[ The high of the Pattern's embrace, lifting her away and pulling her into its vision, its reality of endless happiness, came to a crashing halt some time ago, and now Kate is in a nightmare. Did the Pattern lie to her? Was Stephen right? Should she have gone out with him to help stop its spread? Or did she simply fall, a piece of the Pattern herself now since it twined herself into her blood and muscles and bones? Did it set her off to do its work too?
The thoughts haunting Kate are set aside when the water begins to rise.
She's pretty strong, but nobody just becomes a skilled mountain climber on demand. Kate does as well as she can and is doing okay, but the water is faster. Part of her wants to give up and see if she can't just reemerge into the Pattern, but the rest of her is afraid that it's looking for her and needs to find her alive.
So she fights, claws her way up, pushes herself as hard as she can, telling herself she has liquid light in her veins now and is so much stronger than she used to be—
And then a woman holds out her hand to her.
Kate takes it, and uses that and a burst of renewed strength to climb up to temporary rest beside the stranger. She leans forward, breathing heavily, shaking her head. ]
water rising
The thoughts haunting Kate are set aside when the water begins to rise.
She's pretty strong, but nobody just becomes a skilled mountain climber on demand. Kate does as well as she can and is doing okay, but the water is faster. Part of her wants to give up and see if she can't just reemerge into the Pattern, but the rest of her is afraid that it's looking for her and needs to find her alive.
So she fights, claws her way up, pushes herself as hard as she can, telling herself she has liquid light in her veins now and is so much stronger than she used to be—
And then a woman holds out her hand to her.
Kate takes it, and uses that and a burst of renewed strength to climb up to temporary rest beside the stranger. She leans forward, breathing heavily, shaking her head. ]
We have to keep going. We can't die here.
[ They have to keep fighting. ]