Pen hears something whirring above herself in-between her sobs. The sound stems from the glass-bauble as they begin to move, as Tango walks a few steps towards the side. Neither of them say anything. The heat of the space encapsulates her no-longer numb body, bringing an unwelcome sensation of feelings to the raw skin of her feet and mangled legs, which drip now anew with fresh blood. It seeps down the seat and drips towards the crystal below her seat.

 

“Hold on,” says Tango as they lurch. Through wet eyes, she sees as his metal fist raises into the air and then a moment later slams down into the round circle of ice that was outside of the house. There is a great shattering, as the metal hand cracks through the surface like a fist breaking a mirror. He leaves his hand there. A window appears and then vanishes a second later again before she can see it. Pen watches through wet eyes as the sheet of ice cracks, splinters flying off with violent force in all manner of odd directions.

 

- And then it slowly starts to dissipate.

 

The sheet of ice slowly seems to fade away. It simply vanishes. The water it leaves behind is clear and begins to swish around and then, a moment later, it begins to bubble.

 

Pen watches in confused fascination, as if she were now staring at a giant pot of boiling water.

 

“W-what are you doing?” she asks.

 

“Your injuries are going to get infected if you don’t clean them out,” replies Tango.

 

Pen realizes what he’s saying. He wants her to get out again. She doesn’t want to go out again. It hurts to be outside. She huddled herself back together. “No,” she says plainly and closes her eyes. “I don’t care.” Besides, she found some things. A jacket. A box. She bets he wants to steal them for himself, together with her crystal. That’s obviously why he wants her to get out. So he can take it all for himself. But she’s not going to fall for it.

 

“Did you open the box yet?”

 

Her eyes shoot open again and she looks towards it, towards her prize. She had forgotten. Meekly, she reaches over and pulls it into her lap. The box isn’t cold anymore, but cool enough to bother her as it touches her bare skin. It has a small latch on the front that she easily opens, a small pebble that was jammed inside falling down below somewhere into a crevice.

 

Lifting the lid of the rectangular box, she looks inside, not sure what she’s looking at. Silver sachets, small, thin and rectangular, line the inside of the box. All of them are neatly arranged in a row, perfectly fitting inside of the container. She rubs her face.

 

“What’s this?” She lifts the box up towards the glass eye above her.

 

“That’s food. Told you there was probably some here,” explains Tango. As soon as the word ‘food’ is uttered, the box is already back in her lap and one of the packets is torn out from the line-up. She looks at it hungrily, greedily. She’s famished, starving. Is this good to eat? It’s ancient, it couldn’t be. Does she care? Pen feels like she’s at a point where she would eat this no matter how old it is, honestly. Her eyes go wide. Food. Food.

 

- …Food?

 

She twists the odd metallic square around, trying to look at it. Warily, she holds it up to the eye again. “How do I eat this?”

 

“Wash your legs and I’ll tell you.”

 

Pen narrows her eyes. “No.” She isn’t going to go outside again.

 

“What if I told you that you need hot water to make it edible?”

 

Her sore hand has already gripped the hatch behind herself before he finishes, the skin prickling as she presses down on it. Hesitating for a second, she twists it open, her drive to eat stronger now than anything she had felt before. She looks outside.

 

“Turn around,” commands Pen.

 

“No,” replies Tango.

 

Pen winces. “...Turn around… please?”

 

Tango turns around and she faces the pool of water behind them. With a swing, she throws the single foil packet into the steaming circular pool and watches as it floats there. Proud of herself, she begins to close the hatch again to wait for it to get hot, as the cold air begins to nip at her.

 

“I wouldn’t do that,” says Tango.

 

“Why not?” she asks suspiciously.

 

“Because there’s a slight current in that hot-spring and your food is going to be carried away if you don’t hold on to it,” he explains, shrugging. Pen’s eyes shoot open wide in terror and she shoves the hatch back open. It’s true. She sees the little silver sachet drifting away, sinking a little deeper every second beneath the hot water. The underground channel of water that had been blocked by the ice before is now freely flowing again. Pen yelps and grits her teeth as she clambers out of the back of the bot as if her life depends on it. In a sense it does. She needs to eat. She needs food. She won’t let it get away, not like the crystal before. She won’t lose a life-line ever again.

 

As her bare feet hit the stones now a second time, her legs finally give out and Pen barrels over forward, her palms slapping against the stones, as the feeling of a lurch of bile shoots up her gut from the intensity of the fresh, white-hot pain. A deep nausea sets in. She crawls forward, ignoring it, and reaches the edge of the pool. It’s steaming. She places a hand above it. It isn’t boiling anymore, all of that hot water had already been carried away by the current. But it is warm. More than warm, actually. But it’s not deadly hot. In contrast with the icy air that surrounds her body however, it’s like magma.

 

The silver packet sinks beneath the water. Pen lets out a terrified cry and without thinking further, dives in after it. She hits the water.

