so to our home.

"Sis, we need to stop at the mailbox!" I exclaimed, remembering what everyone had been telling me to do. I was surprised when Sis actually hit the brakes and pulled us to a stop, allowing me to open my door and clamber outside.

It smelled like smoke, outside. All the shit getting pumped into the air by all those fires, caused by the meteor impacts, probably had something to do with it. I did not stick around to watch the scenery, however. I sprinted around the car and over to my mailbox, pulled down the flap, reached inside. I pulled out a couple college advertisement letters, a few letters from the school…and a pair of square envelopes that bore the green, house-shaped symbol of Sburb, Skaianet's new game. A server disc and a client disc. It had probably come in the mail this morning, but I'd forgotten to check. Having your high school blown up in front of you tends to make you forget things like that.

With the two game discs in hand, I leaped back into the passenger seat, and Sis drove us up the driveway and into the garage. I was already taking out my phone and scrolling through my contacts. I found Cass's number and pressed the green button, calling her. The phone rang three or four times, but she eventually managed to pick up. She must have recognized my number, because she already knew it was me when she answered.

"You got out of the hospital alright?" Cass asked me, her voice quiet and crackling. Her connection was slipping—I'd have to make this quick.

"Yeah, Cass, my Sis got me out of there in one piece…" I murmured, running up the front walk and in through the front door. I could hear Sis closing the garage door outside, but I paid no attention. I had to get this game installed pronto. "Have you looked outside? Everything's going to shit, everything… Theo said this game ended the world, but… I mean… Is that actually happening?"

"I can't think about that right now. None of us can," was Cass's response. "Until we're all safe, all we can afford to think about is starting the game. Yeah, the game is what's causing all this to happen, but it's also our only way out. Trust me, I've been hearing some pretty crazy stuff from Theo and Tami about it."

As I approached the front door, I noticed a dark, shadowy figure looking at me through one of the tall, vertical windows that were on either side of the door. The Phantom was watching me again, and a faint glimmer of recognition flickered deep within my mind…but then I blinked, and the figure was gone, along with the feelings of familiarity I felt every time I encountered it.

Every time I spotted the Phantom, I always felt… I can't really describe it. It all felt so…so wrong… Like the Phantom was not supposed to exist, like I was not supposed to see it…

Like it hadn't really happened that way…

I frowned, not knowing where that thought had come from. But I had no time to ponder right now; I had a game to install. I didn't bother closing the front door—Sis would come in behind me—instead running straight to the stairs and sprinting up to my bedroom.

I winced for a moment as I sat in front of the computer. On the top of my computer desk had rested my golden eagle statue—a slightly smaller-scale replica of the eagle standards used by the Roman Legions. But one of the meteor impacts must have been close enough to send it cashing down onto my keyboard. Luckily, there didn't seem to be any damage. I set it back on top of the shelf, back into its place.

I turned on my computer, waiting impatiently for the login screen to come up. When it did, I typed in my password and the desktop appeared, accompanied by a short piece of bagpipe music instead of the usual startup sound.

"Okay, you have the discs?" Cass asked me.

"Yeah, I got them from the mail right before I came inside."

"Good. Take the server disc and run the program on it."

"This'll install the game?" I asked.

"Well… No, not quite," Cass answered, trying to give me the best possible explanation in an extremely abridged form. "The actual game is installed from the client disc. But you can't do that until someone establishes a server connection with you. I started a server for Tami to connect to when she ran the client, and I got her into the session. Now it's my turn to run the client, but I need you to activate a server for me to connect to."

I opened my computer's disc drive and took out the disc from the envelope marked 'Sburb Server'. I slotted the disc into place and closed the drive. The computer was silent for a moment, but then I could hear the disc drive spinning up. After another few moments of waiting, a black window popped open, almost like something straight out of a computer programming class.

SBURB version 0.0.1

SBURB server is running.

At one point, Cass gave me her IP address, and I entered it into the system. There was about a minute's pause, as the Sburb server searched for Cass's address. Once it came through, a message appeared stating that a connection had been established with a client. The black box then disappeared and the entire screen went dark.

