The hollowness of the pyrrhic triumph had become a home for Reuben. He performed Haven's routine with the detached rigidity of a machine, his humanity a resource as drained as the DP he expended on a doomed struggle. The progress of the Ghost Fever was a dark, creeping inevitability, a tide he could only watch and stand behind, unable to check. The world's joy was a curious, distant fair by the shores of a drowning city.
It was on a rain-swept afternoon when his own spirit's hue matched the battle-dyed grey of the sky that the unimaginable happened.
Liam's voice boomed from the intercom, bereft of its usual professional poise, speckled with something akin to awe. "Reuben… you need to make it to the front door. Right now."
There was an air of urgency not connected to an epidemic. Grumbli
