Fugue State

by Radioluminescence

Summary:

Daniil tries to return back to the Capital after the events of Pathologic. He soon finds that it's not as simple as leaving.

Notes:

This is the result of me wanting to play with magical realism; specifically, having the environment act as a manifestation of human emotions. Here are some of the lines from Artemy that inspired this story. He’s having a one-sided conversation with a sleeping Rubin, but I took inspiration from the general ideas he speaks of.

Haruspex: You said you're bound to this land. That you'd been born here, and will die here. That you didn't want me to leave...
Haruspex: You could... stay. Father's gone, but perhaps someone could take his place in your heart.
Haruspex: The Town needs you. I... can't do everything on my own.

Day fourteen begins with an alcohol-induced headache and no motor function in his body.

He doesn’t have an ounce of control over how he’s laying, which unfortunately positions him in the direction of the window. Bright, eye-burning light kicks through the thin protection of the glass, insensitive to the funeral that’s in process. Daniil struggles to open his eyes wide enough to see past the swelling, and is immediately blinded by its intensity when he does. It’s easier to stop fighting and let his eyelids fall shut, now the only things standing between him and the cruelty of the outside world.

For the first time in two weeks, he starves of his own volition. What remains of his rations rots underneath him, and there wasn’t much to begin with. He can’t even wet his tongue to salivate for it. It’s as if someone cut him open and unspooled his somatic nervous system until it was nothing more than a limp heap on the floor. None of his limbs respond when he signals them. Even bending a finger feels insurmountable. There are places he needs to be, but they’re so far away in his mind. Trying to grasp at them produces nothing but the sensation of urgency slipping through his fingers.

At some point, he hears what sounds like papers fluttering as they’re ostentatiously kicked aside to make way for a visitor. There's no inch of the wood flooring that hasn’t been covered by the interests of his research. His brain acknowledges that part; it imagines the edges creasing and the stamp of a boot pressed into the paper like a fresh coat of ink. What he doesn’t put together is that the stranger is fast approaching, not until a warm palm rests flat on his forehead. 

Panic makes him rear back, his eyes wide open, head thrown back so quickly that he nearly concusses himself. The hand immediately retracts, and his eyes follow the seam of the sleeve until it reaches the face of Artemy Burakh.

“Sorry, oynon,” he says. “You were mumbling. I wasn’t sure if you were awake.”

He pushes air out of his nostrils. “I am now,” he grumbles. Though it requires his complete focus, he’s able to move his elbow to the side so he can prop himself up. 

Burakh almost makes the fatal error of offering his help, but catches himself with his arm lifted in mid-air. Before Daniil can comment on it, he begins fiddling with the straps underneath his smock.

“Why are you here?” Daniil asks, not bothering with the usual formalities. He’s tired, in a state of undress that should fluster him, and he doesn’t have the energy to play his usual part.

“I wanted to see if you had left already.”

Daniil rubs his forehead, pinching the skin between his eyebrows. He rolls it between his thumb and index finger to distract himself from the dull ache. “Unfortunately, I’m not fit to travel right now.”

“I see that. Can I bring you something?”

“No.” He pushes the covers away, releasing his legs. Paresthesia numbs the sensation of the cotton rasping against his bare calves. “Spare me what’s left of my reputation. It’s all I have left.” 

He can’t arm himself against his opponent without the usual weapon of his sharp tongue, and Burakh is not intimidated by the kitten scratch of his harmless words. In the seconds it takes Daniil to look himself over for bruises that might tell the story of the last two days, Burakh’s hands have fastened around the top rail of a nearby chair, dragging it over to be seated at Daniil’s bedside.

Burakh is remarkably steady on his feet considering the runaround he’s been shown, even despite him clearly favouring one leg. “How are you still standing?” Daniil asks, unable to stop the envy from curdling his voice.

Burakh loosely gestures at him as he tries to find a comfortable position for his legs. “I don’t have a liver full of alcohol and twyre grains in my lungs. That makes a big difference.”

The hangover Daniil understands; the twyre not so much. A plant shouldn’t bring a man to his knees. The phlegm he’s been coughing up is nothing out of the ordinary for him, not after years of breathing in Capital air. 

God, he never thought he’d miss the smog.

Daniil takes a few moments to do an inventory of the situation. The long shadows stretching across the room are more than telling. He has no business lounging around in bed all day, in clothes that make him smell like a drunkard. 

Before his feet can touch the ground, Burakh catches him by the shoulder with one hand, using just enough pressure to hold him down. 

“You don’t look well. You need to rest,” he says.

Daniil stares at him for his audacity. “We all do.” He throws his shoulder back, the joint popping from the sudden movement. 

Burakh returns the hand to his lap. “You in particular.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Burakh appears to rein in the impulsive urge to say what’s at the front of his mind, taking another few seconds to roll the words around in his mouth before he speaks. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re not well. Something’s missing.”

“There is. It was shot out of the sky two days ago.”

He can’t even have the pleasure of landing a cheap shot, because Burakh’s face gives out and suddenly he’s staring at the same expression that every other person has worn for him. Before he can become incensed by it, he quickly gets to his feet and moves to the old dresser that houses his clothes, noisily pulling the top drawer open by its loose knob. “What’s done is done. There’s no point thinking about what can’t be changed.” Turning his back to Burakh, he pulls his nightshirt over his head, placing it aside to be folded. He retrieves a white dress shirt to replace it. 

Dried blood dots the collar from when he was unsuccessful with room temperature water, soap suds, and elbow grease. Unfortunately, it’s between that and the one with a hole gouged in the side, matching the wound he had to stitch above his hip. If he’d known he would be here longer than a week, he would have packed more.

“The decision was out of your hands. Please don’t feel responsible.”

He laughs to himself as he slips an arm into each hole, eyeing how the stitching now runs past his natural shoulder, the slack in the fabric creating folds. “What I feel is unimportant. It won’t change what’s happened. But I do have to start thinking about what’s next, now that I have nothing to my name.” The drawer slams as it’s closed.

“You're still an accomplished Bachelor.”

“So are thousands of other people,” he says, as he begins tediously buttoning the front. “The work I was lauded for has been burned into a distant memory. Aglaya made that perfectly clear.” He reaches the top, but opts not to fasten the button that would hug the column of his throat. It already feels too tight. 

He hears the sound of clothes rustling from behind. “Aglaya is gone.”

“Firing squad, I heard. At least it was quick.” He sighs, combing a hand through his hair. Some of the strands stick to the sweat from his palm. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Not too much, I hope.”

“It doesn’t scare me. I admire her for being willing to die for what she believed in. It’s better than whatever has become of me.” Suddenly feeling hot, he pushes his sleeves up to his elbow. “None of this is new to me. I know what it’s like to starve myself. I’ve been tortured; I’ve had my fingers broken and my hair pulled out. I’ve been trying to outrun my own mortality for my entire life. But I think this is the first time I’ve truly felt defeated.”

The wooden chair clamours as Burakh stands up. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Oynon—”

Daniil stops him with a glare before he can get another word in. “I don’t want to hear you attempt to comfort me over something you know nothing about. You don’t understand, so stop pretending like you do.”

With only two steps forward, Burakh is at his side and wielding his full height against him. “Don’t be so desperate to martyr yourself that you forget who you’re speaking to. Block may have commanded the cannon but I was the one who sentenced the Kin to their death.” He jabs a finger at his chest, above his heart. “ My culture, my history, my people; they’re gone because of me. That is a burden I will carry for the rest of my life.”

Daniil wets his lips, unsure of what to say. Burakh’s hand tumbles down, smacking against his side.

“So yes, I do know. I know what it’s like to experience that loss. I’ll always question if my choice was the right one. Thousands of people died because of it.” That knee-jerk, reactionary anger has a short lifespan. Burakh’s snarl becomes a frown, and then, nothing. Not even grief. The creases and wrinkles don’t disappear when his muscles slacken. They stay with him as a souvenir. Most people earn theirs with age and experience, but his are entirely the fault of other peoples’ failure. He was the one to be elected to deal with it, and the asking price was any youthful optimism he had left.

“You wouldn’t have been spared pain regardless of the decision you made,” Daniil says, trying to force confidence into his voice. It’s frightening to see one of the strongest in their midst in such a vulnerable state. “But many, many people owe their lives to you. If one of us defeated death, Burakh, it was you. You saved them, not me.”

Just saying it feels self-deprecating, but at some point, possibly in his drunken stupor, he must have come to terms with it. There was never a chance of him winning to begin with. He was never going to be the one to save this town, just as he was never going to win the respect of the Capital sponsors that humoured him by tossing a few coins his way. Thanatica was cremated long before the sentencing for the Polyhedron was finished. They knew he would fail and they wanted him to die, but not before he forfeited any dignity and value he had left. So they thought of a punishment worse than a penitentiary or a shot in the back of the head. All because he fought for the right to live.

Something must show on his face, because Burakh rests a hand on his shoulder again. His thumb reaches up, brushing the underside of Daniil’s chin and the unshaven hairs growing in there. Daniil weakly resists when he realizes what’s happening, but it’s half-hearted. He’s preoccupied with his thoughts.

What’s left for them after this? There’s no place for them in this world. This is the end of any normal life they could have lived. There is no going back. There’s nothing to go back to. It didn’t hit him until he saw someone else mirror that tragedy for him, someone who didn’t even ask for it. But then again, neither did he. Not that it makes any difference.