Then the words 'SBURB Server' appeared onscreen in big, green letters. Then the screen resolved into the image of a bedroom. The walls were painted a light shade of violet, there was a bed with lavender sheets, and a purple carpet. There were several Harry Potter posters on the walls, as well as a clay sculpture of a Hungarian Horntail dragon sitting in the corner. A brown-haired girl sat at the desk, hunched over her laptop, holding a cellphone to her ear. I frowned, recognizing her from behind.

"Uh…Cass? Are you in your room, right now?" I asked her. "On your computer?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Can you turn around for me and wave?"

I watched as the girl on my monitor swiveled around in her chair. Freckles, small mouth, violet eyes—that made me raise my eyebrows in surprise. Yeah, I was looking at Cass Galavis, even if her eye color was wrong. As I'd requested, she raised her hand and gave a little wave.

"Holy shit," I blinked. "Cass, I, uh… I think I'm looking right at you. How…how is… Do you have a camera in your room?"

"No," I watched Cass shake her head. "It's the server program. It allows you to interact with and alter the environment around me. Somehow, it also allows you to see where I am, though I have no idea how that works."

"Ah…okay. Okay… I just feel kinda like a creeper, you know?"

"Well it's not like I'm taking a shower, or anything," Cass chuckled.

I forced a laugh, too, thanking God that Cass couldn't see me. I quickly decided to change the subject. "Okay, so I'm looking at you and your room, right now…what the hell do I do?"

"Do you see the interface? There should be buttons at the top of the screen."

There actually was an interface overlaid on top of Cass's room. There were seven large buttons in the bar across the top of the screen, and a control panel in the top left corner. The control panel had buttons that could zoom in and out, or rotate my view by ninety degrees in either direction. There were also four arrows which would allow me to shift my view forward, backward, or to the sides.

I drew my cursor over the seven interface buttons at the top of the screen. "Select, Revise, Deploy…Phernalia Registry…Grist Cache, Explore Atheneum, Alchemy Excursus… Okay, what do these buttons mean?"

"For now, just ignore the last three," Cass instructed me, standing up and walking over to her bedroom door. I used the arrow keys to follow her movement. "The Select tool lets you click on things and move them, Revise lets you change the dimensions of already-existing objects. The Phernalia Registry contains four items that I am going to need to use to enter our session, and the Deploy tool will allow you to…well, deploy them."

Cass stepped out into her hallway and headed downstairs. I used the arrow keys and the zoom tool to phase my viewpoint through the walls and floor in time to see her reach the ground floor. "For now, just access the Phernalia Registry, click on the deploy tool, and select the cruxtruder, totem lathe, and alchemiter, and find someplace to put them all. And don't mess with any of them after you put them down, alright?"

"Got it," I did as she said, opening the registry menu. The first item was called the cruxtruder—a bulky, square platform with a cylindrical hatch extending up from the middle. I selected it with the Deploy tool, and the registry menu vanished. I frowned, thinking I'd done something wrong, and I unclicked the mouse. The cruxtruder, no longer being held up by the Deploy tool, promptly dropped to the floor right at the bottom of the stairs with a resounding crash, sending a few pictures falling down from nearby walls.

Cass was standing at the other side of her living room when I dropped the cruxtruder, and she didn't look very happy when some of the pictures fell from the walls. "A little more caution would be appreciated," was all she said to me.

"I grabbed that thing from the Phernalia Registry menu, on my computer screen…and it just appeared out of nowhere?" I had had a hard time getting over the fact that I could magically see Cass and her house on my computer screen—now I had just proven to myself that this game could actually fuck with the world.

"Yes, the four items in the Phernalia Registry are deployed ex nihilo," Cass continued to explain. "When you release it, it appears in my house. Same goes with all the other items, so please be careful… You could break a lot of stuff if you are sloppy with the controls."

"I probably woke your Mom with all that racket…" I murmured.

Cass shook her head. "No, she's awake… I think she's downstairs in the armory. You know how she is with our guns."

I reopened the Phernalia Registry and used the Deploy tool to set the next machine—the totem lathe—down on the other side of the living room. This machine almost looked like a giant sewing machine, only instead of having a needle and thread at the base, there was a vise-like contraption that looked like it was designed to hold longer, thinner objects.

