It has been getting colder and harder to breathe. They have had to pass around rags to place over our nose and mouth, but we all still felt hopeful. We have been putting silver into water, Bryyna says it has antibacterial properties that can keep the water drinkable.  Our food supply is going strong, since we all decided to follow Bryyna’s advice and ration ourselves. So far, we are doing well.
    ~V

Researcher Annotation:
It is very, very possible that this is just a misspelling of Ra'gaev, which is the name of the first Il'li 1200 years ago. 300 years after this journal was written. Either this was a common name, or she has been alive for a very long time.
​

Our scholar arrived to our section on the third tier, and introduced herself as Bryyna Ragev. Oh, reason preserve me, it is the woman from before, the scholar with the smooth scalp who was consoling us immediately after the earthquake. I feel somewhat guilty for my errant behavior before. It is not healthy to keep emotions trapped inside, and I knew that when I ran away from her comfort. I am certain she saw me then. I heard others muttering about my strange behavior as I walked by, so she would have been blind not to have noticed, too. I want to duck away somehow and hide… I feel so small. By the Hand, I hope she does not recognize me.
​
    ~V

**
​I have been weeping heavily. Though, the sobs seem empty as if it is another self, separate from me, who sheds my tears. The party has finally returned from the bottom of the valley to us. I can only imagine how long it must have taken to deliver the news to every corner of the University, but I still feel some amount of impatience, which I feel ashamed for. The poor man who told me the news had blood all over his boots and hands, and his face looked sunken and drawn. It was… it must have been as hard to convey the scene to me as it was for me to imagine. And it is even harder to accept. They’ve estimated over 200 bodies lie at the bottom, but did not have the time, or ability, to identify them. However, the survival of a 9-springs-young boy who possessed no channeling ability...  and with almost 10 seconds to reach the bottom… it is impossible. Reason, preserve me, I cannot remember what could have possibly given me the notion that he could have survived.
​
They told me that a fraction of the victims possessed the ability to use various specialized channeling to somehow break their fall and walk away, but— My Somin… I have nothing of Somin’s except for this little ADC. This little, unused crystal. It is a bittersweet trinket to me now. He even had a Reader Crystal embedded in the back of his neck like everyone else at 7-seasons-young so that he could use the ADC, read texts and histories stored in a Codex, and communicate with transmissions across the span of the continent. For those who were not born with the gift to channel like I was, like 5% of our society was, these Reader crystals were supposed to be their link to the broad span of possibilities offered to us through Crystal Amira Technology… but despite all this, I never truly assumed he was going to use this ADC for its intended purpose.

Such a special boy he was… he always preferred physical books to Codices and ADCs. He always told me how much more comfortable he was with physical pages, (how he would have loved the library’s hidden book rooms…) and that it was hard for him to concentrate on the texts in his mind when he accessed a Codex crystal. But oh, how he loved the way it sparkled, the way they separated light into rainbows, the way stored information glinted and blinked within their structured facets. I remember when I first gave it to him, he marveled at it for hours. I never truly looked at the glitter and sparkle of an ADC before he came into my life… and even until now— I suppose that members of our society— no, that I myself took their presence for granted… but now I--

Oh, Somin, my dear boy… I should have paid closer attention to your ideas, and to the beautiful way in which you looked at the world. I am sorry I refused to see it, and I regret it all the more now that everything is gone… I believe you saw the tools of our society the way our founders had; with fresh eyes, full of wonder and acceptance. Can you ever forgive me for not being the parent you needed, my beautiful boy…?

    ~V

The council of the University is assigning scholars to small groups of frightened people scattered across the University’s tiers. Ours has not arrived yet, but we expect an arrival soon. I am having a hard time being in my own body right now. *We received word that the earthquake from two days before has unlocked an even more deadly fate for us… it seems to have triggered a massive volcanic eruption in the north, which blew out all but two northern settlements, which… explains the persistent tremors. We also seem to have lost contact with those surviving settlements about half an hour ago. The aftershocks from the earthquake are continuing to cause fear and panic out here in Rue, but thankfully any avalanches seem to have been caught by the barriers cut into the mountainsides around the university…*

By the Hand, I feel as if I keep drifting in and out of despair and denial. As of now, it is as though I am in a very vivid dream... as if none of this is real. The notion that this wretched experience should be nothing but a mistake lingers hopefully in my mind. Is this really the end of the world, or was it just an anomaly of some kind? Could my son by some miracle—  

By the Heaven in my veins! I feel as if that thunderclap should have cost me multiple years off my life... I am grateful it was not another of the earthquake’s aftershocks… Oh, Reason, the memory is too fresh, damn it all. It looks as if a storm has rolled in… As if more noise and terror is all we need from nature’s most bountiful hand! I should probably stop writing for now. None of my sentences are making any coherent sense to me.

