The house is dark and silent. Nobody speaks – they are in shock, or perhaps in mourning, but for whom Jane could not say. Against expectation, they are all still alive.
Jane finds herself drawn to the kitchen, as she always has in times of stress. She sits at the table, and watches the clock. As the hands draw together in the darkness, and a distant clock begins to chime, she releases a breath she did not know she was holding.
It is November 12th 2011, and Sburb has been won.
On the twelfth stroke, Rose walks into the kitchen. She fetches herself a glass of milk before sitting down.
"Can't sleep?" she asks.
Jane shakes her head, not quite trusting her voice. She is so used to the silence that talking aloud seems strange, almost blasphemous.
"I grant you, it isn't surprising." Rose looks out of the window. "I suppose in a few hours, other people will begin to wake."
Jane smiles. "Do you think they'll know?"
"I'm not certain." Rose seems to relish the words. "We shall have to wait and see."
Jane sighs, and finally speaks the question she has spent the past two hours asking herself.
"What do we do now?"
"Tonight?" Rose asks, with a smirk which tells Jane the misunderstanding is deliberate. "We rest. We recover. We mourn our dead."
Jane looks surprised for a second, and Rose knows what thought crosses her mind. "We are all dead, dear. Each of us has lost something."
"And afterwards?" Jane shakes her head. She knows the answer. "We rebuild. We take what we have gained, and we make something new from it."
This piques Rose's curiosity. "And what is it that we have gained?"
"Don't you know?" Jane laughs, and she realises she cannot remember the last time she did so.
Across the table, she takes the girl's hands. They are cool to the touch, and spidered with veins as lilac as her eyes.
"We have each other."
"Oh." A gentle blush touches Rose's cheeks, the barest hint of colour. "Yes. I believe that will be sufficient."