"Okay, I think I'm getting the hang of this…" I murmured, manipulating the arrow keys and zoom tool to explore through the rest of Cass's house, looking for a place to deploy the final machine—the alchemiter. This machine was the largest—it was shaped similarly to the cruxtruder, only the cylindrical pedestal was much wider and shorter. There was a weird design of geometric patterns etched into the surface of the circular pedestal. There was also a much smaller pedestal set into one of the corners of the alchemiter, an identical pattern etched into its surface as well. A tall contraption that looked like a folded-up mechanical arm sat right next to the smaller pedestal.

"So, uh..." I cleared my throat as I searched for a place to put the alchemiter. "Sorry for asking, but I can't help but notice... Ehm... Why are your eyes appearing violet on my computer screen?"

"Ah," Cass sounded slightly embarrassed. "Sorry if that disturbs you... I never leave the house without wearing contacts. No one else has seen me without them..."

Now that was definitely interesting. It was also kind of a coincidence, because it was her favorite color. Hell, it was even the color she used for her PalHassle text. "That's pretty cool, actually," I said, unconsciously brushing a finger across my own odd-colored eyes. "Next time we see each other, I'll have a little surprise to show you."

"Naughty."

"Hey, I said a small surprise, not a huge one. Get your mind out of the gutter."

"Alright, we need to focus. Alchemiter. Deploy. Now."

I had no idea what any of this shit was supposed to do. All I knew was that Cass wanted me to put it all down somewhere in her house…of course, the living room was the only room large enough to fit these machines without busting through a wall or ceiling, so I ended up setting it down on the roof.

When I told her where I'd deployed the alchemiter, she looked up to the ceiling, hoping I could see her frown…which I could. "The roof? Really?"

"Hey, if I put this thing in any other room, it'll bust through the ceiling," I defended my actions.

"Yeah, okay, but how am I supposed to get to it?" Cass asked. "I can't exactly climb out the window and go all Spiderman up the walls."

"Give me a sec…" I shifted the view of my computer screen back to Cass's bedroom and selected the Revise tool, already having a good idea of what it did. I clicked down on the bedroom floor and brought the cursor up to the ceiling, drawing a crude rectangle. When I unclicked, a small square of the ceiling vanished and a ladder appeared. Cass could now climb up to the roof of her house through her room.

I told Cass what I had done, and she gave a single nod. "That'll work," she said. "Now deploy the pre-punched captchalogue card from the regist-"

Suddenly, I heard another giant explosion in the near distance. This one had been much larger than the other ones I'd been hearing—enough to make the windows of my house rattle.

I watched Cass glance upward. She had obviously heard it, too. "I think Tami's house just got hit," she said. She then corrected herself by adding, "Well, the place where Tami's house was, at least… I'm almost out of time. Quick, deploy the pre-punched card."

I accessed the Phernalia Registry once more, grabbing the final object with the Deploy tool. I dropped the pre-punched card onto the floor in front of Cass. "That all you need?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she replied. "Yeah, I think everything is-"

She did not get the chance to finish her sentence, for at that moment there was another giant explosion. This one sounded a lot closer and more powerful than all of the meteorites falling from the sky…this one was powerful enough to make my entire house shake. I could hear breakable objects shattering downstairs, dislodged from their resting places by the shockwave. My golden eagle fell from the shelf again, but I managed to catch it before it hit the ground, setting it back up onto the shelf.

I swore out of reflex, sprinting out of my room, through the upstairs hallway, and out onto the balcony. I looked out in the direction of the explosion, and I could see yet another pillar of thick, oily smoke spewing out into the air. I found that I was pressing my cellphone rather painfully into the side of my head, and I forced myself to relax my grip. "That was a little too close for comfort, wouldn't you say?" I asked Cass.

I got no response, prompting a frown. "Cass? Cass, you there?" I glanced at my cellphone and quickly realized that I'd just lost my signal. I tried calling Cass once again, but nothing happened. My signal wasn't coming back. I swore once again, but paused when I saw that I still had an internet connection.

