BONFIRE LIGHTS IN THE MIRROR OF SKY.

[wastemods]

WHO: Everyone in game.
WHAT: Our first event log!
WHERE: Anywhere in the world core.
WHEN: After the storms begin.
NOTES: Expect surreal horror and possible violence. Please use common sense when warning for other content.

Photo by drainrat

PREVIOUSLY, ON THE WASTEYARD.

The world remains divided into a land where either a hazy sun shines muted light above or a full moon casts silvery shadows below. They hang fixed, as if nailed in place, more like theatrical props than far-off heavenly bodies. And you can still see only one of them, depending on which side you arrived.

Meanwhile, the storm rages.

On both sides of the world, the rain starts and doesn't stop. The temperature drops, transforming torrential rain into icy snow. Gusts of wind become gales and spin detritus into shrapnel, man-made disasters turned natural. Shadows spin wildly—almost comically—in cyclones, before bursting into nothingness; if you aren't careful, the winds will snatch you, too. Out here, the only protection you might have is cooperating with each other.

Indoors, it's certainly warmer, but that just means water doesn't freeze. Buildings flood with chilly water that rises no matter how many stairs you climb. Architecture groans under the pressure of earthquakes, sending more water cascading through the ceiling before it disappears into cracks below. Is anywhere safe?

Well, yes. One place, splintered into many. The mirrors in ash-gray frames stand sentinel, scattered throughout the world. They emit warm light from the other side; sunlight spills moonside and moonlight reflects sunside. Water impossibly flows around and away from them, leaving behind untouched earth that stays still and silent. Standing in front of them gives you a respite, a tiny bubble of safety to wait out the worst.

INTO THE LABYRINTH.

Once you plunge indoors—unless you're really that determined to take your chances in the storm—you'll find every building with electricity experiencing a brownout. The overhead lights flicker and radios crackle with static, warbling broken news reports and tunes. They eavesdrop on strings of Morse code and private confessions on ham radio. If it's ever been broadcast on the airwaves, public or personal, you might hear it if you tune to the right station; you might even hear yourself, replaying a conversation you've had or will have. And sometimes the audio seems pointed, preternaturally so, as if tuned to your own thoughts and words.

Meanwhile, the waters continue to rise. The halls stretch long, seemingly infinite and twisted into knots. In some of them, no matter how far you walk, it seems like you never get any closer to the end; in others, you hit one dead end and can't stop hitting dead ends, no matter how many times you retrace your steps. None of that's unusual.

But if you delve deep into dark enough recesses (whether accidentally or intentionally), the world calms. The water recedes. Mirrors materialize in the dead ends, scratching out an "X" in the frame before your eyes. If you touch one, the glass falls away in ribbons, flowing like quicksilver and fleeing farther into the darkness. It reveals a hole on the other side, so deep a black it looks flat. Wherever it goes, it's so dark you can't see the other side.

And that's when you hear a sound like someone inhaling and then exhaling, steadily breathing around you. No...you feel it. A presence that has no form no matter how hard you look, but follows you in creaks and groans. It feels like being stalked by a monster in a maze.

Running from it only intensifies the feeling. Attacking makes it even worse. Calm acceptance is the only way to lessen or even neutralize it, but that's something you'll have to discover for yourself. In the end, there's no way to defeat it. You have to trust your instincts and believe it's there, despite the fact that you can't see or touch it.

CHANGING SIDES.

Elsewhere, it starts as a smell.

As the ground shudders and cracks, the stench of rot comes from the fissures. Mirrors and windows melt off walls, and a strong sense of vertigo comes and goes, like cresting waves. Looking out a window shows buildings and bridges breaking off of the labyrinth and drifting—or plummeting—away. They dissolve into nothingness as they vanish into the abyss, like they were bathed in acid. The already fragile world is falling apart.

It comes with a pervasive sense of wrongness, perhaps ironic in a world where everything is already wrong. But that's when it happens: You look up and realize you're no longer where you started. The sun or the moon, whichever you expected, is no longer in the sky. Instead, on the horizon lies its opposite.

It's a phenomenon unique to areas with high concentrations of ash mirrors and hallways, particularly when there's someone else on the other side. Sometimes the instability flips your positions, so one of you is now in the dimension where the other previously stood, while other times it drags you both together into the light of the sun or moon. It's like you resonate, magnets attracting or repelling each other in little pockets of peace.

