This page is blighted with mold and the imprint of a memory…

The words seep experience into your open mind…

THROUGH THE EYES OF KATABASIS…

It didn't work. Truth be told, I have no way of knowing if Qinziq even finished what she was doing. Gilly said it took days to find a safe place to bring me back. The big one they all follow was hunting for him.

I make a task of committing the Cabal bodies to burial. The costs are heavy, and I don't get everyone.

We try to keep hidden, using the smuggler's hovels where I stashed go bags across the ship.

All it takes is one of them seeing you.

Been keeping track for what I think is a month… three months. The waves are random. When one hits, it rearranges pieces of the ship, and I have to find my way again.

Gilgamesh is becoming more distant. Talking less. He wanders off for days at a time. So far, he always comes back.

When I die, I dream of a City burning. Death dreams are a first. When I wake up, I don't know how long it's been. Gilly… won't say.

There have been a hundred lives between this and the last one I remember.

I live in a charnel house.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

I'm alive. And old.

"Get up." Gilly's voice is thin.

"Why? There's nothing to do but starve."

"Giving up again? You'd rather I just left you here?"

I roll myself to face him. "I'm not giving up. Just… take my Light and hold it until… until there's a way out."

"You know, I used to think we were the way out—us, together. But we're just stuck in another cycle."

"There's nothing to eat, Gil. You don't feel that emptiness chewing at you. Promise you'll leave me be until we're out."

Gilgamesh looks at me for a long time without speaking. I close my eyes.

"I promise."

FRENETIC SCRAWL INKED IN THE MARGIN READS: Maze of vents. It's somewhere in there. That fungus crap keeps blocking my path.