[People talk about staring death in the face as though to do so is to experience a moment of absolute clarity. It's a half truth. The world does narrow down to a pinprick, to a fraction, to the point of an arrow. All that there is is this, here and now. There's still a point at which the animal body takes over, at which essential details are lost in the blur of fear, in the flight of the rabbit heart.

The OA has died with her eyes open. That she knows what to expect is what gives her the presence to listen, to allow her gaze to flick between the point of the nocked arrow and Sera's face as she talks, to notice the shudder and that razor's-edge, giddy wobble between panic and power.

Her hands are up, palms forward, empty and reddened with cold. The toe tag she'd awakened wearing dangles from one forefinger.]

Okay.

[Her voice is steady in spite of the pounding of her heart, soft and serious. Don't placate, acquiesce. Accept. Okay.]

I woke up in this place. This... hospital; I don't know. I don't know how I got here. I don't know why I'm here. I don't even know where here is.

[She enumerates what she doesn't know slowly, gaze fixed on the arrow, on Sera's fingers curled about the grip of the bow just beneath it. In another life, she'd drawn a bow too, albeit in happier circumstances. She remembers her father -- Nina's father? -- watchful and still, surveying her as she took aim at the target.

What she remembers most was the weight. How long can cold fingers keep their grip?

Grim earnestness and urgency both furrow her brow as she forces her gaze away from the arrow and sends it instead to meet Sera's own.]

I do know I'm afraid. I know I'm lost, and I think you might be lost too.

[She inclines her head, nodding back down the hallway in the direction she'd come.]

Aren't you cold? There's a laundry room down there. There was more clothing.

[A beat. Show you're sincere.]

I can go first. Would that help?