THE LOCKED ROOM.

Amidst the chaos, as the world shifts and there's no telling where or when you are, you slip through a crack. Or maybe you're a weirdo who climbed through the hole left behind a mirror.

In either case, the fissure is both literal and metaphorical, influenced by the unstable world and your actions. Maybe you step through a door, crawl through a crevice, close your eyes, or do something else to take you between here and there. Whatever the case, you find yourself in a room unlike any others you've seen in this distorted world. Well...once you look closer, anyway. On the surface, it may just be another kitchen, ballroom, or cellar.

But in these rooms, it doesn't matter which side of the divide you were on. Not only because you can't see whatever lights the sky, but because they lie between dimensions. There are no windows and no doors; you'll only find walls the same mottled gray as everything else in this place. Attacking them gets you nowhere. Any damage is there and gone, like the erased moments between flashes of a strobe light. There is no easy way out.

But there is a mirror. Hairline cracks run through its surface, shattering a single reflection into multitudes. Set in an ash-gray frame like so many others, it's left somewhere in the room, whether hanging on a wall, haphazard on the floor, or leaning against some furniture. It emanates the skin-prickling sensation of being watched. Turning away doesn't help; you can feel it gazing at your back.

The haunted feeling only subsides when you stare back. And you should stare back, because these mirrors are your escape route. Staring into them will reveal someone on the other side with the same predicament. Surprisingly, you can hear each other when you speak. It even comes translated if you don't speak the same language, although your mouths still sync to your native tongues. It's like a poorly dubbed movie.

Touching the mirror gives you the impression it's somehow leeching off you, trying to fill those cracks. Try to pull your hand away and you'll find it's a little difficult, like unsticking your tongue from a cold pole. Moreover, you'll feel a compulsion to tell the truth, to do something real.

THE GREAT ESCAPE.

For those of you left behind where the sun and moon still shine, keep an eye on your own mirrors, especially broken ones that seem to be influenced by something invisible. They display a room that most decidedly isn't your own, acting more like a window than a mirror. And whoever's inside, trapped, might call on you for help. You won't be able to hear them, though, so how are you with body language?

Meanwhile, for escapees...

No matter how you escape the rooms, you might notice something a little strange once you get back to the labyrinth. Well, stranger. For a brief window of time (one that grows longer with each room you escape), you'll discover the sun and moon occupy the same sky. The area you've entered is a temporary nexus of sorts, one that fuses the dimensions into something that almost seems stable.

It feels right, but the world isn't strong enough to hold itself together for long.

( COMPANION OOC POST )

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Comments

ellie | tlou | ota.

[ascocarp]

a. FROM SUN UP TO SUN DOWN | anywhere inside.

The hallways surge with water, and... Ellie is screwed. She tries to outrun the torrent, but it just keeps coming. Her instinct to find higher ground doesn't work for shit.

The thing is, she never learned to swim. Not that it matters much, with the current this strong, but it still elicits a special fear in her, more intense than usual, and that's... saying something.

The water catches her. She flounders, flailing and choking, trying desperately to keep her head above the water.

b. PEACE COULD NOT BE FOUND | in the labyrinth.

Something is following her.

Ellie knows what to do. She sits, and she waits. She finds supplies and does her best to be resourceful. She's been trying to ignore some of Joel's advice, get out of the feeling of being under his thumb, but here? He'd survive. He'd know what to do. She does what she thinks he would.

A sound in the darkness, and she tenses, and then she throws. A tin can with nails sticking out of it lands not far from wherever you are, noise-maker; steam slowly hisses out of it.

And then Ellie's voice, and the stomping of her feet, running toward you. "Shit, shit, shit! Get away!" She grabs you and attempts, with all her meager strength, to pull you from the tin can, which is now shaking slightly.

c. NOW THEY ARE UNDER THE GROUND | deep in the labyrinth.

This entire experience hasn't been good to her, but Ellie's used to that. If you work hard to make the environment work for you, you can always find something. That's what Joel taught her, among other things. So, she found matches. She beat the shit out of some furniture. She made a bonfire and she sits at the side, trying to warm up. She's shivering, swearing under her breath, and trying to bandage her arm.

