"I try not to let it be either, anymore." Every day is taken one at a time, and that day by its hours, whittled away with whatever work he can put his hands on. Fixing up the house after the storm, making fresh batches of paper, filling that paper with the things he's observed. It's easier than trying to really think about it all.

If the fifty or more people who came before him, some of them with--some kind of superpowers? If they couldn't find a way out, there's not a lot of sense throwing him into it. He explores the caves because he's always explored caves, not with hope in his heart or his head full of questions. The less he thinks about it, the less he stresses out, the less he has those tics where the world smells like peaches or rot, or his strings get cut and he goes sprawling on the floor. "Just try to stay calm and get enough sleep, enough to eat. Hierarchy of needs or whatever."