Their destroyed nerves and pain sensors have returned as well. They can feel potent new blood revitalizing every single organ that ruptured during their transformation.
Ajax and Shaula immediately stand up off the ground while feeling elated, their minds clearer than they have ever been. The pain they have just undergone, the worst pain in their entire lives so far, is already a distant memory. They look at their clothes and it is reality that they are still drenched in their blood and vomit.
However, they feel no open wounds on their bodies right now. All Ajax can do right now is sit down on his bloodied chair. He looks at Shaula. She has a smile, a smile that tells him that she is just happy to be alive in this state of exhilaration past all of that horrifying pain.
It looks completely odd to Christa who doesn’t understand at all why they’re smiling after having gone through all of that.
For a brief moment, the two of them feel happiness in this world. It is their last moment of happiness in this world.
Something clicks.
Ajax tries to speak what he has just learned, but he cannot. He tries to deny it, he tries desperately. But he has been shown only the truth at this moment. The truth. Tears well up in his eyes. Shaula holds herself in an attempt not to fall apart at what she comprehends now as well.
She looks at Ajax who has started to cry silently. She knows what he is feeling. Something they feel in the depths of their bottomless souls.
Shaula can feel a part of herself speaking to her. A part of her mind that she has never been aware of, one that she has never had control over or understanding towards. But, it is a part of her core, of that she is certain, she can only be certain. This part of her mind, her very soul, is telling her that the two of them are leaving this place.
They aren’t going to be able to see home again. This is why Ajax has started to cry. It is all he can do at what he understands to be an incomparably bizarre state of affairs. His destiny that he has never been able to see has been partially revealed to him.
A small, yet certain, unchangeable piece of it. If he could, he’d give it up, that power that he understands is a part of his being; the ability to leave this world that is his alone.
“Ms. Rowfield…” He calls out to Christa in dejection. She, who has been silent for a long time while trying to understand what she has seen until this moment, responds.
“Y-Yes, Ajax?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Rowfield, but… could you… could you tell my family something?” Tears flow down his cheeks.
“What is it, Ajax? What’s going on? I-I don’t understand, y-you seem fine? Why are you suddenly–”
“Ms. Rowfield.” Shaula, understanding a little about what Ajax wants to say, knowing full well that their departure is near, stops Christa from interrupting him. Tears are streaming down her cheeks as well.
“...” Christa understands and becomes silent.
“Just… tell my family. Tell them that I… I didn’t want to go.” Ajax sobs, his face in his hands.
“Wait, no. What are–”
Ajax feels his body undergoing its traversal through space. He looks over at Shaula as he starts to cry once again. Streams of tears pour from his face as Christa watches his body freeze as if time has stopped, while changing color.
Currently, his body is undergoing a process of red-shifting, a sign of its journey through the singularity space. Ajax’s hands turn to dust that expands outwards into a cloud. His arms and legs follow suit. Shaula is also frozen in time, staring at Ajax as she herself disintegrates.
As if she were Lot's wife who turns into a pillar of salt for disobeying God and looking back, Shaula’s body slowly turns to dust. As their heads disappear, for a brief moment, there are two spots of light floating in midair where their heads had just been.
For a few seconds the light lingers before vanishing.
