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[originallutece]

Rosalind Lutece

Doctor of physics, professor at Recollé University.

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9/5, 2 am

[erythristic]

keep dreaming about myself, and i fear maybe i'll lose my dreams entirely to memories.

[originallutece]

[Oh, that's . . . worrying. More than a little worrying, to say the least, and she knows she probably wasn't the intended target, but nor can she simply ignore it.]

Are they invading your dreams so often?

[erythristic]

[there's a pause, and a heavy sigh on Grell's end, before she decides that she'll reply.]

often enough, mixed with the events that have happened to us all. sometimes i wake and have to remind myself where i am.

i'm sorry to disturb you.

[originallutece]

It was hardly a disturbance.

I can't imagine it's been easy as of late to separate fiction and reality. Though I do hope there aren't any video game monsters in your dreams.

[erythristic]

no, thankfully. if there are monsters, they're ones i somewhat know. i find myself caught up in the same mysteries - i miss getting to be baffled by my dreams.

[originallutece]

I know the feeling.

[She hesitates, but, well, Grell can refuse if she wants to.]

What do the dreams consist of?

[erythristic]

the ocean, the dying, sometimes some faces that i don't have names for. it's all very morbid. the gothic poets would have a field day.

[originallutece]

How many of the dying have you seen?

[erythristic]

i work with the dead, rosalind. you might have to be a little more specific.

[originallutece]

[That gets a flat look.]

I quite obviously meant in your dreams, Grell. I'd be worried if my other self had been seeing so many of the dying-- not the dead, but the dying, and I assume there's a distinction.

[erythristic]

sometimes you remember people dying. it happens. i'm not very worried about it - perhaps i'm just desensitized due to everything i've seen now.

[originallutece]

[She's not so sure she believes that, frankly.]

I suppose.

[Hm. Another pause, and then, abruptly--]

Then perhaps you can help me solve a problem of my own, given you're desensitized to death.

What would you recommend to someone who had witnessed their own death, alongside the death of their beloved?

[erythristic]

[a long pause, here, because Grell doesn't know quite how to handle that. it's much like when she saw the dying man in his bed, clipped memories - and this self felt a stranger in their own skin.]

what did you feel, in that remembrance? oftentimes people don't pay attention to how they felt.

[originallutece]

All the usual emotions one might expect when seeing someone they love die: horror, grief, terror, so on and so forth.

[It's so much easier to do this over text, where she can pretend to be aloof and unaffected. It's so much easier to write this knowing she's saying it to try and offer Grell a silent assurance of: you aren't the only one torn up over their memories.]

Nothing for myself, though. But that isn't so surprising.

[erythristic]

why not surprising? do you not fear death?

[originallutece]

I do. My counterpart doesn't.

She doesn't feel much of anything, really.

[erythristic]

she doesn't? is she jaded towards the world?

[originallutece]

Not jaded. Indifferent, I think, save for one man.

[erythristic]

and he was the one who died with you.

[originallutece]

Correct.

Beyond that, though . . . I don't think she cared a bit about other people.

Desensitized, perhaps.

[erythristic]

she sounds like the sort of woman you'd need to meet to understand.

but on the subject of your own death, the best i can give is that you died with your beloved, instead of having to live and grieve without them there, that though the pain fills you, in death you could remain together. take solace in the fact that now, you are alive - look to all the small things that fill up your life, from the feeling of waking up to the satisfied exhaustion after a good day, and know you get to experience them again.

[originallutece]

[. . .]

And is that the advice you give yourself, when you see the dead in your dreams? That you know you're alive now, and that your life is full of a joy your dreams don't contain?

[erythristic]

i take my own pulse and breathe deep until i'm back to a resting heart rate as a form of self soothing. interpret that as you will.

[originallutece]

A much more sensible way of returning to reality than some of the methods I've been prescribed.

[There's another little pause. If texts can sound stiff, this does, but that doesn't mean it's not genuine.]

I keep odd hours, as I suspect you do. But if you wake from one of these nightmares again and wish to either speak of it or of nothing at all, I hope you know I'd be more than willing to chat with you.

[erythristic]

that's much appreciated, rosalind. please know that the same offer extends to myself, for i will certainly pick up the phone for a friend who needs me.