Levi,

she says, softly.

Levi, darling.

Her hand is quite cold. Not cold, like After, stiff and rotting, but cool. She rubs Levi 's back between his shoulder blades, beneath his shirt. Levi thinks himself quite bony, and angled, all ribs and elbows, but not because he is starving. They have had enough to eat these past few months. He is just growing, Mama says. And she says his name again.

Levi, darling. Wake up.

Why was her voice so soft? A misremembering, surely. Mama talks like a noble woman, in Levi 's dreams, although Levi would have picked his accent up from her, he must have, and Levi has only ever spoken roughly. He remembers her voice as old, but if must have been young, younger than Levi is now. She scratches Levi 's back, lightly. Levi feels the air fill his chest, remembers the novelty of it, of actively drawing breath. Last night 's tears are not so heavy.