A hole begins opening up in his trachea, at the base of his throat. He starts hemorrhaging air. All that comes out when he breathes is a wretched sound. It twists and dislocates his face. Horrified, he presses his palm against his mouth until it meets the resistance of his teeth. Trying to suppress his reactions only makes them worse, until he’s nearly bent at the waist from his gasping.

Burakh’s hand slips behind his head and rests flat on his nape. He uses it to push them together, holding Daniil through each shuddering breath. Daniil snatches his other hand and squeezes hard enough to make the tips of his fingers gasp for blood, feeling the throb of Burakh’s pulse in return. 

“Please stay,” Burakh says, low enough to be a secret. He turns his head so that the words are spoken directly into Daniil’s ear. “I know I was offering before but now I’m asking. I need you here.”

Want, not need, is what Daniil would say if his lips could form the words perched on his tongue. He can’t speak, not even when Burakh unhooks his chin from his shoulder and holds his face, his fingers long enough to cover both of his ears. Daniil’s hand is still attached to his wrist.

Burakh presses their foreheads together. “Please think about it,” he says. The tremor in his voice betrays the struggle to keep himself together. 

He’s not sure what he’s agreeing to, but it’s easier to nod and make it go away. Burakh is still speaking to him, but all he can think about is how long it’s been since someone has touched him without intending to do harm. 

Out of what he assumes is pure desperation, he’s asked to lend his practice to some of the smaller medical concerns that have been left untreated. He has no desire to hang around for longer than necessary, but passenger travel has yet to resume. It’s understandable that other establishments wouldn’t gamble on the odds that an asymptomatic carrier could take a mutation of the disease with them. Quarantine will probably be mandated for an additional two weeks. With nowhere else to go, he begrudgingly agrees to the offer of temporary employment run out of an abandoned house in the eastern part of town. It’s only given to them by the ruling families out of charity.

Many of the people he sees are fighting infections from cuts and bruises, wounds he assumes were obtained from back-alley fist fights and scavenging for morsels out of bins. What remains of the pharmacy is barely enough to stock a single shelf, but he’s become quite resourceful since the sand pest and manages as best he can. It wins him back into the good graces of some, while others continue to give him dirty looks even after he’s guaranteed they won’t need an amputation in a week’s time. The only person who has less patience for those patients is Rubin.

And then there’s Burakh, almost omniscient with how he always manages to be in the same part of town as him, dropping the names of the few people Daniil has spoken to into casual conversation. Daniil would assume he’s skulking around, if not for the pairs of tiny legs he hears scuttling near the doorways and windows. The walls have tiny eyes and ears, and anything they perceive as important is brought back to the Haruspex for autopsy. After it happens for the third time, he stops being surprised when confidential information finds its way across property lines.

Still, it’s hard to school his expression into indifference when Burakh asks what houses he has his eye on, and when to expect his departure from Stillwater. 

It’s common knowledge that his stay was supposed to be temporary. That was the agreement he made with Eva when he first arrived. Two weeks and an epidemic later and he knows he’s exhausted the limits of her hospitality, even if she would never have the courage to confront him about it directly. He decides to spare her the difficult conversation and strike while the iron is hot. 

Predictably, she protests too much, too loudly.

“I’m not condemning myself to the streets.” He’s got his foot out the door, hoping to prevent a drawn-out conversation. “Obviously I’ll find another place to live.”

“Do you know where? There are plenty of vacancies in the district,” she says. In her attempt to be helpful, she forgets to handle the mention of death with proper care. Any outsider would think she was unbothered by it when she speaks in that tone of voice.

“Wherever it is, it’s only going to be a short while. I don’t intend to stay here much longer.”

She’s too open with herself and her feelings to hide how the devastation takes over her body. “What? I thought you were going to be here for a few more months.” 

He fights the temptation to ask who she heard that from. “I’m afraid not. I have important business to attend to back at the Capital. I’ve left them waiting long enough now.”

She only has one bare foot to grab friction with, and it results in her almost slipping back and knocking her head open as she nears. He offers his hand as she finds her balance, wincing as the clamp she’s fastened her hands into cuts the circulation.

Even after making her recovery, she holds on. “Sorry, sorry! That was careless of me,” she says breathily, her eyes wide with adrenaline. “But you can’t just tell me that and leave! You had me thinking you were going to walk out right now.”

He tries to take his hand back, but it brings the whole woman with it. “I’m in a bit of a rush. I have the opening shift and was expecting to be there by now.”

“Well, don’t make any rash decisions. Please stay at Stillwater until you’ve found somewhere. I insist. I know the others will too.” 

She doesn’t let go until he agrees, and even then there’s hesitation. Had it not been for the crowd of urchins coming to escort him, he’s sure she would have followed him to make sure he kept true to his word.

Children begin to follow him, too young and clumsy to remain undetected for very long. Interrogating them yields no proper answers; they are cryptic about their intentions and run at the slightest provocation. They show up outside of Stillwater, using chalk to draw spiralling designs that loop into each other infinitely, with no clear end or beginning. They chastise him if he steps on one of their lines: the pulsating veins and arteries, connecting to the muscle. Engorged, fibres stretched. All are part of a circulatory system that connects the building to the rest of the Town.

Eva is generous with her compliments when she sees the pinks, blues, and purples. Unsurprisingly, the disturbing imagery is lost on her. 

“We’re just colouring them in,” the children respond when he asks what they’re doing. However, he can’t see any tracings; it’s all free-hand. 

Empty jars clink together as Daniil sets them down on the counter. He’s got the entire length of his arm stuck into a drawer, groping blindly to retrieve whatever remains inside. “I know that children make a mockery out of anything they don’t understand, but I thought it was forbidden for anyone other than you to use lines.” He grunts from the effort of trying to press his upper torso into the small opening, determined to get that last container.

Burakh is too preoccupied with disinfecting his tools to look over at him. “What they’re doing is harmless play.” He dunks his hands into the basin, searching for any remaining tools underneath the layer of suds. The ones drying are lined up on the counter. Several uneven gaps separate them from touching. “I wouldn’t say it has anything to do with the Kin or any spiritual beliefs. So long as they’re not running around digging holes, there’s nothing to be concerned with.”

“They told me you were the one drawing the lines for them.”

“And what did you say?”

“What do you think?” Finally, he’s able to knock the container over and grab it by the short angled ridges. Whatever’s inside has become a petri dish of bacteria, and the label is too scratched and peeled for him to figure out what it originally was. “I don’t care what they do, I just don’t like the unwanted attention. I had a lady come up to me the other day and tell me it was a bad omen.”

“Well, that’s to be expected. We used chalk to condemn infected houses after all.” He flicks his hand to relieve it of water droplets. “Murky was asking me about chalk the other day, actually. She might’ve given some of hers to them.”

Satisfied that the contents have been emptied, Daniil rises to his feet with a loud sigh. Splotches of dust mottle the solid colour of his sleeves. “How about that boy of yours? Have you taken him on as your apprentice?” he asks, as he tosses the empty container in with the other unsalvageable objects.

“Sticky? Yeah.” Daniil can’t see his face, but he pictures it brightening to match his voice. “He shows a lot of promise for his age.”

“He does,” Daniil agrees. “And he’s got a good teacher.”

“Flattery? From Bachelor Dankovsky? That’s a first.”

Daniil sighs in exasperation. “I’m not trying to flatter you, I’m just being honest.” He kneads his fingers over his throat, massaging the ache from the lungful of dust he coughed up earlier. “It will be good for the Town to have another doctor.”

“Well, you sound anxious to retire. Has age caught up with you that quickly?”

“Very funny,” he says lamely. “I just want to be sure you’re left in capable hands when I’m gone.”

Burakh slows down for a second, tool in hand, waiting to be sorted. It’s obvious where it goes, but he takes half a minute to remember how to move his right arm and another to stare at what he’s spent the last afternoon doing. Daniil resigns himself to not getting another answer out of him, and turns back to organizing the pitiful contents of their storage.

Burakh wastes no time asking for his help after that, sending Daniil to collect herbs for his stores on a day when his bad leg is smarting. He’s lucky that Daniil had just recently been complaining to Rubin about needing something to do, otherwise he’d be the one sweating under two layers of protective gear, swatting away the gnats trying to fly into his mouth.

Because Steppe knowledge is passed down orally, there are no visual guides to foraging. All he has are the scribbled notes bound in his leather notebook from Burakh’s descriptions, which he hesitates to even call that. It’s clear that he’s never had to think much about the appearance of the plants he’s looking for, the practice coming as natural to him as breathing. However, if you’re someone like Daniil, who didn’t grow up learning the differences, the only thing you have is your professional judgment. 

What Daniil has on paper looks simple enough, but it’s hard not to second-guess himself when there are so many lookalikes populating the areas circled for him on the map. The gullies banking nearby residences are bellied with sludge and nutrient-rich soil. From underneath the surface of the shallow water, pockets of growth sprout out. Hundreds of species, it feels like. All of them coming from one source, like pus seeping from an open wound. 

They’re easy to spot, but hard to reach. The mud surrounding them seals around his boots when he gets close. The first time it happens, he panics. It’s only been a year since he was out doing field research in the peatlands, hoping to study how bodies were preserved by the anaerobic conditions. One of their horses needed to be euthanized after sinking up to its neck in the bog. All he can think about when he’s struggling is what a bullet would look like lodged between his eyes.

