Chanting, [ she repeats, soft, without inflection.

briefly, she feels that she wants to scream. or cry. or curl up anywhere at all and press her hands to her ears and pray that when she opened her eyes again she’d be home.

these are silly dreams, and she does not indulge them. but for a moment, her fear and her longing shiver in the murmur. ]

… I saw a creature that … I’m not even sure I could call it a moose. It had too many legs. And it was scaling a wall. A vertical wall.