The stranger is gone, but the stranger remains.

When Hubert steps back inside the small room they share, his face is visibly red. Besides Clara and Mickey, no one can be quite sure if the blush is from the cold or incurred in wrath. It would, unfortunately, be the later.

"Is that girl, is she..." he trails off for a second, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Is she asleep?"

"Why?" Maverick asks, as Clara is already heading over to check on Ivy. He watches as Clara tucks a strand out of Ivy's face and lowers herself above Ivy.

Clara nods to Maverick. "Unless she is pretending."

Ivy is not pretending. She dreams of a world which she wants to experience but can't. Of the forest, vast and foreign, more used than cared for. She dreams of the water, batting against the shore, slowly wearing down the Earth. The two are in a constant battle, in her imagination. They pry at each other, pollute each other. It's hard to tell which she wants to trust.

The ocean promises salvation, but it brought her here. Opposite the water is the forest, which beckons her but delivers nothing but rot. There is something between them, adjacent to the nine strangers, that tries its best to escape their grapples.

Unfortunately, because she sleeps, she is oblivious.

"We need to take care of her," Hubert says. "Before you have the whole town come to kill you."

Clara stands up. She breathes in and breathes out, her exhale louder than the crackling fire in the corner. "Excuse me?"

"You can't just say bullshit without explaining it," Mickey wraps his fist around the door handle, ready to swing it open and push out Hubert. Honestly, he's had it up to here (I would put here somewhere above his Adam's apple, so that he is forced to tip his head up to the sky and try to swallow air as the ocean tries to consume him) with Hubert.

Bev raises her eyebrow, confused. She is exhausted from running around all day and frustrated with the lack of clarity in the room. "What exactly is going on? Are you suggesting we end Ivy's life?"

"If we are going to take care of her, we should use the gun," Alvaro says. Flo shoots him a glance, furrowing her brow tightly. "What? Would you rather we smother her with a fucking pillow? Or would it be more humane to watch the girl drown in her own lungs?"

"First of all, bury the gun," Maverick says. "Second of all, she's not going to die for certain."

"The girl is obviously going to die of her illness," Tim mouths the words, not really aware that he is speaking aloud. In fact, he's not really aware of anything. Even in the dim lighting of the fire, Flo can tell that his lips are turning blue. After all, sinking in water in early spring is a very cold experience.

Mickey snaps his head over to Tim. "This is why I think you're a piece of shit."

"If we move quickly, I can have her stay in my other room," Hubert says, ignoring Mickey's outburst. He moves over to the door, wrapping his hand around the door handle, on top of Mickey's, before he looks down at realizes they are in contact. He recoils.

"She's not going anywhere," Mickey finds himself slamming the door shut now that it is what Hubert wants.

Hubert wishes that Mickey wasn't so difficult. It isn't his first time dealing with someone so confrontational, but he is sure it won't be his last. The thought makes Hubert burst out laughing.

Though he wants to hit Hubert, Mickey instead looks to Clara. He looks at her soft jaw, agape, her green eyes wide. Instead of shoving Hubert, he stumbles backwards.

"I don't think this is... this isn't funny in the slightest," Flo finally sits up, pulling herself away from Adwin and readjusting her hair. She looks at her nails, pretending her leg isn't shaking.

Even Beverly is slightly uncomfortable with Hubert's laughter. She doesn't really know Ivy, but the girl seems pleasant enough from their brief interactions that her death is anything but a joyous occasion.

Hubert laughs so hard he cries. He wipes his eyes away. "Sorry, it's just you are all so... j'sais pas comment... see not everything."

"Limited in our view," Adwin offers, but cringes as he does. It's hard for him to see someone struggle to speak a language and not offer help. At the same time, he feels the contents of his stomach curdling. While he knows this isn't the best look for him, he can't help but understand Hubert's struggle, like a thick coating on his skin.

"Yes," Hubert says. He laughs so hard that his stomach hurts, so he sits down and leans against the doorway.

Flo can't stand to see him hurt. She gets up, tentatively, and reaches her hand back to Adwin. He offers her a delicate squeeze, before she steps forward. There, she kneels down next to Hubert, and gently puts her hand on his. "What's wrong?"

Clara watches the interaction, stunned. Slowly, she migrates across the room, until she brushes shoulders with Mickey. At the last second, before their arms have settled into a rhythm of touching and not touching, she leans forward towards Hubert.

This was not what she signed up for, but she is sucked up into the whirlpool.

"It doesn't matter," Hubert says, pulling himself upright. "What matters is what your sleeping friend said."