Yet, the task almost requires him to take unnecessary risks. The tallest plants are the ones that grow at the bottom of the ravine. They playfully nod their heads at him when he passes, beckoning him to take that chance. With stems that wide, it would be easy to rip them out of the ground. Three more of them and he’d have enough to take back to Burakh. In an hour, he could be in a fresh change of clothes, giving out to him about his decision to make Daniil go flower picking for him in the steppe.

But before he can put much thought into it, he spots another one that matches the description latched onto the eroding soil. While not as full, there are four leaves per node along the stem. The leaf blade is lobed, but not separated into leaflets. The edge of the blade has teeth. No spines, prickles, or thorns. 

He bends at the knees, reaching over with his right arm to yank it from its roots. 

“You were never my first choice.”

He loses his balance, almost falling over because of the forward momentum. His arm flies out. The other foot anchors him to the ground. He digs in his heel. Slowly, the world straightens itself out.

He stares up in accusation.

“Nor my last,” Aspity finishes plainly, standing above him at the edge of the gully. “Not that it matters anymore what I think anymore.” Something about her appearance evokes a feeling of unease. Her skin is a size too large and it hangs limp from her body, almost like wax creeping down the side of a lit candle. 

He rolls the ball of his foot to test the purchase, finding it suitable for the time being. “I’m not in need of your wisdom right now.”

She tucks her bony hands into her sleeves, hiding how they shake. “Whether you listen or not, it’s not my future that is concerned. I know what is to become of me.” 

He dusts his hands together. “I thought the Haruspex was the one you convened with.”

“He has decided to walk alone,” she says with open disappointment. “There is nothing more I can do for him.”

“And so you come to me.”

“Tell me, doctor, did you find the miracles you were searching for?”

“They died with the Polyhedron,” he says, his voice caught in his throat. It’s not something he’s finished grieving for yet.

“Then you still misunderstand death.” Her head tilts, the patches of greasy hair hanging on by their thin roots. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You would think that severing the head of a snake kills the animal immediately. People who believe that are the first to be bitten.”

“But the snake does die eventually.”

“What you don’t understand, doctor, is that this is no end. You did not succeed in killing us. Our traditions will always live on in some form, so long as there is someone to pass that knowledge down to. The heart will keep beating, even if it’s a human heart.”

“It was not my intent to kill anything. I acted in the interests of humanity.”

She laughs. “You acted in the interests of yourself, and you would not be the first. Over the years, I have watched this Town fill with people who see this place as a means to an end. The Kains and their vision have done more harm to us than any bombardment.” The inflection in her voice lashes their name. “They brought you here promising to show you miracles, and you played into their hands like a gullible fool. If you knew the asking price of a miracle, you might have stayed home, doctor.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I would be signing my own execution warrant if I stayed in the Capital.”

She takes a confident step down the slope of the gully. Loose rocks and debris tumble around her bare feet. “The others said much of the same thing. More often than not they come here trying to hide from their mistakes. They come wanting to see miracles, if not have a hand in creating them themselves. It’s only after they come here that they realize they will never leave again. That is the fair trade.”

He shakes his head, ignoring the dread that slides its fingernails down his back. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Do you think I talk for the pleasure of hearing my own voice?” She comes closer, burning his nostrils with the smell of unclean water and sullied, unchanged bandages. 

He can hardly breathe from the stench. “You’re purposefully vague and cryptic and then you wonder why I don’t understand. Just tell me why you’re here.”

“I am telling you. Mother Boddho saw you for what you were and turned you away, but now that power has been given to another. If you were wiser, you would have returned to your Capital while you still had the chance. Instead, you’ve made yourself useful in other ways. There is a permanent place here for those who are useful.”

“You said it yourself: I don’t belong here.” He speaks through grit teeth. Bile rises in his throat, hot and acidic.

She wears the smile of a victor who does not need to boast. “Then prove me wrong. Go home, doctor.”

Passing him, she begins the descent into the marshes. Mud rises to her ankles and shins, but she always manages to pull herself free and take the next stride. A slow and steady gait takes her far into the distance, and she becomes smaller, camouflaged against the dark colour.

If he could speak with certainty on any matter in this place, it’s that Aspity holds him in contempt. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; there are very few things he is certain about right now. He appreciates that she tells it as is, not afraid to speak her mind. Most people can’t do that without the anonymity of a crowd. If she wasn’t so uncouth about it, he might even be able to say he respects that about her. 

Which is why he takes her warning seriously. If she hadn’t said something, he might have lost himself to the semblance of normalcy, of routine. Complacency is not a good look on him. He should have never seriously considered the convenience of living closer to the Earth Quarter, even if Burakh had brought it up for the hundredth time. He needs to be back where he belongs, doing the truly important work. Not pretending he’s a family physician. 

He considers the idea of issuing a formal goodbye, but it’s a rather short-lived idea once he realizes how many ways it could go wrong. People will feel compelled to try and change his mind, to plead with him to reconsider. He doesn’t have the patience for drama and theatrics. He already forfeited the opportunity to board last month’s train, and he intends to be a passenger on the next one.

A day later, he finds himself by candlelight. He spends long enough choosing his words that the ink drips from the tip of his pen and blots the edge of the paper. It’s an imperfection that could be remedied with a fresh sheet, but he doubts that his accuracy would improve with a second attempt. He runs his thumb along the uneven creases of the fold, committing to the look of unprofessionalism that would be unthinkable in any other exchange.

Mistakes and all, he slips it under the door of the clinic and departs before it can be discovered. It’s an hour before the upper rim of the Sun will appear behind the Abattoir and the town’s inhabitants are asleep in their beds, including the ones that expect to see him on shift in a few hours. He can only hope that Burakh and Rubin forgive him. Even if they don’t like it, they are more than capable of managing on their own. Aspity was wrong about that.

He budgeted about half an hour to get to the station and be ready to depart, but navigating there on memory alone proves to be a bad idea. There are alleyways and backyards and desire paths that take him into unknown areas fenced in by gates and stockades so high that he can’t see the other side. When he senses himself becoming lost and turns to retrace his steps, he almost fractures his nose on the wall of brick and plaster appearing before him. Taking a few steps back pushes him up against the fence, which inches closer. The distance shortens. Panicked, he slides out from the narrow column and escapes to the cobblestone path that snakes through the Town.

Above, the streetlamps’ long metal poles hunch over from the weight of the growth draping down. The plants have grown out of control, wrapping their strangling hold around the necks of the decorative components. Any semblance of light has been lost to the canopy; all that remains is a muddied orange, like crushed dandelions, gently pulsing from within the mass. 

He briefly considers the hearth of Stillwater, or even the clinic. It would be so much easier to abandon this plan and slip into freshly laundered sheets for a few more hours of sleep. As if reading his thoughts, the next unassuming turn lands him in front of a pharmacy. The sign out front is hosted high in the air like a triumphant flag. It’s illegible without a light source, so there’s no hope of using it to determine what district he’s wandered into.

Darkness alone can’t be the reason why he’s so lost. He walks the distance of the Town and back each day, sometimes making two or three detours before he reaches his destination. It has to be his exhaustion making him hallucinate. He planned to sleep on the train. A train that won’t wait for him even if he excuses his tardiness with the fact that the geography of the town is as backwards as its people. 

With a grunt, he pushes away from the wall he was using to brace himself. He marches ahead, continuing in a straight line for as long as it takes him to get out of the built-up areas. By pure determination, he emerges from the labyrinth of structures to nothing but black. Blue hour isn’t upon them yet, and there is no illumination from beyond the horizon to suggest the shapes of the moor. He has to put his blind faith in every step forward, his eyes periodically glancing up to search for the bags of meat that travel on-route to the station from the Abattoir. 

Beneath him, the fronds tangle into tripwire. They tug on his coat and knot in between his fingers. He yanks on them to free himself, but any relief is momentary. Each step is a conscious effort that requires him to change how he distributes his weight. He can’t seem to stay above the surface, sinking up to his ankles in mud. The layers of muck and grime dry into a crust that abrades his skin with added friction. 

Finally, finally, the Steppe dirt gives way to a ballast: crushed stones and gravel that the wooden cross ties rest on. Through squinted eyes, he traces their origin back to the station platform. From a short distance, it looks completely abandoned. None of the children that loiter there are awake so early in the morning and there don’t appear to be any other passengers boarding the line. 

He fishes his notes from his bag to double-check the schedule. Sure enough, writ there in ink from the transmission he copied, it says the passenger rail line should be operating that morning. But he sees no one: no employees, no horns or whistles, not even litter on the ground to tell him that people have passed through recently. The wind catches the ears of his pages and threatens to rip them out, flipping through his observations and records too quickly for him to read. It doesn’t find what it’s looking for, and throws dirt, silt, and pollen in his eyes out of vengeance.

He waits. Waits longer. No one comes, no ticketmaster takes his coin or provides him with an excuse for the interrupted service. Even as his surroundings gradually brighten, it’s as though the station is exempt from the passage of time. Morning comes and goes, and there is no train out of Gorkhon. 

His usual routine is disturbed that evening. Bleary-eyed, he stumbles his way down the stairs and into the uncomfortable warmth becoming of the Broken Heart. It lifts through his sleeves and up to his collar, flushing his face with heat.

These days, the Stamatin brothers have retreated behind the curtain to lick their wounds, trading cynical remarks over the lip of whatever alcoholic beverage they’ve chosen that evening to keep them company. Every conversation with them ends with them taking an inventory of what they have left in life, counting their losses until they run out of fingers and hands. Daniil lends a sympathetic ear when he can, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to stay a neutral party when they speak so openly about their hatred of Burakh, always with the hope of instigating something. 

