"Closest one's really near, I'll mark it on this map - it's a 'do not enter' though, which means there's something unsteady or dangerous. Farther one's enterable, but it's on the other side of camp."

"I'm assuming you want to go?" She drags her hand down her face. "Look, just, for the record, you have combat training? I'm assuming special forces?"

"Something like that," Jenn confirms. "And I've stripped buildings for wire before. Misspent youth and all that."

"Seems to be a lot of that around. I'll hold down the fort here, how about, sort our supplies and get them in bags properly."

Jenn nods. "I won't be too long."

Looks across to Bina.

Who is very stubbornly trying not to fall asleep. "I'll be fine. Won't wander off."

"Take a nap. You've earned it keeping the wigglies off us."

"Ughhhh."

She might be blushing though? Jenn's smile. Just.

"...Can we call them anything else, I'm not putting 'wigglies' in my notes."

Jenn smiles a tiny bit wider.

Then turns her attention to Elizabeth. "If you can think of a better name, by all means, feel free."

"Not-corpses. Or not-people, is what I've been using. Shortens nicely to 'naught.' Does not sound like I got high and watched too many zombie movies."

"Fine by me."

And Jenn will collect her map, and be on her way.

And Elizabeth will return to her notes.

And Bina will, eventually, drift off to sleep, and dream.

(She's nineteen. She can't talk right now. If she tries, if she looks away, she's going to break, or scream, or explode, and - )

(She's on a plane and this feels like the end of the world.)

(Or the end of her and Lash, at least.)

Ant isn't actually here right now - ey's somewhere, nearby, but not actually right next to Bina.

(Ey wants to be, but it's taking em time to get there.)

That's alright. If Ant was here - if Ant tried to comfort her, or ask how she's doing - 

It's stupid, it's all her fault, and it's dumb to be this upset, just because she and Lash are going to university fifteen hundred kilometers apart, just because she didn't ask Lash to stay even though she could tell Lash wanted her to - 

She tries to breathe as the plane takes off. She can't get away from the stressor like her therapist recommends. But she can breathe, because if she doesn't she starts hyperventilating and then she throws up like last night - (like she's going to)

This'll be a bad one, enough to alarm the flight attendants, get the Air Marshall called - and none of her strategies will work.

It's almost inevitable.

The man in the seat next to her (concerned she's having a heart attack, she learns later) asks if she's alright, and that's what does her in.

She gets up. She runs, like she always does, past the empty seats (wrong, isn't it? Hadn't there been people? Numerous eyes on her, too many eyes looking at her - )

She gets to the bathroom, closes the door, and the flight attendant isn't there banging on the door.

Just Bina. Sick and alone.

Except she doesn't throw up, or pass out.

She calms down, in increments and fractions.

And wonders where everyone went.

...Now there's a tap on the door.

"Bina?" Ant asks quietly.

She opens it.

"Ant! You're okay!"

"Yeah," Ant nods. "Guess Lash did take care of me."

"Yeah. She's really nice." Kind of too nice to Bina, really, too forgiving, but.

"Do you know - what happened to people? Or if this memory's just... Twisted."

She steps out.

"Or what's with that picture?" It's a red ball on a white background, bouncing.

- Except no it's not, it's two, one shadow behind the other except that's not how it was - 

There wasn't a picture in her memory she doesn't think, except - she can't really be sure, now, like how she can't remember what happened at Lash's birthday party, or when exploring the bakery at summer camp, or her first kiss...

Ant shakes eir head. "I don't know. Sorry." Offers eir hand.

She takes it, and looks around.

The plane's perfectly still. Quiet. Frozen. Like a chess set, not the chaotic swirling vomit-tinged nightmare it is in her memory. 

She shivers.

"We should probably try and see who's flying?" she suggests, but her heart isn't in it.

Ant nods, reluctant as well. "If anyone's flying..."

"Yeah. Don't know, here..."

She starts walking forwards. There's a curtain, separating the cockpit, which the pushes aside - 

Revealing somewhere else entirely.

Blue skies. Puffy clouds. The soft thrum of an engine. The sound of a propeller spinning in the air. A repetitive thwock-thwockthwock-thwock.

A concrete wall across from them, and a little Parisian cafe table before it, with a light spread of food.

Ant looks around. "This is...not a cockpit. -Is that food? I'm starving."

"It isn't a cockpit, yeah." For one, there's no plane behind them, nor a curtain - instead there's a door into what looks like a potential stairwell from outside. And it is food - soft bread and cheese, already cut into, and grapes, and a pitcher of something. "I'm not sure the food's safe to eat?"