There's a cut, blood, and also... with the sleeve pulled up, in the light of the fire, you might find the scar of a very old bite mark. That is, if you're quick. As soon as she hears someone approaching-- she but woodchips near the perimeter, to make sure anyone coming in would make noise, an old trick-- she slides her sleeve back down again, and looks up from where she's sitting.

"Wow," she says, and fatigue is obvious in her voice. "You look like shit."

It doesn't matter how you look. She's saying it for herself.

d. I HEARD THEM COMPLAIN | escape room.

However you got here, Ellie hasn't figured a way out, yet. She ended up in a room with no windows or doors, no way out, and nothing she could think of released her. It feels like hours. She's cold, and the room is painfully dark. She's lit a fire in the furnace, and is huddled around it, her back to the mirror she's completely overlooked.

You may hear her quietly talking to herself, if you listen through your own connecting mirror.

"What a stupid fucking way to die."

e. CRY OUT IN PAIN | escape room rescue.

Stuck as she is, she's trying to communicate with somebody. Mirrors mean something, right? She figured that out the hard way. But the person on the other side can't seem to hear her, whatever she does.

Ellie has tired of banging on the mirror, now she's trying to get your attention by writing messages. She breathes on the glass and hurriedly tries to write before it fades out of existence.

f. SEEKING PEACEFUL GAIN | anywhere inside.

Eventually, you get desperate. Everyone does it. You do something dumb, like crawl through a crack in the wall and get stuck. It's not her fault. She's used to being able to slip into tight spaces. That used to be her only use. Maybe she's grown? She kind of wishes she could have figured that out in, like, a good way.

But at the end of the day, she's fucking stuck and doesn't know what to do. She's managed to get one arm out, and is waving it around-- not asking for help, just... trying to get some leverage.

All this means is, well, if you're wandering around minding your own business, and you notice a dirt, dusty hand trying to claw itself out of the wall, well. This is your life, now.

g. UNDER THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS | wildcard option.

[yooo i'm open for anything, feel free to mix and match prompts or come up with your own stuff; it's all good! i've got a plotting comment over here if you wanna talk shop about ellie saving you instead of vice versa. if you feel the need, hmu on the game server or at wehwalt! also, like, i prefer prose but don't super care, if you feel more comfortable in brackets, go for it.]

d.

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

Ruth doesn't have any other choice but to listen. Her head's no longer swimming with nausea, but only by virtue of emptying it of everything else. (And that takes its own kind of energy, leaving her a different kind of tired and worn, but at least she's not bleeding. For now.) She felt her way around the room when she entered it, finding books and vases filled with dried-out sticks of flowers and the hard, wooden frame of a mirror. (For a moment, she'd hoped it was a window, but that instinct drained away when she realized she could prise her fingers behind it and feel wall.)

No doors. Neither food nor water. And nothing she can actually make use of besides herself and the junk she's tossed into an old backpack she found. Nothing until that voice.

"We aren't dead yet. Pardon, yes--" As she says it, she's still listening, running the tip of her makeshift cane (actually a yardstick) over the bare floorboards like she might hit a pair of shoes. The voice doesn't seem to have a body, though it sounds like it's here--not the crackle of her walkie-talkie, where everyone's voice gets compressed into tin. "Where sorry are you?"

[ascocarp]

Ellie looks up, clearly shocked by the sound. She looks over her shoulder to the mirror, and creeps toward it closely, poking her face into it.

"I dunno," she murmurs, squinting to see a shadowed shape on the other side. "Where're you?"

[sorrypardonyesthankyou]

Ruth doesn't notice Ellie's shock--it registers only vaguely through speech, and the senses that would pick it up are dulled.

"In a room. Yes." Standing up, she takes a few steps closer to the voice. If the girl's in the same room, she's doing an astonishingly good job of being undetectable. If she isn't...then Ruth's not sure where the voice is coming from. "We talked pardon. Didn't we?"

rip me.

[ascocarp]

Ellie squints through the darkness, and recognizes the voice-- well, the vocal tic. And in the shadows, she can see... something over her face. Her eyes.

"Holy shit, you're Eye Girl." Did she get her name? Ellie can't remember. She's not actually great with them. "Hold a sec."

Ellie wanders back into the darkness of her room, and a crashing sound can be heard. A few minutes later, Ellie comes back to the mirror, holding up a chair leg. She stuck the unvarnished half in the fireplace, so it's now acting as an impromptu torch.

e.