Of the two, Andrey was always the better conversationalist. It takes no persuasion on Daniil’s part to entice him over to the end of the bar, but holding his attention is another story. He has to pace himself, downing a glass in camaraderie with him before he even insinuates why he wants to speak with him. Not that he doesn’t enjoy the anecdotes about the follies of men after they’ve lost their sobriety, but the burning question on his mind prevents him from focusing on anything Andrey is sharing.

Lapses in conversation don’t come frequently, but there’s only so long a man can talk before his glass needs to be refilled or his throat needs a rest. Daniil bides his time, supplying the “ohs” and “interesting’s” needed to transition between topics. Andrey runs out of things to talk about eventually.

“You’re unusually quiet,” he says to Daniil during the interlude. “Say something so I know you’re alive.”

“I’m thinking.” He swirls what remains in his glass. Twyrine tastes like crushed dandelions and absinthe, an unforgivable drink that goes straight to his head. It takes all his strength not to gag. “How much do you know about the train line?”

“Depends on what you want to know. Your friends in high places are probably more helpful than me.”

He braces both elbows on the counter, pivoting his body toward him. “I tried to board the train this morning but it never came.”

Andrey plasters a hand against his chest, fingers spread wide. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye?” he asks, purposefully speaking a pitch higher than usual to chew the scenery.

“Sorry.”

He is unable to keep his teeth from poking out in a grin. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. And I can’t say what happened to you is uncommon. Some bull probably wandered onto the tracks and stopped it again.”

“When I told Rubin about it, he said that there were plans to suspend the passenger rail. Saburov acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked him, but I know Rubin, he wouldn’t lie to me about something like that.”

Andrey looks at him with pity, and it feels like there’s something he’s not saying, something even alcohol can’t seduce from him. “I don't have an answer for you. Try again next month? Maybe kick a few guys around until they listen to you?”

A month is too long. He throws back what remains of his drink, grimacing.

“You know, when the tracks were first being built, they had to contend with a lot of sabotage.” Andrey uses two fingers to draw on the sticky bar counter. Parallel lines, running in both directions. “Rituals, altars, spirals—that sort of thing. Even then, the trains have a tendency to mysteriously disappear. It comes with the territory.”

“The Steppe territory, you mean,” Daniil mumbles. The room won’t stop spinning. He wants to rest his cheek on the flat surface and sap the cold from it. He’s so close to acting on the impulse.

“It’s out of your control. I wouldn’t think too hard about it if I were you. We’re all here for a reason.” Without asking, he replenishes Daniil’s drink. He fills it high. With that much alcohol in one glass, he could be convicted of an attempted poisoning.

He briefly entertains the thought of being a stowaway. Would it really be so bad, to be crammed in a boxcar stinking of carcasses and congealed blood? He’s already abandoned so many of his principles for the sake of survival. He’s been locked inside of the houses of diseased individuals, trying to outrun the imminent plague. What’s one more tally mark on the scratched-up wall?

His brain catches up eventually and signals his stomach to turn. That’s not happening anytime soon. It’s likelier he’d choke to death on his own vomit.

Still, he finds himself out by the tracks one morning, purely for investigative purposes. It’s worth the trek to sate his curiosity, though that doesn’t stop it from being a slog through every horror imaginable. He can’t take two steps out of town these days without encountering some kind of obstacle, be it sandstorms or steppe creatures or the ground eroding from underneath him. That’s just the natural end of it; inside the town, it feels like he’s the target of a conspiracy aimed to drive him mad. The Saburovs are bad enough to contend with but the Kains have recently become bilingual in the art of doublespeak. Maria in particular has been testing the limits of his patience.

So, he goes at it on his own, as he prefers. Life gets easier for him when there aren’t other people around, even if the walk doesn’t. He trudges through the thickening mud, a tight, squeezing pain in his legs from the walk. The rain being dumped on the Town has drowned the menagerie of plants until they lay sodden and defeated in sporadic clusters. It’s fitting that it should look that way on the day he comes to see what’s become of the Bull Enterprise; the once-busy production line has nothing but empty hooks and emptier warehouses to show him.

He passes by a series of discontinued, abandoned cars on the way back to Town. At the mouth of one, he sees a flash of purple. A small, huddled shape. Something alive and moving. He ploughs through the mud to get closer.

It’s a child. Murky, picking at some invisible object by her bare feet. She inspects him with intense scrutiny as he approaches. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his brow furrowed. How did a child like her even get here? “I thought you lived with Burakh now.”

Her face is smudged with uneven splotches of dirt, which transfers to her knees as she tucks her chin on top. Although she’s objectively filthy, the mats have been combed out of her hair since he saw her last.

Sensing he won’t get an answer, he cautiously approaches. Murky does not react, not even when he lifts himself up and swings his legs to hang over the side of the open boxcar. He understands that his close presence is conditional on him giving her space, and out of respect for that trust, he doesn’t try to move closer.

Using the heat of his hand, he irons the wrinkles out of his coat. “Have you seen the trains come and go?” he asks, turning his head slightly so he can see her in his peripheral vision.

All she gives him is a subtle nod.

“Can you tell me when that happens?”

“You shouldn’t be going,” she says, barely audible.

“I have to.”

“You can’t.” There’s no whine, like any petulant child would have when they’re trying to manipulate an adult. She states it with the confidence of an objective fact.

He’s not entirely sure how to respond to that. “I’m afraid it’s not up to me. I have people waiting for me in the Capital.”

“There aren’t going to be any more trains.”

“I know that,” he says. Remembering who he’s speaking to, he gentles his tone. “I’m trying to find another way to get home.”

Her body language is the only way of knowing what she’s thinking, and even then her reactions are as quiet as a few wrinkles of skin around her eyes. Burakh may have the talent of opening her mind, but Daniil doesn’t expect to get more than a few sentences from her. 

He tries not to be frustrated as he leaps from the edge of the train car, planting his boots in the swamp of dirt and water. He pulls his coat closer to himself, eyeing Murky’s thin sweater.

“You need to start wearing more layers as it gets colder. You’ll catch your death out here.”

“I can’t breathe with all them on.”

“Ask Burakh for something thicker then. You shouldn’t be out here in the first place. It’s too dangerous for a young child.”

She takes offence to that, twisting the upper half of her body away from him. It’s a situation that calls for his intervention, but it’s apparent that she’s less than willing to let him dictate where she should be allowed to go. She was already fiercely independent before falling under Burakh guardianship, and, a stubborn man himself, he will aid and abet that part of her personality. Is it worth the fight?

He sighs, casting another look out at the barren landscape. If he’s finding it cold, he can’t imagine what it’s like for someone in moth-eaten clothes. The worst is over; she shouldn’t have to be resilient anymore.

He extends his hand toward her, upturning his palm and opening his fingers as an invitation. “Come, I need someone to help me find my way home.” 

“You’re not lost,” she accuses him, and rightfully so.

“No, but I’d feel better if I had someone with me.” He completely extends the muscles in his arm, giving him as much length as possible. The stretch burns. “I’ll carry you if you help me.”

Even with her temperament, Murky is still a child. He remembers the same dilemma, back before his parents enrolled him in boarding school. Those memories recall the distant sound of steam puffing through the stacks of the locomotive as it rolled into the station, followed by the sensation of being lightly shaken. It’s faint, but for a moment he thinks he can smell the fragrance of his mother’s perfume.

It takes them a minute to configure themselves into a suitable arrangement. He’s not used to being used as a mode of transportation, and Murky doesn’t know him with the trusted loyalties of a good friend or family member. She has her arms around his neck in a chokehold, her legs tangled in front and knees digging into his sides as if he’s a horse that needs spurs. It isn’t unwarranted, considering how treacherous it’s become. The day he drops her is the day he never earns her forgiveness. 

However, he’s surprised to find more sure footing underneath him, the journey expedited by clear skies that open up before them. It might not drain the water out from the swamp but it means he can see what’s directly in front of him for a change, preventing the missteps that have already permanently altered the colour of three pairs of dress pants.  

Murky points him in the direction she wants him to go. It’s not always the route he would have taken, usually straying from the beaten path. She doesn’t care to hear his protests, insistent that she knows where he’s going. He obliges not because he subscribes to that logic, but because children have all the irrationality of those in power without any of the compromise. To give her credit though, they do seem to avoid random happenstance and turnarounds. As they go along, he no longer has to pretend that he’s listening to her.

Before long, they’re at the Burakh residence. The swings wave at him from the front yard. Murky clambers to free herself, nearly catching herself on one of the buckles on his jacket and flipping herself upside down. Once she’s safely on her feet, she scurries up the stairs so fast that she almost has to use her hands and knees. She doesn’t even say goodbye.

No harm, no foul. He suspects they’re going to be running into each other sooner than later.

The town supplies come later in the day, completely unprompted. He was right to assume that it would be a waste of time to hang around the station, though he can’t help but wonder if being patient might have made all the difference. Maybe he would have been on that train out of Town.

His shelves begin to restock with pills and cures that come sealed in boxes labelled as fragile in big blocky white letters. The fact he’s holding a shipment means someone on the other side of the country packaged it for transport. They had to check for contamination and changes in container temperatures. They had to see the destination address and know that it was coming here. The only thing they hadn’t accounted for was the Bachelor of Medicine stranded on the other side, being pushed to his wit’s end.

