1.0 : Warmth

The warmth was utterly unprecedented, really. It started at the bone, which didn't make a lick of sense anyway. Speaking of licking, that's what the flames of warmth seemed to do from there, licking outwards from the bones, tasting of the veins without shame. The flesh followed, the dramatics of the sensation entirely internalized. The warmth was not so hot as to burn at all, let alone feel like flames at all. It was hardly a wonder at all, except that it had been so long since her hands had really been anything but utterly numb. It was terribly alarming. Not alarming. Wrong 'a' word. Amazing. Astounding. Ameliorating. Airline-o-rific. Not the last one either.

Cracking her knuckles experimentally, Shaen relaxed back into her chair, examining the world with eyes so unaccustomed to seeing things as they were that everything was fuzzy. That wasn't true at all, actually. The young woman had never been able to see properly without corrective lenses, that's why everything was softened. It had nothing to do with being crippled so long by the screen that had been so close to her eyes. Maybe it did. She didn't have enough evidence to strongly support either the hypothesis or the contradiction to it to make any real claims. But she felt that it was the time spent viewing through presentations and reports that had made her so blind.

Feeling as if she were resting her hands on the warm hearth of some ancient inn's fireplace, the thought that perhaps, she wasn't going to put the contraption back on her hand, struck her rather solidly, all things considered. The longer she thought about that, the more time it would give the Company to notice that she was taking more than the required time to switch hands and get back to work. Actually, all things considered, someone would likely be bursting through her office door any moment to check on her, under the premise that she had not answered the call moments ago.

It was too late now though. Shaen had remembered that she was dying. And with that memory, she could no longer remain locked in anyway. They had the ability to detect that sort of thing, and it was a higher betrayal to remain in her post with the knowledge of incoming death than to escape without warning.

Escape without warning? Even as the phrase from the Company's Policy Book presented itself in the appropriate font style and size to her mind's eye, a smirk crossed the pale lips that had drawn thin at the initial realization that the fantasy was over again.

This was not the first time she had realized she was dying, and now that she was moving again, she was remembering that the warmth that lived in her fingers now once lived in all of her. It had once lived in her, and when it did, that was when she had lived the most of all, and staved off death better than any other time. It was time to get out of here.

WC: 504