 

Nothing comes out of her mouth except for bubbles, as the hot water covers her. Her skin prickles all over, her legs flare with an intensity that she’s never felt before. She spasms, vomiting somehow after all. It is carried away by the current and she lurches forward beneath the hot water, the glint of silver still in her eye remaining her primary focus. It hurts. Food.

 

- She can’t swim.

 

Sinking like a rock, Pen grabs the little sachet and clambers up along the side of the wall. It’s shallower near the edges, enough for her to climb up a bit and to pull her head out of the wet. Blood rushes to her face. Her hand clutches her prize tightly, deathly.

 

Pen leans over the edge of the pool, heaving and spewing out a mixture of water and stomach bile, while taking in the icy air around herself. Her body screams, her fingers clench down on the sachet, squeezing it tight. She saved it. She saved this one. Pen opens her eyes to look at it. She did it. She saved it. She did it.

 

Her skin still prickles and burns all over her body, but not from the severe heat. Rather from the sensation of blood shooting to her outer layers now in a shock reaction to the sudden contrast of her body temperature to the hot water. She looks at the thing in her hand. She’s hungry. How does this work? How is this supposed to be food? Not willing to let go of the little thing with either hand, she rubs her face against her shoulder to get the strand of wet hair out of her eyes, so that she could better see her treasure. This is hers. Hers. This is her thing.

 

She stares at it, confused.

 

“You need to open it.”

 

Pen turns her head to look towards the voice. Tango stands there watching her. Open it? Her head turns back towards the sachet and her skeletal fingers grab the top of the thing. How did this open?

 

“Tear it,” says the voice. “Grab the top and tear it sideways.”

 

She does as he says, a piece of the silver foil comes off, ripping with a satisfying smoothness along a dotted pattern that someone had drawn onto the package. She hadn’t noticed before, but whoever wrote on this had perfect handwriting. Not that she can read. But it’s still optically impressive how every single symbol is made in exactly the same size and pattern. It’s like the text-filled window inside of Tango, but this is ‘real’. Most importantly, it's hers.

 

Inside is a mixture of a strange, brown powder and a small yellow box. Pen’s eyes sink in disappointment. It’s dust.

 

“It’s not good anymore,” she tells Tango, defeated, her head laid down on the bricks. At least the hot water feels nice now. Even if her legs still hurt so badly.

 

“No, it’s fine. Take the little yellow thing out first and then add some of the water,” explains Tango. “But ah… try not to get any with your blood in i-“ Pen is already fast at work, the little yellow box set to the side, she scoops in meager amounts of the hot water with an open, dirty palm into the sachet. Before looking at it again, still disappointed. It looks worse now.

 

“You gotta close it, see the top there? That little thing inside? Squeeze it shut and then shake it a little.”

 

Well, what does she have left to lose, thinks Pen, before doing as he instructed. As she shakes the little bag, she notices that its contents slosh around less and less with every shake. Curious now, she looks inside again.

 

It still looks terrible.

 

“- Yeah, I know,” says Tango, as if reading her mind, perhaps through her constantly ever-worsening expression of depression. “You can eat it, but it tastes as bad as it looks.”

 

Pen doesn't care. She smells it, it smells like… she isn’t sure actually. It is a vague brownish-tan mixture, with a thick, grainy texture that reminds her of gruel. She dips a finger inside and licks it, flinching as she does so. It tastes awful. It was like… like a piece of old wood that had been shredded into a fine powder. She reaches in again, now with two fingers to take a bigger scoop and eats that as well, shutting her eyes.

 

The sensation of eating the hot food however is too overpowering, absolutely too alluring to resist. It doesn't matter what it tastes like. It falls into her stomach like a rock and she keeps shoveling in more of the strange slop with her hand, forgoing any sense of caution and manners now.

 

Food. How many days has it been? She doesn’t even remember. Food. She wolfs down as much as she can, as fast as she can. The voice speaking beside her, telling her to slow down is lost entirely. It doesn’t even enter her perceptions. All she sees is the glint of the silver sachet and the strange mixture that’s inside of it.

 

The hurt of her body, the warmth of the water, the nausea, the aches, the suffering, the crying; everything now means nothing in the face of this newest sensation. As if a switch had been flicked, her mind is singularly focused on this one thing alone – Eating. Eating as much as she can, as fast as she can before anyone can take it from her. 

 

Something wet runs down her face. She’s crying. Pen rubs her eyes on her soaked upper arm, realizing only now that she still had the jacket on, but then continues eating. Soon enough though, the little bag is empty. She dunks it beneath the water for just a second to fill it up once more and gently shakes it without closing it, swaying it from side to side. Then, closing her eyes, she leans back and drinks the last of the mixture. The hot food and the hot water mix inside of her heating body, giving her a sensation of absolute inner warmth that she hadn’t known was possible. It tastes awful.

 

Pen shakes the empty bag, getting out every last drop before setting it down on the stones and admiring the little thing.

 

It’s beautiful. The water shimmers off of its surface, reflecting gleaming sparkles from Tango’s light. Her eyes shine with the same wet glistening as she stares at the little thing. It’s like a crystal. It’s wealth. Food is wealth. It fills her with joy.