/////////// [DISCONTINUITY] ///////////

...

What? 

I thought ... 

I'm thinking!

Am I not dead?

Odvin, is in fact thinking.

Partly about not being dead - but also about how everything feels awful. 

Really, a few seconds ago they were on a platform clutching a wound in their belly, feeling their heart hammer like an out of control factory machine... Feeling a cold void swallowing up their torso, until the throbbing was just a pulsing thrum in the ear canal... 

And then, their vision was a rapidly closing tunnel... 

Now, they have a body again, instead of a hollow void - they are very aware of this because their face is shoved into freezing slush.

Well, they can move to solve that and also simultaneously wonder 'what in the surprise frozen piss is going on here.' * 

Arms under torso > hands flat in the gritty muck > curl the tips of fingers for grip > steady pressure up > hook an ankle up to perpendicular with standing center-of-mass > rotate torso while arching the spine... 

Now, in a crouch, find a section of the overcoat that's clean enough to wipe off eyes... This does not seem like a good situation to leave the optical equipment in a state of cold, wet, gritty disrepair. 

Huh. It was not this dark out before Odvin... Died? 

* Note:

Origin's humans use primate "expletive-generating" brain-areas to emit vocalizations for the purpose of describing & succinctly communicating specific misfortunes. 

This is analogous in many ways to their furry tree-dwelling simian cousins making a screech to warn of a swooping raptor, or a different screech to warn of a prowling feline.

The humans play the same game, using intonations and diction to hit the same sort brain-areas, but the semantic content is meant to point to something real and useful. 

Origin would look on with pity on a human culture which uses the same 3-5 words for swearing in nearly every situation.

After all, even monkeys have distinct vocalizations for "Ah! Scary predatory bird sighted!" and "Ah! There's a big predatory cat nearby!" So, if you just say "holy fucking shit!" both when you stub your toe and when you see a velociraptor... well, then what was the point of all that selection on language-skills and general intelligence?

The delightfully offensive quality of obscenities on Origin comes from the way expletives tend to be hyperbole or otherwise misleading - not because Origin has any tendency to arbitrarily label specific words as "crass" or "rude."

While desperately trying to prevent everyone from dying, The Organization, serious - somber - clandestine, had a bit of a habit of using the phrase "itchy bowels" - because sometimes there's a terrible problem you wish you could solve, but you can't get to it without ending up with bloody hands... And you'd probably make a lot of things worse along the way. 

... Eyelids still feel stiff, Odvin's face is cold, as if they had  been laying in this snow for longer than |• beats...

But they can see now, a bit. It is deep into the night, and there is a very minimal glow from some shapes that... Something like buildings, but strange silhouettes and shadows. Firelight? 

Looking up, there's no sign of stars or the reflection of the star from the natural satellite... 

Where is this place? 

Odvin is extremely disoriented, and in these few beats the disorientation is not getting any better.

Their mind feels like a small bird that stumbled into a spiderweb, thrashing and spinning around, unable to orient and move confidently with what entrained patterns of coordination it has...

Time to go back to basics, check whether they're even processing stimuli correctly. 

Right, feet seem stable, dug into this snow/ice/gravel surface, slight shifting of muscles in the calves generates the expected sounds. 

Proprioception seems stable. The sensation of clothing has remained stable since the events in the forest... Overcoat, leg coverings, underclothes, shoes... 

Time to return to the visual field - the previous quick glance around and upwards with squinted eyes was not really sufficient to test whether visual processing is actually working. 

Now, deliberately widened eyes, let in as much light as possible - where was that shadow of a building and the glow of light? 

There.

Okay. Yes. That is a building. With something like a wall in front of it, maybe ten strides away. The glow... Is that behind a thin semi-transparent membrane? Like some sort of paper? 

Hard to tell - the specific objects in view are confusing, but the features appear to be static in the perceptual speed of human sight. The shadows cast by objects obstructing the glow seemed to be in the same pattern even after a quick saccade checked how far away from the light source the illumination extended. 

And in the other direction, behind Odvin? 

Shift around, lifting one shoe to apply lighter pressure, minimize noise while still in unfamiliar territory. No need to throw away the optionality of being undetected, not immediately and without conscious decision. 

Huh... Some more light visible in that direction, but far more distant. Diffuse, like... This is a small dark township or settlement of some kind? Some sort of research outpost, concerned with absolute minimum visibility? 

.... If this is an outpost of The Organization, Odvin is very surprised they have not been rendered unconscious by a tranquilizer dart already. Surely there would be passive sensor overwatch and a quick response force... 

They are, in fact, less confused than a moment ago, but sometimes becoming less confused does not actually feel like being more certain about what is going on.

They now know more facts than just "it feels cold and wet here" - they are more sure of the reality of their sensory impressions - they remain absolutely baffled by where they are, why they are here, and what to expect in the coming runs and marks and spans...