[badassassin]

Athena's not pleased with being back indoors, but she's even less pleased with being stuck outside in this kind of weather, so she's chosen the least of the two evils. She's also just being very careful around any reflective surfaces this time around, not keen on getting sucked into one again, which is why it takes her awhile to notice the girl on the other side of the mirror.

It takes her a second of squinting to read the backwards text, and she makes a derisive noise once she deciphers it. She doesn't really want to get too close to it, so she can't write a response (luckily she's already familiar with how this whole thing works); instead, she shrugs exaggeratedly as if to ask what she wants, unaware that she'd be able to hear her from her side.

[ascocarp]

Ellie gestures emphatically, first to herself, then the room, then the woman on the other side in the badass armor. God, she's sick of this charades crap. For a good measure, she slams her fists into the mirror a few times. It doesn't budge.

[badassassin]

Yeah, no kidding, this isn't Athena's favorite way to spend her time, either.

She doesn't really get what the gestures are supposed to mean until the girl starts punching the mirror, and she blurts, "You want me to break it?" without remembering that she won't be able to hear her. Sighing, she starts to try and make her incredulity known through gestures, because she's not really keen on touching the mirrors again. Even with her sword.

[ascocarp]

Ellie looks like she's considering, and then shrugs. A slow nod- if you want. Maybe that will get her out of here?

wildcard option, as discussed (holdingoutforahero.mp3)

[fumitory]

( like a calamity that the bible foretold, the sky was rent apart with a terrible ease, and a shattering suddenness. the ground groaned in agony, like something were being split apart, and with the atmosphere a connected appendage to this entire world, it echoed the same sentiment.

more than just rain or freezing sleet — everything rapidly flooded. Ben clamors for high ground, trapped in the unwanted ride of icy water, because believe that it caught him well off-guard. god bless adrenaline, for being the main thing keeping Ben alive as he was swept up in a hard current. he'd come so close to crawling out to safety, only to get smacked in the face with a surge of water coming down overhead.

at some point, Ben's aching, numb hands manage to grasp onto a stair banister, ornate and old, polished wood. his hands can only grip so hard — he isn't really sure how hard he's holding on at all, for he can't feel a thing aside from a bone-deep, cold pain. water cuts over his shoulder and spills in his face, but if he can just get a footing, if he can just pull himself up, he can make it up out of the water.

it's just that — Ben isn't feeling very connected to his body at the moment, his hands are slipping down this sleek-lacquered banister, which by the way is now beginning to whine lowly under the weight of being pulled, and Ben is aspirating water as he goes. it doesn't look good for him at the moment. )

coolio.

[ascocarp]

[As soon as snow started falling, Ellie dashed inside and started making a safe place, as best she could. The first few times, it disappeared as soon as she left the room, but she found a long loop of twine, tying one end to her stuff inside and taking the spool with her, and that... didn't always work, but it did often enough for her to feel safe leaving.]

[She's gathering chairs that she'll soon make into firewood when she hears the slouching stumble of someone approaching. Stuffing the spool in her pocket, she takes out her switchblade, unsheathing it with an instinctive flick. Creeping low, she stalks over to the source of the noise...]

[And it's that Ben idiot again.] Oh, jeez. [She rushes over to him.] You got your ass kicked again, huh. [It's not a question.]

c

[swordliest]

She's probably right. The low hum at the back of his mind, the nagging sensation of being followed— those are things that he's used to, more so than the persistent, yawning silence of this place. But his instinct has always been to fight first, to turn on the threat, seek it out, and silence it. It's stuck him into a negative feedback loop that's left him edgy and paranoid, more so than usual.

It's the fire that attracted him, having gotten the idea in his head that whatever's following him might have stopped to get its bearings, but once she's close enough to recognize, he stops. She says something, and... right, out here it's garbled.

He holds up one hand, a hopefully universal signal for one second, and stoops to dig through his travel pack. He's yet to meet anyone he's been able to understand or who's been able to understand him, and so he's started hoarding anything that might help: an old moleskine journal with only the front cover, the unprotected back pages wrinkled and damp, which he shoves under his arm; the beepy little rectangle that won't stop beeping at him, which he unceremoniously drops on the ground beside him; and finally, what he's looking for— tiny, chunky plastic walkie talkies clearly made for children, painted in too-bright camo.

He holds one out to her, miming a low underhand toss so that she knows what he's about to do before he, yes, tosses it to her.