He thumbs the documentation of the journey, the signatures signing off on inspections and checkpoints. They don’t know it, but their names are the closest he’s been to home in a long time. He stays with them for a while, only disturbed when the clinic door signals the arrival of a guest and drags him kicking and screaming back to the world of the dead.

He used to spend a lot of time thinking about the River Gorkhon. It was a large body of water existing at a time when people were dying from dehydration, or risking cholera and typhoid to drink from contaminated barrels. Having it nearby felt like a sick joke. 

Now, it’s just a river. A frighteningly large river, yes; stretching long before him, the other side obfuscated by fog rolling in from the distance. But just a river.

And yet, it raises his hackles in revulsion when he tries to cross. The waves slap up against the shoreline in warning if he gets too close. Any boat he boarded would capsize before it made any leeway; he doesn’t need to pay someone to find that out. If he wants to get to the other side, he’s going to need to wait for a bridge to be built.

Burakh finds him there by the docks, where the Worms once manned the wooden transport vessels. The fate of the Kin is most apparent in moments like this, when there is an unexplainable absence. All that’s left are impressions on the Earth: rings without boat ties and fingernails that don’t serve a purpose as currency anymore.

“Have you seen what’s on the other side?” he asks Burakh, without any of their usual introductions.

Burakh heaves himself up on the small ledge beside him. His tools protest noisily in both pockets. “Nothing but wilderness. That’s all it will ever be.”

“There was talk of building another town there.” More than talk, he thinks, but Burakh will figure that out on his own.

“I doubt it would happen. The costly inconvenience of transporting materials across the river would stop any development plans.”

“I get the impression that the people commissioning it don’t have to worry about money.”

Burakh leans back on his hands, sighing. “Maybe not, but who would follow them? They’d be leaving everything behind, and for what? The idea that things would be better?”

Daniil turns his head to look behind him. “There’s not much to leave behind,” he says, eyeing the abandoned structures that now house vagrants and squatters instead of families.

“Things won’t get better unless we stay. We shouldn’t just leave things behind because it’s inconvenient.”

Something he says snags. “Am I part of ‘we’ now?” Daniil asks, looking him in the eye.

Daniil can see when he realizes: when his shoulders push back from tension, exposing the full length of his neck. However, he’s unapologetic when he responds, “you live here, don’t you?”

He spares no mercy for Burakh’s feelings. “If I could have boarded a passenger train to the Capital by now, I would have. To be honest, I’m surprised you’re not having the same reaction after all you’ve been through.”

Burakh barely reacts to what’s been said, the corners of his mouth slightly curved. “Maybe in the beginning, I would have. I can’t say it never crossed my mind. But then I found something worth staying for.”

Fatherhood is as good a reason as any; Daniil can’t argue with that. He shifts his legs. “Did you ever think you would come back?”

“I wasn’t sure if I would live to see the day; for a while, I thought I might die in the field from an unlucky shot. But I think part of me knew it could happen, and if it did, I would find it too hard to leave.” He sits up straighter, bringing his hands closer to himself. Daniil can practically feel their fingers overlap. “There’s a Kin saying that you wouldn’t be familiar with, but in Russian it means ‘to walk circles around the home.’ You can leave, but you always come back, always to be with Toonto nuutag.”

The waves lap gently at the edge of the rocky outcrop; a quiet sigh against the background of their conversation.

“I hope it gives you joy. I mean that sincerely.” He doesn’t smile, but he does give him a look of warmth. “Even if I can’t understand your decision, I respect it.”

Burakh regards him with curiosity. “What is home to you, oynon?” he asks softly. 

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lived in one place for long.”

“So why not stay here? Maybe you would be happier.”

Had he not looked so serious about it, Daniil would assume it was a bad attempt at a joke. “No, I wouldn’t.”

He persists. “You could start over. You wouldn’t have to keep your head down.”

“Being here is making me lose my mind,” he snaps. “If I wanted to be a family physician, I would have gone to school for it.” He puts both of his feet back on the ground, moving away from the ledge. “Frankly, I don’t know why you’re still trying to convince me to stay. The town does not need another doctor.”

“That’s not true. Look at how much Rubin has improved under your tutelage.” He’s trying to stay calm, but the slack in his voice has pulled taut from Daniil’s resistance. A few more pushes, and he might meet him halfway.

“So what? He would have done the same under you. I’m not special in that regard.”

“I couldn’t do it on my own, not with Sticky to also look out for.”

“So I’m somehow responsible for your lack of foresight?” He shakes his head, looking away to collect himself. This feels like a conversation he’s not meant to win. “You know, at least if I were imprisoned by The Powers That Be, it would be because I’m a thanatologist. Here, I’m nothing. I’m not even your equal,” he says, pointedly staring into the distance.

“If you believe that, then I don’t know what to tell you,” Burakh says. The commotion of his tools signals he’s moved down.

When he looks back, Burakh has closed the distance between them again. He doesn’t elaborate more on his point; he notches his head higher. After a few long moments of silence, Daniil realizes he’s waiting for him to speak. Probably waiting for him to put up a fight, to use the ammunition he’s been stockpiling for weeks. It’s like they’re taking turns swigging vodka out of a soldier’s flask, anticipating that burn at the back of their throats as the words go down. The pain is what makes it attractive.

Daniil doesn’t explode on him. It would be so easy to, but in place of righteous anger, he finds himself at a loss for words. Like everything else, they’ve been stolen from him. Struggling is just a waste of energy at this point. 

He turns away, catching a glimpse of the surprise on Burakh’s face. Returning his cold hands to his coat pockets, he walks up the steps connecting the docks to the main road.

“Wait, Daniil,” Burakh calls up from the base of the stairs. “Stillwater is far. Come back with me, oynon. Let’s keep talking.”

He continues home without so much as another word. He has already given Burakh his answer. 

He finds himself sifting through the sad collection of belongings slumped against the leg of his desk. He’s not sure why he’s compelled to do it; maybe he intended it to be light reading material before bed. Cracking open some of his old observation notes starts as a way to pass the time, but before long reveals itself to be a form of self-inflicted torture. 

Because when he reads the entries from earlier in the year, the voice on the pages isn’t the same one that’s heard when he speaks to others these days; they have completely different intentions. One was convinced that he could defeat mankind’s greatest enemy, the one that has stolen thousands of brilliant minds from them before they could see the true potential of their genius. There was notoriety behind it, the kind that brought moralists to gather outside his laboratory and damn his name. A few brave ones would ever try to take care of the sentencing themselves; he has the marks to prove it. That voice, and the man it belonged to, would sacrifice everything, would stop at nothing.

Then he came here, had his head cracked open, and all of that bled out. He’s puppeting the loose, gray-blue mottled skin of the person he once was, but he’s not Bachelor Dankovsky these days, and God knows no one would seek an audience with him unless they were convinced that their death was imminent. He came here thinking he would resuscitate his career and ended up suffering a traumatic injury so severe that he might never get to make full use of his brain again.

He has half a mind to burn what’s left so it can’t be used against himself in the future, but as so many others have told him already: he’s a coward. He can’t bring himself to do much more than shove it under the bed and will himself to forget its existence, as everyone else has already done for him. 

After Burakh, Rubin is the second person to notice something is wrong with him. Daniil must be quite a sight; why else would he be stealing Rubin’s attention away from his practice?

They cleared off the old kitchen table they were using for emergency cases to make room for a spread of scalpels, forceps, and scissors. Rubin has procured a chicken leg from one of the hens that recently passed and is suturing the muscle tissue. Daniil had tried to work out an alternative that didn’t involve experimentation on an animal—not because of a moral quandary but because Rubin has almost been beaten to death for violating cultural practices once—but Rubin has insisted on its necessity. Nothing Daniil said could convince him otherwise.

His work would be cleaner if he was focusing, but having Daniil as a spectator is not working in his favour. Daniil never did his best work when people looked over his shoulder either, but the frequency of Rubin’s check-ins leave him wondering whether it’s some type of performance anxiety. Whatever it is, it’s made his work messy. He’s on his third attempt.

“The fibre connections are too weak there. Try placing less strain,” he says from the other side of the table. It’s not entirely Rubin’s fault. The chicken skin is only millimetres thick, and barely able to withstand a puncture and a loop of thread. The force is enough to pull the stitches right through.

Rubin is bad at hiding his frustration. His stitch technique is certainly not helped by it. Daniil is glad that he asks to take a break, because he wasn’t about to suggest it himself; his intuition tells him that the other physician’s pride would forbid him from accepting. However, even after he has no reason to look to Daniil for instruction, the looks persist. They’re very contemplative coming from a man that doesn’t like to put much thought into things.

He would ask why, but there are more pressing questions on his mind. Namely, the one that’s been following him around ever since he saw Burakh last.

“Rubin?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to ask you a question that might sound weird, if that’s fine with you.”

A clean smack is heard as Rubin places his instruments aside. “Go ahead.”

“Does this place feel like home to you?” Daniil asks. 

Rubin has a few questions of his own after hearing that, if his arched brow is any indication. “Not particularly so,” he says, wiping the slimy residue from his hands with a dirty towel.

“Why do you stay?”

“Artemy asked me to.”

“Just because of that?”

“Oh, you’ll find he can be very convincing,” he says, dryly. “I was going to leave with the Army but he stopped me at the station. Said he needed an assistant, but it seems he’s already found one of those already.”

