The writer gives life to a story, the reader keeps it alive.
Whilst Anya was unconscious, Inajda had retrieved all that she needed from her ex hideout, aware that she could never use it again, and that the Amanojuko should not have access to it or know it existed. She had planted a series of invisible bombs around the edges of her old apartment complex and she, Alexand and their rescued ex Haernyara, retreat to the safety of the adjacent street.
The submarine docks somewhere at the base of the arctic ocean. They have reached the Prison of Souls. Inajda hears a hatch opening.
Alexand’s condition is rapidly deteriorating. The nature of her illness is cyclical, and degenerative, and her doctor has given her the maximum dose of Katherine’s inhibitor, to try to stabilise her.
Future Katherine takes Inajda to Nan Ha, to be with a very ill Alexand. Katherine watches from the trees, as Inajda makes her way down into the village, towards her brother’s house. Inajda turns around just in time to see Katherine dematerialise back to her future world.
Inajda wakes up, after being ambushed by a future version of Katherine De Somme. (Read Afterlife Part 3) Her version of Katherine is not in the shack, and as Inajda hunts around, she begins to remember things, previously wiped from her memory, like the death of Farokh, and Alex’s decline.
Alexand and the rest of the resistance have settled in a cave in the mountains of Southern Russia. Alexand has scanned the area; there are no inhabitants for hundreds of miles. Inajda has illuminated a map on the far cave wall, showing the topography for two hundred square miles. She scrolls through the map, until she reaches the nearest settlement.
Inajda doesn’t need to scan the grave to realise what has happened.