[ascocarp]

"Oh, right, your talking thing." She's glad he found a better solution than the radio they were using, because that was fucking cumbersome. She pokes the buttons and chirps- "Ten-four, ten-four, this is Ellie, over."

The walkie-talkie makes a satisfying krshh noise, and Ellie looks up, momentarily cheered, waiting for Carver's answer.

[swordliest]

Confirmation that the walkie-talkies work lifts some of the tension off of him; enough for him to start putting things back, at least. He sinks into a crouch to retrieve his phone from where he dumped it in the dirt, and then just... stays there, hovering a little, not quite sitting and not quite standing, elbows balanced on his knees.

"They work, that's something. Could've gone fifty-fifty on that one." Or worse. He's got backups for a reason. He squints at her a little, incredulous. "What's the numbers mean?"

[ascocarp]

"Oh," Ellie looks up, caught off guard and humored by it. "Uh, it's just what people say to these things in books. I dunno what it means."

She laughs, cradles the device between her knees, and gets back to wrapping up her arm, pulling up the sleeve very carefully. The gash is shallow but bleeding, and needs to be attended to. Really, the bad thing is it's inches away from her bite scar, and she is deeply hesitant to let anyone see that. She gets back to bandaging the cut.

c

[snikthatch]

It's been.. days? Weeks? Logan's used to keeping track of time in unconventional places -- jail cells, giant cages, strapped to a table in a lab, the occasional dank basement while being picked apart by cannibals -- but something about this place is messing with him. Could be the endless night, could be the fact that nowhere looks the same twice. Could just be the low grade adamantium poisoning fever he's been running since he arrived, which hasn't been helped by the fact that winter has decided to come all over the damn place with no warning.

Dark. Cold enough that his breath clouds in front of him. At least he avoided the flood, although hanging from a telephone pole in a blizzard wasn't exactly a day at the park. He closes his fists on the red burn of frostbite that's refusing to fade away on his palms. It itches the deep unsettling itch of slowly healing skin, eating away at his ability to cope. He thought he was used to that feeling. Turns out, not so much.

He's at least got something else to wear besides his uniform: a hoodie that smells like peanuts and has pockets of bits of them, shells crunching under his fingers as he shoves his hands into them. Better than nothing.

The smell of wood smoke guides him through the building he's found himself in. It's undercut with the sharp copper tang of blood and a familiar scent. Teenage hormones and gutsy resolve.

He doesn't bother trying to hide from her. Admires the woodchips as he steps through them, scuffing them back into place as he passes.

She looks up and tells him what he already knows.

"You ain't exactly lookin' so good yourself, kid." He shrugs out of his hoodie, warm from his body heat -- one benefit of running too warm -- and holds it out to her.

[ascocarp]

Upon seeing him, her expression fades into a tired smile, and she slips the knife back into her jeans. She scoffs and shakes her head at the hoodie.

"You're the sick guy, doofus. Keep it. This isn't the worst winter I've seen." Though the thought gives her a little shiver.

The shiver, of course, brings on that sensation of being watched, of a creature behind her. She stills, forgetting her bandage, blood seeping slowly through the inside of her sleeve. Fighting to keep her breathing even, she says, voice quiet, "i-is there something behind me...?"

[snikthatch]

The 'I'm not fine but I'm sure as hell not going to tell you about it' look is so Laura that it makes his heart ache a little. Still, he takes her advice and slips the hoodie back on, though more because it's the easiest way to carry it. Definitely not because he's feeling the cold himself.

Two can play at that stubborn game.

Then fear and blood deep through her bravado, showing a glimpse of the scared kid within.

He's about to open his mouth to let her know there ain't nothin' there besides more darkness when he feels it himself. Something running up his spine, making his psychic hackles bristle.

Being watched. No, worse. Being hunted.

He pops both sets of claws without thinking about it. Sniffs. Nothing there except Ellie herself, plus dust and dirt and the rising water.

But still, that feeling, almost a breath on the back of his neck --

Logan bares his teeth at the shadows, slowly turning his head to peer into the chill gloom.

"Come here, kid. Stick close to me."

[ascocarp]

She likes him, she might come to trust him, but she's not quite there yet. She's had her own experiences with grown men getting too close for comfort. She shakes her head, flinching, and focuses on the fire. "It hasn't attacked yet," she says in a low whisper. "Gotta learn the behavior."