~V

The university’s atmosphere has not improved. There University has acquired something of a Kuutite funeral quality to it. It has become somewhat of a pastime for me to observe the ways the other people responded to the disaster (perhaps so I could spare myself from my own). Some are screaming and wailing, and some are just staring at the wall. There was a man whom I must have scared half to death with a simple cough as he walked past me.  One group of people have become irritable, which is causing a great deal of anxiety, and then here I am, distracting myself. I do, however, feel a small pang of guilt in my heart for doing something as hypocritical as this. I’ve been afraid to speak at all, …but…  still, it is amazing how so many people with the same experience could have such drastically different reactions, but perhaps this is not the proper time to be intrigued by the suffering of others… I am sure there are many of us who were traumatized by the earthquake, and that should be enough for me. Perhaps I should do some research to keep myself busy in a different way.

The library is rather busy, at least more than I expected it to be after something like this. Many of the council members specifically are down there, browsing Codex crystals and paper books alike, debating on what to do and researching the occurrences that have transpired. Paper books, even in this library. Somin will be so exci—…ah…

**
Anyway… I did some research on earthquakes in the Library, but my findings only filled me with more unease. There is no record of aftershocks lasting for over a few hours in even the worst situations, let alone a whole day… I think I will attempt some form of sleep.
​
         ~V

​Researcher Annotations:
None

**
​A party was sent to the bottom of the valley to search for remains of those who fell from the arches, but... his scream as he fell from the University’s wall. By the Hand, the cries of children will never be as soothing as they used to be... I suppose I should give up on the notion that Somin could have survived that fall… but I need to know! I need to see him for myself before I will believe it. Is that strange for me to think that? It might be… but maybe there is a chance he is down there, crying and broken or unconscious… Oh, Reason, I cannot bear to think of it any longer but it consumes my being… This uncertainty is worse than facing death…
    ~V

One of the scholars of the university, a bald woman, has begun consoling the people around me… I do not think I have the heart to open myself to her… I... I need to leave.
​
    ~V

**
​I have never once in my life regretted coming to this University until today. I never once questioned nature’s power, and yet—… Amira, flow steadily through us all... the University has been— an earthquake. It felt as if the mountains were the teeth in the gaping maw of some giant world eating beast a millennia-in-slumber... and it has awoken to take my son... my beautiful Somin, Light of my life and everything I held dear. I did not want to believe that the shakes I felt were real when they happened… something within me fought with every fiber not to move, not to believe it was anything worth worry, and to just wait until it was over so I could continue my walk with my son… I feel I dishonor his memory by being unable to recall in slow seconds exactly how it is he was taken from me; the direction the floor shifted, the way he leaned when it threw him off balance, out of my grasp and out of the open archways… I hate myself for not being able to remember that simple sequence. The truth is I never saw him fall, but I knew.

I remember his sharp shriek… the moment his hand slipped from mine, I remember how everything went black. I vaguely recall someone taking my arm and leading me somewhere. I could hear them talking to me, but they sounded so far away. I was content to stay that way at the time, I remember thinking that. I felt soft pats on my face, heard the thunderous growling of stone and earth, and distant wailing and whimpering, but it was another child ’s scream that brought me back my sight, or what sight I had that was not drowning in watery tears. How suddenly every moment I spent with Somin seemed to zip past me, and suddenly I was fighting a group of five or so people with everything I had to go back to where I was, where I had let Somin fall.  They spoke in soft tones and hushed me, though my arms are bruised from their firm grips. I think I hurt one or two of them, I cannot recall. I have no clue where that desperate strength came from, but it frightened me…

After the quakes ceased, and I was securely prevented from jumping after my son, a few people stayed with me as the rest surveyed the damage. I preferred to write in my journal, to attempt to sort out my thoughts in my head... One man, he said his name was Noba, tried talking to me for a little while, looking for kinship in the loss of a loved one, but left after I refused to talk. I felt a heavy stab of guilt as he sighed and walked away. How could I talk right now…? If I dare utter a single word, I somehow know I will not be able to hold any of my tears back.

The man returned and sat a bit away from me and began to paint. He softly asked if he could use some inspiration from the words he saw in my journal, and I just nodded. I should have said yes… I should have spoken to him, but I cannot. I physically cannot, because I am afraid. I know I am. I do not want to feel such a deep and hollow ache as the kind I know by instinct is waiting for me the moment I open myself to consolation. I am not accustomed to pain, but neither is anyone else. That man is trying to be brave and embrace his loss and fear. I wish I could be that brave…


~V