He knows that Burakh has tried to repair their relationship, but he’s not sure if those stitches need to be tightened. From watching them the few times they’ve interacted, he doesn’t get the impression that they found closure. “Are you happy with your decision?” he asks.

Rubin looks down at the mutilated pound of flesh, halved by the gaping wound. “Still figuring that out. I guess there’s always time. War doesn’t end in a day.”

The war. How had he forgotten? The Town is so insulated that events he’s not directly exposed to have a habit of fading into the background. If he’s not careful, there’s going to be nothing left to remember before long.

They resume, but not before Daniil finally realizes what Rubin was seeing in him: a mirror image.

Rubin suggested that he pick up reading as a hobby. At the time, it had stood out as odd to Daniil, like the crooked wishbone of a centrepiece meal. Rubin had tried to make it sound like a spur-of-the-moment thought, but his hurried manner of speaking gave him away. The second it was out in the open, he made a tactical retreat, in all likelihood to protect himself from any form of retaliation—not that it was warranted.

Boredom doesn’t make Daniil an agreeable person, so he can only imagine what Rubin had to hear him say to conclude that he needed another outlet. To be fair, he does read, but not recreationally; it’s almost always for research. He needs to have a sense of purpose to keep him invested. Luckily for him, there is a way to satisfy that requirement located right in the Knots Quarter, provided he gets permission from a certain individual first. 

The town may not have a library, but it does have the Trammel. That’s not its intended purpose, but Yulia admits him without a word the first time he shows up on her doorstep, gesturing at the ceiling-high shelves that could use a proper dusting. The books themselves are well cared for, sorted alphabetically in some semblance of order, but it’s clear that they’re in a system that’s designed by, and for, her. 

It’s the last place in town that can prove his adversary, Yulia the last person that could rival him in intellect. She’s a living archive with enough knowledge to author several anthologies but with no one interested enough to read them. If he finds it claustrophobic here, he can only imagine what it’s like for her. However, she wouldn’t care to hear him repeat those things, so he doesn’t bring them up. He thanks her for her generosity by being good company when she wants it, and an invisible presence when she doesn’t.

He’s perusing through the history section that day, scanning the pages for mentions of the Kains. It’s not a well-documented history, unlike what some would have him believe. Paragraphs of speculation and hearsay barely qualify as quantitative research, and there are no means to authenticate what’s been said. Attributions, when they exist, are formatted inconsistently. Half of the names are unknown to him. Yulia sits opposed to him, nursing her tea. She is cautious of the quantity she drinks, measuring each sip with careful, surgical precision. 

Such a careful person doesn’t belong in such a place, with its hit first, ask questions later mentality. Even here in her element, it’s like she has a faint outline separating her from the backdrop. 

“You’re staring,” she tells him, though there’s no offence in her voice.

“Force of habit,” he replies. “Something caught my attention.”

She lowers the teacup from her mouth, blowing on the steam that wafts in front of her face. “Now you’re going to have to tell me what that is.”

“I was wondering when you first decided you were going to live here. Here as in the town, not the Trammel,” he clarifies, flipping to the next page. 

Her eyes swipe down. “ A Community History of Gorkhon, Volume II made you think about that?”

He slips his finger in along the spine of the book to save his page, resting the cover on top. “Actually, I’ve been asking a lot of people about it recently. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to.”

“It’s no secret. I didn’t have any active research projects at the Capital, and Simon offered to pay me handsomely for any future projects they commissioned. It made the most sense.”

“If you had the freedom to go back, would you?”

She places her cup down on the nearby saucer. “I’m curious why you use the word ‘freedom.’”

She’s too perceptive for him. Too much time spent in this town has caused him to underestimate the hand of every opponent. He sighs heavily. “If I’m honest, I find every attempt to leave thwarted by some higher power. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

“A higher power, or simply someone acting in the interests of it?” she questions slowly. 

“I don’t know anymore.” He adjusts his seating position, crossing one leg over the other so he can balance the hardcover on his thigh. “When I look around, I see too many educated, rational people complaining about being here; yet, none of you seem to want to leave. You mention the Capital, and you mention going there, but those plans never come to fruition. It’s like you forgot about your old lives.”

“I have thought plenty.” She pauses for a moment, correcting her posture. “I can’t speak for the others, but in my case, there was nowhere else to go. It’s not as simple as leaving here.”

Curious, he finds himself leaning in. “What do you mean?”

“The town is a living, breathing organism. There is no certainty or explanation to what it does because it doesn’t bend to the human will. It belongs to someone else now. The roads will only take you to the destination that’s been decided for you. If you stray from that path, then you’re bound to become lost.” She studies him closely, taking the most interest in his scuffed boots. “If you’re here, then I imagine you’ve already experienced the same thing. There’s a reason the passenger rail runs so infrequently, you know.”

“Was any of this part of your original design?”

Her chain groans as she leans back. “Bachelor, if I was capable of creating something like this by my own hand, then my name would be known across the country by now. Yes, I was part of its engineering, but it’s taken on a life of its own.”

“And now you and I are trapped here by circumstance.”

“No, not circumstance. And it’s far more than just you or I. If you want my hypothesis, it’s part of some plan. Whose, I couldn’t say; it’s something even I can’t solve. If you manage to figure it out, then do consider telling me about what you find.”

It’s the end of that conversation, and that evening. There’s no hope of salvaging it; all he can do is thank her profusely for opening the library to him as he winds his scarf around his neck. Life would certainly be much harder to bear, if not for those small allowances.

At the door, she lightly touches him on the arm. “Take caution,” she says, “and don’t find yourself on the roads at night. You might end up walking in circles.”

“Murky says she keeps seeing you by the tracks,” Sticky says loudly, enough to make heads turn as they pass by. He thinks he sees some of the townspeople stare at him in accusation.

“Because I’m trying to get out of here,” he replies, as fast as the pace he’s moving at. Around them, the wind thrashes, grabbing at anything it can hold onto. Loose debris is ripped out from the ground. His coat clings to him using the hard knobs of bones protruding from his shoulders.

“Are you finally going to move out of that house? You said you were going to do it ages ago!”

“I’m not there by choice.”

“Sure you are. There are plenty of other houses around.”

“Kid,” he sucks air through his teeth, “I don’t have time to babysit you today. Go run off to Burakh and bother him instead.”

“I’m not a baby; I’m already learning how to be a doctor like you.”

“Well, then let me give you some advice,” he says. “Being a doctor is about listening to what others are telling you so that you can give an accurate diagnosis. I am telling you that I need to be left alone.”

Sticky has to walk twice as many strides to keep up with him. “Is being alone going to help you feel better?” he asks, now moving at the pace of a light jog.

“Yes.”

“All you do is sit inside all day though. If I were you, I’d be pretty lonely.”

“That doesn’t mean you should volunteer yourself to be my company.”

He abruptly runs in front. Daniil curses under his breath, nearly twisting his ankle to avoid imminent collision. “You should come over. Maybe if you lived with us you’d be happier and then you wouldn’t want to go back.”

“Going back is not a choice I need to make, it’s something I have to do. And it’s not up for debate.”

“But are you going to die? I don’t want them to kill you.”

“Who told you that?”

Sticky stops where he is, his lips pressed firmly together. Daniil could abandon him there and carry on his way, but he finds himself slowing down, then eventually turning to look back at him. He’s not used to seeing the young boy with such a sullen expression on his face.

“I don’t know what will happen to me,” he tells Sticky honestly, “but I would rather be dead or imprisoned in the Capital than have my will be taken from me here. It’s not something you’ll understand until you’re older.”

Sticky shakes his head in disbelief. “Doctors are supposed to save people. Why would you want to die?”

“I don’t know what my sentence will be—if I’m sentenced at all. These are all hypotheticals. It’s nothing to concern yourself with, so stop listening to everything Burakh tells you. You’re working yourself into a state for no good reason.”

“I think you’re lying to me.”

He sighs in exasperation. “Believe me or don’t, but I’m not continuing this conversation.”

“I think you’re lying,” he repeats. “You think I’m too stupid to understand. I think you’re stupid if you’d go back there.”

Before Daniil can correct him, he runs off in the opposite direction. Back to whenever he came, probably. Maybe his father’s Lair, the only place that seems to be warmed by the sun these days.

“If it’s fine with you, I’m going to use the last of the barrel to clean up,” Rubin calls from across the room. He strips himself of his gloves, tossing them in the direction of the nearest bin for disposal. 

Daniil finishes writing the symptoms into the patient log, authorizing the document with his signature at the bottom. “That’s the end of it?”

“Until we get a new one tomorrow.”

Fishing the key from his pocket, he unlocks the desk drawer where the rest of the documentation is kept—his poor attempt at maintaining some form of confidentiality. He slips the folder inside.

“Then if you can manage on your own, I’m going to grab some water to ensure we have enough for hand washing until then.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

He leans over to pick up the old iron bucket set aside at the door and is strangled by the acrid smell of the last patient’s sick, originating from the gloves and the soiled bed sheets. “And move that bin outside please, or else the whole place is going to stink of vomit,” he adds.

Rubin grunts to show he heard him, though it may have also been his way of voicing his contempt for being ordered around. Daniil closes the door on him before he can find out, greeted by a gust of cold wind that slaps some colour into his cheeks. 