She knows how to fight clickers, stalker, bloaters, all of them. This is something different, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have rules.

The blood on her arm starts to drip. Through the adrenaline, she barely notices.

a.

[ragnarsson]

Ivar's been having the same struggle. The water just keeps rising and there's nothing he can do to escape it. This is how he goes then, the worst way imaginable he can think of to die. It's only by sheer luck he ends up in front of a mirror while trying to move to a higher floor. When he realizes the water flows around it, he finally has a moment's respite. But it's short, for he can hear the sounds of someone struggling greatly.

Looking out, he can see Ellie about to go under in the current. As she goes by, a hand grabs a hold of her wrist in a grip so tight it might have broken it under different circumstances. Whoever is holding onto her is really strong. No surprise there considering he's used his arms to get around most of his life. She nearly tears out of his grasp with how strong the water is flowing, but for once, those cumbersome leg braces work in his favor. They give Ivar a solid center of gravity that allows him to pull on her until she's finally out of the flood.

He stumbles back until he's hauled them both in front of the mirror. He's panting a little from the effort. "Eru yðr allt í lagi?" 'Are you alright?' He asks in a concerned tone.

[ascocarp]

Ellie lands on the dry(ish) ground and begins to choke, spitting up dirty water and shaking. A moment later, she's taking gasping, gulping breaths, trying to fill lungs burning with emptiness. After she's regained enough of herself to be sensible, she looks around and finds... well, she's never seen him before, but his voice sounds familiar. Give her a second; her mind is clouded with fatigue.

She slouches back against the wall, clutching her backpack and shivering with the cold of it. She's alive, she's alive, she thought she'd finally die. It's moments like these she's reminded she wants to live. She's not suicidal, not really, just... sometimes her life seems so pointless.

She looks over to the other guy. The man who just saved her life. "Thanks," she says slowly. "Say- say that again? I didn't get it. S-sorry."

[ragnarsson]

Ivar wipes his hand off on his still-drying pants leg. He listens to her for a few moments, not comprehending a word. Her voice sounds familiar even if he can't understand what she's saying, so he's sure that he's heard her on the network before.

He goes for a guess on who it is. "Ellie?" That's about the only recognizable thing he'll be able to say unless they pull out their walkie-talkies.

riffin on a

[omniavincit]

The first door he tries is wood—waterlogged and so swollen in its frame it won't budge. William yanks once, gathers his strength and yanks again. Then gives it a parting kick. The weather's turned to sleet and soaked him through. The shadows just keep mounting, sprouting new limbs, their edges sharpening.

The second door is glass. Revolving. He sighs when he sees it but plunges in anyway, too tired to say anything when he emerges right where he started.

The third is metal. A trapdoor with a rusty ring he pulls at desperately. It stays stubbornly shut until all at once it yields, water geysering straight into the air. “Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this.” William backpedals. Remembers the shadows and skids around the spray, hoping it'll at least slow them down.

[ascocarp]

It's good that William can swim, because Ellie sure as fuck can't. It's almost gotten her killed several times, and now is no different. She's managed to avoid the current, but only from an old reminder of home. A floating skiff, barely able to stay afloat in the current, for all Ellie's plastered herself down to it, holding on with white-knuckled terror.

She sees someone's head bobbing in the water, and it's fucking sad her first thought is decapitated. But it blinks and coughs and Ellie yells, "watch the fuck out, man!"

[omniavincit]

He'd squeezed his eyes shut when he hit the water and breaks the surface coughing, water up his nose. It takes a second to realize the roaring in his ears is the flood he's now swept up in, not—not what? His own cascading thoughts? His clothes tug him down—he's already lost one boot so he kicks off the other. Coughs some more. He doesn't want to know what's at the bottom—for some reason that frightens him more than anything.

Her voice rings down the hallway that's now a waterway, and before he makes sense of the words he recognizes it—turns toward it. He ducks underwater as the skiff skims overhead, pops up behind it and starts splashing toward her. “Ellie!” Her name's half cough. “Don't—don't—break the mirrors.”

He rolls on his back, struggling to undo his belt. His hands are numb. “Here, I'm gonna...” A wave sloshes over him and he dips back under, clinging to the belt, pulling at it until it's free. When he comes up again he's too tired to do anything but yell “Catch!” and hurl one end of the belt toward her, clinging to the other.