The end of the tunnel appears up ahead. “Doesn’t it… get to you? Affect you?” She gives a rueful smile. Shrugs. “When you were a child, did you ever cry because you’d scraped your knee and saw you were bleeding?” “Of course.” “But now?” I process the meaning behind her words in silence, then, “It’s not the same thing.” She touches glyphs around the entrance in practiced order. “It’s not so different, either.”
