The brambles that cut into her eyes are decaying little things. Bark alike to dried animal skin, peeling and scaled, with parched leaves and dead flowers adorning the vine—its brittleness is misleading, with strength comparable to tempered steel. Soon, it will only grow, and its roots will spread all over her body before consuming it. The bramble vine, in all its half-hearted sentience, particularly enjoys nesting in a prey's eyes to destroy their sight. It is the vine's greatest pleasure to provoke despair.

Leah knew this all fairly well. The bramble wasn't some backlash for her prying, but her requested reward. As a plant rooted in mysticism rather than the untamed world, its properties were only restrained by its symbolism. Thus, when it took away her "sight", it would actually limit her awareness. She would be blind, deaf, mute, anosmic—only her sense of touch would remain.

All would return to silence.

Despite it being part of her plan, Leah remained weary. She was maiming herself. There was an instinctive disquiet, impulsive disgust there. Letting the bramble vine burrow into her body without struggling took as much resolve as asking for it. It was an inferior organism, as vanishingly insignificant as an ant, her new body screamed. It would shackle her. Her body wanted to return to the cosmos, dissolving into the stars, to become part of something much bigger and greater than she could ever be. Everything would have a part of her.

Leah ignored it. Wasn't it just a fancy way of saying she wouldn't exist?

The final moment to regret comes and skips past her.

The dark horizon falls.

Then, there is nothing—only darkness beyond the pitchest black. It was as if everything were erased. As if she was all that was left. As if... There was nothing! Nothing!

<...>

Was she moving? Speaking? Where... were the people?

The bramble couldn't block off everything, so surely she could still bump into things?

Leah came to the abrupt realization that she hadn't come into contact with any humans after her death and ensuing revival. However real her body felt to her, it wasn't actually flesh and blood. Would they just slide through her? Were her senses so impaired that she would never know? The idea made her feel vaguely ill.

Her only respite was how hungry she was.

It was ironic how much Leah's hunger had become a comfort for her. It was the only thing she had left. It was undeniable that Leah had... changed. If all the components of the ship had been replaced, was it still the same ship? Even disregarding the instincts of her new body, the untamed world had already drowned out the deceased little twelve-year-old girl. A sugar child dissolved in water is only sweet. There is no child left.

From a certain standpoint, she stopped existing the moment she tore open the shadow.

<...>

No. The ship was still the same, Leah believed.

To posit the ship as distinct means to imbue it with a human-like identity. If not, change would be insignificant. A ship is a ship; it has neither consciousness nor recognition of change. Only sapient species have an identity which is falsely permanent. Such identities change from bow to stern as time progresses, effectually replacing the ship—yet ownership remains. The soul is the helmsman of the vessel.

She still thought of 'Leah' as herself. That was all that mattered.

Right. Well. She ought to set off.

Shaking off the lingering pains of dissociation, Leah considered her exact position without the benefit of sight. The sheer silence was as ominous as always. At least her memory had improved. Before she implanted the brambles into her eyes, she had been facing the mountains to the east, with the forest and the rising sun far at her back. That was good—she was still in the slums. Judging from the faint whiff of ethanol and general fermentation she felt near the beginning of her whole misadventure, she had been reborn near the Happy House. It was a den of illegal prostitution but its popularity was ensured regardless by being the only tavern outside of city proper.

None of the slumies could afford such indulgences in the winter, of course, but lower class citizens still had the coin to spare.

It did explain why she hadn't run into any humans yet. Most of the Happy House's patrons were hungover, drunk, or cuddling with a whore by now. The tavern itself wouldn't reopen until noon. Only then would the House welcome new guests. It was almost hard to believe the sun still existed in her current state, but. No humans.

No humans meant no real risks. From here, she return to her body.

She could... go home.

If she was honest with herself, she didn't know what she wanted with her return. She was dead. She couldn't pretend to be what she once was, even in the unlikely event that her mother would accept her. Perhaps her deceased body would have some use... She wouldn't know until she tried. It wasn't like she had anywhere else to go.

Slowly, she began to walk. It felt more like floating. It was odd, to not have any weight. She was light enough for the wind to take her alive; now, there was nothing for the wind to catch.

Out of curiosity, Leah dug her toes into the earth—or at least what she thought was the ground—and went jittery with static electricity. Her sense of touch had degraded into interference fields, basically. Marvelous. She couldn't do anything fancy with ground vibrations then. She'd have to be careful or she'd be lost in the darkness. At least that made one mystery solved.

...It was very quiet. Maddeningly silent.

Had she ever known such alienation?

Her thoughts grew quieter as she ventured deeper into the dark. Where before she could think and plan, now she was drifting. Not literally, it was very important that she stayed on the road—yet she was losing something, growing disoriented. Time creeped by leisurely under her sole witness. There was nothing but darkness and static.

It was as if she was being eaten.

Then the static disappeared.

It was gone¹Hint: Unlike the density of earthy soil, snow is composed of 90-95% air. It's very hard to notice if you can't feel temperature. .

Did she fall? Or was it all fake? Just a fever dream, the mere delusions of a dead little girl... Maybe the darkness took her. It was largely irrelevant. Was it? It wasn't just fear, so much as... Well, Leah hardly knew. Words could never express it, that feeling. Not any words that she knew. All that remained was the crowded emptiness of a world and a girl left behind; the lucidity of a mind gone quiet, so far from life and light that they could only be a summer night's dream; and a single soul swallowed by a darkness it could not pierce.

Leah screamed without a sound.

<...........>

Ravenous hunger flared up as her mind nearly fell into chaos. Leah deliriously focused on her hunger once again. Right. She was alright. She had forgotten that inactionable desire—its acidic touch, how overwhelmingly human it was. It wasn't a dream. It couldn't be. She was fine. It was okay. Static or no, she could make it.

Soon, she would be home.

All she had to do was walk.