During the first hour of the trip back, Lohan didn't open any of the game's system windows.
He wanted to, badly, and even though he knew Lisa would have liked some company to chat with while she ran, a part of him was still stuck in the chamber they had left behind, with the monster mother's faint breathing and the clean stone where she had lain.
So he let the cold night wind and the steady rhythm of Lisa's strides gradually undo the weight of it, while the dark forest passed on both sides and the glow of the volcano shrank on the horizon, until it was just an orange smudge so distant it seemed to belong to another world.
The new mental clarity he felt, however, didn't fade with the distance, and that surprised him with every passing minute.
