With the men gone, she turns her gaze to the ceiling. Her arms begin to tremble. Her bottom lip quivers. Only now that she has let her guard down does the severity of it all come crashing into her. The concussive wave from the explosion, the fear that had enveloped her, the pain that had wrapped itself around her entire body just before her world had gone black. All of it comes rushing back into her in a tsunami of sensation. She closes her eyes, but that just makes her see it all more clearly. The wood paneling of the desk in front of her, the scuff marks of boots on the tiled floor, the spiderweb in the arch above a hallway, the face of the desk attendant in that moment when he was just starting to come out of his boredom. Then bedlam.

Suddenly, she’s a little girl again. A refugee child in a new, faraway place, a glistening white Space Colony where she knows no one and the only thing she wants is to see her sister, Onyii, again. Tears stream down the sides of her face. She grips the bedsheet in her fists. This feeling she’s kept at bay for so long, smothered and bottled up and stored in a dark corner of her mind, out of sight, out of reach, it’s all back, and she lets herself swim in it because she knows that she can only build a wall so high. Eventually, the floodwaters will beat her and break the dam. She finds small comfort in the fact that she was able to hold out until the men left before shock from the attack melted away.

The sobs slow and become softer. She sniffles. A mechanical arm from above descends, holding a bouquet of wipes, and she cleans her face, then tosses the tissues into a wastebucket that rises from the floor next to her.

The door swings open, and a blur of white rushes to Ify’s bedside, burying her face in Ify’s bedsheets. “Ify, I found you!” says the muffled voice. Grace’s voice. “Thank God.” When Grace breaks away, Ify sees tears and snot over Grace’s face, and the mechanical arm descends from above Ify’s head to dangle wipes between them, insistent. To which both Ify and Grace laugh.

Grace cleans her face but keeps her body close to Ify’s, as though to let any more distance come between them is to risk separation like the one they just endured. “I saw from the car. I saw you walk in. Then, when it seemed like you were taking a long time, the guards went in after you. Then the explosion, and . . .”