"Which was?" Maverick doesn't wait the beat. He tries not to judge Hubert, he really does, but he worries that Hubert is no longer someone who needs protecting, but that others need to be protected from.

Hubert sits up, so abruptly that Ivy recoils to prevent their heads from knocking into each other. "Right. Well, she told the man to "leave this body alone", essentially. Which means there is something inhabiting her body that is not her, if you know what I mean."

The fire crackles.

"Are you sure you aren't mistranslating?" Flo asks. "What exactly did she say?"

"Leave this body alone," he says, speaking slowly to help Flo.

It helps, but she still feels insulted all the same.

"So, so what?" Maverick asks. "Now the whole town is going to think she is possessed?"

"Which is already a problem because they think we have been brought here by the Devil." Adwin finishes the thought for Maverick, tucking his legs up against his chest. "So, what do we do?"

The gears are already turning in Maverick's head. "We need to fake her death. Send her to live with Hubert, then figure out this whole, possession thing. Could it just be the Grip? What exactly does the Grip do?"

If Hubert could speak, he would point out that it doesn't make people delusional. Instead, all of the faces of the people he has lost swim through his vision. He thinks of Élise. Of the feeling of her soft brown hair entangled with his fingers. He finds himself pretending to fiddle with it, as if it is her next to him and not Flo.

"Hubert," Flo gently nudges him. He smiles, and it fades when he sees her long blonde hair.

"Sorry."

"What does the Grip do?" Mickey echoes, his voice strong. His eyes flicker between Hubert and Clara, who is still tilted forward. He longs to reach for her, to pull her away. In this moment, with their lives hanging precariously in the balance, he wants for them to all pull together and expel Hubert. However, he knows better than to cast out the only man who knows Alaque.

"The Grip?" Maverick says. "Not possession. I've never seen anything like this before."

Adwin has more questions than answers, and he hates it. If investigating the rot, and their origins weren't enough, he now has something else on his plate. He looks around to see if anyone else is trying to piece together the puzzled laid before them, but it seems that everyone is too preoccupied with their lives held in the balance.

Adwin decides that this is good. Their diversity is their strength.

"Do you believe in the Devil?" Maverick asks everyone and no one at the same time. Most importantly, he is asking himself.

Alvaro looks at him and nods, even though Maverick is not looking to him for an answer. It seems impossible that divine intervention brought them here. Alvaro is being punished, and he knows what exactly for. However, it isn't like he had many other options.

"I... I say, this is quite the awful discussion to be having in the middle of the night," Clara points out, finally finding it in her to sleep. In actuality, she wants this conversation to end as soon as possible so Hubert can return to normal. She mock-rubs at the sleep still in her eye, waiting for someone else to second her. "We ought to put this up for debate tomorrow afternoon, when we are all well and rested."

Beverly can't help but yawn, carefully covering her mouth at the last second. "I am fine to keep discussing. Really, I don't see how any of us can continue sleeping at this rate."

"I'm quite tired myself," Mickey lies through his teeth. Clara turns around to look at him, and mouths her thanks. Mickey feels his chest inflate with pride.

Maverick stands up straighter. "Well, we can discuss in the morning. As long as the gun is taken care of."

Finally, Alvaro moves. He walks over to Tim's bed and snaps his fingers in front of his face.

Tim, whose body is still frozen, blinks up at Alvaro. "What?"

"Let's go," he says.

Tim would ask why Alvaro has chosen him, but at this point he doesn't care any longer. Instead, he stands up. One foot after the other, after the other, after the other, he begrudgingly treks out of the room.

The room goes quiet. They hope that their worries are buried with the gun.

Outside, they walk in silence. The crickets chirp outside, and the light from the lighthouse swings overhead.

"Al-"

Alvaro whips his head around to look at Tim. He eyes him up and down. "Just stop talking."

"You don't even know what I was going to say!"

"I don't need to know," Alvaro insists, turning around and walking forward. "If Mickey's got a problem with you, then I've got a problem with you."

They get to a spot inside the woods. Tim hates being back here. He no longer hears the forest calling to him, begging him to come, possibly because it knows that it has already lost him.

Alvaro gets on the ground, and gestures for Tim to join him. They find the roots near a tree, where there is no grass and only dirt, and dig with their hands. Tim goes to complain but ultimately bites his tongue.

By the time they get back, it is sunrise.

Beverly was right. None of them could fall asleep again.

~~~~~

Something has happened. I will be disappearing for a while.