The streets are emptier now that the weather has turned, but a few younger inhabitants emerge from their hiding places as he walks by, asking if he has any baubles and trinkets in his pockets. Even after so much time has passed, they still remember him as the one who gifted them the items they coveted. He almost feels bad telling them he’s empty-handed, turning his pockets inside out when they don’t believe him. At least if they’re asking it means they don’t yet have a stick of chalk on hand. There are already enough hands collaborating on the sidewalk art outside of Stillwater.

When the pump does come into view, it’s accompanied by a familiar figure leaning against the side of a nearby building, observing two teenagers as they attempt to retrieve an object from the mouth of a street dog. Nearby, a younger child, perhaps their sibling, fights back tears as they watch the confrontation from a safe distance. He warily eyes her red beanie as he places the bucket down underneath the outlet, a loud tin-can clap heard as the base touches the earth.

She turns to see where the noise came from and they lock eyes. 

“So you’re still here,” she observes.

“Not by choice.” He pushes the sleeves of his coat up to both elbows, grabbing the force rod.

“I figured. Tell me,” she pushes off from the building and approaches him, “do you wear that look when you’re with your patients? I can’t imagine it puts them at ease.”

“They put up with it, or they don’t get my help.” The mechanism protests his demands, squealing with the effort it takes to suction water from the supply. 

“Yes, ultimatums and medicine go hand in hand, don’t they?”

She reminds him of Aspity in moments like this. He hasn’t seen the old crone in ages.

“You people are lucky that I even agreed to work at all.” He pushes one last pump of water out, the water coming to rest a few inches from the rim. That thin margin should prevent it from spilling over as he transports it.

“You say that like you’re doing us a favour, not because you have nothing better to do with your time.”

He uses both hands to lift the bucket, his posture hunched by the weight anchoring him forward. “I do, actually. So if you’ll excuse me.”

“Wait, Bachelor.” She comes closer to him, speaking in a low voice. “What is it like to be told to stay? Did you hear it, or did you feel it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know what I’m referring to: that invisible pull around your neck that keeps you here,” she says, carefully enunciating each word.

He grips the steel handle tighter. “There’s no ‘pull.’ I can try to leave but I can’t get far.”

“That’s right.” She nods to herself. “You’re different from the others. They made a deal. Sometimes I can put my ear up to them and hear the words binding them to this place. It’s the same with you too, but your voice is a lot quieter. I don’t even know if it realizes it’s speaking.”

“Who does it sound like?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“How can you hear something and not know what it sounds like?”

“You never stop to listen, so how would you know? I can’t translate it into words you would understand.”

He exhales through his mouth, releasing a large, pillowy cloud of mist. “Well, since you know so much about it, maybe you can tell me how I break this curse.”

“It’s not a curse you need to break, it’s a will. And it’s a strong one.”

“So how do I do that?”

“You don’t. You don’t tell the Earth to stop wanting something. She takes what you have to give and you live with that.”

“But I didn’t make any deal.”

“Maybe not with Her.”

If he wasn’t holding something, he’d throw his arms up in the air out of frustration. “So I’m trapped here forever against my will because I unknowingly signed my life away.” He scoffs. It sounds ridiculous when he says it out loud. “I’ve heard just as much from others, but none of you will tell me why I’m here. Is this supposed to be some form of divine punishment? Because if it is, I’d rather you tell me. At least then I can suffer for a reason.”

“It’s not a punishment. It means you are wanted here. Personally, I don’t understand why, but then again I’m not your other half, am I?”

“No, I’m not quite sure what I’d call you. But you weren’t born here. Does that mean you are bound too?”

She looks indignant at the question. “I am from here. That is the same as someone who is born. We begin our lives here and end our lives here. It is different from those who come from foreign soil and transplant their roots.”

“Yes, Burakh told me. Something about circling the home? I can’t speak the Steppe Language well enough to repeat what he said.”

“He would know. Asked to come home, made into someone else’s image…” she uses her fingers to count, “...and now come into his own role. You know, if you scowled a bit less I would say you two have a lot in common. Maybe he just wants someone to share that burden with.”

There are a few ways to respond to that, but his brain takes a second to swirl and sip at what she’s told him. He can’t move on from her phrasing. Noticing him thinking, she reappears to him as the teenager she truly is, her smug grin telling him she’s congratulating herself on something. Possibly for being the one to have it all figured out.

Without another word, she returns to the post she was observing from, one leg bent at the knee so she can rest her boot against the side of the building, ready to push off at the first sign of trouble. He’s left to walk alone with the knowledge she’s given him, which feels heavier than the bucket he’s carrying. 

The one advantage of the road system is that he doesn’t need to remember the route to the Burakh residence. It takes him straight there with no stoppages, shortcuts or dead-ends.

He raps at the door twice, taking a few seconds as he waits for an answer to compose himself. His accusation is one that he has trouble believing himself, and it further complicates issues. He hasn’t finished preparing what he wanted to say yet, and phrasing it carefully is his only hope of sounding convincing.

Burakh looks surprised, albeit pleasantly so, to find him on the doorstep. “Bachelor Dankovsky,” he greets him. “I wasn’t expecting your visit.”

“Artemy Burakh. May I?” He gestures inside, waiting for the invitation before he imposes himself. Burakh backs away from the door, holding it open for him to enter. 

Inside, Daniil pulls on the finger of his glove, the texture teething the scabs on his knuckles as he extracts it from his hand. He takes the seat that’s offered to him, carefully rehearsing what he’s about to say in his head as Burakh moves around the room, preparing for his visit. He can’t decide whether to cross one leg over the other or to keep his feet flat on the ground. It doesn’t really matter, but perhaps there’s hope that he will be taken more seriously if he looks the part. 

Eventually, Artemy seats himself in the old armchair wedged in the corner of the room, adjacent to Daniil. He looks on expectantly, once more giving Daniil the responsibility of leading the conversation.

Daniil steadies himself with a deep breath. Finally, he asks, “is it you?”

“What?”

“Are you the reason why I’m still here?”

“Why would I be the reason?”

Anxiously wringing his hands, he tries to find words to explain. “Maybe I’m the one at fault for trying to find a logical explanation, but if I’m going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future then I should begin adopting the practice of having blind faith in the supernatural.”

“Oynon, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You need to give me more context.”

He raises his head to confirm that his body language matches. Burakh plainly wears his confusion: his eyebrows are pressing in, wrinkling the skin above the bridge of his nose.

Daniil lets himself hope. In Burakh, he always saw an ally, someone of mutual understanding. Their connection gives them liberties that others wouldn’t have. He holds trust in that.

“No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to leave this place. I thought it was mere coincidence when the trains stopped running on schedule, but then the marshes began taking over the steppe and the river wouldn’t let me cross by boat. I found myself struggling to go anywhere outside the town, almost as if some unknown presence was trying to keep me here.” 

“I thought more about what you said, about always coming back to this place, and I asked a lot of other people about it. The consensus was that the town or some higher power has been keeping them here indefinitely. The catch is there was always a reason for them to be held onto. The Town needed Yulia. It needed Peter and Andrey and whoever else the Kains brought. But I’m here, and it doesn’t need me.”

“It does.”

“No, you do.”

Silence. Any transparency on Burakh’s face vanishes, and Daniil is left sharing the room with a stranger.

Daniil wipes his palms on the side of his thigh. “I don’t know why you do, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.” 

Burakh stares down at his hands, flexing the muscles and joints. Daniil initially takes it to mean he’s ignoring him, and only at the last minute bites down on his tongue when the other man looks up, wearing Burakh’s face but looking completely unfamiliar. It unnerves him.

“Of all people I’d expect to hear something like that from, you would be my last guess,” Burakj says.

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

“No! No, it’s just…unexpected.” Burakh pricks at his fingernails, lost in a thought that he doesn’t voice. His eyes search for something behind them, over the shoulder of Daniil. “When did you discover this?”

“Today. Earlier. I talked to—no, it doesn’t matter. But I know this is a longstanding tradition. You told me yourself.”

Burakh nods, coming back to the present moment. “Yes, that’s true.”

“We’ve both been through a lot. No one knew the horrors of the sand pest like we did. We needed each other then, but now that the town is in the late stages of recovery and three doctors—four if you count Clara and five if you count Sticky—aren’t needed. And of that total I’m easily the most disliked. I’m a reminder of what happened.”

“Remembering is not a bad thing,” Burakh interrupts. “That will pass.”

“You’re missing the point. Whether it’s good or bad, it needs to end here. It can’t continue in perpetuity.” 

“So what exactly do you want me to do?”

“I…I don’t know,” he struggles, at a loss. “I don’t know how it works. Maybe all you have to do is will it.”

Burakh narrows his eyes. “‘Will’ it?” he repeats slowly. 

He flushes from the embarrassment of using such plain terminology in the presence of another medic. “I don’t care what you do, but I want to be home before Christmas.”

“Are you so sure that’s a good idea? As you described it to me, you’re almost certainly being sentenced to death if you return to the Capital.”

“I know. I accept that.” If he cannot defeat Death, then he will at least stare it in the eyes as he’s brought to his knees. “That’s what you told Sticky too,” he adds, in a thinly-veiled accusation of what’s happened behind his back.

“But there is nothing for you there.”

“Everything I left behind is there.”

“What’s the point? Do you have such a low opinion of yourself that you would throw your body onto the fire just because someone told you to?”

“That’s my choice to make.”

Burakh looks disheartened. “What has broken your spirit? You’re not the same man I remember.”

