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We wait A woman opens her mouth to speak, but I quell her with a look We’re all listening to the silence Wondering if anyone still lives on the other side of the door

If Elder survived

Soainst the door A woman behind me screams, and a ain—not with the force of a tornado, like before, but instead with a rattle and shake

Fingers pop out at the door edges

“They’re alive!” shouts the saers into the open crack Together we strain against the ed door open The doorives way

I see the blood on hi his dark skin red Sweatto his forehead His arers through

“Elder,” I whisper My voice cracks in theain It wasn’t until I saw his body on

the hatch floor yesterday that I realized how much I cared about his

A part ofback from him since I first started to see how devoted he was to me That part of me ords into my soul, words like doubt and can’t trust and lust and not worth it All those words break, all at once, like strings ripped from torn cloth

Now, though, staring at his grief-stricken face, I don’t think ords at all

Beyond hi each other up They cry in joy for those who lived and begin to e door

But I’ atelse disappears

My hands are shaking My legs are too—in fact, I’ all over I want to rush to him, but I can’t Instead, he’s the one who h he’s li?) and wraps his ar th when I don’t seem to have any more of my own

“Oh, God, Elder,” I mutter into his chest, and it’s not ot

He strokes ly The world continues around us—people rushing into or out of the Engine Room, more cries, more reunions—but we are a silent stalwart amid the chaos