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Here's twenty-seven.
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Thirty-ninth time that I've been awake, give some or take.
It is dark.
We climbed. I'm tired. I'm still sore and I hurt all over, but we went a long way.
My gums still hurt.
This is ridiculous. Greys left marks everywhere. Everywhere! If I had the strength to spare, it would make me angry that I couldn't see them when he was gone away and sick. I might have been able to find him.
But they're just so hard to see in the darkness, and I had no lantern of my own. By some miracle, I did see a few of his earlier marks, lower down, when I climbed by myself. But after a while... and I didn't see them anymore... They must only have blended into the color of the Rocks. He put them everywhere, but they were invisible in the darkness. Dirty-beige-on-brown, blast it...
All of a sudden I am so very grateful that black ink on white paper contrasts so much better. I was still able to write. And that is good.
And I can still write now.
I'm just--it's still dark...
No, I said I would not despair, but it just makes me so sad.
Our lantern broke.
It was... No, I will not say.
-
I had been alone in the darkness for so long, but then Greys came back. He came and he brought light with him! Light! I had missed it. And now, so soon after seeing it again, our lantern...
But I can still write, I can still write... And that is good.
I said that.
-
We lost the lantern at a steep place. It just hurt too much--my knee--it hurt to climb up myself. So Greys helped me with the rope. That's where the lantern fell. It cracked on the rocks below, the light went out, and it tumbled down the slope. We heard it rolling and bouncing and crashing for a long time, and it was too far--we didn't want to go after it. We were sure that, even if we did, there would be nothing to salvage. Threw it down the stairs. A big staircase.
So now, it's dark.
We kept going. Greys remembered where to go for the most part, but--ah it just makes me so angry! And angry at myself! At my stupid knee! It hurts to move! It hurts a lot! And I hate walking around these pointless crags, looking for ways up! Running into dead ends! Coming back round, climbing into box-alcoves! I hate it!
I just--
-
It was easier when Greys would mark the paths for us, for me.
But we're not going to leave each other again. I just... I need to just...
suck it up.
Why can't I just take it? It's only pain, a physical thing. It isn't death, it isn't hunger--as a matter of fact, it may even keep my mind off being hungry.
We'll climb together, right ways or wrong.
Oh, saying that makes me feel horrible inside. I hate moving.
But I have to keep--I just have to remember and think: Which do I hate more? The pain of moving around? Or the thought of staying here in this--
That was scary. Close thunder. I hadn't heard it in--
Holy daylights... Wait.
I asked Greys when the last time we heard thunder was, besides that last one. He guessed maybe a quarter of an hour ago? Half an hour? Has it been that long?
This is--that's... That's good, isn't it?
It's--I didn't even--man alive, can I not think?
This gives me something else to go on. A moment ago I could think only of my hatred of this darkness. It seemed more than sufficient motivation to keep me going. But now this... is there a place of silence before us? If we could just reach a place out of the noise... That would--that is something else to go on. Something to reach for, not something to flee from. Ah, it's in my head now. Burning in my brain.
-
Something else.
-
We are at the place with poisoned moss. And the whiskery fish are here, somewhere. But I can't see them as Greys saw them. We have no light.
I was going to write that it makes me happy to see fish, but... I can't see them that well. For me they are only dim outlines against the dark. Maybe it's better that I can't see them. Ha! I can't see what I eat. I suppose that's good. It must look absolutely revolting.
For we did have fish again. Together we caught two more. We made a drapery of moss, and put it over my head and back and arms. I laid very still in the rest of the moss with Dhalan's cutlass at the ready. Greys controlled the lure: it was the tiniest, shiniest moonstone fragment we could scrounge, held by a length of twine from the rope. He stayed out of sight a little upslope from me, and tugged it around and pulled it along. When a fish became too curious, he would pull the lure past me, and I would kill the fish with the cutlass as it passed.
Greys was happy for the ease of our catch. He said it worked much better than the pointy moonstone he had used before.
Maybe it was easy for him. I'm still not very used to a cutlass. I didn't trust my aim enough to stab the fish... and it turns out whiskery fish-halves are hard to hold on to. A lot of blood spilled before we could catch it. A skewer would have been much easier... Stupid... Now I wish we hadn't burned all our wood.
I can't dwell on it--we couldn't have known. And we do have food. And that makes me feel... better. I didn't realize how much of a shadow I had become, going without food for so long. Eating again, having food again feels like waking up, like my body coming out of a deep dormancy.
Still... I wish we had a way to cook it. Haven't had a warm meal in so long...
I shouldn't complain. Food is good. But the water's gone again, and now it's blood for us. I hate it. There wasn't much from the two whiskery fish, but Greys and I shared what little we could get in the small pot. I had been hoping it would taste better than mud-worm blood. It didn't.
But at least we have it.
I feel so... confusedly torn. So much to hate, so much to love, and I in between. It seems impossible. Are we really alive? Or dreaming ghosts? We've been clinging from point to point, impossible chances, unexpected sustenance. No water, we drink blood. No blood, we conjure meat. No meat, we collect rain. No rain, we find fish.
Can one live down here?
NO! Never! No one could live here!
No, I'm sorry... Not here.
I feel strange.
I'm sorry.
-
I think... I just need to rest.
The moss feels soft. I want to dream about the grass on Naranja.
Dearest family, if I write no more, finish it for me.
Alexandro