“I’m tired, Burakh. I’m tired from fighting everyone else’s battles. I’m asking for the dignity of being able to decide how to end mine. It’s simple.”

“How does that bring justice to anyone?”

“It has nothing to do with justice!” He’s starting to realize why he’s met so much resistance. “I don’t pretend to understand why you do the things you do here, so don’t try to understand me in turn. If I die, I want to die on my own terms, where I’m supposed to be.”

“And who decides where you’re supposed to be?”

“Apparently you.” He levels him with a hard stare. They’ve wandered too far away from the negotiating table. He can’t let Burakh smell blood, or he won’t get out of here alive.

Burakh shakes his head in disbelief, his hands running down his thighs to grip both knees. The fabric of his pants creases from the pressure he’s exerting, bunching the seams together.

“Please, Artemy. Don’t deny me this.”

“So your whole reason for coming here today was to ask me to be alright with sending you to your death.”

“Not my death, sending me home,” he corrects. “I wouldn’t keep you from your home.”

“Those two are not the same thing, and you know it.”

“Fine.” He crosses his arms, throwing his weight back into the chair. “They’re not. That doesn’t change what I’m asking.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t have any control over this, and if I did, I wouldn’t stop caring just because you asked me to. I can’t in good conscience agree with your decision. I can’t. It would mean your blood is on my hands.” There is determination in his eyes; determination to not be alone. Before him, Burakh sheds his vulnerability and becomes a completely different monster from the one who was rumoured to roam around town.

The match strikes a hard surface, and Daniil lights up. “You’re selfish! You would keep me here at the expense of my liberty. That is slavery!” He stands suddenly, tensed in anticipation of a fight. If it should come to that, the odds are weighed against him. He was hoping that they could be civilized about this.

“Is it so bad? To start over?”

“Yes! Because that is what you want. Because it’s good for you, because it’s what you need. I don’t want that! You never asked me if I wanted that. You just assumed I would be happy to stay here forever.”

“Because the alternative is death.”

“Yes, you wouldn’t want to lose your pet doctor from the Capital. Then you would have to take complete responsibility for what happened. And you’re too much of a coward to do that.”

Burakh meets his eye, possessing an uncharacteristic amount of calm. “You’re not changing my mind.”

Daniil laughs humorlessly. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

He gets to his feet, suddenly very close in proximity. “What’s the point in me saying anything else?” Daniil can practically taste the blood on his breath.

Daniil refuses to let himself be intimidated. He stands his ground, channelling every microbe of hatred in him into the look he gives. 

“Go to hell,” he says. “I wish I never met you.”

They breathe that same air. Daniil searches his eyes desperately to see if the words did anything to hurt him. 

“I’m willing to talk when you’re ready to have a conversation,” Burakh says. He untangles himself from Daniil’s coils, taking that first step away from him. All of that pressure building up between them suddenly releases. The force of it almost makes him step back.

Daniil can’t even tell himself that Burakh has gone to lick his wounds; the victor of that fight was decided before he’d even started the game. Deep in the house, a door’s hinges squeak as it closes shut, leaving him completely alone in that room.

A stray impulse demands him to leave ruin behind, to show Burakh a fraction of the pain he’s caused. But children live here. Children live here, he reminds himself over and over again. Did they see? Did they overhear? To some extent, they’ve known. They are an extension of their adopted father’s limbs and the workings of his brain, and they may have been trying to deceive him. However, it would be harsh to give them their share of the blame. How much have any of them known, really? Even Burakh seemed surprised when Daniil first came to him with his suspicions.

Now he knows, and if anything it has only strengthened his resolve. Maybe if Daniil had been more subtle, if he’d taken the calmer reproach, he could have made Burakh think it was his own idea. Convinced him that there was no danger, that he would return to visit. He never would have realized what he was capable of until Daniil was far from his reach.

But for how long would that last? Even if he did make it back to the Capital, he would never be completely safe. Burakh wasn’t. 

The urge to throw something becomes overpowering. He keeps his hands to himself by twisting his fingers into his hair, pulling it away from the scalp. Back pressed to the wall, he sinks to the floor and waits for his emotions to lose their intensity before he does something he’ll regret. He can’t even think about standing right now, let alone going home. He’s almost certain he wouldn’t be allowed to even if he tried.

Sticky finds him there not much later, returning from the outside world with the smell of earth and antiseptic sticking to his skin. The squish of his snow-covered boots stops when he comes into full view of the living room and the man collapsed at the side of it. Daniil hides his head in his arms and doesn’t acknowledge him.

Sticky leaves a trail of sloppy wet tracks behind him as he walks up. Daniil waits patiently for the childish pester of questions that he doesn’t have or can’t say the answers to; only, it never comes. The boy bends over, places one hand on the ground for balance, and lowers his body to the floor. He maneuvers his limbs into the same position as Daniil’s, but opts to lean against the other doctor instead of the wall, resting his right cheek on his knee.

Still out of it, Daniil looks closer at the hair on the back of the boy’s head, bleached from overexposure to the sun. At that moment, he doesn’t feel real. He feels more like another one of the town’s parlour tricks, something that exists to make leaving harder than it needs to be.

He gently rests a hand on top to make sure. He’s real, as real as the will that’s holding Daniil here.

He finally moves out of Stillwater.

Not to go back to the Capital, like he wanted. He selects a house in the eastern quarter and enlists the help of some of the labourers that owe him a favour to clear it out. 

Part of him does it to anger Artemy. It won’t change how his fate is intertwined with that of the town’s, nor free himself from the other man’s influence. It’s a feeble gesture of resistance that he uses to take back what little control he has over his life. It means he owns something, instead of being owned.

Artemy at least has the sense to keep his distance for a short while. His young children, however, are not as perceptive about the state of affairs. They frequently come by his new house bringing objects for trade: nuts, berries, maybe some bread they smuggled out from under the breakfast table. He only partakes if they eat their share and then some, pecking at a few crumbs as he watches them lose to the temptation of satiating their hunger. In return, he lets Murky show him the objects of her fascination and then explains what they are. He fills in some of the gaps the war left in Artemy’s formal education when Sticky asks, pretending he doesn’t notice how the boy follows him closer these days, as if afraid to let him out of his sight. He’s becoming too much like his father in that respect. It makes Daniil wonder if he knows.

Artemy can’t be kept away for long though, especially not when they receive the orders that the clinic will be moved to the Burakh residence, as was intended when the idea of opening one was first proposed. The old physician’s house has the physical capacity to care for all the current influenza victims that need hospitalization, as well as a surgeon who can lend a pair of hands when they’re overwhelmed. On paper, it sounds like the solution to all their problems. Only Daniil and Rubin are opposed, and because their motives are completely personal, they never get voiced.

He should have known he would make an appearance after Rubin requested additional help to move some of the heavier furniture loitering in the entryway. Hearing those heavy footfalls at the door confirms his worst suspicions, and he throws himself into his task to avoid him. An assortment of stock boxes and pill bottles is laid out on the table in front of him, waiting to be sorted for transport. He hides the nervous shake in his hands by handling them, pretending he doesn’t hear the man approaching from behind. He probably would have been able to ignore him entirely, had Artemy not started speaking.

“Here, let me help you with that.” Daniil doesn’t even need to look at him to know he’s got one hand outstretched, ready to pluck the vial out of his hand.

“I can handle it.” Daniil jerks away from him, continuing to stock the crates as if the interruption never occurred. 

After a moment, Artemy says, “It doesn’t have to be like this. We could be happy here.”

“Is that what you want?” Daniil continues to give his task his undivided focus, sparing Artemy no importance.

“Of course.”

Daniil turns the bottles to face the same direction, checking that they’re secure. The glassware chatters noisily. “Then you’ll have it.”

“Do you want it too?”

No is what comes to mind first; the instinctual, learned response. He sits with it for a bit as he works, making Artemy wait for his answer.

“I don’t want it to be worse than it needs to be,” he says finally.

“Then let’s start over, pretend this never happened.”

“That’s asking a lot of me, Artemy.” 

“I know it is; I’ve been where you are. Believe me when I tell you that I was still trying to leave, up until the final days. I didn’t have a reason to stay until I had people to surround myself with–a true family.” The heat emanating from his body intensifies as he gets closer to Daniil’s back. “I want you to have that too. I’m here to give it to you.”

Daniil lids the crate, writing out a note with his explicit instructions for how it should be stored. “This place will never be home to me.”

Artemy touches his far shoulder, silently asking for permission. “Then at least let me make it more comfortable.”

Daniil sighs, the pen slipping out from the loosening grip of his hand. Artemy places it aside where it won’t roll off the table. Encouraged by the lack of protest, he touches his forehead to Daniil’s back, brushing the tips of his fingers on the top of his hip bone. Daniil closes his eyes and lets himself be held, finally accepting it as an inevitability.

Though barely touching him, it still feels like Artemy is holding on too tight.

Notes:

If you got this far, I want to say thank you for reading! I love hearing feedback from my readers, so don't be afraid to leave a comment. :] I could ramble on for ages about the ideas I scratched the surface of, so if you still have any burning questions, ask away.

It's been a long time since I've written anything but I'm hoping to start a multi-chapter fic for this fandom now that this is finished (which is why it reads more like a warm-up than an actual complete narrative). I'm currently quite new to the fandom and don't have any people to talk to about the writing process and share ideas with, so reach out if you'd like to know more or just want to be friends.