-anomalousThespian began hassling certifiedGoddess at 16:43-

AT: cass, please get back to your computer…
AT: i lost my cellphone service, but i still have my internet.
AT: i can see you doing some weird shit with that captchalogue card i dropped for you.
AT: goddamnit, cass, that is the opposite of getting onto your computer.
AT: c'mon, don't you even have palhassle on your phone?
AT: i don't know what to do with these stupid machines when i start the client
AT: so you should totally get back on your computer and tell me what the hell you're doing.
AT: crap.
AT: i'm getting messaged
AT: hold on…

-anomalousThespian is no longer hassling certifiedGoddess-

-conquistadorsAshes began hassling anomalousThespian at 16:45-

CA: hey bro
CA: u ready to run ur client
AT: hey, cruz.
AT: i'm out of the hospital. doing fine, thanks for asking.
CA: thats good bro
CA: good ur doin fine
CA: but i mean i think u should be focusin on startin up ur client
CA: u kno so u dont get blown up by the meteor headin right for ur house
AT: meteor heading for my house?
CA: ya its how the game gets its players to start their sessions
CA: all those meteors falling outside come from the game
CA: but the game also sends certain meteors that are
CA: like
CA: targeted specifically for the players
AT: like how that one meteor destroyed theo's neighborhood?
CA: yeah bro exactly like that
CA: if a player doesn't enter his session fast enough
CA: KAFUCKINBLOOEY
CA: hahahe
CA: but yeah
CA: thats what happened to theo but he entered our session before the meteor hit
CA: when u enter ur session it transports u to like
CA: another dimension or something
CA: hard to explain hard to believe
CA: but theo and his house were transported away just before his meteor hit
CA: thats y u were able to talk to him earlier
CA: thats y hes still alive
CA: thats why gwen gino and tami are still alive
CA: ya gwen gino and tami all had meteors comin for their houses too but they all got each other into the session
CA: those meteors hit while u were sleepin in the hospital
CA: except the tami meteor that one was the one that just went kaboom and killed my cellphone service
CA: geez bro uve been unconscious for too long
CA: and in about a minute or so the next meteor will hit casss house
CA: casss
CA: fuck i need an apostrophe for that motherfucker
CA: cass's house
CA: bleh that felt fuckin weird
AT: dude, were you born with a freakin joint in your mouth?
AT: god damn, how can you be high 24/7 and still function?
CA: just cuz im baked dont make me wrong bro
CA: look just run the sburb client
CA: and check out one of the ign walkthroughs while its installing
AT: what about Cass? i can still see her, but i lost contact with her.
CA: cass knows what to do bro shell be fine
CA: u tho
CA: u need to get ur shit together fast cuz u dont have a lot of time
CA: the countdown aint started by activatin the cruxtruder
CA: its just a measurement of a preexisting predestined event
AT: wait, countdown?
AT: what's this about a countdown, now?
CA: see u on the other side bro

-conquistadorsAshes is no longer hassling anomalousThespian-

I clenched my phone and resisted the sudden urge to pitch it off the balcony halfway across the yard. It was frustrating, extremely frustrating to be so out of the loop…but, I mean, it's not like I asked for the school to get blown up right in my face. My connection with Cass was gone, and Cruz was being less than helpful, so I'd have to learn this shit all by myself.

And either way… I kept on thinking about how Cruz had mentioned that there was a meteor heading right for my house. I still didn't understand much of anything about this game or what it did, or even how to get into the game…but having a meteor careening towards me was something I could understand.

And so, I ducked back inside and returned to my bedroom. I opened the disc drive and removed the server disc. I shook the client disc from its case and stuck it into the drive in the server disc's place, closing the drive up. The server application was still running—I could still see Cass on my computer screen, doing some weird shit with the cruxtruder. I minimized the server application and opened my Hyperion web browser, going straight to IGN.

The disc drive was warming up as I navigated through the IGN forums, searching for the Sburb walkthroughs. I ended up having four walkthroughs to choose from, all of them hosted on GameFAQs. I selected the most recently updated one, which had actually been posted today, and started to read.

Sburb Beta Walkthrough
Version 1.0, April 13, 2009
By tentacleTherapist

====================== TABLE OF CONTENTS ===========================

Caveats and Condolences . . . . . . . . . . . . .[0000]

Walkthrough (Incomplete) . . . . . . . . . . . .[A000]

[0000] Caveats and Condolences
================================================================

I'd be inclined to dispense with the trite even under less pressing circumstances…